#Xbox Series S|X

[alicemichelle297]

Sonic Frontiers (2022) review

I really, really didn't want to get my hopes up for this one. Arguably, Sonic hasn't had a good game since 2011's Sonic Generations. On top of that, releases for this series used to be practically yearly but they slowly dried up and there hasn't been a proper Sonic game since 2017's Sonic Forces (and that was a nightmare). So you can imagine the anticipation for Sonic Frontiers was excruciating.

As a life-long Sonic fan, I had to get this game on day one, but I waited to share my thoughts until I could digest my experience and come back to it for a second look, confirming the thoughts that stuck with me. I wanted to be fair as well as thorough, so this is a longer post from me than usual.

Story

The story of Sonic Frontiers is simple and that's not a bad thing. Sonic, Tails and Amy investigate a location called the Starfall Islands because the Chaos Emeralds were mysteriously drawn there. When they arrive, they're pulled into an artificial reality called Cyberspace and only Sonic is able to escape (because of his speed, I think).

Sonic has to find a way to rescue his friends, presumably by running through more Cyberspace areas and taking the digital corruption into his own body to free them. Along the way, he discovers that Knuckles came here and got trapped on his own, and so did Dr. Eggman!

He's confronted by Sage, an A.I. created by Eggman, who tells Sonic his efforts are wasted. Not only does she try to stop Sonic, but so does the ancient technology left on the Starfall Islands by an alien race called... well, the Ancients.

The premise is pretty thin, but it's also all it needed to be for an open-world concept like this. Just an excuse to go from point A to B and play more levels and collect more tokens.

This game's saving grace in the story department is that it was penned by Ian Flynn, head writer of Sonic comics from Archie's Sonic #160 to the end of that series, and then the first 30 issues of the IDW Publishing run. The man knows these characters better than anyone else on Earth. In fact, when they announced Flynn was writing it, Sonic Frontiers became a guaranteed purchase for me.

The downside is it seems Flynn was only given leave to write the dialogue. The overall premise and structure, what characters would appear, etc. was already dictated by SEGA. Given that that's all he had control over, Flynn does an exceptional job to make it work. Sonic and co. have never been so well characterized.

Flynn manages to pull connections to Sonic Forces and earlier games to sneak in small character arcs for our main cast. He directly tackles the fan backlash to Tails' nervous breakdown in Forces and makes it into a moment of self-doubt for Tails, who now feels unreliable. Sonic reminds Tails, and us, that he's been a hero to rely on before– like when he saved Station Square from a missile strike in Sonic Adventure. By the end of the game, Tails resolves to go on an adventure on his own and re-establish himself as an independent hero.

Knuckles' time as Commander of the Resistance is referenced in his actions leading a battalion of Kuco and in the fact that his character tokens are shaped like military medals. This is more subtle, but it works for me.

On top of it, he reflects on being the last echidna and how his determination to work alone leads him to struggles he can't handle on his own. Just through dialogue, Frontiers reinforces Knuckles' hard-headedness as well as his strength of friendship with Sonic, who would do anything to help him even though they're still considered rivals.

Granted, most of this characterization is actually in a short animation released as a "prologue" to the game, explaining how Knuckles got to the Starfall Islands on his own, but I'm choosing to include it in the game's review.

Probably most impressive is that Flynn was able to connect this arc for Knuckles to how he appeared in the Free Comic Book Day issue of the IDW Sonic comic, in which Knuckles resolved to explore Angel Island and find more of its secrets. Are we finally in an era where Sonic trans media properties will connect and carry story arcs between them? (I mean, probably not but a girl can dream).

Amy on the other hand gets both the most and least rehabilitation. Flynn has been working for years now to re-establish Amy as something other than "girl who is obsessed with Sonic." In the IDW comics, she's taken on a role more similar to Sally Acorn in the Archie Sonic comics: leader of the Resistance who makes the plans and executes them. Frontiers doesn't reference Amy's time as commander of the Resistance or her establishment of the Restoration after the Resistance is disbanded, instead focusing on her romantic nature. Rather than being obsessed with Sonic, she's clearly obsessed with the idea of romance. This is a small upgrade but it's something. I still think it reduces Amy to "my personality is girl" as Game Grump, Dan Avidan pointed out years ago.

New character Sage is an interesting case. She endears herself to the player pretty easily but I'm not sold on her role as Eggman's "daughter" through the little story we got between them. I find it funny that Evan Stanley (current writer of the IDW comics) also developed a surrogate daughter character for Eggman at the same time, apparently by complete accident. However it's hard for me to ignore that Belle is a much more interesting take on this idea than Sage is. I will grant that Sage's character design is cooler, though.

Sonic makes off-handed mention of other games' stories, including Station Square as mentioned earlier, Lost Hex, and a handful of other situations. He also makes a passing reference to Tangle from the IDW comics. This only highlights more that other elements of that story– which are presumably the events directly before this game and between Sonic Frontiers and Forces– aren't mentioned. No mention of the Restoration, Jewel, Whisper, the Metal Virus or any other comic elements. I wonder why Flynn was allowed to reference Tangle at all if the comic storylines weren't being canonized. Or for that matter one other non-canon character I won't spoil here.

Sonic Frontiers actually makes attempts at world-building, which hasn't really been done since Sonic Unleashed, 14 years ago. I won't spoil any of the specifics but the origins of the Chaos Emeralds, Chao and Chaos are all addressed in the course of Frontiers' story.

Something I didn't notice until really late in the game is that the main objective will take you to most of the story scenes with Amy, Tails, Knuckles and Sage, but there are additional scenes that can be found in the zones which are presumably optional, but some of the events of these optional scenes are referenced in the required scenes, so if you do them out of order it doesn't connect properly.

Gameplay

OK, that's great Alice, how's the game actually play? Overall: not too shabby.

Sonic Frontiers is broken up into two different gameplay styles: the open zone hub world areas (akin to Sonic Adventure's "adventure fields only much larger) and the linear cyberspace stages (similar to the levels of Sonic Forces, Colors, etc.).

Open Zones

The open zones are broken up into five different islands, which consist of 3 different biome themes: three forested/grassland islands (Kronos, Rhea and Ouranos Islands), a desert island (Ares Island), and a volcanic island (Chaos Island). Each open zone contains platforming challenges, puzzles, and portal gates that lead to the cyberspace stages, as well as vaults that hold the Chaos Emeralds.

The player has to collect a variety of tokens and keys: character tokens, which unlock stories for each of the side characters; and portal keys, which unlock the cyberspace levels. Through combat and other challenges, the player collects vault keys, which unlock the Chaos Emeralds.

It can be a little intimidating to see so many different collectibles, but rest assured everything you do in the game gives you some kind of key or token and, as long as you're running around doing something, you will get enough of each to complete the storyline objectives. I never had to grind for any of these collectibles to progress the story.

Surprisingly enough, the open zones do not use any kind of tower to unlock map progress. The map in Sonic Frontiers unlocks by completing the combat challenges and puzzles so, as long as you're running around and doing something, the map will fill in on its own. Some of the earliest gameplay footage released showed Sonic climbing a large tower, which was assumed to be a tower just like Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, etc., which would need to be scaled in order to unlock portions of the map and other activities. Ironically, the one shown in that trailer is the only such tower on the island and it doesn't unlock anything. You can just climb it for fun.

Running around the open zones generally feels good.

Although, because the terrain is so varied, there are some handling issues. Sonic seems to be magnetically attached to the ground, so when terrain becomes uneven, he will "glitch" at odd angles to adhere to the ground. At speed, this can also cause the camera to twitch back and forth, or at worst cause Sonic to spontaneously launch into the air. This is kind of annoying, except boosting and launching yourself in this way can actually allow you to fly over large chunks of the environment and even cheat your way into areas that would take a lot of effort to run to as intended. I'd categorize this as "good for speed runners" but also "sloppy presentation" for the rest of us.

Also a weird addition to the game is the drop dash from Sonic Mania. Sonic doesn't have access to a regular spin dash in this game, however, so being able to initiate a spin dash in mid-air is a bit confusing.

The biggest issue I have with the open zones and honestly the game as a whole is that the Sonic level design elements are very poorly integrated into the environment, by which I mean they aren't integrated at all.

The zones themselves have a more photorealistic art style, but there's random grind rails, springs, and rings just floating in the environment looking the same way they have in Sonic games for the past 15 years. The rails aren't even attached to anything, they're just floating in the air. They could have at least put on some kind of "anti-gravity technology" on the bottom of the rails to explain why they're just hanging out there. But even better would be to attach them to the actual environments like they originally were (most of the time) in Sonic Adventure 2, the game that debuted rail grinding.

Overall, the open zones look a bit like someone dumped a bunch of Sonic game assets into Unreal Engine, which is not a good look for a game that retails at $60. Especially for as much as it reminds me of a fan game like "Sonic Omens."

Cyberspace

Cyberspace stages are more similar to Sonic Unleashed's "daytime stages" or what fans have taken to calling "the boost formula": a linear level in which you can boost (hold a button down to go fast) through most of the level.

Cyberspace in Sonic Frontiers alters the behavior of boosting in some key ways. For one thing, it's now on a stamina wheel a la The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (and that is the only comparison I will be making to that game) instead of limiting it to how many rings you pick up or random power-up capsules like in previous games.

The most noticeable change, however, is that Sonic is no longer shrouded in a blue aura while boosting; instead, a subtle "sonic boom" effect appears in the air when boosting starts. This removes some of the visual clutter from the gameplay but it unfortunately removes a visual cue that you're still doing it. Sometimes jumping or other actions cancel the boost out, even if you're still holding down the trigger. I lost count of how many times I thought I was boosting only to realize I was running at normal speed.

Boosting in mid-air causes Sonic to arc upward slightly, allowing you to bridge some gaps in mid-air. This used to be accomplished by using the Homing Attack in mid-air, which is more or less useless now. Even if you hold the trigger down to boost in mid-air, it won't allow you to continuously boost. Instead, the mid-air boost is more or less a short mid-air dash. And you can't continue to boost when you hit the ground from a mid-air boost, so you have to consciously release the trigger and then hold it down again to continue boosting.

A weird decision that caused me endless frustration was to actually alter the jump physics between open zone and cyberspace. There's just as much platforming in each environment– and the same type of platforming at that– but Sonic's handling during a jump is completely different between the two, which caused me to die hundreds of times just from misjudging my ability to move in the air.

A nice quality of life improvement I didn't know I needed is that Frontiers allows you to initiate a homing attack from the ground instead of jumping in the air and then homing in. This is accomplished by moving the homing attack to the X button (on Xbox) like it was in Sonic Unleashed, rather than pressing A twice as it was in every other Sonic game ever. On a practical level this was probably done to separate homing attack from the double jump, which returns from Sonic Forces.

Cyberspace suffers from not having enough level themes, just as the open zones suffer from reusing the theming of Kronos Island. There's dozens of levels, but there are only four level themes: Green Hill, Chemical Plant, Sky Sanctuary and a new Eternal Highway design.

Eternal Highway at first glance is too similar to Speed Highway, in my opinion. It really stands out when one of the levels actually rips the level layout of Speed Highway Act 2 straight from Sonic Generations.

On that note, some of the levels are original layouts, but most are inspired or directly ripped from past games, albeit with a different level theme. Rooftop Run from Sonic Unleashed is ripped whole cloth but re-skinned to look like Sky Sanctuary. Sky Rail, Metal Harbor and Green Forest from Sonic Adventure 2 are ripped and re-skinned in the Green Hill Zone style. Chemical Plant Act 2 from Sonic Generations appears in zone 1-5, using the Chemical Plant theming so it's perfectly obvious, just as Green Hill Zone Act 2 from Generations is recreated in 1-4 with the same theme.

At first it's kind of charming, but on another level it feels lazy. This really makes it obvious that Sonic Team were rushed to deadline and simply didn't have the time to make new levels, relying on the big hits from their past instead. I'm not mad at it, I love Metal Harbor and Sky Rail and it's actually nice to play them with all the modern advancements in graphics, but it also makes me want to close the game out and boot up Sonic Adventure 2, which is also installed on my Xbox so it's 3 clicks away. I assume that's not what they want me to do.

Combat

I never thought I'd be talking about combat in a Sonic game. For the uninitiated, "combat" in Sonic's history has consisted of "jumping on an enemy" like Mario or "homing in on an enemy in mid-air" like a missile. With some notable exceptions like Shadow the Hedgehog (2005) or Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric (2014), Sonic doesn't really do combat.

I think it was a wise decision to keep the combat very simple. There is a skill tree, which unlocks with skill points gained from just passively playing the game and fighting, but it remains a button-masher no matter how much you upgrade. There's even a skill unlock which allows you to auto-combo by mashing the same button so you don't even need to memorize the two-button combinations.

This game also adds in a parry mechanic but it's far from being skill-based. The game doesn't tell you this, but you can just hold the parry position indefinitely and whenever something hits you, it will trigger the parry. You don't need to be timing it out at all.

There are some other RPG elements like upgrading your stats: speed, ring capacity, defense and strength; but you absolutely don't need to. The difficulty curve never necessitates any stat upgrades, and thank God for that because upgrading is a chore. You have to seek out specific NPCs to upgrade each stat one level at a time. To go from level 1 to 99 will take you over an hour (and I'm not exaggerating, someone timed it). This is the very first thing that needs to get patched out.

Titans

Ok, here's the real star of the show: the titan boss fights.

Each island is defended by a titan: a giant robot a la Evangelion which can only be defeated by transforming into Super Sonic. This information is best communicated when Sonic first tries to face the titan Giganto, which promptly picks Sonic up in his giant hand and throws him through several ruins and into a mountain, leaving an impact crater like it's Dragon Ball Z.

When you collect six Chaos Emeralds on each island, the titan fight will become available. You scale the surface of the titan and claim the seventh Chaos Emerald, which is being held in a vault on the titan's head. Sonic transforms into Super Sonic and the music queues up.

Now the music of Sonic Frontiers, overall, is fine. Actually a lot of the cyberspace levels have great beats with this very funky electronic thing going on, but the titan fights crank that up to 11. The vocal sting of Giganto's theme, "Undefeatable," is a show-stopper.

This, combined with the visual scale of the titans, the fact that the entire island is your arena for this battle, and the visual spectacle of Super Sonic in this game, spells out the most hyped up boss fights of Sonic's 30 year career.

Super Sonic smolders with golden light and when you attack using the same moves you unlocked in the open zones, there are now golden light after-images of Super Sonic, his fists, and his feet/shoes. Think Bayonetta's combos with her partner demon's giant fists flying in for a hit.

You're immune to all damage while in the super state, however you can be knocked back which eats up your time. You gradually deplete your rings (about 1 per second) while in Sonic's super form, and when the rings run out you revert back to normal and automatically lose the fight, making titans more or less a timed fight.

Giganto makes the best impression, but Wyvern is also a visually stunning fight as it takes Sonic on a flight path around Ares Island, dodging mountains and ruins that reach into the sky, all while the titan shoots laser beams and missiles back at Sonic.

The third titan, Knight, is a bit too gimmicky for my tastes, as you have to parry a shield toss from the titan and then ride the shield in a ricocheting path to hit and stun Knight so you can continue fighting as normal.

The final titan, Supreme, is unfortunately just Giganto again except he has a Gundam-sized rifle to shoot at Sonic. On the bright side, it's the shortest of the titan fights so it doesn't overstay that cold welcome.

Presentation

Sonic Frontiers makes a great first impression because it's such a bold new direction for Sonic. Once the initial excitement wears off though, the seams start to show.

As mentioned before, the level design elements are not integrated into the environment and it makes the place look unpolished. On top of this issue, there's a lot of pop-in. You will constantly see grind rails pop in, in the distance. It's not exactly distracting but it is noticeable.

In my opinion, the rendering distance is too short for the scale of this game and what results is that navigating the islands by actually looking around for what to do next is impossible. You have to open your map and place a marker on where you want to go next to have any hope of getting there. You can't reliably look around to spot the next platforming challenge, for example, because the rails haven't loaded in yet and they won't until you're within a few meters of them.

There is occasional stuttering and frame rate drops, which for a game like this on modern hardware should not be happening, and that tells me this game was rushed to deadline before it could be fully optimized, which Sonic Team has not been shy about admitting. The visuals are far from cutting-edge, so there should be no issue running it at a good frame rate on an Xbox. I can't comment on the PC or PS5 versions but, from what I've seen elsewhere online, it runs about the same on other platforms. I assume this means the game targets the lowest common denominator: the Nintendo Switch.

The animations are better in this than they've been in previous titles, though still nowhere near the expressiveness of actual animations like Sonic Boom. Even so, this goes a long way towards making Sonic and co. look more like characters that live in a stylized world rather than people in mascot costumes which can't make expressions with their eyes and can't move their limbs around too much for fear of tripping and falling in the middle of Disney World.

Most of the combat animations have a good sense of power behind them, although if you look closely at them or in slow-motion you'll notice that Sonic isn't actually moving very much, it's mostly visual effects like wind and blue lights. It gets the job done.

One nitpick I have (or another one, I guess) is that Sonic acts like he's injured, hobbling over for most of the game as a result of being corrupted with cyberspace, but this doesn't get worse as the corruption progresses. It's the same pose no matter how much cyberspace we're talking about.

Art Style

The art style of this game is a mess. The islands look like they're attempting a photo-realistic, Unreal Engine vibe, but Sonic and friends still look like stylized video game characters.

As far as I can tell, these are the same character models used in Sonic Forces, which isn't actually a bad thing, but they've all been re-textured with a "fur texture" that looks more like felt. I gather this was inspired by the success of the Sonic movie by Paramount Studios and its use of a fur-textured C.G.I. Sonic in a live-action world.

Adding to the movie inspiration is a blue electric aura which surrounds Sonic when boosting at full-power. It's not a bad thing, but I personally prefer the games version of Sonic to use more of a wind elemental effect. I think it's better for movie Sonic to be "electric Sonic" and for games Sonic to be, I don't know, the "Knight of the Wind" (to drag in a reference to past games, kicking and screaming).

The islands' biomes are a mixed bag as well. I think the forest theme of Kronos Island is very appealing. That probably comes down to blue Sonic on green backgrounds doesn't clash and green is relaxing anyway because of color psychology.

Ares Island, on the other hand, I cannot stand. The sprawling sand dunes lose visual interest after about two minutes, and the obsidian terrain of the volcanic Chaos Island isn't much better.

The Verdict

Ok, you hung on this long. Is Sonic Frontiers good? Yes (for a Sonic game).

This game does a lot to address concerns fans have had for years, and it especially gets credit for trying to take the series in a new direction after over a decade of the same old, same old.

If we grade on the curve of comparing this only to past Sonic games, it's a knockout. If we look at it just as a video game that competes with every other game on the market, it's average.

I love Sonic probably more than any other media franchise, so I have major blinders on. They won me over just by paying lip service to the comics and sprinkling in a couple new ideas.

I will give credit for the responsiveness the game's director has shown online and I'm hopeful based on the promises already made of future updates and DLC. I think this will take the game from average to great, without having to grade on a curve.

This review was written based on the Xbox version played on a Xbox Series S. This was not a review copy.

Sonic Frontiers is available now on PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series S|X, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC.

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ᴛʜᴇ Qᴜᴀʀʀʏ: ᴘᴀᴛʜ ᴅᴇꜱɪɢɴ

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[felassan]

[Here] is the link to Mark Darrah's co-stream of the XBox Games Showcase from last month (the showcase where the DA:TV character reveal trailer dropped). The DA:TV trailer appears at around timestamp 16 mins 28 secs. After the trailer wrapped, he said "Honestly, that's my favorite BioWare trailer I think we've ever done". "That Dragon Age trailer is the, I would say the favorite trailer that I've ever seen from BioWare. I'm sure it's out there to watch a few more times."

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[source]

[gamertestdomi]

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CONTROL

[jadthemagnificent]

XBOX 360

Gaming ads used to be much cooler back then.