The history of Sonic hits a crescendo with Frontiers
Sonic the Hedgehog is a franchise that has never been the most consistent in terms of quality. Very few video game characters as long lived as Sonic can boast the massive range of “one of the best games of all time” to “infamously bad games” like the Blue Blur has over his 35 years. But, one thing that has always remained (mostly) consistent, is the music. Even at his lowest, even the harshest critic can shrug and go “yeah, but at least the soundtrack is good”.
One thing Sonic has always been good at is giving each character a certain sound. Sometimes that sound evolves a bit as time goes on, but it stays fairly consistent. Sonic has a certain punk rock that shows his rebellious nature, exemplified in both the Sonic Adventure 1 and 2 versions of his theme, It Doesn’t Matter, and even his stage themes such as Escape From the City. Shadow is darker, originally starting as more techno based such as his SA2 theme, Throw It All Away, but evolving into a more grungier rock to reflect his darker tone in Shadow the Hedgehog, to a full on rock anthem fitting his status as one of the most popular characters in the series with his modern theme, All Hail Shadow. Knuckles is rap, Amy is pop, the list goes on and on.
Super Sonic is a weird one, having been mostly relegated to variations of the game’s main theme as the story hits its climax and the final battle commences. Whilst this does fit with the overall musical themes for the story and characters, and is almost always a banger, they are rarely fresh sounds. Later games, like Sonic 06 and Sonic Unleashed, experiment a bit by having the final battle sound be an orchestral rendition of the main theme, giving the battle a more grandiose feeling. When they do try a fresh sound for Super Sonic, at least with lyrical compositions, they seem to be at least partially or fully from the villain’s perspective, as is the case with What I’m Made Of from Sonic Heroes and With Me from Sonic and the Black Knight. (The latter of which is technically Excalibur Sonic for any of the particularly pedantic Sonic fans in the audience).
And maybe Super Sonic doesn’t need a different sound. He’s not a different character, he’s just Sonic, powered up on seven Chaos Emeralds and aura, and the final fight is an excellent time for the main theme to shine anyway. The closest we’ve gotten is Live and Learn serving as a stand-in when needed, since Live and Learn is by far the most popular of the Sonic vocal tracks we’ve had over the years.
And then Sonic Frontiers happened. Super Sonic was no longer relegated to a single fight at the end of the game. He was a consistent part of the game’s structure. Explore the open world, gather keys and talk to one of Sonic’s friends to collect Chaos Emeralds, face the Titan as Super Sonic, move on to the next island. The flow of the game is built around multiple instances of Super Sonic level threats. So what does that sound like?
Metal, apparently.
To craft the sound for the various Titan bosses, Sega and Sonic series composer Tomoya Ohtani enlisted the help of vocalist Kellin Quinn, best known as the lead vocalist for the metal band Sleeping With Sirens. I will admit, I’m not the most musically educated person out there, in fact my levels of music awareness outside of knowing songs from video games, movies, and TV, to be downright embarrassing. So this was my introduction to their sound, never mind the fact that Sleeping With Sirens formed in 2009, the same year I graduated high school, and look like the kind of band my best friend from high school would have almost certainly been into.
There’s few moments in my adulthood that I can claim changed my brain chemistry like seeing Super Sonic float down and smirk, the opening vocals for Undefeatable dropping into the main beat of the song as you take control of Super Sonic and find that Sega has finally allowed these fights to play out like a shonen anime fight after the protagonist has finally powered up. Instead of charging forward and taking advantage of Super Sonic’s natural invulnerability, he fights like regular Sonic, but cranked up to 11. Or as the lyrics of Undefeatable claim, just on a 9. Punches so fast and hard you see giant golden after images of them, counters that cause various after images to fill the screen, deflecting energy blasts and escaping Giganto’s jaws with his bare hands, all while metal chords and screaming blast through your ears and very clearly sends the message that Super Sonic is victory, and that Sonic’s so experienced with this form over years of use that we’ve seen in various games, that he’s not even really trying.
This theme continues with the other bosses. Wyvern, the boss of the second island, is chased down across Ares Island by Super Sonic as Break Through It All features heavier screaming and guitar. The boss of Chaos Island, Knight, features rap breakdowns from Tyler Smyth, which could almost seen as Sonic trying to cover up his encroaching cyber corruption with a confident facade as, at least while he’s Super Sonic, he knows he has the ability to at least defeat the opponent in front of him.
Things course correct a bit from here, the final Titan, Supreme, is fought with the main theme, I’m Here in the background. And the final boss, The End, is given the instrumental theme I’m With You, fitting both the nature of the final boss, it’s thematic relevance to Eggman’s new AI daughter Sage, and its very sudden gameplay shift to an Ikaruga style bullet hell shooter.
But Sega already appears to have understood the assignment. When returning to the game for The Final Horizon DLC, the final boss was reworked, with not only a new Super Sonic form, but the main theme I’m Here was reworked in a heavier, more metal track, accompanied by Kellin Quinn again on vocals. And I’m With You was also reworked with lyrics and used as the credits theme, so no thematic losses on that front as well.
The real question now is what Sega will do in the future. As of writing, Sonic Frontiers is still the newest 3D Sonic game in the series. Shadow Generations, the smaller expansion game included with the remaster of Sonic Generations, didn’t feature a super form at all, with Shadow instead of fighting his final boss with new powers and his main theme, All Hail Shadow. I for one hope that Sega embraces this musical identity for the Golden Hedgehog, both in allowing us gameplay moments with him outside of the final battle, and also in allowing his sound to remain this hard, powerful metal sound that lets you truly feel the power of the Chaos Emeralds. Even if they don’t, these things evolve, and I trust whatever they go with next. As everybody in gaming can usually agree on, Sonic, at least musically, is always doing something right.
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