This update partly saves itself by being completely free, I got a lot of time out of it although I'm mixed on the package as a whole. While it still is a lot of fun it suffers from a myriad of issues that I hope Sonic Team takes seriously for their next big project.
The biggest thing that harms this update is the difficulty spike. It's really odd when you have a difficulty spike that makes it's easy mode harder than the base game's hard mode. There is no regular enemies in the open-zones and instead you have suped-up mini bosses which take forever to kill if you don't max out your characters to 99. I wish the game notified me about this before I began with a Sonic that only had 47 damage. The emphasis on perfect parry in the final trial was really annoying seeing as how the titan bosses weren't designed to support that split second timing needed for finishing it with the bullshit 400 rings time limit for the three. Some of the tower climbing feels like it goes into kaizo territory where it's just haphazardly made difficult making you fall and start over, I did learn to use Sonic's mid-air dodging and parry to position myself to avoid falling to the bottom. I appreciate a challenge and while there was aspects of it that were fun, it generally was such an odd way of doing it.
The biggest part of it is the new playable characters and I'm kind of split on them. Running around as Tails, Knuckles and Amy in this massive 3D space and having dedicated trials for them which utilize their movesets was pretty fun. Tails and Knuckles especially though leave a bit to be desired, they have these unneeded wind-up animations for their aerial movement which kills the momentum and pacing. I did like some of their challenges but they did eventually get very samey and kind of clunkily designed. Also the mini-bosses aren't best designed for the move-sets these characters have and take way too long to kill. Amy was a really fun character to play with but the de-emphasis of her hammer for her cards was really odd. I loved having them here and it was fun exploring and doing their challenges but I hope Sonic Team learns from the issues they have and gives us the best version of these characters in the next game.
After you complete their individual chapter, it pulls a DK 64 where you have to awkwardly go back to the main tower to switch between them which is a terrible pace-breaker. I went out of my way to apply a mod which allowed you to swap between each character on the spot and it really saves the pacing and made the exploration of the island a lot more fun.
Some of the cyberspace levels were the biggest highlight of this update. I died a lot and it took me forever to get through some of the bonus challenges they set up for each level (it bumped by playtime to almost 60 hours😬) but it was really rewarding learning the levels and continually improving and increasing my speed in doing the required challenge for that run. The levels are built with the spin-dash in mind allowing you to fly through entire areas and as you master it and learn where to best land it becomes such a rewarding thrill.
The revised final boss was a vast improvement over the base game, the new Super Sonic form had so many awesome animations in battle. It genuinely was one of the most hype inducing Sonic spectacle sequences in the franchise. Next time try not to place your final boss where you big ass trees blocking the projectiles he throws at you, Sonic Team.
The biggest thing that harms this update is the difficulty spike. It's really odd when you have a difficulty spike that makes it's easy mode harder than the base game's hard mode. There is no regular enemies in the open-zones and instead you have suped-up mini bosses which take forever to kill if you don't max out your characters to 99. I wish the game notified me about this before I began with a Sonic that only had 47 damage. The emphasis on perfect parry in the final trial was really annoying seeing as how the titan bosses weren't designed to support that split second timing needed for finishing it with the bullshit 400 rings time limit for the three. Some of the tower climbing feels like it goes into kaizo territory where it's just haphazardly made difficult making you fall and start over, I did learn to use Sonic's mid-air dodging and parry to position myself to avoid falling to the bottom. I appreciate a challenge and while there was aspects of it that were fun, it generally was such an odd way of doing it.
The biggest part of it is the new playable characters and I'm kind of split on them. Running around as Tails, Knuckles and Amy in this massive 3D space and having dedicated trials for them which utilize their movesets was pretty fun. Tails and Knuckles especially though leave a bit to be desired, they have these unneeded wind-up animations for their aerial movement which kills the momentum and pacing. I did like some of their challenges but they did eventually get very samey and kind of clunkily designed. Also the mini-bosses aren't best designed for the move-sets these characters have and take way too long to kill. Amy was a really fun character to play with but the de-emphasis of her hammer for her cards was really odd. I loved having them here and it was fun exploring and doing their challenges but I hope Sonic Team learns from the issues they have and gives us the best version of these characters in the next game.
After you complete their individual chapter, it pulls a DK 64 where you have to awkwardly go back to the main tower to switch between them which is a terrible pace-breaker. I went out of my way to apply a mod which allowed you to swap between each character on the spot and it really saves the pacing and made the exploration of the island a lot more fun.
Some of the cyberspace levels were the biggest highlight of this update. I died a lot and it took me forever to get through some of the bonus challenges they set up for each level (it bumped by playtime to almost 60 hours😬) but it was really rewarding learning the levels and continually improving and increasing my speed in doing the required challenge for that run. The levels are built with the spin-dash in mind allowing you to fly through entire areas and as you master it and learn where to best land it becomes such a rewarding thrill.
The revised final boss was a vast improvement over the base game, the new Super Sonic form had so many awesome animations in battle. It genuinely was one of the most hype inducing Sonic spectacle sequences in the franchise. Next time try not to place your final boss where you big ass trees blocking the projectiles he throws at you, Sonic Team.