Sonic in the 3D space has been on quite the adventure over the past few decades. From going on grand adventures, discovering what it means to be a hero and even embracing the darkness within themselves; the early 3D titles experimented, to say the least.
The overall problem for 3D Sonic, outside of some successes in the 2010s, was everything coming together in a strong, fulfilled vision never happened.
Sonic Frontiers is the first time in Sonic’s entire 3D career where they take a large ambition and largely succeed in making an engaging adventure, by embarking on new frontiers.
Developer & Publisher // SEGA, Sonic Team
Platforms // Series X/S, PlayStation 5, PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4
MSRP & Release Date // $59.99, November 8th, 2022
Reviewed On // Series X
New Sonic Frontiers – Narrative
The game opens with Sonic and his friends flying to the Starfall Islands. Naturally, things quickly go wrong and the entire group is separated. Sonic, after running through ‘Green Hill’, finds himself on the Starfall Islands. Being guided by a strange Voice, Sonic begins his longest adventure yet. Tasked with the simple goal of collecting the Chaos Emeralds and defeating robots, the setup is nothing new for the Blue Blur. And on the surface, the overall narrative is very unassuming. However, what makes Sonic Frontiers special is how strongly it honors the legacy of the entire franchise.
Since the release of Sonic Generations, SEGA and Sonic Team have been content with surface level fan-service and references. With Sonic Frontiers, the franchise’s legacy has more weight on the overall narrative than ever before.
Characters mention events in prior games, character dynamics are reforged and Sonic has improved character writing. Across the entire game, the player realizes that he’s matured over his many years of adventures, being conveyed through his relationships. Newcomers aren’t punished for not playing prior games either since they don’t need to understand all the winks and nods to grasp the full picture.
Story Overview
The main islands each focus on a specific character. Each touches on a different arc for the cast members. A highlight is the Knuckles arc on Ares Island. His brotherhood with Sonic is explored and their dynamic from the classic games cemented once again. Amy and Tails get similar treatment, each to similar degrees of success.
Sonic being able to help his friends through their troubles reestablishes him as the earnest hero with a golden heart. Though not without some snark to offer. This is the result of Sonic IDW Comic writer Ian Flynn penning the script. His work is effective, showing the cast are authentic people.
It’s not just Sonic and his friends going through arcs however, there is the mystery of the Starfall Islands themselves. The answers Sonic Frontiers gives players are surprising. Finding out the origins of specific elements of the franchise itself was something not expected, but appreciated all the same.
The narrative is further elevated through strong voice acting. Retaining the cast from prior games but with far better direction than ever before. Sonic’s voice being deeper and the cast taking things more seriously helps make you care about the interpersonal elements of the narrative. Mike Pollock’s performance as Eggman is a standout. Ditching the cartoon villain tone from prior games and having a grounded nuanced performance.
Gotta Go Fast – Cyber Space
Sonic enters portals after fighting various enemies on the islands and collecting portal gears grants access to bite-sized speedy levels similar to Sonic Generations.
Players are once more running through familiar zones from the classic era. The level designs themselves are largely remastered level layouts from a core set of Sonic releases (Unleashed, Generations, Colors, and Adventure 2) with a few original level layouts at the tail-end of the game. While one could view it as lazily reusing old content to pad out game length, their inclusion is more welcomed than not.
Sonic controls differently compared to the games these level designs originally were featured in. Giving a new layer to how one completes say, Sonic Adventure 2’s City Escape or Green Forest. Adjusting and working with a new control scheme goes a long way in making these feel fresh.
The source of challenge for these levels are the different missions in each one, always being the same. Getting all of them completed is quite a challenge sometimes. So it’s a lot of fun playing them over and over to get that awesome S-Rank and access additional Vault Keys. These keys unlock the Chaos Emeralds on each island.
Recent updates only added to this portion of the game. Including a new batch of levels pushing tricker 3D platforming and challenges alongside a mode outside of the main campaign. It will push you to play through entire sets of Cyber Space levels to get the best overall time.
A Different Kind of Kingdom – Open Zones
The second pillar of Sonic Frontiers is the Open Zones, which make up the majority of the game. They have Sonic running around a massive area themed around specific themes and biomes. This includes dense forests and arid sands to speed across.
Platforming consists of bite-size challenges spread across the five islands. Sometimes they are on the ground and other times they are floating in the sky. They are quite fun to engage with and your reward for them varies.
Collectables and Game Flow
Sonic Frontiers involves a lot of collectibles, but know they are well worth your time. Collecting character-specific tokens for Sonic’s friends to continue the main quest, fighting various robot creatures to get experience points and gears to access more cyberspace levels, and completing the various challenges across the islands to get power/defense upgrades.
The upgrades make combat easier, which is useful for higher difficulties. The challenges are similar to Breath of the Wild’s shrine puzzles in some regards. But the rewards are more so the act of completing them. And after various updates, more is present in the open zone now. Including substantially harder challenges that reward you with collectibles that can be traded in for a bigger boost meter.
Facing Your Fears – Sonic Frontiers Combat System & Skill Tree
The final pillar of Sonic Frontiers is the combat system, something largely new to the Sonic franchise. It starts out simple with Sonic having a homing attack and a basic block/counter. But as you get skill points, you can get new moves. It adds more depth to the combat system, though some moves are similar visually. Despite their flashy nature, over time they can feel repetitive.
This affects the progression of his skill tree, which is all combat-focused, resulting in new unlocks not always feeling rewarding. Regular encounters with weaker enemies are fun in a mindless sort of way. However, the challenge only goes up on the higher difficulties.
Guardian & Titan Encounters
Boss fights show the combat system’s potential. This involves a mixture of normal combat encounters that push you to parry attacks and engage in full-on platforming challenges. A majority of the fights are enjoyable with this set up but some could’ve used more work.
One example is a boss on Ares Island. You have to switch between grind rails and ride across each one fully to open up a weak point. The camera perspective makes it difficult to switch between the rails.
Boss fights that do always succeed are the Super Sonic fights on each Island. Once you get the sixth emerald on an Island, you find the looming Titans on each Island and climb up them to get the final Emerald. You then turn into Super Sonic and with bombastic metal music blasting from your screen, you engage these massive threats. Despite having more flash than substance, the raw spectacle of these encounters are breathtaking and feel like the reward for exploring the Islands.
What makes these feel even better is that Sonic’s entire moveset for normal encounters carries over, but only powered up and having new visual effects. Paired with smartly used quick-time events and effective cinematics, these are the strongest moments of Sonic Frontiers without question.
Final Horizons – The End Game
Despite Sonic Frontiers making bold strides to move the series forward, the final two Islands leave a lot to be desired.
It begins with a platforming gauntlet. Climbing up various towers with heavy music playing, ramping up the stakes. When things seemingly go in one direction, they end up going in another. The player ends up retreading old ground, by recycling a prior Island theme, and the formula begins to wear thin.
Fans were not fond of this conclusion. SEGA and Sonic Team responded to this by adding a new Horizon for players to explore. Following the game’s initial launch in November 2022, Sonic Team added an entire new ‘end game’ to Sonic Frontiers. This ‘Final Horizon’ is accessible once you arrive at the final island and jump through a giant golden ring marked on the map.
Final Horizons New Characters
The narrative follows Sonic trying to power himself up for the final fight while you take control of Tails, Amy, and Knuckles to collect the Emeralds. For the first time since Sonic Adventure and Sonic 06, Sonic’s core friends are playable in a 3D game.
Having skills focused on exploration more than combat, the new playable characters stand out from Sonic. Amy uses her tarot cards for triple jumping and a short hover. Tails can fly for long periods and has ranged attacks with wrenches. In comparison, Knuckles can glide and climb red walls. The new characters feature skill trees that are more focused on exploration than combat, separating them from Sonic’s set of abilities.
Combat and Sonic’s New Quest
Sonic is still playable, switching to him for platforming and combat gauntlets that offer a sizable challenge when compared to the main game. The five towers he must climb are fully 3D. In contrast to the towers he had to climb in the original end-game and demand a higher degree of skill from players. In addition, some of the Master Combat trials push the combat system.
The final element of this new End Game is a brand-new final boss. In essence, the final boss functions like the other Titan battles compared to the original End Game’s conclusion. The visual spectacle is fantastic and with the new re-balanced perfect parry, the game ends on a better note.
Breaking Through the Sound Barrier – Music/Sound
The Sonic franchise is no stranger to outstanding soundtracks and Sonic Frontiers continues this trend. More specifically, it offers only the most varied score out of the entire franchise.
The Island themes help define the mysterious and somber tone. Exploring Kronos Island begins with this almost haunting melody not unlike when Link gets out of the cave in Breath of the Wild. The theme updates as you collect the Chaos Emeralds, bringing in more of the piano, violin, and instruments to amplify the emotion. Later islands focus on different themes, each exploring different angles and facets of the mysterious, moody tone.
Ouranos Island having some of the most emotionally powerful music in the entire series stands out specifically. You can feel the stakes weighing on Sonic to save the day.
While this side of the soundtrack has a lot of weight to the game, the Cyber Space music falls on familiar stopping grounds introduced in games like Sonic Forces, having EDM (Electronic Dance Music), and many other genres featured. My personal favorite of these is the trance-like Ephemeral of 4-2.
Titan Themes
The defining part of the soundtrack hands down, are the game’s four Titan themes. These are heavy-metal tracks that have the spirit of iconic games like Metal Gear Rising and Devil May Cry. No doubt they play a major factor in the raw ‘let’s go!’ energy the Titan fights have.
Aggressive guitar rifts, heavy drums, and powerful vocals by Sleeping with Sirens’ Kellin Quinn all come together to create music that I still listen to daily. My favorite of the themes has to be Undefeatable. To say I have sung along to this like a moron during the Sonic Symphony recently would be a massive understatement.
Recent updates also included even more music. This includes new themes for Sonic and his friends when they are played in Final Horizons, remixes for the Cyber Space levels, and a whole Juke Box mode. In this mode, you collect music notes that unlock music from across the Sonic franchise. Best of all they can played at any time during Island exploration. The music featured is vast, including music from Sonic 2 through Sonic Forces and Mania.
Stars Colliding – Presentation/Graphics
While it doesn’t hit the soaring heights of the soundtrack, Sonic Frontier‘s presentation can be quite handsome.
The various Islands themselves have varied looks and they effectively set the tone. Kronos Island has a great forest/jungle feel, having waterfalls and lush grassland to speed across. Ares and Chaos Island also have striking looks as well. The former’s desert theme is well-realized and the latter’s high-in-the-sky feel fits nicely with the game’s many floating platforms. On current-generation consoles, these locations pop off the screen thanks to high-resolution assets and clear image quality.
Issues with Presentation
The animation work isn’t always great, however. A majority of the game’s story sequences have little animation from Sonic and company. They stand around, talk to one another, and outside of minor movements, don’t emote as much. This is an element future games should address. Thankfully, the voice acting does a lot of the heavy lifting during these sequences.
Cyber Space levels look great. However, if you played Generations or Forces, seeing Green Hill and Chemical Plant again can be distracting. Time of day, cybernetic visual effects, and other factors do help in setting them apart from their existing counterparts.
Mending Speed – Performance
The game runs at a stable 60 FPS on Xbox Series X, with evidential performance found on PlayStation 5 as well. A Graphics mode is also included, featuring the option for native 4K output at the expense of 30FPS.
The game’s pop-in issues are hard to ignore however, with draw distance is lacking across all platforms. A non-issue for the base game, it becomes a problem in Final Horizon. Unfortunately, this gets in the way of some of the platforming challenges.
Final Thoughts on Sonic Frontiers v 1.41
Despite my passion for the series now, I left the Blue Blur behind when recent efforts just weren’t cutting it anymore. Frontiers changed that completely.
Sonic Frontiers takes lessons from games across the industry and puts its own spin on them. For the first time in many, many years Sonic Team united varied elements into a cohesive package. Breathtaking soundtrack, bold steps forward on a core formula, and spectacular boss fights dash past pop-in and difficulty issues to create the best Sonic game in many years.
With this new foundation, a good future only awaits the Blue Blur.
