Sonic Frontiers – Extreme Difficulty Differences

Are you like me and said to yourself “Man Sega’s Sonic Frontiers for the Personal Computer sure was an easy video game”?

How to Unlock Extreme

Сrеdit gоеs to Scout !

Extreme difficulty was added in the “Sights, Sounds, and Speed” update. To unlock it, you need to S rank all of the Battle Rush game mode, which you can access at the title screen after you beat the main story.

I won’t be going into detail, but Battle Rush is a mode where you fight a gauntlet of enemies native to an island, then fight that island’s Titan at the end (The secret final boss that only appears on Hard difficulty doesn’t appear). Your rank is determined solely by your time completing each encounter. You need to S rank everything to unlock the next island’s gauntlet, and when you do all that, you gotta complete every previous gauntlet in one clean run; your total time being tallied until the end.

If you want Battle Rush to be as easy to S rank as possible, then be sure to max out Sonic’s ATK stat in the main story. Why? Because when you select Battle Rush, the game will ask you to load a save file, and this will determine what Sonic’s stats (and skills) are during.

When starting a new game and selecting Extreme, you can’t lower the difficulty once you’ve selected it.

Is There a Reward for Completing Extreme?

There’s not. It’s solely for if you want a challenge and bragging rights. You don’t even get a medal on the title screen for beating it.

Extreme Differences

• All of Sonic’s stats remain at Level 1 and cannot be upgraded in any way. That’s ATK, DEF, Top Speed, Max Boost Cap, and Max Ring Cap. You can still collect ATK/DEF seeds and Koco, but bringing them to the elders will do nothing, even if the game says the stats got “upgraded”.
• One hit, and you’re dead. And yes, this does include the Titan boss fights. Any attack that would ordinarily knock back Super Sonic such as Wyvern’s missiles or Supreme’s projectiles, you instantly lose and need to start over. You also still need to deal with finishing the battle before your 400 rings are depleted.
• It should be noted that for certain encounters, you can actually still live if you press the dodge button before hitting the ground (and are able to dodge in the first place); with few exceptions, it’s only when Sonic is hit then lands on the ground is when it’s Game Over.
• Also, There is a single upside to this: When you collect your cap of 400 rings to activate Power Boost, then you have Power Boost indefinitely as you never actually lose rings if you get hit and die (except as Super Sonic since he drains rings every second)
• You can still parry with no regards to the timing, so how much harder the game will actually be depends how heavily you abuse this.
• The cost for purchasing items from Big’s fishing are increased by x10. You’ll need to be fishing a lot more if you wanna get Vault Keys or Portal Gears doing that instead of fighting minibosses or getting lucky from treasure/normal enemy drops.

(The cost for 1 Portal Gear is 80 coins, while 1 Vault Key is 150)

• The S Rank times for Cyber Space levels are MUCH more strict. If you choose not to use any “advantages” such as the Spin Dash, Homing Dash, or Power Boost, then you’ll need to play damn near perfectly to achieve these times.
• Of course, if you have said “advantages”, then you’re certainly not penalized for using them.
• In the main story’s minigames you need to play to get a Chaos Emerald, you can only take 1 hit before failing instead of the usual 3 (If applicable). Otherwise, they’re exactly the same.

I did want to mention this, because I’m not 100% sure. The game claims that enemies are “stronger” on Extreme, but I’ve gone up to Chaos Island, and so far I have noticed little to no difference in their behavior; regular enemies and minibosses. Maybe they have more health? Maybe they attack more frequently? I dunno, but if any of you have a definitive answer to this, please let me know.