elster's journey is similar to my own

except im human
and i'm not a robot
and i'm not in space
and not in a relationship at all
and on top of all of this I'm a he/they black man from chicago

but we're basically the same

Check it out, it's 14-year-old me with a GameBoy Advance speaker pressed against his ear canal, mouth open while he pipes the most goopy-ass version of Scrap Brain Zone directly into his skull.

You can add Sonic Advance to the growing pile of reviews where I state, "I haven't played this since it came out." It's in good company, the Burger King Trilogy is in there. It's been so long that abandoning my previously held opinions on Sonic Advance and going in with no expectations was easy enough, though I did assume the consensus from my mutuals would be that Advance is among the best and most cherished of Sonic's handheld outings only to find it's pulled around a 3/5 average. A little surprising considering some of those mutuals think more highly of Sonic than I do, but now that I've closed the 20+ year gap... yeah, 3/5 seems about right!

Congratulations to Sonic Advance, because that practically makes it the best "traditional" handheld Sonic I've played.

Like the Game Gear games, Sonic Advance doesn't match the pace and feel of the Genesis titles, but the better hardware does allow for a much closer approximation, one that's pleasant enough in hand and which is only noticeably off to the kinds of people who are entirely too invested in this stuff. Like me. I just bought another copy of Sonic Mania, I'm up to five now, so I'd like to think I'm qualified enough to say that the way Sonic and his friend make contact with destructible objects and how they bounce off them doesn't quite pass the sniff test with me but it hardly ruins the game.

In fact, Sonic's physics feel perfectly in place with the way levels are designed, and that's really the most important thing. For the most part, stage design is pretty good. There's a nice mix of platforming and speed and plenty of routes that are made or less accessible depending on who you play as. The game does completely hit a wall and burn most of its good will by the time you get to Angel Island, though. The introduction of numerous bottomless pits, many of which the level directly funnels you into, is aggravating, and it's a problem that persists into the two single act zones that follow.

Also, not a fan of Amy. Dislike playing as her immensely. She felt bad in Adventure and she feels even worse here. These zones aren't improved by shafting you with a character that has a lower speed cap and movement abilities that purposefully feel bad. I'm sure there's some lunatic out there waiting in the wings who has dedicated a significant portion of their time to perfecting Amy's tech and will insist that it's not the game, it's the player. I don't care, I'm putting Amy in the contraption now.

Despite Sonic Advance's sloppy end game, I was pleasantly surprised with it overall, and that maybe says more about my insanely low expectations for a handheld Sonic than it does the game itself. Uh, end of review.

outside of the (understandably) on-the-nose coloured doorways nearly every instance of environmental interaction is rich and tactile. thirty years later it's still a wonder to grope and paw at every (Possibly Maybe) malleable surface and leverage every new upgrade toward greater structural manipulation and command

in ensuring how and when are given as much significance as what and where it forms a relationship between actor and environment that bears uncommonly personal patterns and markings as you learn to use Your body as an implement to interface with the world. sidepaths and back alleys that carve Under - Over - Through reshape the familiar thru layered mechanical discovery and shift the internal v external dynamic in turn; mastery of the self begetting exponential mastery of the other

a fitting problem then that the biocircuitry, plunging intestinal mazes, and gloomy dark ambient synthesis quickly become less something to endure so much as to dominate; the dissonance for show, and the brutality nakedly glamorous and one sided. so much of it exists in service to the pursuit of (Your) power, kneeling with its neck outstretched waiting to feel bones shatter for Your gratification. sure, I feel obscenely powerful, but I'd rather feel anything else

strange scene it is
every thing in flames

THE YEAR OF THE DRAGON

I love Kaito and think this makes, conceptually, a good case for how he should step-up as being a proper main protagonist in a hypothetical Judgment 3, but woof man this was mid incarnate. I was disappointed by how the supporting cast in Lost Judgment got shelved but this didn't bother to make up for that either. A very perplexing choice to make a story expansion around Kaito's past but Higashi is hardly involved at all and the Matsugane stuff isn't really deepened whatsoever. Outside of Jun and the final boss, the story was a total lull with occasionally fun gameplay sprinkled in, intentionally reminding you of early mainline Yakuza/Like A Dragon, but nothing memorable to write home about than just boredom. I don't know how RGG or Sega can look at this with the small content provided and think this was definitely worth charging 30 bucks.

Now that the dust has settled, what do we all think of Sneak King?

Before this last playthrough, I would've said Sneak King was the best of the trilogy with Big Bumpin' being the worst, but nearly twenty years removed, I'm afraid to say the BK hierarchy has changed.

It's tragic, because Sneak King's opening sets you up for something special. A still shot of a darkened driveway... The King appears from the shadows, stalking about like a predator, his visage a cruel mockery of the human form intended to disarm and draw in his prey. But this beast is no man, and his attempt mimicry is all wrong, glassy-eyed and without life. And then you boot up the game proper and find that it's just a crusty stealth title that asks you to do the same exact thing over and over and over again.

If Pocket Bike Racer's problem was too little content, then Sneak King's is that there's too much. Twenty missions spread out over four levels, but every mission tasks you with essentially the same objective: deliver delicious Burger King meals to hungry masses. The most variety you'll get in how you go about that is in what order you'll need to hit up the various NPCs sulking around the map or how often you're allowed to make a mistake. Sometimes you'll need to deliver [X] amount of meals without getting caught or by climbing into trash cans (coincidentally where I found my copy of this game, I think someone threw it out by mistake) or popping out of houses, but the amount of repetition here really sucks all the fun out. The King doesn't even need to take pentazemin to stop his hands from shaking when delivering Original Chicken Sandwiches™, this game's got no meat on its bones!

The controls are also horrible, which is something I actually wouldn't accuse the other two games of. Say what you will about Big Bumpin' and Pocket Bike Racer, but movement at least feels serviceable. Sneak King inverts the Y-axis and makes climbing into cover so laborious that your mark will likely move away or collapse from hunger before you're able to get into position. The King shrugging his shoulders and shaking his damn head because I botched the timing on his sandwich delivery while the camera was juttering behind a tree branch, what the fuck do you want from me, man? When we get to the sawmill I'm throwing your ass in a woodchipper [Warning: do not do this. The King cannot be killed by conventional means, he will come back and he will be stronger.]

Despite how bad it is, Sneak King is often the entry in the BK Trilogy that people talk about, because it is the most conceptually interesting of the bunch and the one to lean the hardest into the marketing that gave life to this iteration of The King. Tactical Burger Delivery Action is such a good-dumb idea that at least one man has dedicated his time and income to collecting any copy of the game he can find, and by a magnitude of cents it is the most consistently expensive title in the series on the aftermarket. Curiously, graded copies of the game are actually worth less than open CIBs. I understand the economics of this and why that's the case, but it's very funny to think Sneak King inherently has more value when played.

Ohhhh, wait a minute... Sneak King sounds like sneaking. Shit, I just got it.

HOLD THE FORT. You mean to tell me that Tetsuya Mizuguchi and Masahiro Sakurai collaborated on a falling block puzzle game in 2006 and I'm just now finding out about it??

In short, this game rules. Sakurai brings the Melee orchestral soundfont, quirky game menus, charming art direction and scenario, and simple twist on a beloved genre that completely reinvents its gameplay. Mizuguchi brings the snappy gamefeel, reactive sound design, and overall dopamine-inducing game design. Together, they've made an addicting little time waster that's perfect as a pre-bedtime ritual.

Notably, this game is designed in such a way that I can't imagine it working on anything but the DS due to the touchscreen. Maybe a modern smartphone or even Switch port is possible, but Meteos is one of those classic victims of innovation left in the dust by the modern games industry.

Truth be told I’ve never been as big a fan of the Superstar formula as I wanted to be—the anthology structure is certainly unique, but I’ve always felt it left the experience as a whole feeling a tad disjointed. Each minigame is fun on its own, but most just don’t get the space or time to feel as fleshed out as I’d like them to be. That being said, I still enjoyed Superstar, and the same can more or less be said for this remake.

Superstar Ultra is a pretty straightforward translation of the SNES original: it’s got all the games you remember, and they play more or less how you remember them. Spring Breeze and Dyna Blade offer truncated (if basic) classic Kirby adventures. The Great Cave Offensive is a bit more inspired: a more robust, exploratory journey that’s always been a personal favorite for my collection-obsessed lizard brain. Return of Meta Knight is probably the best-realized game of the original roster, a fast, high-octane action movie parody full of frenetic combat and charming dialogue. Gourmet Race and the microgames all provide brief, almost Warioware-esque reprieves. And then to cap it all off you get Milky Way Wishes, which I think is actually kind of a confusing mess but the Marx fight is really cool so yeah sure whatever!

Any changes Ultra makes to that core lineup are minimal, mostly in the form of small but welcome optimizations. A more zoomed out screen, a better English translation, some more informative UI elements (a huge help in TGCO actually). The presentation has also been updated, although that’s something I’m more mixed on. I quite like the GBA/DS Kirby aesthetic, but it is a real shame to see one of the more distinct and vibrant Kirby games reimagined in this “house style”. The sprites looks great in their own right, but I do find myself missing the off-model charm of the original, particularly in the backgrounds and these crunchy 3D-rendered cutscenes.

Probably the change I’m most fond of is the fact that hey, we’re on the DS now! I always struggled with Superstar’s 8-in-one structure but it really does make so much more sense on a handheld, especially one as geared towards short, on-the-go play sessions as the original DS. It’s a great game to play in between other tasks when you got like 15-30 minutes to kill, something that was a lot harder to do when the game was straddled to a home console you had to hook up to a CRT (or in my case, a Wii to a monitor).

As far as the new modes go, they’re nice, harmless additions but ones I’m not terribly impressed by. I have no interest in boss rushes so I didn’t bother with any of the three arenas and I felt myself going through the motions with Metaknightmare. Revenge of the King was a genuine treat though, a great synthesis of everything that worked in the main games, all capped off by an instantly iconic boss fight. Probably my favorite experience on the cartridge. The new touchscreen microgames are nice as well, it’s something they basically had to do considering the game and the hardware but they got a lot more going on than I expected.

All in all, Superstar Ultra is a pretty appealing package. Is it better than Superstar? I dunno, probably? Not by a lot but I suppose it’s a bit more finely-tuned where it counts. It’s still not my favorite in the series, but I can’t ever have a truly bad time playing Kirby. A real nice one