Sonic Frontiers (PS5)
When early Sonic Frontiers marketing showed the speedy blue hedgehog running around vast open spaces, many were quick to believe the platforming hero was now making the step into open world gameplay. However, a lot of the marketing for the game made sure to use the phrase “open zone” instead, and while this distinction might seem arbitrary or like an effort to limit player expectations, it actually feels rather apt. Rather than the Starfall Islands being an interconnected space that’s fully free to explore, each of the islands feels almost like a world from a 3D collect-a-thon platformer, the focus more on running around the large but limited space to find items of importance by overcoming various challenges.
Sonic the Hedgehog’s adventures on the islands start off a little rough for the hero. Entering the airspace of the mysterious Starfall Islands, Sonic and three of his friends find themselves sucked into Cyber Space, only the blue hedgehog able to break free. To free his friends he’ll need to explore the islands and come to understand them, ancient technology scattered about it seemingly drawing power from the Chaos Emeralds while being defended by fearsome advanced machines. The clash between technological threats and a focus on learning the truth about an ancient society can seem a little strange at first, but the ruins on the islands aren’t merely for show and a lot of thought was seemingly put into the lore behind the structures you encounter and the anachronistic technology. Sonic’s main focus is on helping pull his friends out of Cyber Space, the cast kept fairly small and initially it feels like the game is going for a somewhat serious direction. Sonic is a cocksure hero who will crack a joke when he finds himself in an unusual situation, but his friend Amy seems emotionally invested in uncovering the island’s history, partially because small adorable ceramic beings called Kocos still occupy it and have an unusual connection to the past. However, as Sonic begins to speak with some of his other friends he does seem to treat things less and less seriously, but his optimism and heroism in such a desolate place does seem to be more important to another character’s growth.
Sonic’s usual antagonist Doctor Eggman is also trapped in Cyber Space, but he has managed to have some influence on the outside world thanks to his AI daughter Sage. Able to interface with the unusual code that effects the various machines of the island, Sage seems to want to stand in Sonic’s path, but not so much as an extension of her creator’s usual goal. Sage is a logically minded character who can’t really comprehend Sonic’s actions since he follows his heart, and while it’s not too difficult to predict the path this young holographic girl’s personal story will take, the individual steps taken to progress her development are handled at reasonable intervals and don’t compromise her initial portrayal and personality to get there. Most of the game’s small cast does have a singular personal concern that comes up during conversations with them, the islands even having chats with their holographic representations be one of the many things you can find while exploring at high speed, but Sage and the mystery of the Ancients are both given greater attention and to good effect, Sonic’s adventure here not just an excuse to run around and collect things.
The islands in Sonic Frontiers typically have a wide range of goals to pursue, and it can almost sound overwhelming to lay out every type of collectible or activity that’s available. However, while there is plenty to grab, Sonic Frontiers appropriately cuts a quick pace. You are free to run around most of an island once you arrive, and you’ll quickly notice a lot of the sky is filled with things like rails, springs, platforms, and balloons. The player can very quickly engage with these pieces of the environment and get a quick little reward for doing so, the time it takes for a single activity usually just a few seconds and they mostly test small things like reaction time in terms of when to jump, when to perform a mid-air homing attack to properly hit a spring or balloon, or when to leap between rails so you can grind them to your destination. It’s fairly easy to pop from one tiny obstacle course to another, the level of commitment usually low and the activity more a brief diversion than a real challenge. In some ways these feel a bit more like a test of athleticism rather than platforming, the player often just needing to perform the right quick sequence of movement techniques to succeed and quickly moving along to the next little trial. These will likely comprise much of what you’ll be doing regardless of how much optional content you wish to engage with and their expedient nature makes it easy to flow from one to another, although later areas will start to crank up how involved some of these mid-air obstacle courses are. The third island starts to lock Sonic into two-dimensional side-scrolling movement when you start navigating some of these trials, the intent clear as it can allow for a bit more involved platforming but it also makes it difficult to disengage if you accidentally started repeating one or were merely using it to get to new locations. These can serve as ways to reach new heights or travel across the island after all, so having to repeat some low effort obstacle courses in the later areas just to properly travel does reduce some of the simple fun they provide well elsewhere.
There’s much more to do than just play with the objects littered about the sky. Most islands focus on the goal of freeing the imprisoned Chaos Emeralds, and to earn the Vault Keys used to do so, you’ll briefly need to hop into Cyber Space. Cyber Space contains more linear stages based on previous Sonic the Hedgehog games, so while you run and jump across old locales like Sky Sanctuary and Radical Highway, you’ll find the levels are a bit more demanding than those mid-air obstacle courses. They are still not too tough and that is partially the point as the amount of keys you earn will be tied to other factors than simple level completion. Sonic’s health takes the form of rings in Sonic Frontiers, and whenever he takes damage, a certain amount will spill out of him, Sonic dying if he is hit after he has no rings left to lose. These Cyber Space levels often want you to have a certain amount of rings by the time you finish to earn a key, you need to clear the level fast enough to earn another, and a set of Red Rings are placed around the stage that often require noticing new traversal opportunities or taking harder paths to grab if you want to get their associated key. You get one key just for beating the stage and there are other means to earn them, but the extra goals placed on these stages can give them a bit more life than just a quick completion.
There are still more collectibles and activities to engage with. Enemies on the islands aren’t often too much of an impediment, but many provide rewards if you do take the time to stop and fight them. These can be things like the red and blue seeds that are used to increase your attack power and defense (defense determining how many rings you lose when hit) and many of these foes are a bit of a test of your techniques as well rather than a traditional battle. Grinding while avoiding fireballs helps you fight an enormous spider machine, running along a ribbon-like energy trail through the sky lets you pursue another foe, and some enemies like the strange robot covered in recovering spheres asks you to figure out which of your abilities can overcome its advantage. Sonic does mostly just needs to utilize his incredible run speed for most activities, the player even able to activate a boost power that will let him go even faster, and the boost or your homing attack is often a way to help move Sonic about in the air so you don’t always need to be spot on when leaping about. However, in a fight Sonic has additional techniques like special attacks and projectile storms that make facing some of the more sturdy or complex foes more than a matter of smacking them about a bunch. A few of these large enemies are a bit of a letdown, a sand shark more about just pressing the right button prompts as it drags you around the desert for an uneventful ride, but others can be quickly dealt with or usually have a proper reward for engaging with their longer fights.
Many more little things are scattered around the islands like Koco who are also traded in for upgrades and purple coins that can be used to participate in a simple but nifty fishing minigame. Reeling in different realistically rendered fish or Sonic series easter eggs makes it a bit more interesting than its basic play and the things you can buy with the rewards from your haul include things like audio logs from Eggman or collectibles if you’re having trouble earning things like Vault Keys the normal way. To map out each island involves participating in tiny challenges that are sometimes breaks from typical play, Sonic sometimes having to solve a little tile maze, jump some laser rope, or figure out minor puzzles that might involve his Cyloop ability where energy trails behind him to draw a loop that influences objects inside the circle. Some of these are rather plain though, Sonic running on a treadmill not really something that involves any thought to complete while others like the dodging challenge feel like they’re meant more to remind you a mechanic exists since otherwise you can go some time without utilizing that skill. The parry mechanic that lets Sonic reflect projectiles or counter strikes appears in these sometimes and it is an unfortunately realized part of Sonic’s skill set, it just requiring you to hold down two shoulder buttons rather than timing the deflection right to succeed. This means any time it is necessary is just a waiting game, but the technique tests that make up many enemies at least usually require something beyond making opportunities with this uninteresting parry.
Most islands are topped off with a boss fight where you’ll get to utilize an empowered Super Sonic form for the skirmish. Here you are invincible but essentially on a time limit since your ring count is slowly draining and Super Sonic’s power disappears if it reaches zero. However, the ability to expand your ring carrying limit and other stats means this likely won’t be a concern and the parry mechanic gets a bit too useful during these moments. The foes are often colossal and impressive machines and the music really sells the threat they should pose, the vocal rock tracks in Sonic Frontiers like “I’m Here” having some surprising emotion put into their performances for a game that can often lean on low key ambient tracks or an adjustable jukebox of tunes from the series’s past elsewhere, but the fights certainly feel more spectacle than challenge. The final boss even feels a bit of an anti-climax because of the specific approach to boss design taken in general and for it specifically, although playing the game on Hard gives you the true fight you’re meant to have and thankfully you can change the difficulty before that battle so you can see a more substantial finale. Combat is not Sonic Frontiers’s strong suit, but a host of minigames or foes who are more like glorified platforming challenges do feel like they take up more of the experience than the direct fights so actual battles aren’t exactly meant to carry the experience despite their narrative importance.
THE VERDICT: Sonic Frontiers is at its strongest when you’re rushing around and quickly engaging with the abundant activities laid out across the islands. Swift tests of navigational skill string together nicely into consistent action, the number of tasks adding up to something enjoyable to engage with even if a few are occasionally very basic or not too inspired. Minigames and Cyber Space levels give some new structure to play and the story gives a helpful amount of attention to Sage and the islands’ history to make it worth paying attention to as well. Boss fights can feel a bit underwhelming due to the difficulty during them being almost non-existent and the moments where the game restricts Sonic’s movement on later islands robs some of the freedom and agility that makes hopping between activities so enjoyably breezy elsewhere, but the abundance of interesting little activities outweighs the game’s more obvious stumbling points.
And so, I give Sonic Frontiers for PlayStation 5…
A GOOD rating. The “open zone” idea clearly needs a bit more time and technical know-how to be fully realized, the obstacle courses in the air will sometimes not even be visible until you’re fairly close and the big battles are often more about eye candy and awesome rock and roll music than giving the player much of interest to do. However, the format of having a large island with plenty of tiny things to do that can be done relatively quickly gives the game a constant sense of progression and flow. The Memory Medals that make up much of your rewards for doing athletic tests are surprisingly abundant, it took until the last island for me to ever not have enough to unlock the related Chaos Emerald minigames and holographic chats with characters, but their abundance also means you don’t sweat missing them if you did mess up the navigational challenge or just ran right past one. Having more than one way to earn key items helps ease the burden of collecting so many different things but most activities are often at least lightly engaging so you can keep performing meaningful and interesting tasks along the way to new discoveries. There are definitely some stinkers, the presence of the parry feeling like an outright flaw since it oversimplifies any moment it is necessary, but otherwise even when Sonic Frontiers dips into an unusual break from its standard play format with things like the tile mazes, they’re usually quick fun rather than demanding and areas that do push against you harder like the Cyber Space key requirements breathe important additional life into spaces that could have perhaps been underwhelming otherwise.
The open zones of Sonic Frontiers feel like they provide a good range for Sonic to embrace his speed while also being peppered with enough to do that the extra leg room doesn’t feel wasted. Despite there being a glut of collectibles on paper, Sonic’s speed and the designs of the trials he faces often ensure that you’re constantly doing meaningful work but rarely getting bogged down by item requirements. Things do start to get a bit shaky when the game’s focus lingers on an idea like the Super Sonic fights for a bit too long, but mostly, Sonic’s exploration of new frontiers is not only filled with a lot of nifty little activities you can string together quickly, but it’s given some compelling context with the narrative elements skillfully placed over this adventure through the Starfall Islands.