Sonic Frontiers: An open-world Sonic game with missed potential

It was easy. To grab the final Chaos Emerald, I needed to climb up the Titan’s very highest point. I was able jump over the legs of this massive creature, made out of bright red and chrome. This hadn’t been so different from what I had experienced in Sonic FrontiersParticipating in the platforming of set-pieces on all surfaces so far. However, I wasn’t prepared for the reality of what the boss fight actually would entail.

I was flying as Super Sonic through the air, getting up close and personal to bash the Titan’s head with my fists, and all the while, the soundtrack screamed at me with guttural voices and distorted guitar riffs. Sonic parried attacks and completed QTEs and multiplied himself, launching a flurry of fists and piercing through the Titan’s chest in dramatic slow motion. It was an open-world island, so I spent over 20 hours exploring it, beating my scores in traditional levels, fighting many gargantuan foes, and spinning around the islands. Sonic FrontiersThis game is full of emotion. But it’s also a game plagued with uninspired minigames, repetitive objectives, and tedious mechanical issues.

It was only a matter time for Sonic to be placed in open-world settings. It was a matter of time. Frontiers, the blue hedgehog is cruising around with Amy, Tails, and Knuckles, until they’re suddenly dragged onto a barren island where everyone but Sonic gets trapped in a digitized reality. There are minibosses all over the island, which you must defeat. You can open portals and take part in new stages or re-creations past Sonic levels. Along with side challenges and tasks, there will be other obstacles. You will need to collect the Chaos Emeralds to face the Titans, and to bring back your friends to your realm. Most of the time, however, you’re just roaming around a vast area gathering items to advance the story.

It’s an entertaining loop at first. While the islands tend to be fairly empty in general, save for enemies, they’re often a thrill to navigate. You will find floating platforms everywhere, including bouncing walls and climbable walls. There are also rings that you can collect. It’s an odd sight to have familiar elements from the series contrasting with plain, open spaces that look nothing alike. But once you’re going through them at full speed, they feel like sections from your usual Sonic levels with different camera angles, intersecting paths, and so on. They’re appropriately propulsive, even if the controls aren’t always as responsive as one would hope, which led me to fail sections time and time again.

Image by Sonic Team/Sega

Problem is, the novelty of open-world settings quickly wears off and soon you notice how boring the structure. Frontiers tasks you with completing minigames around marked spots to reveal fragments of the map’s surrounding area: These are basic tasks like kicking orbs through rings, or piling up Tetris-like puzzle pieces. However, after completing more than 12 minigames per island I became exhausted. Although I like the diversity of these open-world gameplay mechanics, it is distracting from what the game offers.

The monotony also permeates the primary objective, making it difficult to achieve. FrontiersA slow and steady procession of backward-and-forth tasks. Core activities all revolve around currencies. Bosses drop one in order to gain access to the stages. They then grant keys that allow you to get the Chaos Emeralds. However, they will never ask for greater amounts than the Chaos Emeralds. This forces you to explore the island and retry previous courses. To reach NPCs, some objectives will require you to make long detours and navigate through complicated areas. You might not be able to unlock shortcuts for future visits. There is an optional fishing minigame that lets you exchange tokens for some of the mandatory currencies — while it helps to alleviate the steps needed to make progress, fishing is the last thing I want to do in a Sonic game. You can do so many of these things. Frontiers Although endearing in terms, it is cloyingly implausible in the way that its mechanics work.

You can earn experience by defeating enemies and destroying certain objects. This allows you to acquire a range of skills. These abilities expand the roster of attacks, leading to some flashy animations that can be a bit too powerful at times — most set the game in slow motion while a short cutscene plays out, which can be easily exploited to deal absurd damage in succession if you chain multiple skills. The game also offers four stats that you can upgrade. FrontiersThey can feel insignificant. They’re yet another superficial layer of complexity that requires gathering yet more items around the world and retreading paths you’ve already traveled.

Image by Sonic Team/Sega

It’s as frustrating as it gets Sonic Frontiers can be, I can’t say I didn’t enjoy this new, more flexible take on the timeworn series. Sure, the story, while intriguing at times, didn’t do much to keep me hooked aside from some unexpectedly funny deliveries from Sonic (who constantly brushes off lore dumps from other characters by saying he’s either gone through worse or he’s just here to save his friends). What’s more, the game often felt more like a checklist than, well, a game. There were more minigames completed than I can count. I could go on and on about my frustrations.

It’s unfortunate to see a Sonic game that tries, and often succeeds, in retreading past foundations and applying them to a different setting. But the highs of fighting the Titans or playing remakes of classic levels can’t justify the frustrations that constantly put stops along the way.

Sonic Frontiers On Nov. 8, the game will be available on Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4. Sega provided a prerelease code for the game to be played on PlayStation 5. Vox Media also has affiliate relationships. They do not affect editorial content. However, Vox Media might earn commissions for products bought via affiliate links. Here are some links to help you find. additional information about Polygon’s ethics policy here.