Sega’s open-world Sonic Frontiers has traditional Sonic levels, too

polygon.com:

Sonic Frontiers has been in the headlines lately, though maybe not for the reasons its developer or Sega would prefer. Fans have expressed skepticism over what they’ve seen of the Sonic the Hedgehog’s next game, even calling for its delay. Sonic Team studio head Takashi Iizuka recently told VGC that these fans simply “don’t understand what this new gameplay is.” And he’s right — until Tuesday, fans haven’t seen the larger scope of Sonic Frontiers, because a large part of the game has been under embargo.

Yes, Sonic Frontiers is an open-world Sonic game, or, as Iizuka calls it, an “open zone” game. But within those open zones are portals that transport Sonic to Cyber Space, an alternate dimension where he gets to sprint, grind, and jump through traditional 2D and 3D Sonic levels that are actually quite fun.

I played Sonic Frontiers earlier this month, exploring the open areas while hunting for portals to Cyber Space. This is the same demo that resulted in a handful of amusingly befuddled previews earlier this month, since reporters were required to keep a major chunk of the game secret. Now, we can finally talk about what may or may not be the full scope of Frontiers’ gameplay.

The demo began with Sonic waking up in a lush green field and being informed by a disembodied voice that he’d successfully escaped Cyber Space. This seemed to be early in the game, after what appeared to be an introductory level that resembled a traditional Sonic course. (The demo was confusing in many ways, including featuring the wrong button prompts for the controller I was given, and being presented in a weirdly low resolution and in windowed format. The booth attendants at the preview event were unable to provide any supplemental information or