Sonic Frontiers elicits promise and concerns
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Sonic Frontiers is planning to come out this holiday season for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. But fans have been debating if it should.
Most are reacting to trailers, but I had a chance to actually play some of Sonic Frontiers during the Summer Game Fest Play Days event last week. And what I tried has promise. Running around an open environment with Sonic can feel freeing and fun. I also enjoyed the combat, which manages to mix Sonic’s speed with modern action game basics like combos and dodging.
But there’s also room for concern. While running, grinding and dashing through the world feels good, movement gets more awkward when you slow down. At one point, I wanted to jump to the roof of a ruined temple. Maneuvering Sonic during tighter platforming like this can feel rough, especially when objects feel like they have random hit detection.
Speaking of hit detection, I also fell through the ground and died after beating a boss. These kinds of bugs aren’t unusual for a game that is still in development, but Sonic has a history with these kinds of problems. It’s concerning. Basically, what I played was promising but unpolished.
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While at the Summer Game Fest Play Days, I also had a chance to talk with Sonic Frontiers creative officer and longtime Sonic series shepherd Takashi Iizuka. I asked him about
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