Become Sonic and journey to uncover the mysteries of the remains of an ancient civilization plagued by robotic hordes. With nothing but a handful of questions and a disembodied voice to guide you, set out to save your friends and the enigmatic inhabitants of the Starfall Islands from a colossal, mechanized threat. The Starfall Islands are home to strange creatures Sonic has never encountered before. Use the all-new battle system and skill tree upgrades to fight strategically, combining moves such as dodges, parries, counters, combos, and the new Cyloop ability to take down mysterious foes and colossal titans. I can't help but think this is the Sonic dev's reaction to Forspoken imitating the feel of Frontiers and deciding to nope out before the feel is too tarnished, lol. The Starfall Islands are home to strange creatures Sonic has never encountered before. Use the all-new battle system and skill tree upgrades in Sonic Frontiers to fight strategically, combining moves such as dodges, parries, counters, combos, and the new Cyloop ability to take down mysterious foes and colossal titans. Isle of Man, Isle of Wight, Northern Ireland and the Scottish Highlands) may take longer to reach you.

The only thing that’s a little disappointing about whizzing around is that, unless you’re getting the speed boost that comes with being maxed out of rings, you don’t run quite as fast as you might hope. That can be improved a fair bit by leveling up your speed stat over the course of the campaign, but I still would have preferred the default starting speed be a little more Roadrunner and a little less hungover hedgehog. Adventure across the Starfall Islands and see what each has to offer at the speed only Sonic can deliver. Blaze a trail as you see fit and discover side quests, solve puzzles, scale enormous structures, go fishing, and encounter a friendly face or two along the way… Of course, a lot of design decisions will be made and then changed during a game's development, so who knows what the next 3D Sonic will be like. We imagine it'll at least build upon the more open structure of Frontiers, but beyond that, we'll just have to wait and see. However, scalability is barebones to say the least with little in the way of settings. There's no ultrawide support, while frame-rate is capped at 60fps max. The PC version also doesn't fix any of the issues inherent in the console release - the highest settings are on par with PS5 and Series X while pop-in issues remain the same. I do have it on good authority that the modding community is already tearing into this game - removing frame-rate caps, fixing ultrawide support and adding features so I suspect this version will become something special in the future.

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After a lengthy development period, Sonic Team's latest creation has finally arrived and after doubts and fears about the quality of the title based on early trailers, I'm happy to say that Sonic Frontiers is a good game - a really good game. However, there is a massive asterix attached to that in that it depends very much on where you play the game. The experience ranges from sublime to, well, Nintendo Switch, where the compromises made are problematic in many ways. For the best experience on consoles, you'll want to play on either PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X. They are virtually identical on every front - they use the same visual settings, feature the same modes and resolution options and both look great. By default, the game begins in its 4K resolution mode which, unsurprisingly, delivers a native 4K image, albeit with a 30 frames per second cap engaged. Once you're given control, I recommend immediately hopping into the options menu and enabling the 60 fps mode instead. Contrary to pre-release rumours, this mode seems to offer a dynamic 1800p presentation which, when coupled with their excellent new TAA solution, offers surprisingly crisp image quality and a target 60 frames per second frame-rate. Why this isn't the default setting is baffling to me as the game instantly looks and feels dramatically better at a higher frame-rate. Honestly, the visuals in Sonic Frontiers mirror the game design in the sense that they're exceptionally interesting but uneven. I really can't say enough good things about the lighting model and expansive vistas but it's a shame Sonic Team wasn't able to get the pop-in under control by release. Worlds are colliding in Sonic the Hedgehog’s newest high-speed adventure! In search of the missing Chaos emeralds, Sonic becomes stranded on an ancient island teeming with unusual creatures. Battle hordes of powerful enemies as you explore a breathtaking world of action, adventure, and mystery. Accelerate to new heights and experience the thrill of high-velocity, open-zone platforming freedom as you race across the five massive Starfall Islands. Jump into adventure, wield the power of the Ancients, and fight to stop these new mysterious foes. Welcome to the evolution of Sonic games!

There are a lot of good things to say about Frontiers visuals but, at the same time, its flaws are egregious to the point where I should probably discuss them first. The most serious issue with Sonic Frontiers stems from the way it handles object draw-in. Sonic Frontiers exhibits some of the worst pop-in I've personally witnessed in a modern game. Running across the terrain, it's difficult to ignore entire structures, platforms and foes popping into view from nothing. The primary issue is that while the engine does have an LOD system - which is used for certain types of terrain detail - many objects do not have an appropriate LOD or imposter assigned to them so rather than fading from a low detail version of a model to a higher detail version, they simply pop into existence. The games doesn't even bother with dithering or blending the transitions - objects suddenly appear out of thin air every time. Next up on the version rundown are PS4 Pro and PS4. Both versions seem to aim for 1080p so they're much lower resolution than the other versions we've already examined. In fact, the numbers seem to line up with Sonic Forces to some degree as the PS4 Pro support in that game was also limited. They also use the medium quality settings like One X and both are capped at 30 frames per second. In this regard, PS4 Pro does take the lead overall as it holds the 30fps target more consistently versus base PS4 which does tend to drop frames here and there - however, once again, the 30fps cap comes replete with inconsistent frame-pacing, ruining the fluidity. So how about the Xbox One S? This turns in a slightly lower resolution topping out at 900p, it seems, and it uses the lower quality settings like Xbox One X so trees are less detailed than PS4 like this while SSR is reduced in quality. It's OK but it's not great. Poor frame-pacing? Of course, it's there. Experience Sonic like never before! Worlds collide in Sonic Frontiers – Sonic the Hedgehog’s newest high-speed adventure. In search of the missing Chaos emeralds, Sonic becomes stranded on an ancient island teeming with unusual creatures. Using a script or add-on that scans GameFAQs for box and screen images (such as an emulator front-end), while overloading our search engineBattle hordes of powerful enemies as you explore a breathtaking world of action, adventure, and mystery in Sonic Frontiers. Accelerate to new heights and experience the thrill of high-velocity, open-zone platforming freedom as you race across the five massive Starfall Islands. Jump into adventure, wield the power of the Ancients, and fight to stop these new mysterious foes. Welcome to the evolution of Sonic games!

From Series S down, we're in 30fps territory, marred by inconsistent frame-pacing. Here, Xbox Series S runs at a lower resolution than Xbox One X, but delivers high quality effects. Quite why Series S doesn't get a 60fps mode is genuinely baffling. Alas, when we get to performance, things are even less appealing. Frame-pacing issues remain like every other 30fps version of the game but they seem slightly worse overall. Furthermore, the frame-rate regularly slips just below 30 fps further increasing the judder. The action stages definitely perform best but they're still less fluid overall than any other version of the game and, without motion blur, appear rather stuttery. The island areas are obviously the worst, and I've only had a chance to test the first area - I'd imagine it gets even worse in later areas given the increase in complexity. Please install the “Adventurer's Treasure Box” before starting a new game. Please note that DLC content will not be validated if installed after completing the tutorial area. Adventure across the Starfall Islands and see what each has to offer at the speed that only Sonic can deliver. Blaze a trail in Sonic Frontiers as you see fit, and discover side quests, solve puzzles, scale enormous structures, go fishing, and encounter a friendly face or two along the way Whilst we will do everything we can to meet the delivery times above, there may be factors outside of our control and we cannot guarantee delivery within this time frame.Whatever they do with Sonic, it needs to be a pinball machine at heart. 1-3 was. Frontiers is. And I can't think of much in between that remembered that about it. It's the core, and it's been missing. Except generations, but Generations was just 1-3 remix + CD, so it was naturally a pinball machine. Worlds are colliding in Sonic the Hedgehog’s newest high-speed adventure! In search of the missing Chaos emeralds, Sonic becomes stranded on an ancient island teeming with unusual creatures. Battle hordes of powerful enemies as you explore a breathtaking world of action, adventure, and mystery. Accelerate to new heights and experience the thrill of high-velocity, open-zone platforming freedom as you race across the five massive Starfall Islands. Jump into adventure, wield the power of the Ancients, and fight to stop these new mysterious foes. Welcome to the evolution of Sonic games! Please install “Adventurer's Treasure Box” and “Explorer's Treasure Box” before starting A NEW GAME. Please note that the contents will not be validated if it's installed AFTER COMPLETING THE TUTORIAL. Please ensure that the most recent patch is installed before installing DLC. Race across five massive overworld islands brimming with dense forests, overflowing waterfalls, and sizzling desert landscapes, each with their own unique action-platforming challenges and hidden secrets to uncover. Our next stop is Xbox Series S and Xbox One X. The Scorpio machine offers a higher resolution than Series S but today's junior Xbox matches its bigger brother in terms of visual settings - swings and roundabouts then. Basically, on Xbox One X, the game seems to use a dynamic 1800p resolution while Series S instead targets 1440p so the older machine produces a sharper image. However, if you look closely, you'll spot some visual discrepancies - trees, for instance, are fuller on Series S along with other benefits like superior screen-space reflections. However, pop-in seems to be roughly the same between the two and there aren't that many other visual flourishes so they wind up looking pretty similar overall.