Serving as a fresh of breath air and new direction for the blue hedgehog, PhantomZ2 reviews the latest title in the Sonic franchise: Sonic Frontiers. Thank you to SEGA for providing us with a review copy of the game!
Thank you to Cart Boy for editing and proofreading!
Over a year ago, SEGA closed a “Sonic Central” presentation with a short, intriguing, and concerning teaser for their mascot’s next big adventure. A steady stream of coverage followed this year, and I found myself growing increasingly more excited for it. Now, Sonic Frontiers is finally here! The latest title in the blue blur’s long-running series, developer Sonic Team’s follow-up to their middling 2017 outing Sonic Forces. Frontiers also has the unenviable task of pushing Sonic in a new direction, and despite the imperfections it has, my excitement was justified: Sonic Frontiers is a huge leap forward for the franchise that gleams and glistens far beyond my expectations.
To begin, Frontiers’ scope and structure is a vast departure for the series. Traditionally, Sonic games whisk you through fast-paced levels, often splicing them with cutscenes. Starting with 2005’s Sonic Rush, most of the heroic hedgehog’s platformers employ the “boost” mechanic, which lets him plow through enemies at top speed. Stages are obstacles courses that are built around that and oscillate between 3D and 2D segments. Sonic Frontiers combines these aspects in what SEGA and Sonic Team call “Open Zone” gameplay. While the boost is still present and there are individual levels that are styled like or even take directly from the previous games, Frontiers primarily focuses on having the player take on the world as they like through traversing, unlocking, and fighting your way through the terrain, challenges, and enemies to uncover the mysteries of a brand new setting: the Starfall Islands.
Strangely, the mythical Chaos Emeralds have gathered across the inlets, so Sonic, Tails, and Amy fly there to investigate. But, as they approach the area, an atmospheric shift sends their flight haywire—and the gang gets sucked into what is known as “Cyberspace,” a flowing collective of data and information that somehow shapes its own perspective of reality. Although Sonic can enter and escape Cyberspace willingly, his friends are stuck in the betwixt. While this may sound like the crew will mostly be sitting ducks for this journey, that couldn’t be farther from the truth. Although Tails, Amy, and even Knuckles (whose presence is explained in a supplemental animation) aren’t on the island physically, they are present spiritually. And digitally. Spirit Digitals, Digital Spirits… just calling them holograms sounds lame.
Anyways, as you traverse through the five islands, you’ll find Memory Tokens that open up the story in a variety of ways. Outside of just story progression, you get to see how each of Sonic’s friends are dealing with their situation and how they’re trying to assist the Koco, the cute but strange denizens of the Starfall Islands, with their troubles. Some conversations just point out what you could do to solve a puzzle, but others lead to instances of character development that I never thought the series would tackle outside of the comics. Each character goes through an introspective journey, and though that’s something I wasn’t sure the series needed, the inclusion of it is immensely appreciated. It’s so well done, too! Longstanding ‘hog comic writer Ian Flynn did not disappoint in his video game debut, elevating Frontiers with his love for the series’ cast and lore. Often, I found myself smiling widely, popping off, and am left with so much hope as to what will happen in future titles.
Expectations for the future aside, you can tackle the Open Zone gameplay loop in a variety of ways, and it’s very fun. Admittedly, some of the islands’ 2D and 3D platforming sections may seem visually haphazard and directionally incoherent without a unique visual cue leading to them. It’s a stark change in comparison to previous games, the Cyberspace levels, or even some of Frontiers’ own towering set pieces. But the way you choose to take on the world can turn this perspective on its head. Across each island, there are many small challenges and puzzles that you can complete in order to uncover the current island’s map. This not only allows you to see where each islands’ points of interest—other challenges, Cyberspace levels, and memory conversations, among other things— are on the map, but it also reveals grind rails. These allow for faster travel and create greater interactivity between the different areas within each island. You could either grind away to get to a different area or you could use the rails as an alternative means to make your way into the different instances of platforming.
There is still more beyond this though, as there are enemies you have to fight. Along with the familiar act of homing attacking Badniks, which you’ll be doing in Cyberspace, you’ll be facing off against different enemies, gigantic and small, across the Starfall Islands. Although the series hasn’t been one to shy away from action-styled gameplay before, the way Frontiers does it really enforces the speed that has always been with the blue blur. Aside from a regular combo attack, you have new and repurposed abilities like the Cyloop and the Stomp. The Cyloop allows Sonic to create shapes within the terrain that can uncover hidden items, but when used on defensive enemies, it can open them up to be attacked. The stomp, while still used to quickly get back on the ground, can now also be held for a Triple Stomp, to either send a shockwave through the ground or pierce through enemies from above. And the more you fight, the more skill points you get. The more skill points you get, the faster you’ll be able to unlock brand new attacks and abilities—and these keep up Sonic’s momentum combat-wise and diversify the ways in which you can decimate the smallest of enemies, to the sometimes frustrating and repetitive mid-bosses, up to the incredibly fun and over-the-top gigantic Titans that await you at the end of each island once you’ve collected all seven Chaos Emeralds.
Speaking of the Titans, the music that uniquely accompanies each one just brings me back to the summer afternoons of replaying the final boss of Sonic Unleashed when I was a kid while listening to rock music AMVs on YouTube back in 2009. It’s the perfect amount of edge that the series is thankfully keeping up from the introduction of Infinite and his theme in Sonic Forces. The boss music isn’t the only highlight, however. Many Cyberspace levels feature energetic, catchy music that makes replaying them incredibly fun—which is good, since getting S Ranks requires clearing a stage within a certain time, which takes practice. The buildup of the Starfall Islands’ themes as you progress through them just heightens the feeling of the game’s somber atmosphere. God, the choice of relaxing lo-fi music when you go fishing with Big adds so much to the experience… even if the minigame is incredibly easy.
Continuing forward with the game’s presentation: while the visual aesthetic of the Starfall Islands may be hit or miss for some people, I think the choice of a more realistic portrayal of unfamiliar terrain accompanied by classic Sonic iconography—Rings, springs, grind rails, etc.— provides a good balance of delivering what you know you’re here for and something that is brand new, a land that you’re progressively discovering and uncovering that is really fun to be in.
There are some bugs and performance issues here and there: instances where frames noticeably dropped, long loading times when going into Cyberspace levels, weird hit detection, lighting issues, and random times where Sonic’s mouth would be completely off-sync in a cutscene. The game would benefit from more polish and as of the writing of this review, a patch for the game has dropped with more likely coming.
But Sonic Frontiers’ issues—the occasional obtuse segment, annoying enemy, bug, or initial uncomfortability I had with Sonic’s physics in Cyberspace—aren’t dealbreakers. Altogether, this game made me incredibly happy and left me excited for what’s to come. Not just for Sonic, but for his friends, the direction of the series story-wise, and the gameplay that may come. Not every game needs to be Open Zone, but as the series’ first outing with this new direction, SEGA and Sonic Team hit it out of the park.
It seems like they’ll be strengthening the home run, as during the writing of this review – SEGA released a roadmap showcasing the planned FREE DLC for Frontiers in 2023. The listed DLC includes a photo mode, new challenges, playable characters, and additional story content! It seems like there’s more fun for me to experience with Sonic Frontiers in the year to come.
