Sonic Frontiers Almost Nailed It

Happy Thanksgiving! I mean, Merry Christmas! Wait...Happy New Year? Geez this took awhile, I hope you like it!

"eggman almost got shot by the military, really taking after his grandfather" THAT TOOK ME OUT OMG

The fact that the game director took a look at a long Twitter thread offering constructive criticism for how to revamp the final boss so it wouldn't suck, and said "Those are some great ideas, I'm going to see what we can do about that," makes me feel so very optimistic for the DLC.

21:34 "Chaos island makes me want to purchase a firearm" is a fantastic line

Dude I'm gonna be quite honest. I've never heard of you, never seen any of your videos. I'm always interested in what people thought of Sonic Frontiers, so despite the 70-minute runtime, I thought I'd give it a background watch. 20 minutes in, and I checked the runtime to see how I was doing. I had been watching for 55 minutes. Your writing and delivery were so engaging that not only was I actively watching the video that whole time and not leaving it on in the background like I had intented to do, but I had entered a time vortex where my enjoyment of the video was warping the spacetime continuum itself, dialating the way minutes passed around me. I was engaged the entire time, breathed outward forcefully through my nose at multiple points, and even recommended the video to like 6 of my friends directly. If this is the kind of stuff you put out on the regular, I'm 100% on board. Please narrate my life. SUBSCRIBED

"Chaos island makes me want to purchase a firearm" has to be quote of the year already 😭

1:52 Frontiers was written english-first. One of the main criticisms of Japanese players is that SEGA was unable to translate Flynn's writing properly, so a bunch of stuff is changed and awkwardly spoken as if Sonic had eaten a grammar textbook for breakfast

"The amount of times I saw the phrase, cautiously optimistic would outnumber U.S citizens" greatest line ever.

Your script is amazing. I love these parts. 3:52 "Look at that rotisserie chicken spin" 57:57 "Giving him the Piccolo treatment

1:52 Ian Flynn didn’t rewrite for the English script, he actually did a lot more! For this game, they had Ian Flynn write the story, and then they translated it from English to other languages I believe. Ian was given the foundation of the story (like what characters are involved, the setting, etc.) by Sonic Team, and he had to write around this foundation and turn it into a fitting story.

7:36 i find it so frickin hilarious when sonic just randomly gives an excited chuckle and this commentary topped it off

2:43 is the exact reason I love this guy's videos

What really bothered me about Corrupt Sonic is that every character who was trapped in Cyberspace was forced to reflect on their past. Everyone was in some type of nightmare and Tails even encountered another version of himself who said he was just follower. It would've been a perfect moment for Sonic to reflect on himself, just like everyone else did. From the moment he entered Cyberspace, he was able to escape with ease, but when he finally got trapped, he was freed in a matter of seconds.... atleast give us a fight against an alternate Sonic or something...

14:16 The fact that Sonic doesn't wink at the end of that dance animation, it kills me a little each time watching it.

8:58 genuinely the best point i’ve seen about the floating rails so far

The number one thing I genuinely want for frontiers is the simple ability to replay the titan fights without a new save. It just seems really weird that the only one you can properly redo is the one that doesn't quite seem finished

Frontiers, to me, feels like what Unleashed was when it was first released. It's a new take on Sonic gameplay, and the ambition to shake things and put so much faith into it is commendable. However, it does has a few kinks that keeps it from being truly great, at least in my eyes. For what it's worth, I'm hoping that Sega/Sonic Team will look at the pros and cons of this game, and take measures to improve and refine the formula once the next game comes out.

Best review of this game on the whole site by a mile, great job.

Time-stamps for sections: 0:00 Intro 1:47: Story/Dialogue 4:15: Deluxe Edition 5:38: Title Screen 7:02: Art Direction/Graphics 11:14: Tutorial 12:36: First impressions 13:13: The gameplay loop 1/3 14:43: Traversal/Flexibility 18:28: Platforming sections 20:55: Islands 25:51: Puzzles/Minigames 2/3 32:21: Cyber Space 37:11: Objectives/Ranking System 38:16: Big’s Fishing 3/3 42:26: Combat 45:39: Guardians (46:02 SQUID!!!) 48:45: Sonic’s combat flaws 53:06: Sonic’s combat flaws (cont.) 55:04: Stats 56:20: The Titan Fights 1:05:16: The End 1:08:08: Critiques 1:08:36: Final thoughts

Thank GOD I'm not alone on the Chaos Island 2D fiasco. Literally had me in multiple fits of rage every time I was trying to make my way towards an objective, only to barely graze an unseen dashpad and get slammed into what can only be described as boredom, now in blue Equally as frustrating every time I'd uncover the same secrets over and over, forgetting it's the same 2D segment spring of inanity