Following the confirmation earlier this week that Super Sonic will be featured in Sonic Frontiers, director Morio Kishimoto has revealed that there are some bosses you "can't even scratch" without the transformation.
One of the longest-standing questions that Sonic fans have had when it comes to Frontiers is whether Super Sonic would be making an appearance, especially considering his reduced role as an add-on in the last mainline game, Sonic Forces. Thankfully, a trailer released before Tokyo Game Show confirms that the form is back, and interviews with the developers have revealed how important it is this time around.
As reported by IGN, Sonic Frontiers director Morio Kishimoto spoke to the publication following that TGS trailer, seemingly implying that the transformation is a necessary part of getting through the game and defeating bosses, revealing that Sonic's normal form won't be able to do damage against most of the bosses.
Kishimoto said, "Normally in Sonic games you'll encounter a boss and you'll fight them as regular, blue Sonic. In Sonic Frontiers, there will be bosses that blue Sonic can't even scratch. But if he collects and uses all seven Chaos Emeralds, he can become Super Sonic and then battle those bosses. Becoming Super Sonic will be the only way to fight them."
It seems that attitude is also going to be reflected in the difficulty of the fights themselves, as Kishimoto then said, "Up until now, in Sonic games, Super Sonic would only appear against the last boss. Imagine if the first boss in Sonic Frontiers is as strong as those bosses".
Curiously, we've actually seen Sonic going up against several of the game's bosses already, so it seems that there are at least a few that he'll be able to take on without the power of the Chaos Emeralds. From the Tokyo Game Show trailer, it seems that it's just the biggest of the bosses that Sonic can't take on himself, as we see him getting absolutely trashed by one of them.