YMMV / Sonic Frontiers

• Accidental Aesop:
  • Tails, Knuckles, and Amy all come to the conclusion that their association with Sonic has limited their potential, and make the decision to go their separate ways from him as a result. The lesson being that distancing yourself from someone, even if you care about them, is sometimes necessary to grow as a person.
  • The themes of moving on and opening new chapters present throughout the entire game could also be read as a Reality Subtext about the franchise (and some of its fans often living in the past by leaning into nostalgia); you can look back on the past, but you can't live in its shadow and hide from the future in it — you just have to move on to new frontiers.
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Alternative lyrical interpretation, in this case. Whose perspective is being sung from for the Titans' boss themes? "Undefeatable" in particular can easily refer to Sonic or Sage herself, especially the line, "You're crossing the line / Now we've run out of time", is a two-way street between Sonic and Sage.
  • Another interpretation is that the songs could be from both of their perspectives at the same time rather than simply one or the other. Since some lyrics do sound more in line with Sonic than they do Sage and vice-versa, it wouldn't be out of the realm of possible consideration.
  • Why is Sonic’s personality more subdued and serious in this game than in the other games? Is it because he’s secretly constantly worried about his friends being trapped in Cyber Space? Has he developed over the past two games and become more humble? Or is his corruption sickness affecting his body and mind by slowly eating him up from the inside and making him feel less confident, energetic, and cheery than usual?
  • THE END's Taking You with Me at the, no pun intended, end of its boss fight. Was it truly a Villainous Breakdown, or was it just making good on its word that it could end the fight anytime it wanted only to get foiled by Sage?
  • After Sonic becomes trapped between dimensions upon succumbing to cyber corruption, Eggman laughs gleefully and states that his only regret is that he didn't get to finish Sonic off himself. However, given his brief pause before laughing and the fact that in an earlier cutscene, he begrudgingly admits that he views Sonic as a Worthy Opponent, one can't help but wonder if he was truly satisfied with that outcome or if he was merely coping upon seeing his admirable adversary meet such a lamentable fate. It should be noted that Eggman only seems mildly annoyed by Sonic's recovery.
• And You Thought It Would Fail: When the game was first revealed, there was a fair bit of caution and skepticism from fans and critics, given the game was the first mainline Sonic game following the deeply polarizing Sonic Forces and that it was tackling an open world-like concept for Sonic, which many were unsure Sonic Team could pull off successfully, given their prior handling of the series. Even the involvement of Ian Flynn was met with skepticism from some fans given his controversial handling of the IDW comics. The IGN preview in Summer Games Fest 2022 did not help things and only soured many on the game due to the many technical problems and lack of polish featured in the footage. However, as more footage was shown and more details about the game were revealed, many began to slowly warm up to the game (only bolstered by positive impressions from critics and fans who have played the game). When the game was released, most of these concerns have largely faded away, as while the game isn't perfect (especially on the technical side of things), it would be regarded by fans and critics as both a good game and a much-needed step forward for the hedgehog after the mixed reception of his last few games, with many praising the gameplay and the story for being some of the best Sonic has had in years. The game's success even seemed to surprise Sega itself, leading to the team getting a significant 30% pay raise, and Takeshi Iizuka being promoted to the position of Excecutive Officer within the company, after having previously risked his position in the company just to get Frontiers more production time.
• Angst? What Angst?: In the ending, Sonic doesn't react whatsoever to Sage's Heroic Sacrifice. According to Ian Flynn, the reason for this was due to time constraints above all else, but also because it was intended that Sage's death affected Eggman more than Sonic and his friends.
• Anti-Climax Boss:
  • The true final boss is underwhelming to some players. It’s an Ikaruga-style space shooter against a giant, unmoving moon, which feels lacking compared to the more creative designs and battles with the Titans that came before it, including SUPREME preceding the battle. This design choice was likely for story reasons, though, seeing how the entire battle is essentially a boisterous monologue explaining what it is, along with just how powerful it really is, and the fight itself being locked away with Hard Mode Perks makes it seem more like a secret Optional Boss. But on the other hand, it’s widely seen as hard and challenging (to the point that many players see it as That One Boss), so it all evens out.
  • Even the regular final boss is a bit of a letdown, lacking the kinetic setpieces of WYVERN or KNIGHT. It's a lot like GIGANTO with elements of Bullet Hell added, but GIGANTO was so exciting because it was the first Super Sonic battle — by the end of the game, it feels like a merely passable finale for the Titans. This isn't helped by late game stats; many a player will have either close to max or outright maxed attack by the time they face the boss, at which point many of Super Sonic's attacks will instantly end an entire phase if he can pull them off, crippling the boss as a threat altogether.
• Award Snub:
  • Despite Frontiers' music being universally praised, it didn't get nominated in any of the best music categories at The 2022 Game Awards.
  • Although it did get nominated for the Players Choice award at The 2022 Game Awards, Frontiers would ultimately lose to Genshin Impact, a game many felt didn't deserve to be nominated in the first place, given that it was a game released in 2020.^note It got nominated due to it being a active live service mobile game that continues to be updated and get new content today. Other games such as Minecraft, which also weren't 2022 games, were potential candidates for similar reasons.
  • It also got nominated for Best Soundtrack in the 2022 Steam Awards, but would ultimately lose to Final Fantasy VII Remake.
• Awesome Art: Sonic Frontiers Prologue: Divergence has amazing animation, especially with its beautiful scenery and phenomenal fight scenes.
• Awesome Bosses:
  • Sonic the Hedgehog is no stranger to epic boss fights, but all of the Titan boss fights in Frontiers have been a highlight of the game, containing innovative and thrilling methods of obtaining the Chaos Emeralds and becoming Super Sonic to cathartically destroy the Titans.
  • The ASURA is an absolute blast to fight, being something of a lite-Titan battle with the sheer fun of flying up into the air, landing on it, and giving it an absolute beatdown, and a great way to obtain portal gears.
  • The NINJA, being relatively smaller Guardians, come across as offering a more "hand-to-hand" battle for Sonic and dodging and parrying their attacks is just so satisfying.
  • The SUMO, firstly for the sheer coolness of a sumo robot, and secondly, making it richochet across its own "wrestling ring", electrocuting it, then bashing it senseless.
  • The SPIDER's battle sees Sonic getting launched into the air and surging back downward, avoiding a relentless barrage of obstacles while passing through blue rings to counterattack. It's a thrilling spectacle, accompanied by one of the most bombastic and memorable Guardian themes.
  • The GHOST, due to its amazing theme, tense atmosphere, and memorable gimmick.
  • THE END has its ups and downs, but ultimately comes out on top. Sonic and Sage come face-to-face with the very entity that brought about the end of the Ancients, as it delivers a booming monologue about how powerful it is and how the pair's efforts to defeat it are futile. It all works out, and it makes for an incredibly climactic final battle. Make no mistake, THE END is definitely one of Sonic's most formidable adversaries to date.
• Awesome Music: Shares a page with the rest of the franchise.
• Awesome Video Game Levels:
  • Kronos Island is a solid introduction to the open zone format, with an epic boss fight to cap it off.
  • Ares Island is generally considered to be the highlight of the game due to its massive size, distinct visuals, numerous challenges, and the Friendly Rivalry between Sonic and Knuckles throughout its campaign.
• Character Rerailment: One of the reasons that this game's story was so well-received was its portrayal of the cast in light of the 2010's. Sonic's playful and snarky attitude is still present, but done in moderation while also highlighting his empathy and dedication to his friends (Roger Craig Smith even gives him a more mature tone). Sonic's friends are also given more introspective scenes, with Knuckles in particular having his heritage readdressed for the first time in years, and Eggman builds up a sympathetic relationship with his "daughter" Sage.
• Common Knowledge:
  • The Ancients did not create the Chaos Emeralds. The game only states that they were native to their home planet, and that they were their original owners, primarily used as a power source for all of their technology.
  • The form that THE END takes in the final boss battle is neither fully confirmed nor disproven to be its true form. Although Sage makes mention of THE END escaping from SUPREME in order to assume its original form, it isn't elaborated whether or not this evolution is entirely completed, as Sage also states that not even Super Sonic could defeat it in its true form, whatever it may be. In the end, Sonic was seemingly able to defeat THE END with Sage's assistance in its moon form. There was therefore an urgency to defeat it before its transformation was complete. To add to the ambiguity, although it has claimed having multiple incarnations, we have yet to see any other possible forms it may take after this, and even then this doesn't fully guarantee any of them are its actual true form. Fast forward to today, and it would later be confirmed in a Japanese interview that THE END doesn't actually have a "true form" at all. It instead projects itself as what its subjects perceive death to look like.
  • Several fans have mistaken one of THE END's lines, where it was boasting about how finite all previous Sonic villains were, during its monologue to mean that they were actually the villain Infinite. In actuality, no such indication of this is ever made in the game, and the entity was merely making a comparison in an attempt to startle Sonic while fighting it.
  • It is claimed to be an open world sandbox game by many fans and critics, to the point that it is often compared to titles such as The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. However, while the game is more open-ended than previous Sonic titles, its design and overall structure aren't entirely non-linear and it has more in common with collect-athon platformers such as Banjo-Tooie and Super Mario Odyssey than it does with large open world sandbox games like BoTW, as it consists of several small non-linear playgrounds filled with collectibles and platforming segments as opposed to one huge open sandbox for Sonic to traverse. This is the reason why Sonic Team prefers to use the term "open zone" when referring to its design.
• Complete Monster: THE END is a cruel and powerful entity that desires to destroy all of existence out of sadistic pleasure. Having destroyed countless worlds and lives prior to the events of the series, The End eventually invades and destroys the Ancients' home planet before following the survivors to Earth, where it kills many of them before being imprisoned in Cyberspace. Many years later, The End manipulates Sonic into freeing it by having him tear down the wall between dimensions keeping it imprisoned, claiming it will help him save his friends. As Sonic progresses in his mission to save his friends, the Cyber Energy that The End has Sonic absorb starts to slowly and painfully corrupt him. Upon being freed, The End allows the Cyber Energy to fully corrupt Sonic, resulting in his mind being trapped between reality and Cyberspace, before proceeding to resume its goal of destroying all of existence. Upon being defeated, The End spitefully attempts to blow itself up in one last attempt to destroy all of existence.
• Continuity Lock-Out: While this game can be played without playing any of the past games in the series, first-timers will miss out on most of the game's many call backs and continuity nods.
• Disappointing Last Level: The final two islands, Rhea Island and Ouranos Island, are regarded as being underwhelming. Due to both islands being remixes of Kronos Island as opposed to having distinctive themes like Ares Island and Chaos Island do. Not to mention Rhea Island is literally just the other half of Kronos Island; one of the towers even being situated in the same pit where the player fought GIGANTO at the very beginning of the game. Even worse, there was already early trailer footage for both Rhea and Ouranos Island mixed with the footage for Kronos Island, making it seem like they were potentially all part of the same open-world level. It was later confirmed to be true after hackers have recovered an early version of Kronos Island, which can be viewed here.
• Enjoy The Story, Skip The Game: While the game’s story and character writing (courtesy of Ian Flynn) have been widely praised as some of the series’ best, the gameplay, while generally praised for injecting some new juice into the series, has seen significantly more mixed responses due to the wonky physics, Cyberspace stages reusing level designs from previous games, and having very little visual variety, and the open world design being seen as somewhat sloppy and undercooked. The game does accommodate for this by encouraging players to switch to Easy if they just wish to experience the story (though you cannot fight the True Final Boss on any difficulty but Hard).
• Evil Is Cool:
  • Sage is a popular character due to her father-daughter relationship with Eggman, how she tries to stop Sonic, and the fact that she's a Rei Ayanami Expy. It helps that she's much less of a villain than she appears to be and is genuinely sympathetic.
  • THE END is a genuinely terrifying new villain that embodies Nothing Is Scarier, delivers a long and compelling Badass Boast during its boss battle, successfully manipulates Sonic all throughout the story, and is responsible for practically everything in the franchise thus far.
• Evil Is Sexy:
  • A rather strange example. While it is nothing more than an Eldritch Horror that takes on the form of a giant moon, some are won over by The End's smooth, feminine-sounding voice, despite its looming, demeaning attitude.
  • Another odd example is one of the smaller bosses, Ninja. With it's curvy body and flashy moves, it's enough for some to be excited about it.
• Fanart at First Sight: Sage, the mysterious young girl who appeared at the end of the Nintendo Direct trailer, quickly received a great deal of fan art not long after Sega properly revealed her.
• Fandom Rivalry:
  • One immediately popped up between Sonic fans and fans of God of War after the release date of "Frontiers" ( November 8, 2022) was revealed, which happened to be the day before the release of God of War Ragnarök. This quickly resulted in plenty of mud-slinging between fans of both games.
  • Another one had arisen in Early December of 2022, and it's, of all things, with Genshin Impact. This is thanks to the both of them being the top two voted games in the 2022 Player's Voice awards. Throughout the votes, many posts on social media from fans of Frontiers strongly promoted voting for the game due to it not being nominated for other Awards. On the other hand the developers of Genshin had given extra Primogems to all players of the game after it had won "Best Mobile Game" in the previous year and again for the "PlayStation Partner Awards" in 2022, leading Frontiers fans to believe that the votes for Genshin came from a desire to obtain them, considering it bribery^note It is important to note that the developers of Genshin actually did give out Primogems for winning the vote; a paltry 800 of them, barely enough for 5 pulls on the in-game gambling system. It had even gotten to the point where a vicious rumor started within both fanbases, in that the votes for both games were primarily from bots as a means of sabotaging their potential spots in first place. ^note Ironically, after all of the bot votes were disqualified, it turned out that both games actually did bot significantly, specifically during the third round, and Genshin still won. This was the result of a temporary glitch on the website that prevented votes for some of the games, Frontiers and Genshin being two of them. That both fandoms began to act really aggressive, snooty and outright racist at times did not help matters in the slightest.
• Fandom-Specific Plot: One fanfic scenario that has quickly garnered a ton of traction following the game's release is Sonic becoming possessed and used as a vessel by THE END after succumbing to the cyber corruption. Such fics would usually either have Sonic's friends (as well as Dr. Eggman and Sage) attempting to rescue him from THE END's possession or Sonic having to fight THE END from inside.
• Fan-Disliked Explanation: The Reveal that the Chaos Emeralds are extraterrestrial has been met with confusion and disapproval from some fans since it raises more questions than answers, such as how the Master Emerald and the special stages (which take place in another dimension) are connected.
• Fanfic Fuel: What if Sonic had fully succumbed to the cyber corruption? Unsurprisingly, many a Dark Fic was made based on this scenario, with the usual result being THE END using the corrupted Sonic as a vessel.
• Fan Nickname:
  • "Sonic: Breath of the Wild", due to the heavy similarities between this game and BotW.
  • Sonic of the Colossus, due to the game's setting of wide-open fields populated by dilapidated ruins looking similar to that of Shadow of the Colossus, along with presence of a Humongous Mecha at the end of the reveal trailer. It goes even further with the main plot, with THE END taking the role of Dormin, manipulating Sonic to destroy the Titans to save his friends, just so it can free itself. Sonic even takes Wander's role, slowly getting corrupted thorough the story.
  • "Sonic the Hedgehog: New Genesis", given the trailer reveals a striking number of similarities to PSO2NGS, being a long-time SEGA icon making the transition to a Science Fantasy Wide-Open Sandbox environment with vaguely post-apocalyptic elements.
  • Before its name was officially revealed as the "Cyloop", many called Sonic's new trail move the Paraloop due to the similarities in appearance and usage. Another common name for it was the "Spin Cycle".
  • Before Sega officially named the technique "Homing Dash", the trick where you cancel a Homing Attack with a boost was given various names, such as "magnet dash", "M-Dash" (inspired by the name of a similar glitch in Unleashed), or more eloquently the "Homing Attack Boost Cancel."
• Fanon: A lot of this is directed towards THE END due to its mysterious nature, as well as it arguably being the overarching antagonist for the series.
  • After it was revealed by Morio Kishimoto that the appearance of THE END depends on who sees it, and that Sonic and Sage saw a different form than what the player saw, many fans have quickly theorized that from Sonic's POV, THE END took on the appearance of Mephiles the Dark, since he is the only villain to succeed in killing him, on top of THE END's purple color being similar to Mephiles' color scheme.
  • Some fans have also theorized that when Eggman resurrected Sage after supposedly defeating THE END, it essentially took over her programming due to the fact that when he resurrects Sage, she exhibits the same staticy effects THE END did when it was released from Cyber Space.
  • A lot of fans also theorize that many of the ultra-powerful monsters that Sonic had fought, such as Dark Gaia, Solaris, and the Time Eater, may actually be connected to THE END in some way due to their similar colorations, and having functions that'd serve THE END's goals. Adding to this is how THE END actually has sapience compared to the former three, who are just monstrous beings with no moral agency.
• Friendly Fandoms:
  • With Kena: Bridge of Spirits, thanks to the presence of Kocos — little coconut-shaped creatures that resemble the Rot, including their plot purpose.
  • In an odd case, with Xenoblade Chronicles 3, due to videogamedunkey's antics on both games, leading to his fanbase to attack both games.
  • Also has a strong friendship with both Devil May Cry 5 and Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, as all three games are linked through the addition of extremely hype "status songs" for phenomenal boss fights^note  Devil May Cry has "Devil Trigger" and "Bury the Light", Metal Gear has "Rules of Nature" and "The Only Thing I Know For Real" and Sonic has either "Undefeatable" or "Find Your Flame", opinions vary. To that end, fanart of Jetstream Sam, Vergil and Super Sonic being friends has made the rounds.
• Game-Breaker:
  • Getting your rings to max capacity puts you into a Power Boost mode that is effectively Sonic's Level 99 Speed, and it lasts until he takes a hit and loses even a single ring. This level of speed is meant to be unlockable for a reason, being Difficult, but Awesome, but full mastery of it turns Sonic into something many enemies struggle to hit, not to mention chops down some of the tedium of many a "Get Back Here!" Boss. A masterful player who simply never gets hit won't even need to raise their Ring Capacity or Speed stats to maintain it and stay fast all game long. However, some enemies that drain Rings, like GHOST, might throw a wrench in this.
    • Tapping the Boost button as opposed to simply holding it will also allow Sonic to cover distance from island to island very quickly, on top of not draining the Boost gauge as fast (if at all if you mash it) compared to holding it. YMMV depending on the platform, though; not every controller is built the same.
  • There are several places where you can easily perform tricks, like specific springs with blue aura, and even more places when you can perform tricks hitting the ramp. Quickly gaining points to level up, you can have the full skill tree before getting to the 2nd island.
  • Boosting immediately after a Homing Attack starts will not only cancel the attack, but send Sonic sailing ahead with the speed and momentum of the Homing Attack, which is significantly faster than the regular Air Boost. Not only that, but Sonic will soar in any direction you were holding when you canceled the attack, including backwards. Exploiting this "Homing Dash" will turn even the dreaded Portal 1-2's S-Rank time into something much more feasibly achievable. It's such a game-breaker that, as of the "Sights, Sounds, and Speed" update, the game actually puts an asterisk next to your time if you used it.
  • Big's fishing minigame not only lets you purchase the items you need to upgrade your stats, including Lost Kocos, but also lets you buy Portal Gears, Vault Keys, and even the current island's Memories. With a little luck from a starfall shower for an excess of fishing coins, you can reasonably fish away on later islands for their higher tokens per catch and effectively break the game's progression in half, skipping over most of the Cyber Space stages entirely or buying your way in story progression while overpowering Sonic well ahead of time. The Monster Hunter: Rise DLC adds the BBQ Spit minigame, which takes only marginally longer than fishing but generates Tokens for free, giving you an alternate method of farming materials to break the game.
  • While the Cyloop can be used to get rings quickly (thereby making it easier to unlock the Power Boost), where it truly shines is its ability to generate Skill Pieces, Memory Tokens, and even Seeds of Power/Defense at random. Simply making a loop on the ground can generate any of these items (no matter how small the loop is), meaning that a patient player can spend half an hour or so running loops around the terrain, and they will have enough rings, speed, power, defense, and skills to last throughout most of the game.
• Genius Bonus: The max number of Memory Tokens you can get from Big's fishing minigame is 255, the integer limit on 8-bit computers.
• Goddamned Boss: The SQUID, almost memetically so. Its flying, roaming nature means it can easily get in your way when you least expect it (and, simultaneously, make it really hard to track down when you're in the mood to fight it). Also, depending on how high your speed stat is, the initial phase can take eons to complete and getting tossed out of the "ink path" for whatever reason will force the player to start over the chase once more.
• Good Bad Bugs: A physics exploit officially known as the "Homing Dash" per the official "Speed Strats" video is virtually identical in execution and function to the "magnet dash" technique from Spark the Electric Jester 2. By performing a Homing Attack then immediately cancelling it with a Boost, Sonic will boost forward with the momentum from the Homing Attack added on, launching him at extremely high speeds. Depending on the angle that the Homing Attack was performed at, you can also slingshot Sonic to areas and heights not normally possible, which is very helpful for Sequence Breaking.
• He Really Can Act: Dave B. Mitchell replacing Travis Willingham as Knuckles in Team Sonic Racing and Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 was seen as a downgrade by many, with his tone of voice in that game coming across as goofy-sounding and almost like a concussed surfer dude. However, with the more somber script of Frontiers Prologue: Divergence, he was able to show off a deeper and more moody Knuckles voice that has been much better-received.
• Ho Yay: The cheesy grins and smirks that Sonic and Knuckles give each other are meant to be taken as playful ribbing per their Friendly Rivalry, but memes have largely spun them into bedroom eyes.
• Just Here for Godzilla: Some fans became interested in Frontiers just for including the Soap shoes as cosmetic DLC for Sonic if one subscribes to the game's newsletter, making Frontiers the first game since Sonic Adventure 2 to have him wear the shoes officially.
• Love to Hate: THE END commits a bunch of atrocities throughout the story including mass omnicide, but some fans enjoy it for being an Eldritch Abomination that came straight out of the Cthulhu Mythos, how surprisingly dark it is for a Sonic villain, while also being the Greater-Scope Villain of the entire franchise.
• Magnificent Bitch: Sage is an A.I. created by Dr. Eggman to research the Starfall Islands and help him Take Over the World. Detecting a dangerous entity on the islands, Sage sucks Eggman into Cyber Space for his own protection while she studies the islands, before trapping Sonic and his friends as well to keep them out of her way. Upon Sonic's escape, Sage summons the Titans to hunt him down, repeatedly shooting him out of the sky, hindering him at every opportunity, and lethally testing him to analyze his abilities as a potential ally, only withholding information due to Eggman's commands. After bonding with Eggman as his "daughter" and witnessing Sonic's love for his friends, Sage convinces her "father" to join forces with Sonic and collect the Chaos Emeralds to stop the destruction of Earth. After taking control of a Titan from THE END and battling alongside Sonic, Sage allows herself to be destroyed to stop THE END's rampage, telling Sonic to "look after Father."
• Memetic Mutation: Shares a page with the rest of the franchise.
• Moral Event Horizon: THE END breaks past this before the game began when it destroyed The Ancients' world, alongside having destroyed countless number of planets and stars before even that, killing countless amounts of people in the process.
• Moe:
  • Sage. Despite being an antagonist at first until she has a change of heart later on, she's physically a child, which makes her so adorable, and it really helps with her voice actors making Sage sound like a stoic but still lovable young girl. Her rather tragic story of wanting love when she cannot even comprehend the concept, and her incredibly heartwarming Heel–Face Turn, and especially the moments where she smiles sweetly are all major factors that compliment her adorable cuteness.
  • The Kocos. They are adorable creatures that resemble rock-based Chao, make "aww"-inducing sounds, and have a heart wrenching backstory (they are soul jars of the long-gone Ancients).
• Narm: Has its own section on the series' page.
• Narm Charm:
  • A few of the previous Sonic games fell into Narm extremely easily, usually due to awkward voice acting, questionable writing, wildly inconsistent characterizations between games, and other decisions that neutered the potential seriousness of their stories. Frontiers, on the other hand, has much better voice direction and a major uptick in writing quality, making it feel like a properly serious Sonic story without crashing headlong into unintentional hilarity. The interactions between Sonic and Knuckles are considered especially charming and do an excellent job of showing how much they respect each other rather than just saying they respect each other. It says something that this game's positive reception happened when Ian Flynn took the helm for the script.
  • This time, the nostalgia baiting makes a lot of sense for the game's 30th anniversary, and for many players is a welcome reminder of one of the biggest differences between the Sonic and Mario franchises — their focus on continuity. After several of the previous games just seemed to forget the machinations of various dangerous factions and the logical effect ancient civilizations would have on the world, few will deny Frontiers does an at least decent job of tying up old plot threads together that were originally Left Hanging — such as what Chaos even was in the first place, or how the Chaos Emeralds that have almost always been a central point of the various stories even got to Sonic's world in the first place. The various nostalgic locations that appear in the Cyber Space levels are also a welcomed addition, as they are the result of Sonic's memories being transferred into it.
  • A few people pointed out that the Titan boss themes, "Undefeatable", "Break Through it All" and "Find Your Flame" sound a bit like "edgy" metal music from the mid-2000s that you'd hear in a lot of fanmade AMVs. However, unlike in, say, Shadow the Hedgehog or with Infinite's theme, it actually works, partly because the lyrics of those songs come off as encouraging and confident in a way that fits with Sonic's character, instead of just being overly edgy for no reason. The fact that they are quite the bangers helps a lot too.
• Obvious Judas: The mysterious voice in Cyberspace that guides Sonic to destroy the Titans was predicted by many players as being the real Big Bad even before the actual game came out, due to how ominous the voice sounds, how cryptic it is, how it does not want to divulge too much information about itself, and how Sage constantly tells Sonic that he is putting the world in danger by following its orders- by the time she outright tells him the voice is deceiving him, Sonic just says he will fight against them too if that is the case, as if even he was suspicious of it. Sure enough, it turns out to be THE END, an Eldritch Abomination who tricked Sonic into freeing it.
• Older Than They Think:
  • The idea of a blue video game character being sucked into cyberspace to play through memory-themed nostalgia levels may seem like it was a decision created by Sonic Team, but it was already done in Mega Man Xtreme.
  • This isn't the first time One OK Rock have collaborated with Sega before, as their song "Clock Strikes" was used as the intro for Ryū ga Gotoku Ishin!.
  • Tangle and Sticks aren't the first Sonic characters to be incorporated into the main games after appearing in spinoff material. Long before them, Amy and Charmy appeared in a Sonic manga before making the jump to canon in Sonic the Hedgehog CD and Knuckles Chaotix respectively.
    • This also isn't the first time Sticks has been included outside of the Boom canon; she was playable in Mario and Sonic at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games and Sonic Runners, and was also shown interacting with the main series cast in Archie's Sonic the Hedgehog/Mega Man: Worlds Unite and gag comics written for the series' 25th anniversary. Likewise, Tangle had previously appeared in Sonic Dash and Sonic Forces: Speed Battle as a playable character.
  • The Inugami Korone cosmetic DLCs are indeed the first Virtual YouTuber collaboration content in a Sonic game, but Korone is not the first YouTuber overall, whether virtual or flesh-and-blood, to have an in-game collaboration with Sonic; that honor goes to Simon Lane with his DLC Guest Fighter appearance in the PC version of Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed.
  • This isn't the first time the Chaos Emeralds have been suggested to be from another world. In the pre-Continuity Reboot Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics) continuity, the green Chaos Emeralds came from a massive meteor in space and other areas throughout the cosmos had them until A.D.A.M. dragged them all to Mobius.
    • Archie also gave Dr. Eggman a daughter there as well, Mecha, though she was a fully-adult humanoid robot than what Sage was and she only lasted until Ian Flynn took over the title.
    • In a way, it also acts as an homage to Sonic the Comic as the Drakon Empire, of whom Chaos is a member of, are stated to have been the creators of the Chaos energy stored in the Emeralds, in addition to leaving relics behind on various islands, notably on Westside Island and Flickie's Island. Much like the Ancients, whom Chaos is descended from, the Empire are stated to be from another Planet, although, unlike the Ancients, they certainly do not come in peace.
  • Many were caught off guard by the True Final Boss taking place in an Unexpected Shmup Level. This isn't the first time Sonic Team has done this, as seen in the final level of Burning Rangers.
• Player Punch: Sage is the first major character in the series that wasn't a Monster of the Week to die on-screen in a Sonic game since E-102 Gamma (or Emerl, if one considers Gemerl a separate entity). In a way that wasn't Uncertain Doom, an off-screen Disney Death, or long dead beforehand, and the sheer suddenness of it is likely to catch even a Genre Savvy player off-guard. Thankfully, the Golden Ending allows Eggman to rectify this.
• Salvaged Story: Tails' part of the story directly addresses the criticism many fans had with his previous characterization being inconsistent and his Character Development seemingly being reversed. Tails feels guilty that he's a burden to Sonic, and the moment where he cowered in fear from Chaos (considered by many to be his low point) is treated as a significant source of shame for him. Sonic reminds Tails of his past achievements and motivates him to strike out on his own, giving him a bolstered sense of confidence and rerailing his personality.
• Scrappy Mechanic:
  • Getting the Ring and Speed upgrades from the Elder Koco is extraordinarily clunky and time-consuming, as you have to do each upgrade one at a time which takes the better part of ten seconds. If you're leveling in bulk, you will potentially waste minutes upon minutes sitting there watching the same animations play over and over.
  • The game attempts to align Sonic with all the various mini-challenges and courses strewn about on the islands, and 2D sections get more prevalent the further you get in the game. This means you can just be exploring or heading for your next destination, only to accidentally skim a spring or dash panel and suddenly get rocketed in a completely different direction with no way out of it but either going backwards or completing the section. This is bound to happen a lot.
  • Sometimes boosting around as Sonic, especially at max speed, can be really fun and liberating — until you strike a small rock or a bump in the geometry, after which it becomes a crapshoot of whether he ignores it or is suddenly sent flying through the air for the game's trick system. The only ways out are air boosting or stomps, both of which can be dangerous if you're not careful, and these random bumps also have a bad habit of cancelling your Cyloops too. It gets worse with ledges, as Sonic randomly decides to either trick off of them, fall normally, plummet like a rock or even run down their side. It's so hard to predict that more complex terrain becomes incredibly dangerous.
  • Sonic's control options revert to their default settings while in the Cyber Space levels which can be a pain if you heavily altered Sonic's controls for the open world zones.
  • Cyber Space 3-5 gives us a level based on Savannah Citadel Day Act 2 from Sonic Unleashed and is the only level in the game to feature a unique "drift panel" to compensate for the lack of an inherent drifting mechanic. The problem is that drifting handles horrifically bad in this game, as attempting to turn Sonic feels like he's on ice, and unlike previous games with drifting you cannot manually stop on your own without killing all of your speed. Dash panels placed later in the level make it very easy to die by drifting off the course unless you simply choose to jump over the drift panels, which many players opt to do over dealing with the mangled drifting controls.
• Sidetracked by the Gold Saucer: Given how simple the game is, it is easy to waste time in the fishing minigame just sitting around and fishing with Big. It helps that fishing rewards you fish tokens after each catch, which can be used to redeem many of the in-game items in Big's shop, as well as Egg Memos — which add to the game's story — giving fishing a more practical purpose outside of being an addictive time waster.
• Signature Scene: The first Titan battle between Super Sonic and GIGANTO has become an iconic scene of Frontiers, with many fans citing it as one of the most hype moments of the Sonic franchise, with the presentation, Super Sonic's revamped over the top combat, and the killer rock track "Undefeatable" playing in the background. Fans note it as an incredible first impression of what Frontiers has to offer in terms of its boss fights and music.
• Signature Song: "Undefeatable", tying neatly with the above. While the other Titan themes are equally well-received in their own right, this one is by far the most well-known, and for good reason. Especially when you have a chorus like this:
  I'm hanging on to the other side
  I won't give up 'till the end of me
  I'm what you get when the stars collide
  Now face it you're just an enemy
• Special Effect Failure:
  • Even on PC and 9th generation consoles, this game has an obscene level of pop-in. While this kind of thing is inevitable in Wide-Open Sandbox games, most other games will mitigate it by having assets gradually adjust from lower-to-higher levels of detail as the player approaches them, or slowly fade in to view. In Frontiers on the other hand, it's common for assets to simply pop into view as you approach them, making it very distracting and difficult to ignore.
  • When it rains, look directly at Sonic when he's not running around. The rain falling on his body looks startlingly low quality, coming across as white pixels dancing on his form instead of water falling upon him. It's most obvious if you just have him stand around in the rain and bring the camera closer.
• Surprisingly Improved Sequel: While the game isn't flawless, many fans and critics are in agreement that the game is a massive step in the right direction for the hedgehog after the deeply polarizing reception to Sonic Lost World and Sonic Forces, largely due to its improved writing, better controls, expansive level design, and more in-depth gameplay.
• Tainted by the Preview:
  • The game shifting away from the stage-to-stage progression of previous games in favor of a Wide-Open Sandbox has resulted in some of this from the fandom, especially those who feel Sonic's speed would not translate well to a wide-open sandbox and would rather have something akin to Super Mario Odyssey or a modern take on the Sonic Adventure gameplay. Many also see it as another case of Sega trying to capitalize on current trends (in this case, the open world craze of the mid-2010s-to-early 2020s) at the expense of settling on a consistent and stable formula for Sonic.
  • Many fans who were initially excited by the game quickly became wary once it was revealed that Morio Kishimoto (who has gained a poor reputation amongst the community due to being the director of the more recent and divisive games in the franchise, such as Sonic Lost World and Sonic Forces) would be returning as the director for this game.
  • While not universal, the announcement that Ian Flynn would be writing the story has left some fans worried, due to the Broken Base regarding his work on Sonic the Hedgehog (IDW), such as his handling of Sonic, Eggman, Shadow and the Metal Virus storyline.
  • The IGN First gameplay trailer has made many fans concerned about the game's quality. Points of criticism include the largely empty hub world, a seeming over-reliance on automation and puzzles, Sonic's low speed when not boosting, noticeable graphical pop-in and performance issues. The problems showcased in the trailer has caused much of the initial hype for these fans to get hampered (if not kill it off entirely), leading them to demand that Sega delay the game past its holiday 2022 date, believing that six months (if that) will not be enough time to fix these issues. This did die down slightly after IGN later clarified in their hands-on preview that the footage was from an early build of the game and footage of a later build featured the game in a much better state (as well as the reveal that the final game will allow you to customize Sonic's controls to your liking, alleviating fans' concerns that Sonic controlled too rigidly in the trailers), though many noted that Sega seemingly decided to advertise the game with heavily outdated footage for no real reason.
  • The reveal that Green Hill, Chemical Plant and Sky Sanctuary would be returning as Cyber Space stages has immediately received flak from the fandom, given that the former two have previously appeared in Sonic Generations, Sonic Mania, and Sonic Forces with the latter also appearing in Generations, as well as several spin-offs. Many fans have accused Sega of being lazy and once again trying to pander to nostalgic fans with returning zones, even though the game is touted as being a new experience.
  • While the Gamescom public demo was met with a largely positive reception, one point of concern arose from footage of the Cyber Space stages appearing not only to use returning zones from previous games, but also more or less copying level structures. For example, the first stage you enter based on Green Hill being structured almost exactly like Windmill Isle Act 1. This caused some to worry that all Cyber Space stages would be no more than just recycled zones and level structures with no new experiences outside of the open-zone parts, once again accusing Sega of laziness.
• That One Level:
  • Portal 1-2, despite only being the second Cyber Space level in the game (out of 30) and being straightforward in general, has proven to be notoriously difficult to get an S-rank on, with even the speediest playthroughs only achieving the rank by a few seconds. The main problem here is that the timer immediately starts upon beginning the stage, where Sonic is running automatically for a few precious seconds before the game lets you have control. This ends up wasting some time for no good reason.
    • SEGA actually officially acknowledged how difficult this level's S-Rank time is to achieve through the Cyber Space Speed Strats video, having seen the annoyance of it through livestreams.
  • Portal 3-4, due a bevy of tricky-to-avoid lasers and spikes, especially annoying when attempting complete the missions.
  • Portal 3-6 is easily one of the more difficult Cyber Space stages, as it is designed around using various gimmicks such as accelerator guns and rainbow rings, and is filled with iron balls and bottomless pits, where one wrong move can send you plummeting.
  • Chaos Island, for its confusing layout- there are several areas you can't get to until solving certain mysteries to make rails appear, but the game doesn't guide you to which one. Getting to some of the chaos emeralds can take several minutes of navigating the various up and downs of the map. There's also an overabundance of forced 2D sections that can kick in while you're trying to do something else, and halfway through the level is a large river of lava that can be tricky to get past.
    • The mission to lower the bridge later in the main story missions for the island is an aggravating spike in difficulty for what should be a simple mission. The mission has Sonic skydiving and having to reach the ground within a time limit while avoiding springs and other obstacles that will slow you down. The problem is that the time limit is pretty short leaving very little room for error, forcing you to be at full skydiving speed for practically the whole mission which makes your steering really stiff and harder to dodge the springs that send you back upwards. In addition, Sonic has a very bad habit of targeting enemies with the homing attack that you're not aiming for (causing him to waste precious seconds with realigning himself with the correct enemies you need to take out) and the gold rings you pass through which are supposed to carry you to the next section of the fall tend to take way too long with their animation thanks to the unnecessary loops they do, which can actually be long enough to rob you of victory at the very end of the mission when you're about to reach the ground. To make matters worse you have to rewatch the mission's startup cutscene every time you restart, which only serves to delay you from your next attempt.
    • The pinball segment at the end of Chaos Island is also aggravating, mainly for the fact that, in order to complete it, you need to get an insanely high score of 5,000,000 points, then fling the ball through the opened door at the top. The ball's physics are finicky, and it's common to watch it get bounced down into the sides and down into the empty pit at the bottom while you're struggling to get enough points. It doesn't help that getting a whopping 5 million points can take a very long time, even with the Rings and Red Rings to increase your point multiplier (which goes away when you get a Ball Out). It's also a common sight to watch it refuse to get through the damn door until it finally bounces off a bumper and actually goes upward. On top of this, you only get three tries before having to start all over with no way of getting another attempt. And if you managed to get enough points, but run out of attempts, you'll have to do the entire thing over again. At least the music's nice.
    • Also, the mission where Tails requires you to pick up 600 machine parts is an absolute pain to complete. For starters, the time is extremely strict leaving no room for error. However, the main problem with this mission is the fact that in order to collect the parts, Sonic must bust open the many metal boxes that contain them. Some can be taken down with one attack, but others require more effort and combos to break open. There are two other major issues on top of it that makes this mission so tedious: One, breaking the boxes with combos could often lead Sonic into locking on a further away box causing him to lose out on precious machine parts. And two, the machine parts don't automatically get collected once you break them open. You have to manually collect them yourself. Sounds annoying right? Well, how about the fact that if you take too long on a platform, it actually will sink into the lava causing Sonic to bounce off in pain and lose a life making this easy to lose all three should he fall from a higher platform. Like with the bridge lowering mission, this one leaves no room for error and will most likely take numerous amount of tries in order to complete. It's definitely safe to say that Chaos Island is easily the most difficult of all of the islands.
  • For a given definition of "level", some of the towers you have to climb on Rhea Island are daunting. They include (among other things) moving walls, frequent placements of spikes, pathways that require precise timing, and an enemy type that hasn't been seen up to now (and can kill Sonic if you don't know how to defeat it). Also, due to the nature of these towers, falling off them means climbing back up from the beginning.Thankfully,the towers makes shortcuts as you climb, making it easier to get back up.
• That One Boss: THE END on Hard Mode is this for many players, due to the Unexpected Gameplay Change to a full-blown Bullet Hell shmup, the exact same one used for the hacking minigames with almost no changes. Unless one is familiar with the polarity-swapping mechanics of Ikaruga, the boss will likely do you in a lot while you struggle to whittle down its massive health bar. The sudden shift in gameplay to a bullet hell shoot 'em up can easily throw players off, and the screen can become absolutely covered top to bottom in bullets, on top of tricky-to-dodge lasers that can't be countered. What's more, you can only take three hits before having to redo the entire fight from the top, which can feel like hours due to its spongey health bar, so God help you if you're not too familiar with this gameplay style. It's very likely that Sonic Team also realized this boss may be too hard for Sonic standards, as it is exclusive to Hard mode and the game begins giving you additional lives after a certain number of deaths.
• That One Puzzle: The puzzles in the game are pretty rudimentary and quick, but one puzzle, "A Grave Mystery," is noted to be incredibly difficult for what is the gate to the first major boss of the game, being a Light and Mirrors Puzzle where you need to align 4 lights with linked rotation into the right mirrors in order to recreate the pattern on the ground. Figuring out which ones are moved by each and how they'll rotate has caused plenty of frustration for players. There's another issue, too - it's one thing to figure out the solution to the puzzle, but figuring out what the objective is is its own issue. You're told to use the marks on the ground as hints and the central grave lights up if a beam hits it, but you're given no further context on what the win state is for the puzzle. Half or more of the time spent solving the puzzle can end up being the process of even figuring out what you're supposed to do. It can actually be fairly stimulating to puzzle out given some time thinking about it, but it stands in stark contrast with the rest of the 'action platformer racer' gameplay, being something you'd find in a 90's adventure game.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: The true Big Bad, THE END. Despite being responsible for a lot of past events in the overarching story of the games, we don’t really get to learn much about it, apart from being an Eldritch Abomination Omnicidal Maniac Hidden Agenda Villain. Where did it come from? Why does it want to destroy everything? Why did it target the Ancients in the first place? We don’t really get to learn much about it, with fans hoping that it survived so more can be learned about it.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • The Cyber Space stages borrowing themes and layouts from previous games made some people Tainted by the Preview, but a number of players do find the actual layouts taken from certain games like Adventure 2 to be fun to play through. The problem? Only the Cyber Space themes revealed before the game's release were there, meaning Green Hill, Chemical Plant, Sky Sanctuary and one original highway-themed aesthetic; rather than a real visual variety, every single stage is in these same four themes with different times of day or some altered backgrounds, really putting a damper on the whole grabbag of levels idea. Not to mention, more variety in stages could have been used to punctuate how Sonic's memories were being transferred into Cyber Space.
  • After all of the build-up of cyber-corruption from Sonic saving his friends, the Rhea Island segment really hammers it down that Sonic is being pushed to the brink, before he's finally overwhelmed and has his mind trapped between realities. Except this happens for a grand total of two or three minutes before his friends re-seal themselves back in virtual reality and restore him with little fanfare, undoing the entire plot point and making some feel like nothing truly serious can ever happen to Sonic himself without it being whisked away. To be fair though, the stakes here were still pretty high, considering that he had to risk losing his friends forever, basically reversing his efforts in saving them in the first place, in order to save the whole damn universe.
    • In an interesting case of the good plot not being normally accessible, there are several bits of dialogue on Rhea Island that show the dangerous extent of the cyber corruption infecting Sonic and setting the tense tone of the island. However, in order to access these dialogues, the player has to effectively idle in order to hear them, meaning that on a first playthrough, players may not even hear these bits of dialogue.
  • After an intense finale of Sage performing a Heroic Sacrifice, and the implications of a planet-eating Eldritch Abomination being such a massive threat that indirectly caused the entire franchise, the only character that actually reacts to it is Eggman being sad over the former, which is shown after the rest of the characters celebrate for saving the day and act like none of that really happened. In a series where Sonic mourned Shadow's seeming demise and tried to honor his memories of Chip, and in a game filled with Character Development for everyone else, he somehow doesn't even react to Sage's sacrifice.
  • The father/daughter relationship between Eggman and Sage, while a heartwarming idea on paper, has been criticized by fans for being underdeveloped in the game, as the story doesn't give much focus on it for most of the game until near the end. While the Egg Memos help in fleshing out the relationship more, they are easy to miss, given they can only be obtained in the fishing minigame and are optional. Fans feel the contents in them should've just been proper cutscenes instead of being relegated to optional logs, especially since the Egg Memos contain important plot-related info and give better context to Eggman seeing her as a daughter by the game's climax by showing his increasing fondness for Sage.
  • Tails at one point mentions encountering an illusion of himself while trapped in Cyber Space, who calls him out for his general weakness and cowardice. This encounter, despite having a lot of potential for introspection on Tails' character, is entirely offscreen, and neither Amy, Knuckles nor Eggman are mentioned to have gone through a similar experience, even though it would have been no less interesting.
• Underused Game Mechanic:
  • For the first time since Sonic Adventure 2, Sonic can go underwater in 3D. Unfortunately, outside of a few pockets of water in Kronos and Ares, this mechanic isn't taken advantage of with any dedicated underwater platforming segments.
  • The Drift is back for the first time since Sonic Generations after being an automated sequence in Sonic Forces, but it's only used in one Cyberspace level, and one of the later ones at that. Depending on the player's choices by the time they finish Chaos Island, they might not even have known it was in the game.
  • Pinball returns for only one late game puzzle and never again after that.
• Unexpected Character:
  • Many fans were surprised when an article by Game Informer confirmed the return of Big the Cat, of all characters (with a fishing minigame to boot). Sonic himself lampshades how Big is even in Starfall Islands in the first place:
    Sonic: What are you doing here?! How did you get here?!
  • While they do not appear in the flesh, nobody was expecting Tangle the Lemur and Sticks the Badger to be casually referenced and confirmed as part of the mainstream game canon.
• Win Back the Crowd: While Sonic Frontiers hasn't been a complete home run the same way Sonic Colors, Sonic Generations, and Sonic Mania have been prior, most fans and critics are in agreement that the game is a solid step forward in the right direction after the lukewarm and polarizing reception to Sonic Lost World and Sonic Forces, with the game winning back many fans due to its more in-depth gameplay and engaging story, and causing them to be hopeful for the franchise's future after it had been stuck in mediocrity for most of The New '10s after Generations (Mania notwithstanding).
• The Woobie: Sage. She may be cold and emotionless, but deep down, she wants a real, genuine family, which is shown in a cutscene that has her break down when seeing Sonic and Tails' brotherly bond, lamenting that she herself doesn't have that kind of relationship with Eggman—one of love and not genetics. You just wanna give her a hug...

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