Since making his debut in 1991, Sonic the Hedgehog has had 31 games released on consoles. Yet up until now Sega's famed mascot has never set his iconic sneakers in a fully open-world game. At first, the concept of an open-world Sonic game got me excited, and I began to fantasise about what that could entail. The thought of running around freely in a vast world filled with various types of challenges and enemies and puzzles sounds awesome. The series has dabbled with fairly free-roaming hub-based worlds before, but seamless exploration is a whole new territory.
But then I saw the initial gameplay of Sonic Frontiers, and oof, my thoughts turned from excitement to seriously questioning if an open-world Sonic the Hedgehog game was the right call.
I just could not stop focusing on how empty the world looks. Under the island's floating rails and loops, there is nothing unique or distinct about the landscape; instead of a giant playground it felt like some barren rocky island off the coast of Scotland. Once you have run up the top of the tower and beaten what few enemies there seem to be, what else is there to do? While there are puzzles that unlock more of the island, we still do not know how plentiful those other parts are, but you'd have thought that if they were more exciting then Sega would've shown them off a bit.
There could be more enemies, but there also could be even emptier pastures of green grass. Sonic Frontiers is set in a big open-world, clearly, but that first look did not channel the thrills of its fast-platforming predecessors. An open-world Sonic game sounds nice, but its execution and development are not off to a great start.
The new attacks at Sonic's disposal seem interesting, but a part of me still thinks back to Sonic Unleashed where the fighting segments really slowed the gameplay down. As the poster child for “Blast Processing,” Sonic is and always will be based on one key thing: speed.
I do not mind jumping and battling multiple enemies, but with an open-world Sonic game, the main selling point should be running fast through populated areas and not having to stop. Sonic Frontiers features a skill tree allowing players to upgrade Sonic’s skills while also being given a sense of progression. It sounds nice until I remembered that what I loved about the Sonic Adventure games (when they were not glitching out) was collecting items to enhance my characters. If all you can search for in the game are Chaos Emeralds, then it takes a lot of the fun out of exploring.
Imagine if in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild you could not collect items, only abilities. It would take away the wonderful feeling of adventure while discovering the Master Sword and pulling it out of the stone. Skill trees can be great in games when utilized properly. In the Batman Arkham series, for example, you can increase Batman’s health and the range of gadgets, but you could still collect gadgets and Riddler trophies to bolster your sense of accomplishment.
The Sonic Frontiers footage so far did not show any of that. While side-quests and non-jeweled items could yet be shown before its release, the lack of features outside of a skill tree and new combat moves was worrying. This is supposed to be an open world where we can pinball or spin-dash through trees and collect trophies shaped like chili dogs to unlock new skins. If we cannot do that then there is no reason for one to exist.
An open world means developers should have an open imagination. If you want Sonic to have a skill tree then create one, but show that if you max out his speed, he can run through certain enemies without having to use his spin dash. If we're just going to be getting an empty world with a few enemies sprinkled in then the folks over at Sonic Team would have been better of focusing on either making a new two-dimensional Sonic game or taking the time to make something more sandboxy.
Sonic does not need an open-world game, he just needs a nice long development cycle, some tweaks, and better glitch protection. There's nothing wrong with 2D Sonic, especially when they give us cool new stages, soundtracks, and sweet blistering speed.