Sonic Frontiers: Truly Undefeatable
What do people think of when they hear the name “Sonic the Hedgehog”? Do they still imagine the mascot with attitude from the ‘90s? The determined do-gooder in the 2000s? Or the snarky, quippy smart aleck from the 2010s?
No matter what your perception of the Fastest Thing Alive is, one thing is certain — he’s a global phenomenon and a well-known name in the gaming sphere. Compared to his early rival Mario, who regularly gets critically acclaimed games under his name, Sonic’s had a far more turbulent history, with numerous highs and lows as SEGA and Sonic keep trying to figure out what works.
He’s become something of a punching bag for a long while, specifically his Modern incarnation thanks to the disastrous launches of titles like the Sonic Boom sub-franchise and the soft reboot attempt Sonic Forces. It seemed like he couldn’t escape his fate of being a laughingstock…
But what if I told you that the hope for a genuinely good Sonic game in both story and gameplay was possible? And not only that, it stuck the landing very well?
Sonic Frontiers is the latest mainline video game in the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise, released worldwide on November 8th, 2022 for all major platforms. In this adventure, Sonic must explore a mysterious region of landmasses known as the Starfall Islands to rescue his friends from an enigmatic entity, while gathering the Chaos Emeralds to stand a chance against the humongous Titans that stand in his way. The “Boost” style of gameplay codified by Sonic Unleashed and Sonic Colors returns once again, this time in an environment inspired by open world games like Horizon Zero Dawn. Sonic also gains new combat moves to have greater potential in fights outside of just boosting into enemies and hitting them with Homing Attacks and stomps.
How does it stack up compared to previous entries? Let’s take a look. Beware of spoilers.
Story
If you ask me, the story of Frontiers is a huge step in the right direction for the Blue Blur. The premise of Sonic traversing the Starfall Islands to collect the Chaos Emeralds, defeat the Titans, and also rescue his friends ends up working out very well, though on its surface, it feels like a typical Sonic plot. But, because the game goes out of its way to depict the characters as mature, rounded versions of their usual personas, it ends up becoming a whole lot more memorable.
I adored all the character interactions between Sonic and his friends, primarily Tails and Knuckles. The latter two ended up subject to rather intense exaggeration of their worst flaws — Tails being a coward constantly relying on Sonic for help (best seen in Sonic Forces where he panics at the sight of Chaos, where beforehand he would have geared up to fight him), and Knuckles being a dumb brute who gets easily tricked, with his status as Guardian of the Master Emerald becoming a borderline nonexistent attribute. Here, however, they get rerailed into something resembling their previous characterizations — for example, Tails admits to Sonic how much he dislikes having to constantly rely on him, and how he dislikes his cowardice, especially during moments of crisis. This shows that not only did the writers learn from previous games, but also did their best to rescue that bit of characterization with hindsight.
Sonic himself is a treat to watch. While he’s his usual snarky, playful self, he’s given a much more mature edge here. He knows when to cut the jokes and communicate to his trapped friends plainly, demonstrating how much he cares for them and is doing his best to free them while simultaneously racing to power up against the Titans. After years of him being portrayed as just a one-note smart aleck who takes nothing seriously, it’s very refreshing that we get a more serious Blue Blur. Heck, when I first heard him speak here, I didn’t recognize his usual voice actor (Roger Craig Smith), his tone making me seriously think they got someone else.
Another bit that I was particularly impressed with was the repeated Super Sonic transformations. In most of the modern games, Sega decided to relegate the form to just final bosses or as an optional unlock, which got predictable after a long time. It eventually reached the point where Sonic didn’t even need it anymore, as he was able to fight two final bosses just under his own power. Now though, they present a foe that Sonic genuinely can’t fight on his own, as the first Titan, Giganto, not only barely reacts to his attempts to attack it, it easily defeats him by grabbing him and tossing him away. Now Sonic has to transform early, and repeatedly, just to stand a chance. They redeemed what was otherwise a cliché obligation!
What took me by surprise was the way they portrayed the relationship between Eggman and his creation, Sage. Before this game, Eggman had become a one-note, tyrannical conqueror with manchild tendencies and could only be somewhat threatening. However, here, a lot of that has evaporated, in favor of him trying his best to remain patient as Sage does all she can to get him out of Cyberspace. With regard to Sage, she feels like a second attempt at Infinite from Forces — a red-black, glitch themed servant of Eggman, only this time they have a mutually loving relationship, akin to father and daughter. It’s surprisingly heartwarming.
And finally, there’s the reveals about the Chaos Emeralds’ origins, namely the alien precursors that brought them to the planet. In one fell swoop, they not only referenced very old Sonic lore (from the original Adventure), they also provided a decent origin for the series’ primary macguffins. This was something I have been begging for as of late, as I loved the more dramatic stories of the Adventure era, which they sadly started to move away from starting with Colors. I’m very pleased that it’s back.
All in all, Frontiers’ story was amazing, and it’s definitely got me craving more.
Gameplay
Frontiers contrasts the last game, Forces, by having only one player character, and that’s the eponymous hedgehog. While they’re still primarily using the boost gameplay codified by Unleashed — that is, Sonic moves decently fast by himself, but holding a button lets him spend energy to go even faster, at the expense of handling — they’ve given it a major shakeup.
Instead of just linear stages, Sonic now has multiple hub levels, coined “Open Zones,” to run around in, being a lighter take on open world areas. The classic levels of before can be accessed by portal points in the environment, allowing Sonic to traverse levels using environments and layouts akin to previous stages in the series. Sonic can complete these stages to steadily make progress towards unlocking the Chaos Emeralds that are locked up within the areas, so that he’s able to gather enough strength to get the last Emerald the Titan there has and transform into Super Sonic.
Along the way, there are numerous side objectives, like collecting Memory Tokens for his friends, rescuing little stone critters called Koco, and collecting other bits and bobs to upgrade his four stats (Ring count, top speed, defense, and attack power).
Various enemies lurk in the Open Zones, which Sonic’s new combat abilities allow him to take on. He’s no longer limited to just the trademark Homing Attack and boosting into enemies, now he can also punch, kick, form a Cyloop around them to send them airborne or disable defenses, and use other assorted techniques to fight.
Sonic can also encounter numerous minibosses in the Open Zones, engaging in frenetic battles against robots that are more than a match for him. It’s well worth fighting these things, as they drop keys to access portals alongside other materials.
This game’s boss battles offer a twist — instead of relegating Super Sonic to the final boss, the goal is to gather every Chaos Emerald to transform and stand a chance against the Titans. Said Titans are all unique and won’t hesitate to try to smash and blast Super Sonic to dust, all while withstanding substantial punishment. These battles are suitably intense and amazing, because now you’re facing bosses that not only can handle a beating from the equivalent of a god, but they’ll do absolutely everything they can to beat you back. And while you don’t take damage as expected for Super Sonic, you still have a hard time limit of rings running out, so every Titan fight is a timed encounter. Nonetheless, it’s very impressive.
The gameplay has been given a major facelift for the better if you ask me. It takes the modern boost gameplay and spices it up with much more room to run around, along with letting Sonic branch out with his combat abilities and make every fight feel satisfying. However, the fact that they reuse aesthetics and layouts from the previous games feels admittedly disappointing, because by this point, we’ve already been exposed to the modern versions of Green Hill, Chemical Plant, and Sky Sanctuary for over a decade, alongside some city streets area I assume to be based on Speed Highway. The fact that they’re still bringing back these level designs and layouts annoys me greatly, because it comes across as them deciding not to innovate.
Overall, while I criticize the reuse of content for the main game, the improvements to the tried-and-true formula of modern Sonic makes up for it.
GRAPHICS
Frontiers looks stellar for the most part. The huge, lush environments of the Starfall Islands are wonderful to explore, especially at sunset, and it’s incredibly fun to just rush around, admiring the scenery. I especially love all the ruins scattered around that Sonic can climb on. They all look very interesting with the moss and greenery covering them.
Despite having much larger areas with better graphics than previous generations, I never experienced any form of performance issues, even on high settings (I played on PC with a rig built in 2021). The game held up remarkably well no matter how fast or how intense encounters got, running at an unbroken 60 FPS the whole time, outside of cutscenes and certain quick-time events being locked at 30. Pretty good!
The design aesthetic for the main enemies, specifically the Titans, is amazing. As giant, red-black seemingly mechanical monstrosities with very lanky builds, who can nonetheless take a huge amount of damage before finally going down, they’re really impressive. I think my favorite of the bunch is Knight, the third Titan, because of its giant segmented sword, a huge shield with buzzsaw blades, and a very thin build, with a monstrous mask for a face, an apparatus on its head evoking barbarian hair, and its four legs with wheels on them that let it rush around its arena with good speed despite its huge size.
While I criticize the reuse of previous stages and such, I will admit, it’s still nice to see them in HD. They especially look good during different times of day, like sunset or nighttime. The digital background of Cyberspace is very pretty to look at, too.
There are areas where it falls flat, though. Though not to the same degree as Pokémon Scarlet & Violet, sometimes the game’s texture work can look flat and lacking in detail. It’s mostly regarding Sonic, who still seems to be using his model from Forces, albeit slightly higher quality. The game also renders rain badly, again most prominently on Sonic, where it looks like he’s got a bunch of white pixels dancing on his body, instead of rain landing on him.
Another issue Frontiers has is the rather absurd amount of pop-in, even on PC. Oftentimes, elements in the Open Zones, like springs, walls, and rails, won’t be seen unless you’re very close, where they suddenly poof into existence. For the most part it’s not too bad, as they’re relatively quick to appear and even if it takes longer, the coding for them still exists, so Sonic can still interact with them while they’re loading in. It does feel really weird to have this kind of pop-in on a 2022 title.
It looks good for the most part, and despite the flaws, they don’t get in the way too much.
PROS
Let’s get it out of the way — Sonic Frontiers has one of the best Sonic stories in the franchise’s history. It’s a major breath of fresh air after the travesty that was Forces, which tried to take the series in a darker direction but bungled it very badly. Here, with the script helmed by Ian Flynn, one of the writers for the comics, it results in a tale that feels refreshingly mature without landing in the traps that resulted in infamy for Forces. It rerails the otherwise exaggerated and one-note depictions of characters including Sonic, Amy, Knuckles, and Tails, and provides opportunities for growth for everyone.
The story also feels like a love letter to all the events in the franchise thus far, including callbacks to Adventure, Heroes, Unleashed, and Forces, yet it never feels like a forced reference or a one-off shout-out. No, these are actually incorporated into the story, with characters referencing these events and using it for chances at character development. Now that’s top-notch!
This game’s boss fights are some of the most impressive ever. Controlling Super Sonic against giant robots has never felt this intense before. Usually in cases where Super Sonic is brought in, those situations either have him being absurdly overpowered against the target, or otherwise needing to wait for an opportunity to strike and end the battle swiftly. Not here! The Titans take a serious beating and can dish them out in kind, necessitating a constant all-out assault and dodging all their attacks to ensure you take them down before your Rings run out.
And how could I forget the music? This game has some of the best music in the franchise’s history. The atmospheric, moody melodies in the Open Zones really nail the vibe of an ancient, forgotten land being explored by Sonic, and the intense electronic and orchestral pieces in the portal levels and against minibosses in the field are impressive. The standouts, though, are the ones for the Titans, specifically the very first theme against Giganto. Titled “Undefeatable”, it immediately lives up to the hype, being an utterly insane heavy metal track that compliments the “David vs. Goliath” context of Super Sonic against a Titan. It’s almost as if the developers took a page from Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance!
Overall, this game has a lot to love.
CONS
While I will praise this game to no end, it still has some noticeable issues. The pop-in, as mentioned, can really snap you out of immersion, as level elements suddenly appearing out of nowhere can catch you by surprise if your reflexes aren’t up to snuff. For a 2022 title, there’s really no excuse.
The return of stages based on Green Hill and the like is also a sore point. Over the years, I and many other Sonic fans have expressed disappointment that Sega seems hesitant to make actual new content, and instead just recycles what they have, sometimes without even an excuse (like Generations being an explicit celebration of the franchise’s history). It happened in Forces, with the handwave of Eggman’s takeover distorting the landscape, but it was contained to only two or three level types. Here, every single level shares a design from four previous stages, and reuses layouts from all over the franchise. It can get annoying to realize you’re playing the same exact level again, but in a different game, with different music and background.
The ending areas of the game were also somewhat disappointing. After getting three unique environments for three of the Open Zones, the fourth… is just a short sequence of climbing large towers on a grassy, mountainous region like the first area. And then you get to another grassy, mountainous region full of ruins for the final one. On top of this, the final Titan, Supreme, looks a lot like Giganto, but colored white, with a different head, a jetpack, and a huge cannon and laser drones. While the music for it (“I’m Here”, also the main theme), is impressive, it’s instrumental for almost three fourths of the fight, with the lyrics only kicking in around the end. This ends up hampering the intended atmosphere of the final fight.
The final boss was also kind of unimpressive. While a giant moon speaking ominously about having destroyed countless cultures and planets for eons, just because, is horrifying, the actual fight leaves something to be desired. It ends up being just a bullet hell-focused boss with little strategy beyond “dodge projectiles and alter your shield based on light or dark projectiles”. It’s visually impressive, nonetheless.
FINAL VERDICT
Sonic Frontiers is without a doubt the shot in the arm the franchise has been desperately needing for years. It satisfies on nearly every front, especially the story and gameplay department. And by the end of it, I even caught myself whispering “Welcome back, Sonic” to myself as the credits rolled.
I could genuinely cry at how good it is. I have been wanting a game just like this for years, and when I saw it being revealed, I was cautiously optimistic, because while it looked like a step up from previous entries, there was still a chance of it falling flat on its face. I’m happy to say that it stuck the landing and then some!
For that, I give it an 8/10. A well-deserved rating if you ask me.
The Blue Blur has returned to glory. And what a return it is!