Photo Courtesy of Frontiers
The “Sonic the Hedgehog” franchise is known by its fans to be critical of the games produced by SEGA. The series has had several games that have ranged from mediocre to good by audience reception. Many people were losing hope in the series as the games were rushed to meet the deadlines, lacking in certain areas and not entirely what fans expected. Take the games “Sonic Forces” and “Sonic Colors: Ultimate” as an example of how fans saw the more recent titles.
“Sonic Frontiers” is the most recent installment in the franchise. The game focuses on Sonic exploring the Starfall Islands to rescue his friends from Cyber Space and retrieve the Chaos Emeralds. The primary plot surrounds Sonic exploring the islands, helping a race of beings called “Koco” and fighting the Titans controlled by a new villain named Sage. Written by long-time Sonic comic book writer Ian Flynn, the story is better than it has been in previous titles.
This is what makes Ian Flynn such a great writer when it comes to this franchise: he knows the characters front to back. The game emphasizes their backstories, their strengths and what each character has managed to do without the help of Sonic: a missing element from previous games. Flynn highlights the growth of these characters, and it truly shows throughout the entire adventure.
However, what pieces everything together has to be the gameplay for “Sonic Frontiers.” Unlike other games before this, “Sonic Frontiers” takes a whole new step for gameplay. Aside from the fact that the game is almost entirely open world, “Sonic Frontiers” is the first game in the series to implement a combat system for Sonic. Instead of just boosting and using the homing attack, Sonic now has several new abilities to take down the opponents on the island.
The open world experience is something the game takes to its fullest advantage, with several puzzles within the game ranging from small and simple to ridiculously complex. However, the islands are still a massive joy to explore and giving Sonic the ability to run around these massive islands really fits the play style of the blue blur. The Cyber Space levels are also fun, and reminisce on the level designs from previous titles such as “Sonic Adventure 2” and “Sonic Unleashed” with only four different zones.
There is only one complaint with these levels: As mentioned before, the Cyber Space levels reuse assets from other Sonic games.
Finally, the bosses are where “Sonic Frontiers” shines brightest. After collecting the seven Chaos Emeralds on each island, the player is greeted with one more fight with the Titan of the island that you will encounter towards the beginning of your journey. These are the greatest fights the franchise has to offer. The fights utilize Sonic’s combat system to the absolute fullest while demonstrating how cool Super Sonic is through his sheer power and abilities. It’s something that’s never actually seen before, and it is worth appreciating.
However, the game does fail to present a good final boss and cinematic ending that would be best for the game. There’s nothing wrong with the ending – it just fails at presenting an intense moment in a way that matches the rest of the game. Even the secret final boss on hard mode feels out of place with everything; while challenging and intense, it’s unfortunately the worst final boss the series has up to this point.
“Sonic Frontiers” might just be one of the best games of the entire franchise. It’s a game that presents a solid story, amazing character moments and some of the best controls since “Sonic Unleashed,” as it does everything fans of the series have wanted for years upon years.
