Sonic Frontiers - Review Roundup.

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

Gameranx weighed in with their own review too:

Spoiler

He considers it the best Sonic game in a couple of decades. Points out some flaws, but still sees it as a good game.

 

[ZinogreVolt]

Guess this game is joining the ranks of Mega Man Star Force and Pokemon Mystery Dungeon where I'll love it a lot but the critical response is a bit more loose. 

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

Just now, ZinogreVolt said:

Guess this game is joining the ranks of Mega Man Star Force and Pokemon Mystery Dungeon where I'll love it a lot but the critical response is a bit more loose. 

Ooh! I love those games too! Good news for moi! Lol

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

*Looks at reviews, sees a few 9s and 4 out of 5s*

I remember saying something in the status updates about seeing Frontiers with 9s and high marks.

Guys…

I WAS FUCKING JOKING!!!!

What the shit?!

EDIT—Really, this is good news tho.

[UberHoax]

3 hours ago, Johnster4 said:

Around 70s on metacritic it's what I expected for it to be decent, I'll have to wait for PC invasions review to see how it performs on PC.

Eh, user reviews are what truly matters at the end of the day.

Having said all this, I'm expecting Sonic Frontiers to do way better with the general public.

[VO.SUPER]

2 hours ago, Wraith said:

Speculation is fine, but it needs to be based in something or else you're just spinning your wheels IE you guys can't decide if this game had a higher budget than Unleashed or not, whether Sega allowed them time to experiment or cut them off again etc.. I didn't imply Sonic Team was sitting in their chairs for 5 years in my post, so I don't know why that's what's being floated. 

We're all spinning our wheels here. The game is 7/10. Some people are fine with that and some aren't. Not much else going there.

When it comes to the future of Sonic, we know another game is already being worked on. And we have this to judge whether we should be hopeful or not.

And I've seen several of your posts questioning why people are hopeful. Some people just are.

[Stasis]

Where's this 'The Enemy 10/10' I'm seeing?

[Jango]

30 minutes ago, Stasis said:

Where's this 'The Enemy 10/10' I'm seeing?

The Enemy is from Brazil. The reviewer said it's the best Sonic game he has ever played, even better than the classics in his opinion.

[Rabbitearsblog]

I got this run down of the reviews for Sonic Frontiers so far, so I don't know if @Kuzuwill add these reviews to the list:

Attack of the Fanboy - 9/10

Shack News - 9/10

We Got This Covered - 9/10

Nintenderos - 9/10

Checkpoint Gaming - 8.5/10

Gaming Trend - 8.5/10

Gamers RD - 8.5/10

Hobby Consolas - 8.2/10

The Games Machine - 8.1/10

Push Square - 8/10

Games Beat - 8/10

Game Rant - 8/10

IGN Japan - 8/10

Metro - 8/10

The Mako Reactor - 8/10

VGC - 8/10

The Gamer - 8/10

Play Sense - 8/10

Game Informer - 7.75/10

God is a Geek - 7.5/10

Easy Allies - 7.5/10

GAMIN Gbible - 7/10

Inverse - 7/10

IGN - 7/10

Well Played - 7/10

Nintendo Insider - 7/10

Twinfinite - 7/10

Game Spot - 7/10

True Gaming - 6/10

Aus Gamers - 5.5/10

Games Hub - 2/5

Games Radar - 2/5

Digital Trends - 1/5

Game Xplain - Mixed ?

Honestly, I'm really surprised that this game is actually receiving lots of positive reviews!  After having to deal with the last decade of Sonic games being mediocre (with the exceptions of Sonic Colors, Sonic Generations and Sonic Mania), I'm really glad that there is finally a Sonic game that a lot of critics seem to like.  Now I'm really excited to play this game soon!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Kuzu]

I'll take care of it when I get the chance, thanks @Rabbitearsblog

[Rabbitearsblog]

Just now, Kuzu said:

I'll take care of it when I get the chance, thanks @Rabbitearsblog

You're welcome! Glad to help!

[Whatever the WhoCares]

One serious victory has been the Switch version. From Day 1, a practically open-world Sonic game running on Nintendo’s anemic hardware seemed like a recipe for disaster. Ever play Immortals: Fenyx Rising on Switch? It’s brutal. Super low resolution, choppy frame rate, textures blurred to hell.

But not Frontiers! It looks and runs very competently. Incredible, really. There are a couple of “oof” areas, such as the complete lack of blending where the grass meets the rocky cliffsides, but generally speaking it is a really solid release. I can’t emphasize enough what an accomplishment that is on a system where Nintendo’s own IPs are turning up 30fps titles (including Bowser’s Fury in handheld mode). 

[Zoomzeta]

1 hour ago, Whatever the WhoCares said:

One serious victory has been the Switch version. From Day 1, a practically open-world Sonic game running on Nintendo’s anemic hardware seemed like a recipe for disaster. Ever play Immortals: Fenyx Rising on Switch? It’s brutal. Super low resolution, choppy frame rate, textures blurred to hell.

But not Frontiers! It looks and runs very competently. Incredible, really. There are a couple of “oof” areas, such as the complete lack of blending where the grass meets the rocky cliffsides, but generally speaking it is a really solid release. I can’t emphasize enough what an accomplishment that is on a system where Nintendo’s own IPs are turning up 30fps titles (including Bowser’s Fury in handheld mode). 

As I understand, the game was likely made with the Switch as a base I think? 

Also 30fps isn't necessarily a bad thing, at least as long as it is consistent. If it dips below that too frequently, then it would be a problem. 

Edited November 8, 2022 by Zoomzeta

[Whatever the WhoCares]

1 minute ago, Zoomzeta said:

As I understand, the game was likely made with the Switch as a base I think?

I would call it a huge accomplishment regardless. I get that the pop-in is awful, but still, they managed to maintain Sonic’s speed in what’s practically an open world. That’s a really high demand, and they measured up. 

[Raya]

Ok, tomorrow I should receive my Switch copy of the game, can't wait.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

 

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

Reception on Steam for Sonic Frontiers has been very positive with a 9:1 ratio of positive vs negative reviews.

[Rabbitearsblog]

2 hours ago, Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon said:

Reception on Steam for Sonic Frontiers has been very positive with a 9:1 ratio of positive vs negative reviews.

That's really good!  Glad this game is getting some love!

[Wittymations]

6 hours ago, Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon said:

Reception on Steam for Sonic Frontiers has been very positive with a 9:1 ratio of positive vs negative reviews.

If this holds up, could be one if those cases where Metacritic has an "okay" Reviewer score if around the low-mid 70s but a pretty high user score.

Community reaction should be interesting if that happens.

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

SamProcastinates gave his non-spoiler review.

[SenEDDtor Missile]

On 11/8/2022 at 11:36 PM, Wittymations said:

If this holds up, could be one if those cases where Metacritic has an "okay" Reviewer score if around the low-mid 70s but a pretty high user score.

Community reaction should be interesting if that happens.

Your comment seems pretty accurate so far. It's holding around a 72-73 from mainline critics, but it has mid to upper 80s in the user reviews, with the PS5 and PC versions having a 9.

[Rabbitearsblog]

52 minutes ago, SenEDDtor Missile said:

Your comment seems pretty accurate so far. It's holding around a 72-73 from mainline critics, but it has mid to upper 80s in the user reviews, with the PS5 and PC versions having a 9.

I kind of figured that the audience score for Sonic Frontiers was going to be high.  But I didn't expect it to be that high!

[Sonicka]

I hope Sonic Team pay particular attention to the user scores here - because whilst I think the overall critic reviews are on point for the technical aspects, it's the community they should be listening too. Achieving an average of 9.0 across 448+ members of the fanbase so far is nothing to scoff at, and (so far) this is beating the Sonic Mania juggernaut in that area. 

Sonic Team should be immensely proud of what they accomplished here and I really hope they take the best elements of Frontiers forward to kickstart the series into further heights. 

[Indigo Rush]

Frontiers has a lot of room for improvement, and I think once the hype dies down we'll be able to see that better. That said, I've generally been having a good time with it and I can see how it's earning a 70s critic score but a higher user score. Frontiers stays pretty level throughout but then absolutely pops off at certain points and I think that makes up for a lot of the tedium. It definitely isn't the masterpiece Sonic Team wanted (I have some major issues with it), it mostly deserves it's 70-75 average score, but I think they're on to something here. It's a refreshing change of pace from the past decade and can't wait to finish it. 

[Sonicka]

10 minutes ago, Indigo Rush said:

Frontiers has a lot of room for improvement, and I think once the hype dies down we'll be able to see that better. That said, I've generally been having a good time with it and I can see how it's earning a 70s critic score but a higher user score. Frontiers stays pretty level throughout but then absolutely pops off at certain points and I think that makes up for a lot of the tedium. It definitely isn't the masterpiece Sonic Team wanted (I have some major issues with it), it mostly deserves it's 70-75 average score, but I think they're on to something here. It's a refreshing break from the past decade and can't wait to finish it. 

Oh for sure, the critic score is probably more on point here. There are problems with the game which I can adhere too, but it's refreshing that these issues are not the same old problems that plagued the series over the previous decade. Rather than a visually polished looking game which lacks in gameplay, it's the reverse here (and visually it's not even terrible, but certainly janky). Overall there are some solid foundations to build upon which is exciting.

It's probably fair to say that this is somewhat comparable to when they hit upon the boost formula in Unleashed - all anyone could talk about was the Daytime stages back then, so they ran (ha) with this ideal for the most part in their followups. I would hope for the future entires after Frontiers that Sonic Team standardise open zones (and they indicated that this is the plan according to Izuka) and ditch the action linear level design ...or at least implement them in a way that takes advantage of Sonic's control scheme from the Open Zone areas.   

Once the hypermoon period is over it will be easier to look at this title with a more critical eye, but I'm happy to be able to "feel something" positive whilst playing this game. It's been a long time coming and I haven't felt this way with a 3D sonic game since Sonic Lost World - and that game I throughly enjoyed for completely different reasons to Frontiers.