I've always really liked the gamey sections of homestuck, and openbound was far and away the biggest of these. I think even if you ignore every single one of those ten new characters, there's just a lot of really interesting stuff with the pre-established characters, and it's especially nice additional context for meenah and aranea's characters!

and as has been said, yeah, despite everything the ten new characters did leave a big impact on a lot of people. I feel like getting really interested in the lore of some random fucking guy who doesn't matter is one of the joys of homestuck, because like half the cast doesn't fucking matter (but of course they all matter blah blah blah you understand). and aranea gives you all that lore! it's great. thanks aranea, you fucking nerd

genuinely though, reading the aranea sections was a big highlight of openbound for me. because, you know, context! it's cool seeing these absolute loser dumbasses and then being told why they're so loser and dumbass

i do think there's wasted potential, but like... in a certain way of framing things, that's all of homestuck. homestuck is Ideas and none of them are explored at their most 100% possible fleshed out. and i think that's good, because that'd be not as interesting, and. fans can do the heavy lifting on the stuff they like, and historically we do? like classpecting, idk.

openbound good. sucks a lil bit, really fun