Sonic Frontiers review roundup: 'a delightfully weird and experimental evolution'
Sonic's latest 3D adventure has divided reviewers, but is the Blue Blur worth recommending?
➡️ The Shortcut Skinny: Sonic Frontiers reviews
🦔 Sonic Frontiers currently has a Metacritic score of 74 based on 39 reviews
🤔 The game has received mixed reviews, with one outlet giving Sonic 1/5 stars
📆 Sonic Frontiers is available on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, and PC on November 8
💰The standard version of the game costs $59.99 and pre-orders come with some in-game bonuses
Buckle up, Blue Blur fans because the Sonic Frontiers reviews are in – and it’s a mixed result for our spikey heroic hedgehog.
The game is currently sitting on a Metacritic score of 74 after 39 critic reviews on PS5, which isn’t a horrible result by any means. However, it’s clear that Sonic has divided opinions among reviewers as it’s received scores as low as 2 out of 10 and as high as 9 out of 10.
It’s worth noting that 3D Sonic games don’t tend to review particularly well, and this new open-world take on the speedster’s gameplay is definitely a step in a different direction.
Shacknews were fans of the ring collectors return and gave the game a score of 9 out of 10, saying: “Sonic Frontiers is nothing short of a marvel in how it blends together beloved elements from previous games with exciting new twists and turns to create something wholly unique.”
Push Square was also pleased with Sonic’s latest adventure and went as far as to say “Sonic Frontiers is one of the best Sonic games ever made” awarding it an 8 out of 10. The review reads: “Sonic Frontiers feels like a statement from Sonic Team after years of being treated like a joke. By no means is it perfect, but this is exactly the injection of life the franchise needed after the misstep of Forces, and it's the freshest Sonic has felt since Adventure first hit the shelves.”
Sonic didn’t light up other reviews, however, receiving a 7/10 from IGN. “Sonic Frontiers is a delightfully weird and experimental evolution of the Sonic games so many of us grew up with. Its series of open-world islands are filled with so much variety and pieces of Sonic history, from classic platforming stages to silly minigames, that they’re enjoyable to explore even when awful graphical pop-in is a constant hedgehog spine in your side. Some of the new stuff Frontiers tries out, like the smart toggling between 2D and 3D perspectives out in the open world or the Cyber Space levels, are fantastic ways to pack as much Sonic goodness as possible into one package, while others – especially combat – are uninteresting experiments gone wrong.”
Sonic Frontiers also scored a worrying 2 out of 10 from Digital Trends, which said “While not outright broken like Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) or Sonic Boom, Sonic Frontiers is a heavily misguided game that muffles good ideas with questionable narrative, technical, and gameplay design decisions. Sonic Team continues to demonstrate that it's not quite sure what to do with the blue blur, taking a wild swing with a game that tries to rival open-world games rather than double down on the strengths of newer titles like Sonic Generations and Sonic Mania, or older successes like the Sonic Adventure series.”
The game fared a little better with GamesRadar, which awarded the game a 4 out of 10. “Sonic Frontiers features the kind of lightweight yet engaging storytelling that should easily enrapture fans young and old – though I'd hate to be a child forced to play through some of the abysmal platforming featured throughout. Was taking Sonic open world an ambitious endeavor? Yes. Did it pay off? Absolutely not.”
Will you be picking up Sonic Frontiers on November 8 despite the mixed reviews? Let us know in the comments below.