Sonic Frontiers didn’t leave the strongest impression when SEGA first unveiled it. Despite positive initial previews, there were concerns about the game’s combat and visual design, amplified by the publisher’s refusal to delay it further. But thanks to a 30-minute hands-on preview at Gamescom 2022, we finally had a chance to see it for ourselves. Sonic Frontiers already feels like a step up from its predecessor, Sonic Forces – which certainly isn’t the highest bar – but there’s some promise here, aside from a few rough edges.
For anyone following Sonic Frontiers, you probably know that it takes a different approach from previous games. Using mostly linear stages for ‘Open Zone’ gameplay, Frontiers includes stage-like elements across the world map, taking us between five biomes on the Starfall Islands. While Gamescom’s public demo takes place on the opening area, Kronos Island, our preview instead saw us exploring the rugged deserts of Ares Island, Frontiers’ second location.
Trapped in a red orb, our goal was to rescue a certain knucklehead, and in most locations at least one of Sonic’s friends seems to be trapped. Freeing them requires memory tokens earned by exploring the island, so between digging up token stacks, completing minor platforming challenges, and taking down enemies, you have a few options. Admittedly, we didn’t get much further into the main story; this token process needs to be repeated at least three times, so any judgments here would be premature.
Instead, we explored Ares Island with complete freedom, and while this biome isn’t lacking, it isn’t particularly crowded either. Between bigger towers, grinding rails and walls to run/climb up some placements feel natural, like using inflatables to blast through a narrow canyon, but others feel more random. Many events just seem to be there. Still, Frontiers rewards those who make the effort to explore, and it’s fun to run through these wide open spaces.
However, it took time to adjust to Frontier’s visuals. For a series full of colorful anthropomorphic animals, the pursuit of realistic environments is a tonal clash that’s hard to shake – Sonic didn’t quite feel like he belonged. Don’t get us wrong, Ares has some nice and detailed environments, but we wish Frontiers felt more cohesive – 2D art aside. It would probably help if there weren’t major pop-in issues; platforms not that far away would suddenly appear on the screen, and while we hope this will be fixed before launch, it’s an issue many noticed two months ago.
Still, even with this new visual style and open structure, Frontiers feels crucially like you’re playing a Sonic game. A lot of that comes down to his moveset. Sonic is still working on classic skills like his target attack, spin jump, and double jump, and running uses the familiar boost-based system that most 3D titles feature. Further skills, such as new attacks, can be unlocked via a skill tree, some are placed behind the story progress, and you earn skill points to obtain the others.
What stood out the most is Sonic’s new Cyloop ability, as seen in the recent trailer, where he leaves behind a blue trail. Once you’ve drawn a full circle, it will create different effects depending on what you’ve drawn it around. If it’s an empty area, you’ll spawn rings, which several times narrowly helped us avoid death. It can also be used to attack multiple enemies in addition to digging up hidden items for puzzle solving. It’s a smart addition that feels like a natural evolution, activated by holding down the square button. Forgetting your standard Soldiers, some enemies require you to hit them with a Cyloop to make them vulnerable, such as the sturdier Shells. You can’t spam homing attacks and hope for the best – some require more attention and it complements combat nicely.
We also ran into a mini-boss and to defeat them we had to grind across three circular rails to make them blue, making them vulnerable. We had minor frustrations, though, because as the D-pad Sonic moves between rails, the instinctive response is to jump – and that doesn’t click on the next rail, causing Sonic to fall off. It disrupted the course of the battles, but since there are many other mini bosses, we don’t attach too much importance to this. Defeating them will earn you Portal Gears to unlock new portals in the linear Cyber Space stages. Unfortunately, we couldn’t try these levels during the demo, but when you complete them, players will be rewarded with Vault Keys, which are used to obtain chaos emeralds. And sadly, we didn’t fight the Ares Island main boss unless you count an entertaining chase scene after helping Knuckles.
There’s only so much you can measure from a 30 minute demo, but while we have some critiques of the art style and world design, what we’ve seen so far has certainly been entertaining. For better or worse, Frontiers didn’t feel like 3D Sonic with a Breath of the Wild skin, as many comparisons suggested, Sonic’s latest game is its own beast that takes a big risk. Until we get more time with it, we can’t make a final verdict, but we’re moving cautiously optimistic away from Gamescom.
Sonic Frontiers is coming to PS5 and PS4 on November 8, 2022. What do you think of Sonic Frontiers? try not to go at quickly in the comments below.
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