Sonic Frontiers Preview: Folks, Our Blue Boy Is Back

thegamer.com:

The Sonic Frontiers demo from this weekend’s Summer Game Fest event in Los Angeles starts with a short cutscene. A bewildered Sonic the Hedgehog finds himself on an unfamiliar island, separated from his friends Tails and Amy. A talking drone gives Sonic some cryptic direction about collecting goobers to save his friends, or something. While they chat, we inexplicably cut to an extreme-closeup of Sonic’s hands. After a few quips and some light exposition, I gain control of Sonic and slam down on the turbo button, which I refuse to let go off for the entire length of the demo. Moments later, I try to run up a stone staircase but instead get launched into the air at a 45, then watch as Sonic helplessly tumbles down a cliff while the screen fades to black. I didn’t play nearly enough to decide whether or not this is a good Sonic game, but it is certainly a Sonic game.

Before I get into the specifics of gameplay, I have to mention the settings menu, which came up automatically at the start of the demo. I don’t know if this will make it into the release version, but the settings include a dozen or so sliders that allow you to customize the way Sonic controls. There are five different sliders related to Sonic’s speed, as well as turning, acceleration, resistance, and more. I can understand why you would want to give players the opportunity to customize the way Sonic handles to some degree - Sonic has an all-ages fanbase, after all - but this felt more like Sega isn’t sure how to tune the physics so it’s just making us figure it out. I just slid every option to the max and honestly, it felt pretty good. There’s not really any harm here, just another thing to add to the long list of Sonic Frontiers’ quirks.

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