How to S-Rank Cyber Space Portal 1-2 in Sonic Frontiers

While Sonic Frontiers is an attempt to try a lot of new things with the Blue Blur, there are more traditional 3D Sonic the Hedgehog elements included. A little something for everybody, you know? Outside of the “open-zone” areas are portals leading to Cyber Space, a collection of speed-slash-challenge levels based on chunks of previous zones from throughout the Sonic series. Each portal includes a list of goals you can tackle, and hitting each one gives you a key for unlocking vaults. A specific stage has gained some notoriety due to its strict demands for an S-Rank despite being super early in the game. I managed to meet said demand, so here’s a quick guide on how to S-Rank 1-2 in Sonic Frontiers.

Related: Sonic Frontiers Review | The Gap Between Ambition and Execution

There is an incredibly low margin of error to meet that 55-second goal in 1-2. You pretty much have to take a specific route, and even then you really can’t mess up. If you’re tearing your hair out but don’t want to just watch a video showing you exactly how to do it, I’ll break it down into some written tips. Then I’ll write out the exact steps. And finally, there’s a video you can check out as a last resort. Or, you know, just skip to the video if you don’t care. Gotta make everyone happy.

Sonic Frontiers Portal 1-2 Tips & Tricks

• Stay out of the air as much as possible unless you’re able to boost to the next part
• Springs are not your friends
• ABB: Always Be Boosting; no fighting, running, double-jumping, or having fun
• Choose your ring boosts carefully; some of them help, others hurt
• No jumping on grind rails; only the bumper hop gimmick
• Don’t forget you can press B/Circle/etc to drop

Step-by-Step Solution

• From the jump, take the low route via the zipper pads, jumping right after the red ring on the hill to catch the boost rings to the upper platforms
• Skip across the platforms, immediately boost past the enemies and hit the pulley thing
• From the pulley, boost over the steps and tap the homing attack as fast as you can (it’ll take a few times to feel out the timing) then drop as soon as you reach the platform
• Boost to the rail, boost and immediately hop left, then right back to the middle to avoid the spring
• If it’s after :35 when you hit the loop, restart lol
• Boost jump off the hill for the ring boost, on the rail hop left onto the second rail then immediately hop right to use the ring boost
• Boost through the straightaway and jump for the ring boost
• Stay on the next rail all the way! No jumping yet!
• Okay now you can jump. Do a boost jump to clear the hazard then homing attack the last spring
• You should have just enough time to fumble to the finish however you like

Okay, now here’s a video of the whole plan in action. You can see a mistake or two, which results in a whole half of a second to spare at the end. Whew! I got a better time the first time I cleared it, but of course I wasn’t recording then. It wasn’t that much better though, to be fair.