IronLuis
83 reviews liked by IronLuis
This Expansion pack has some neat ideas: playing Sonic's friends each with their own skills and collectibles. The story not taking place after the main game but rather being an alternate finale. Too bad it had to be in the hands of Sonic Team.
I don’t think I’ve ever had my impressions of a base game soured by a DLC, but I guess there's always a first for all. This thing has challenges that were clearly not designed with Frontiers' Sonic movement and thus they are bullshit hard and impossible because they seem to require a completely different set of physics than the ones in the game.
The different playable characters don’t reach their full potential. The difficulty curve for the new guardian challenges resembles a plate of spaghetti thrown at a wall. Master King Koco's challenge is just straight up dog shit. And the final boss, while a neat concept and, in theory, better than the final boss in the base game; it just ruins it by having an attack in the final phase that is basically a "fuck you, start again" if you don’t parry it, no matter how many rings you have.
I think Sega knew how absolutely shit this DLC was and that’s why they gave it out for free with an update, because had they charged money for this, I guarantee all the goodwill Frontiers gardeners would’ve gone down the drain. Fuck this DLC, not even being free justifies it.
I don’t think I’ve ever had my impressions of a base game soured by a DLC, but I guess there's always a first for all. This thing has challenges that were clearly not designed with Frontiers' Sonic movement and thus they are bullshit hard and impossible because they seem to require a completely different set of physics than the ones in the game.
The different playable characters don’t reach their full potential. The difficulty curve for the new guardian challenges resembles a plate of spaghetti thrown at a wall. Master King Koco's challenge is just straight up dog shit. And the final boss, while a neat concept and, in theory, better than the final boss in the base game; it just ruins it by having an attack in the final phase that is basically a "fuck you, start again" if you don’t parry it, no matter how many rings you have.
I think Sega knew how absolutely shit this DLC was and that’s why they gave it out for free with an update, because had they charged money for this, I guarantee all the goodwill Frontiers gardeners would’ve gone down the drain. Fuck this DLC, not even being free justifies it.
This review contains spoilers
Okay, I think I've had enough time to think this expansion over a good bit, so here's the review.
Being able to play as Tails, Knuckles, and Amy again after so long without being able to is awesome, especially Tails and Knuckles with the Cyclone and the punch glide loop that you can use to bypass pretty much all of the puzzles with.
Now, here's the weakest part of the DLC....Sonic.
Not character wise, he's still written very well, I'm talking about what he's given to do in his gameplay sections.
You have to climb the stupid towers again and guess what? THEY'RE HARDER!
I had to switch the difficulty to Easy in order to actually get up the towers without going insane, and when you go up them, you're given really annoying little trials to do where you have to beat enemies in a certain time limit, sounds simple right? WRONG!
Ya see, the game decided to bring you back to Level 1 for all of them, making all of that levelling and grinding completely pointless.
I don't even understand why these trials exist to begin with, especially the last one, which involves you fighting every single one of the Titans again (excluding Supreme), only this time, you're AGAIN, set back to Level 1, meaning you only have 400 rings to work with, that sounds okay, right? Except IT ISN'T!
Because you won't be able to get more in between fights, meaning whatever ring count you have at the end of each fight is what you're stuck with in the next one, so try not to get hit as base form Sonic, oh yeah, they have you climb the Titans again as well, meaning you have to climb them hitless in order to actually get through it, on top of that, the game takes away your normal parry for these trials and replaces it with a Perfect Parry, meaning you have to time your parries PERFECTLY in order to beat them, and remember that, cuz it becomes important later.
Fortunately, you can swap the difficulty to Easy, which extends the parry window by a bit, so there's that.
But yeah, back to what I mentioned before, why do these trials exist? I get that it's the Titan riders testing Sonic's might, but here's the thing, the last trial is him fighting the Titans......Something he already did......And is the entire reason that he has to go through these trials to start with, you see where I'm going with this?
Okay, now for the final boss, you have to fight Supreme again, because this expansion doesn't have enough padding with the tower climbing and the stupid trials, it's easy enough, but they really should've just skipped it for this expansion, just saying.
But the real fight starts after you beat him, where The End connects itself to Supreme, and the connection keeps Supreme's health from going down, meaning you have to sever it in order to be able to do damage to him, do I need to say it?
You literally have to sidestep in order to be able to lock on to the connection and attack it until it's severed, the game gives you no indication that that's what you need to do, so you'll basically just be here wailing on it, not knowing what to do, which is what I did, and it pissed me off when I found the solution, cuz HOW THE HELL WAS I SUPPOSED TO KNOW THAT?!
Not only that, but the boss also shoots energy balls at you that SAP YOUR RINGS! And if you're on Hard, it saps a huge chunk of them and you can't parry them until you become Cyber Sonic (I'm not calling him Super Sonic 2), meaning that before you can really start fighting the boss, you have to take three energy balls to the face and lose most of your rings, LOVELY.
Also, remember when I said they took away your parry and replaced it with a Perfect Parry? Yeah, they did that here, too, and you better have this on Easy, cuz if you have it on Hard, GOOD FUCKING LUCK!
The timing on Perfect Parry is insane to time and you better parry those energy balls, cuz again, they sap your rings, and even if you have the max number of rings, on Hard, you're FUCKED!
Not to mention that at certain angles, the FUCKING TREES BLOCK YOUR VIEW AND MESS UP YOUR TIMING EVEN MORE!
But hey, if you're able to get past all of that, sever the connection, and get his health down, you'll still be stuck trying to figure out what to do, because again, the game doesn't tell you what you need to do to proceed and also doesn't even make it obvious what needs to be done.
And if you take too much time trying to figure it out, The End will repair its connection and heal him all the way back to full, meaning you'll have to do it all again.
How the hell are people supposed to know that you have to perform a Cyloop on the hole in its back to bring out its gun, then perform another Cyloop to finish Phase 1?!
Yeah, THAT WAS PHASE FUCKING 1!
And now, you have to DO THE SAME FIGHT AGAIN!
Meaning you have to sever The End's connection AGAIN, and beat it AGAIN!
And no, unlike before, you can't just sever the connection immediately, because Supreme decides to throw a tempur tantrum that keeps you from attacking the connection and wastes time before it finally decides to attack Eggman and the others.
Oh, and at one point in the fight, Surpreme fires a huge energy ball that takes down your rings even more, basically rushing you to finish the fight, there is no way to avoid this, there is no time limit, it is a scripted Fuck You attack, so you'd better hope that your parries are on point and that you have his health down pretty low, otherwise, you're fucked!
But hey, once you beat him, you get a cool cutscene where Sonic is shot out of Supreme's gun at The End and you do hear Roger do a really cool scream, which was awesome, but from there, the ending is pretty much the same as the main game, except Eggman is with Sage this time, which is a really wholesome scene, followed by an equally wholesome song, which is a lyrical version of the song from the original boss fight with The End.
I'm sorry about all of the complaining, but seriously, they made this expansion way too hard for casual players, even if you have it on Easy, seriously, how're kids supposed to beat this?
And if any of you are going to say "Git Gud", kindly shove that statement up your ass, Sonic games shouldn't be hard, and yeah, the main game was easy, even on Hard, but it's Sonic, these games aren't meant to be challenging, you want challenge, go back to FromSoftware and leave Sonic alone.
I get that the developers were listening to player feedback, and it's great when they do, it shows that they care about the people that play their games, but they really went overboard with the difficulty on this one, hopefully, they learn from this and make the next Sonic game the perfect balance of easy and difficult, like they did with the Adventure games and Unleashed.
Oh yeah, the new music is really good, each character having their own music to fit their gameplay sections is really nice and the new version of I'm Here done by Kellin Quinn is now my new favorite version of the song, and I'm With You, the wholesome song that I previously mentioned.
Also, this was completely free, so there's that, I hope this, on top of God of War Ragnarok's Valhalla DLC is an indication on what direction some game companies will start going with their DLCs, I say some, cuz you all know EA and Ubisoft ain't gonna do that.
TLDR: Basically, I like playing as Tails, Knuckles, and Amy again, I hate playing as Sonic, cuz of all the bullshit he has to do, trials feel like unnecessary padding, the final boss is cool, but bullshit, you essentially have to have it on Easy in order to actually have fun or have an easier time, the new songs are great, the DLC is free, so no use being too mad at it.
Now I'm gonna go back to patiently waiting for the next Sonic game, which hopefully will feature Shadow as a main character again, bring my boy back in the spotlight, and actually write him better, please?
Being able to play as Tails, Knuckles, and Amy again after so long without being able to is awesome, especially Tails and Knuckles with the Cyclone and the punch glide loop that you can use to bypass pretty much all of the puzzles with.
Now, here's the weakest part of the DLC....Sonic.
Not character wise, he's still written very well, I'm talking about what he's given to do in his gameplay sections.
You have to climb the stupid towers again and guess what? THEY'RE HARDER!
I had to switch the difficulty to Easy in order to actually get up the towers without going insane, and when you go up them, you're given really annoying little trials to do where you have to beat enemies in a certain time limit, sounds simple right? WRONG!
Ya see, the game decided to bring you back to Level 1 for all of them, making all of that levelling and grinding completely pointless.
I don't even understand why these trials exist to begin with, especially the last one, which involves you fighting every single one of the Titans again (excluding Supreme), only this time, you're AGAIN, set back to Level 1, meaning you only have 400 rings to work with, that sounds okay, right? Except IT ISN'T!
Because you won't be able to get more in between fights, meaning whatever ring count you have at the end of each fight is what you're stuck with in the next one, so try not to get hit as base form Sonic, oh yeah, they have you climb the Titans again as well, meaning you have to climb them hitless in order to actually get through it, on top of that, the game takes away your normal parry for these trials and replaces it with a Perfect Parry, meaning you have to time your parries PERFECTLY in order to beat them, and remember that, cuz it becomes important later.
Fortunately, you can swap the difficulty to Easy, which extends the parry window by a bit, so there's that.
But yeah, back to what I mentioned before, why do these trials exist? I get that it's the Titan riders testing Sonic's might, but here's the thing, the last trial is him fighting the Titans......Something he already did......And is the entire reason that he has to go through these trials to start with, you see where I'm going with this?
Okay, now for the final boss, you have to fight Supreme again, because this expansion doesn't have enough padding with the tower climbing and the stupid trials, it's easy enough, but they really should've just skipped it for this expansion, just saying.
But the real fight starts after you beat him, where The End connects itself to Supreme, and the connection keeps Supreme's health from going down, meaning you have to sever it in order to be able to do damage to him, do I need to say it?
You literally have to sidestep in order to be able to lock on to the connection and attack it until it's severed, the game gives you no indication that that's what you need to do, so you'll basically just be here wailing on it, not knowing what to do, which is what I did, and it pissed me off when I found the solution, cuz HOW THE HELL WAS I SUPPOSED TO KNOW THAT?!
Not only that, but the boss also shoots energy balls at you that SAP YOUR RINGS! And if you're on Hard, it saps a huge chunk of them and you can't parry them until you become Cyber Sonic (I'm not calling him Super Sonic 2), meaning that before you can really start fighting the boss, you have to take three energy balls to the face and lose most of your rings, LOVELY.
Also, remember when I said they took away your parry and replaced it with a Perfect Parry? Yeah, they did that here, too, and you better have this on Easy, cuz if you have it on Hard, GOOD FUCKING LUCK!
The timing on Perfect Parry is insane to time and you better parry those energy balls, cuz again, they sap your rings, and even if you have the max number of rings, on Hard, you're FUCKED!
Not to mention that at certain angles, the FUCKING TREES BLOCK YOUR VIEW AND MESS UP YOUR TIMING EVEN MORE!
But hey, if you're able to get past all of that, sever the connection, and get his health down, you'll still be stuck trying to figure out what to do, because again, the game doesn't tell you what you need to do to proceed and also doesn't even make it obvious what needs to be done.
And if you take too much time trying to figure it out, The End will repair its connection and heal him all the way back to full, meaning you'll have to do it all again.
How the hell are people supposed to know that you have to perform a Cyloop on the hole in its back to bring out its gun, then perform another Cyloop to finish Phase 1?!
Yeah, THAT WAS PHASE FUCKING 1!
And now, you have to DO THE SAME FIGHT AGAIN!
Meaning you have to sever The End's connection AGAIN, and beat it AGAIN!
And no, unlike before, you can't just sever the connection immediately, because Supreme decides to throw a tempur tantrum that keeps you from attacking the connection and wastes time before it finally decides to attack Eggman and the others.
Oh, and at one point in the fight, Surpreme fires a huge energy ball that takes down your rings even more, basically rushing you to finish the fight, there is no way to avoid this, there is no time limit, it is a scripted Fuck You attack, so you'd better hope that your parries are on point and that you have his health down pretty low, otherwise, you're fucked!
But hey, once you beat him, you get a cool cutscene where Sonic is shot out of Supreme's gun at The End and you do hear Roger do a really cool scream, which was awesome, but from there, the ending is pretty much the same as the main game, except Eggman is with Sage this time, which is a really wholesome scene, followed by an equally wholesome song, which is a lyrical version of the song from the original boss fight with The End.
I'm sorry about all of the complaining, but seriously, they made this expansion way too hard for casual players, even if you have it on Easy, seriously, how're kids supposed to beat this?
And if any of you are going to say "Git Gud", kindly shove that statement up your ass, Sonic games shouldn't be hard, and yeah, the main game was easy, even on Hard, but it's Sonic, these games aren't meant to be challenging, you want challenge, go back to FromSoftware and leave Sonic alone.
I get that the developers were listening to player feedback, and it's great when they do, it shows that they care about the people that play their games, but they really went overboard with the difficulty on this one, hopefully, they learn from this and make the next Sonic game the perfect balance of easy and difficult, like they did with the Adventure games and Unleashed.
Oh yeah, the new music is really good, each character having their own music to fit their gameplay sections is really nice and the new version of I'm Here done by Kellin Quinn is now my new favorite version of the song, and I'm With You, the wholesome song that I previously mentioned.
Also, this was completely free, so there's that, I hope this, on top of God of War Ragnarok's Valhalla DLC is an indication on what direction some game companies will start going with their DLCs, I say some, cuz you all know EA and Ubisoft ain't gonna do that.
TLDR: Basically, I like playing as Tails, Knuckles, and Amy again, I hate playing as Sonic, cuz of all the bullshit he has to do, trials feel like unnecessary padding, the final boss is cool, but bullshit, you essentially have to have it on Easy in order to actually have fun or have an easier time, the new songs are great, the DLC is free, so no use being too mad at it.
Now I'm gonna go back to patiently waiting for the next Sonic game, which hopefully will feature Shadow as a main character again, bring my boy back in the spotlight, and actually write him better, please?
i was so close to ending it all and dedicating a large portion of my suicide note to sonic team but i managed to clear the final trial with a single ring remaining. fuck you wyvern
Sonic Colors
2010
I got it for Christmas a few years ago to add to my sonic collection and I really like it. I love how they added more characters to the park to make it feel more alive and the final boss is really cool I can see why people prefer this over the console version
Angry Birds 2
2015
Remember how they made Angry Birds amiibo's?
Those were the days
Those were the days
Sonic Frontiers
2022
Sonic Frontiers is weird. It's simultaneously my favorite Sonic game and the most perplexing Sonic game I've played. It's so much fun to run around the Open Zones and speedrun the Cyber Space stages, the story is really well written, and the soundtrack has become my favorite in the series. However, at the same time, the game is incredibly janky, oddly optimized, and the voice acting, more so on the titular character's end, is among the worst in the franchises' history. Oddly though, those heavy cons are easily outweighed by the many positives this game possesses. Frontiers is easily the most fun I've had with Sonic on gameplay, narrative, and audible standpoints since Sonic Adventure on the Dreamcast.
Angry Birds 2
2015
this game is everything wrong with plants vs zombies 2 but much worse, you got 200 terrence feathers
Angry Birds 2
2015
Nice animations, but the original is much better in terms of gameplay.
Angry Birds 2
2015
how do you fuck up a game as simple as angry birds that hard
Angry Birds 2
2015
What was in the water that made Rovio lose it's touch? I'll tell ya, adding gimmicks nobody liked, why does a game over screen exist in angry birds. A mobile game? And why are the gimmicks so improperly done? The artstyle is neat I suppose but thats it. Fucking hell this game is so catastrophically dogshit.