Tag Archives: Game of the Year

Sonic Frontiers Review

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It’s been a long while since I went on an all day gaming binge but it was time to do so for Sonic Frontiers and ended up beating over half the game in one shot. It lives up to the hype of being one of the longer games as it took a little under 17 hours to clear. The hierarchy of the Sonic games have changed as this one actually surpasses the world renown Sonic Forces and takes its spot as the 4th best Sonic game of all time. Only Adventure 2, 06, and Shadow the Hedgehog are ahead of Frontiers. This game is really quite excellent and Sega did good in taking their time with this one to make sure that it would be perfect.

The game starts with Sonic’s plane crashing and when he comes to, Tails and Amy are both gone. Sonic is alone on a mysterious island except for a mysterious little girl named Sage. Sonic hears a voice cryptically tell him that to save his friends he will have to destroy a bunch of giant titans and tear down some towers to remove the dimensions between worlds. Only once that has been done will they be okay. Sonic’s a bit skeptical but there aren’t any other leads so he gets to work on this. The game’s main formula here is you will obtain enough keys and memory pieces to talk to your friend for the world and then obtain all 7 Chaos Emeralds. After doing this you move on to another world. There are 5 worlds in the game but one of them is fairly empty so think of it like 4 main worlds.

At about 17 hours you can say each world is roughly 4 hours long and the mini world is 1. It’s a really good balance and right off the bat I can say that the game has a whole lot of replay value you can have fun with. There are a lot of bonus conversations you can have with each of your friends after getting the right amount of hearts needed to complete the world. Additionally there are a lot of the cyberspace levels that you won’t even have played by the time the game is over. So you will be here for a good amount of time and getting the Platinum may even take you around 25-30 hours. I’m definitely aiming for that next now that I have this game completed and look forward to going after it. Maybe if I’m lucky they’ll do some really good DLC for this game with more story events or something.

For the gameplay it’s a bit of a departure from the usual Sonic experience as it’s an open world title where you run around and do a lot of platforming beyond the usual stages. The actual stages are only a very small part of the game after all so you won’t be there a whole lot. If you’re a fan of the usual Sonic structure then I can see you missing it a bit but the open world concept was done very well. You really feel Sonic’s speed as you run around and I just found that to be really ideal. As you level up the speed you feel better and better. My speed was only around level 20 when I beat the game so I’m curious what level 99 speed would look like. That has to feel incredible!

So for my money, Sonic Forces/Adventure 2 Battle probably had the gameplay layout the best in that you just pick a stage and get right in there. Adventure 2’s stages covered a lot of different terrain and could be long as well. You don’t really need the open world and just jumping in is a blast. Still if open world is the future then I’m still all in with it. I do like open worlds quite a bit and with fast travel activated it’s even better. World 3 is the only one that can be a bit annoying with the layout though. There’s a robot that lets you fly but it’s so short that it’s basically pointless and you immediately start sinking when you use it. I question the point of it being in there.

While the gameplay may take a little getting used to as I wouldn’t say it’s quite as sharp as some of the others, put in a few hours and you’ll be maneuvering Sonic like a pro. The best addition to the series is allowing Sonic to leave a light trail before him as if this was Tron. You can move in a circle to hit enemies or activate artifacts. In general Sonic’s attacks were all really great here and you got to use his speed in creative ways. You can also upgrade all of your stats by talking to elders and rescuing little creatures. The sound effects for the creatures may be ripped straight from Legend of Zelda but I like to think of it as a homage to Breath of Wild doing the open world first while Sonic did it best. One advantage Sonic Frontiers has over other open world games is how fast Sonic moves. Most other characters can’t quite move like this.

If I have a nitpick about the game, it’s that every cutscene opens in a smaller screen because they keep a border around it to show you the option to skip the cutscene. I feel like they could have it appear for an instant and then hide or only appear when you try to press X. Why have it always appear? It’s not like I want to skip the cutscenes most times. On the 1st run I’m not skipping any so I thought that was a bit odd. Can’t say I remember any other game doing that.

Part of why this game got a lot of hype was because it was finally going to be another plot driven game. Aside from Sonic Forces we haven’t had one like that in an extremely long time. If this is the return to the Adventure days then that would be great. There are a ton of great references to the past adventures as well including Infinite. It really helps make the continuity feel strong and it also underscores this as the final Sonic game. The characters are all really mature here and each character has their own character arc. Amy, Knuckles, and Tails all make big decisions here that should have big repercussions for the future games.

The soundtrack is also incredible. There are so many great vocal themes here. Each boss has their own unique song which is rare as most games will keep to the same boss theme. They all sound incredible and it also makes this game really feel like the most ambitious Sonic game out there. This is truly end of the world type stuff and these bosses are some of the biggest that Sonic has dealt with. The graphics are top tier as well so you’re really looking at a lot of great work put into this game.

It would have been great to have seen more characters thrown into the mix and parts of the plot can be a bit vague at times, particularly Sage’s origin and more about the digital world but it does add to the mystery and intrigue of the story. Sonic also stands out in particular with how great he looks here. He endures a whole lot of pain to help his friends and is always carrying himself in a very mature way. While I may miss the voice direction he had in previous games, I do understand the logic of making him a lot more serious for this one. He feels older like the rest of the characters which works really well.

Overall, I could go on but this is one game you really need to experience. It’s top tier in all aspects and is almost certainly game of the year. It’s unlikely that any other game will even come remotely close to topping it because this is what we’ve been waiting for. The greatest video game series of all time has returned with an all star adventure. If Sega keeps this up then Sonic is about to quickly become even more of a household name like back in the days and there will be no looking back. I’m definitely eager to follow along on this adventure but hopefully the next game doesn’t take so many years to come out this time.

Overall 9/10

Why Mario Odyssey is better than Sonic Forces

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2017 has been a pretty stacked year when it comes to video games. At the same time, many figured that Mario Odyssey would win the title of Game of the Year, or perhaps Sonic Forces would get to claim it. I wrote an editorial a while back about how Sonic Forces would certainly claim victory. Here’s a link to that original article if you’re curious.

Why Sonic Forces is going to be better than Mario Odyssey

Unfortunately, I hadn’t expected the game to get skimmed down all the way to 3 hours. It’s just too short to really compete with Odyssey but let’s break this down.

When it comes to the story, Sonic still destroys Mario. We have an end of the world plot going with a hype new villain called Infinite. In comparison, Mario has the same ole Bowser kidnaps Peach plot which is neither fresh nor imaginative. It’s a plot that we have all seen many times before to the point where it is fairly stale. It’s just not the kind of story that excites you anymore and the game even pulls a cop out for the ending to keep the status quo. In this area at least, Sonic Forces stil claims the win.

Now let’s look at the graphics. Well, this one is a pretty close one. Both games look pretty solid. Mario is top of the line for Nintendo and they spared no expense for him. On the other hand, Sonic Forces doesn’t look quite as good as it should considering that it’s on the PS4 but it does have a nice advantage of being on the stronger console from the start. It also has more explosions and better level designs to really use the graphics. Odyssey does look a little better on the whole, Sonic Forces is just more striking to look at. This is purely for graphics though so Odyssey wins here.

When it comes to gameplay, Sonic has 3 different styles while Mario has just one. Mario’s does beat retro Sonic’s gameplay style but loses to the Avatar and Modern Sonic. You just can’t beat Boost 2 Win and It would have been cool for Mario to have been able to do that when running around the worlds. It’s pretty close though and the difference is relative since both games have really solid gameplay.

Now at this point it probably seems like Sonic is demolishing Mario so what’s the problem right? Well, one of the big areas that hurts Sonic is the length/replay value. The main story will only take you 3 hours in Forces. After that you need to get all of the S Ranks and obtain all of the rings. This will buy you some time, but not a whole lot. Moreover, thanks to the daily login bonus, getting S Ranks is really easy in this game. You can definitely 100% this game in a week if you don’t mind some grinding for the enemies and coins. On the other hand, Mario’s main campaign is at least double of not triple as long. Grabbing all of the moons in the post game and completing the new worlds will take quite a few more hours as well. You’re likely looking at a 20-30+ hour game right there. It’s a world of difference and this is crucial for a game. You don’t want to drop 40-60 dollars on a game that you will play and then immediately throw back in the drawer. You want a game with a lot of replay value and that’s exactly what Odyssey is. It’s the game that keeps on giving. The sheer amount of content and minigames in Odyssey puts Forces to shame.

You can’t really stress this enough. I’ve put in over 35 hours in Mario Odyssey and there are still a bunch of moons to get. I’ve already gotten all of the S ranks in Sonic Forces and around half of the Red Rings in a third of the time or potentially even less than that. It’s just not an equal ball game when you’re looking at the content. It’s not as if being long makes you an automatically better game, but when you’re a solid game that also happens to be long, then it’s a winning combo. It’s even more lethal to the short game when it’s only around 3 hours long.

Mario Odyssey will likely last close to 50 hours by the time all of the Moons have been obtained which is definitely very impressive. It’s also less repetitive than getting everything in Forces since in that game you have to keep replaying the same levels over and over again. It doesn’t really get old since the levels are so well done and the soundtrack is so awesome, but it still feels like a shortcut by the devs. In Mario, you have a lot of variety among the worlds for finding Moons so it never becomes a big issue of repetition. I can only hit this point for so long though so this editorial is coming to a close.

So when it all boils down to the center of the game, Odyssey is simply better. Sonic Forces may sound better than Odyssey but that’s not the issue. It may be more fun to play as Avatar and Modern Sonic as their gameplay modes both destroy Odyssey’s but that’s also not the point. Odyssey has the slightly better graphics. You have to forget about the plot and the technical aspects and just look at the replay value. Mario’s the longer game and you really feel like you’ve spent your money’s worth there. I don’t regret buying Sonic Forces since it was still an incredible game, but I certainly can’t reward the developers with the same stamp of approval that I can give Odyssey since they really didn’t give it enough effort. So, Sonic Forces is the more enjoyable game, but Mario Odyssey is the better game and actually managed to defeat Sonic this time around. It may seem like Mario only won in one area (length) while Forces had the advantage just about everywhere else, but it’s a very important advantage and one that you can’t overlook. It’s shocking for Sonic to lose and and I have to keep asking myself if this is really the answer since this basically never happens and I’m a little worried, but 3D Sonic shall return. You can tell how confident his fans are because even if you google things like “Mario beating Sonic” you get more pictures of the reverse happening which made the images for this article a little difficult. It is quite fitting though that the time Mario finally manages to beat Sonic, it’s because they quickly went through their old Adventure 2 Battle memories and thought to do a Mario version. Food for thought!