Sonic Frontiers was released earlier this week to mixed reviews across the board. The tech experts at Digital Foundry have now had the chance to put the game through its paces (pun very much intended) on the nine different consoles on which it was released so we can now see, from a technical perspective, how the Switch matches up to its competition. In short, not great.
The game has had a number of elements removed from it when compared to the other releases, and the overall product suffers because of it. Action stages look "comparably OK," though the decreased resolution (720p dropping to 480p in handheld) and lighting makes things appear "very blurry" and lacking in detail.
This is amplified in the game's 'open zone' islands. There are reports of pop-ins on on all versions of the game, though in these zones on Switch it becomes "beyond atrocious". While the Switch version does use global illumination, this does nothing for the game's colours, leaving the environments looking "a lot plainer" overall. On top of this, motion blur is disabled, reducing the "overall fluidity of the game," trees and water ripples lose much of their detail and transparency effects appear "ultra low res and chunky".
In terms of performance, the Switch continues to struggle. The game has the same frame-pacing issues as other 30FPS versions, though the Switch edition appears "slightly worse overall" nonetheless. Furthermore, the game regularly drops below 30FPS increasing the "judder" and making the open zone aspects feel more "stuttery" because of it.
The full Digital Foundry report can be found in the above video or on Eurogamer. For a second opinion, be sure to check out our Nintendo Life review: