Few video game characters are as well-known as Sonic, the notoriously smart-mouthed chili dog-eating hedgehog. Sonic has been around for decades, and in that time his games have been a lot of things — side-scrollers, pinball games, kart racers, fighting games, and more. You’d think the blue blur had done everything by this point, but in 2022 the series managed to break new ground yet again, by going entirely open world. Sonic Frontiers is a fascinating Sonic experience, one with some clear flaws that still manages to set itself apart from the flood of open world games out there. Its sense of speed and almost zen-like exploration is more than worth the price of entry for any fan, and luckily if you’re a PlayStation Plus member, that price is now zero. If you need some Sonic to scratch the itch after watching Sonic the Hedgehog 3, you can’t go wrong with Frontiers.
Frontiers is essentially a self-contained game, one separated from almost all of the other story lines and settings. The exception, of course, is that the game assumes you have some familiarity with characters like Tails, Robotnik, Knuckles, and Amy Rose. There are some references to past games and events, but you’ll be mostly fine going in blind.
At the beginning of Frontiers, Doctor Eggman travels to the mysterious Starfall Islands to steal ancient technology, once again trying to hatch one of his ludicrous plots. He uploads an artificial intelligence named Sage into a portal on the island, and inadvertently wakes up its defense system and gets drawn into another dimension called Cyber Space. As Sonic and his friends investigate they start to see visions about the Ancients, an extraterrestrial race that lives on the island and was destroyed by an entity simply known as “The End.”
The storytelling in Sonic games isn’t usually incredibly complex, but Frontiers opts for a different approach by looping its narrative into exploration and leaving a lot of things cryptic and up for interpretation. Playing as Sonic, you essentially explore a sequence of islands, with each one growing more complex in the way its puzzles and open areas work.
The islands are littered with ancient ruins and structures that act as both platforming challenges and puzzles, along with plenty of enemies to fight. An upgrade system even lets you pump up Sonic’s speed, attack, defense, ring capacity, and boost. Little wrinkles and gimmicks in later islands keep things interesting, as well as new skills Sonic unlocks.
Frontier’s open world is, bizarrely, most comparable to Breath of the Wild — in the way that it hyper-focuses on exploration and discovery. This isn’t an experience that guides you by hand but rather wants you to poke around the islands on your own, find little puzzles to solve, creatures to save, and a boatload of secrets. The world isn’t as well put-together as Breath of the Wild, and the gameplay itself, particularly Sonic’s movement, can feel janky, imprecise, and rough around the edges.
But what’s remarkable about Frontiers is the kind of calming effect playing it has. The world almost reminds you of one of those weird ‘90s animation concepts meant to showcase the power of CG — a dreamlike place that doesn’t obey the laws of reality. There’s no pressure to do anything in a timely manner in Frontiers, and simply running around the world spin-dashing and grinding on rails is delightful. It just feels good to exist in this world.
The extra wrinkle here, however, is how that quiet reverie is occasionally, intentionally, broken by the game’s over-the-top boss battles. Each boss has you transforming into Super Sonic and engaging in what is essentially a Dragon Ball Z fight, filled with explosive moves and crazy combos.
Sonic Frontiers is a fascinating game, with contemplative quiet spoiled abruptly with in-your-face action. It’s experimental and drastically different from anything Sonic has seen before, but that’s another part of its charm. While we wait to see what Sonic’s future looks like, Frontiers might just give you a little glimpse.
