Best Sonic since Adventure 2. Easily. It feels like the Sonic Team that is convinced they're making the coolest ♥♥♥♥ ever has returned.

No spoilers here.

To quickly put it in perspective, about 16 hours in, I ran into a section in a level that made me wait for a platform, and impatiently waiting for mere seconds made me realize how actively engaged I am the other 99% of the time. The game really knows its strengths, and wants you to just get out there and go for it. Where previous Sonic games have had a tendency to fall into being overly automated, this one has figured out how to give you a spectacle that you earn, by filling maps chock full with rails, springs, boost pads, wall runs, and so on, all of which require your responsiveness. The platforming in this game is FAST. The best cameras in video games are ones you don't notice, and I will say Frontiers' camera is generally phenomenal. It knows where the action is, and you always have plenty of time to react to what's coming, so you don't need to fiddle with the cameras or stop moving. The game really does not care HOW you progress, and will give you items you need as long as you just keep zipping around the islands. And if you feel exhausted with all that, the fishing minigame allows you to take a breather and still progress that way. When I said the game doesn't care how you progress, I mean it. Sonic Team made a great open world and wanted the players to have the freedom to smash into whatever enemies and run or jump up, down, across, or into whatever they want. And if you keep playing and keep upgrading your stats, you just get faster, and faster, and faster. Top speed in this game feels hilariously fast and rewarding. Easily the most fun I've had playing a game in years.

The game is so addicting, I have been completely and blissfully ignoring the flaws in the presentation of the game. Yet, I would feel dishonest if I didn't write them in this review. To list them, and why I didn't find them to be deal breakers:

- Pop-in is very-much present, remarks on this front are genuine. However, you're going to be racing around from point A to point B so much, you'll hardly notice it since you'll be weaving around obstacles and reacting to what's directly in front of you a very good portion of the time.

- Cyberspace levels do not control 1:1 with how the controls in the open world do. The levels even seem to control slightly different from one another. This is a bizarre choice, perhaps ties into other design motifs in the game, but this issue is generally not as jarring as you might expect unless you're trying to make a particularly tricky jump.

- Excessive re-use of cutscenes. Every time you enter a portal, leave a portal, fast travel to a portal, activate a story segment, collect a chaos emerald, a small cutscene will play. This is the nitpickiest of nitpicks, since you're able to skip these cutscenes, but they are definitely repetitive, and only feel worse than they are due to how fast the game is the rest of the time.

- Cyberspace levels only have 4 themes. This is a big disappointment for some folks, especially given there are a good handful of levels per island, meaning you'll be looking at the same backdrops from the start to the end of the game. And, they are themes that Sonic Team has been reusing repeatedly for about a decade now. However the levels are generally really well-designed, and the joy in them comes from their bite-sized length that makes it fun to try and blitz through as fast as possible to make the S rank time. Their memorability suffers from the fact that they all share themes, and they don't have names.

At the time, these are the main issues I have with the game. All I can say at this point is that I'm extremely excited for Sonic's future titles, and feel that if SEGA is ready to commit to giving Sonic Team more freedom over what they make (considering development time, budget, resources), we may be at the doorstep of another golden age for Sonic.

Best Sonic since Adventure 2. Easily. It feels like the Sonic Team that is convinced they're making the coolest shit ever has returned. No spoilers here. To quickly put it in perspective, about 16 hours in, I ran into a section in a level that made me wait for a platform, and impatiently waiting for mere seconds made me realize how actively engaged I am the other 99% of the time. The game really knows its strengths, and wants you to just get out there and go for it. Where previous Sonic games have had a tendency to fall into being overly automated, this one has figured out how to give you a spectacle that you earn, by filling maps chock full with rails, springs, boost pads, wall runs, and so on, all of which require your responsiveness. The platforming in this game is FAST. The best cameras in video games are ones you don't notice, and I will say Frontiers' camera is generally phenomenal. It knows where the action is, and you always have plenty of time to react to what's coming, so you don't need to fiddle with the cameras or stop moving. The game really does not care HOW you progress, and will give you items you need as long as you just keep zipping around the islands. And if you feel exhausted with all that, the fishing minigame allows you to take a breather and still progress that way. When I said the game doesn't care how you progress, I mean it. Sonic Team made a great open world and wanted the players to have the freedom to smash into whatever enemies and run or jump up, down, across, or into whatever they want. And if you keep playing and keep upgrading your stats, you just get faster, and faster, and faster. Top speed in this game feels hilariously fast and rewarding. Easily the most fun I've had playing a game in years. The game is so addicting, I have been completely and blissfully ignoring the flaws in the presentation of the game. Yet, I would feel dishonest if I didn't write them in this review. To list them, and why I didn't find them to be deal breakers: - Pop-in is very-much present, remarks on this front are genuine. However, you're going to be racing around from point A to point B so much, you'll hardly notice it since you'll be weaving around obstacles and reacting to what's directly in front of you a very good portion of the time. - Cyberspace levels do not control 1:1 with how the controls in the open world do. The levels even seem to control slightly different from one another. This is a bizarre choice, perhaps ties into other design motifs in the game, but this issue is generally not as jarring as you might expect unless you're trying to make a particularly tricky jump. - Excessive re-use of cutscenes. Every time you enter a portal, leave a portal, fast travel to a portal, activate a story segment, collect a chaos emerald, a small cutscene will play. This is the nitpickiest of nitpicks, since you're able to skip these cutscenes, but they are definitely repetitive, and only feel worse than they are due to how fast the game is the rest of the time. - Cyberspace levels only have 4 themes. This is a big disappointment for some folks, especially given there are a good handful of levels per island, meaning you'll be looking at the same backdrops from the start to the end of the game. And, they are themes that Sonic Team has been reusing repeatedly for about a decade now. However the levels are generally really well-designed, and the joy in them comes from their bite-sized length that makes it fun to try and blitz through as fast as possible to make the S rank time. Their memorability suffers from the fact that they all share themes, and they don't have names. At the time, these are the main issues I have with the game. All I can say at this point is that I'm extremely excited for Sonic's future titles, and feel that if SEGA is ready to commit to giving Sonic Team more freedom over what they make (considering development time, budget, resources), we may be at the doorstep of another golden age for Sonic.