The story part of it is pretty short, but in general it's a pretty neat addition. The area feels far more like what the wild area should have been in the first place, although the abrupt weather changes still exist and are jarring.

I like that there's some story and gameplay integration going on here. The super fast Slowpoke's have priority in battle, and another character cheats in a match by placing toxic spikes at the start of the match.

There's a decent amount of quality of life stuff here too, such as a character who will reset EVs to 0, a way to turn any compatible Dynamax mon into a Gigantamax mon, ability to make apricot balls etc.

Following Pokémon also make a nice comeback, although it feels a little unpolished.

It also suffers from level scaling. I guess it's supposed to be accessed directly after beating the champion in the main game, but due to when it came out, most people will have level 100's by now, making it a breeze to sweep through. They did get by this by making Kubfu the only Pokémon you can use in the final gauntlet, but it's so easy to get to 100 with EXP candy that grinding is no longer needed, kinda ruining the whole "bonding" thing you're supposed to do.

(This is technically more a review of the remake than specifically this remaster, but it's the version I just played, so)

Back in 2002, the Resident Evil remake of a 1996 game set a standard for remakes that even remakes made in the 2020's, of games made 20+ years ago can't keep up with.

This remake does so much. It adds new sections to pretty much every area in the game. It adds new puzzles, it expands on old puzzles, it switches the order of puzzles and it throws in some twists to what the player thought they knew (such as the second Yawn battle taking place in a different area).

A few new mechanics are also thrown in without overshadowing the originals feel, only enhancing it, i.e Crimson Heads.

It's a game that is a brand new experience to a very familiar one.

Of course that's only really describing it as a remake. It keeps all the things I loved about the original, which is a review all of its own (see my Resident Evil Director's Cut review for that.)

The only thing I miss from the originals is the music (the Remake seems to go for more subtle tracks, if it even has something in any given area), and the garish colours of the mansion, replaced by generic dark hallways.

The birthplace of Sonic's iconic boost formula. It doesn't really work that well here though since the amount of death pits and whatnot make moving at light speeds way too risky. This also extends to the trick system which is pretty cool, but often you'll be launched, do some tricks, and then you'll land on like a jump pad or rail without warning while you're still tricking, so you'll jump at the wrong time and die.

There's also the issue of how this game handles the dual screens. On paper it sounds great, Sonic moves between both screens for one huge vertical screen. The issue here is that there's a massive blind spot between the screens, which combined with any other navigation issues mentioned above, plus the smaller screens due to being on a handheld, this game just generally never felt safe. Everything is too fast on a screen that is too small, reaction windows are non-existant.

It doesn't completely ruin the game or anything, it's more than possible to beat. And the levels do provide some pretty cool set pieces, like even hang gliding in one of them. But nothing about the game truly stood out in terms of level design. It's very much your standard 2D Sonic affair in that regard, for better or worse.

Blaze also has only 1 or 2 very minor differences to Sonic, which is a let down considering other playable characters feeling unique has been a thing since Sonic 3. She does have a fire aesthetic to all her moves though, so it still makes her better than Sonic lol. Her levels and bosses are also 100% the same, though the order is slightly different. If you want the true ending you will need to play through these 2 extremely identical campaigns twice. The game is nice enough to only make you collect the emeralds through special stages in Sonic's story though - Blaze gets hers automatically.

Bosses are pretty good. The designs of the mechs are neat. There is a bit too much just waiting for the opportunity to attack in them all though.
The super secret final boss itself is just your standard Super Sonic flying through space finale that they seem to default to way too much.

So basically I think Sonic Rush could have been a fun, but average, Sonic game, but is held back by small screen sizes with a huge blind spot and gameplay features that do not mix well with those things.

The game was better as a memory.