#over the hedge 2006

[aito-mation]

over the hedge (2006) could very easily have been another middling 00's cg disaster w an all-star cast, forgettable and kinda phoned-in like open season or happily n'ever after (which came out the same year) but i think its actually a thoughtful adaptation w a lot of really good qualities. its about deprivation and want, found family and stepping on others to get ahead, and (sub)urbanization encroaching on nature, and it has an emotional core n im deadass !!

its based on a newspaper comic that centers on rj the raccoon and verne the box turtle, who live in the woods behind a ritzy suburb and menace n befriend its inhabitants. the comic is usu 4-5 panels per comic, and story arcs can stretch across multiple comics. there r a lot of characters that come and go, both human and animal, tho the core group usually stays at three characters-rj, verne, and someone else relevant to the current arc. so it couldve been questionable to extend that core group of characters from three to eleven (11!) in the movie, but i think it really works out. they position rj as the main character, and the other characters have an existing connection with verne, so act as an extension of him and his character arc. hammy is based on a character from the comics, but altered a bit, and stella, penny lou and the kids, and ozzie and heather are all original for the movie. and they all get equal time with rj, at no point in the movie do u forget about any of them-the exact opposite actually, we learn things abt them every time theyre on screen. its a really great use of screen time and dialogue.

and the character arcs! in the comics, verne is the more philosophical, searching one, and hes more often than not the loser at the end of things, often the butt of jokes, contrasting rj, who is more cynical, an indulgent slacker who only puts effort into slacking, often making the aforementioned jokes. they have a charming and humorous relationship, tho it is very much established. the movie however, reads as a sort of prequel to that relationship-rj and verne meet for the first time abt 15 mins in. it also makes some changes to their characters-verne is the cautious, tactless psuedo-patriarch of a cross-species family while rj is a lonely starving scavenger who has to scheme for the things he needs. the inciting incident, a broken vending machine convincing rj to steal food from a hibernating bear acquaintance of his, which is then all destroyed, leading to him making a deal with the bear to get it all back in just one week, could lead u to believe his motivation is greed-hes a little raccoon, and he didnt need to take all that food. but the rest of the movie reveals his motivation is longing, and loneliness.

the opening credits are layered over a sequence of rj scrounging in the garbage for something to eat. when he meets verne and his family of foragers, they r frightened by a new hedge in their forest, which surrounds a new 54-acre housing development, and wondering how theyre going to find enough food to hibernate the following year. rj sees this as an opportunity to trick them into helping him collect the food he needs for the bear from the suburb. their first disastrous encounter with a human initially throws a wrench in that, prompting rj to lie about losing his own family to gain sympathy and trust from them. but over time, he begins to actually care for them-he's shown playing video games with the baby porcupines, listening to music with heather, encouraging ozzie in his acting, even checking up on hammy when one of rj's plans gets him hurt; in their final heist, he changes the way everyone sees stella, showing her that she's more than just her smell. but the very real danger of being eaten by a bear remains rj's motivation until the final act, and we r shown up to that point that rj does not think he can get anything simply by asking.

which is a great contrast to verne, whose initial motivation is altruistic-he's worried abt the safety and survival of his family, whom he's responsible for. they already had barely enough to survive, and now almost the entire forest is gone around them. verne feels threatened by rj's charisma and seeming capability, and intimidated by the unknown world of the suburb, which turns into jealousy, as the rest of the family warms up to rj and his ideas and change. in an attempt to get things back to normal after a pest exterminator comes to their suburb, verne inadvertently destroys all the food his family had collected earlier in a sick montage, leading to an argument where verne says some insulting and hurtful things. sort of expelled from the family, feeling chastised, verne reflects on his feelings and behavior, and comes to rj to apologize. at the same time, rj is realizing that he's kinda fucked-he doesn't have the food he needs, and he's torn apart a family in the process. he's about to come clean and tell verne the truth, when, in a parallel of the beginning of the movie, he sees the opportunity to have everything he wants-the food and the family. so they put together one final plan, to get everything in one night, and it works, until it doesnt, and the truth comes out and rj abandons them, allowing verne and his family to be caged by the exterminator while he takes the food to give to vincent (the bear). but faced with the reality of that decision, watching the family he always wanted be carted away to be killed, rj changes his mind, taking the food from vincent's hands to go back and save his friends.

their reunion is intense and funny and immensely satisfying. you're glad rj made the right decision, that verne apologized and was forgiven, and the mad-dash escape from vincent and the exterminator culminates in an impossible plan that works out bc its an anthro kids movie, of course it would have a happy ending. after the antagonists r defeated, there's a scene where verne formally invites rj into their family, and tells him that if he'd been honest with them, told them he needed the food to pay back an angry bear, they would've helped him. bc that's what families do. and rj says "i've never had anything like that," correcting his lie from earlier. and the but ive always wanted it goes unsaid, bc he has it now, and he knows that.

[denerturee]

If you haven't watched this movie... You have to watch it immediately!!!

[90s-2000s-barbie]

Vanessa Hudgens & Miley Cyrus (2006)

[cj33333]

No way I can buy the real Dwayne's Battle Bus (yes that is the canonical name of his truck according to the official Over the Hedge guidebook)

[movies-to-add-to-your-tbw]

Title: Over the Hedge

Rating: PG

Director: Karey Kirkpatrick, Tim Johnson

Cast: Bruce Willis, Garry Shandling, Steve Carell, Wanda Sykes, William Shatner, Nick Nolte, Thomas Haden Church, Allison Janney, Eugene Levy, Catherine O'Hara, Avril Lavigne, Omid Djalili, Sami Kirkpatrick, Shane Baumel, Madison Davenport, Ariel Winter

Release year: 2006

Genres: comedy

Blurb: A scheming raccoon fools a mismatched family of forest creatures into helping him repay a food debt by invading the new suburban sprawl that popped up while they were hibernating...and learns a lesson about family himself.

[punster-2319]

2006 had a lot of animated films released that year so I had to split it into 2 parts.

[boygirlctommy]

nothing more horrifying in this world to me than images of suburbs. that cant be real. theres no way people live like that

[streamondemand]

'Over the Hedge' – animated animals take on suburbia on Netflix

It’s nature versus prefab culture in Over the Hedge (2006), the animated adaptation of the Michael Fry and T Lewis newspaper comic strip of woodland buddies confronting the foibles of 21st century life and the absurdities of suburbia. A wound up Bruce Willis voices the streetwise raccoon RJ, whose schemes collide with the implacable caution of Vern the turtle (Garry Shandling), the paternal…

[datubooty]

steve tholomule gazes into the human realm sky at a strong thermal emission velocity enhancement (STEVE) and gives it a thumbs up

[delicateimage]

I fcking hate ‘robots’. Such an unchic, classless, snoozefest devoid of any senses of feminine touch.

[imnotavamp1r3]

🎀☆ How to dress like Avril Lavigne in the 2000s! ☆🎀

☆ Let Go (2002-2003):

This era was definitely her most punk era, as she incorporated a lot of punk staples in her fashion. She would mostly wear tank tops, coloured graphic tees, boot-cut pants, spiked or studded bracelets, sneakers, and of course, ties.

I noticed that her shirts would often be cropped and her pants would be very low-waisted, with the waistband of her underwear showing sometimes. She also didn't seem to wear belts very much during this era, but she did wear a ton of bracelets (like there was one picture where I think I counted ten 😭). Her clothes would mostly be very loose, with only her tops being more form fitting.

☆ Under My Skin (2004-2005):

This is Avril's best era both in fashion and music, and I will never forgive people for ignoring it. Since Under My Skin was a very dark post-grunge album, her style changed to suit this. She wore mostly black during this period and I think she also started experimenting a lot with her style at this time.

She mainly wore Tripp pants, black shirts, studded belts, zipped up zip-up hoodies, and even fishnetty things sometimes. If she ever wore any colours other than black, it would usually be red or sometimes pink. I noticed that this was also when she started wearing skirts and tutus. Her style was definitely very emo during this time, so I think this period is a very good reference for recreating mid-2000s emo fashion.

☆ The Best Damn Thing (2006-2008):

I know TBDT was released in 2007, but I'm putting the start of this era at 2006 because that's when Over the Hedge was released, which I feel marked a bit of a shift in her image to be more pop punk princess as opposed to pop punker. This is definitely her most different style era, especially since it came after Under My Skin. This might even be my favourite era for her style just because of how unique it is.

Her main colours during this time were obviously black and pink, and unlike her previous album cycles, she mostly wore skirts and rarely wore pants. Her main staples during this period were pink plaid skirts, white t-shirts with black graphics, fishnets, striped quarter socks, Nike sneakers, and tutus. She wore a lot less bracelets, and would usually wear either just one or a singular wristband. This era seemed to have some mcbling influence, as she would even wear bump-its in her hair sometimes.

She also launched Abbey Dawn in 2008, so pieces from Abbey Dawn or similar brands are also a good thing to have to emulate this period's style.

I really liked writing this one, so if you have suggestions for other people that I could make how to dress like posts on, feel free to comment!

[batsplat]

your top 5 fave motogp races? or alternatively what races you’d show to a newbie to get them into the sport or smth

one of those things where it's painful to pick five, but at least this ask gives me the chance to hedge my bets and pick five different races for each category (most of these races will be featured in the recs lists; 27, 4+93, 46)

laguna '08: works wonders to bring both that season and the rivalry alive. delightfully visceral and vicious, there's few duels that tell you quite so much about both participants. I have lap-by-lap notes for this race. I have points tables assessing how much of a turning point it was in the season. I have read the bit in casey's autobiography about this race about a million times. how their expectations going in influenced the dynamics of the race, how the slower man won the race, what valentino was attempting to do to casey, casey's response... I could quite literally talk about this race forever

phillip island '17: idk I don't think this is objectively 'better' than the other two infamous dogfights of that era (pi '15; assen '18), but sometimes you just notice which one has the most rewatch value for you... I really like races where risk/reward calculation is a big deal, where at least one of the riders is having to actively judge how much they're willing to do to win... with the hard style of racing in this one, those calculations feel particularly present. phillip island is in such a perfect calendar spot for generating maximum drama

misano '17: maybe the quirkiest pick. marc is too good and too successful for me to ever really have been 'stressed' watching him in his prime, but bloody hell did he run me close here. something so satisfying about being so adept in wet/mixed conditions... love the spite element of this race, love the risk/reward calculations, how marc just needs to go for it in the very final lap, his dogged determination... a race where he doesn't have a massive margin over the field but just wants it so so badly that he goes for it. he's making a statement, bouncing back from a low point in the season, super compelling stuff

mugello '04: just love races that are kinda a mess! lots of twists and turns... bunch of riders fighting it out, the sete duel, the rain interruption, bunch of riders fighting it out but now on a way more slippery track... I don't know, there's just something charming about a race that has a bit of everything! of course it's also part of my beloved 2004 season, from which I could have easily included five different races (and if you're ever looking for a full season to watch, 2004 2006 and 2017 are the holy trinity - mix of title fight drama and banger races)

okay listen I'm gonna cheat here because I wrote out the word 'catalunya' and then had a crisis staring at this post. '07 I need to include because it's my favourite casey win and it's how he establishes himself as an all-round threat and is so important in the overall context of the valentino rivalry, but '09 is like... right up there with laguna as season lynchpin races and also somehow jorge has been left out from these picks... I love big momentum-switchers I love races that have so much meaning in the context of a rivalry AND season. I also love how they're connected! that valentino did the same move on casey (just not on the final lap) and had basically already rehearsed his coup de grâce two years in advance, before visualising it the week before the race... casey joking about it in the catalunya '09 presser, jorge knowing he kinda should have seen it coming, casey kinda ragging on jorge for not having seen it coming... idk!! I like this little legacy they built there together

for newbies

phillip island '23: you need to include something a little more current to give new fans a reason to watch now... phillip island races are reliably great - this one introduces you to two of the major protagonists of the current game in a way that kind tells you a lot about both of them, gives you a demonstration of one of the best types of races (the multi-rider dogfight), and it also is the most brute force way imaginable of explaining how tyres work in motogp. pedagogically pleasing! it's the kind of race new viewers will be able to enjoy in the moment, but have a lot of questions about afterwards - the sweet spot

assen '15: easily makes my top five rewatched races too, but I put it under the newbie header because again... tells you a lot! it's very likely this hypothetical newbie will have at least have SOME knowledge of who the two protagonists are and know they've fallen out, though I suppose it'd be funny to go in completely blind. obviously a great duel and a very nice introduction to the two big names plus their respective riding styles... what you really want is some late drama and a controversial finish that you can immediately have a hot take about

donington '05: we need a full wet race, not just mixed but wet wet... this one's got one hell of an attrition rate but also proper tussling between the different riders, rather than everyone just riding out on their own. it really gives you a feeling for how these kinds of races work... lot of riders wobbling around, saving near-falls, trying to get a sense of how much they can risk, riding behind each other to have somebody else test out their conditions... plus, the valentino performance kinda slaps

austria '17: got to be a marc/dovi duel in here, and this one has the clear edge not as much for the race itself but a) the novelty at the time, and b) the significance in the title fight. in dovi you've got somebody who is emerging as a threat and is providing a new flavour of challenge.... there's also that fun tension between how marc logically very much should just be happy to be there as a result of what a ducati circuit it is and he's simply supposed to be limiting the points damage... but he also really, really wants to win... actually either this or motegi 2017, almost want to change my pick. one of those two!!

brno '03: sneaking in an old race as a gateway drug, and I think this one is quite 'accessible' to the uninitiated. I considered other ones like phillip island '01 (valentino's first premier class matchpoint race, classic dogfight) or welkom '04 (first yamaha race and one of the duels) - but I think you don't need much context to get absorbed in this one. the race commentary already gives you the most important information... valentino's struggles that season, the criticisms he was facing from the italian press, how badly he wanted to win, the haircut, all of it... and then you get to see the post-race prisoner's celebrations, a flavour of the proper classic camp dramatics

slightly silly number of honourable mentions, each of which I was extremely tempted to include: motegi '10, jerez 2005, misano '19, laguna '11, jerez '10, assen '04, catalunya '04 '05 '16, mugello '05 '06, sachsenring '06, assen '04, phillip island '04, le mans 2005, qatar 2005, suzuka '01, thailand '19, austria '19, qatar '18, silverstone '19, sachsenring '10, qatar '15, mugello '16, sepang '10, assen '07 (and ones I did already kinda mention above: phillip island '15, assen '18, phillip island '01, welkom '04, motegi '17)

[cj33333]

This movie genuinely looks awful but we love it anyway

Especially the finer textures like the fur. They look... not very good

The scenery is pretty alright at least

[thankskenpenders]

So I wrote a whole long thing about Amy's tarot cards, but what about, you know... the rest of the Sonic Frontiers DLC? The new alternate story route, the hours of new gameplay, all that?

Having now played it, I'm not sure Sonic has ever had this specific combination of good ideas that make the future of the series look bright, and execution that I fucking hate.

(Full spoilers ahead.)

The good

There's a lot to like here, conceptually.

First and foremost, Tails, Knuckles, and Amy are finally playable in a new mainline 3D Sonic game for the first time since 2006! Seventeen years! We've been begging for this for so very, very long. Nature is finally truly healing from the fallout of Sonic '06. Early on I hedged my bets and expected them to be locked to Cyber Space or something like that, assuming that there was no way they'd be fully playable in the Open Zone. But sure enough, while they're a bit limited compared to Sonic, they're still all full-blown characters with skill trees to unlock and lots of exploration to do.

We also got a more bombastic alternate final boss fight, after the first take on The End kind of underwhelmed. And it's obvious that Sonic Team has listened to our pleas to focus on the 3D platforming over the forced 2D sections, and to reduce the amount of automation in the level design. This update is chock full of Actual Platforming. Wow! I can only pray this means we never get an area as agonizing to explore as Chaos Island again.

Sure, there's still some jank - especially with Knuckles' movement, which is kinda rough. But if this is the stuff they're trying out so that they can refine it further for the next game, then I'm really excited.

On the other hand, good fucking lord is The Final Horizon tedious. And that tedium sapped most of the fun out of it for me.

The frustrating

The new scenario massively increases the difficulty over the base game, seemingly out of a desire to give the hardcore players who were posting speedrun videos and whatnot more of a challenge. It's the Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels of Sonic. This difficulty comes in many forms throughout your playtime, some worse than others, and continues to ramp up over time.

Rather than giving you a tutorial level, the new scenario dumps you directly into a remixed version of the final island and makes you do some fairly precise platforming with Amy, Knuckles, and Tails - new characters with new movesets that you won't have any experience with. You'll also need to find character-specific Koco that give you free levels, because Sonic's friends all start at level one and certain locked moves in their skill trees will be mandatory to progress. They don't even have Cyloop unlocked at the start. And because they're all low level, that means you'd better steer clear of the beefed-up bosses scattered around the map, which will absolutely annihilate Sonic's friends. (I honestly just avoided them and never bothered beating any of them, not even with my high-level Sonic. I have no idea if they're beatable with the others.)

None of this is explained to you particularly well. I spent my first few minutes with Amy wondering why the attack button did nothing, only to eventually think to check her skill tree and realize that I had to unlock her basic attack. If you don't bother to take the time to read through the skill trees, you'll very quickly find obstacles you have no way of getting past with no clues as to what exactly you're supposed to do.

Adding to this confusion is the fact that objective markers often tell you to go half a kilometer into the sky, and you'll have no idea how to get up there because all of the relevant platforms are out of your draw distance. Many objects seem to only pop in for me when I'm within about 60 meters of them, which isn't a long distance for a high-speed open world platformer like this. I was having this problem running the game with high graphics on PC, so I can only imagine how obnoxious it is on Switch. I'd frequently find myself poking around nearby clusters of platforming objects and praying that they'd lead me to a spring, rail, or cannon that would eventually point me in the direction of the floating objective marker.

There were always complaints about the art direction in Frontiers and the way it relies on floating rails and prefab platforms that are visually disconnected from the natural scenery of the islands, but it's even more dire here. The new platforming sections are dense and complex, but they seemingly didn't have the budget to change the topography of Ouranos Island at all, so it all takes the form of these prefabs. It very strongly gives the vibe of a Forge creation in Halo 3, back when there were no blank canvas maps and people just had to make "new maps" by jamming a bunch of shipping containers and barricades together in the sky above one of the default arenas.

I was still more or less having fun, though, despite the jank. It's a big creative swing, I told myself! They're trying stuff out! They're experimenting!

And then I hit the towers.

The towers are agonizing because they're SO close to being great. The logical part of my brain understands why some people love them, but god, I just fucking hate them. The platforming there IS cool! These layouts are cool! The individual challenges along the way are a bit tough, but totally doable. You know what's not cool? Making one mistake and slowly falling 800 meters all the way back down to the ground, forcing you to start over. Because none of these towers have checkpoints. For me, this one decision transforms what should have been a fun set of platforming challenges into a massive, unfun difficulty spike.

I enjoy some masocore platformers, but those are typically games with quick deaths and restarts like Celeste, Super Meat Boy, or VVVVVV. Hell, the Mario games tend to get way more difficult than the average Sonic game, and those are obviously all great. Quite frankly, unlike those games, Sonic Frontiers is nowhere near tight or polished enough to make this difficulty feel fair. Bits of jank that I could ignore in the base game due to its lower difficulty are now matters of life or death. Missing a jump because I boosted off an incline in a way the game didn't like for reasons I don't understand is not fun. Falling off a tower because the camera was pointing in the wrong direction while I was in midair and I couldn't see the next thing I was expected to homing attack is not fun.

And it's such a jarring spike when moving from the base game to the DLC that it feels like the game is suddenly quizzing me on skills it never bothered to instill in me. Maybe if you've spent the last year labbing out the movement tech in this game this is all a no brainer, but for the average returning player it's a kick in the dick.

I'm sure I could've beaten these towers normally if I gave them enough tries. They aren't the hardest thing in the world. But I very quickly decided I had better things to do with my life and turned on easy mode, which adds tons of extra springs and homing attack balloons to make all of the platforming piss easy. I wish there was a middle option between Only Up: Sonic Edition and this extreme hand holding, but when given the choice between the two I gladly picked baby mode. I just wanted to see the story.

(The new Cyber Space levels are also long, challenging, and devoid of checkpoints, not unlike the towers. But I only ever found the entrances to two of them. So I only did two. They're theoretically required, because they give you "Lookout Koco" that you need for... some reason? But in a rare act of mercy, Sonic Team put Cyloop treasure spots that give you free Lookout Koco all over the map.)

As I continued, so many little things started adding up to piss me off. Why do you only reveal like five tiny squares of the map at a time? I would've loved to find all the new 1-on-1 dialogue scenes, but not if I had to do dozens of hard mode versions of the stupid little puzzles and challenges to reveal the whole map. Why does every character need their own unique collectibles? What is this, Donkey Kong 64? Why can't I just grab this EXP for Amy when I find it as Tails? Why can I only manually swap characters by talking to an out-of-the-way NPC unlocked right before the final boss? Why is fast travel disabled? Why are the new vocal themes you hear when playing as Amy, Knuckles, and Tails so monotonous, with a single verse repeating over lo-fi beats ad nauseum? Why is the jukebox feature completely disabled throughout the DLC, even after rolling the credits? Why can't Tails homing attack? Why do I have to wrestle with the camera so much while also holding the jump button to fly as Knuckles and Tails? How many right thumbs do they think I have? Why is this animation for picking up animals in the Cyber Space levels so incredibly slow, and why can I still take damage while it's playing? Why does the stupid starfall event have to make it so hard to see what I'm doing when climbing these towers? Why does this shitty combat trial have a popup that makes it seem like I should be using the Cyloop when the actual strategy revolves around repeated parries? And on and on and on...

The story

What about the new story? Well, there sadly isn't much to chew on here. Most of the DLC has the cast running around and finding different macguffins for arbitrary reasons, as part of some sort of plan to divide up the work on the last island so that Sonic can go train with the spirits of the Ancients and harness the power of his cyber corruption. What the fuck is an Impact Form? I don't know, but Knuckles needs something to do, so go find one.

It's a thin excuse plot meant to make you do platforming challenges around Ouranos Island, with little room for Ian to add any real flavor of his own, even though he certainly tries. Having Sonic meet the spirits of the Ancients who controlled the Titans, who are revealed to directly parallel the personalities of him and his friends, is kinda neat, I guess? It's something. The optional conversations seem to have some fun bits, including both conversations between the supporting cast and additional lore. But again, I only found a few of those because of how tedious filling out the map was.

The writing is also let down by the voice acting - or I guess the voice direction, because I know this cast can do better. Roger's voice continues to be weirdly, distractingly deep as Sonic, which was clearly something that was requested of him just for this game. (For a recent example of him going back to his regular Sonic voice, see this LEGO trailer.) The performances of Sonic's friends are also WILDLY mismatched. This is most clear when they start feeling the effects of the cyber corruption. Knuckles seems to be barely affected at all, Tails sounds like he's moderately hurt and low on energy, and Amy starts completely overselling her pain out of nowhere. The extremely strained performance makes it sound like Cindy's literally being tortured in the fucking booth. I have no idea what's going on over there.

The final challenges

People have debated whether or not things like the towers and the new Cyber Space levels are fair challenges. What's not up for debate is the fact that Master King Koco's Trial is complete and utter bullshit, and I can't believe they shipped this.

Before you can fight the new final boss, the game forces you to do a boss rush of the first three Titans - INCLUDING the pre-Super Sonic climbing sections - with a hard limit of 400 rings. For all three lengthy, heavily scripted fights. Back to back. You can't even cheese it with the leveling system, because you're forced to do this at level 1. This all but forces you to look up speedrun strats for the Super Sonic fights so that you don't run out of rings and fail the trial.

And the real kicker? They changed the parry just for this trial! Originally, you could just hold down the bumpers endlessly and Sonic would ready himself to parry the next attack, whenever that may hit. Now it requires you to do a "Perfect Parry" with specific timing. And you HAVE to hit those parries if you wanna clear this trial and get to the new ending. Miss a few and you're probably fucked. You just have to reset. Time to go through all those fights, all those climbing sequences, all those QTEs, and all those unskippable mid-fight cutscenes all over again. This is by far the most egregious example of the DLC deciding to quiz you on new skills that the base game never required of you, and it's one of the most absurdly unfair things I have ever seen in a Sonic game.

Easy mode does make this trial easier by making the timing window for Perfect Parries much more generous, but that's all the help you get. It's still easy to lose time failing to parry Wyvern's hard-to-read animations, or to lose rings by getting hit on the climb sections, or for things to just fuck up because these fights were always kinda jank. I gave it a few shots. I looked up guide videos. I tried the Quick Cyloop and stomp combo strat that seems all but mandatory. But I quickly decided that, again, this wasn't a worthwhile use of my time. It just sucks. And I really, REALLY didn't want to overwrite all my fond memories of these Titan fights, some of my favorite setpiece moments in any Sonic game, with memories of this shit ass boss rush.

So I cheated! And if you're on PC, you should too.

With the worst hurdle out of the way, I turned cheats back off and moved on to the new final boss. It was pretty cool. It's much flashier than the original fight against The End, that's for sure. It's still kinda annoying, and it requires you to do very specific shit without properly telegraphing it, but it's nowhere near as bad as the preceding challenges. I was hoping for one last new metalcore song to go with the new fight, which we sadly didn't get, but at least the new version of I'm Here is good.

The ending is... mostly the same, with a couple altered scenes that don't really change anything in the long run. But overall the new finale was pretty good. I just wish it hadn't been such a slog to get there.

Closing thoughts

Sonic Frontiers: The Final Horizon wants to be three things:

A patch that adds a new alternate ending that was probably supposed to be in the base game in the first place.

An experimental take on making Tails, Knuckles, and Amy playable again, presumably testing things for the next game. And...

An official Kaizo Sonic Frontiers mod for the sickos.

The thing is, the people showing up for #1 and #2, the main things that Sega hyped up about the update, are not necessarily going to be down for #3. If they had announced some uber-hard new Cyber Space levels for the arcade mode or whatever, I'd be like, neat! And then not play them. I would never touch Master King Koco's Trial if it was an optional challenge. I would leave that for the sickos. But instead, they made the hardest content mandatory for anyone who wants to see the new Good Ending where the final boss gets an actual budget.

I'm mostly left in a state of shock that it shipped like this. I cannot believe they playtested this and decided this was the state The Final Horizon should be released in. That this should be the note Frontiers ends on. That this should be how we remember those Titan fights. That this should be the lingering taste in our mouths as we wait however many years for the next 3D game.

Armchair devs always love to say that things would be "easy to fix," but like... there really would be easy fixes for the insane difficulty and general tedium here! Add a few more tutorial popups explaining what the game expects of you with Sonic's friends. Give the Cyber Space stages and the towers a couple checkpoints. Give the combat trials more generous time limits, especially on the lower difficulties. Remove half of the map puzzles, and make the ones that remain uncover twice as many squares. Skip the startup animation for Knuckles' glide. Let me turn on the goddamn jukebox. Since so much of this update was designed around fan feedback, I can only pray that Sonic Team is still listening, and that they tweak at least a few of these things with a balance patch.

But still, after those many, many paragraphs of complaining... this still somehow makes the future of 3D Sonic seem pretty promising?

Sonic's friends are FINALLY playable again, and the focus is back to proper 3D platforming, rather than railroading players into awkward forced 2D sections in what's otherwise an open world. These are the things that they hopefully want to carry over to the next game. The difficulty? Well, that's just because it's the postgame DLC that's supposed to be the toughest challenge in the game. It's just an unreasonably cruel one of those - an example of how designing and balancing for a vocal minority of your fanbase can really hurt your game. But Sonic Team is onto something here, and I hope that they can learn the right lessons from this expansion and not throw the baby out with the bathwater.