I love Ares Island and I love the metal-as-hell boss themes, but the rest of Frontiers' OST is mid and totally forgettable. I consider Frontiers' soundtrack to be about as good as Shadow the Hedgehog's, mostly mediocre, but with a few standout tracks.
Shadow The Hedgehog’s soundtrack was incredible. If anything, it’s the one takeaway from that game. I find Frontier’s music quite forgettable. The boss themes are cool but then it kinda ends there, and the boss themes aren’t good enough for me to remember them, like I do for every level of Adventure 2.
I can only remember about 1 of each guardian and movement per island; most of the songs fit the situation but aren't particularly memorable. I understand why they made them that way, but even (most of) the Adventure Fields from SA1 had memorable themes.
I may have put down Shadow the Hedgehog's OST unfairly. It's been a long time since I've listened to it, and I forgot how many good songs it has.
I'd say the combat really is the only thing Frontiers does better than the rest of the series, which isn't saying much when thats consistently been one of the worst parts of the series. The rest of the game falls short in a lot of ways compared to what came before unfortunately. The music is great but I still think OG Sonic 3&K, 06, Unleashed, and Colors have it beat just for having way more memorable catchy tracks
The combat is probably the best in the series but that's not really saying much. But it is true. I really like Frontiers' music. It's not what comes to my mind when I think of Sonic but the music is excellent on its own terms. I wouldn't say it is the best in the series though. Stiff competition.
I like the moody, ambient stuff the most. The opening hours of the game were really memorable for me. I don't like the over-the-top boss music.
A lot of the island stuff was kind of hit-or-miss for me, but the boss fights and cyberspace music knocked it out of the park. The island boss themes feel a bit lackluster, too. There are some really odd VST choices in there, particularly that weird-sounding brass instrument which iirc is most noticeable in the Spider fight and some of the Titan build-up themes. It kind of takes me out of it hearing those epic string swells and then in comes this odd, deflated toy trumpet. I also do hope they take the style they've achieved with cyberspace and try to do something more melodic with it next time, there's a couple of really memorable melodies in there but it's far from the norm. Which is fitting for the mishmash of genres they're going for, but they could probably add a little more "Sonic" into it and make it even better.
On it's own Frontiers' combat moveset really isn't super deep, but I think the fights being pretty interesting carries it. Every guardian has their own unique fight that you have to approach in a different way, they're sort of like puzzles to solve. Not every fight is a hit, guardians like Shark or Spider stick out to me as sore points, but it certainly never gets repetitive. The combat is at it's worst when you're fighting more uninteresting enemies, like the menial Soldiers littered about. That's when it starts to get super repetitive. For the next game I want to see much more freedom of expression in the combat, the most fun moves in Sonic's arsenal are the ones that execute quickly and responsively, so trim away all those damn cutscene intros. Make everything happen as snappily as a Quick Cyloop or a Cyclone Kick, the only big animations I want to see are things like the Grand Slam, since that's a massive damage parry finisher.
Really, I seriously love Sonic Frontiers OST. Still would not put above Sonic Unleashed, but for me, it's fucking good. There's a lot of varatiation in the soundtrack, something I've honestly missed a lot. The only think I still missed in Sonic Frontiers was the Jazz Fusion and the Drum 'n' Bass songs (like the ones from Sonic Unleashed, Colors, Generations, Lost World & etc). I could easily put it in my top 10 Sonic soundtrack. I have to admit tho', I hope the next game will focus more on "stages themes" / up-beat songs on the soundtrack. I still want something like Sonic Runners (or Lost Palace from Team Sonic Racing!) for the maingames sountrack.
I used it don't get me wrong but I don't like "just do it yourself" game design. Just make it fun to control without sliders. Music is good, I don't like all of the vocal themes though. I don't like male singers in the higher registers generally. The ones with a female vocalist are great. The songs for the proper stages are good but don't fit the themes at all, it's just nice music. Can we talk about the jukebox? I kind of hate this thing. A lot of the songs are cut down, genesis songs are low quality, half of it is island ambience I would just use default for and there's no way to customize it. Despite all that there's no music from the stages, which I would actually use.
It is fun to control without sliders. Sliders existing doesn't somehow mean the game is otherwise uncontrollable. I highly doubt people would think the same of any other game with customizable controls. I've been playing 99 percent default since the game came out and the open zone is some of the best controls in a looooong time, I'm talking since Adventure 2. Ironically, the game controls at its worst when you CAN'T change it, aka Cyber Space. I still don't know how they got the open zone perfectly but the traditional boost controls so wrong. And you can't even say that it's because the Open Zone controls don't work in linear gameplay because Cyber Space is immediately different from the Open Zone.I think if Cyber Space literally did just play like the Open Zone it would be perfect.
The idea that Frontiers has the best soundtrack of any Sonic game is honestly insane to me. Loving the soundtrack is one thing, but thinking this the best is like a certified Unpopular Opinion™ (albeit a totally valid one, to be clear). Music is usually the area that just about any Sonic game will excel at, despite any other shortcomings it might have. That means that there's a lot of very steep competition. I wouldn't even know where to start in ranking the different Sonic game OSTs (I began listing some of my favorites as others have before catching myself listing way too many games), but man, Frontiers wouldn't be anywhere near the top for me, I know that much. The Open Zone and Cyber Space stuff is perfectly adequate stuff, but none of it is remotely memorable to me beyond Stage 1-2's. Even Forces' vocal stage themes sweep these, in my mind. The metalcore stuff also just doesn't do it for me at all, even though it should. Heavy metal is my favorite genre of music, and has been since I was a baby, so to an extent I'm the target audience here. Case in point, stuff like Open Your Heart, Live And Learn, What I'm Made Of, and I Am... All Of Me were favorites of mine in middle school. This might be why I'm not clicking with Frontiers' metalcore tracks, but I'm not sure. Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Slayer, and even occasionally Megadeth hit some pretty high notes, and I love those bands. I guess they're not as "whiny", for lack of a better word, as the ones here? It just really undercuts the clearly-intended vibe of feeling like an "unstoppable badass"; it instead starts to feel like I'm in highschool and my girlfriend dumped me, or my parents won't let me go to the mall. It's incongruous. But I dunno, maybe that juxtaposition is exactly what's doing it for some?
I honestly thought they got a female and male vocalist duo for the boss fights until I looked it up and found out it was the same person.
I would say that Frontiers has the most diverse soundtrack of any Sonic game, which means that almost everyone can find something to like about it, and many of its pieces stand out among the series in general. Whether it's the best...well, Japanese CD and SA1 are hard to beat, but it's up there.
I'd say the music is just... alright. They were clearly going for a more ambient and atmospheric OST this time around, but even with that knowledge I feel its pretty unremarkable. Ares Island is the only track that I can remember that isn't the boss themes. That said, its fine that they wanted to experiment a bit more this time, even if it didn't quite hit the mark they were going for.
I can't really think of any Sonic game that had bad music score, its always been a strong point of the series IMO, even Sonic 06 had a great music score IMO
