There are a lot of pros and cons, what ifs and improvements, and so on that could be applied to Sonic Frontiers, but perhaps its biggest limitation comes in the form of playable characters. Knuckles, Tails, and Amy all play important roles in Sonic Frontiers' story, but even once the credit rolls, players are stuck in the shoes of the Blue Blur.
On the one hand, it makes sense from a narrative perspective that the Sonic Frontiers campaign be played entirely through Sonic's perspective. Knuckles, Tails, and Amy are all split in Cyber Space, after all. But once the credits roll, there's no excuse.
Sonic Frontiers' Open-Zone Approach Could Make Varied Gameplay Even Better
Sonic Frontiers' is an attempt at an open-world Sonic game, with a few little tweaks here and there. Players will spend most of their time exploring the Starfall Islands, unveiling the map, completing challenges, facing enemies, and so on. Rushing across these areas at Sonic can feel fast, but slow, at the same time. The way Sonic Frontiers handles speed means that other playable characters could have easily fit in, without undermining Sonic's playstyle. Furthermore, bigger enemies in the open world traditionally have some form of gimmick to beating them, a gimmick that more Sonic characters than the Blue Blur could perform.
Indeed, it's sad to know that players cannot step into the shoes of Knuckles, Tails, or Amy even after beating Sonic Frontiers. Each could have fit in naturally, without disrupting the level or combat flow, and added a little more variety to the game. Playing as a stronger Knuckles, flying around as Tails, and even engaging enemies as the loving Amy could have worked out well, with the game needing little-to-no changes to accommodate this. In fact, the game would be even better and have better replayability if some challenges were locked to these characters in Sonic Frontiers' postgame.
Hope may not be gone though. There's a strong case to be made for Sonic Frontiers DLC, and adding more playable characters with additional postgame challenges could be interesting. Sure, one could say the story doesn't really support this, but the beautiful thing about video games is a little dissonance never hurt anyone. Adding more playable options, new challenges, and maybe a few addition to the islands would go a long way for Sega and Sonic Team here, though fans will just have to wait and see what comes of the game in the future.
Sonic Frontiers is available for PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.