This so clearly needed more time in the oven, it's baffling. There are aspects of it I somewhat enjoy but they are far outweighed by the lows. I'll start with the positives.
First off, having new playable characters is fun although they come with their quirks. Generally I think they're fun to play as but the open world challenges built around Tails in particular are really... Awkward? I guess that's a good word for it. A lot of the time I don't feel like I'm playing a Tails challenge in the way the game wants me to. It does seem like there's missed potential in the new characters' utilization though. Particularly with Knuckles, you'd think you would be doing more fighting with him, maybe having to clear out groups of enemies or a mini boss guarding the next objective, but nope. You don't really need to fight anything with Tails, Knuckles or Amy unless you just want to for the sake of 100% completion, which is a shame (As far as I'm aware at least. As of writing this I'm at the Master King Trial).
I think the new open world challenges are fine, though nothing standout. I haven't tried many of the Cyberspace levels but the one I have played was awful. I hope the others are better.
And uhhhh yeah, that's about it for positives.
The Tower Trials range from utterly unfair, to miserable to okay, the first two in particular having the absolute worst climbing challenges in the entire game. These challenges exemplify the larger issue of movement as a whole, and paired with the atrocious camera angles you're put through the first two towers made me want to rip my hair out. Did anyone at all playtest this even for 30 minutes? It wouldn't even be so difficult if not for the camera and movement. I've always had a problem with the movement, because you're given the freedom to toggle how fast your speed decelerates when stopping or jumping, your turn speed, bounce height, a ton of stuff that can allow you to easily cheese certain open world challenges. It's cool on paper, but the game is not designed around some of the control combos you'll come up with, and nowhere is that more clear than in the Tower Trials where you're constantly on a tightrope at risk of falling and losing all progress. No doubt its fun to mess with, I'm glad the options are there, it's just that it feels like a band aid solution for these platforming challenges that require precise movements. Maybe this is just me, but it feels cheap for me to have to change the default movement to better fit the the challenge rather than working around what I have. It might be a nitpick, because I could choose not to tinker with my controls, but it's convenient and easily accessible. Anyway, point is fuck the first two tower trials. The combat trials make it even worse though, the snake trial took me about half an hour or more to get down, and don't even get me started on the Master King Trial, which is what I'm stuck on currently. You're telling me you want me to fight 3 bosses in a row with no ring refreshes between fights, nor any checkpoints? This isn't fun, it's annoying, tedious and plain unfair, because if you make a single mistake in the Wyvern fight it's practically over. What makes it all that much worse is how easy Giganto and first 5 minutes of Wyvern are. I know what I'm doing, it's really not hard. It just takes so fucking long to get back to the part I have to retry. I don't know who at Sonic Team got pissed off, but sincerely, this isn't how you handle difficulty. I've set my difficulty to Easy mode and even still it can be so unforgiving. I'll probably update this if I can manage to push through and finish the story, but what I've played is incredibly underwhelming, riddled with issues.
First off, having new playable characters is fun although they come with their quirks. Generally I think they're fun to play as but the open world challenges built around Tails in particular are really... Awkward? I guess that's a good word for it. A lot of the time I don't feel like I'm playing a Tails challenge in the way the game wants me to. It does seem like there's missed potential in the new characters' utilization though. Particularly with Knuckles, you'd think you would be doing more fighting with him, maybe having to clear out groups of enemies or a mini boss guarding the next objective, but nope. You don't really need to fight anything with Tails, Knuckles or Amy unless you just want to for the sake of 100% completion, which is a shame (As far as I'm aware at least. As of writing this I'm at the Master King Trial).
I think the new open world challenges are fine, though nothing standout. I haven't tried many of the Cyberspace levels but the one I have played was awful. I hope the others are better.
And uhhhh yeah, that's about it for positives.
The Tower Trials range from utterly unfair, to miserable to okay, the first two in particular having the absolute worst climbing challenges in the entire game. These challenges exemplify the larger issue of movement as a whole, and paired with the atrocious camera angles you're put through the first two towers made me want to rip my hair out. Did anyone at all playtest this even for 30 minutes? It wouldn't even be so difficult if not for the camera and movement. I've always had a problem with the movement, because you're given the freedom to toggle how fast your speed decelerates when stopping or jumping, your turn speed, bounce height, a ton of stuff that can allow you to easily cheese certain open world challenges. It's cool on paper, but the game is not designed around some of the control combos you'll come up with, and nowhere is that more clear than in the Tower Trials where you're constantly on a tightrope at risk of falling and losing all progress. No doubt its fun to mess with, I'm glad the options are there, it's just that it feels like a band aid solution for these platforming challenges that require precise movements. Maybe this is just me, but it feels cheap for me to have to change the default movement to better fit the the challenge rather than working around what I have. It might be a nitpick, because I could choose not to tinker with my controls, but it's convenient and easily accessible. Anyway, point is fuck the first two tower trials. The combat trials make it even worse though, the snake trial took me about half an hour or more to get down, and don't even get me started on the Master King Trial, which is what I'm stuck on currently. You're telling me you want me to fight 3 bosses in a row with no ring refreshes between fights, nor any checkpoints? This isn't fun, it's annoying, tedious and plain unfair, because if you make a single mistake in the Wyvern fight it's practically over. What makes it all that much worse is how easy Giganto and first 5 minutes of Wyvern are. I know what I'm doing, it's really not hard. It just takes so fucking long to get back to the part I have to retry. I don't know who at Sonic Team got pissed off, but sincerely, this isn't how you handle difficulty. I've set my difficulty to Easy mode and even still it can be so unforgiving. I'll probably update this if I can manage to push through and finish the story, but what I've played is incredibly underwhelming, riddled with issues.