Sonic fans can sing a song about how badly their favourite series is treated. The open-world debut, of all things, brings some relief.
When Sonic fans do some deep soul-searching, they often end up asking, “Has there ever actually been a really good 3D Sonic?” And the answer, in the vast majority of cases, is no.
Sure, there were games like 2010”s Sonic Colors (Wii) or Sonic: Lost World, released in 2013 first on Wii and 3DS and then two years later on PC, that were okay. But they were also just rule-breaking exceptions, juxtaposed with big-brain destroyers like 2006”s Sonic The Hedgehog, Sonic Forces (2017), Sonic Unleashed (2008) or Shadow The Hedgehog (2005). And if we”re being completely honest, Sonic Adventure 1&2 (1998 and 2001) weren”t good games either, but simply technically top-notch at the time.
The best prerequisites for Sonic Frontiers. In the test you can find out whether the new open world proves the critics wrong before release.
A small step for a hedgehog
The plot in Sonic Frontiers is so exciting that Sega felt compelled to spin off the backstory in the form of an eight-page comic on Twitter. But well, we”re not in a game about red-shod racing hedgehogs and double-tailed flying foxes to experience deep character sketches.
Sonic Frontiers Prologue: Convergence Part 1
The team goes up to bat against Eggman, but not everything is as it seems. pic.twitter.com/FZVWi27U7s
– Sonic the Hedgehog (@sonic_hedgehog) October 18, 2022
Although one has to admit that there is an unexpected amount of plot here for a Sonic game, presented in relatively long real-time cutscenes that don”t even shy away from more serious themes like loss and death. Of course, one might ask whether a game that was originally all about dashing from one end of the level to the other as fast as possible while freeing cuddly little animals that have been turned into spiky robots by a bushy-bearded tyrant necessarily needs to unpack the very emotional dramas.
Once you”ve chosen one of three difficulty levels and your preferred play style, either “action-packed” or “fast-paced”, Sonic Frontiers gets off to a classic start after the intro: the camera moves behind the blue hedgehog and reveals a view of a typical 3D racing track in the style of the well-known “Green Hill Zone”, which we”ve known from the series for 31 years now.
The first sigh is inevitable: Seriously? Again? Fine, we”ll just run like on rails over green meadows, brown-yellow check patterns and lots of accelerator pads, through loops and corkscrews, attack crabs and oversized ladybirds with the aim-seeking spin attack, collect golden rings and red coins and end the section with a run through a glittering white gate… oh, that”s new: “End Cyberspace” is the next prompt, after which Sonic finds himself in a pale green meadow surrounded by rain and strange glitches in the environment. What is happening here?
A big step for the series
“Open Zone”, as the development studio Team Sonic calls the world, is known elsewhere simply as “Open World” and is an absolute first in the world of the blue lightning. The world in which Sonic finds himself, the “Starfall Islands”, is divided into five large islands that you gradually open up.
For the first time, Sonic Frontiers offers a large open world in which Sonic can let off steam. And unfortunately, it”s not very pretty.)
The first few hours of the game are spent on the green part “Kronos Island”, then you visit a desert landscape and a lava mountain range, among others, always interspersed with ancient ruins and typical Sonic elements such as turbopads, grind rails or springs.
These worlds are presented in a very unusual way for a Sonic game: The colours are subdued most of the time, the music relies mainly on very quiet pianos and lonely strings – and Sonic”s usual motto “Gotta Go Fast!” is basically replaced here by “Gotta Do Stuff!”””
Because like virtually every open world, there”s a lot to do in Sonic Frontiers. This already starts with the collecting stuff: For example, there are purple coins, which are needed in the fishing mini-game, among other things. Gear wheels that give you access to portals. Green glowing keys that give you access to the chaos diamonds. Golden rings, because they are unavoidable in a Sonic game.
XP fragments that can be used to improve Sonic”s character stats. Small creatures called “Kocos”, which play a role especially in the plot. Or even special character-related items that advance the plot when collected in certain quantities. You quickly meet Sonic friends like Amy, Tails and Knuckles – but of course also Dr. Eggman and the mysterious digital figure “Sage”.
Smaller puzzles, short time-limit races or a Sonic-compatible hamster wheel await you at special signs – if you master these simple challenges, the map of the current island, which can be called up at any time, is expanded piece by piece. You can pass the time with mini-games: A simple vertical shooter, an even simpler pinball machine or, as seems to be the law in the series since Sonic Adventure, the inevitable fishing with the purple buddy “Big the Cat”.
Not only do you pull gold rings, tin cans, car tyres and treasure chests out of the water, but also fish of all possible sizes and shapes as well as tadpoles, stingrays, crayfish or even a snapping chopper opponent – all of which give different numbers of tokens, which you can then exchange for Sonic improvements at Big. Which is irritatingly more efficient than earning these upgrades in the world itself through grind.
Shadow of the Hedgehogus
These upgrades mainly improve the combat skills of the professional razor: more strength, a higher ring capacity or a more resistant spiked skin are already practical. In addition, you can also give yourself further special skills via a separate skill tree: The “Cyberloop”, for example, is a kind of light wall that Sonic draws behind him – if he paints closed circles in the landscape with it, they turn into rings or other items.
The “Sonic Boom” is also very useful, which Sonic then uses to shoot a fat and never-ending volley of lightning bolts from his feet while jumping, thus mutating into a continuous-fire machine gun. In general, however, the combat system is hard to beat in terms of simplicity: You just keep hammering on the corresponding button, whereupon quick combos are automatically ignited and the respective enemy disintegrates into crumbs a few seconds later.
Some enemies require special treatment: sometimes you have to break through their armour with a cyberloop first, sometimes you have to fend off their attack before you can counterattack. However, none of this is even remotely challenging – on the contrary, most of the time you are told by a text panel or a forced tutorial what you have to do to make the faceless robo-quark explode.
Much more interesting are the bosses, which usually come in two variants: really big and really damn big. They have beautiful names like “Spider”, “Tower”, “Squid”, “Ninja”, “Shark” or “Giganto”, and stand, run or fly around in the area – if Sonic gets close to them, the fight starts.
Because you have to climb the bigger ones before you can start the obligatory “Attack Its Weak Point For Massive Damage!” button-pushing routine at the top, the battles are a little reminiscent of the PlayStation 2 classic Shadow of the Colossus. But of course they are not nearly as deep or challenging. In fact, the fights against the standard bosses are for the most part very disappointing, as they are far too simple.
The monsters waiting at the end of each island, which are called “Titan” for a reason, are a different story. To be able to challenge them, you first have to collect the good old chaos diamonds. With them, you transform into the shining yellow “Super Sonic” and then hit the Titan”s oversized energy bar as hard as you can while dodging his attacks and in the background, heavy J-metal beats your pulse up.
These fights are not only more effective than a “Dragon Ball Z” supercut, but also provide a challenge for once – which is not only due to the quick-time events that are repeatedly interspersed, but above all due to the continuously decreasing ring display, which represents Sonic”s life energy in these situations and should consequently be completely filled up before these challenges.
Dance the cyber boogie!
Sometimes there are special portals on the Starfall Islands that Sonic can use to enter “cyberspace” after he has activated them. Short jump-&-run levels await you there, which are strongly inspired by earlier Sonic adventures – you run through the “Green Hill Zone” (Sonic 1), the “Chemical Plant Zone” (Sonic 2) or over the “Radical Highway” from Sonic Adventure 2, among others.
But don”t think of them as classic levels, instead they are super-short, extremely linear challenges in which you have to collect certain amounts of gold rings or red coins or race through the section in a certain time. Between the start and finish, there are not only many familiar enemies waiting, but also quite a few obstacles, spikes, tracks or accelerator pads. So it”s just like the main world, but much more compact, accompanied by heavy hammering drum & bass music and much more colourful colours.
Here as there, you have endless attempts to sonic some sense into Dr Eggman”s bearded skull. It is true that one can lose all rings, whereupon the next enemy contact ends fatally, also many free flights into deep water or lava trenches await on the islands. But after his death, Mr Hedgehog is immediately revived. The score is also saved automatically at regular intervals, so there are few moments of frustration in this respect.
Technically, on the other hand, Sonic Frontiers is only so-so: The landscapes look nice, but especially on the starting island they seem washed out and lacking in detail, and above all, even at full detail level, they deter with very surprising pop-ins from objects that are not particularly far away.
Other technical features also seem simply out of date – like the grass that rolls out in front of you at intervals of a few metres, or the reflections on the water that keep disappearing, which is particularly unpleasant when fishing.
On the other hand, there is hardly anything to complain about on the ear side. For one thing, there are about 150 different pieces of music, with something for practically every taste. And on the other hand, the quality of the voice output is absolutely fine, and there are six languages to choose from, including German, plus as many more for possible subtitles.
Editorial conclusion
The good news is that Sonic Frontiers is definitely better than Sonic Forces, Sonic Unleashed or the inner circle of hell otherwise known as 2006”s Sonic The Hedgehog – but well, so is a fork-based lobotomy. Frontiers clearly makes an effort to distance itself from the 3D embarrassments of the past two decades, but lurches around more than a drunken submarine in this tightrope act: the open world is large and varied, but full of the same old tasks and challenges. The plot would like to be interesting and grown up, but forgets that it is still carried by a blue racing hedgehog and his bizarre buddies.
The bosses impress with impressive size, but bore with virtually complete lack of ambition. The graphics have some cool technical tricks in store and fire out of all guns especially during the fights against the titans, but at the same time offer a low-detail world with a range of vision just above the N64 mark. And it doesn”t even have much to do with the classic Sonic racing of yesteryear in the cyberspace levels – anyone who wants to play good old Sonic should, no, must, reach for Sonic Mania. Sonic Frontiers is a brave attempt to nudge the very dusty blue hedgehog in an interesting new direction. Didn”t work out so well – but a small step in the right direction is better than none at all.
