$39.99Sonic Frontiers Full speed across open islands
Race through the Starfall Islands, chain tricks into long runs and take on towering titans in fast, colorful action.
Is Sonic Frontiers worth it?
Sonic Frontiers is worth it if…
- you want a Sonic game where speed is a tool, not a hallway
- you like open worlds you can cross in seconds and explore at your own pace
- you play for big boss fights and a soundtrack worth collecting in a jukebox
- you enjoy a story with more mystery and melancholy than the usual robot-smashing
Screenshots
Speed that finally has room to breathe
Older Sonic games gave you all this speed and then pointed it down a corridor. Frontiers hands you five massive islands and lets it rip. You boost across fields, spring up to floating platforms, grind rails that spiral into the sky and chain tricks mid-air for points, and the game keeps rewarding you for linking it all together. One moment you are launching off a ramp, the next you are gliding over a field of robots with the camera pulling back to show you the whole island. The movement settings are worth a look too: tweak them and Sonic stops on a dime or carries his speed through the air, and the map opens up in a whole new way.
Fights with actual weight
This is not run-past-everything Sonic. Small robot hordes fall fast, mini-bosses respawn for more practice, and then there are the titans. As Super Sonic you punch holes through colossal machines while rock music swells, and these fights are the highlight of the game: huge, staged like set pieces, and a genuine spectacle. The Cyloop ability draws a ring of light around enemies to break them open, which is as satisfying as it sounds. Boss patterns are simple once you read them, so the fun is in the spectacle and the hitting, not in sweating.
What else is there to do besides run?
Is there anything to do besides running around?
Plenty. Each island hides challenges, puzzles, time trials and collectables, and clearing them unlocks the map and pushes the story along. You can fish with Big the Cat, hunt down memory tokens for your trapped friends, and dive into Cyberspace portals for short, traditional Sonic levels where chasing an S rank means learning the route and shaving off seconds. There is also a jukebox: you collect songs as you go and can swap the music anywhere, which makes a slow lap around an island a very different experience. Most of it is optional, so you can beeline the story or pick the islands clean.
Can you play as anyone other than Sonic?
Yes. The Final Horizon campaign lets you play as Tails, Amy and Knuckles, each with their own abilities and fighting styles, and it adds an alternate ending to the story. The package also bundles the earlier content updates, including bonus challenges, costumes and extra music, so everything released for the game sits in one place.
Do you need to know Sonic games to enjoy it?
No. The story stands on its own: Sonic is stranded on the Starfall Islands hunting Chaos Emeralds, his friends are trapped in a digital world, and an ancient civilization's fate slowly comes to light. Fans get extra layers out of it, and the story is darker and more melancholy than the series usual tone, but a newcomer can follow every step. It helps that progression is flexible: speedrunning, casual exploring and fishing all get you what you need to move on.
Is it repetitive?
Somewhat, and it is fair to say so up front. Each island follows a similar rhythm of challenges, portals and a boss, and the loop of collecting tokens to advance can wear thin on later islands. If the movement itself is the fun for you, that repetition matters less, because you are mostly looking for excuses to keep running. If you want a steady stream of new mechanics instead, the back half may test you.
