Sonic Frontiers review – Strange in the right direction

We continue to catch up on the remnants of this year’s eventful autumn season, and this time we look into the teeth of a game that repeatedly surprises not only the uninitiated players. Breaking records for Sonic games on Steam (where it proudly boasts a 95% positive player rating) and selling two and a half million copies in its first month, the game also scored high in this year’s TGA player vote, where it even looked like it might even win (at least it made it into the final top 5 games of 2022 as voted by the players). How is this possible when the game looks so weird, overly complex, and downright ugly in places? Well, it plays surprisingly well and offers a perfectly dosed variety to complement the speed experience.

• Platform: PS5 (review) PS4, XSX|S, X1, PC, Switch
• Publication date: 08/11/2022
• Producer: Sonic Team (Japan)
• Genre: platformer
• Czech localization: No
• Multiplayer: No
• Data to download: 25 GB
• Game time: 20+ hours
• Price: 1499 CZK (couples)

Sonic as Zelda… what?

This game surprised everyone with its first trailer. We’ve kind of gotten used to Sonic moving into 3D over the years (although he never worked as well in 3D as he did in the first two), but placing him in an open world set to a melancholy rainy mood with a moving piano accompaniment on background, it just felt completely weird. Sound games tend to be colorful, loud, and fast. This melancholy mood was more like something out of the Zelda series. But once you’ve spent a few hours in this environment, you’ll find that the atmosphere is well suited to play, especially if you’re a fan of the Sonic series lore and can take Frontiers’ fantasy tale at least half as seriously as it takes itself.

Of course, Doctor Robotnik (or Doctor Eggman) is again responsible for everything, who this time tried to steal powerful technologies from the Starfall Islands left here by the mysterious civilization of the Ancients. But the security system detected this threat and sucked the Doctor into the digital world. This event also begins to attract the famous Chaos Emeralds to the islands, which in turn piques the interest of Sonic and his friends, who also head there. But after the initial crash, everyone but Sonic gets sucked into the digital world, so it’s up to him to save them (and the world). This time the story is full of cutscenes and spoken dialogue, we even get some surprising/hilarious twists and there are character sacrifices as well. In other words, if you are a fan, you will get great service on this site.

After the initial crash, everyone but Sonic finds themselves sucked into the digital world.

The five islands you subsequently explore offer a vast playing field for maps and many challenges to overcome: the most notable of these are the Cyber ​​Space portals/levels that teleport you from the game’s open world to simple levels that can mostly be completed in a minute or two, while still offering a colorful environment inspired by older games in the series. Trying to repeatedly beat the best time in them can be quite interesting. Another memorable challenge is the Titans, very large bosses that you must defeat in order to get to the next island. While the controls and camera sometimes can’t handle their size properly, the experience of dealing with them can be compared to classics like Shadow of Colossus. But the game offers much more related attractions.

In the name of speed and variety

The open world of the game is literally littered with small fights with clusters of enemies, puzzles in the style of “step on the panels in the right order”, straight-forward arcade mini-games like pinball and, of course, a series of races where you have to get to a certain place on the map before expiration date. One thing to be said about this game is that it really lacks speed, and just like in the days of the original 2D series, I’d say it’s arguably the fastest platformer on the market today. Unfortunately, this comes at a cost in the form of sometimes awkward bouncing of objects and environments, which of course also depends on the platform you’re playing on. PS5 with its performance and SSD storage is still not bad, but even here you will see some improvement.

But the variety of the game is not limited to action, racing or puzzle sequences. What would an open world game be without fishing? It’s an absurd contrast to the wildness of the rest of the game, but if you decide to stop and catch a few fish, the tokens you earn can be used to buy upgrades to your abilities that will make you stronger, tougher, or faster. Of course, these tokens can also be obtained through other activities, but fishing is surprisingly simple and profitable. It’s also a way to get around some of the repetitive parts of the game, like the countless fights against normal enemies. Sonic Frontiers looks downright weird at first, second, and hundredth look, but if you give it a chance, you’ll find a surprisingly varied, fun, and honest game that hints at a promising new direction for the entire series.