What’s Wrong with Sonic Frontiers: The Final Horizon?
The third and final update for the open-world Sonic game
Spoilers for Sonic Frontiers The Final Horizon
Sonic Frontiers has been releasing new free updates throughout 2023 to give players a reason to revisit the title. The last update called The Final Horizon is here and it allows you to play as Tails, Amy, and Knuckles along with a new story ending. The “true” ending of Sonic Frontiers by allowing Sonic’s friends to get in on the action. Many fans are divisive on the update as it’s experimenting with not just new characters but new challenges and obstacles. Is the free update worth playing? Well, I have a lot to say.
The story starts with Sage outlining another scenario to defeat the Titans. It all takes place right after Tails, Amy, and Knuckles sacrificed their physical forms to save Sonic from the cyber corruption. Sage can bring Sonic’s friends back as she’s able to stabilize his cyber corruption. Super convenient that Sage can do this now. Anyhow, Sonic and friends will have to track down the Chaos Emeralds again while completing trials and challenges from the Kocos.
As you move along in the story, Amy, Tails, and Knuckles get more cyber corrupted as they interact with the real world. Sonic meets the Master King Koco who can grant Sonic untapped power. After completing his trial, Master King Koco will grant Sonic new power when he battles Supreme again. Once he becomes The End (seriously that’s his second form’s name), Sonic becomes Super Sonic 2 to defeat him. Sage saves Eggman again but with the help of Tails, Amy, and Knuckles, she doesn’t have to sacrifice herself.
Once it’s all said and done, Sonic defeats The End and the game is over. Very similar to the original ending except Sage doesn’t sacrifice herself. I didn’t have an issue with Sonic Frontiers’ story. It had some interesting elements like the Kocos and the Ancients but nothing wow’d me.
And the ending was fine. Sage sacrificing herself was a reasonable end to her arc before being revived by Eggman in the post-credit scene. Now, it’s just Sonic received a new form, used it to completely obliterate The End, and no one dies. More or less the same ending for me personally but I can see why some may like the new ending better. The fan service stuff with Super Sonic 2 is really cool though, I’m not gonna lie.
New Playable Characters in Sonic Frontiers
Tails, Amy, and Knuckles are now playable
The gameplay is the biggest aspect of The Final Horizon update. I personally didn’t revisit Sonic Frontiers after the previous updates, so I apologize for my ignorance for anything new gameplay wise that I missed. They did add the spin dash which is pretty dope. Makes traveling around the map much faster.
All of the new characters are pretty bare bones before upgrading them. Upgrades are acquired just like before by gaining skill points. Each character needs to find Kocos across the map that have the character’s respective color. Everyone controls similarly to Sonic in terms of movement but they all have unique abilities/weapons. The cyloop is not unlocked automatically for these characters. It has to be purchased from their Skills menu which is dumb. It’s only one skill point but still, why not have Amy, Tails, and Knuckles have the cyloop at the start?
First, you play as Amy. She has this double jump that can slowly descend afterwards. Her arsenal not only includes her Piko Piko Hammer but she also has Tarot Cards. A little confusing but it is a new trait recently added to Amy’s character. The Piko Piko Hammer is tied to her special attack, so it’s not part of her movement abilities like in Sonic Adventure. That’s where the Tarot Cards come into play for not only her double jump but she can use them as her melee attack. Why not use the Piko Piko Hammer is beyond me but the Tarot Cards aren’t a huge deal. Amy is by far the most balanced character out of the three as she doesn’t necessarily break the game with her movement. Amy is fine to play in Sonic Frontiers.
Next character you’ll as play is Knuckles. He’s not as smooth as he was in the Sonic Adventure games but it’s close enough. You can climb and glide across the island to complete missions. Knuckles’ glide ability feels a bit stiff since he stops in place mid-air before flying. The glide is okay. Climbing walls is only on specific red surfaces to not break the game. The game definitely feels the most janky and glitchy when I play as Knuckles. I wish I was able to climb up mountains as Knuckles but it’s only to these red surfaces.
There is currently a glitch where if you glide then do the punch combo, you can gain some height and essentially fly up. Fans might be reminded of Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric with the pause glitch. It’s crazy to me how they didn’t play test Knuckles to see if this was even possible. Knuckles uses his fists for combat as usual but you can’t really defeat bosses as the new characters (more on this later). Knuckles is not the same as before but he’s passable.
Tails is the last new character you play as and he’s more or less the same from Sonic Adventure. He can fly and gains height after a few seconds. He can throw wrenches at enemies but he can’t use the homing attack. You can whip out the walker from Sonic Adventure 2 to fly in the air with the cyclone boost. This ability feels especially broken since you can literally fly around wherever you want. Tails is a lot of fun to control in Sonic Frontiers.
The new characters can not fight the mini bosses. They’re scattered across the map once again but they’re much harder. You have these new characters that people want to try out and yet, you can’t really use them in combat because they’re too weak. They can take out common badniks but the bigger enemies, hell no.
All in all, the new characters are fine. They only show the problems with Sonic Frontiers even more like the pop-in terrain being especially apparent with these characters. Flying around as Knuckles and not knowing where to go because the game can’t see that far. It’s great to see these characters return to a 3D Sonic game after over 15 years but it’s clear that Sonic Frontiers wasn’t built with them in mind.
Side note, because all four characters are inhabiting the same open-world map, there’s obstacles that are unique for the specific character but it’s not clearly labeled sometimes. The colors should be an indicator but because the grind rails and platforms still hover in the air with no rhyme or reason, it’s hard to tell. I think it would’ve been better if each character had their own island, so there’s no overlapping challenges for every character on the map.
Sonic is once again playable and he is a majority of who you’ll be playing as in The Final Horizon.
The Problems with Sonic Frontiers The Final Horizon
One of my biggest complaints with this update is how they want the player to do precise platforming in Sonic Frontiers. The game, in my opinion, is 100% not meant for this kind of gameplay. The most fun I had in Sonic Frontiers was the exploration, the Cyberspace Levels, and the boss fights. The Final Horizon’s main focus for Sonic at the first is precise platforming, going up the Trial Towers.
Holy f*ck, I have never been so mad at a Sonic game in so long. The last time my hands sweated over a Sonic game like this was in Sonic Unleashed back in 2008 because of their super long levels (I’m looking at you Eggmanland). The Trial Towers are climbed up by going on grind rails, homing attack enemies/objects, jumping on moving platforms, etc. There’s multiple towers to conquer and the major catch is the precise platforming. Like I said, Sonic Frontiers isn’t made for this kind of gameplay. You make one mistake and fall, you have to climb the tower back up again.
The amount of times I got mad and frustrated at how bullsh*t the level design for these towers are is insane. For example, there’s this section where you have to homing attack these pink walls. The problem is when you fall and have to climb back up again, the walls don’t respawn. You either have to reload a previous save or carefully edge along these platforms. This is bullsh*t level design and I cannot believe they didn’t allow these walls to respawn after 15 seconds or something.
Another bullsh*t level design move is having this bumper hidden behind this blue marked chest. Sonic has to do the cyloop to unlock the bumper but it’s on this platform where there are speed pads going up and down. WHY ARE THE SPEED PADS HERE AND WHY IS THE BUMPER NOT HERE TO BEGIN WITH?!!?
The bumper also goes back to the blue chest after a short period of time, so you have to do it over again when you fall down. This level design choice is bullsh*t.
Another area where difficulty is just increased exponentially is the Cyberspace Levels. Previously, they’re a nice way to break the pace of the open-world gameplay and give Sonic fans something familiar to sink their teeth into. In The Final Horizon’s Cyberspace Levels, they are pure nonsense. The level design for the three I tried out were insanely bad and difficult.
In addition, there’s a condition like a time limit or racing against a NPC that can be added as well. There’s more collectibles to find in the levels such as these numbers, moons, and flickies but where they are and how to find them is beyond me. Why would I try to collect all this stuff while I’m also racing against an evil Tails who’s going really fast? I only finished one of these Cyberspace Levels and I got a D. They are poorly designed which make the difficulty excessive, just like the open-world stuff.
Another problem I have with The Final Horizon is the amount of times I had to look up how optimal I had to do something. This is related to the difficulty because they put restrictions on the player to make it “hard”. I have never felt so defeated looking up YouTube videos on how to do levels for a free update that wasn’t even 24 hours old yet.
The Master King Koco trial is a three man boss rush where you only get 400 rings, have to parry perfectly, and you can’t regain more rings. So, if you get hit as Sonic, you’ll have less rings when you’re Super Sonic. You might as well restart the boss rush if you lose any rings as Sonic because it makes defeating the bosses on a tighter time constraint. The rings would’ve been fine if I didn’t have to parry perfectly to do damage to the bosses. This adds extra stress and frustration to bosses I already defeated in the main game. Again, bullsh*t design to make it absurdly difficult. Why not create a few new bosses instead of having me replay the old ones with conditions to make it harder? And the conditions themselves are not reasonable.
I also had to look up how to get past the Snake’s Trial because the timing of everything is so exact. You have to defeat these enemies with shells but you only get so much time to hit them before the shell protects them again. I learned about the combo where stomping on them does 30 damage compared to the normal 10 damage. Kind of crazy how a lot of The Final Horizon comes down to precise and exact inputs or else you lose. How does this make Sonic Frontiers any more fun with its “harder” difficulty? It doesn’t.
One of the last things I had to look up was defeating The End. I had no idea how to lock onto the purple cord to stop the self healing. Thanks to my lovely girlfriend, she looked on Twitter and found this user having the same exact issue as me. Someone replied by saying I have to dodge with R1 to re-target the lock on to the cord.
Why am I even able to hit the head first when the purple cord is all I want to hit? Frustrating design all around that could’ve been solved by simply having the cord only targetable, not the cord and The End’s head. Also, the game gives you 0 hints on anything if you’re struggling with a trial or challenge for a long time. It’s literally “good luck, have fun” mentality with zero hints.
Another stupid part about fighting The End is how if you don’t have enough rings during the final cutscene, when The End steals rings away from Sonic, you can actually die. Insane how this mandatory cutscene can kill you because you don’t have enough rings. I know, I should’ve had more rings to begin with but why is this even a design choice? Punishing the player by taking too long on the boss and forcing them to start all over again? Crazy game design.
One thing I really did enjoy about Sonic Frontiers The Final Horizon is the music. The remixes of old songs still hit. Even when I’m losing my mind during the Master King Koco trial, I’m still head banging to the music. The soundtrack of Sonic Frontier overall is one of my favorites in years.
Kellin Quinn is a fantastic addition to the Sonic musician family and I hope we see more of him soon.
Overall, The Final Horizon Update for Sonic Frontiers is so messy. It’s trying to do a lot of things like increase the difficulty, add new characters, and rewrite the ending but most of it doesn’t work. I thought the ending was fine and to rewrite by slightly changing it, not worth it. The new characters are neat to play as but don’t work for the open-world setting. Maybe if they had their own dedicated missions or Cyberspace levels to mess around in but yeah, the game wasn’t built with Amy, Tails, and Knuckles in mind.
The difficulty is straight bullsh*t and doesn’t make much sense in the grand scheme of things. I know people called Sonic Frontiers “too easy” but to turn up the difficulty like this was not cool. Even though I put the game on Easy during the Master King Koco trial, I was still raging at my TV. It took me about 10 hours to finally finish The Final Horizon and I wasn’t even exploring a lot.
I believed Sonic Frontiers was one of the best Sonic games in years but after this update, I can see why many critics gave it low scores when it initially released. If you want to see what all the fuss is about with The Final Horizon, go right ahead and jump back into Sonic Frontiers. It will be a challenge and will most certainly cause stress and aggravation. I genuinely feel scarred after playing this update. It was not a good time.
Travis “tvsonic” Vuong
Business e-mail: travisvuong56@gmail.com
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