Sometimes, they also open new areas this Ninja in particular gave me access to a new, large portion of the Kronos Island map.

Bosses leave behind Portal Gears, which help you access the linear-style Cyber Space levels scattered throughout the open zones. I repeat this process a couple more times, keeping my distance and closing in to deal my damage before the Ninja collapses and erupts in a bright purple blast. I home in on the boss and unload the combo I tried before, chipping away at the creature's decent-sized health bar. The Ninja is quick, but Sonic is still quicker.Īfter the Ninja finishes a spinning move where it brandishes its blades in a deadly fashion, I take my opening to attack. As it dances around in the distance, I start piecing together its attack pattern. Sonic goes flying (along with the rings I collected) and the Ninja continues its warpath. Unfortunately, I only have time for a few melee attacks before the Ninja loads up and slashes at Sonic with its sharp, bladed arms. I speed towards it and lock on with a homing attack to get close. I rush at the Ninja as I did with the first group of enemies, but that proves to be a foolish tactic. Waiting for me at the waypoint I set is a Ninja, an imposing robotic creature with blades for arms. I witness the fruits of this change in design philosophy immediately upon arriving at my destination. 'But for this title, we are implementing a core battle structure to the game as it was imperative in creating a fun new open-zone game system' 'Sonic games have a long history as stage-clear action games and because of that, there hasn't been a huge focus on battle and combat in Sonic's history,' director Morio Kishimoto says. That shift from largely linear stages to a large open zone represents perhaps the biggest shift in how this new Sonic the Hedgehog game plays out, but as I traversed Kronos Island during my three-plus hours of hands-on time, the combat held a much larger role than I expected. It did this by introducing a new open-zone concept, where players are able to run through and explore various biomes without a predefined path to guide their gameplay. When Sonic Team set out to create Sonic Frontiers, it wanted to give players more freedom with which to operate. While certain games like Shadow the Hedgehog, Sonic the Hedgehog (2006), Sonic and the Black Knight, and Sonic Forces have experimented with new combat mechanics for the games' protagonists to use, Sonic Frontiers looks to evolve that gameplay component in unprecedented ways. Sega's speedy blue hedgehog has been smashing Badniks since his first encounter with a Motobug in Green Hill Zone, but combat has always played second fiddle to the speed and platforming of the franchise.

Sonic windows zone tutorial