honestly I find the new sonic game really fun. definitely in the top 3 sonic games. its kinda stangling S3&K and SA2 fighting for the best in my mind. it doesnt seem like all that much except the boss battles, but if you played it its the best sonic ever controlled in a 3d sonic game, and really fun
Thing is, Sega never done what they should've done from the beginning: 3D S3&K. Not literally that but a game with the Sonic style levels of SA1&2 and different characters can take different routes through the same levels. They've never really done precisely that.
Sonic Frontiers is honestly a fun game that happens to be a Sonic game.
Some of the early stages are way too short, but they seem to be garnish for the open world, which is honestly really fun.
The only thing is hard mode does have an Ikaruga SCHMUP boss, so if you don't like that, play normal.
Sega has all these other IPs they could resurrect, instead of trying to make Sonic work. Sonic is just not gonna work. Let him go away for a while.
Golden Axe, Shinobi/Shadow Dancer, Altered Beast, Outrun, just to name a few.
And Sonic has gone the same direction of Bethesda games. They might be good assuming someone in the company remembers to patch them over the next three months.