Sonic Frontiers

An imperfect yet amusing title, capable of showing us the potential face of the hedgehog's future.

Interesting repurposing with open-world design that makes fast movement fun, but stumbles over technical issues.

Sonic Frontiers tries too hard to please everyone and this is its biggest downfall. It can be completed in around 10-15 hours if you skip all the dialogues that feel like filler anyway. The rhythm is all over the place as is the difficulty level, but somehow the game manages to be fun. It is an open world game that has flaws and strengths equally but is fun, nonetheless. What's even more painful is Sonic Frontiers is far even from an AA game, even though it pretends to be much more than this. Despite all the fun, I can't help but feel that Sonic would deserve more, just like his fans. That's not to say that some won't enjoy Sonic Frontiers, it's just that the franchise doesn't seem like it's going into the right direction.

There’s a lot I’d like to see improved upon in a Sonic Frontiers sequel (which they should absolutely do), but I had fun playing around with the open world format, and just skipping some of the more boring stuff that I didn’t want to do. If you haven’t given up on Sonic yet, you’ll find a lot to love as you wade through some of the muck.

Sonic Frontiers will be unable to return Sonic to the videogame Olympus, but it's not like it needs to. After all, the hedgehog has already transcended as a cultural icon in other fields of entertainment. What it does do is restore dignity to a franchise that went from the top to embarrassment. It's refreshing to try a Sonic that evokes the best moments of Sonic Adventure to remind us that SEGA's hedgehog is a gaming icon for a reason.

If Sonic Frontiers offers a rather simplistic open world in its conception, it is nevertheless a condensed action, fluidity and dynamism. It's a real pleasure to explore the different islands while sprinting or using the springs and other springboards to go higher and higher. Despite a somewhat redundant scenario and some ergonomic issues, this new title from SEGA is perfect to try 100% without ever getting bored thanks to the fights offering various patterns and mini-games allowing to unlock the zones. In short, an ideal adventure and platform game for the end of the year whether you are a fan of the blue hedgehog or not.

The game sticks the landing in many ways that matter, but these flaws are hard to ignore as its runtime carries on and you start bumping up against them more often. Sonic Frontiers falls short of a home run, but is still a successful step in the right direction from a studio that has demonstrably stumbled trying to do so before.

Running around at the speed of sound might be a mantra of the fleet-footed hedgehog, but Sonic Frontiers is at its best when you're given time to simply explore. The music is calming and also solemn at times--even if it knows when to burst into life with a punk rock energy--and there's even a fishing minigame that lets you earn rewards while slowing down the pace a step further. It's easy to fall into a zen-like flow as you traverse each island, rattling off objectives as you happen upon them. There are frustrations that arise and break the flow, whether it's a middling mini-boss or a struggle with Sonic's floaty movement, and it's a big departure from what Sonic fans are used to. I'm fully on board with this new direction, though. Sonic Adventure set the template for the last 24 years of 3D Sonic games, and I'm hopeful Frontiers will do the same for the next generation. It has its flaws, and there's definite room for improvement, but the spiky mascot is finally moving in the right direction.

Sonic Frontiers is a delightfully weird and experimental evolution of the Sonic games so many of us grew up with. Its series of open-world islands are filled with so much variety and pieces of Sonic history, from classic platforming stages to silly minigames, that they’re enjoyable to explore even when awful graphical pop-in is a constant hedgehog spine in your side. Some of the new stuff Frontiers tries out, like the smart toggling between 2D and 3D perspectives out in the open world or the Cyber Space levels, are fantastic ways to pack as much Sonic goodness as possible into one package, while others – especially combat – are uninteresting experiments gone wrong. Still, I largely enjoyed my time running around in Frontiers, making it feel like a very promising first attempt at what could be a bright new era for Sonic and friends.

Sonic Frontiers is the best 3D Sonic in a long, long time. It’s bigger, faster, smarter, and I absolutely cannot fault its ambition. Unfortunately, it’s constantly derailed by the exact same things that have been holding back Sonic games for the last few decades. With a little more polish, I truly believe Sonic Frontiers could have been one of the greats. As it stands, it’s a frequently good time with occasional flashes of brilliance.

Sonic Frontiers is a fascinating game, mostly because of how little it actually feels like the rest of the series. The game’s marketing has called it an “evolution” of the Sonic formula, and that’s certainly accurate, but it’s still hampered by some growing pains. Sublime exploration and intuitive mechanics constantly clash with Sonic Frontiers’ insistence on introducing mandatory mini-games and one-off gimmicks, many of which simply aren’t engaging.

While it may be far from perfect, Sonic Frontiers is a colossal step in the right direction for the future of the neon blue needlemouse. Its issues are more stumbles than falls, with the action and exploration creating a memorable experience for everyone's favourite Hedgehog.

An experience that is half convincing: on the one hand the open world mechanics don't work very well, on the other hand the classic levels are a lot of fun.

Transforming a historically linear formula into an open world is not easy, and the Sonic Team is doing it without managing to avoid all the pitfalls that such a change imposes, starting with the repetitiveness of the adventure, a perfectible technique and a camera in difficulty. However, this new Sonic experience blows a breath of fresh air on the saga with its titanic combats, its open-world "platformer" approach and its desire to push its own limits, even if it means losing control.

The idea and vision of the game is absolutely fabulous. In practice, however, the game is brought down by its execution, which you can see through after a short while and then the game has nothing to surprise you with. [Issue#324]

Overall, a decent effort by the Sega team and they should be praised for their future vision for the series. Let’s hope the next title will really nail down that speed without visual compromise to give Sonic the next-generation game he truly deserves.

Imaginative and densely populated but also rather samey and sparse at the same time. Technically iffy, but its lock-on gameplay suits the open world playground. [Issue#22, p.70]

Sonic returns in an inescapable mishmash of strong mechanics and ideas alongside poor execution and empty lifeless ‘open-zones’ that offers little to tie it together. Whilst this could be the start of a brand new revolution for modern Sonic games, Frontiers still feels like a beta test, and one that fans shouldn’t have to playtest for Sonic Team to work out what to do next.

When a Sega marketing executive came up with the nonsense phrase “blast processing” to “explain” the technical capabilities of the Mega Drive, it’s now clear they experienced some sort of messianic premonition. Sonic Frontiers is blast processing in video game form: anarchic, careless, silly, exciting, meaningless, wonderful. What a daft and incredible ride.

This... isn't a good game - but it is still a fun one. Yeah sure, the controls are slippery at best, the open worlds are quite barren and the soundtrack is far below the standard for a Sonic game, but the absurd story, pretty visuals and the fact that it's just fun running around makes for a jolly good time.

Even with all the frustration built up by the game’s technical problems, I found myself unable to truly dislike Frontiers. I found its pacing to be extremely solid, the Cyberspace levels (and their godlike soundtracks) to be fun, and the combat always enjoyable...Sonic fans will adore this game for the risks it takes and the story bits that can be picked up through its side missions. There’s clearly a lot of love and care put into this game, and although some of that should’ve been spent to fix its glaring performance issues, it still holds up as a fun adventure.

Sonic Frontiers is nice, but gives the impression of an early access title, looking like a technical demo or a potpourri full of ideas from other licenses, without being perfectly understood.

For Sonic fans, this is an entertaining adventure, with plenty of variety packed into its 20-hour running time. Chances are you'll encounter plenty of frustrations while making your way through it, but when things are going right you'll see that there's great potential in this formula going forward. 'Inconsistent' is perhaps the best word to describe Sonic Frontiers: it's a grab-bag full of ideas, all pulled off with varying degrees of quality. But there's one thing for certain: it's got a cracking soundtrack.

Sonic Frontiers timidly presented some good ideas with its open world but the execution is ultimately lacking; it recycled many of its past installments mistakes. The game feels repetitive, and it isn't polished enough like we hoped, and the story is also weak and uninspiring.

With Sonic Frontiers, SEGA wanted to modernize its license by choosing the open world, which is a great risk. The idea is good but the result is not successful. The world is empty, with no common sense, game mechanics way too redundant, and technically the game is way too dated. We get bored quickly in this Sonic Frontiers who wants to do something new, but never manages to convince. You don't become an open world expert by clapping your hands, right…

Sonic Frontiers really doesn't impress in any way. Behind the technical drama, the simple puzzles and boring combat is something of a blueprint for a good three-dimensional Sonic game, but then you have to search very well.

The fact that there are several difficulty levels and the ability to fine-tune Sonic’s speed, jump height, and even damage recovery as part of the in-game options is not a great sign and is indicative of the mish-mash feel. In the end, the lack of focus and consistency makes Sonic Frontiers feel unfinished - even if playing in the solid 60 frames-per-second performance mode is great for capturing and conveying a sense of speed and scale. But even here there’s so much pop-in that you lose out on a true sense of awe when it comes to the environments and structures born from the mysterious Cyber Space. Another average, but ambitious, outing for the blue hedgehog.

Sonic’s open world feels half dead, full of boring activities, tedious bosses and awful graphics. The undeniable potential has been squandered. Well, maybe next time. How often do we say this when talking about Sonic?

With Sonic Frontiers, SEGA is taking risks to modernize its iconic license. Unfortunately, it doesn't work mostly because of the open world and its mechanics. On the other hand, classic levels are still very enjoyable and save the game. This isn't the return of a great Sonic that we could expect.

The latest title from the popular hedgehog tries to mark a new trend for the franchise, but none of its highlights end up coming together.