Sonic Frontiers Thread - PS4, PS5, Xbox, Switch, PC

I don't agree with this. I feel like it works well with the player control.

It's just that there is a lot that even an above-average player may not know about the game that the game expects you to know (and doesn't really teach you)

 

from what I've heard switching to easy adds additional balloons and springs to make the tower climbs easier

 

When I was playing as the other characters, it was merely bad, and embarrassingly so. As soon as I got back to Sonic, all of the half-baked controls and abilities were gone (or at least they're only as bad as Frontiers normally is). But now it's like the game is trying to substitute its lack of depth with "challenge," like turning all enemy movement speed up to max, making you climb finicky physics towers, and refusing to respawn the boxes that you need to climb those towers. Even the cyberspace levels, normally the one part of the game I can kind of enjoy, are remixes of already-existing cyberspace stages (so they're remixes of remixes) with the difficulty set well beyond what I thought was "maximum". It'd be nice if I could at least listen to music I liked while I plummet my spiny blue corpse upon these difficulty spikes, but even the jukebox is disabled.

So yeah, this is rough so far, no two ways about it. My expectations were low, but holy shit.

 

Finished the update because who doesn't love Sonic at 3am!

Spoiler: Initial thoughts

I thought it was okay. It's definitely rusty, and man some parts were really rough around the edges. The characters at their core are enjoyable to play and breaking the challenges were fun, but it did feel like it was intended for you to grind out some stuff. I was able to primarily skip every problem I had though purely by using the poorly/randomly placed geometry and just gliding around the obstacles the developers planned out.

It was enjoyable to experience some different characters, but the gameplay ended up feeling... bad near the end? And the fact that a majority of the skills were locked behind exploration felt off. I understand a sense of progression, but it's kind of insane that you don't even have your basic combo unlocked or even cyloop. Starfall is a good way to farm the seeds of power, defense, and Kokos. But God, some parts of the exploration was just off. I wish they just put the different characters on different islands too because some of the "oh, this is meant for this character!" wasn't actually the case and I often got lost because of the rendering limit, they tried to fit so much on island.... Like the part with the 6th Emerald was awful honestly because I was genuinely lost for the longest time with no hint as to where I was supposed to even start.

I'd probably say the towers were the absolute worst part of the update though. They were somewhat okay to climb but the challenges felt like they were thrown everywhere with no rhyme or reason. And don't get me started on the challenges at the top. All of them were really boring and had no real difficulty aside from "we sped everything up by 5x" and the final challenge on hard difficulty was not enjoyable.

I won't mention the final fight, that's a secret!

I'm unsure about this, but there may be a bug after finishing the update? Maybe I got unlucky?

Spoiler: I don't really think this is a spoiler?

I got the blank text that you usually get with mods after the credits had rolled. I had to force close the game.

 

Wow, these new towers are some shit. This might be the hardest Sonic content in... decades.

 

I'm watching CallieMac's stream of Final Horizons, especially the final boss, and now I'm back to being convinced that Sonic Team have absolutely no idea what they're doing. Everything is jank, they overcompensated with the difficulty and the final boss is bullshit because of a mechanic that doesn't work properly/intuitively, along with a glitch that makes it impossible to defeat if you're unlucky.

 

+ - I'm at the first tower and   I'm honestly liking it so far. Seeing the characters after so many years is a joy and controlling them in a boost-like game is very interesting. Amy's abilities feel janky and the Knuckles' glide is stiff (the ramp-up animation freezes the character in the air unnecessarily long) and turns like a tank, but overall I think the positives outweigh the negatives. Seeing the Cyclone is so good (and using it allows Tails to fly anywhere on the island). It makes me almost dream of the day Sonic Team incorporates actual arcade-like flight mechanics into a Sonic game. Overall, the physics aren't much different from the base game (jumping cancels all momentum, etc.) but it's a much desired improvement.

 

This is the greatest fucking update I've ever seen. Sega broke everything and I'm still having a blast. It's beyond satisfying to finally beat one of the many overpowered robots on the island. And those stupidly hard platforming challenges? Sega is making kids cry over them, and I'm all for it.

Also, Tails' plane is incredible. I love flying that shit around.

Knuckles is ass though, Amy is alright.

 

I can confirm that changing the difficulty makes the towers easier, but the trials are also janky and unfair (and the "lower" difficulty after a certain number of losses).

This.... isn't that fun. I don't think this is well designed difficulty at all.

 

Can you skip to the new content? I'm curious to play it now. Can't fathom anything being worse than Chaos Island

 

So long as you can access Ouranos, you can play the new story.

It has issues but nothing like Chaos Island's.

 

Man, I dunno...

The stuff with the new characters was fun, but the stuff with Sonic is excruciatingly difficult. I must've spent 2+ hours on the second tower and it's challenge, and I STILL haven't completed the challenge.

I'll be scarce around here to avoid spoilers, but so far I just wish it was a TAD easier. Like, just a TOUCH. I'm talking, like, 5 more seconds on the second challenge's clock. I swear you miss 1 or 2 inputs by a 5th of a second and you've already lost. I've been ~1 second away from beating it multiple times. Insane.

 

Yeah, I'm following all the suggested strategies for Snake Trial, but it just comes down to luck. The precise timing you're expected to use to attack it is beyond unreasonable.

This seems like it was barely playtested at all. And given that it was a free update, maybe that's exactly what happened.

 

I just finished the 4 towers when you first get control of sonic. Im very mixed on the dlc overall, it feels pretty messy, but i wont deny and im definitely having a lot of fun. I am actually really liking the challenge, although.... that fourth tower was kicking my ass LOL.

The other characterss feel pretty sloppy overall, but not terrible. Except knuckles, i just dont like that gliding control... at all. Amy was surprisingly fun though once she gets some upgrades, and tails cyclone boost is actually incredible

 

Setting initial boost speed and acceleration to zero doesn’t fix this?

 

Alright so I beat this dlc and uhhhhh. I think it has actually lessened my overall opinion of this game. It is such a massive difficulty curve that the rest of the game absolutely does not prepare you for. Particularly snake trial is unintuitive but easy once you figure it out. The final trial is just straight bullshit because of a new mechanic, and you can’t get more rings if/when you lose them. Lastly the final boss is just horrendous. Who decided sticking a critical fuck me spot to beat the fight, right next to another hitbox was a good idea. I had zero idea you could manually change targets due to the game not showing me or refreshing me on how to do it when it’s never been required before. Also a cinematic interrupted the cinematic of me winning which broke the boss and became literally unbeatable. My win felt purely because of luck, based on my available knowledge of the targeting system. Standard jank aside I’m feeling very mixed on this simply because of the last hourish of the final island. I’ll better form my ramblings into thoughts later.

 

I like what they did with Tails. His main attack is kinda hilarious and maybe I love it?

This is the only positive thing I have to say about the update, lol. As someone who didn't like the game in the first place, I'm amazed that it does it's best to leave the game even more unrefined and unfinished than it was on release. That takes effort!

 

First major mod that we need in the game for Tails wrench attack

 

This FEELS like it should be paid DLC. This feels like a super hard mode expansion pack, along the lines of the Adventure Packs. It is unabashedly designed for already existing fans of the game, who know it inside and out. Newcomers will certainly be put off by its difficulty.

As for me, someone who has 250 hours in the game? I can't get enough of it. I welcome the added difficulty for the more interesting challenges the island throws at you. I loved the added emphasis on flinging, they're really not afraid of forcing you to launch off ramps. The characters are solid to play as (Knuckles is kinda eh). Even Cyber Space is better in this. And to top it off, a final boss that feels TRUELY climactic and a proper send-off to the game.

This is a really strange product right here, and feels a lot more like a separate, disconnected experience than an "expanded endgame". but I enjoyed playing it.

 

All I can say is at least we have Sonic Superstars.