Trigger Cut Game Reviews

To me, previews of Sonic Frontiers looked like shit and as a Sonic fan, my hype for the game was low.  To my surprise Sonic Frontiers is not shit.  It is deeply flawed however, this is easily the best 3D Sonic game in a decade.  The tone is somber, with low key ambient music, and a weirdly grounded storyline of Sonic trying to find his friends who have mysteriously disappeared.  The gameplay loop consists of navigating open zones, grinding rails, solving simple puzzles and finding collectibles.  The more you collect the more grind rails and traversal objects populate the open areas.  This is a cool mechanic however, the pop in makes traversal a pain as you often can’t see what is ahead of you until you get up close to it.  There are 5 open zones.  The first 3 are solid however, the last two feel completely unfinished and half assed.  Each area has a final boss and these encounters are the best part of the game.  They are truly epic in scale and playing as supersonic never stops feeling awesome.  The combat in general is surprisingly solid with a useful skill tree. The Cyber Space levels are by far the most disappointing part of this game. On paper, mixing up the open world gameplay with levels that harken back to the traditional 3D Sonic stages sounds awesome however, in execution it’s pretty terrible. Most of these levels are reused from older games in the franchise which is just lazy. Also, these levels are over in no more than 30 seconds. The Cyber Space levels had so much space for potential creativity but it seems Sonic Team put little effort into making this aspect of the game compelling and fun which is depressing. While Sonic Frontiers is unpolished and at times unfinished, it provides a chill, almost meditative experience.  The game has solid bones and I hope Sonic Team polish things up for a potential sequel.  It finally feels like Sonic is on the right track. Also, Pro tip.  Go fishing.  You will thank me later.