More than 25 years after Sonic Adventure first graced the Sega Dreamcast and five years after Forces proved unfun, everyone’s beloved blue hedgehog returns in Sonic Frontiers to break our hearts all over again in yet another open world game. Fans have long anticipated its arrival and may find this to be its best game ever; in other ways it may disappoint some as well.
On its face, Sonic Frontiers seems like an easy game: after being pulled through a wormhole from the real world to Starfall Islands through a wormhole in real time, Sonic becomes separated from his friends and must find them. These mysterious islands feature strange inhabitants, ruins and robotic threats as well as traditional Sonic gameplay with new features while reframing familiar ones; challenges include collecting rings to complete and even “Cyber Space” levels inspired by past games in the series.
Unfortunately, Sonic Frontiers fails to effectively integrate its new features into its old ones. The game’s base stats – attack, defense, max speed and ring capacity – are locked behind a skill tree that takes an entire main story arc to unlock; furthermore, combat is too weak and sometimes becomes unplayable altogether.