Sonic Frontiers is an Action-Adventure Platformer was released in 2022 for PS5, PS4, XBONE, XSX/S, Switch, and PC. It was developed by Sonic Team and published by SEGA.
We all know Sonic the Hedgehog is one of the SEGA's biggest flagship franchise started back in the early 90's when SEGA had bought their killer software title for SEGA Genesis/MD at worldwide to introduce their blue hedgehog hero as part of the SEGA's own video game mascot.
The first original Sonic the Hedgehog game was commercially successful and had gained universal praise for its fast-paced platforming gameplay, colourful detailed visuals, and had recognisable original soundtrack is what made the game quite success at worldwide which sold 2 million unit by the end of the year 1991 becoming SEGA's best-selling title that helped their console's sales market.
The success of the first original had spawned with numerous of merchandise, animated OVAs, TV series, feature films, and of course various of sequels and spin-offs games which proves that SEGA's own franchise had became so popular for over the decades building up many fanbases, communities, and of course the younger audiences got their hands-on with their favourite blue hedgehog hero, which many labelled Sonic the Hedgehog as an iconic video game mascot that deserves a similar recognition as their rivalry such as Nintendo's own plumber hero such as Super Mario.
Sonic main series are doing a fine job with the later classic 16-bit titles like Sonic CD, 2, and 3 & Knuckles, as well as the 3D platforming titles for Dreamcast such as Sonic Adventure 1 and 2 are the final last two titles that are so good on the system just before SEGA had ended the system's lifecycle in early 2000s to focus on the software titles for multi-platform instead.
Sadly the later titles like Sonic Heroes, Sonic 06, and Sonic Unleashed are pure hot garbage that didn't do SEGA's justice with horrendous gameplay design, clunky controls, and out of date visuals that adds-up the huge injuries to SEGA's own branding, until it went better with Sonic Colors and Sonic Unleashed as this time when SEGA just finally got their game right, then it went down again with Sonic Lost World, Sonic Boom, and Sonic Forces are just as bad as the other threes titles that I've mentioned above.
Sonic Team are not quite as they used to be back then since the 90's when we had really great Sonic titles mostly from Genesis/MD and Dreamcast days, as opposed to later ones that aren't as good which adds-up really concerning about the future of the Blue Hedgehog franchise which has quite some ups and downs.
They are quite lucky with some decent spin-offs titles like SEGA All-Star series and Mario and Sonic at Olympics Games, having Sonic makes his appearance as playable roster for Nintendo's Super Smash Bros Brawl and Ultimate, and of course the two of the 2020s live-action films like Sonic the Hedgehog 1 & 2 and 2022's animated TV series like Sonic Prime had received generally praised proving that SEGA had done better job on spin-offs titles and other medias then the main series itself which seems to be quite shocking that the SEGA couldn't do well on main stuff, but doing better on others.
Sonic Team had decided to create a new title of the main series that are quite different from any of traditional 3D platformer, so they bought Sonic Frontiers to the modern platforms in the year of 2022.
Instead of being stucked on the traditional 3D platformers like the previous Sonic games, it's more of the mix of 3D platformers and open-world adventures being combined together which I think the ideas from Sonic Team had gone into a different approach that delivers a entirely new Sonic experience.
You just simply start roaming around the areas to explore, completing numerous puzzle mini-games and side-story, and of course an adventurous single-player campaign with wacky main levels and cool boss battles is what gains me an attention to give this game a worth of try.
The question is could it be a good Sonic game again? which is why I am here to review this title in regards of how are these presentation, gameplay, and visuals really helped the new 3D Sonic title in terms of quality overall.
So without go further do, let's start the review.
Presentation
The game starts out with when the all-time villain Dr. Robotnik travels to the unknown place called Starfall Islands to steal the technological secrets created by Ancients, a creatures related to Chaos.
Then he has his A.I unit named Sage which he began to upload her into the portal causing to summoned several of robotic defence unit, which led Sage ceases hijacking the portal and initiates a protection protocol causing Dr. Robotnik getting dragged into an artificial dimension called Cyber Space.
Meanwhile, Sonic and his friends went to their flight trip at the islands to search for the Chaos Emeralds, until their plane is sucked into a wormhole to Cyber Space which separates Sonic and his friends.
Luckily Sonic had managed to escape to the islands in the real world, and he then discovers the disembodied voice gives him a tasks with findings the emeralds and destroying the robotic titans to remove the boundary between the real and digital worlds believing this will bring his friends back to normal.
The story in the game is somewhat pretty decent in my opinion. You do have a good opening scene which involves your friends got stucked into a different dimension known as Cyber Space, where as you as a blue hedgehog hero had managed to escape to the real world and being given a task to gather all the emeralds and defeating all titans are the only way to bring your friends back to the reality, while you had a villain Dr. Robotnik who are also got stucked in the Cyber Space aiding with Sage, an mysterious A.I girl who had been given an orders from crazy scientist to keep the track on Sonic and finding the way to escape from the dimension that he don't belong in, which makes these plot seems to be quite straightforward to follow.
Then you have several of memorable characters featured in the game such as Sonic the Hedgehog which we all know he's one of the greatest hero in the whole franchise without giving much explanation because...what do you know it's f***ing Sonic everyone, so we all loved him as our favourite childhood mascot.
Then you have three supporting characters like Miles Tails Prowler, Knuckles the Echidna, and of course Amy Rose which are also just as likable in Sonic franchise.
I also liked the Dr. Robotnik as a series long-running villain who are well you know, up to no good as always in entire Sonic games.
What I liked about him is that he seem to like being as the Sage's father-figure which proves that he created her as an A.I unit, so it's builds-up sort of a father and daughter relationship which is pretty charming to have connection between them that keeps the story worth watchable.
The presentation in this game is looking remarkable for its open-world environments because I would consider each of these islands is well-designed with constructive areas and landmark settings.
Stuff like Kronos Island filled with ancient ruins, graveyard, giant waterfall, and fields and Forrest areas across mountainous terrain.
Ares Island is a desert land filled with rocky ground and high plateauing outcroppings, palm-trees and patchy grass, temples, and cave.
Chaos Island is a rocky land filled with lava, volcano, grey skies, dead trees and moss.
Lastly Ouranos Island has a similar features to first one, but has larger open-wide areas.
I really liked how are these island are being well structured with great landscapes, study mountains and hills, atmospheric backgrounds, and man-made pre-historic themes with ancient tech stuff going on which feels very unique for Sonic titles like this.
I also liked the Cyber-Space stages which feels like it's an reminiscence to early classic Sonic games that you may recognise some of the familiar looking levels like one of them are straight-up Green Hill Zone, and others are kinda like from Chemical Plant Zone which is why it made Sonic games well remembered throughout the years.
Overall, it has decent storyplot, memorable cast of characters, and incredible presentation settings.
Gameplay
In single-player campaign, you take control of Sonic in 3rd-person perspective of open-world environment, as your main goal is to complete all the tasks in whole Islands such as various of main stages, puzzle challenge, side-missions, collecting chaos emeralds, and defeating all titans.
Pushing the left stick which moves Sonic around the surrounding areas, where as the right stick are used as camera movement.
Pressing the cross button which makes Sonic jump, then double tap again for double jump to reach the higher platforms.
While in the air, hit the square button to use as homing jump attack on enemies or used for platforming on bouncy objects when the targeting symbol automatically appears on screen.
Tapping the square button which acts as melee attacking on enemies dealing with damages.
Holding the triangle button then push the left stick around to make a cyloop around which used as stunning or damaging the enemies, as well as activating the objects for puzzle elements.
Holding the right trigger then push the left stick forward which makes Sonic run faster, so it traverse through the areas much quicker.
Tapping the left or right shoulder button uses as dashing moves which allow Sonic to dodge enemy's projectiles or shift onto other rails.
After learning how to control Sonic, you'll be exploring around the areas in which you can able to access the map screen by simply pressing the touchpad button, so it will display the whole map of areas with bunch of icons that represents stuff, such as portals, key items, puzzles, emeralds, and etc.
So that you can able to navigate these by highlighting with the place marker which allowing you to traverse through the area till you've reached the destination.
You really need to find a cog items which can be found in various areas or specific guardian enemy, so that you can use them to gain access to the Cyber-Space stages by activating the Cyber-Space man-made portal with the cog items.
In order to get your friends back in action you must collect all the chaos emeralds which each of them can be unlocked by numerous of required key vaults to collect, in order to collect key vaults you must complete all Cyber-Space stages in each island to gain enough key vaults, so that you can able to obtain these emeralds which is required to fight against these 3 titans.
Sonic are also requires to upgrade his skill levels such as his speed and rings requires many kocos to collect, as well as the bunch of red and blue seeds for his defence and attack system. Once you have collected all skill items then you will need to meet with the two elder kocos that they can able to increase your skill level which improves upon with your speed to boost even faster, ring to expand your health points, defence to reduce your health damage, and of course the attack to make your melee feel stronger to hit enemies with heavy amount of damage hit.
You can also learn a new moves and techniques from the skill tree option by gaining enough skill points which can be done by defeating various of enemies, destroying objects, drawing a circle with cyloop, and completing the fish mini-game, but I highly recommend to unlock Air Trick which allowing Sonic to perform an stylish air stunts while in the air may reward you with so many skill points.
You can spend these skill points on stuff that you want to unlock various of new moves and techniques such as phantom rush when the combo meter is maxed out allowing Sonic to perform more powerful combo attacks, Sonic Boom is a high-speed kick that unleashes shockwaves that pummels the enemy, Wild Rush uses the zig-zagging attack, Stomp Attack that swoops down from above on to the enemy, Homing Shot launch a volley of energy spheres at the enemy, and various of the moves and techniques that really adds-up Sonic's fighting strengths.
So far, I've managed to enjoy the main single-player campaign in the game because I really liked exploring around the island where I can able to spend time grinding many skill points, collecting red and blue seeds as well as kocos improving Sonic's attributes, learning new moves and techniques, and of course completing various of challenges such as puzzle mini-games that unlocks the new map display, collecting numerous of vault keys items that leads you to unlock chaos emeralds, meeting with the friends in side-missions, and of course defeating various of enemy's guardians will reward you with cog items which requires to unlock the Cyber-Space stages through portal is what really keeps me playing the game most of the time.
There's one of the problem that I encountered in the exploration is the mostly camera system that keeps switching places, so basically when you reached onto the platforming structures the camera system just purposely locks-on and turns into fixed angle which unfortunately I finding it quite distracting because if I wanted to start exploring around the areas by running though the terrains then the camera system shouldn't had to locked on to fixed angle, so I really understand it's useful for platforming segments but it's completely unnecessary for the exploration.
I've managed to enjoy numerous of Cyber-Space stages which is similar to previous 3D Sonic games, so stuff like you have several of stages that gives us a throwback to earlier Sonic games, so for the platforming action I really liked the overall design because each of the stages has multiple short-cuts, has cool stunt objects like riding on the rails and jumping on popping balloons, and has so many hazardous stuff like spikey obstacles and enemies that flies around the level.
I got to say the titan boss battles are actually pretty fun to play because it had sort of trials and errors tactics where you had to find a specific weak spot which can be done by the parrying system, which means that you really need to use parry when one of your boss attempts to hit you, so you really need to make a perfect timing in order to evade the boss's melee projectiles then once you successfully performing the parry in time then the boss's weak spot may appear.
This works pretty well in the game once you get used with the boss battles, so the more you practice the better you can able to play perfectly.
The cool thing about the game is that it includes some unlockable stuffs like new game plus which carries the stuff that you've collected from the main campaign adding a nice replay values, and it does comes with battle rush which is basically a challenge mode where you had to defeat various of enemies alongside with their mini-bosses and main-bosses while racing against the time in order to get a high rank and then you have an arcade mode that let's you manually select stages from the core game are also a great extra bonus to this game.
My least favourite part in the game is mostly the "Final Horizon" which is another story campaign that offers free downloadable for the game, introducing an alternative story ending, additional playable characters, along with new story elements, bosses, level designs and Cyber-Space challenges.
I don't really mind having the additional playable characters but sadly they're being locked in one Island instead of all 4s like the previous main campaign and it was bit let down for not having include them for Cyber-Space stages which is kinda shame because that would have made the game quite fun to play if they add them in the stages. The Cyber-Space does have some fair stages with different challenges like racing with hologram Tails and bomb-ticking stuff which is fine, but I'm never been a fan of other stuff like collecting flickies, speed boosting challenge, and moon gravity stage which is quite a time-wasting to play, so I rather stick with the main campaign's Cyber-Space stages instead which is way better in my opinion.
There are some stuff that I want to point out some criticism such as Master King Koco's boss trial where you had to beat all 3 bosses in time limit which unfortunately it wasn't as fun because of the annoying time limit are rather too short making it impossible to beat all 3 which took me about 5 tries to beat it.
I got to say the one major flaw that I did not enjoy the most is the last final boss because I really don't like how these bunch of trees kept blocking my view during the battle, and I find these weak spot system is rather clunky compared with the previous ones in main campaign that I don't have an issue with, so this final boss fight is rather poorly balanced which makes it everything quite tedious to play.
That being said, just stick it to the main story campaign which are way more enjoyable and better to play than the another story campaign that are quite disappointing, so don't get me wrong because it's just part of my opinion.
Overall, it has fine combat system and exploration, great platforming stages, and epic 3 titans boss battles.
Graphics
The graphics in this game is actually looking good on both the previous and current gen system. I say the open-world environment has a quite big landscape from draw-distance, the texture details on the grounds and wall surfaces are just as fine and smooth at outside, the water animation is bold and sharp at the ocean side, it has the lighting and shadow effects on some of the areas, and the character's design is looking quite great in the game.
I also liked the environmental design in the game such as having a large ancient ruins, has plenty of man-made sculptures, bigger mountains and hills, and has various of the objects and landmark stuff going on in the game.
The Cyber-Space stage are also looked pretty decent with good platforming design and fair sized-level is just looking right for recent 3D Sonic games, so you have a detailed environments on the background, and has colourful and wide looking foreground is just looking great so far.
There are few things that I should point out is the skies that are stays on the static image instead of using real-time dynamic movement which is why the skies or clouds never moves during the in-game exploration, but to be fair on this game it does actually have a real-time day/night cycle system depending on how long the daylight cycle will last till it automatically changes to night time which is fine.
I got to mention the important thing in the game is basically the weird pop-ins objects on the platforms, so when you're standing on the higher platforms or you explore around the ground area you don't actually see many of platforms appearing in mid-range distance unless you had to move forward a bit till the platforming objects starts pops-in on the screen in 2 seconds which is kinda strange to see Sonic games like this are not nearly polished as the other action-adventure games which offers a better range of graphical details with clean structures and has no pop-ins delays whatsoever.
The overall performance on any of these platform has some advantages of frame speed and screen resolution such as the PS5 and XSX/S has two performance options, so you have 4K mode which makes the game plays on 4K display for the cleaner images but it capped on 30fps, where as the 60fps mode which capped to 1800p but delivers a much faster-rate really fits better for speedy paced gameplay.
The 8th gen version are also look just as good with the PS4 Pro and XBONE (X model) system runs on 1080p, but capped on 30fps which is slightly bit less compared with the 9th gen consoles but still plays absolutely fine, where as the launch base model PS4 and XBONE has the same frame-speed as the later model version but the base PS4 version ran on 1080p resolution as opposed to XBONE ran on 900p, in which the base PS4 is slightly better for the resolution than the base XBONE but still they are both just as playable.
The Switch version runs on 720p docked and 480p handheld which I heard that it may not looked as good in terms of graphical design and frame speed are way better on the Playstation and Xbox counterpart that the Switch version had lacked, but overall it's still remains playable I suppose.
Overall, it has big open-world environments, good platforming design, and has fair performance for 8th gen console which makes the 9th gen console a clear winner overall.
Music and Sounds
The soundtrack are pretty solid in many ways, so you have several of amazing orchestrated music in open-world exploration as well as some of the story cutscenes just really fits the action-adventure personalities, where as in the Cyber-Space stages has some catchy electronic music just fits right for the platforming action.
The best part of the soundtrack has to go for 3 of these titans boss themes which delivers awesome Metalcore songs such as "Undefeatable" and "Break Through It All" which sang by Kellin Quinn of Sleeping with Sirens, while you had Tyler Smyth of Dangerkids (who has previously sang one of the song such as "Infinite" from Sonic Forces) also provided his vocals for the song such as "Find Your Flame" just amps up the game's excitement.
The sound effect in this game offers really solid overall sound design filled with whooshing noises, collisions, and some ambient sounds in some areas just worked really well in the game entirely.
The voice casting in the game is quite acceptable especially with Sonic and his friends are still remain sounded as same like from the previous game, so no complaints whatsoever.
Overall, it has good soundtrack, decent sound design, and acceptable voice over.
Special Features
I did mentioned the "Final Horizon" campaign before which comes as free downloadable update to this game, but as I said earlier I never actually liked it.
The good thing about the game is that I also did mentioned earlier about the unlockable modes like new game plus, arcade mode, and battle rush are nice bonus to this game.
The physical PS4 copy comes with free upgradable PS5 version which is a fantastic edition for those who had a physical PS4 version will get to enjoy a free PS5 version for future play.
Overall, it's okay features, but not perfect.
Advantages
Decent storyplot
Memorable cast of characters
Incredible presentation settings
Fine combat system and exploration
Epic 3 titans boss battles
Nice visuals
Good soundtrack
Disadvantages
Annoying camera system switching
Weird platforming pop-ups
Final Horizon campaign nowhere good as the main game itself
Final Verdict
Presentation 8/10 - decent storyplot, memorable cast of characters, and incredible presentation settings.
Gameplay 7/10 - fine combat system and exploration, great platforming stages, and epic 3 titans boss battles.
Graphics 7.5/10 - big open-world environments, good platforming design, and has fair performance for 8th gen console which makes the 9th gen console a clear winner overall.
Music and Sounds 8/10 - good soundtrack, decent sound design, and acceptable voice over.
Special Features 6.5/10 - crappy another story campaign (Final Horizon), but has cool unlockable game modes.
Overall 7/10 - Sonic Frontiers is yet a better than I've expected despite few flaws. Unlike some of the previous 3D Sonic games on 8th gen era that are nowhere near fun to play, this game could be an improvement for its main story campaign which provided a really good storyline and has the likable characters being featured in the game is what makes Sonic franchise quite interesting to play for its story development.
Having a Sonic title shifted to the open-world adventure is stepping in the right direction which I really had a ton of blast to speed through the Islands by running around the areas to discover, does a wicked stunts in mid-air, collecting chaos emeralds, upgrading Sonic's skills, solving puzzle mini-games, completing several of action stages, and of course fighting with the 3 titans just makes the Sonic's speedy adventure a positive experience.
Yes I know the "Final Horizon" campaign is not that great which is why I liked the main story campaign even more is all to do a overall balance and fun factor aspect is what really matters the most.
Is it worth playing? the answer is mainly for Sonic's fanatics because it's nowhere near the same level with other action-adventure titles like the recent Nintendo's Legend of Zelda and Marvel's Spider-Man in terms of exploration, combat, missions, and quality which are so much advanced and better overall, but don't get me wrong because this game is still quite decent to play which is perfect for young players will likely to enjoy this type of Sonic games are great for beginners.
The price for physical copy for console platforms goes between £20 and £30 which seems to be acceptable purchase, where as the digital releases for both PCs and Consoles (via PS Store, Xbox Store, eShop, and Steam) cost about £50 are slightly expensive which it's better off getting the physical copy instead.
I am hoping the Sonic Team will eventually gonna make another 3D Sonic games with better gameplay system and overall game's design in the near future, maybe just maybe they will able to succeed it someday...never know.
That's being said Sonic Frontier is still good enough to play which I didn't regret purchasing this title, so this will going to impress you if you really love the Blue Hedgehog franchise like myself...just give this game a worth of try that will likely make you change the mind and see if you really enjoying it.
Skip it
Rent it
Buy it
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