I acquired this on sale at GameStop, having bought it online and picked it up in-store. Then their system apparently didn't realize I'd already picked it up, and sent me an email saying it was ready for pickup. So I ignored it. And thus, they said they stopped holding it for me and refunded me. ... neat.
Anyway, if the game had sucked, that would've been awesome. It's still awesome, but I mean, hey, better to not pay for a bad game.
Thankfully, Sonic Frontiers is not a bad game.
Okay, alright, it's rough around the edges in plenty of parts, but I feel the good outweighs the bad. This is a solid base to fine-tune and expand upon. Exploring open zones and doing obstacles courses and such for progression macguffins is genuinely fun! The combat is actually for the most part entertaining, which is the aspect I thought would be the weakest going in, although you need to upgrade it somewhat significantly to reach that point. The music is great. Physics need some tweaking though, and some visual stylization would go a long way; Sonic in these realistic environments just isn't doing it for me.
Cyber Space is a letdown. Sometimes it's alright, but the fact there are only four skins and the fact they're almost all recycled level designs is annoying. These were the parts I was most looking forward to on announcement but lost my excitement the more I heard about them. I get there's a reason for the recycling, but I'm just tired of it in the games. That, and the physics are completely different than in the open zones? The boost, for instance, feels fucking awful. And you can't boost through enemies anymore! I also really don't like the delay after a homing attack. It make sense for combat, but combat is disabled in Cyber Space. If we're going to change physics between the gameplay segments, can we change how the homing attack works for smoother gameplay too?
The writing is pretty solid, though it does get a bit too reference heavy for the sake of it sometimes. For an anniversary game, I don't mind as much. I still gladly take this over the garbage we've been handed since Colors, though. Keep Ian Flynn. Will say it feels like there's something missing though? And not just with story, but in general. I found myself at the final boss unexpectedly, and it does feel like in some respects it was rushed. Yet, it still managed to be a thirty-hour experience, unheard of for a main series Sonic game!
At least it didn't feel unfinished in the way Sonic Forces did.
Sage is a great character and I hope we see more of her. Eggman... didn't have a whole lot of presence? Like in general, cutscene production values seem to have dipped since... well, Colors, again. I can understand it being a boon for younger players who may not want to sit through too much cutscene out of impatience, but I don't know, it kind of hampers the otherwise good story in the game.
Some of the challenges are repetitive. Some of the obstacle courses bizarrely force you into a 2D perspective in what's supposed to be an open 3D environment, and sometimes you can find yourself thrown into them without warning.
For the most part, the bosses are actually really fucking good. There's a few that suck, but the multiple ones that hit, they really hit. I'm frankly impressed, these are the best Sonic bosses in... well, a very, very long time. Maybe the best bosses in a 3D Sonic game, period.
There's probably more thoughts I could spew but I don't feel like making a spoiler block for more in-depth stuff. Suffice it to say that it has its lows, but when it's good, it's really good. I just wish "best 3D Sonic game since Generations" actually had some weight to it, considering the competition is Lost World and Forces. And Boom, before some smartass says something. If you're on the fence, wait for a sale like I did, but I definitely felt it was worth my time. All thirty hours of it.