Sonic Frontiers Review

About the mascot mow, Sonic, we can say a lot of things, like the success he is having at the box office with his movies. Another thing could be the irregularity of 3D titles, where one goes well and the next irregular game. But that most games are good, there is no doubt. It’s something they want to leave behind with their next installment, Sonic Frontiers.

Sonic has a career as prolific as that of Mario Bros., his old rival. Our hedgehog has explored other genres besides platforms, such as Pinball, racing, fighting, sports, etc. Now with Frontiers, as its name suggests, new frontiers are opened towards a very popular genre in recent generations, the Open world. It has even been said that he is a Sonic of the Wild, something totally unfair.

New Sonic, new frontiers

Sonic Frontiers begins with Dr. Robotnik discovering some ancient ruins where he finds a kind of technological monolith in which he activates a strange AI that transports him to a digital dimension. On the other hand, like any other Sonic game, our friends Sonic, Tails and Amy are flying over the seas to reach the Starfall Islands, in search of the Chaos Emeralds and after what happened with Eggman, they are dragged into a new dimension.

When Sonic wakes up, he realizes that he’s separated from his friends and must search for them to rescue them from what appears to be a digital limbo. This is how we embark on a new adventure in which we will see recurring and new characters, as well as a new antagonist. We will have two points of view of what happens, Sonic trying to rescue his friends and Dr. Robotnik looking for a new power.

On a narrative level, although it begins like other titles of the hedgehog, it has wanted to give it a darker tone and attached to serious topics. We can see this with certain situations that we will live throughout history, in addition, this is noticeable in the conversations between the characters.

About the characters, we will have the familiar faces of the series and some new iterations. Now they have a more melancholic tone, but it is because of the rigor of the story that they are living in this new adventure.

sonic of the wild

One of the biggest changes to Sonic Frontiers is undoubtedly its switch to open world gameplay, like Breath of the Wild, according to the developers themselves. The comparison with the Nintendo game seems to me partly unnecessary. Although it is true that the game has much larger scenarios that cover several kilometers, it can be said that Sonic has his own gameplay adapted to large proportions.

Our blue friend maintains almost all the abilities that we have seen in all 3D games. Run, grind on rails, the reliable homing attack on enemies, pick up rings, double jump and dash forward. But now, he is further expanded with new combat-focused abilities, being able to execute hits to perform combos on enemies.

The new Stafall Island zone, are a set of different islands, five in total, that have different biomes: Kronos Island, Ares Island, Chaos Island, Rhea Island, Ouranos Island. We can distinguish a desert area, a plain, volcanic areas, among others. Each area has its particular toponymy, so no area will be the same as the others.

Despite being open world, Sonic Frontiers retains the elements of the levels that we have witnessed throughout the saga. There will be springs, rails, ropes, boost rings, flying platforms and, above all, large expanses of land to test our speed. I liked how they managed to make these big maps feel like a big level from any of the previous Sonic The Hedgehog games and not like empty sandboxes.

Open world and platforms

Throughout the entire map we will find simple riddles that when solved will reveal part of the map and position markers to guide us. Not only that, we will also have various types of collectibles that will serve us for different purposes. For example on each island are scattered Memory Tokens depending on the character that we have to rescue, they serve to establish communication with them and advance in the levels.

Other objects are some gears that are used to unlock levels of cyberspace, like the previous games of the blue hedgehog. These are platform and speed sections in which we must reach a goal. Each level has a series of challenges such as getting red rings, getting there in the shortest time possible and getting a certain number of rings. They are simple stages that do not require much time to complete, taking away part of the prominence in favor of the open world of the Islands.

Another of the collectibles will be the so-called Kokos, stone creatures that are scattered where we least imagine, but whose particular sound will indicate where they are. These are used to enhance Sonic’s attributes, by giving them to the elder Koko. The game will keep us busy collecting all these objects, thus lengthening their duration, plus doing so is for a beneficial purpose.

Sonic Ultra Instinct

Sonic has gained in martial knowledge, now he can attack with kicks and punches. When attacking, he will fill up a combo gauge bar that can trigger flashy special abilities. The combat is fun and bets a lot on the spectacular, in fact, movements that we have seen in recent hedgehog movies have been added.

The enemies in Frontiers will be very varied and with colorful shapes, a mixture between advanced robots and aliens, but what they will not be static. These will attack us with their abilities and some will defend themselves to avoid ours, but what they do have is that they have different behavior patterns, as well as their resistance.

A new mechanic is being able to perform the cybergyro for different purposes within the game. It consists of Sonic creating a trail of light to interact with objects and break the defenses of certain enemies, in addition to finding secrets. With the Cybergiro we can create drawings that grant momentary benefits.

One of the aspects that I found very interesting is the boss battles. There are two types of fights: mid boss fights and island guardian fights. The intermediate bosses are of a considerable size and to damage them we will have to find out how. For their part, the guardians are much larger and to defeat them we must use a surprise technique that I will not reveal. Sometimes these bosses change phases so the combat offers a lot of variety.

at the speed of sound

While it’s true that Sonic Frontiers wins in level scaling, the game looks pretty good. However, it suffers from some minor issues such as uneven textures and popping of elements that are practically a few meters away. At the performance level, the game remains stable even with excessive speed. It has the Performance Mode and 4K, the latter, blocks the frames at 30fps.

The soundtrack has rock themes as the main theme, I’m Here. Other themes are of a calm nature, such as the theme of Ares Island. At a general level it is an excellent soundtrack, in the phases it is where we will better notice the songs. The game comes dubbed in various languages ​​such as English, French, Italian, German, Spanish and Japanese. I only tried Castilian Spanish language and it’s a decent job.

Verdict

On a general level, Sonic Frontiers has surpassed the latest 3D installments of the hedgehog. The change of focus to the open world was very well carried out, both the islands that make up its new world that makes us feel that we are at a huge level. We may feel disoriented at times, but usually we will always find something to do. At the story level, Sonic’s cool tone has been lowered a bit for a more relaxed, even sad one, but it’s a good story. Now Sonic is more active in the action, gaining spectacular new moves, excelling in boss battles. Graphically it’s fine, but as always happens in open world games, you have some minor flaws. It is a title that could last us about 50 hours or more if we want to discover all its secrets.

Note: This review was made with the PS5 version and the code was provided thanks to Sega.