I kind of surprised myself by getting this game on release day, mainly because I saw people mentioning it being really chill, and I felt like that could be helpful for an election night. I went in with pretty low expectations, since it's such a departure from the typical Sonic game and looks kind of like it was somewhat referencing some of the tech builds for Sonic Xtreme. I play PSO2/NGS daily, so I knew going in that any comparisons there were pretty baseless. However, that didn't keep me from expecting similar movement tech, which is probably my only real complaint (well, compounded by the camera at times). It's partly just a mental shift I have to make. Sonic has a lot of momentum that has to be overcome in a lot of situations (primarily with the boost and jump) that can make it feel a little out of control when near cliffs and ledges. Still pretty true to form, though. I had to kind of get used to Sonic being able to stop on a dime while running on the ground, but this is also pretty reminiscent of the character's animated iterations.
I honestly don't see how people can get so worked up about pop-in. Personally it doesn't effect me in the least, but I guess if I had worse reaction times, it could be a minor issue. I saw someone mention that it's immersion breaking, because you don't see these things when looking out into the distance, but that ignores the fact that actual landmark objects are visible across practically the entire map, along with a lot of the rails and platforms. I don't think it's really that apparent to people just how much visual clutter there would be if the draw distance on all objects were set to max, along with the performance hit for a potentially worse visual experience. I am playing on PC, but it seems it's pretty similar visually across platforms (well, aside from the Switch).
I really enjoy the open stage design, a lot more than I really thought I would. It's very easy to get sucked into just jumping through obstacles and rollin' around at the speed of sound while picking up collectables, and the Kokos! Oh those adorable little MF-ers! I suppose the thing I'm a little let down by so far (I'm about 8 hours in, a little bit of the way into the second island after finishing 100% of the first island) is that I have the difficulty on, I think, the highest settings possible, and it's kind of extremely easy. I have huge stockpiles of unlock materials and seem to be almost through the skill tree. Everything seems to die about as soon as I even look at it, which is nice in the sense that Werehog stages in Sonic Unleashed were so repulsive for being snail like in pace. There's almost too much combat variety here, which when abusing something a particular enemy is weak against it simply causes them to melt. That has its pros and cons. Really I find that weakness abuse to be a bit of a pro, but it's kind of a symptom of the entire experience so far offering very little in the way of resistance.
On that note, Cyberspace levels! They're great! They are still very easy to clear all missions on (red rings basically aren't even hidden in any way, nor do they require hitting top route). A couple months ago when I saw that they looked like just reused Generations levels, I was a little dejected. I was very happy to find that they are actually new stages, with familiar assets and a handful of very similar sections. They are very short so far, but what I most enjoy about them is how much fun they are to play for speed. Being only ~1min stages on your lazy runs makes going for shorter and shorter times, testing routes, etc all the more addicting. Also shout out to the music. Goodness, this OST is top notch all around (possibly the most complete soundtrack of any Sonic game, I feel). On a couple occasions (especially just before fighting the first colossus) I've felt like I've heard some leitmotifs from Shenmue of all places, but the music in the Cyberspace levels just goes so hard:
I am pretty happy to know also that my assumptions from the teasers that there would be some influences from Shadow of the Colossus were correct. Scaling massively oversized bosses is really tragically underutilized.
All in all, I was looking for something relaxing to play, and Sonic Frontiers has been that. It's been really good to chill out with, and I'm looking forward to the rest of the open zones. It also has some great increases in tempo with Cyberspace levels, and some of the Guardians and Zone bosses. The sound logs from fishing, and a cutscene or two have made me very interested in how the story seems to be tying heavily into the first Sonic Adventure. More than anything, it's just fun. It's fun to play. It's not that deep; Score's be damned. For some reason it feels like a lot of people are hellbent on not giving this game credit for being a fun game, and concocting lists of trivial annoyances to try to take away from the fact that it's a fun game. Anyway, thanks for joining my TEDTalk. I'm gonna go play the fun game some more.