Sonic Horizons - SAGE 2023 Demo

After spending a lot of time in the tech demo last year, I'm glad the work on this has continued. The demo was pretty long ngl. I've enjoyed what is there nonetheless. I appreciate the effort that has been put into it, although it took time to get used to, due to the controls being very weird. Especially the spindash, that one gave me problems, since Sonic is rarely speeding up in his normal speed. The score-based rank system makes me kind of annoyed but it's just my preference. The forest itself feels kind of... narrow? I don't know, I feel like it's not as satisfying to control in, as say Kronos Island in Frontiers, which this fan-game is based on. And please add Fast Travel like Frontiers does with it's portals. I get that it's supposed to be an open-world game, that will be a breeze to go through with Sonic's speed but as long as you continue to develop the fan-game, the bigger the environment will get, to the point where Fast Travel will be needed anyway. By the way, when I've completed the portal, I accidentally hit restart and when I left after that, the progress didn't save, just something to consider.
My obvious biggest issue with this demo is the optimization. Perhaps it has been already mentioned by everyone else but the game is very strict on FPS. I had to disable almost everything and set the resolution to 720p to get a semi-playable experience. While we're on a topic of resolution, I beg to add HUD scaling. I have a bad eyesight, so it required me to get really close to my monitor to read the mission's description every time, even on 1080p. I want you to please realize not a lot of people in the world use 4K monitors to be content with this. Besides that, I can see the potential of this project and I'm hopeful it will get finished. Good luck with further development!

The game has its own problems with optimization and some bugs with collision and camera, but in GENERAL, I REALLY liked the game! I am looking forward to new updates and projects!

Just played through this til' the end of the demo, and I've got to say, it's amazing stuff, really. It feels like a game built for going as fast as possible without being a glorified rollercoaster ride.

Sonic's moveset is great, a spindash that can be used at any time, plus the dropdash, stomp, and bounce make for some really fun platforming. The wall run mechanic is a neat concept, but it's very hard to control at points.

The 3D Open World is pretty aight, Sonic controls well, and the world looks very Sonic-y, if that makes sense. The main issue I had with Frontiers' open world is that it felt like Sonic was very out of place, but this game takes the open world concept and improves on it tenfold, in my opinion. It's very reminiscent of Planet Wisp, which is good in my opinion, though I am biased because I find Planet Wisp to be very pretty. However, I feel like the terrain of the open world causes Sonic to handle with a considerable amount of jank, I sometimes felt as if I was out of control of Sonic slip-n-sliding on sharp edges or jagged surfaces. It didn't help that I would occasionally get stuck in gaps in the terrain because of the odd floating thing Sonic does when on intangible terrain. Otherwise, Open World was very fun to play, and all of the little challenges were actually...y'know...challenges.
8/10

Portal 1 was a very well designed level, but had a few kinks that I ran into that sort of soured the experience of trying to S-Rank it. The main core of the level is very good, it was fun to try and get through it as fast as I could, and Sonic's moveset further amplifies that. However, it felt like a couple of slopes were trying to work against me, as I could launch myself off of one in a run, but the same slope just doesn't carry me as far in the next. The camera change near the end of the level also kind of stubbed some of my runs, as it messed up my movement mid-air, causing me to miss the rail entirely. The level is well designed, but there are still some kinks to work out. 8/10

Portal 2 is an alright level, but it definitely has some fundamental issues that need to be worked out. I am personally not a big fan of modern 2D, but this game's Sonic moveset makes it fun. However, the physics in 2D feel very...off. I can fully rev up a spindash and go up a slope but completely tank any speed going on the ceiling, which causes me to drop to the ground like a rock. The 2D-switching-into-3D is a very good idea, but the camera definitely stunts a bit of the enjoyment, as it doesn't really like to stay in one place when switching directions. I think 2D for this game could work, but the physics in 2D would need to be radically altered to keep it fluid and fun. Portal 2 was alright, in my opinion. 7/10

All in all, this game, from the demo at least, is already a blast to play. It has serious potential to be one of, if not the best 3D Sonic fangames. I'll definitely be watching out for development updates and whatnot, this game could be something really special. 8/10.

Yeah i cant complete the game, i get 1 crystal and i go to the portal and its gone, i then restart and the one i got from the portal is gone, ive tried reintalling but nothing happens, its probably a good game but this bug is huge

An updated review after getting further in the game while playing with my bud, played for additional one and half hours this time (two hours or a bit more in total). Still keeping it at 3 stars though, while the update fixed some things and especially helped with finding the crystals new frustrations rose as we managed to get further in the game. This time we got the three crystals for the first portal yeah, a ramp to barely reach the one up in a tree seemed to be there this time - last time it just didn't exist for us. Even the stalagmite-ish rock next to the ramp now had collision, wow.

But yeah, then we got into the first portal stage whatever. Neat stage, cool to run around in, but oof, was getting A rank diiifficult, and this is coming from two players who have gotten 100% in Sonic Frontiers. Well uh, not that Frontiers is a difficult game necessarily, but merely getting A-rank was a bigger challenging than getting S-rank in 1-2 of Frontiers. Took us 45 minutes. Often when we restarted Sonic would also just run in the air and instantly die, making us restart again and hoping it wouldn't happen again (and it often would). It took us a while to figure out that rings and maybe enemies both affect the rank? For the longest time we just tried going as fast as possible, having a score tally at the end would be great to give any sorta indication on what one should go for. Tho I myself would just recommend giving different missions either Frontiers or Sonic Adventure 2 style to make it possible to continue the game without needing to be a Sonic god gamer. Or I'd lower the rank requirement further, or just remove it.

Grind rails are also very frustrating to work with, the chances of landing on one are very small when having aaany speed. If possibly please make homing attack possible to get on them, and maybe concider lighting up the ends of them or something, it was sometimes really difficult to see where they were. The first portal stage also had a veeery frustrating part if you took the upper route before the long rail part, after the checkpoint there's a speedboost to a rail, and damn, trying to get on that rail with any speed was just impossible for us, the speedboost made us miss it pretty much always. Made sure to avoid that upper path lol.

But uh yeah, we got the wall run whatever powerup next, and while it's an amazing lil thing oof yeah was it finnicky to use - having the very first place where you can try to use it include bottomless pits wasn't super great either, didn't give enough time for us to really get used to how it works.

When we got the second bigger area with the crystals we just overall cooouldn't do the place really, the jumps are too difficult and frustrating, there's too many slightly different and varying actions to use and buttons to press (on the controller), and uh yeah, it just... wasn't working super well, we both found our brains getting mixed up with what to press. Overall the platforming challenges in the open world are just a touch too difficult and weird, too precise, I kept joking this is Kaizo Frontiers, needing the players like 50 tries to do a jump that looks seemingly simple, only to fall down and then need to do it again.

We agaaain got some of those "falling forever" softlocks, in different parts of the game. Pleeeaase make some sorta respawn system where if Sonic has been falling for like 10 seconds or something he just respawns as if he had just fallen into the water. We had to restart exploring cos of this a couple of times, and yeah the game ofcourse forgot we had collected any crystals when we did so. Restarting isn't hooorrible, but yeah the game forgetting the crystals being already collected is what especially sucks, since getting some of those crystals is rather tedious.

Mashing interact with an inactive portal makes Sonic freeze btw, forgot to previously mention that it has to do with mashing. Oh and, this time we seemed to have more performance problems somehow, the game sometimes said it's running at 40fps but it felt more like 15 at parts. And my bud got a rather beefy computer we played with, pretty weird. Suuure streaming at 1080p 60fps might've taken some of that power, but this just doesn't happen normally on that computer.

Oh and, a few problems with the game's text boxes. The text is waayyy too small (atleast on 1080p), to a degree it's diiiifficult to read it. Some text boxes on the other hand go so fast there's no time to read them, my bud is a slow reader and couldn't read them at all.

Again had much to say, and the reason I want to say so much is because there's so much I do like with the game even I didn't directly mention it all, just wish I could like it even more.

I backed up my previous Review btw, if need be for it.

Hey Strix, I've been occasionally following the progress on Horizons on the SFGHQ server and stuff and wanted to offer my thoughts. I'm not going to dive too deep into technical issues or bugs, as you seem to have addressed some of that already, and I think it's more clear how to fix those things. I think what you have is very promising so far, hence why I bother to write this review.

The good stuff first, the movement/animations feels great. It's probably the game's strength right now, and I think it's where you put the most time in. Parts of the world really do showcase how you can use momentum to reach new heights. I found some fun in planning out my routes, kind of reminds me of when I'd have to do those long super charge segments in Spyro. I could see building on this as the game progresses.

At the same time, Sonic doesn't feel overpowered, and relatively heavy. Heavy enough where precise platforming is possible. I also really like the wallrunning mechanic on the metalic platforms. If the game is going to focus all around platforming, then you need a lot of stuff like this to add variation in the gameplay. If I can emphasis something, it's that I think you should entirely focus on momentum-based or platforming puzzles. Keep working on adding things like that and you may not need other things like combat or puzzles to fill the game. It won't feel 'empty' if you just lean into the game's design strengths.

Your UI is also very polished, I think more than most fangames.

Here are where I insert some of my critiques.

One of the things I would prefer is less strict progression requirements. Give me... 5 crystals to collect, but let me progress to the shrine/action stage with 3 of them. Give some thought into how a player is going to play your game without knowing the map or being too advanced at the game - this may just come with more testing, but I think it's one of the strengths with open zone. It's cool that there is a map... but I would like to not have to lean on it. This would probably be easier to pull off if you decide to go more 'open' in the next iteration, rather than the tutorial-esc linear path.

I'm not a fan of bodies of water as a hazard in general, but especially in this example. I start the game - I am surrounded by water on a small island. I try experimenting with the controls, hit the spindash button, and immediately die in the water. I think there's better ways to telegraph 'pits' as death zones. This isn't a HUGE deal as the punishment for death in this game isn't severe, but I think there should be a more gradual transition into the game before death is even possible.

This can also tie into making more concise tutorials and just easing somebody into the game - but I think just eliminating that element of danger early encourages the player to experiment more with their controls.

Lastly, I think in making this kind of game, you may have to rethink how you do the level boundaries. Some pointed out the collision geometry on the edges of the map is causing softlocks - but I think the root of the issue here is that the visual don't convey the barriers. Invisible walls should mainly be a safety net.

I accidentally get the impression that I can platform on some of the area where I don't think it's intended. I would honestly consider just not having this mountainous range as the outer barrier in your level. If you do use walls of rock/stone as barriers though, make custom collision, and maybe change it visually a bit so players are less likely to try and hit invisible walls. This may effectively lead to you changing the level design, which doesn't need to happen in this demo but it's something to consider later on.

Again, this is all coming from good intentions. The game is good so far, I think it can be great. I wish you success in the future.

OMG THIS IS THE SONIC FAN GAME I DIDN'T KNOW I NEEDED, I have to ask though, is getting an S rank based on time, points, or both? Also, there's this quirk about the way sonic spin dashes and I'm not sure if it has something to do with the engine, but I hope stays in the game. What I mean is if you start to spindash and you happen to get yourself in the air while you're still charging it, if you let go of LT while still in midair you still go flying forward (relative to sonic's direction in midair) and I think that could be a useful quirk in the game's movement (I tried to show examples of it in the video bc idk if people have pointed that out at all, if it's something with the engine in general then that's literally perfect). Also I need to let the y'all know that in 1-2 I had this weird issue where if I was keeping up my speed and pausing in the last section of the stage it would crash the game (Also in the video). I didn't have this problem anywhere else in the demo (I tested it off cam) and I don't think it's a hardware problem but I can't say for sure (my specs: i7-12700F, 3060Ti, 16GB RAM). Also I really like how the Cyberspace stages take the direction of Game Land from Colors (this is more what I thought of when I heard of Cyberspace stages in Frontiers). I also noticed that the music placeholders are from past sonic games and I lowkey wanna make some songs and play them over these stages to see if I can do this sort of thing and not just make regular beats. Overall, W demo, I can't wait to see more, this might be in the running against P-06 for my favorite 3D fan game and the physics engine as well as how sonic simultaneously feels weightless as well as has weight to him in relation to the environment is the cake, the icing, and the cherry on top. Footage of the stuff I described EDIT: I tried to get the game to crash the same way in 1-1 and in the open world. The crashing only seems to be a problem in ONLY 2D sections rather than any other 3D loop in the game (I tested as many as I could find and ended up crashing on other loops in 1-2 but nowhere else I can't say what it is for sure)

I want to leave a 5-star here because the developer of this game worked really hard to deliver this game to SAGE.
This game has a big potential!~