If it helps, here in the States at least the game had already dropped to $39 on some online retailers throughout the day. Just keep an eye on the usual deal resources (Wario64 on Twitter, Slickdeals, what have you) and you can jump in even cheaper.
Maybe this is late, but I've got a message to Laura: I picked up this game at launch and also was very disappointed with the controls, what helped was tweak the controls by maxxing out every stat minus turning during boost, which I put to like 15%. Also, camera distance at about 15% less than the default. This made Sonic have the right speed when walking (since I read somewhere that you didn't like how slow he was when walking). It also makes it harder to turn when boosting, which helped my play style since I want Sonic to run on a straight line with only minor corrections with the left stick (default options made me lose control of Sonic when trying to make corrections to the direction of the boost), and if I need to turn during boost I'll flick the right stick with the base of my thumb instead (which feels much, much better). Also, the drop dash is incredibly strong for short distances like climbing up a mountain or hill.
Reached the final island, thought I'd be done with the game today but doing the 2nd half of Chaos Island and the 4th island in only two play sessions was exhausting, I need a long break. Story is getting very interesting now, took way too long to do so but at least it exists now. Chaos Island Titan fight was so bad, especially compared to how fantastic everything about Wyvern was. Hopefully that's not setting a precedent for the final island's boss. Overall my thoughts on Frontiers are still somewhat positive but Chaos Island really left a bad impression on me.
Some spoilery thoughts after just starting Island 5: Spoiler: Spoilers + Major Plot Spoilers Okay so I see what people were saying about Chaos Island now. It was still fun and I'll still replay it, but it's probably the weakest link so far. The 2D wasn't too bad but it is a lot less fun than the 3D platforming. The transitions all worked pretty smoothly though, I only remember falling out of a 2D spline a few times, it was the same one on Chaos Island that just dropped me out of a loop a couple of times. I didn't really find it that frustrating to navigate, it was confusing for a while but I enjoyed the time I spent exploring as I looked for a way to get across to the first emerald. The pinball was thing annoying but only took me like 10 minutes. The physics weren't too bad imo but it feels helpless when you send the ball through the top loop and it hits the bumpers coming down in such a way that it just flies off the table... which wouldn't be a big deal if you didn't *need* to keep your multiplier if you want to get it over with quickly. Also the Titan fight was a bit underwhelming compared to the first 2, a lot of cutscenes in this one and they seem to happen kind of abruptly right when I think I'm about to combo it to hell and back. Music kicked ass as always. Worth saying again though that I'm glad Super Sonic is being given the treatment he deserves. Whacking a giant sword away with one swift kick and parrying a titanic saw blade is exactly the kind of thing Super should be doing, not just flying through space and air dashing perpetually. As for the story, I'm really liking the origins of the Chaos Emeralds thing, and it's neat that the emeralds were aware of the presence of the Master Emerald. I like Sage as well and I'm curious to see where her character goes in the rest of the story. The writing itself has mostly been really refreshing but... some parts have been just a little bit weird for me. For example, Sonic talking about the pinball table and saying the Ancients must have loved pinball, when I kinda just thought it was a "this is a video game and it doesn't need to be explained thing", but Sonic just kinda breaks the fourth wall and says "yeah no that was actually a life-sized pinball table, let's talk about that". Eggman and Sonic's banter is also a little bit more cartoony than I prefer, I I get what people are saying with the references too, it's a bit too on-the-nose for me sometimes and I also just think it's weird for Sonic to bring up going to prison and fighting The Deadly Six when I didn't really think those things were integral to the canon. Plus it just sounds kind of... forced? Idk. I liked seeing Tails have some character building moments, it's kind of retreading the same old story but I guess it's necessary for them to reestablish the characters for the new fans since they haven't had personalities in a while. Also the timing of these emotional moments feels kind of off, if that makes sense? It could just be because I spent an hour or 2 collecting memory tokens and playing Cyberspace stages and then I talked to Tails like 20 times in a row, so none of the scenes were spaced out and everything happened all at once lol. I think they expect you to play a little and then talk to Tails, play a little and then talk to him again, etc. Still really enjoying the game but some of these decisions like the pinball and everything are just so strange.
Its over guys... Sonic Frontiers review. Preface I have completed this game and it was…an experience. Was it a good or bad experience? I’ll let you decide that. I come out of this game with very mixed feelings and kind of unsure about the future of this series. Your enjoyment of Sonic Frontiers will come down entirely to your own personal preference and tolerance for certain design decisions. Me personally, its just a very mixed bag overall that I’m not really sure is the sum of its parts. I’ll just break this down bit by bit so I can express my feelings when playing this game and how I felt by the end. And yes, there will be spoilers. Story Figured I’d start with this since it’s the part most fans were concerned about. The plot ranges from merely serviceable to actually kind of good in some areas, and then just kind of peters out by the end sadly. Which I guess is the Ian Flynn standard. I’ll start by saying that nothing really happens for most of the game as its spent just talking to the cast and slowly finding out the mystery, but then when you get to Rhea, it just decides to dump the entire backstory through flashbacks which felt very weird and abrupt, especially since none of the characters seem to react to it at all. By the time of the final boss, they try to make it seem like some huge triumph and then the game just…ends. Didn’t get much catharsis from it. The plot has a lot of good ideas but doesn’t really execute them all that well. Normally I would just blow this off, but most of the marketing was centered on this huge mystery, but what we got doesn’t even feel anywhere near worth the buildup it got. Some of this is definitely due to how the game is set up; like how Sonic only finds out about the Kocos true nature later on in an optional cutscene, despite that being something that the audience could probably figure out with the context. Or how the Kocos are seemingly related to Chaos, but nobody except Eggman reacts or comments on that (and only in optional content), and the story doesn’t go into their relationship at all. Feels very disjointed. Its better than the last two games, but that’s really not saying much. The real highlight here however, and the part the fandom will be talking about mostly, are the characters of course. I’ll start by saying that I do not care about fandom’s seething hatred for Ken Pontac or Warren Graff; they were two people hired to do a job and that’s what they did. Did I like their writing? At times and other times, it’s bad. But hey, the same thing applies to the games from 1998-2009; Sonic’s never had the best writing, even at it’s “best” and I’m not going to buy into the idea that those two just ruined everything. This game marks the debut of Ian Flynn to the video games after getting his career started in the Comics back in 2006. I was already pretty familiar with his work long before now as I started reading the comics sometime in high school. Anyone who has read any of his comics should understand his style and I do feel it mostly made a smooth transition. I don’t know to what extent he was involved, so I’ll just focus on his dialogue as that’s the most obvious thing. Right off the bat, I noticed Ian’s trademark wit for Sonic shine through; he’s not just snarky, but snarky in a more grounded way. Seriously, some of Sonic’s lines got an audible chuckle out of me like when he posits on game mechanics when Sage asks what his “end goal “was; that’s something Flynn has excelled at, meta humor that pokes fun at the logistics of the series. Ian also loves to highlight Sonic’s heroic qualities too, something some fans have felt has been lacking lately. I can understand that, Sonic really gets to show off his kind and understanding side here. Its difficult balancing act sometimes Sonic is either too snarky to the point of obnoxiousness or too heroic to the point of being boring. Amy unfortunately, I felt got the shortened of the stick here sadly. She’s just really…boring here. Most of her scenes with Sonic are pretty generic and she at no point tries to make a pass at him, not even once. This has kind of been a recurrent thing where, due to the fan backlash, they’re trying to downplay Amy’s more over the top traits and make her more grounded, which I understand but I don’t agree with. They took away Amy’s core traits, but didn’t really replace them with anything. Sonic has a pretty defined dynamic with Knuckles, Tails, Eggman and even Sage but I could not tell you what Sonic & Amy are supposed to be if you went by this game. They’re friends and…well that’s it. So now she’s…about spreading love or something? I don’t know. Fortunately, things get better. After Convergence, I was kind of expecting Knuckles to play a bigger role given the whole connection between the Ancients and Echidna civilization and sadly, I did not get that. Knuckles just…well exists here. But that’s nothing new as that character has been in limbo for years, and that is addressed at the very least. Character-wise however, Knuckles is perfect. His back and forth with Sonic had me grinning, because it’s felt like forever since those two have had any real dialogue. They actually feel like friends who enjoy giving each other shit, it’s great. And they had a genuine heart-to-heart near the end too. And the game actually managed to salvage his role in Forces by making him an acting commander of a group of Koco; was never fond of that decision but I’m glad Ian managed to make it work for this game. He says he’s going to leave his island for a bit to see the world, something Ian has said was a direction he wanted the character to go in for a while so we’ll see where that goes or if its just lip service. I’m not sure how you can follow that up without that taking place off-screen if he isn’t playable, but it’s nice nonetheless. Tails is far more tolerable here than he’s been in previous games. The game highlights his insecurities while paying note to his strengths. A bit too much technobabble for my tastes, but when he starts revealing to Sonic about how frustrated he is with his stagnation as a character, I felt it. A nice way to acknowledging how suffocating the status quo of this series can be for certain characters who can’t breakout. It doesn’t exactly justify how inconsistent his character has been, but I appreciate the attempt at least. Time will tell if he actually can break away from Sonic for a bit; sidekicks usually never stray too far from their charges sadly and I highly doubt Sega are going to bench one of their most iconic characters. It's really unfortunate that Eggman doesn’t get much to do here; he spends essentially the entire game trapped in Cyberspace and only interacts with Sage. Even when he gets out, his only action is to give Sonic the last Chaos Emerald and its up him and Sage to stop The End. That said, he probably is the most fleshed out character in the game by virtue of said interactions with Sage, which is impressive really. I’m not too sure how I feel about his characterization here; on one hand, he feels more human here with his megalomaniac tendencies toned down severely and implying that he’s just a lonely man at the end of the day who wants to be loved. On the other hand, this is the same man who has caused countless apocalypses (including the one in this game) because of his own selfishness and negligence and I’m not sure if this game makes up for that. And he has only like one or two scenes with Sonic, which is just criminal. And finally, Sage, the focal character of the game making her grand debut. I’ll just say from the jump, her entire character arc ripped is straight from Neon Genesis Evangelion. Her voice actors being Rei from both Japan and English don’t even try to hide that fact. With Eggman essentially serving as Gendo Ikari. For those not in the know, Rei’s arc is about her learning emotions while wanting the approval of her creator and father figure and putting her faith in the protagonist. Eva is way more of a psychological series than Sonic though, so Sage is the kid-friendly version. Sage herself is fine, and she’s probably the best fucking character introduced since Colors, because she’s actually a character. Every new character we’ve had since then have just been paper-thin and only serve their video game purposes of being bosses or exposition and nothing more. Sage’s arc is pretty bog standard, but it’s still an arc. Kind of wish there was a bit more friction between her and Eggman though if they really wanted to sell that parent-child dynamic; even when I went out of my way to interact with her through the game, it felt very understated and when hey play sad montage over earlier scenes with her and Eggman, it can fall flat if you don’t buy it. And her sacrifice is so abrupt and leaves no impact; Sonic doesn’t even acknowledge it, which is dumb after their interactions through the game and then Eggman just brings her back anyway. I don’t ever want to see people cry about Shadow again after this because you can say what you want about him being brought back, but he only came back through fan demand and they tried to do something with his revival. Sage dies and is revived in the span of 10 minutes. That said, it’ll be interesting to see what they do with her going forward; is she going to be a reluctant enemy to Sonic and Co? Essentially Eggman’s Bowser Jr? The possibilities are endless. Overall, the characterizations are on point; my biggest complaint is that with the exception of Eggman and Sage, nobody really feels like they’ve progressed. Everyone was just kind of put back to where they were back in the Adventure days which is fine and probably what everyone wanted, but I wanted a sense of progression, not a reiteration of what we knew. Oh yea, I didn’t mention Sonic’s corruption arc huh? Yea that shit sucked, it didn’t even matter in the end and its resolved in a single scene. Whack. I’m not even going to talk about The End, they’re barely a character and gave me one of the worst final bosses I’ve ever had to play. Gameplay Here’s the real meat and potatoes. I’ll start off by saying that I did have fun playing the game, even when I was getting burnt out by the end. The game is MOSTLY consistent with itself from start to finish; Run, beat mini-bosses, get Portal Keys, Unlock Cyberspace, get Keys, get Chaos Emeralds, kill Titan. They do throw the occasional mini-game at you, because it’s a Sonic game, they have to force us to do something else at some point. But they’re pretty simple and easy. I guess I’ll divide this up between the Open-World and Cyberspace. Open-World. I’ll start by saying that Sonic controls…ok? It also depends on which mode you choose and what you set your controls to, but I’m going to assume most people played “High-Speed Mode” on default. Sonic feels very stiff to move around, which I suppose is the culmination of that direction since Colors, his movement has felt more and more restrictive. On one hand, its platforming way easier as Sonic stops when I need him too. On the other hand, Sonic does not follow the laws of physics very well. It has the Sonic 4 “stick to walls” problem as Sonic can just go over and stand on uneven surfaces and it looks and feels very unnatural. Jump kills all of your momentum, if you’re going at top speed. So, if you accidently launched yourself while boosting off a cliff, you better pray you didn’t go too far to make it back. And its so weird, there IS momentum in the game…but only selectively. Rolling downhill carries momentum, but not running. Bouncing from a high spot doesn’t carry that inertia either. Its so jarring. The design for the Open worlds themselves is good, but I really wish it integrated the level design more into the environment itself. Everything just feels so disjointed, the open world stuff is pretty standard, but the stuff that actually resembles a Sonic game is just awkwardly plastered in there. Can’t tell you how many times I accidently ran into a speed booster and got flung into a platforming sequence. And this a much bigger problem on Chaos Island and the abundance of 2D and all of Sonic’s control issues become way more apparent. That being said, the act of running itself feels good, and despite how big the world is, it never feels too large since Sonic is just that fucking fast. Makes fast travel almost redundant. Combat is fine too, a little too much cutscene attacks for my liking, but it does make enemy encounter engaging. Particularly the Bosses, the expanded move-set allows for the best boss battles in the series bar none. Them shits are fucking hype. The mini-boss are all unique encounters in their own way and figuring out their weaknesses is fun. The Titans are a bit more clunky, but those are pure style over substance and sometimes, that’s ok. It also helps those Sonic controls exactly the same like he usually does as Super Sonic. It’s not most engaging combat and yes, its wholly inferior to other action games, but I at least appreciate attempts to make enemy encounters a bit more engaging. Cyberspace Oh boy…ok, I’ll just get this off my chest; these are some of the worst Sonic controls ever. I have no idea why they decided to use a control scheme that clearly was not meant for these types of levels. Physics are all out of whack here; remember when I said the Drop Dash had momentum? No here, in 2D it only problems you a few feet before coming to a dead stop, effectively rendering it useless as a speedrun tool. The bad controls really stick out because the levels are ripped straight from older games where the controls were actually designed for them. That being said, I liked time attacking them I got over the jankiness of it all and finding ways to just bypass the level design feels good. Particularly using the Homing Attack Boost cancel to just fling you forward. And the idea of getting rewarded more for beating a certain time limit and completing certain objectives is a great idea for replay value. There’s an actual incentive to do good in these stages and Sonic games need to embrace that more….with controls that don’t suck and levels that are actually original. Sound I was really skeptical here after Forces and that Ohtani would be going for a more atmospheric sound, but it actually works. Was shocked by how much I loved the OST. Not even just the big vocal tracks, but even stuff like the Guardian themes are bops. The Spider-One is my favorite. Certain mini-games sound a little too upbeat for this game’s tone though Voice acting is…well its hit or miss, but I do feel when its good, its good. Roger’s deep voice felt jarring at first, but I got over it pretty fast as his delivery is still good. And hey, he gets to actually emote for once after almost a decade of jokes. Everyone else also sounds weirdly solemn and deep here…its kind of eeeh. It works Mike, but not so much Cindy and Colleen. And man, when Dave B Mitchell tries to sound serious, it just doesn’t work. He sounds fine when he’s just…talking normally. Sage is good, but English definitely has trouble capturing the whole Emotionless Girl angle, but that’s not new. Presentation Oooh man. You know, I will respect them for their ambitions here, but ooof this game be struggling with its graphics. Clipping, pop-in, and all sorts of shit in the Cyberspace levels. I actually got softlocked when I died in one of the Koco mini-games and had to quickly reload before it autosaved. This game is rough. And it makes me kind of annoyed how this game struggles with things that other companies have been able to do so easily. I get that this was a 60-man development game, but come on. You mean to tell me an iconic flagship franchise from the 90’s can’t have a proper budget? What is this, Pokemon. And if you don’t have a current gen console or a decent PC, you don’t get the option of 60FPS, and this game looks way worse when its not at a stable framerate. And even then, cutscenes are still rendered in 30FPS which makes it look jarring whenever you’re in a cutscene and shift to gameplay. When other current franchises can perform much better, there’s really no excuse here. Aesthetically, I really wish this game didn’t look so generic; they look fine, but the biomes are so indistinct as Sonic locales. If nobody told you, you would never think this was a Sonic game to begin with. Conclusion Its hard to put my thoughts on this game into words; I don’t want to call it trash because I do feel like it has some merit and I did enjoy it at some points. But I can’t really call it good either because it just has too many problems, most of which have been constants in the series for years now. I’m frustrated than anything because I gave them the benefit of the doubt and I don’t entirely feel like I got my money’s worth, even if I don’t regret the purchase. The Final Boss being entirely different genre altogether and being extremely difficult on top of it just took me out. While I won’t say this game is bad, it doesn’t exactly make me enthused to play the next game; usually I get a sense of accomplishment or fulfillment when I finish a game, but when I finished Frontiers, I felt like I just finished a chore. It doesn’t help that all of the problems I listed above gradually get worse as the game goes on. The community is just going crazy about this game at the moment, so I’m not going to rain on people’s parade. But I strongly feel like this game is going to age poorly in a few months-years when the hype dies down and more of its problems become more apparent. I didn’t hate Frontiers, but it wouldn’t be my first recommendation for somebody to get into the series.
Thanks, but it's PC for me, and I'm not seeing major deals there. Mods are a must. I've already put nearly 2 hours into the game now, and I'm honestly very impressed with the gameplay. Bluntly put, it's way, way better than I expected. Story is pretty weak, but I 'really' like exploring the overworld and don't even mind the challenges of the cyber stages or the combat.
Sooooo judging by what I'm seeing from skimming the comments... I should wait to buy this on sale? I did decide to put in a hold request for the Switch version at my local library. No idea when that'll get fulfilled but it seems it'll be a while.
I'll say maybe wait for a sale/price drop if you're on the fence about this game. I personally enjoy it. Though, if I have to be critical, I also think it's a 7 out of 10 experience, lol. Your miles will totally vary depending on what you like about Sonic. As an early 2000s fan, this game includes stuff that I like from that era and it totally works for me; a bunch of moments gave me back my inner child. I'm also the type of person that prefers when Sonic gets weird and strangely ambitious, which isn't for anyone. It's hard to recommend because I do believe the game really does expect you to trust it. I find Frontiers to similar to the Adventure games where you'll either vibe with it immediately or just think "I don't really get what people see in this".
Honestly YMMV. I was very skeptical of this game and had a blast. I wouldn't go by reviews on this one. You're gonna have to give it a go yourself.
Update, Metacritic User Scores are getting reviewed bombed by Dunkey fans who are probably underage and most definetely did not play the game. Spoiler
I wouldn't worry. From when I last saw, 190 negative reviews to the 1.3k positive ones probably won't make that much of a difference. Still a userscore of 8.5 at least now and positive reviews from Steam.. The Dunkey fans who are doing so are a minority and even if they do knock it lower, meh.
I avoided his vid when I saw it because I personally really like Dunkey and his videos and didn’t want to get annoyed. It’s not so much how he will highlight flaws for comedy, that can be genuinely funny, but the legions of dipshits who take it as an accurate portrayal and use that as the basis for their opinions. He always has been a big classic Sonic fan almost exclusively so I had a feeling it would just be trashing the game. I don’t really care about honest criticism of things I enjoy, but seeing people who haven’t played the game just regurgitate the views of someone making a comedy video designed to paint it in a worse light can be frustrating.
Regarding Super Sonic, I really wish this game let you rebattle bosses (and on a similar note, rewatch cutscenes too). Spoiler The end of the fight with Knight where he cut the damn thing in half with a sword was cheesy as fuck, but I loved it. It was legitimately cool. Ever since 3K, Super Sonic has been nothing but a glorified headbutting machine at best. All of the battles in Frontiers have him doing so much more than that, which was really great to see. That's actually probably one of the best things about Sonic's abilities in this game. I can't tell you how bored I was of seeing Sonic defeat 99% of his enemies by just running into them. Frontiers has some weirdness with moves like the cross slash and a distinct lack of many spinning attacks, but I'll take any of this variation over just running head first into enemies over and over.
Yup. I’m replaying the game now just to experience them again actually. I’d like to see a gauntlet, harder mode, or something as well because as it is, it’s too easy when you’re leveled up. Loses some of the epicness. Speaking of all the Shadow of the Colossus parallels (maybe that’s on the spoiler thread though), didn’t that game have a feature where you could rechallenge a “memory” or something by approaching the boss arena? I expected something similar here.
I finished the game on PS4. Here is some random disorganized thoughts: Frontiers succeeded in giving me some mostly enjoyable hours lost, but failed at wowing me like Unleashed did way back in 2008. This really wasn't what the series needed in it's current position imo, and I don't think the current iteration of the "open zone" concept has a lot longevity in a series known for it's action stages. Perhaps something interesting can be done with it on a future attempt, but the worst parts of the game to me were the parts where I had to do something mundane like tetris. I'm not sure what else they'd do with more open zone that I'd actually like unless they finally gave us proper physics to control Sonic with like in the Adventure titles. Still not a fan of the writing/characterizations or voice acting... But they're better than the last few games I suppose. Cyberspace would have been better to me if it was simply some abstract digital world that had some different color variations and a few random sights like the death egg floating around instead of just being ripped Gens areas + city (which the city ones are actually pretty cool). Cyberspace in 2D actually feels ultra terrible to me. Boss/mini boss fights are hit or miss, not really worth my time evaluating each one. Music goes hard though. Combat is neat but feels a bit gimmicky, preferred Werehog, but don't think a fleshed out combat system really needs to be in Sonic though unless it's a spin off. Visuals (on PS4) we're kinda ugly and we all know about the pop in, but I'm not really bothered by it like other people, even though it is a problem. Controls in general are okay, but I still think this is generally a downgrade to a lot stuff we've had before (Better than LW or Forces though). But I think it's intentional considering if you held your momentum after letting go of boost it would be thought that the platforming bits would become more difficult (although with homing attack and stomp I don't think this is a very good reason tbf). I mostly liked what I played and am glad Sonic has a bit more of a serious tone, but it all feels like I have to include a big asterisk when I say that. I have more to say but I don't really feel like writing an essay today.
I've made a first pass at cataloguing the CyberSpace level references. If there's a mistake, feel free to correct: Spoiler 1-1 Sonic Unleashed Windmill Isle Act 1 1-2 Sonic Unleashed Windmill Isle Act 2 3D Sections 1-3 Sonic Unleashed Windmill Isle Act 2 2D Sections 1-4 Sonic Generations Green Hill Act 2 3D Sections 1-5 Sonic Generations Chemical Plant Act 2 3D Sections 1-6 Sonic Generations Green Hill Act 1 1-7 Sonic Adventure 2 City Escape 2-1 Sonic Generations Green Hill Act 2 2D Sections 2-2 Sonic Unleashed Dragon Road Act 1 Spiral Sections 2-3 Sonic Unleashed Rooftop Run Act 1 Later 2D Section 2-4 Sonic Adventure 2 Radical Highway 2-5 Sonic Generations Sky Sanctuary Act 2 2D Sections 2-6 Sonic Adventure 2 Sky Rail 2-7 Sonic Generations Sky Sanctuary Act 1 3-1 Sonic Adventure 2 Green Forest 3-2 Sonic Colors Sweet Mountain Act 2 3-3 Sonic Generations Sky Sanctuary Act 2 3D Sections 3-4 Sonic Unleashed Windmill Isle Act 3 3-5 Sonic Unleashed Savannah Citadel Act 2 3-6 Sonic Unleashed Rooftop Run Act 2 3-7 Sonic Generations Chemical Plant Act 2 2D Sections 4-1 Sonic Adventure 2 Metal Harbor 4-6 Sonic Generations Chemical Plant Act 1 All remaining levels, as far as I could tell, were original.
Time for my proper review! Took several days to bring me to my final thoughts. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sonic Frontiers is a game that I think features a lot of promising ideas that I think can only get better from here. There's a surprising lot of things to like about it, from it's interesting story to it's charming character interactions, pretty banger music, cool boss fight presentation and a first-in-a-minute decently controlling 3D Sonic. Running around is fun, drop dashing down big hills is great, and the combat is surprisingly more fun than I wanted to ever give it credit for. The collect-a-thon nature fits with what I like to do in 3D platformers, and the moment-to-moment is almost always engaging. The game has won the hearts of fans all over and I think many things about it help paint a very strong picture for what an open world 3D Sonic game could really be in the future. ..Unfortunately, it does a lot of that painting by showing what it shouldn't do, rather than what it should. 4.5/10 It tries, oh my god does it try. And man do I want to like it. I find a lot of charm and long lost spirit in this game, and it keeps pulling me back to trying it some more. And in those fleeting moments I find the appeal everyone else sees. But the game itself has so many annoyances, big and small, that crop up in almost every play session and pile up until it's almost unbearable to go on, and untruthful to not mention. From the game having severe pop-in, to the spam of rails and platforms littering every square inch with the tackiest of copy-paste, to the easy-to-get-lost maps with very few setpieces, to the gameplay loop being too basic and repetitive to want in anything but short bursts, to the physics's inconsistencies with retaining momentum, to the crazy progression brick-walls you must pass (the pillar puzzle, the 5 million point pinball table I'm sorry what?), to the game constantly forcing you to witness the existence of enemies by yanking the camera from your control at any given moment, to the bosses made of paper clips and glue bound QTE strings, to the cyberspace woes everyone's already talked about, the skill tree starting to add moves that overlap with your movement in confusing ways, the desire to put 2D sidescrolling in the open world maps.. the list of grievances goes on and on and on and man, do I wish it didn't. And combined with how lopsided and unfinished a lot of the second half feels (and with more than enough evidence to believe it is), it leaves a game that feels little more than a tech demo. Again, it's fun to move around aimlessly and collect tokens, but it shouldn't be more fun than it is to actually participate in the larger game. But it is. And that's because the larger game either hardly exists, or it's far worn it's welcome through many of the above frustrations. I've seen every negative review on this game blasted in anger by overzealous Sonic fans, but I have yet to see one of those reviews where the reviewer didn't have a similar experience to my own. Say what you will about how they presented the information to you, but Jimquisition, Dunkey, NintendoLife and Digital Trends all had valid takes about being tired of the game's repetitive loop, vapid content and rough, rough, rough execution. And I don't think anyone walked into this game wanting to dislike it. Well, maybe Dunkey. But I digress. I hope for better Sonic games to follow from this one, and I think it can happen if they're given more staff and more money (again, the vapidness is an extremely large part of it's issues), but they need more than that. I hope Kishimoto and the gang are legitimately listening, because I think in order for a sequel to work it's gonna need a fuller assessment on basically every aspect of the game they presented. They can't ship a game like this a second time. There'll be no excuses left to give.. as if there are any this time, lol. Spoiler P.S. - Anyone who says this game is better than Generations is coo-coo for Koco Puffs crazy and needs to be arrested for their objectively wrong opinion immediately. (airhorn BWOW BWOW BWOWWW)
Pretty much in full agreement with @Azookara. When marking it I did think about 4/10 or 5/10. I'd personally go for 5/10 just because while some elements are clearly below par (Chaos Island's design, the repetitive level design 'challenges', the inconsistent animation and awful voice acting), parts of the game also are undeniably above par (the music is excellent, the combat is slightly above average, the Super Sonic fights are shallow but range from fun to excellent) so I think on balance it's probably 5/10.
