7VIIX
1998
For the love of God, someone make this an actual RPG I beg of you how has it not been made by fans yet I don't understand why people treat this like its a Sonic version of Mario 64 when its actually a Sonic version of Metal Gear Solid
2021
I've been bugged to hell to play more of this since I've put it down for a bit and after picking it back up I'm bored to tears.
Seeing tons praise this for the gameplay but man imagine praising RPGs, games that are inspired by D&D (the point of D&D isn't how "fun" and complex the mechanics are), for its mechanics and not its story, world and atmosphere....
This game is made for people who call Nocturne "hard to get into" for its mechanics and ignoring literally everything else about it. But I never finished an SMT game ever so what do I know. (i'll try to finish this eventually might have the best story out of all of the Atlus games I’ve played so far, who knows).
Seeing tons praise this for the gameplay but man imagine praising RPGs, games that are inspired by D&D (the point of D&D isn't how "fun" and complex the mechanics are), for its mechanics and not its story, world and atmosphere....
This game is made for people who call Nocturne "hard to get into" for its mechanics and ignoring literally everything else about it. But I never finished an SMT game ever so what do I know. (i'll try to finish this eventually might have the best story out of all of the Atlus games I’ve played so far, who knows).
1991
We live in a world where a platformer is being criticized for being a platformer, simply because the playable character is capable of going fast, which for whatever reason makes everyone believe that they have to go fast every single second.
This is an action arcade game, meaning your goal here is to obtain as many points as possible. The ways you can get points is by (sorry for wasting space talking about the game mechanics which you already understand but I feel a revision is needed based on the criticism this game receives):
Destroying Badniks (100 points)
Collecting Power Rings (100 bonus points after clearing the stage)
Clear a stage as fast as possible (Time bonus)
Depending on whether you get hit during an Act will determine whether you can enter the Special Stage, which is another opportunity next net more points. Although, you could argue the first flaw veers its head when you realise "winning" a special stage doesn't earn you a higher score than if you "failed". I can only assume this means Special Stages are purely treated as a Bonus Stage to see how much higher of a score you can obtain (this would explain the RNG based design of the special stages).
It'll be unengaging using the same strategy of getting a high score in every stage, so every stage is designed with a different challenge in mind and this seems to be the biggest contention everyone has with this game.
It's commonly said the level design nose-dives after GHZ, which is utter nonsense as it's just the game giving different challenges that cater to the game design/philosophy:
Before the listing I'd like to explain the key aspects in Sonic 1's level design - Open levels and Linear levels
Open - Multiple paths are abundant and the challenge here is to find ways to skip the stage, typically use ramps and inclines
Linear - Not necessarily restricted to a single path but the challenge focuses more on traditional platforming. They're typically host to a midwit's least favourite stage.
Green Hill (Easy Open Level) was designed to be skipped, all of its Acts can be beaten in under a minute and you'll be rewarded 10000 - 50000 points for doing so. (makes sense since the birth of Sonic was from how Naka was bad at Mario and playing the first stage over and over does get grating so you're directly rewarded for speedrunning it)
Marble (Easy Linear Level) is designed around tension, there'll be an abundance of rings and hidden monitors until you reach the underground platforming sections where the threat of losing those rings become ever present. It's a more traditional stage but because it takes full advantage of the Ring mechanic, it makes for so much more of an engaging experience compared to if Sonic was more like every other Mario clone of the time.
Spring Yard (Intermediate Open Level) is designed around Sonic's ball physics even more so than Green Hill to the point it's pinball inspired. The Stage is skippable but it could also be worth farming points in the pinball areas of the zone as colliding with bumpers nets you more points.
Labyrinth (Intermediate Linear Level) is designed around balancing ring collection and a death count, Risk - Reward at its finest. You could rush to escape the water as quickly as possible to avoid drowning but you'll be missing out on all the extra rings.
Star Light (Hard Open Level) is designed to where rolling is directly rewarded but at the same time will punish players for not being able to maintain their control of Sonic.
Scrap Brain (Hard Linear Level) is just ball-busting, it easily the most punishing and hardest to retain rings in. Yet is the only platforming focused level that uses Sonic's rolling mechanics.
If the breakdown/analysis of these levels didn't make it clear, Sonic 1 doesn't actually suffer from first game syndrome at all, In fact it's actually really well thought through. The fact that they changed the level order for the sake of a more healthy difficulty curve at the sacrifice of its themes should be evident of that.
The game makes full use of all of its mechanics here to create its own unique arcade platformer experience that even within its own sequels fail to replicate or be as engaging.
It really is a shame this game is so under-appreciated, even by its own fans..
This is an action arcade game, meaning your goal here is to obtain as many points as possible. The ways you can get points is by (sorry for wasting space talking about the game mechanics which you already understand but I feel a revision is needed based on the criticism this game receives):
Destroying Badniks (100 points)
Collecting Power Rings (100 bonus points after clearing the stage)
Clear a stage as fast as possible (Time bonus)
Depending on whether you get hit during an Act will determine whether you can enter the Special Stage, which is another opportunity next net more points. Although, you could argue the first flaw veers its head when you realise "winning" a special stage doesn't earn you a higher score than if you "failed". I can only assume this means Special Stages are purely treated as a Bonus Stage to see how much higher of a score you can obtain (this would explain the RNG based design of the special stages).
It'll be unengaging using the same strategy of getting a high score in every stage, so every stage is designed with a different challenge in mind and this seems to be the biggest contention everyone has with this game.
It's commonly said the level design nose-dives after GHZ, which is utter nonsense as it's just the game giving different challenges that cater to the game design/philosophy:
Before the listing I'd like to explain the key aspects in Sonic 1's level design - Open levels and Linear levels
Open - Multiple paths are abundant and the challenge here is to find ways to skip the stage, typically use ramps and inclines
Linear - Not necessarily restricted to a single path but the challenge focuses more on traditional platforming. They're typically host to a midwit's least favourite stage.
Green Hill (Easy Open Level) was designed to be skipped, all of its Acts can be beaten in under a minute and you'll be rewarded 10000 - 50000 points for doing so. (makes sense since the birth of Sonic was from how Naka was bad at Mario and playing the first stage over and over does get grating so you're directly rewarded for speedrunning it)
Marble (Easy Linear Level) is designed around tension, there'll be an abundance of rings and hidden monitors until you reach the underground platforming sections where the threat of losing those rings become ever present. It's a more traditional stage but because it takes full advantage of the Ring mechanic, it makes for so much more of an engaging experience compared to if Sonic was more like every other Mario clone of the time.
Spring Yard (Intermediate Open Level) is designed around Sonic's ball physics even more so than Green Hill to the point it's pinball inspired. The Stage is skippable but it could also be worth farming points in the pinball areas of the zone as colliding with bumpers nets you more points.
Labyrinth (Intermediate Linear Level) is designed around balancing ring collection and a death count, Risk - Reward at its finest. You could rush to escape the water as quickly as possible to avoid drowning but you'll be missing out on all the extra rings.
Star Light (Hard Open Level) is designed to where rolling is directly rewarded but at the same time will punish players for not being able to maintain their control of Sonic.
Scrap Brain (Hard Linear Level) is just ball-busting, it easily the most punishing and hardest to retain rings in. Yet is the only platforming focused level that uses Sonic's rolling mechanics.
If the breakdown/analysis of these levels didn't make it clear, Sonic 1 doesn't actually suffer from first game syndrome at all, In fact it's actually really well thought through. The fact that they changed the level order for the sake of a more healthy difficulty curve at the sacrifice of its themes should be evident of that.
The game makes full use of all of its mechanics here to create its own unique arcade platformer experience that even within its own sequels fail to replicate or be as engaging.
It really is a shame this game is so under-appreciated, even by its own fans..
2011
You ever notice how as soon as this game became more available to people that this started getting criticized more? That's the bell curve at work..
Sonic CD is probably one of the best 2D platformers for its time and arguably still now.
What many don't realise is that SEGA was a company the strongly specialised stylised and memorable arcade games and their philosophy from the arcade was transferred to the home console (like everyone else but there's a point to this I swear)
As such, Sonic games in this case, their games have a strong focus on score and finding the coolest way of getting high scores. In this case, getting the good ending. (Getting the good end in sonic games is supposed to be the result of a high score play rather than a secret or reward to unlock)
To break it down lets imagine a new player's experience with Sonic CD.
By the first 3 acts the player will naturally understand the game wants them to:
- Take out as many mobs as possible (gives immediate positive feedback by rewarding 100 points)
- Collect as many rings as possible without getting hit (Ring bonus and Special Stage which both reward bonus score)
- Finishing a level as fast as possible (Time bonus score)
Along the way they will run into the time travel mechanic and from such will learn:
- Futures have more enemies and more harmful obstacles
- Past has less enemies and less obstacles
Naturally this will encourage the player to go to the past as a) it's safer and b) has more rings available and resets monitors. And of course they'll run into a Robot Transporter from which they'll immediately obtain 2000 points and every enemy will be destroyed and create a Good Future. (If they player is really smart in this case they'll realise that after destroying a RT they'll travel to the future in the same act and find and even safer layout of level design compared to the past)
Though it should be noted it'd be really difficult to perform all of this will still being able to beat a level in record time, this is where the real fun of Sonic CD starts as you'll have to make the decisions on what would net you the most amount of points for each stage.
Suddenly the 'chaos' of Collision Chaos stops being an inconveniences and actually becomes objects to play with (especially considering how they could be used as platforms with skillful play)
Now for the level design "issue". People say Sonic CD's design is random and poorly thought through and to that I say literally look at any glitchless speedrun of Sonic CD and eat your words and secondly those 4 half-pipes that do and mean nothing are meant to be landmarks. If a game expects you to look around a level to find something with no map you're going to NEED landmarks to be able to create a mental map for yourself and in conjunction of that will naturally memorise the level design for replays and mastery of the game is something that comes naturally rather than something you're forced to do.
Despite how much I've ranted I can't lie to you, I highly doubt all of this was EXACTLY intentional. Hell I'll admit that the "one of the best platformers" statement might have been an exaggeration but I'm hoping this review will help people actually properly analyse what the game you play expects then see how much it makes sense together.
Good games make sense, Bad Games are the inverse.
Sonic CD is probably one of the best 2D platformers for its time and arguably still now.
What many don't realise is that SEGA was a company the strongly specialised stylised and memorable arcade games and their philosophy from the arcade was transferred to the home console (like everyone else but there's a point to this I swear)
As such, Sonic games in this case, their games have a strong focus on score and finding the coolest way of getting high scores. In this case, getting the good ending. (Getting the good end in sonic games is supposed to be the result of a high score play rather than a secret or reward to unlock)
To break it down lets imagine a new player's experience with Sonic CD.
By the first 3 acts the player will naturally understand the game wants them to:
- Take out as many mobs as possible (gives immediate positive feedback by rewarding 100 points)
- Collect as many rings as possible without getting hit (Ring bonus and Special Stage which both reward bonus score)
- Finishing a level as fast as possible (Time bonus score)
Along the way they will run into the time travel mechanic and from such will learn:
- Futures have more enemies and more harmful obstacles
- Past has less enemies and less obstacles
Naturally this will encourage the player to go to the past as a) it's safer and b) has more rings available and resets monitors. And of course they'll run into a Robot Transporter from which they'll immediately obtain 2000 points and every enemy will be destroyed and create a Good Future. (If they player is really smart in this case they'll realise that after destroying a RT they'll travel to the future in the same act and find and even safer layout of level design compared to the past)
Though it should be noted it'd be really difficult to perform all of this will still being able to beat a level in record time, this is where the real fun of Sonic CD starts as you'll have to make the decisions on what would net you the most amount of points for each stage.
Suddenly the 'chaos' of Collision Chaos stops being an inconveniences and actually becomes objects to play with (especially considering how they could be used as platforms with skillful play)
Now for the level design "issue". People say Sonic CD's design is random and poorly thought through and to that I say literally look at any glitchless speedrun of Sonic CD and eat your words and secondly those 4 half-pipes that do and mean nothing are meant to be landmarks. If a game expects you to look around a level to find something with no map you're going to NEED landmarks to be able to create a mental map for yourself and in conjunction of that will naturally memorise the level design for replays and mastery of the game is something that comes naturally rather than something you're forced to do.
Despite how much I've ranted I can't lie to you, I highly doubt all of this was EXACTLY intentional. Hell I'll admit that the "one of the best platformers" statement might have been an exaggeration but I'm hoping this review will help people actually properly analyse what the game you play expects then see how much it makes sense together.
Good games make sense, Bad Games are the inverse.
1989
Genuinely some of the most engaging and rewarding gaming experiences, why haven't more people recommended this to me UNIRONICALLY.
2004
Admittedly, this is my first Visual Novel or even my first pure Adventure game in general so it's hard for me to say what was well-done on the technical side of thing but I'm capable of looking at what this does do in terms of writing.
There are two interesting things about FSN to me, those being:
- A full narrative that transitions between each route (meaning the story in-fact develops from the last route)
- Interesting ways Shirou can die (or how magic works in this world)
I doubt FSN is the first VN to have the route-to-route narrative progression I've mentioned but I found it interesting that it purposely bars you from proceeding to other routes until you've completed the previous one. It made the total VN into one huge story rather than 3 separate, smaller stories (though it can still be read that way)
Its story structure aside, the general writing is rather strong. Hosting well-thought through characters that are consistent within they're given characterisation on the surface and on deeper analysis.
Though the capabilities of Servants are extremely unclear as you'll find them scaling skyscrapers through assumedly magic, or have super-human abilities on their own or even losing to humans which are said to be weaker than Servants towards. It leads to my suspicion of disbelief to become strained and cause me to stop taking the entire story seriously. But with some thought from yourself you could come up with assumptions as to why this is and make sense of it on your own but it'll never really be confirmed in the story itself.
I also find it strange that the story surrounds a battle royale plot and yet the story/themes itself aren't based around the perspective of multiple characters. Instead it's a character study of our protagonist proceeding a loose following of the Coming-of-Age narrative. Not that this is a flaw necessarily but it does strike me as 'unfitting' somewhat but it works here.
Also try to die a lot, there're plenty of dead/bad ends that add a lot to the based narrative. It's also a shame that this game is also blatantly unfinished, most obviously seen within the final route where everything is thrown at you at light-speed, almost as if there was meant to be a fourth route.
There are two interesting things about FSN to me, those being:
- A full narrative that transitions between each route (meaning the story in-fact develops from the last route)
- Interesting ways Shirou can die (or how magic works in this world)
I doubt FSN is the first VN to have the route-to-route narrative progression I've mentioned but I found it interesting that it purposely bars you from proceeding to other routes until you've completed the previous one. It made the total VN into one huge story rather than 3 separate, smaller stories (though it can still be read that way)
Its story structure aside, the general writing is rather strong. Hosting well-thought through characters that are consistent within they're given characterisation on the surface and on deeper analysis.
Though the capabilities of Servants are extremely unclear as you'll find them scaling skyscrapers through assumedly magic, or have super-human abilities on their own or even losing to humans which are said to be weaker than Servants towards. It leads to my suspicion of disbelief to become strained and cause me to stop taking the entire story seriously. But with some thought from yourself you could come up with assumptions as to why this is and make sense of it on your own but it'll never really be confirmed in the story itself.
I also find it strange that the story surrounds a battle royale plot and yet the story/themes itself aren't based around the perspective of multiple characters. Instead it's a character study of our protagonist proceeding a loose following of the Coming-of-Age narrative. Not that this is a flaw necessarily but it does strike me as 'unfitting' somewhat but it works here.
Also try to die a lot, there're plenty of dead/bad ends that add a lot to the based narrative. It's also a shame that this game is also blatantly unfinished, most obviously seen within the final route where everything is thrown at you at light-speed, almost as if there was meant to be a fourth route.
2010
After a replay, Sonic Colors is definitely a moderately engaging game and is one of Sonic's most polished games. Problems that stop it from being great however comes down to two things that are prominent through-out the playthrough:
- Terrible controls for a platformer/button layout (You'll want to double jump and you'll perform a homing attack instead, an issue still seen in Sonic games since S3&K, Sonic's jump momentum will never feel consistent and his acceleration is extreme at the slight tilt of the stick. Play any 2D or 3D platformer then return to this and you'll see the issue)
- Wasted resources on Story (Simplicity isn't the issue but rather the pointless dialogue was and it made every cutscene more worth skipping than watching. While it would be a rather ballsy move for the expectations of games at the time, this would've greatly benefited from not having separated cutscenes and have the story be told in gameplay instead e.g. Sonic 3&K and with the easy to understand plot of Sonic Colors it would've been more than possible)
In terms of praise, Sonic Colors has an unbelievable amount of replayability with a ranking system that highly encourages engagement of all the mechanics of the game and finding Red Rings within each act. I'd recommend this game to only casual but experienced players. (The ones that would look past and/or learn to get used to the prominent issues the game has)
- Terrible controls for a platformer/button layout (You'll want to double jump and you'll perform a homing attack instead, an issue still seen in Sonic games since S3&K, Sonic's jump momentum will never feel consistent and his acceleration is extreme at the slight tilt of the stick. Play any 2D or 3D platformer then return to this and you'll see the issue)
- Wasted resources on Story (Simplicity isn't the issue but rather the pointless dialogue was and it made every cutscene more worth skipping than watching. While it would be a rather ballsy move for the expectations of games at the time, this would've greatly benefited from not having separated cutscenes and have the story be told in gameplay instead e.g. Sonic 3&K and with the easy to understand plot of Sonic Colors it would've been more than possible)
In terms of praise, Sonic Colors has an unbelievable amount of replayability with a ranking system that highly encourages engagement of all the mechanics of the game and finding Red Rings within each act. I'd recommend this game to only casual but experienced players. (The ones that would look past and/or learn to get used to the prominent issues the game has)