Sonic Frontiers (PS5) Review

Reach out to new frontiers.

 

 After how disappointing 2017's Sonic Forces was, I was kind of anxious of where Sega and Sonic Team will take the popular blue blur next. When Sega announced that Sonic will be going on his first open-world (or open-zone as they call it) adventure for the first time, I was excited but skeptical whether or not it'll pay off. Sonic and friends are out on another adventure, this time investigating an ancient island. Does Sonic Frontiers manages to live up to expectations and prove to be a great time? Lets find out.

 Our story begins when Sonic and company come across a new region called "Starfall Islands", where they aim to explore its ancient ruins. However, they're immediately attacked by an unknown force protecting the islands which results in Sonic's friends Tails and Amy being trapped in another dimension called "Cyber Space". Alone in a mysterious new land, Sonic must save his friends while uncovering the secret to Starfall's past. The story was engaging as it carried a serious tone with the backstory behind the island being genuinely interesting as well. Sonic is his usual upbeat and carefree self though characters like Tails and Amy receive more screen-time and development in side-stories scattered in each island, which were great to see. I also liked new character Sage, an AI whom actively fights against Sonic's journey. Her story was good and she grows to be a pretty cool character.

Sonic's adventure just got bigger.

 Sonic Frontiers is a 3D platformer where you control Sonic as he runs through levels, battle enemies, collect rings, and hops around platforms. Sonic retains his signature attacks from past games like the homing attack and speed boost while gaining the "Cyloop" ability that let's you damage enemies by circling around them. Sonic can also parry attacks and string combos that can deliver a fast beat down too. What's new in Frontiers are the open-world (or "Open-Zone" as Sega calls it) levels that you can explore. Essentially, each island you visit is a giant field to explore with puzzles to solve, character stories to watch, challenges to beat, Chaos emeralds to collect, fishing spots to relax in, and Cyber Space levels to play.

 Enemies come in all shapes and sizes that'll make use of Sonic's abilities like the homing and cyloop attacks. Upon defeating them, they'll drop skill points which you can use to unlock new, more damaging attacks for Sonic. Also, scattered across the islands are tiny Korok creatures that upon collecting them will increase Sonic's stats like attack, defence, speed, and ring capacity, all of which are important in fighting the more tougher enemies. On that note, boss fights were fun and challenging as you'll fight some large scale bosses as super sonic while heavy rock music gets played in the background, all of which were cool. The final boss even turned into a crazy and chaotic shoot em up similar to Ikaruga.

The gameplay is fast-paced, simple, and occasionally clunky.

 The Cyber Space levels are side-missions that remixes levels from past games (mainly Sonic 2's Chemical Plant zone) and come in 2D and 3D. The 3D levels were blistering fast as you'll dash on rails and hit enemies with homing attacks while the 2D ones were slower and I didn't like them that much. Completing Cyber Space stages will give you keys to unlock a chaos emerald that you'll need to turn into super sonic and beat the islands boss. Level 3-1 was an absolute blast with you focusing on speed and platforming as a neat track is playing in the background. Upon beating a stage and its side-objectives, you'll earn keys which will unlock chaos emerald containers that Sonic will need to progress the story.

 All in all, it took around 22 hours for me to fully complete the game doing all optional activities and 100%-ing each island. Replay- value is good as there are music tracks to collect and aforementioned side-activities to do in every island. I had slight issues with the controls as Sonic's movements often felt stiff and clunky when platforming. The camera too is clunky with it often blocking your view when fighting larger enemies and doing fast bits of platforming.

 Sonic Frontiers looks good with it having lots of colorful backgrounds and neat character models, especially the Titans' cool designs. While the visuals aren't anything mind-blowing, I found the island designs eye-catching and mysterious, almost begging you to explore them. It ran well at 60fps in Performance Mode but it suffers from embarrassingly bad pop-in textures constantly with rails, rings, jump pads, and enemies often popping out of nowhere.

 The voicework was good and features the standard series cast who all deliver solid performances. As expected from a Sonic game, the soundtrack is awesome featuring lots of new rock and electronic tracks that blended well with the game's atmosphere and boss fights. You can even listen to tracks from old games like Open Your Heart, Sonic Heroes, and Live and Learn by finding them in each island. Standouts were "I'm Here", "Find Your Flame", "Flowing", and the ending themes.

The game's sense of scale is impressive.

 I came in with neutral expectations for Sonic Frontiers but after sinking myself into the adventure, I grew to thoroughly love it. The story was more serious and engaging, the gameplay was simple yet fun, and the presentation was solid as well. It was an all-out fun time for me and a way better experience than Sonic Forces was. In short, Sonic Frontiers is must-play for fans and stands among the better 3D games in the series.