sonic frontiers review

Signed-off-by: Xe Iaso <me@christine.website>

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+---
+title: "My review of Sonic Frontiers"
+date: 2022-11-25
+tags:
+ - sonicFrontiers
+ - review
+ - sonicTheHedgehog
+---
+
+[Sonic Frontiers](https://frontiers.sonicthehedgehog.com/) was released recently
+and I've got a lot of thoughts about it. I think that it's a good game with
+implementation flaws, but overally it's probably one of the best takes on the
+Sonic formula that Sonic Team has done in years. Overall, I give it an 8/10
+score on that arbitrary scale that you expect from reviewers. Here's why:
+
+## Sonic Adventure 2
+
+I've always been a fan of Sonic the Hedgehog since I was exposed to it on the
+Nintendo Gamecube with [Sonic Adventure 2:
+Battle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonic_Adventure_2). The Sonic game series
+is built on the foundation of high-speed momentum-based gameplay. This has been
+accented by the latest and greatest technology, allowing you to _run faster than
+the camera can scroll_. Over the years, Sega and Sonic Team have been _so
+successful_ with this basic formula that Sonic The Hedgehog is about as famous
+as Mario from Nintendo.
+
+<xeblog-conv name="Mara" mood="hacker">Fun xe iaso dot net cinematic universe
+lore: The main YouTube channel associated with this blog is so old that it dates
+back to when YouTube let you set your own top-level URL off of YouTube.com. That
+channel's YouTube URL is
+[youtube.com/shadowh511](https://youtube.com/shadowh511). The `shadowh` is a
+reference to [Shadow the
+Hedgehog](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_the_Hedgehog), one of the main
+characters in Sonic Adventure 2.</xeblog-conv>
+
+<xeblog-picture path="blog/213610_20221117071425_1"></xeblog-picture>
+
+Sonic Adventure 2 is nowhere near a perfect game. It has numerous flaws in its
+camera control and I don't know if it would review very well if it was released
+today. The version I've been playing for years [on
+Steam](https://store.steampowered.com/app/213610/Sonic_Adventure_2/) only got a
+MetaCritic score of 60 [for the Xbox 360
+version](https://www.metacritic.com/game/xbox-360/sonic-adventure-2). However,
+the Steam reviews are overall "Very Positive". I love it. It's one of the games
+that I go back to time and time again because I like it. It's in my top games of
+all time.
+
+## Sonic Forces
+
+Now with that in mind, let's take a look at one of the most recent 3D Sonic
+releases: [Sonic
+Forces](https://store.steampowered.com/app/637100/Sonic_Forces/). Sonic Forces
+was released in 2017 and was the first sign of the "Sonic Cycle" being broken.
+Here are the steps in the Sonic Cycle:
+
+* New Sonic game teasers/trailers get dropped, people say it's going to be
+  Sonic's comeback
+* Hype is generated as more information is released, people start getting
+  optimistic that this may actually be the comeback of Sonic the Hedgehog
+* First reviews of the game drop and they are _terrible_, the fanbase rallies by
+  saying that reviewers are bad at games and can't rate Sonic games accurately
+  (this is actually unironically the truth)
+* The game drops and everyone's optimism is shattered instantly
+* Some people look back at older Sonic games that they hated upon release and
+  then realize that there's something good there
+
+The place where the Sonic Cycle was creaking at the seams was that last bit. I
+cannot see a world in which Sonic Forces is seen as actually being genius in the
+future. Sonic Forces is objectively a terrible game, but the reasons why are
+very hard to demonstrate without video. Here is a video of me playing the first
+level of Sonic Forces:
+
+<xeblog-video path="blog/sonic-forces-level-1"></xeblog-video>
+
+Scrubbing through the video and from my memory of playing through the level,
+here are the sins that I see:
+
+* The first sin is that it's Green Hill Zone. Sonic team has been overusing the
+  asethetics of Green Hill Zone since it was very popular with Sonic
+  Generations. At some level, this makes sense from a color theory standpoint.
+  Sonic is blue and that contrasts very well with the greens, browns and oranges
+  of Green Hill Zone. It's just that we've seen this aesthetic _so goddamn much_
+  over the years. I'm getting sick of it.
+* It's worth noting that I chose the "yes I have played a Sonic game before"
+  difficulty in the menu. I'm still forced to read a help box that explains core
+  mechanics of the game series that haven't changed since the first game on the
+  Genesis.
+* It's not demonstrated very well in this video, but those enemies that I
+  boosted through _do nothing_ when Sonic is _standing right in front of them
+  doing nothing_. At some level I get it, this is the _tutorial level_ and it
+  attempts to explain the game mechanics in an interactive way, probably a bit
+  like how Super Metroid has an invisible tutorial at Ceres Station. But overall
+  it's just a bit bland to have enemies that _do no damage to you_. This should
+  have been a bad omen for me.
+* Sonic and Tails _won't shut up_. This makes sense from a story standpoint, but
+  I am replaying this level. The story is irrelevant to me at the moment.
+* The homing attack reticle shows up _constantly_, even when it's irrelevant
+  from a gameplay standpoint. Sonic cannot homing attack unless he is airborne.
+  Showing the reticle like that constantly is just insulting to the player's
+  intelligence. I can tell there's an enemy there. I don't need to be told that
+  constantly.
+* The level appears to have multiple paths, but it's ultimately a dichotomy of
+  false choice. The route that I went through is one of the fastest. I also
+  barely did anything but jump and hit the boost button. I set a record for the
+  fastest playthrough of that level on my save file. I wasn't even trying.
+* The level is over in a minute. Most levels of the game are like this.
+
+The game doesn't get much better from there. The first level in Sonic games is
+usually notable at being the most polished from a QA testing standpoint and in
+the Sonic fanbase we've come to see the quality of the first level as an omen
+for the quality of the rest of the game. This gave bad vibes.
+
+The website How Long to Beat is a good benchmark for how long it will take to
+complete a game's main story and side content. [They
+estimate](https://howlongtobeat.com/game/44859) Sonic Forces to take about 4
+hours. My first playthrough was _three hours long_. At a $40 game, that was an
+absolutely awful value for the money. I encountered a bunch of weird bugs and
+glitches on the first playthrough too, after consulting with experts we realized
+that the PS4 version was actually the most stable one (and probably was their
+primary target when developing the game), so I grabbed a copy of that from the
+Playstation store and _started my playthrough over three levels in_ and _I still
+beat the game in 3 hours_. It is not a long game by any stretch of the
+imagination and playing through it again leaves you feeling empty and sad that
+the series has stooped to this level.
+
+Going into it, I knew that Forces was going to be a _garbage fire_ but I didn't
+expect the garbage to go supercritical.
+
+<xeblog-conv name="Cadey" mood="coffee">I also _just know_ that somewhere out
+there there's some kid that had Forces be their first Sonic game that made them
+fall in love with the series and that will be the standard that they rate future
+Sonic games against much like I did with Sonic Adventure 2: Battle. This feeling
+makes me have weird thoughts about nostalgia.</xeblog-conv>
+
+Oh, I forgot this initially, but Sonic Forces was actually tied into another
+game released that year, [Sonic Mania](https://store.steampowered.com/app/584400/Sonic_Mania/)
+Sonic Mania is an _absolute gem_ of a game. It takes the formula of classic 2D
+Sonic games (like Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles) and modernizes it without
+losing out on the aspects of Sonic that people love. It was a love letter to the
+Sonic fandom and the classic 2D Genesis games that is worth picking up and
+playing to this day. It was tied into Sonic Forces by a story MacGuffin that is
+ultimately not really worth mentioning because of how badly it was used in
+Forces. It was also the excuse for Sonic Forces to add "Classic Sonic" style
+gameplay to the mix.
+
+<xeblog-conv name="Cadey" mood="coffee">Don't play Sonic Forces. Not even
+ironically.</xeblog-conv>
+
+## Sonic Frontiers
+
+By this point, most of the people I know that liked Sonic were anything but
+optimistic about the future of the mainline 3D Sonic The Hedgehog series. With
+games like Forces and [Sonic Lost
+World](https://store.steampowered.com/app/329440/Sonic_Lost_World/) coming out,
+who can blame them? It was looking like Sonic Team was utterly devoid of new
+ideas and that they would continue to slowly fade into irrelevance as each
+release continued to be worse than the previous one.
+
+I don't think this is going to be the case with Sonic Frontiers. Sonic Frontiers
+is actually good. Here's some footage of my favorite level in Sonic Frontiers,
+1-7:
+
+<xeblog-video path="blog/sonic-frontiers-1-7"></xeblog-video>
+
+As you watch that, take a moment to really let the flow sink in. Sonic has a few
+basic moves: jumping, attacking, boosting, and sliding. Every one of these
+actions is on separate buttons. Attacking while jumping gives you a homing
+attack. Boosting makes you go fast, but in the air it becomes an air boost.
+Sliding in the air becomes a stomp, and holding the slide button makes it into a
+bounce. Everything flows together from there. This is a stark difference from
+games like Sonic Forces or even Sonic Adventure 2 where multiple actions are
+shoved on the same button (jumping and doing a homing attack are the same button
+as well as an "everything button" that is either to do context-sensitive things
+in Sonic Adventure 2 or the boost button in Forces).
+
+Even though I had to _drastically_ relearn how to play Frontiers compared to
+past games, it just _flows_ so nicely. This is how Sonic should control. This is
+how you should play these kinds of games. I feel like I am _in control of Sonic_
+without the engine janking me around through scripted sequences.
+
+Sadly, this is one of the only examples of that in the Cyberspace levels. A lot
+of the other Cyberspace levels are copies of level layouts and aesthetics from
+older games (with a strangely large amount of them from Sonic Generations) and
+they _do not translate well_ to the control scheme and gameplay style of
+Frontiers.
+
+Thankfully these Cyberspace levels are largely optional and mostly used to
+unlock Chaos Emeralds. The main focus of the game is on the "open zones". This
+takes the standard Sonic the Hedgehog formula and turns it on its side. Instead
+of getting to the goal ring with minimum haste, you are _dumped into an open
+world_ and told to figure out what you need to do.
+
+Sonic can climb walls, fight enemies (with an _actual combat system_ that has
+_real mechanical depth_), recover Chaos Emeralds to take out Titans, and even go
+fishing with Big the Cat.
+
+<xeblog-toot url="https://pony.social/@cadey/109309523632526075"></xeblog-toot>
+
+I'm not kidding. There's a fishing minigame with Big the Cat and it _breaks the
+game in half_ in the later parts. You can use fishing to skip the Cyberspace
+levels you don't like playing through. There are also some surreal and realistic
+3D models of fish. It is quite bizarre, but somehow a lo-fi hip hop fishing
+simulator was just that little bit of icing on the top that pushed this game
+into one that I love.
+
+Going back to the open zone, here's a small video of me playing around in Kronos
+Island (the first open zone):
+
+<xeblog-video path="blog/sonic-frontiers-kronos-island"></xeblog-video>
+
+You have _control_ in this game. You can _move_ Sonic to places as opposed to
+vaguely influencing his position like in other games. The open zone gameplay
+also means that you don't need to be at 100% speed 100% of the time. You can
+take your time to _explore_ and walk around the islands you find yourself on.
+You can go out of your way to discover things like the Eggman bases scattered
+across the islands that you're trapped on for plot reasons or the portal to the
+lo-fi fishing vibe zone.
+
+One of the biggest things that I think Sonic Frontiers is going to end up
+solving is the "now what" problem of open world games. After you play through an
+open world game for some time, you eventually hit the end of the content in
+there. This ends up leaving the world kinda empty and a lot less magical because
+those questions you had about "what is over there?" and "what does this do?"
+have answers.
+
+Sonic Frontiers solves this by having the world be kind of empty _out of the
+gate_. You look off into the distance and see just about nothing. As you run
+around and explore you'll occasionally come across little puzzles. When you
+complete them, you unlock more view of your map; but more critically you will
+unlock more game objects in the world. This means that completing the game
+populates it with rails to grind on, rings to fly through, springs to bounce off
+of and targets to hit. Over time this gives you _more things_ to do rather than
+the world just being boring.
+
+This is all accented by the soundtrack. Sonic games have always had _absolute
+bangers_ in the soundtrack department. This game is no exception. I can't wait
+for the OST to drop in order to add it to my working music playlist. The lo-fi
+hip hop beats to relax and fish to are marvelous.
+
+### The bad
+
+I've been trying to focus on the good parts of Sonic Frontiers because I'm
+trying to be a more positive person in general. All that's left are the
+downsides, but please keep in mind that with 20+ years of experience playing
+Sonic games I have a much more critical view on this than most would.
+
+The game isn't perfect. There's huge problems that either are _core to the
+movement_ of Sonic or have to do with the level designers _seemingly copying and
+pasting layouts and textures from previous games_. The biggest problem is that
+they seem to think that Sonic has only ever been in 4 levels:
+
+* Green Hill Zone
+* Sky Sanctuary Zone
+* Chemical Plant Zone
+* Some Random City Zone
+
+That's it. The Cyberspace levels only have one of those four themes. It's
+excusable for the first level (or the tutorial) to have Green Hill Zone vibes,
+but when over _a third of the levels are Green Hill Zone_ something is horribly
+wrong. I wish Sega and/or Sonic Team would have a corporate mandate forbidding
+the aesthetics of Green Hill Zone. They're creative people. There's surely other
+levels they can use the aesthetics from. They did at least give each Cyberspace
+level its own song, but overall all of the levels feel like they end too soon.
+It's not as bad as Sonic Forces' infamous 45 second level with the player only
+having meaningful input for 15 of them, but I wish I could have heard more of
+the "Flowing into the light" song in Cyberspace level 1-2.
+
+That Cyberspace level I took a video of was hilariously cherry-picked. There are
+only a few Cyberspace levels that flow that well. That is one of them. Most of
+them feel like garbage because they were obviously designed for a different
+Sonic than the one they use in Frontiers.
+
+Sonic also doesn't seem to have any momentum. You can go at a billionty miles
+per hour but if you stop pushing the stick forward Sonic stops on a dime. I get
+that they did this for making the platforming easier (it really does help), but
+I would have preferred the speed rodent to have a bit more weight and momentum
+in the equation. At the least I'd like scripted events like homing attack to not
+cap my speed and slow me down.
+
+The other issues I have with the game boil down to implementation details like
+Elder Koco not having a good way to upgrade multiple levels of speed and rings
+at once. It's an implementation issue, not an issue with the game itself. It's
+not really worth mentioning in my book because there's a [PC mod to fix
+it](https://gamebanana.com/mods/411443). It will surely be fixed on the other
+platforms. Give them time.
+
+## Conclusion
+
+Overall, I think that Sonic Frontiers is well worth playing, even if you aren't
+historically a fan of Sonic games. I enjoyed my time with it. I can easily see
+myself going back to replay it, especially with the final boss fight that it
+had. I'd love to see what they can do with this formula next time. There is a
+lot of promise in an open-world Sonic game.
+
+Just please without Green Hill Zone everywhere.
+
+My clear time was 20 hours. I played most of my playthrough on my Steam Deck. It
+ran perfectly. I got 4-ish hours of battery with 600p, and a 75% render scale
+capped at 30 FPS.
+
+<xeblog-sticker name="Mara" mood="happy"></xeblog-sticker>
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