SONIC Utopia is a Sonic the Hedgehog fan game, and the upcoming Sonic Frontiers has a lot to learn from it.
Sonic the Hedgehog has a weird modern existence, especially compared to other ‘90s mascots.
Sonic Utopia fixes several fundamental problems with the series.
Mario is as strong as ever with Nintendo’s critically acclaimed platformers, Crash Bandicoot made a big comeback a couple of years ago, and even Donkey Kong is still getting great games.
With Sonic, if you’re looking for critical acclaim, you’re going to have to watch the movies or his Netflix series, rather than the video games.
The last major Sonic game, Sonic Forces, was one of the most bog-standard and boring games in the series to date, which the reviews reflected.
To try and remedy this, Sonic Frontiers is promising to do something new with the formula, setting it in an open world.
There has been scepticism over whether the series would work in an open-world environment, but actually, Sonic fans have already successfully pulled it off.
We’ll dive into why these games struggle with 3D so much, and what lessons the Sonic Frontier developers could learn from Sonic Utopia.
Sonic the Hedgehog’s 3D problem
Sonic the Hedgehog started life as a 2D platformer with attitude, and that is where almost every fan and critic agrees the series worked best.
In fact, all of those people were proved right in 2017 when the retro-styled Sonic Mania was released to near-universal praise.
However, when the technology for 3D games came about, everyone wanted a piece of the pie, and Sonic wasn’t going to sit back and watch.
Mario had already proved it was possible with the all-time great Mario 64, so two years later Sonic Adventure came out, and well… it was a swing and a miss.
It was full of issues that the series would never quite be able to get away from, no matter how much technology and the overall design of the games improved.
The camera can’t handle speed properly, especially when crossing complex terrain, and it’s really hard to control something going so fast with simple button inputs.
It meant that many compromises had to be made over the years to ensure the games were even remotely enjoyable.
There are so many times in modern Sonic games where – to stop you from completely screwing up – the game will take a degree of control away from you to keep you running smoothly.
Before every loop is a boost pad that lets Sonic run on autopilot, and the camera pulls back for you to watch.
The best games understood how to balance this, but at its worst, you could go a full 30 seconds in levels without having to touch your controller, which is death for a platforming game.
Sonic Utopia’s simple fix
Sonic Utopia is a fan-made game which had a demo release in 2016.
It was a revelation to anyone who played it. It felt smooth, fun, and intuitive in a way Sonic never had before.
This is because everything was carefully designed around making movement feel as seamless and satisfying as possible.
Classic Sonic obstacles like loops and corkscrews were made wider and smoother so the camera could follow you around them.
This meant that the game didn’t have to take away control when you entered them, and suddenly, what was normally an automatic process became a proper platforming challenge.
It also allowed Sonic’s direction to be entirely controlled by the camera. You can still use directional controls, but you really don’t need to.
All you had to do was hold forwards and point Sonic in the direction you wanted him to go.
It doesn’t make a huge difference on a PlayStation or Xbox controller, but when playing with a mouse it’s a satisfying feeling like no other.
What Sonic Frontiers can learn from Sonic Utopia
Firstly, the team behind the official Sonic games need to seriously think about reworking how the character controls.
The current system is functional, and you can still get a lot of fun out of it, but irritating compromises have to be made that stop the games from feeling amazing.
It doesn’t have to be identical to Utopia, but that game showed just how brilliant it is when Sonic glides smoothly over angled terrain and through loops at speed.
Secondly, the open world of Frontiers needs to forget any sense of realism and become a huge playground for fun platforming challenges.
The idea that rails and terrain perfectly shaped for Sonic’s skills just exist out in this realistic-looking open world is silly, so they should lean into it for the sake of fun.
Finally, and most importantly, bring back short and squat Sonic. That little guy is adorable.
Written by Ryan Woodrow on behalf of GLHF.
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