As someone who loved the Black Rock Shooter OVA and TV Anime back when they were brand new a decade ago, I hadn't checked out just about anything else related to this series until the past couple years. The Game was my final pit stop after checking out just about everything else.

A quick thing to note: Black Rock Shooter as a series operates in an interesting way. If you were wary of starting this game due to having not seen the anime, the one thing you need to know is that quite literally every Black Rock Shooter adaption is 100% original, and the only things they share for the most part are the characters (You should always expect to see Black Rock Shooter at the bare minimum in every adaption, this game aside, Dead Master is also a common character). I still recommend checking out the original OVA if you can though, less than 50 minutes and it's a classic IMO.

To sum up my experience? It's about 10 hours long in total which isn't too bad. The story is kinda lacking unfortunately, I wanted to be invested in it but I really couldn't. That said, when the game goes full anime, it's genuinely so cool. The gameplay itself is very interesting, in that it's a turn based system and you can't willy-nilly throw your gun or dodge out due to overheating. So there's some strategy to this system, though the real time stopping the second you open your items and Skills being able to be used whenever as long as they're charged up enough puts a bit of a damper on this for early/weaker opponents. The harder enemies and bosses more than make up for that however.

One Stage has you using the bike, and it's okay? You just time pushing left and right to slash enemies on the road. It's honestly nothing to write home about. Graphically it looks pretty alright for a PSP game, and the soundtrack is pretty good. Areas are mostly nothing to write home about, until the last two stages. No spoilers, but it was cool.

Difficulty-wise, it's not really too challenging. I got three Game Overs in total, and with one exception, it was more or less me being careless. The game practically showers you in health items, so the final boss fight ended up unironically being one of the easiest in the game.

Overall, it's a pretty good game. Nothing outstanding, and if you ask me there's still some better Black Rock Shooter media out there more worth your while, but if ya wanna play a short RPG with interesting gameplay that gives you some super cool anime like moments here and there, this one might be your next favorite.

P.S., that opening anime movie with "No Scared" by ONE OK ROCK? Audiovisual equivalent to sex. It's genuinely so cool.

I've been a fan of the Sonic The Hedgehog series for years, arguably since I could first hold a controller. Been there since the 2D entries, the transition to 3D, watching Sonic X Saturday mornings on Fox, you name it I was probably there. Hell, even with it's faults and obvious warts, I still had a good time with Frontiers.

But I can't sugarcoat it, Sonic Superstars is a disappointment. I didn't expect something on the same exact quality as those Classic Genesis games, or Mania even. I went into it wanting to at least like it and have a decent game to play and come back to every now and then. What I got is a game that's serviceable for it's first half, and takes a nosedive in quality so bad in it's second half that it makes the level design in some of Dimps' Sonic titles seem fair and reasonable by comparison.

The gameplay is just what you'd expect from a 2D Sonic, you have 4 playable characters from the start each with their own unique abilities (Tails can fly, Knuckles can glide/climb walls, Amy can use her hammer and has a double jump etc.). That's mostly fine and dandy, if you've played a 2D Sonic, you know what you're in for. The momentum is something though. Sometimes it's fairly close to the original Classic games and you're hitting speeds very similar. Other times, you're going really fast (say, through a tube for example) and the game forces you back down to a base speed instead of letting you keep said momentum. The easiest way to explain it is to imagine Classic Sonic's gameplay in Sonic Forces, but tweaked to not be as egregiously bad as that game handled. I don't mean that in a good way.

Level Design goes from being pretty standard and occasionally interesting, to some of the worst levels I've ever experienced in a Classic Sonic title. When you get a level that's not bad you're usually having a fairly good time, maybe there was a gimmick or two that didn't land but you leave it feeling satisfied to an extent. When a bad level hits, the only thing on your mind is "I hope this ends soon" the farther you get into it. The final Zone of the game is genuinely the absolute worst about this. Without going into spoilers, it feels like Arzest just called in the developers for the Advance games to come in and design a Zone, and then they tweaked it after the fact to add even more unfun gimmicks to it.

Speaking of "unfun", the boss fights. Classic Sonic bosses, with some exceptions, all work the same in some fashion. The boss is always vulnerable, but there is usually an attack pattern to follow despite that. Superstars decided that it would be a perfect idea to make it to where you have to wait for the boss to expose their weak point before you can even get one hit in. Early on it's not that much of a problem, you can still mostly hit the bosses without waiting for their weak points to come out. It's when you get further into the game and each boss gets progressively longer and more obvious about this that it gets very frustrating.

Chaos Emeralds are naturally back. The Special Stages for them are the easiest in Sonic history, only one of them (Emerald 5) gave me any level of a challenge. They're fine for what they are honestly. Each Emerald gives you an Emerald Power that you can use, one per Zone. I'll be honest though, I only really used two of them in my entire playthrough. Avatar as it's basically a screen nuke that speeds up certain boss fights, and Bullet due to it being useful for getting to higher ground. The rest are either very useless or situational. The Bonus Stages, which you access by jumping into a portal over a checkpoint if you pass it with a certain number of rings, are just three Sonic 1 Special Stages taped to each other. I avoided these whenever I could, as I didn't really have much fun with them.

I don't think this game is outright awful, there's still some good to come of it. As stated prior, the first half of the game is mostly a decent time. The graphics and character animations are very good. One thing I hope Sega keeps for future games is that you can now fast fall when Tails is in a flying state which is so genuinely useful. While the music is mostly not worth writing home about, there's still some tracks that are good (Pinball Carnival Act 1 was exceptionally great). There's some things to like about this game, the last half genuinely being the way it is ultimately keeps me from recommending this however, especially at it's price point of $60. If you're wanting to give it a go, wait on a very big sale.

(100%'d game before review)

Unironically a very solid licensed platformer from start to finish. Played this on N64 as a kid but never finished it due to not having a controller pak. Played the PS1 version and it genuinely holds up really well. The only things I wasn't big on is that the final boss fight was lame as fuck, and Level 5 (Galleys and Gulleys) was probably the weakest level of the bunch. Character models look a bit derpy too. I still highly recommend this though if you got an itch for a 3D Platformer.

Some of this game I feel gets a lot of unneeded hate, but I can't say it's unwarranted either. Adding an extra button, or at the bare minimum changing the level designs around to work with the one button layout would've fixed some of this game easily. As it stands, it's just a game oozing with charm that got trapped in a mid game overall. Worth a shot at a massive discount (I got my Series X copy for like, $10 off GameFly), but I wouldn't spend much more on that.

Also, Balan Bout sucks, one full star would be added if Balan Bout wasn't in the game at all.

This game got trapped on the Japanese Sega Saturn's library, and that's honestly a shame because this is a short (I beat it in about an hour), yet really fun game that oozes charm from the Saturn's library. My literal only issue is the jump feels a bit off which makes the occasional instance you need to be precise with your platforming feel really weird. But that's honestly it, this is a lovely game and I recommend anyone who has access to being able to play Japanese Saturn games to give this one a go.

Genuinely, unironically one of the best 3D platformers I've played in recent memory. Absolutely going to 100% this on and off.

Edit: I've 100%'d the game over the past couple days, still excellent. The only thing that's a bit frustrating is that the timing for the Super Boost (push Gas at the end of a spin) has really strict timing, and requires you to push it a bit later than expected. Also Morio's Dream was the hardest level to get all Gears and Golden Bunnies in easily, which isn't awful at first until you realize how out of the way one of the bunnies and one of the gears is. Beyond that though, I had a wonderful time with this game and my 9/10 still stands.