Final Horizon TSS REVIEW: Sonic Frontiers: Final Horizon

[Ming Ming Hatsune]

Not going to lie, I hated this DLC. Even on easy mode I struggled really bad.

That Snake trial actually required me to go to Google to figure out how to beat it, and I shouldn’t do that.

No hints, no tutorials…who playtested this?

A casual player will have a MISERABLE time in this DLC.

I loved the original Cyberspace levels despite the flaws. In the DLC, I hate them. No checkpoints and have to start over if I die. I died plenty of times while I was holding flickies because I only had single jump.

What in the world Sonic Team? This difficulty spike isn’t fun at all. I was pissed off on how you turned my view on Frontiers a great game to a frustrating one.

I had to remind myself though it’s just the DLC and you can ignore it in the base game so it is not too bad.

It was fun to play as Amy (although you can’t cancel the float anytime so it was frustrating in some puzzles)…Knuckles? The fact you can’t climb anywhere…what a poor design choice, and even climbing on certain platforms I didn’t feel comfortable and secure, sometimes I just fall off for no reason.

Also when I first played Knuckles I was fascinated on how I cannot punch any enemy. It was until I discovered by accidentally pressing the touchpad button that “OH! You need to upgrade Knuckles skills before he can punch!”…wait WHAT? LOL.

Tails, no homing attack so apart from flying and some challenges, he’s not that great to use him…

And this applies to all of the 3 characters, I had to avoid those mini bosses like Ninja+ and Tank+. (And I hate the Ninja because if you encounter it, if not fast enough he will slice and dice you even from afar). These characters are simply not strong enough to beat those. Again who playtested this.

A good shoutout to the BGM, one of the strong positives from the DLC. But instead of replaying the DLC listening to it I ended up streaming the sounds via Apple Music. Better off. 

[PIZZA ALERT]

I agree with pretty much everything here, but holy #!$& I'm surprised you either liked the 10sec looping music thruout all 4 characters or just forgot to include that negative in your review. I see you mentioned Amy's and that you liked it, I guess maybe the looping didn't affect you as much. That was honestly one of my biggest gripes. The base game since update 1 has had a jukebox, why the hell would they remove that in place of this repetitive junk. It would have been better maybe if they were actually full songs, but no. I liked it at first (besides Knuckles' which was not fitting to him in the slightest), but after a while it gets so annoying.

Maybe that's just me

[Sonicka]

4 hours ago, PIZZA ALERT said:

I agree with pretty much everything here, but holy #!$& I'm surprised you either liked the 10sec looping music thruout all 4 characters or just forgot to include that negative in your review. I see you mentioned Amy's and that you liked it, I guess maybe the looping didn't affect you as much. That was honestly one of my biggest gripes. The base game since update 1 has had a jukebox, why the hell would they remove that in place of this repetitive junk. It would have been better maybe if they were actually full songs, but no. I liked it at first (besides Knuckles' which was not fitting to him in the slightest), but after a while it gets so annoying.

Maybe that's just me

Respectfully disagree on the music, the loops do last longer than 10 seconds though (often by another 3:50). It's probably because they have vocals that it feels more noticeable and samey, but the pieces do progressively change before they loop and really it's not much different to the movements provided in the base games soundtrack in the open zones. But I understand where you are coming from. 

I do agree with you on the Jukebox removal here though. I could maybe understand from a direction perspective that they were going for a certain mood with those characters - but to cut the Jukebox option out from this part of the DLC is a bit weird for those that do want to change the soundtrack up. 

[ZinogreVolt]

27 minutes ago, Sonicka said:

Respectfully disagree on the music, the loops do last longer than 10 seconds though (often by another 3:50). It's probably because they have vocals that it feels more noticeable and samey, but the pieces do progressively change before they loop and really it's not much different to the movements provided in the base games soundtrack in the open zones. But I understand where you are coming from. 

I do agree with you on the Jukebox removal here though. I could maybe understand from a direction perspective that they were going for a certain mood with those characters - but to cut the Jukebox option out from this part of the DLC is a bit weird for those that do want to change the soundtrack up. 

Plays into a bigger issue with Final Horizon seemingly not being made with much consideration for how the base game has changed since launch. Besides the Spin Dash, which Final Horizon constantly leverages (to its benefit, mind), it's strange that it lacks an option for Jukeboxes and the new Cyberspace levels aren't accessible at all in the Arcade Mode or Cyberspace Challenge. Messing with the movement sliders added in Update 2 also negatively affects how Tails/Knux/Amy all control too. No Jukebox is especially annoying since AS Ouranos is by far the most content rich island in the game now, so being able to change up tunes would have been nice.

[kao]

Claiming only diehard speedrunners and comic/lore enthusiasts is incredibly dismissive of people like me. I'm not a die-hard speedrunner nor am I a "masochist". I loved the base game and I love Final Horizon, despite it's flaws.

Your review looks over Cyber Space quite drastically, and in my opinion, I just don't think you got a good enough feel for them, as they're the highlight of the update imo along with the towers (they really aren't that difficult and I never had any issues).

The new stages are skillful and are reminiscent of Adventure stages, and DO have platforming and rewarding speed tracks, and these new levels punish you for spamming the Spin Dash, as not only do the S ranks not matter, but the bottomless pits make it so you need to be skillful of where you land. I think these levels were super creative and I want them to do more like this for the next game and personally you should give them a second chance.

Ontop of that, you realize the stages are replayable right? They aren't asking you to nab all the collectibles in one run, you could if you were skilled enough, but if you can't you aren't forced to. 

It's also a shame you used the Cyclone to skip Tails' platforming, as I feel you missed out on a massive chunk of well thought out challenges.

I'm fine with people not liking the game but personally this review felt like I was being talked down to tbh.

[kao]

On 10/8/2023 at 6:53 PM, ZinogreVolt said:

Plays into a bigger issue with Final Horizon seemingly not being made with much consideration for how the base game has changed since launch. Besides the Spin Dash, which Final Horizon constantly leverages (to its benefit, mind), it's strange that it lacks an option for Jukeboxes and the new Cyberspace levels aren't accessible at all in the Arcade Mode or Cyberspace Challenge. Messing with the movement sliders added in Update 2 also negatively affects how Tails/Knux/Amy all control too. No Jukebox is especially annoying since AS Ouranos is by far the most content rich island in the game now, so being able to change up tunes would have been nice.

The new Cyber Space levels not being available in Arcade is a crime honestly.