It’s been like 4 years since I’ve played this game…I honestly had a pretty good feeling about this when I booted the game up. Green Hill was actually fun. There were neat little secrets and controlling sonic was a lot of fun. But it didn’t last. Not long after hitting Chemical Plant zone I immediately realized the problem. You know as I said before Sonic can be quite a bit of fun to control…When the game lets me actually do it! Sonic really wants to show you how fast he is huh?

Because he sure does like ripping away control from the player just to do it! It barely feels like 10 seconds pass without the game feeling the need to bounce me off some sort of spring or send me through some sort of speed booster. It borderline comes off like the devs don’t trust the player to actually be good enough at a video game to handle Sonic’s physics. It was honestly a little crushing when I realized this. I was really hoping to be proved wrong. I wanted to like Sonic Mania. I really did. But the farther and further I got into the game the worse and worse it got. By Stardust Speedway I was so fucking bored that I wanted to quit right then and there. But for the sake of the experiment and in the smallest of small hopes that things would improve I pressed on. Little annoyances kept piling on and admittedly I started getting a headache towards the end of the game which got so bad I actually had to quit for a few hours halfway through the final zone. Although I can’t blame the game for that. That was more I barely ate that day and was basically playing video games for 8 hours with barely any rest because of the Megaman X playthrough I did right before it.

It’s not even like the game’s hard. It’s actually so forgiving that when I died due to a bottomless pit that one time I was actually shocked because every other pit I fell down just led to a lower section of the stage. Honestly most of my deaths besides like, the one time I died to the final boss felt like bullshit. Namely Oil Ocean and Metallic Madness where the game spit me out in just the right way that I’d get crushed by something a few times rendering the Ring System pointless and speaking of that…I actually don’t really have a problem with it. Part of me wishes it wasn’t here due to it trivializing bosses but in the levels themselves it’s perfectly fine.

I’ve always been told Sonic games suck on the first playthrough but get better the more you play them. I’m not going to say anything like “But if I didn’t like it the first time why should I do it again” because I’ve ignored that rule several times with games like Megaman Zero and the original Devil May Cry which I didn’t enjoy either of those at first but after taking time away from them and coming back with an open mind and restarting I quickly realized that all I needed to enjoy those games was to git gud. It was the difficulty and beginner’s traps that was turning me off. But I don’t think that’s the problem in this case. It’s the systems themselves that annoy me. It also doesn’t help that I’ve played another sonic game. Sonic CD 9 times and didn’t like it a single time I played it. Although that’s a far worse game then Mania so grain of salt I guess.

I know if I played again I could find all the special stages and get Super Sonic but Sonic’s problem is that it kinda plays itself 75% of the time so

A. good luck getting to the special stages even if I knew where they were due to getting shot around without any input from me. Seriously I have way more direct control in a turn based JRPG then this and B. I’d just be making a criminally easy game even easier. Speed as the reward loses its luster when it’s just handed out for free like this. No amount of level memorization will change this and if the actual reward is just being able to play the fucking game then why should I bother? I’ve been told Classic Sonic’s greatest strength is the non linear level design but I can’t even enjoy that because once again I barely have control of the guy.

I really wish I could like Sonic and not be the weirdo in the room. Mania has a lot to love about it. All the creativity, love, and passion poured into it is obvious to anyone. The bosses while I find most of them boring, have interesting themes and ideas to them and the music is incredible.But I just can’t enjoy it.

Do I think Sonic games are bad? I don’t even know at this point. Are they not for me without question. I’ve tried over and over and over again and it just never clicked. I also unlike a lot of people I know didn’t grow up with Sonic. I have little if any nostalgic attachment to him. I played his games a bit in high school both classic and the Adventure games but he really didn’t form the core gaming memories. Do I think people who like Sonic games are nostalgia blind. I’d like to think not. But I don’t know any more. It’s not even that I have absurdly high standards. I actually kinda like the first Megaman for christ’s sake.

I guess that’s really all there was to it. Almost disappointed

So me and some friends made a massive list of “B-List Fighting Games” and I think it’s about time to start chipping away at it.

Blade Strangers after playing it for way too long…Is super mid to be honest. Graphically it looks like store brand Guilty Gear Xrd and that is not a compliment. Music is extremely hit or miss. It doesn’t feel as sluggish as it used to pre patch but still feels a little slower then it should and The combo system feels just as arbitrary as Strive. Like there’s stuff that feels like it should work but doesn’t for no reason like why can’t I use a special move after a sweep and why don't the different heavy attacks combo together. The light attack auto combo also feels unneeded as it just feels like it’s there to pad out the combo time.

I’m not a fan of simplified Inputs as they tend to limit the movepool a character can have (looking at you DNF Duel) but as far as simple input games go they do a pretty good job with giving the characters a bunch of tools to work with. Well at least they did with Gunvolt. The cast here is whatever. Basically carried by Cave Story and the guest characters with an overall weak crossover appeal. Basically you’re here for Swole Shovel Knight, Isaac, and Gunvolt.

The game’s tutorial is pretty bad as it explains how the game works in the blandest most surface level way possible and even leaves stuff out like I only learned that Lina has an air dash by complete accident. The combo trial mode would be okayish if it weren’t for the fact that they made the same mistake UMVC3 did of not including a sample video for each combo which can lead to quite a bit of frustration when it comes to figuring out some of the timings and the story seems like it could be somewhat interesting for about 10 seconds before it devolves into a tournament arc like always and the character interactions being pretty bland most likely due to flanderization and short interactions. There’s a couple decent moments but nothing worth writing home about.

Overall the game is the definition of a mid fighting game and to be honest I’m not sure how much better it could have been. Because it’s not terrible it’s more than functional and was occasionally fun at times during the 7 story runs I did but nothing compared to what I consider the best in the genre.

Least this makes a pretty decent baseline to go into the rest of the list with.