It's clear to me now. This game is badass! Don't believe the haters, try it out for yourself with an open mind and you will find a great Sonic game. In fact, it's easily one of my favorite Sonic games.

Story-wise, its a return to a Sonic tale that I can actually take seriously again. I still regard the Adventure games to have the best storytelling in the series, but I greatly enjoyed the silly, serious mix that this game has to offer. I also enjoyed the callbacks to the past as it felt like an acknowledgement of the lineage that the games have built up over the years.

Mechanically, the open world bollocks is tempered by the sheer joy of going lightning speeds as the blue blur. I like going fast and I enjoyed the variety that the open world was able to provide me. Traversal was really enjoyable despite being janky and inconsistent at times. I wish more hills functioned less like walls and more like actual hills. There were some that acted like ramps that let you speed off them to do sick tricks, while others would prevent you from traversing them altogether. I'm tired of writing for now, but I think I've made my point. Sonic Frontiers is B A D A S S. Don't miss it!

It's like mediocre, but I don't hate it like Unleashed. The story is dumb and Eggman is an angry slave owner that controls his POC with a kazoo. Cool stuff bro

So the Zeti are evil. When Sonic frees them, it's one of the worst possible things that can happen. Thus, freeing slaves becomes a bad thing or at least a nuanced thing.

Fighting Zavok sucks (all the time, just him) and the game tries to do a bunch of gimmicks in a way that doesn't satisfy much at all. The homing attack is used in annoying and unintuitive ways too. You just gotta know when to press the A+X vs. A+A jumping attacks. It's not great. Also the music's pretty cool sometimes!

Chip is like a Looney Tunes character. Why is he here?!? The story here sucks. It's nowhere near as engaging as a lot of past Sonic stories. Barely anything of note happens besides weird Chip/Sonic bro moments. Everything else feels like a kiddie version of Sonic. Why do we have to traverse the "villages' of people across continents? Why do we have to scour the land for the next level to play? Why do we have to play so carefully to find all the sun/moon medals to progress in the game?
I also hate the racist depictions in the game. It's too stereotypical and shallow. It also does the whole Africans as savages living in huts thing. Hope I don't lose gamer cred for talking bout politics!!!
The daytime gameplay is too fast for my liking, other people might like it, but it was really not for me. The nighttime levels are either boring or frustrating. I hate the stupid balancing werehog sections where you have to walk across beams in platforming challenges. There was also a dumb nighttime level glitch that just wasted a bunch of time. Finally, I find it really hard to enjoy such a quick time event laden game. It's disgusting. Oh yeah, it's got some of the worst music in any Sonic game ever.

All these years, I thought this game was supposedly one of the good ones only for me to find out it might be one of the worst ones. I do like Sonic 06 though, so think what you will lol.

I enjoyed the story! The gameplay is hit or miss depending on the level. I feel that the later levels were a pain due to them being timed and some levels didn't fit well with all characters. (Used Knuckles in the cave with the lightning and it was a trainwreck) The two sword boss fights were of good quality, but the timing was quite challenging. Also, I wish the black knight boss was explained better. (Need a lot of red meter before making contact with him or you instantly lose) Regardless, still worth playing, though I have to admit that it is quite a janky, poorly paced experience. (On a level design/gameplay basis)

Honestly, it's not as bad as people make it out to be. Having played almost all the 3D Sonic games at this point, I have to say that Secret Rings has a very cool vibe. Along with that, the story is pretty fun to watch. Of course the motion controls are a pain, but I still enjoyed it for what it was. The gameplay never became so much of a chore like it is in Sonic Heroes, Shadow the Hedgehog, or Sonic Unleashed. (I know that last one is a controversial opinion)

The levels get recycled for these arbitrary objectives yes, but I did enjoy the RPG mechanics at play. Some of the bosses suck, but others were pretty enjoyable. (Especially the Erazor fights)

The game has its moments. Waggling sucks sometimes. The music was sick. The Night Palace is a bad ass level. The steering is inconsistent. The jumping is weird. The homing attack has bad detection. Not a fan of racing Uhu, but it wasn't all bad. I hated rescuing Knuckles. The entirety of the dinosaur level sucks. There are annoying sections that could've really benefited from button based controls like sidling on a ledge. It's not super clear which levels are necessary to complete. But with all those issues, I still enjoyed the game a lot for its vibes. A classic Sonic game in my book.