I've been playing since launch and have put nearly into 14 hours into it. I took my sweet time on Kronos and actually 100%'ed it after beating the first boss, and am now on Ares. I love it so far. Some things could be better, such as the level design in the open zone relying on homing attack chains and the like (and really, it's been the norm since Unleashed so I'm used to it) and other odd things like Sonic being able to surpass Silver's powers of levitation by holding a parry in midair indefinitely, and the rolling being completely fudged in the 2D sections... But none of the really deters me because the game is just so much fun. I find myself playing for extended periods of time, losing track of said time and finding myself playing "just a little more", which hasn't occurred with me and a game in a long while. I even love the Cyberspace stages! And really, the game feels like it was made with a sense of heart, an almost indescribable feeling of sincerity I haven't really felt since Unleashed. Like Sonic is just just plain cool in this game like he used to be.
To me, they felt just as lifeless as Forces, and even then Forces' cutscenes were unironically more polished in some areas. Even the gameplay animations look super rough.
So I FINALLY got to play Frontiers (turns out I had a faulty disk drive which was slowly dying and corrupting my files along the way). First island was quite fun. Bite size platforming challenges were not as bad as I expected and Sonic's controls in the overworld were pretty OK despite the fact he has zero momentum and sticks to the ground in a very jerky and unnatural way (as someone who's into game development, I suspect they are using raycasting to stick him to the ground as opposed to spherecasting). The progress was smooth and pretty varied so I enjoyed it. Then I got to the second island and oh boy. My progress slowed down to a halt (I spend about as much time as on first island and I'm still only on 2 emeralds). The Strider boss is one of the worst designed bosses in Sonic history, I don't understand how he got through playtesting. half of its problems stem from terrible camera angle in the grinding section and its huge legs obscuring the view constantly. I didn't have any serious camera issues in overworld during traversal (aside from instances when you boost under a piece of geometry (like a bridge) into a tight space. But during combat it's a constant struggle because of how lock-on works. So I'm not sure if I'm even gonna finish the game because it feels like I've seen everything it has to offer. Also cyberspace controls are ass. It's almost impossible to navigate Sonic at slow speeds which becomes extremely apparent when you try to grab a red ring you missed. Overall the game is descent but doesn't hold a candle to Colors or Generations in terms of polish and fun factor. Definitely a huge step up from Forces which felt like it has absolutely nothing to offer. If I didn't know Sonic team I'd say an actually good game could be built off this in a sequel. But let's be real. They never learn from their mistakes.
I consider this game to be the "Unleashed" of this era; very ambitious, introducing a whole new style of gameplay , coming right after the disappointment of a previous game that made people that exhausted a particular style of gameplay in the worst way and made people lose hope of the franchise, focus on combat, great spectacle, little cast of characters unlike the previous game and basically boil down to essential sonic cast,2 credit songs with one of them being emotional -they even share "dear" in their name- have a lot of flaws, and it's an actual foundation that future titles will build upon in several ways. All i am saying is...expect the sequel to be on Switch 2 and Frontiers 3 to be on next gen only and great reception
Review aggregates, 12 days from release. Opencritic - 73 "Fair", 87 reviews, 57% of critics recommend Metacritic: PS5 - 72 "Mixed and/or average", 74 reviews Switch - 72 "Mixed and/or average", 9 reviews Xbox Series X - 58 "Mixed and/or average", 8 reviews PC - 80 "Generally positive", 6 reviews - PS4 - (2 reviews) Xbox One (No reviews) Will likely check in a month on from release for another (final?) aggregate update.
jim sterling returned to give games scores this month and gave Frontiers 1.5/10 and was reviewed in Xbox Series Just so you really know how useless the aggregate scores actually are in practice
It's identical to the PS5 version in terms of performance and visuals. It's a perfectly fine way to play the game, it's just that Jim Sterling gave the game a 15/100, which brings the average down by a comical amount. Running the numbers, an updated average score that discounts Sterling's obviously bad faith review would be a 70, which is much closer to the other versions.
on the other hand, i will gladly take the 80 MC of the PC version as the only correct and canon MC score for this game
I don't think there's anything notably different from the Xbox One version, that's likely just a general disinterest from the press in reviewing the "past-gen" releases of the game. 75 reviewers for the PS5 vs a whopping 2 for the PS4. ...oh, we're talking about the Xbox Series version. Yeah, Sterling's hilariously-low review score effectively shotgunned the metascore average (which as said earlier, would otherwise be 70) down by an incredible 12 points. (Though genuine critical discrepancies for consistent/identical multiplatform releases does happen sometimes. The Wii version of S4E1 got notably more positive reviews on Metacritic compared to the others (81 vs. 74 for PS3, 72 for 360, 70 for iOS). Note that the Wii and the iOS versions received about 10+ reviews, compared to 50+ reviews for the PS3 and 40+ reviews for the 360.)
1.5/10 just sounds ridiculous. I know it's their opinion and all, but Sonic Frontiers is not Big Rigs: Over The Road Racing tier
Yeah, I’m playing on Series X and it’s pretty flawless. Digital Foundry’s tech review compared Series X and PS5 and they’re largely identical. So it’s nothing to do with an actual difference in quality.
https://twitter.com/wistfulhopes/status/1594479875494404097? This video of a pretty impressive 06 model port seriously reminds me of the 2005 TGS trailer.. Oh to think of what could've been.
It's just what Sterling does, ragebaiting to the max. Same reviewer who said Sonic 4's physics were fine and that whiny fanboys need to accept mediocrity.
Honestly impressed it has custom animations, wonder how much of this process is shared with Generations or Forces? I tried it out myself and it definitely is no go for cutscenes, but then I always wondered what 06 Sonic would look like if you altered his proportions.
Also loved Lost World and Forces of all things -even prefered forces to BotW in it's release year- , that should tell you everything really
This is unrelated to the current discussion and kind of a small detail, but I'm absolutely in love with the way Frontiers portrays Sonic's fur. Spoiler: Big Images He looks so soft and nice, it reminds me a lot of the way SA1 did it. It's a massive step up from the smooth rubber-ish look we've had since Unleashed, I really really hope this continues into the next games. It does bug me a bit that all the promo material like the pre rendered ads and the cover art aren't consistent with this detail, but I'm glad it's here at all. This really should become standard for Sonic models from here on out.
