4.5/5 ★ – Diluted_Thought's review of Sonic Frontiers.

As a Sonic fan I'm always hopeful the blue blur's next game will be great and more often then not it tends to miss its marks. Ever since his transition to 3D he's had a hard time finding his footing (pun intended) but he's still left a # of wonderful memories for me over the years. When I first heard "Frontiers" was gonna put Sonic in an open world I was really skeptical, as I assume most fans were but I was pleasantly surprised at how it actually turned out. There are 5 islands to traverse in this game and they're all quite huge. Sonic Team gave us 5 giant playgrounds with a massive # of challenges, collectables, cyberspace tracks that harken back to some of his original 3D adventures. In fact, one of the first cyberspace missions you jump into is actually a recreation of City Escape from "Sonic Adventure 2"! The combat was also enjoyable and offered varied ways of taking down foes. A big upgrade from the jump / homing attack from previous titles. I was curious as to why they chose to give Sonic a much deeper voice this time around. I flinched when I first heard him talk. Very odd. It's also very meta with call backs to older titles. There's a quick blink and you'll miss it moment when Sonic is talking to Sage and she asks him "Whats your endgame?" and he answers "Well sometimes its a spinny sign and sometimes its a giant ring". That put a smile on my face for sure. Another thing I noticed after hours into the game was the water physics. It was especially noticeable when running onto of the water and seeing it wave out. Awesome detail. Speaking of water, the fishing mini was such a fun break as it was pretty soothing. Its the only time I didn't mind seeing BIG the Cat in a Sonic title. "Would you like to try? I'll let you borrrow my rod". The soundtrack is also fantastic and full of great music and even collectable classics you can play in the open world. Fortunately, I did enjoy the default music as it was very soothing and made sense for the environment. The cyberspace music brought the energy which made sense for the courses and "Undefeatable" was a fucking BANGER! Sonic OSTs are a huge part of this franchise and this one did not disappoint in the slightest. I have very few gripes about my time with this entry but I feel are still necessary to touch on. A few challenges, like the bridge in Chaos Island was absolutely annoying as it takes time to complete and you have to start over from the very beginning every time you fail. Same goes for falling off platforms when trying to reach special Koco or memory tokens. It was also frustrating that anytime there was some sort of voice over happening, whether it was the voice of the spirits or Sonic monologuing, the game wouldn't allow you to move. Why was that even a problem? Lastly, I had an issue with the Star Falls. These sequences are gorgeous and add a very different aesthetic to the games open world but it really gets in the way of platforming challenges and lasts WAY TOO LONG.. I also played a bit of the DLC since I had some time dive back in. Controlling anyone but Sonic felt hella weird. Amy was enjoyable once I got used to her floaty movement. Knuckles, despite being one of my favorite characters, was also the most frustrating as climbing sequences keep messing with the camera angles. Tails was also fine to play too but none of them felt great control. I also didn't care to "rediscover" the final island as I'd already done that with sonic the first time. In the DLC you uncover parts of the map again only it takes way longer to due as you have to use all of the characters to do certain individual challenges. Frustration. I didn't finish the DLC as I didn't feel it was imperative to the experience. When its all said and one "Sonic Frontiers" is the closest to perfection I've seen since his jump to 3D. Total time 61:25:29.