Can't at all see the opinion that the original Ouranos Island is better. Less "offensive", sure. Does less and thus offends less. I definitely can't see how it's more cohesive or anything, though; it's the fourth open zone in the game but has less than the other zones. But the Final Horizon is a much better conclusion to the game, and if I get around to replaying the game from the start, probably for a 100% playthrough, it's going to be with that, not the original. The Final Horizon's problems are problems the base game has, isolated in its own realm with content added on top of that. Instead of a straightforward update that fixes conventional issues like pop-in or QoL, Sonic Team opted for experimentation and pushing the game's boundaries. The former would have made the game more technically sound, but the latter resulted in a much more interesting experience that rounds out the entire game. The Final Horizon is far from perfect, naturally, but it and Frontiers' core issues could only be truly fixed in a sequel that allows Sonic Team to fully reassess Frontiers' very foundation. With DLC, let alone free DLC, they could have either made marginal improvements or big changes like Cyber Space levels that are original and fun and level design that actually makes use of the game's physics and mechanics, and regardless of the execution (and I think the execution mostly holds up), I'm glad they chose the latter. Now, if the sequel still has these problems, well... that would not be good.
The Final Horizon update is a mess and the OG Ouranos is better because its simply bland and serviceable rather than terrible. The Final Horizon Ouranos features badly made alternate characters that feel like barely developed prototypes which don't even star for long enough to have a naturally developing experience growth for their skill tree. They also largely don't need to do any fighting or real exploration and just beeline to a sparse number of objectives. It's a demo prototype of a different game and is jarring. It also features a borderline completely broken difficulty spike which is rendered completely redundant with difficulty options. It's bad. The DLC is interesting in the same way Sonic R is interesting. Both games are bad by any metric but are definitely intriguing because they are weird and do something different. But neither game is actually good. OG Ouranos, like all of Frontiers, is not good either, but it's not terrible.
No to everything you just said, lol. Knuckles has glaring issues but I can't agree that Amy and Tails are bad to play as or with. How long they star is quite literally up to the player as well. You're not entirely wrong about the skill tree but it's also fundamentally implemented differently than Sonic's since you get Skill Points through completing challenges and almost always enough to buy a new skill. These two points are kind of related; you need to actually invest in these characters to get something out of them, but in a different way than Sonic. The difficulty spike is egregious in comparison to the rest of the game but with the exception of one truly terribly designed trial, I'm sorry, it's not even that hard. I will criticize Sonic Team for thinking that a lack of checkpoints or the Master Koco Trial is real difficulty, but I will not criticize them for thinking that level design and puzzles that require you to truly think of and understand the game is real difficulty. Even working on the dichotomy you set up, I would absolutely take fun, interesting, and terrible over bland and serviceable every single time. After a game like Sonic Forces? Absolutely. I can't agree the Final Horizon is bad or terrible, or at least not anymore than I would admit that the entirety of Frontiers is bad or terrible, and I don't even think I can say that the OG Ouranos Island is serviceable. There is definitely fun in how more straightforward it is, but it's less than the other islands in every way, and the climax of the game needs more than just serviceable. The Final Horizon, warts and all, is a real finale. I probably wouldn't say this when we didn't have the Final Horizon, but I will definitely say it now.
OGranos suffers by having very little to offer, essentially feeling like flyover territory in a way that the others didn't. The Final Horizon faces more glaring issues, but I wouldn't call it terrible. Every problem I have with it falls into the category of "annoying nitpick" more than it does "wholly unplayable mess". Yes it's cluttered, but that would be way less of a problem if every character could use every map or XP Koco. Yes the new towers and cyber levels are difficult, but that wouldn't be a problem if they added checkpoints (and if the objects on the towers respawned). Yes the combat across the entire update sucks, but that wouldn't be a problem if they just scaled it to your stats normally. Tails and Knuckles have annoying delays and bad air turning, but I can see firsthand how easy that is to correct. YOU MAY NOTICE THAT MOST OF THESE THINGS CAN BE ADDRESSED IN A PATCH. I don't know why they aren't doing that. It would make a lot of fucking sense if they were to do that.
SEGA skimps the fuck out of ever actually giving Sonic games updates. Notice that for Frontiers there was exactly one outside of the announced updates. Kishimoto also seems to suggest development has entirely stopped, so I don't think we're getting any more adjustments, or even new costume DLC.
I initially thought a patch was coming since the SteamDB was getting continual updates every few hours for like 2 months, but it stopped a few days ago so I think the dream is dead. They're probably starting up development on the next game instead right now.
I am still confounded they didn't patch this out at the bare minimum. It's a very annoying glitch that makes me question if they playtested the Final Horizon at all. Even Sonic 06 didn't have anything like this.
I disagree. Whilst a lot of the issues with TFH are patchable (and therefore should have been better implemented in the first place), the overall structure and design of the package feels like something I wouldn't want to engage with regardless. The only exception to that is the vastly improved alternative final fight against Supreme, which isn't without its own issues that need patching. The original Ouranos is a perfectly playable end to the game that, whilst feeling half-baked, is pretty solid as far as Frontiers goes. I'm happy to engage with it. TFH is just constantly annoying. I do want to see TFH become the basis for the next game (multiple playable characters in the same open zone), but what we currently have is not good at all.
To be clear, I'm not saying The Final Horizon is better than OGranos, just that I wouldn't use the word terrible. Most of your criticisms are fair, it's just that, for example, the time it takes to figure out what's being obscured by the map or render distance wasn't especially long whether it was annoying or not, it's a temporary problem. Maybe they can't fix that, maybe they can't make the new guardians fun to fight (though I would still argue their impact would be way lessened by not having so much goddamn health), but my biggest problems with Update 3 were the technical ones and the ones related to balance, which they totally could fix if they wanted to. It might be a bit obtuse to navigate and still not something I want a repeat of, but I mean...I've been playing terrible Sonic games fairly regularly for a while now. I'm in the middle of uploading a Shadow the hedgehog review series right now, and I can't call any part of Frontiers' platforming or exploration (okay, maybe some of the 2D sections) comparable to that, even if they're worse than other parts of the game (though still probably better than Chaos Island? been a bit since I did that one). Just a question of degree rather than a question of kind, really.
Yeah the hard mode for Final Horizon is broken because if you do the towers certain parts don’t respawn. I thought it was just me. That’s disappointing considering they had a whole year to play test and make sure nothing like that is in the DLC. I agree the base version of the game is better. I’ve seen a few mods where they added the characters to the regular story and it looked more fun. The base version had fun boss battles. That’s what made the game fun for me. In Final Horizon, they are cheap. I get attacked when I’m still on the ground. Like geez give me a recovery time. I’m getting stomped out multiple times by the tower. I barely beat it because I kept cy looping for rings.
To each their own. I still vehemently disagree. ShTH is terrible, and TFH is a different kind of terrible. One's better than the other, and there're no prizes for guessing which. But the fact, I greatly dislike both. And within the context of Frontiers, TFH is a massive step down when the foundation was already pretty shaky.
Are we talking STH P-06 or console version, because those are two different games. P-06 is better than this but not the console versions. We tend to mix fan projects with Sonic Team’s actual work.
Uh, what? Did you mean to post that in a different thread? Nobody said anything about 06. also project 06 isn't as good as you think it is but that's neither here nor there
Shadow The Hedgehog. Previous page when it was said that characters in 06 controlled better than in TFH.
The only thing Final Horizon universally succeeded at was making discussion of this game more insufferable than it already was.
I ‘d actually choose P-06 over TFH. The gameplay mechanics and controls are better. That’s not a fair comparison because we’re talking a fangame that actually fixes issues to maximize a game’s full potential and beyond vs a DLC that still has issues to go along with bad controls. The only 2 characters that aren’t broken is Sonic and Amy in the TFH.
Absolutely on board with this. I'll always take functional and perfectly playable (while admittedly a bit anticlimactic) as a finale, over a frustrating, glitchy, and visually unpleasant finale - particularly one with filled with blocky, primary-colour assets retrofitted onto a map they were never designed for. Yeah, I thought it was fairly obvious that my comments were about the characters of Sonic 06, and have nothing to do with P-06 (which I haven't played). I'm now wondering if it's worth going back to Sonic 06 to do a direct comparison with TFH, and seeing what I really think. Unfortunately, that would involve actually playing both Sonic 06 and The Final Horizon again, which is frankly a lose-lose scenario.
