Sonic Frontiers (2022) [PS5] first impressions

The Sonic franchise has seen some pretty stagnant progress in terms of improvement in the last decade. Wii games like Sonic Unleashed and Sonic Colors introduced their own gimmicks into the series. Sonic Generations was the last game to receive high acclaim from fans back in 2011. Going into Sonic Frontiers, I was at first really interested because Sonic the Hedgehog has never seen an open world. I had a lot of questions about how Sonic would feel physically as he’d run around the map. I had high hopes for the story mainly due to Ian Flynn being involved. My biggest hope was for Sonic Frontiers to bring the series a step forward.

Brought Into A Mysterious World

As I completed the tutorials and the game opened up its explorative options to me, I took notice of how open the world is. Exploring the first island in the game, Kronos, was great because Sonic has never felt more versatile to me in terms of movement. Exploration is the main mechanism of progression in the game as Sonic needs a number of collectibles (hearts in this case) in order to unlock new dialogue from Sonic’s friends. There are many explorative paths that lead to obtaining collectibles in the world. There is a noticeably large number of these paths, and going through them in order to progress can get repetitive. Completing the map consists of completing puzzles that in turn make parts of the island map visible. They also unlock faster travel via rails.

Sonic’s movement feels like a big improvement in Sonic Frontiers. Traveling at high speeds and maneuvering through obstacles is very satisfying in this game. Combat is versatile as Sonic has a skill tree that unlocks new abilities; needless to say, he has a few melee options. Sonic encounters some giant enemies that he is able to scale, some flying enemies, and more. I think that the encounters add a neat touch to the game even if there could be more variety.

My main issue with exploring the world is pop-in issues (sometimes specific parts of the map don’t load until Sonic is really close). During the little time I’ve spent on the second island (Ares), it seemed very noticeable. It’s not detrimental to the gameplay but there’s a need for Sonic Team to release an optimization patch.

Memories

The stages in Sonic Frontiers bring the Sonic fan to familiar locations and levels. They’re pretty standard stages where the goal is to get to the finish line, as fast as possible. Each stage has unique music, some are 2D and others are 3D, but all have similar goals that need to be completed. Completing stages fast enough to get an S rank varies on difficulty because some are more generous with time than others. Overall the stages are satisfying enough to complete and they’re really nostalgic for old fans. They mainly play a role in progressing the main story.

So far, the story hasn’t really hit off for me. As I’ve only completed the first island, the narrative direction has been mysterious so far. The voice acting can seem monotone at times, nothing impressive. I do like that the story keeps the player guessing and predicting things but that can be tricky if someone isn’t familiar with Sonic lore.

My experience with the first boss fight was a bit wild. Sonic is pressed for time to rush down the boss’s health bar. For some reason, normal attacks did barely anything when I was fighting the boss but spamming special moves seemed to make the battle a cakewalk.

Final Thoughts

Sonic Frontiers has been a bizarre Sonic the Hedgehog experience thus far. As of right now, I feel that at least Sonic Frontiers is changing the way Sonic games can be in the future (at least official ones). I’m most impressed with how good Sonic feels but I feel like the experience could get middling due to repetition in the open world. I’m really excited to see where this game is headed because I hope that this game will be seen as a positive step for the franchise. So far I am optimistic for the game. To tell the truth, despite my criticism of its quality, this game makes me feel like a kid again and I’m all for it!

I’m Zerinus, a hobbyist video game lover, music lover, writer, and a professional in IT. You can find me at @DivineZerinus on Twitter.