Ever since that first teaser came out last year I’ve been nothing but cautiously optimistic. Sonic had nothing but L’s in the last decade. Sonic Boom. Sonic Lost World 3ds. And Sonic Forces. Generations and Colors were exceptions. Even Colors Ultimate had some merits aside from too many bugs and bloom. A great start for new fans. Their storylines could’ve used more work but the gameplay made up for it. No lie it’s alot of fun. Sega took all the wrong lessons from it, sticking with their Saturday Morning Cartoon vibes.

But now the Meta era is over. He had 2 awesome movies. Which brings us to Sonic Frontiers.

I don’t like it.

I LOVED IT.

It’s basically the 3rd Storybook game. Director Morio Kishimoto was also the lead game designer on Sonic and the Secret Rings, Sonic and The Black Knight, and Sonic Colors. And he directed Forces.

Sonic is on a different playing field. Battlefield and mood. He don’t sound 50 no more. Even Eggman ain’t goofing around. Frontiers did what Black Knight did for Jason Griffith. Didn’t have a good start got better overtime. I always like Jason, its something he perfected overtime and the same can be said for Roger.

I didn’t like Roger Craig Smith initially. He’s a great voice actor. Voiced Batman in Arkham Origins, Captain America in Avengers Assemble, and Pulverizer in TMNT 2012. He didn’t have any semblance like Jason and Ryan. His voice was surprisingly not one of the worst parts of Forces. And that game was no good. I played it on hard mode for a bit of a challenge. There were some bosses I struggled with but nothing I can’t handle. It just didn’t have the drive like the 2000s.

I said this in my Knuckles prologue review: it was never the voices, it was mainly the writing. Thanks Pontac and Graff. I hope they stick with the cast they have instead of getting new voices like they did last time. I’m starting to like them.

Ian Flynn played a big part in the character interactions. He’s the comic book writer from the IDW run now he’s writing the games. He’s basically the James Gunn of Sonic The Hedgehog. There’s plenty of callbacks to all the games. All the characters are amazing, especially SAGE. For those who didn’t know Eggman created SAGE. She’s a subvillian of sorts. I haven’t beaten the whole game yet. I’m on Chaos Island right now. From what I can tell she might turn over a new leaf. Maybe. Just maybe.

The open zone is breathtaking. It’s like a refined Sonic Adventure open hub with combat. You find all kinds of stuff here. Eggman shuttles. A destroyed Eggman robot. Kucos. Titans. And a Big Fishing Mini Game. Way easier than Sonic Adventure. He got all kinds of goodies. Eggman’s logs. Vault Keys. Lost Kuco. Wait… Why he holding them Kuco hostage? Big hustling.

And he’s got new moves. It’s alot of fun. Inspired by the Sonic movies. If you get maxed rings he glows just like the movies. Gotta Go Fast. Even Super Sonic feeding the Titans nothing but HANDS. I couldn’t memorize all the combos. Good thing they had an auto combo. It reminded me of Kingdom Hearts. Maybe one of the dlcs will be a Sora skin and add new moves and enemies from that series. That would be pretty dope actually.

Cyberspace is probably the weakest part of Frontiers. I don’t mind it but I don’t like it either. I haven’t seen any stages besides Green Hill, Chemical Plant, Sky Sanctuary, and Green Forest. City Escape is look more like Speed Highway. The red rings are pretty easy to find. No complaints there. I found myself replaying them quite a bit. You don’t have to do Cyberspace. It’s completely optional. I recommend fishing with Big. The main draw is the open zone. That’s where Frontiers truely shines.

The music is fire as always. It’s like Sonic Rush. A Rave party. There has never been a bad Sonic soundtrack. Kudos to Tomoya Ohtani.

In my personal opinion Sonic Frontiers is One of the Best Sonic Games Yet. Top 10 for sure. It might end up being my favorite Sonic game once I beat it. In future games Sega can take what they learned from Frontiers and make it even better. Maybe have playable characters again. They can do Shadow Frontiers. A Silver game. Maybe a Knuckles spinoff. Tails Frontiers. Can you imagine if we can explore Eggmanland?

I’m really glad Sonic’s back on track. It means so much to me. It’s been a long ride but now we’re here reaching far across these new frontiers.