Frontiers

Sonic Frontiers is a 3D platformer and action-adventure game. As Sonic, the player explores the Starfall Islands (which consist of various biomes, including flowery fields, forests, ancient ruins and deserts) to collect the Chaos Emeralds and investigate the islands' relationship to them. Sonic retains his abilities from previous Sonic the Hedgehog games: he runs at high speeds, collects rings, grinds on rails, and homes in on enemies to attack. The player can double jump, sidestep, drop dash, and boost if Sonic has enough energy. New abilities include combat attacks, running alongside walls, and using the Cyloop to create a circle of light around objects and interact with them. The Cyloop can perform different tasks by drawing certain shapes — for example, drawing an infinity symbol or a number 8 will allow Sonic to boost indefinitely for a short time. Sonic also gains the ability to temporarily boost indefinitely upon collecting the maximum number of rings. The player can customize the controls and adjust the game's difficulty along with Sonic's speed, turning, acceleration, and sensitivity, among other things. As they progress, they can also upgrade Sonic's speed, attack, defense, ring capacity, and boost gauge. The Starfall Islands act as the series's first open world, which writers compared to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. The world retains traditional Sonic elements, such as springs, boost pads, and grind rails. The player explores the islands as they solve puzzles, such as orienting statues and speedrunning, to reveal parts of the map and obtain items. One of Sonic's objectives is to rescue three of his friends — Miles "Tails" Prower, Amy Rose, and Knuckles the Echidna — who are trapped in Cyber Space. This is accomplished by obtaining various collectibles found in the open world. Collectibles include Kocos, which upgrade Sonic's speed and ring capacity; New Kocos, which are larger and upgrade Sonic's boost gauge; Red Seeds of Power and Blue Seeds of Defense, which upgrade Sonic's attack strength and damage reduction, respectively; Sound Memories, which allow new songs to be added to the Jukebox; and Memory Tokens, which are used to trigger cutscenes and conversations with Sonic's friends when they receive them. These either progress the story's plot (occasionally via minigames) or expand their relationships with Sonic by requesting the player to complete side quests. Sonic's friends project themselves as holograms in the real world while trapped, allowing them to interact with and advise Sonic. Action Chain Challenges, which also appear in the open zone, require the player to complete actions and increase their score. Getting an S-rank on all of them allows the player to utilize Sonic's Spin Dash. The player battles robots throughout the islands, all in various forms; Sonic can dodge and parry attacks and use the Cyloop to make enemies easier to strike. Defeating enemies grants the player experience points that allow the player to purchase additional moves and abilities in combat and the open world. Alongside regular, small enemies, the player battles large "Guardian" bosses. Defeating a Guardian rewards the player with portal gears that, when placed in a portal, allow them to enter Cyber Space. Each of the 30 Cyber Space levels, which shift between third-person and side-scrolling perspectives, contains three optional objectives, including time attack, collecting rings, and collecting five red rings; completing each objective rewards players with a key required to collect a Chaos Emerald. Big the Cat makes an appearance as a host for a fishing minigame, which is included in set areas of the maps, where Sonic can exchange purple coins found in the overworld to catch fish and other objects that net him "fishing tokens" based on catch quality. The tokens can then be redeemed for items and collectibles. Collecting all seven Chaos Emeralds allows the player to transform into Super Sonic, which is required to battle and defeat the game's major bosses, the Titans. Completing every island-mapping challenge and side story on each island and maxing out Sonic's stats (except for boost), or having the game's difficulty set to Hard or Extreme prior to battling Supreme, reveals a "secret" final boss fight with The End and a post-credits scene. The game does not feature postgame content, as it resets the player's save file to just before obtaining the final Chaos Emerald, but defeating the End unlocks a boss rush mode called Battle Rush, a Cyber Space Challenge mode, and an Arcade Mode for Cyber Space stages. It also unlocks New Game +, which resets the player's save file but carries over a player's stats (except for when played on Extreme difficulty), essentially allowing the story to be replayed. The "Final Horizon" update adds "Another Story", which adds Tails, Knuckles, and Amy as playable characters, each with their own skill sets. It also includes a new "true" final boss, a revamped version of the End, allowing Super Sonic to access cyber energy powers, such as Perfect Parry, but save slots from "Another Story" are separate from save slots from the main game. Completing this mode unlocks a "true ending" that expands upon the existing story.