3/5 ★ – jared_c's review of Sonic Frontiers.

Sonic Frontiers is another new attempt to bring Sonic games into the 3D space. There are a few really neat ideas here, but the whole formula of Sonic needing to go fast doesn't translate well into an open world 3D space. It's still a pretty fun game if you can look past jank, and thankfully not too long so it won't sidetrack you for too long. The story here is pretty nonsensical even by Sonic standards. There's something about a cyber space area that some of his friends are trapped in, yet he was transported to some other world that coexists with the cyber world? I don't know. I don't think people out there pick up Sonic games for the story. There's a new character in here with some major implications to Sonic history, but I didn't fully understand it. Gameplay throws you into these large open world areas (5 open, 1 linear) where initially your map is completely obscured. You must find and complete challenges to obtain materials or collectibles that help you progress the story. Completing these challenges will also make pieces of the map visible. These challenges can be anything from your typical go from point A to point B in a certain amount of time to parrying a large orb shot at you, solving various puzzles, using your dodge to step on a number of lit up platforms in a time limit, etc. Some of these are fun and challenging, others are really wtf and can be completed in a few seconds. There are 5 or 6 portals then in each world that take you to a more old school style of Sonic level where you have to get to the end in a mostly 2D or linear 3D space. Each have a few additional challenges (finish with # of rings, collect all 5 red rings, reach the end in a certain time) to get more of the collectibles needed to advance. Eventually, you will have to face a boss fight at the end of each zone which are "Titans" that typically have some kind of puzzle aspect to complete the battle. These were never too difficult, just frustrating at times as it's not always entirely clear what you need to do. The Titan designs were interesting enough though. I completed the game in about 16 hours on Normal difficulty. The final boss "fight" and sequence seemed really abrupt and lackluster. Looking it up after the fact, you only get the "true" ending if you complete the game on Hard mode. Unless I was really oblivious, this was never mentioned when selecting the initial difficulty or at any other point throughout so that was really annoying. I'm not going to replay the entire game for an additional boss fight and cutscene. The game itself is pretty dang janky at times. Sonic will try and snap to certain environmental objects when running around whether you want him to or not. This sometimes leads you to just yeeting Sonic off the entire map and needing to load back in (thankfully this is pretty quick at least on PS5). Even though it's a 3D open world game, in some spots the camera forces you into a 2D perspective that you need to get to either end of that little sequence before you can move around in 3D again...even if you can see rings or other areas you want to get to right behind the 2D space. Really weird design choice there. Final complaint there's some crazy graphical pop in at times. For a game relying on speed, this forces you to be running around then often backtracking after you can see where you are actually trying to get to. I heard it was even worse at launch, which I feel would make this near unplayable. It's frustrating now, but at least you can still get through it. It's a janky, fun distraction I used between major releases and would have not touched this game had it not been on Playstation Plus to play. I'm glad I played it, but more glad that I never purchased the game itself to play it.