Sonic Frontiers

Sonic Frontiers, simultaniously the current decade's Adventure 1, 2 and 06, and I mean that both positively and negatively. What a weird game this one is, I'll say that much. If I were to describe this game, it would be with "unmet creative vision", because the ingredients for a fantastic Sonic game were there, and while the final product somehow miraculously turned out to be very fun, its unfinished state is written all over it. Thanks to its time constrains, and mind you, it was so bad Kishimoto begged Sega to allow an extra year for them to finish the game as much as they possibly could, not to mention Covid was a thing, it didn't get to fully develop all of it's ideas, and thus every aspect of the game jusy falls short of greatness. The gameplay loop is incredibly basic yet dragged out and repetitive. The visuals are decent, but with abysmal draw distance, aboherent pop-in and an art direction that's just far too bland for Sonic with the exception of Chaos Island. The story is very weak, no matter how much it wants you to take it seriously, with some very awkward dialogue exchanges, basic animations and a sorry excuse of a main antagonist. And yet... Frontiers manages to be one of the most addicting Sonic games I've played. The gameplay loop is simple enough to where I don't want to stop playing. The visuals are atrocious (hyperbolic) but the music is inversely proportional (not hyperbolic), with some really fantastic pieces that have taken my brain over like a fungus. The story is... meh, but it's appreciated how it tries to further push all of the characters that have been stale or even regressed between 2008 and 2021, and Sage is a welcome addition to the cast, even if she did annoy me in the beginning with her refusal to give Sonic any context on anything. The bosses are good. Mad carried by Kellin Quinn's songs though (which are glazed as hell but I begrudgingly state that they are rightfully so). All in all, it's a very lackluster game with very upsettinf circumstances behind it's development, but at the very least it set a solid foundation that will hopefully be fulfilled in the next mainline game, since it sold well and wasn't an utter catastrophy... Still overrated though. But that's just me.