Digital Foundry looked into all versions of Sonic Frontiers from a technical point of view, looking into things like frame rate and resolution to find out more. It sounds like the team had to give up a few things to make the game work on Nintendo Switch.
Digital Foundry highlights
– Action stages look and go about as you’d expect. When the game is docked, the resolution is 720p. Goes closer to 480p in portable mode Goes closer to 480p in portable mode In the action stages, the global illumination has been taken away
– Switch can make open areas look very fuzzy
– Switch can make open areas look very fuzzy The quality of the textures has gone down
– Many pop-ins
– The grass grows right in front of Sonic
– This version has global illumination, but the data is stored in only one color, so it looks less interesting than other versions.
– Motion blur doesn’t seem to work on Switch. Normal-mapped waves in the water have been taken away
– The settings for trees and other details are “lower than low” – The transparency effects are chunky and have a very low resolution
– Screen-space reflections aren’t as good when the device is docked, and they’re gone when it’s in handheld mode. The quality of pre-rendered videos is lower because of severe compression artifacts – The time it takes to load is longer than on other platforms – It’s still possible to play the game
– There are problems with the pace of the frames – Sonic Frontiers aims for 30 FPS on Switch. However, the frame rate often drops just below 30 FPS. Action stages work the best, but they don’t move as smoothly as other parts of the game. Without the motion blur, they also look like they are jerky.
About Sonic Frontiers
In Sonic the Hedgehog’s latest fast-paced adventure, different worlds are coming together! On the five huge Starfall Islands, you can speed up to new heights, fight hordes of powerful enemies, and enjoy the thrill of high-speed, open-zone acrobatic action and platforming freedom. Welcome to how Sonic games have changed over time!
Race across five huge overworld islands, each of which has its own action-platforming challenges and secrets to find.
You can make your own path and find side quests, solve puzzles, climb big buildings, go fishing, and meet a few friendly faces along the way.
Unlock Cyber Space levels with Sonic’s trademark fast-paced 3D platforming and a variety of challenges that will test your skills like never before.
Use the all-new battle system and skill tree upgrades to take down mysterious enemies by combining moves like dodges, parries, counters, combos, and the new Cyloop ability.
You can play as Sonic and go on a journey to find out what happened to the ruins of an ancient civilization that were being attacked by robot hordes.
