When I got a Nintendo Switch for my birthday earlier this year, the first game I got was Sonic Frontiers. Growing up I played mainly the 2D Sonic games, so I never played games like Sonic Adventure, Sonic Unleashed, or Sonic Generations. Even though I was on the fence about getting Frontiers at first, I gave it a try because I heard good things about the game. I first played like someone who was playing a Sonic game for the very first time, but after I while I got the hang of it. The further I got into the game, the more I found Sonic’s journey somewhat relevant of my own.
Here’s what the game is pretty much about. So Dr. Eggman travels to Starfall Islands in an attempt to steal the Ancients’ technological secrets. When he uploaded an AI known as Sage, she traps Eggman into Cyber Space. When Sonic, Tails, and Amy (Knuckles was involved in the prologue) travel to the island to search for the chaos emeralds, they get sucked into Cyber Space, too. Sonic was able to escape, but he has to explore the islands, defeat huge robots know as Titans, and save his friends. When he finds his friends on different islands, their digital forms are trapped in cages. When he frees them he becomes more and more cyber-corrupted, so by the time he frees Tails on the third island it really starts affecting his body. And when he gets to Rhea Island, where he has to climb and disable four towers that maintain the boundary between the real world and the digital world, the cyber-corruption really starts to overcome him. He can barely move, and he is forgetting about his friends and himself. And after he climbs the last tower, he succumbs to the corruption and becomes trapped between dimensions.
It was at that moment in the game where I started comparing Sonic’s cyber-corruption to my depression. There are moments where my depression feels so crippling, and I don’t have the energy to run or do anything. I feel slowed down, like how the cyber-corruption affected Sonic. Mentally, my depression distorts how I see myself and the people around me. That’s when I start thinking less of myself and view people as my enemy, whether or not they know me. It turns me into something I’m not. It’s kind of like how Sonic started forgetting who he was and that he was climbing the towers for his friends. And like Sonic being trapped between dimensions, I was trapped between what was true and what was false—I couldn’t tell the difference.
So Amy, Knuckles, and Tails sacrificed their physical forms to free Sonic from the cyber-corruption, and he sets off to find the chaos emeralds so he can defeat an enemy called The End and rescue his friends. The final update of the game makes the ending even better. So Sage—who is now working with Sonic, and convinced Eggman to work alongside him)—restores Sonic’s cyber-corruption, as well as the digital forms of his friends, so they can find the chaos emeralds while he goes to convert his cyber-corruption into a greater power that can be used again The End. So Sonic has to climb five more towers, each having a Master Koco (Koco are the inhabitants of the islands) on top of them. When you climb a tower, you have to pass a trial in order to advance to the next one. When Sonic finishes the fourth trail, he can bear his cyber-corruption a lot better. Then when he climbs the last tower, he confronts Master King Koco, who can help him use his cyber-corruption to his advantage. He gains this ability after passing his trial, and this power—along with the chaos emeralds that his friends and Eggman retrieved—allowed him to become a cyber form of Super Sonic that was able to handle The End with ease. So after everyone teams up to defeat The End in what is an extremely epic battle, Sonic and his friends fly off the island together on Tails’ plane, and Eggman and Sage go home with a strong father-daughter relationship.
So the final update to the game left me wondering, is there a way I can convert my depression into something better for me? I honestly don’t know, but like how Sonic went to the Master Koco to help with his cyber-corruption, I can go see a therapist to help with my depression and anxiety, because I’m done thinking that antidepressants alone are enough for me. I don’t know the person I’ll end up being when I find someone to help me with my unhealthy thoughts and feelings, but I know it’ll make me an even better person than who I am now. And hopefully I can take on the negative thoughts I have like how Super Sonic 2 took down The End!
