I can't help but think this is the Sonic dev's reaction to Forspoken imitating the feel of Frontiers and deciding to nope out before the feel is too tarnished, lol. After a lengthy development period, Sonic Team's latest creation has finally arrived and after doubts and fears about the quality of the title based on early trailers, I'm happy to say that Sonic Frontiers is a good game - a really good game. However, there is a massive asterix attached to that in that it depends very much on where you play the game. The experience ranges from sublime to, well, Nintendo Switch, where the compromises made are problematic in many ways.

Title Sonic Frontiers Genre New Frontier Action-Adventure. No. of Players Single-player Supported Platforms Battle hordes of powerful enemies as you explore a breathtaking world of action, adventure, and mystery in Sonic Frontiers. Accelerate to new heights and experience the thrill of high-velocity, open-zone platforming freedom as you race across the five massive Starfall Islands. Jump into adventure, wield the power of the Ancients, and fight to stop these new mysterious foes. Welcome to the evolution of Sonic games!

What Curators Say

Series X and PS5 versions are essentially interchangeable. Both should be run in their 60fps modes, which run well overall with only small dips. A VRR screen solves this minor issue. Race across five massive overworld islands, each with their own unique action-platforming challenges and hidden secrets to uncover. He also talks about it here, where the translation says he'd like to "challenge the level design without boosts like the [Adventure] series". In other words, Kishimoto is thinking about a game that swaps out boost for something closer to the Sonic Adventure games. As a Sonic fan, I have much to say about the game design - and all of that commentary is in the embedded video below - but for the purposes of this piece, I'm going to focus on the core technology and the best way to play. At its core, Sonic Frontiers is powered by Sonic Team's internal Hedgehog Engine 2 - the latest iteration of the technology that debuted in Sonic Unleashed. This time, the team was challenged with building much larger environments than any prior Sonic game, while implementing a full time of day cycle complete with an impressive global illumination solution and long-distance shadow rendering. The result is far from perfect but, overall, it works.

Whatever they do with Sonic, it needs to be a pinball machine at heart. 1-3 was. Frontiers is. And I can't think of much in between that remembered that about it. It's the core, and it's been missing. Except generations, but Generations was just 1-3 remix + CD, so it was naturally a pinball machine. The Starfall Islands are home to strange creatures Sonic has never encountered before. Use the all-new battle system and skill tree upgrades in Sonic Frontiers to fight strategically, combining moves such as dodges, parries, counters, combos, and the new Cyloop ability to take down mysterious foes and colossal titans. The Starfall Islands are home to strange creatures Sonic has never encountered before. Use the all-new battle system and skill tree upgrades to fight strategically, combining moves such as dodges, parries, counters, combos, and the new Cyloop ability to take down mysterious foes and colossal titans. Mauzuri I find that surprising, I'm a classic Sonic fan since 1, but I really really like Frontiers a lot. And thought Forces was pure garbage. Never really cared much for Unleashed.

Worlds are colliding in Sonic the Hedgehog’s newest high-speed adventure! In search of the missing Chaos emeralds, Sonic becomes stranded on an ancient island teeming with unusual creatures. Battle hordes of powerful enemies as you explore a breathtaking world of action, adventure, and mystery. Accelerate to new heights and experience the thrill of high-velocity, open-zone platforming freedom as you race across the five massive Starfall Islands. Jump into adventure, wield the power of the Ancients, and fight to stop these new mysterious foes. Welcome to the evolution of Sonic games!

Of course, a lot of design decisions will be made and then changed during a game's development, so who knows what the next 3D Sonic will be like. We imagine it'll at least build upon the more open structure of Frontiers, but beyond that, we'll just have to wait and see. Race across five massive overworld islands brimming with dense forests, overflowing waterfalls, and sizzling desert landscapes, each with their own unique action-platforming challenges and hidden secrets to uncover. From Series S down, we're in 30fps territory, marred by inconsistent frame-pacing. Here, Xbox Series S runs at a lower resolution than Xbox One X, but delivers high quality effects. Quite why Series S doesn't get a 60fps mode is genuinely baffling.This goes doubly so when we examine performance. You see, the 30fps cap has a problem - Sonic Frontiers exhibits inconsistent frame pacing in this mode, meaning obvious jerkiness in performance. The 60fps mode, however, fares much better. The Cyberspace stages are virtually flawless on both machines - fast and fluid from start to finish. The islands, however, can exhibit minor dips: slightly annoying, but cleaned up completely if your screen has VRR support. The one caveat here is that cutscenes are all played at 30 fps for some reason and, as a result, the frame pacing issues rear their ugly head anytime a cinematic is played. So, if you're trying to decide between PS5 or Xbox Series X, well, it's all down to controller preference more than anything.