A few days ago, Sonic Frontiers was finally released and once again it seemed like a bad game because of the bad reviews it got from the special critics but something curious happened, while the critics didn´t like it, the users actually loved it and felt like it is one of the best 3D Sonic games in a long time. I played the game and completed it yesterday and I have to say I liked the game a lot, seems to me this is the best thing we´ve got since Adventures 1 and 2 (in terms of 3D).
I´d like to begin with the fact that this time Sonic actually feels like a character, not some funny clown which just jokes around everything. Since the Sonic franchise began its fall, its characters have been caricatured, I mean, the past Sonic was someone who knew when was the time to laugh and the time to get serious and the present Sonic is someone who just laughs at the time and say the most stupid jokes you´ll see in your life. In Sonic Frontiers they actually fixed this and brought us a more serious Sonic without feeling edgy or something, it was actually cool to see him listening to his friends and actually saying good things as a normal person would do and not stupid jokes all the time.
This thing happened with the other characters too, for example, Amy is known to be as that obssesed girl who stalks Sonic in a creepy way all the time, which didn´t have a single trait of personality besides being a stalker and that sucks, finally, they removed all of that in Sonic Frontiers, she is not someone who is just obsessed with Sonic or stalking, she is someone with a personality and a way of thinking about life, a really caring person about others.
Tails is someone who is supossed to be a comedy relief which depends too much on Sonic and they change all of that stuff too, Tails is actually someone who recognizes he is too dependent and that in order to grow as a person he must change, that he is way too smart and fast and that he can fly, that he is great enough by his own and he can achieve anything he wants. I personally think the interactions between Sonic and Tails are one of the best of the best things in the game.
In general terms, the story gets more mature but without being edgy like Shadow The Hedhehog, because yeah, not because a story is mature doesn´t mean is good but this time is actually good, the story is pretty well written and I loved that, this is thanks because of the characters -partly-, every conversation we have with them help us to see a retrospective of them, letting us see some character development, it feels like they have returned to their roots and they are not just comedy relief anymore, and that´s so good. If you want to know why the sudden change in narrative terms, that´s because Sega changed their writter to Sonic games so we won´t see clown Sonic or stalker Amy anymore.
So, the game feeling is amazing, talking a little bit about my thoughts on the gameplay, this could sound weird but this the Sonic game which I felt more fun while playing as Sonic, what I´m trying to say is, Sonic Frontiers has the best game feeling of the franchise, it feels so good to move Sonic through the islands or scenarios, it just feels so good, it´s impossible to get tired from just moving on Sonic Frontiers. For Example, I think that Super Mario Odyssey has the best game feeling of any Mario game I´ve played, that means, moving Mario through all the worlds of the game feels great, feels amazing, well, that´s the same feeling I get while moving Sonic on Sonic Frontiers, just controlling him and running at high speed feels great.
Much is said about the islands of the game, some people say is just empty and nothing else to do, but I disagree to that, I feel like there are things to do, everytime you run you find something to do like a puzzle or Portals to Cyberspace. Portals are something like sanctuaries from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, these Portals are an access to Cyberspace which you can find classic levels of past Sonic games which can be 2D or 3D, they are actually fun to play but a little too short and easy, completing said Portals will give us access to keys which are important to unlock Chaos Emeralds which can be found through the island and that´s our main objective, completing Cyberspace levels in order to get keys to unlock the Chaos Emeralds, that way we can beat the main boss of the island.
Before we can interact with the Portals, we have to find some collectibles in order to get into the Cyberspace buut in order to get said collectibles we´ve got to beat many monsters on the area or sub bosses. I like that the battle system is not like just spamming a button to beat an enemy like in past games, I mean, this time, said monsters have like their own way to fight and it´s our job to find their weakness, there is a good variety of monsters and the way we can defeat them. For example, there is this one sub boss that we have to climb it like if it was Shadow of the Colossus so we can beat it.
So, this time there is actually a combat system and I´ve got to say, at first I thought something like a combat system to Sonic wouldn´t fit that good but I had to swallow my own words because oh my god this combat system is so fun, I mean, I like that I have a variety of options in order to defeat an enemy and that´s cool, sonic can do a bunch of cool stuff and like I said, many enemies has their own way to be defeated, most of the time, just spamming an attack won´t work, even Sonic has a parry this time which doesn´t feel akward at all, it´s pretty fun to use. Sonic has a Skill Tree on this game so we can update it from time to time thanks to Skill Points we get through the game.
As I told you, there are things to do on the islands, it´s just no an empty world, something that I liked about the world of this game is that I didn´t depended on the map and I think that´s the way the game is meant to be played, there are a lot of things you can see and these things you can reach them by yourself and that´s good, there a lot of things like trampolines or rails to push you one way but the game motivates you to reach zones or things by other methods if that´s what you want and that´s good. For example, most of the times the game will tell you where the Chaos Emerald is, but sometimes, it won´t tell you a thing, like okay the Chaos Emerald is over here little guy, here, but I won´t tell you how to reach here, it´s up to you to find a way, and when you do it, damn, I´ve got to say it feels good.
Okay, the game is not perfect, it has its problems, first the excesive pop in, I never care about it tbh but this time it was like oh my god, I gotta admit it annoyed me at first until I got used to it, the worst thing is that I though this was because of the Switch and no, any other version suffers of excesive pop in as well, even in Play Station 5, Xbox Series S/X or PC and that´s kind of sad, not gonna lie. The other issue is something I can´t say because is story related and basically spoilers but if it wasn´t by these issues, I think this could be a great game, not just good, a shame really, but still, I consider is a really good Sonic game.
In summary, Sonic Frontiers has chosen to break the mold in its franchise and take risks, many important decisions have been made when it comes to level design, but I consider that it was all for the best, since it is the most solid game I have played in a 3D Sonic game in several years, I consider that it is the step that the franchise needed and that this is the path that it should follow, of course, correcting the errors, it is not a perfect game but not to the point of making it bad. Personally, it took me around 25 hours to complete the game, it´s not that long.
All of the screenshots were taken by me