The perfect sick day game.

I bought this half a year ago because it really looked incredibly charming and I recognised the artist! A comfy visual novel about a young girlie named Penny who struggles to get her work done and gets up to silly business around the office sounded right up my alley and I wanted to boot it up very soon. I guess my attention wavered because I kept putting it off. But today I called in sick at work and this seemed like the perfect thing to get through the rainy day. It was indeed a cute and funny time that eventually surprised me with how relatable it was and the lengths it travelled to address an extremely contemporary real world issue.

The art style is my favourite thing on display, it’s just so freaking cute and all the character designs are amazingly pretty. Combining this with absurdity in events and deadpan dialogue made the experience extremely entertaining, cosy and bingeable for me. I saw everything that there was to see in one sitting and I didn't get bored at all.

I wasn’t quite prepared for how relatable Penny would become throughout this. I wouldn’t consider my occupation that of an artist, but there are certainly times where I feel I have to be creative or “inspired” in a sense, making little progress for days or weeks and coming short of what I wanted to achieve. Considering the main dev is an artist themselves this theme comes straight from the heart; despite all of the strange hilarious events I was taken through, there was an underlying sense of dread and depression in Penny’s days at the office that was difficult to not find painful.

The next paragraph will spoil the ending of the game.

It turns out a higher up of the company Penny works for is the embodiment of corporate evil, and the task she was given was purely to compare to the better efficiency of “creative automation”. We as the player struggle through a lot of fuckery to get her 6 posters drawn, only for the boss to demonstrate to the big wigs that a robot can steal the work of already existing creative minds, and pump them out in seconds, resulting in the redundancy of as many employees as she can and the best possible business results. This, of course, is something that everyone in the present day who even considers themselves a fan of creative outputs is very aware of and loathes. What exactly did Endless Monday have to say about this? In the end, not much at all. The climax is exaggerated and pretty drawn out, and abruptly ends with a sudden resolution where they just smash the robot and move on. I can only assume that the goal here was purely an expression of fear, and that this future feels like an inevitability with no clear solution, especially since the boss in question is seen at the end, proclaiming that she will achieve her goal and return eventually. It’s something that hits you a little harder when you’re put in the shoes of someone like Penny, who simply wants to follow her dreams, and should make you want to fight against these practices, no matter who you are, because they mean that those dreams will not be possible in the slightest.

Endless Monday is cute, fun, silly and everything in between and it also has relatable and foreboding elements mixed in that end up making it an emotionally unique couple days at the office to say the least.

Underworld is the finale to the first reboot trilogy, and it’s unfortunately a little disappointing after what came before it. Anyone who liked Legend and Anniversary will probably have a decent time with this and find it to be a somewhat satisfying end. However it’s really difficult to ignore the rushed nature and huge lack of polish flowing throughout.

Clunkiness is the key word, and not in a “i cant handle old games cos im a fuckin baby” kinda way. When you had two perfectly working predecessors that felt really fluid, it doesn’t feel good to suddenly have Lara be clipping all over her Croft like that, and it will mess you up. Along with the cameraman being too nervous, I think he found Lara too attractive (cos damn she is fine in this one, Stellar Blade fans should peep).

Even if Underworld was better made, I don’t think it reaches the height of the others. The story is just as involved as Legend, which is nice! But it feels a little disjointed and short I guess. I think this could be attributed to the level structure, with what feels like 4 “real” levels and a couple shorter ones that might have been added later to make sure the adventure felt complete. The level design itself doesn’t touch Anniversary, but it does have some nice environments and actually good ideas that evolve the formula, they are just unfortunately quite scarce and sometimes don’t feel great in execution. The final level in particular is by far the lowest point in the trilogy both story and gameplay wise, and I just learned that there are apparently two DLCs that expand it, I don’t feel compelled to check it out though.

I do enjoy the atmosphere presented here, it’s a lot darker and some of that is reflected in Lara herself. Might just be a personal preference but her voice acting / direction being completely unchanged doesn’t match it very well, she feels a little too prim and proper for the shit that she goes through.

It’s good enough for the fans but that’s it.

My goodness. I had saved Triple Trouble for the end of my Game Gear marathon because I had heard it was probably the best entry on there, and of course to jump straight into the 16-Bit fan game afterwards (that I knew next to nothing about), which I thought would be a nice reward to give myself for the mediocrity that was sure to come. I was absolutely not prepared for how much this was going to blow me away. Maybe I should have expected it knowing the reputation some would give sonic fan games of “being better than actual games”. Whether that’s a notion overblown out of enthusiasm to crap on Sonic games or not, there is no denying that we have some super passionate fans, but even still I could never have predicted how much I would enjoy this. Sonic 3 and Sonic Mania are fundamental Wollom-core games, and I would struggle to tell you that Triple Trouble 16-Bit doesn’t match these experiences, or even top them in some aspects.

The original Triple Trouble was indeed a decent game in my opinion. It didn’t quite take the cake for best Game Gear game though, that would go to Sonic 1, because that feels like a game that somewhat knows what hardware it’s on, and builds a fun platforming experience that isn’t necessarily trying too hard to be Sonic (this was very early days so it didn’t have too much to go off of anyway). Triple Trouble on the other hand, absolutely understood what gave Sonic 2 and 3 their identity and success, and rolls with it; It’s got original level theme ideas, plenty of gimmicks exclusive to each zone, a good balance of sections designed around both speed and platforming, it even has some ambitious set pieces and tells a more than one-note story involving a few characters. What is unfortunate is that this simply could not have its potential fully realised on a 4:3 screen with (I’m sorry GG fans) very botched Sonic physics, it’s just the nature of how these games turned out. But it absolutely gets tremendous points for effort and I respect how much this rose above the attempts of Sonic 2 8-Bit, Sonic Chaos, and Sonic Blast.

With all of that said, the idea to remake the game as if it was on the Mega Drive / Genesis makes complete sense doesn’t it? Touch it up a little and bob’s your uncle you’ve turned it into the better game it had the right to be. NonononoNO my sweetie pie, Noah Copeland had a VISION and he wasn’t going to let it just run away. Triple Trouble was Triply Transformed.

The first thing I noticed when I loaded up this game (apart from the super stylish main menu <3) was that we now play as both Sonic and Tails at the same time, whereas in the original you chose one or the other, and you can press a button to seamlessly switch between the controlling of either character on the fly! As long as they’re both on the screen you’re good to go! This change was awesome not only because it fits the original story better, but because the Japanese release of this game was actually titled Sonic & Tails 2. Straight away this feels like a true Sonic & Tails adventure :D . It’s really fun being able to switch to Tails for flight and Sonic for speed moves and elemental shields, rather than being locked to one for the whole playthrough.

The next lovely thing to grace your eyes is of course the massive glow up in the zones, there is not much else to say other than they’re all gorgeous. Foreground, sprites, tiny little visual effects, they all look damn good. But huge shout out to the backgrounds of these levels in particular, they are beautiful and often change dynamically throughout the zones, adding to the storytelling! These graphics alongside the new remixes of music tracks (which all sound GREAT by the way) marvellously replicate the feeling of classic Sonic and enhance it to a similar degree that Sonic Mania did.

Adding to that notion, to say that the levels themselves were mania-fied is an apt comparison for the most part. Well made sections from the original levels are retained and polished, while completely new ones with new gimmicks and sights are thrown into the mix. None of these gimmicks feel unwelcome. Snowballs and seels in Robotnik Winter Zone, leaf trampolines and snake basket platforms in Meta Junglira Zone, the list does go on.

The reason I say “for the most part” is because it’s where this game deviates from its inspiration significantly that truly impressed me. Along with reworked special stages, reworked and additional bosses, there are so many cool new setpieces, cutscenes and story elements within the zones themselves. My absolute favourite thing is how above and beyond the effort to seamlessly transition between zones is. No loading screens or teleportation, just an incredibly smooth and fun journey from start to end. I’m deliberately not explaining these things in detail because this game really is best experienced with the original fresh in your mind, with little idea as to how it will be translated.

There’s also a fricking competition mode. You might think what I initially thought, “oh, like in Sonic 3, that must not amount to much.”, but you’d be dead wrong!! This feels like a fangame in itself!! There are multiple types of minigames and 4 campaigns for Sonic, Tails, Knuckles and Fang, each telling their own story, with cutscenes, like, with dialogue and shit!! WTF? Why are you so magnificent Noah?

It kind of crushes my soul slightly to say that Triple Trouble Trumps some of my most beloved games, but I can’t deny that it at least stands alongside them, as a true classic Sonic game, and I think it will always feel this way to me.

If you are a classic Sonic fan, please check this game out, it thoroughly deserves it and will not disappoint.