‘Sonic Frontiers’ can’t outrun mediocrity

SEGA’s newest ‘Sonic the Hedgehog’ game doesn’t live up to hype

XAVIER BOATNER campus editor xavier.boatner@my.tccd.edu

SEGA has finally brought its blue mammalian mascot up to speed with the rest of the gaming industry in “Sonic Frontiers” – the latest 3D “Sonic the Hedgehog” outing.

“Frontiers” had a lot to prove to fans of the series since it’s the first mainline Sonic title following 2017s “Sonic Forces.” The game saw the titular character become a prisoner of war and experience the horrors of war alongside a grappling-hook-wielding custom-made player avatar who zipped through levels to the beat of vocal J-Pop tracks. It was not well-received.

The game left fans and critics scratching their heads. No one seemed to know why SEGA couldn’t produce a 3D Sonic entry that scored higher than a 5/10, or why they insisted on characterizing a 3-foot-tall talking animal as a gritty, wartorn prisoner.

It seemed as if SEGA didn’t even know why people liked the series to begin with. But Frontiers aimed to get the franchise back on track by implementing a new open-ended approach. The game sees Sonic’s cast of colorful friends getting trapped and corrupted in a digital dimension. The only way Sonic can free them is by running fast and doing other Sonic-y things like dismantling robots.

The details are light to avoid spoilers but just know it’s not anything to write home about. As a matter of fact, the “Sonic Forces” melodrama returns, and it just doesn’t land – like at all. Maybe that can be attributed to the fact that Sonic sounds like a 45-year-old man now.

Thankfully, the story isn’t what most people play Sonic for anyway.

Frontiers takes a hands-off approach to its design compared to previous titles. Instead of propelling players down carefully constructed corridors, the game gives the player more freedom in how they progress through the game. It’s an interesting pivot, and it has a lot of potential assuming SEGA sticks with it.

The basic idea is to collect tokens to save Sonic’s friends, then collect gears to unlock levels, then play the levels to collect keys, then use the keys to collect the coveted Chaos Emeralds – a series staple.

Once all the Emeralds have been collected, Sonic powers up and kills off the main enemies known as Titans in progressively violent ways while metalcore music blasts in the background. It’s stupidly over the top and wildly endearing.

There’s fun to be had running around the open-ended levels and chaining together various actions like sliding on rails, launching off bounce pads and speeding across ramps.

This type of freedom and experimentation feels fresh and easily eclipses anything the series has done before –when the game functions.

OLLA MOKHTAR campus editor olla.mokhtar@my.tccd.edu

The sequel of the “Black Panther” film franchise emerges with an outstanding movie lead by actress Letitia Wright, who played Shuri, Black Panther’s sister.

With the death of Chadwick Boseman came the death of his character T’Challa, or Black Panther. Since his death, the nation of Wakanda is seen without a protector, and many different countries have tried to take advantage for access to the vibranium from their facilities.

Little do the countries know, Wakanda is still as strong as it was before T’Challa’s death. However, America is still adamant on finding vibranium and finds it someplace else.

In the opening scene, the Wakandians are performing a funeral ritual wearing allwhite clothing. The culture portrayed through this ritual is a mixture of traditional and contemporary African design. Ruth E. Carter, the costume designer for Black Panther, visited different parts of Africa for inspiration and accuracy.

Carter was the first African-American designer to win an Oscar because of the skill she demonstrated in the first film’s costuming. For instance, T’Challa’s mother, Ramonda, wears a 3D-printed version of a South African married woman’s headdress called an isicholo.

Similar to previous titles, the game has a strange way of thanking its players for having fun by actively going out of its way to sabotage them at nearly every turn.

One of the biggest drawbacks of this game is the abundance of technical issues. Sonic games have garnered a reputation for being generally unpolished and technically unstable. But good God, it’s never been this bad.

Controlling Sonic is an uphill battle. He gets stuck on certain parts of the environment frequently. Often, running into a crack in the ground will either stop him dead in his tracks or launch him into the ozone layer with no warning. Random level assets float haphazardly in midair and pop in and out of existence repeatedly. It’s distracting and makes it infinitely more difficult to justify the game being $60.

The levels aren’t just semi-functional but also pretty ugly. This particular hedgehog adventure tries its hand at photorealism, and the result is muddy and drab. The levels lack the style of previous Sonic games, and they all blend together by the end.

If players get tired of racing photorealistic seagulls as a blue cartoon rat, then they can take a detour to Cyberspace. This is where the old-school corridor Sonic levels are, and they feel like a last-minute inclusion.

Players race against the clock through colorful vistas to the beat of vocal J-Pop tracks and EDM – so much EDM. These levels provide a sense of familiarity that contrasts the new open-ended levels well.

Despite this, they don’t give longtime fans much to chew on. The layouts and aesthetics are taken from past Sonic games and Sonic’s physics are more inconsistent than in the open-ended levels – somehow. Cyberspace provides the style and music the open-ended levels lack, but worse physics and shamelessly recycled content hold it back from being more than a cheap gimmick. Miraculously, making it even harder to justify this game being $60.

That’s the hardest pill to swallow about “Sonic Frontiers.” It just doesn’t feel worth the wait. The game falls short of expectations in far too many areas and struggles to maintain consistent highs. There’s lots of untapped potential in the open-ended format, and when the game is at its best, it’s some of the most fun Sonic has ever been.

The problem is – the game is rarely at its best.

Throughout the movie, her hard work is demonstrated through the characters and the meaning their clothing has to the scene. From funeral costumes to the Black Panther suit, it truly is an Oscar-worthy performance. She also created the design for the characters of the underwater world of Talokan, an ancient civilization.

They migrated to the ocean from a Mayan civilization for refuge against the diseases that colonizers brought onto them in secret.

The whole plot gets thrown into turmoil when America discovers they have something they want. The upbringing of this mysterious civilization was, in one word, beautiful. The first “Black Panther” movie was mostly about the Wakandians and their intricate, delicate, strong and sensational nation that has a precious substance to protect. The movie introduces another civilization with a whole different world full of literal blue people. They introduced these new cultures mixed with traditional roots well in both cases.

Wright’s acting is phenomenal. We see her character develop more because of her brother’s passing. When Wakanda is in trouble, it seems that she is its savior just like her brother was.

Hurt, grief and trauma are all seen in this movie with the tragedies that surround the main characters, but the most important of them all was the honor they gave Boseman. One scene has T’Challa painted on the nation’s walls and mentions his name as well, reminding the audience not only of the character but the man who played him in tribute.

The film was different from any other Marvel sequel shown in theaters. From the costume designs, acting and portrayal of the movie from the Wakandians and Talokan, the directors of the movie painted the beauty of the actor Boseman and gave the world “Wakanda Forever.