A charming virtual child's toybox. Some of the toys are broken and fragile so they can snap easily, please don't push them too far.

While the broken state of this game is something you have to deal with when discussing it, I'm on the camp that thinks Sonic Adventure is magical when it all works. It's just that it's easy for the ilusion to break.
Y'know when you were a kid and one of your figures broke like, a leg or something so you got your dad to duct tape it back? Now whenever you played with it, it kinda looked out of place, and you had to be careful because the leg could detach itself again and all that? But when it the first shock wore out you didn't really care? Yeah, Sonic Adventure is kinda like that.

Which isn't really a great endorsement, no one buys pre-damaged toys. But I just liked the feeling of carefully playing with a broken thing, after a while it just became natural and I could enjoy the great things this game has to offer like the crazy bonkers levels, varied playstyles, godly soundtrack and surprisingly interesting story structure.

I think this can only work because Sonic Adventure's heart is pure, like a child's. A game so broken can only be loved because it's so devoid of cynicism and is so earnest inside.
I'm not sure many adults can get much out of this game, when it was released and nowadays. But I'm sure the kids loved it.

This hurts to do, but I'm dropping it. It's not that it's bad, just so bland. It is, in essence, a sequel to Nocturne and while I like the idea of a follow up, this just builds on the bones of the world that game created. The problem is this was Nocturne's weakest element.

When I go to Nocturne it's not really for that sense of world, it's primarily for the world established through combat. Nocturne is at its core a really good boss rush. The world is minimal to accentuate the atmosphere given by the difficult combat and resource management. The general overworld is just generic demons who exist in this world, but don't inhabit it. SMT IV, despite the gameplay changes, made it a point to have an interesting and lived in world that was worth exploring. V just brings over the boring overworld of Nocturne without any of the interesting aspects of it.

The magatsuhi system, while novel, also doesn't really expand on the gameplay established in IV:A. That game is contentious for some very legitimate reasons, but the one thing I will absolutely defend is the way they improved and fleshed out smirk. Decreasing the rng and making it a choice in combat added another layer to press turn that, to me, makes that game have the best combat in the entire series. Magatsuhi is an attempt to carry it over while integrating some overworld elements. Only thing is, it wasn't broken. They fixed it once already, trying to slap more stuff on top of press turn at this point just feels like floundering.

You can always create a unique and fleshed out aspect of your game. Strange journey, even with its gameplay regression, proved all you need is a cool world. IV reaffirmed that. Simply taking that excellent gameplay from IV:A and putting it into an interesting new world would have been enough. Instead we have a game that lacks an identity of its own. Content to continue the series, but not expand on it.

Went in kinda having troubles adjusting but it just became a bomb-ass game the more it went along. I started thinking it was missing something, and it definitely was, but I found new things along the way.

Stages just filled with varied one-time ideas, the best Eggman fights (THAT THEME DUDE), a surprisingly ambitious time travel mechanic that makes Sonic CD not the type of game you just play once, it's just different takes and wild ideas from a different team.

Even storywise, Sonic's fight changes from saving the animals to saving the plantlife on a dying planet wrecked by technology, it's peak "whatever the hell Sonic is meant to be". That fight is even baked into the mechanics as you can travel to a seemingly inevitable future where Eggman has already won. Sonic CD is working in the apocalyptic level, it's not about saving fauna and stopping pantomime Jeff Bezos, it's about preventing a future where the planet is beyond saving. In a way it's as close as environmentalist a game like this can get (of course in here the day is saved by time travel and the usual Sonic stuff, but still).

Rebelling against an incompetent egghead in power, storming into his technopocalypse base, destroying it and just peacing out, outracing a phony copy of yourself and impressing your girl, saving the planet from disaster. Isn't that what Sonic should be all about?