The trilogy ends with a whimper. DKC 3 tries so hard to be a Mario game (especially with its over-reliance on a phony world map) that it sheds the series' promising unique flavor. The level order feels thematically cobbled, without the natural dramatic build of DKC's first half (the sunset-night-morning progression of 'Kongo Jungle' is neither equaled nor attempted here). And despite developer Rare's efforts to up their graphical prowess, this final game boasts the worst visuals of the bunch: blurry, low-contrast, overly-textured models in lieu of the first game's aesthetic clarity.

Link's Awakening is an incredible game for Gameboy standards, and one of my favorite entries in the Zelda series. It does not escape every problem that comes with making a Zelda game for a system with two buttons, and a limited amount of storage space, but I'd say the design of the world heavily outweighs the issues and makes it a must-play if you're looking for some good dungeons to explore, and caves to spelunk.

Oh, right, we're talking about DX. Sometimes, you kinda forget that Link's Awakening was originally a 1993 black and white Gameboy title, as the addition of color in the DX version makes the original pretty obsolete. In addition to that, it contains a bonus dungeon with a very useful powerup, and an optional side quest, that albeit mechanically useless due to its dependence on the Gameboy Camera, still provides some cute art that makes it worth seeking out. In other words, make the DX version your priority, it keeps everything and adds more cool stuff on top.

Despite being an 8-bit title, I was impressed by the translation of Link to the Past QoL features onto it. Your sword still a satisfying sense of range, and with the press of one button, you have access to a full map of the overworld, although in this instance, it fills out as you go along. It'll still ensure that you'll never get lost, and really makes me wonder why Zelda 1 couldn't do this. Was the case that the Gameboy had more powerful specs that allowed for a full map compared to Zelda 1 on the NES? Or was Zelda 1's inclusion of a manual map a fully intentional choice rather than a technical one? Either way, the way Link's Awakening handled it is much more preferable.

The world has an immense amount of locale variety, and each dungeon will challenge you in new ways through each new item it introduces. It's crazy just how close to Link to the Past's quality this game is, if not, in my opinion, even better. It feels like there's less overall empty space in the overworld, in part due to game going back to a grid-based map with each room being a square long, which makes each room feel like it serves more purpose. Perfect for a handheld entry.

Something I find especially enticing about Link's Awakening is the tone of the story itself, which seperates the series from the generic fantasy roots, and strands you within the confines of a mysterious island directly inspired by Twin Peaks. It definitely shows, the NPC's aren't just stilted hint dispensers directly telling you what to do, they're much closer to people with their own lives, with hints disguised behind their troubles, or their curiosity over something they saw recently. But even sometimes, their dialogue isn't about giving you a hint at all, sometimes they're just minding their own business, or doing something weird or silly that doesn't help you at all. And while all of this sounds completely expected for a modern player, believe you me, if you were to play a couple RPG's that were released around this time, the way Link's Awakening handles NPC dialogue would be a refreshing breath of air.

All this makes the moral conundrum of the story that appears within the latter half all the more interesting, as Link's Awakening proceeds to raise an existential question within its latter half, challenging your preconception of what is right, what is wrong, and whether your quest is even worth it. I mean, we're not talking master-class writing here, but because of the strong sense of personality this game exudes, the things it wants to ask yourself hit pretty strong, and as it lets you contemplate this all the way to the final stretch of gameplay, it'll hit all the more strongly. It's a simple, yet powerful story about what are you willing to sacrifice to succeed in your goal, and even if it may make me look stupid, I always tear up a little for its message.

There's a lot of good, but there is a little bit of jank. Firstly, going back to the game having very few buttons to work with, the inventory system takes some getting used to. While Zelda 1 has one slot to equip an item in, Link's Awakening has two, and that includes the slot you equip your sword in. Where this screws up is the impractical implementation of certain equippable items that could've worked far better as context-sensitive-use items. Such as the shield. This did not need to be something you gotta equip for it to work, it could've worked like Zelda 1 where all you do is face towards a projectile to automatically use it.

Ditto for the power gauntlets that let you lift heavy objects, all you needed for that to work is have it activate based on proximity to the object, but instead you gotta equip it first.
Now, generally speaking, you can get away with just keeping your sword on the A button, and whatever current item you need on the B button, but that's still gonna be a whole lot of times where you'll be heading into the inventory to swip and swap and swoop and sweep your items around based on what you currently need, and it surely could've been a lot less with some simplifications of how items work.

Thankfully, the upside to this is that the inventory system is very quick to access, equip, and get out of. Once you get used to it, each inventory-equipping session should take a little less than 3 to 5 seconds.

The second bit of jank pertains to Awakening's random drop items. Occasionally you'll get your usual stuff, like health drops, rupees, and whatnot. But more than often, you might get powerups that double your defense or attack power. What's more, these powerups don't have a time limit on them, they last for as long as you avoid damage, so you could keep them for long amounts of time if you're good enough. Sounds good, right? Okay, now imagine the entire game's soundtrack is replaced by an 8-second jingle that plays on loop for as long as you keep this powerup.

The result is that you eventually start deliberately avoiding these powerups, and everytime you accidentally touch one, you go "fuck!" and proceed to start deliberately taking damage just so that maddening jingle can stop playing. It's like if you played Mario 1 with nothing but the Starman song on loop. This was a very poorly thought out design decision, and should've been represented through a visual change rather than an auditory one.

On the topic of sound, I would also say that the dungeon music doesn't exactly hold up in all the right places. Having a unique song for each dungeon was admirable, but the game being several kilobytes long means that these are all stupidly short loops, and some of them can get quite grating. I think I would've rather preferred this space to be dedicated to a 2-3 minute dungeon song with more variety, and have just that be used for all dungeons. I mean, one of the dungeons literally just has the cave music but sped up, come on guys.

The best way to play Link's Awakening may be subjective, but my recommendation would be this one. You should also consider getting the Redux romhack, which I think fixes the powerup music issue by disabling it, and introduces some other small QoL things. As for the Switch remake, that could probably be a good way as well, but I'm honestly not big on that version's 30FPS, and its excessive use of depth of field. The soundtrack is a lot nicer, though. All in all, I think the Gameboy Color and the Switch remake both have their pros and cons, and you may just wanna play both of them to experience the game from two wildly different perspectives.

The game itself is wonderful, even amid some of its smaller flaws, and some of the best top-down Zelda action you can get. It's smart, chock-full of content, charming to boot, and even a little sad at times. Next to Minish Cap, it's way up there on my top Zelda games.

It's a miracle that Sonic 2 was handed over to a largely western studio with some members of the original japanese Sonic 1 team, and that in spite of the language barrier this imposed, Sonic 2 came out fantastically. Nearly every problem from Sonic 1 is gone.

The speed cap has been removed, the spin dash has been added as a way to quickly gain speed, and the level design is so much more consistently better this time around. No more Labyrinth Zones, every world is as good as the previous one, encouraging the use of speed and momentum to find hidden nooks and crannies, and doing so at higher speeds than before. The pacing has been nailed down to 2 levels per zone, instead of the 3 from before, and now there are more zones and more visual variety to keep things fresh.

There are still some problems. There is at least one zone that for some reason goes back to having 3 levels, and I would say that zone has pacing issues comparable to something like Sonic 1's Spring Yard, where sometimes it's good, and other times it grinds down to a halt, alongside enemy placement that rarely feels fair to predict. The final boss also gives you no rings to protect yourself with, making anything it does a one-hit kill, which is a blatantly cheap way to increase the difficulty.

I would also say the special stages haven't aged well. Technically impressive as they may have been, nowadays they look choppy, and it gets difficult to react to oncoming obstacles. Tails following you around also tends to be a hinderance here, unless you disabled him in the options, which is what I always do. However, the reward for clearing all special stages, Super Sonic, is extremely worth it, and a satisfying victory lap for your effort that I cannot believe recent Sonic games just don't do anymore for anything but scripted sequences.

Sonic 2 has some rough edges towards the end of the game, but for the most part, it's a much more fun experience that everyone should play. I would recommend the version from the Sega Saturn "Sonic Jam" collection (gives you some rings for the final boss to lower the dumb difficulty), or the PC decompilation of the Sonic 2 Android port (widescreen, better special stages, and more), and as a last emergency scenario, the Sonic Origins collection (too expensive, but carries most of the Android benefits...), or the original Genesis version with an infinite lifes cheat code, or save states for the final boss. The good outweighs the bad in this case, and rounds out Sonic 2 as an excellent installment in the franchise.

(This is the 43rd game in my challenge to go through many known games in chronological order starting in 1990. The spreadsheet is in my bio.)

I took a few-month-long break from this challenge, only to return to arguably one of the most well-known video games of all time: Sonic the Hedgehog, which released on June 23rd, 1991 for the Sega Genesis. As someone who's childhood was dominated by Mario and Nintendo rather than Sonic and Sega, this was the first time I actually tried not only the original Sonic game, but any Sonic game period.

Expecting a fast paced variation to the multitude of same-y platformers that the video game industry printed out in and around 1991, I was not disappointed. For the most part.

More on the game in detail below.

STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS | 4/10

This is another one of those games that doesn't really have any in-game storytelling apart from the boss encounters. You have to stop evil Dr. Ivo Robotnik, who snatches innocent animals and turns them into evil robots.

You, of course, are Sonic the Hedgehog. I'll give the manual of this game the honors to describe him to you: "It's Sonic, the real cool hedgehog with the spiked haircut and power sneakers that give him super speed." That's a cute description. Obviously, Sega finally found their answer to Nintendo's Mario with Sonic after trying with Alex Kidd from 1986 up until Sonic replaced him. Dr. Robotnik himself turned into an iconic video game antagonist as well, though after his first appearance here, I'd think it's either because he was just the villain millions of children were chasing back in the day, or because he has a more prominent role in future entries. Either way, Sega created one of the most iconic characters in video games here, and for that they deserve all the praise they got through the years.

Every other character you know and love from the series isn't present here yet.

GAMEPLAY | 13/20

This is a 2D platformer the likes you've seen before. At least for the most part. You have to jump attack enemies to make them pop or avoid them altogether. You have to watch for spikes at the bottom of the screen, lest you want to see your demise. You need to take out bosses after the end of each area. You have to do this for multiple areas until you defeat the final boss. And you start with 3 lives to accomplish this.

The catch: You gain in speed as you gain in momentum. This means, the longer you can run forward uninterrupted, the faster you become. I don't know why I am explaining this, you all know Sonic. ... Running fast allows you to reach otherwise unreachable heights and areas to boost your score, find secrets and generally avoid the pitfalls that avoid you at the bottom of the screen.

Those pitfalls? Those aforementioned spikes for example. There are platforms you can jump on mixed in with spikes, and if you fall into them, you take a hit.

["Health" in this game explained: Taking a hit is not fatal as long as you carry 1 coin or more with you. If you get hit, you lose that coin. You can try to pick it back up before it disappears. If you run around with no coins, any hit is fatal, unless you have picked up a power-up item that acts like a shield. This is similar to Mario in that he'll instantly die if you are small Mario, but get infinite health as long as you can find mushrooms after every time you take a hit.]

With the spikes, the problem is, it doesn't matter whether you carry coins, because you don't gain i-frames if you take a hit from them. So you end up taking the hit, which throws you vertically into the air and back down on top of the spikes, which then kills you. That was pretty annoying, though they are easy to avoid once you start remembering the level map.

There are also snakes which you can only hit if you jump on top of their head, but it's easy to miss to at first and jump on top of its tail, which will damage you. Early on, there is also spike bridge which keeps spinning, and I still haven't figured out when to jump on top of it without avoiding the spikes.

I haven't gotten too deep into the game to see what about half of the levels look like, but as you can see, it's a typical design of figuring things out as you keep playing. The Arcade design with these types of games hasn't really aged well because instead of spending a couple hours and beating the game, devs put these mechanics in place to keep you playing for dozens of hours before you win, as otherwise you'd notice that the game in actuality is quite short. One full playthrough takes less than an hour, if you can actually win. And unlike a game like Super Mario World, where I would collect 30+ 1Up's without any issue, the extra lives are much more hidden, and presumable scarce, here.

There are some parts where you have to hop on platforms as they slowly appear, or where you have to avoid spikes at the bottom as previously mentioned, and those sectioned kind of felt out of place in a game that has speed as its main theme.

When you reach full speed though, and everything loops quite well, the gameplay becomes satisfying. But to reach that kind of fluidity will take you a while, at least in this specific game.

MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 6/10

No voice acting. I have mixed feelings about the sound design, as I thought that some effects sounded pretty good, but some pretty bad. The sound of the ground beneath me collapsing just sounds unnecessarily aggressive, the sound that keeps playing when you have the shield power-up equipped just shouldn't exist (I would describe it as such: "hatufff") and the 18 sounds that play at the same time whilst you are in the secret 'floating maze' area sounded unnerving. I think Sega could improve a lot in this area in future iterations, though I'm obviously complaining on a high level here. The soundtrack, at least for the first half of levels which I was able to play, sounded pretty good. The Green Hill Zone music I was already familiar with through, among other things, it being sampled into rap songs. In general, I thought the soundtrack was nice to listen to.

GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 7/10

The graphics here look pretty good for its time. Some zones are rather basic looking in presentation, some way too busy, but overall, the game is definitely above average visually. If you have played a future entry, this might be a bit harder to look, I can't say, but if you're a newcomer to the series, this game definitely fits right in with just about any game in this era. Though to me, this game is many steps behind Super Mario World in graphical presentation nonetheless thanks to Super Mario World's variety in presentation and much cleaner and unique animations. Though back then, this wasn't the predominant opinion, and you might feel differently today as well.

ATMOSPHERE | 6/10

There isn't really much here to put into a cohesive unit that emanates an immersive "Sonic-like atmosphere", and I feel like that's something that will work itself out in the upcoming releases.

The mix of sounds with everything that happens on the screen through the music and sound effects feels excessive and unconnected at times and the zones don't really tell me much about where Sonic is and what this world feels like. The soundtrack, while nice to listen to on its own, sounds like it lacks a little bit of punch to the speedster that Sonic is. Look, I know rambling about this is way too serious and ridiculous, and I agree, but that's what this section is for. I doubt many share these thoughts, but that's what I thought about whilst playing the game. Hello to you, if you actually are reading this. :-)

CONTENT | 6/10

This is a short game, if you actually manage to beat it. It takes less than one hour for a normal full playthrough. Of course, it'll take you 10+ hours to actually beat it because of all the trial and error. Besides blazing through the levels, there are some hidden secret areas that will grant you some power up items, extra lives and a boost to your total score, plus those Secret Zones where you can collect "Chaos Emeralds". The Chaos Emeralds in the original version are there to give you the good ending, if you collect them all. In some other entries, and in a 2013 remaster entry of this title, acquiring them all enables Super Sonic, an OP golden version of Sonic.

In terms of the zone differences, the game does continue to mix things up the further you progress, though not in a major way. There are also no deviations from the core gameplay here by introducing other mechanics, which makes sense, as this is the first Sonic game. For example in Super Mario World, you have levels where you can acquire Yoshi, which changes gameplay up a bit, or you have special boss and ghost zones which play differently, among other things.

LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 7/10

The levels in this game are put into 6 different zones plus a final zone, with each zone differing in style. Levels are for the most part designed to enhance Sonic's strength, speed, by for example giving him spirals to run through and gain momentum. At the same time, some levels include parts that force the player to take it slower, unless the player is already extremely skilled and knowledgeable about the game to rarely run into any obstacles. Either way, there are some parts where you simply need to wait for platforms to carry you somewhere or to come down to your level so you can jump on top of them.

Overall, the level design is unique thanks to the speed factor, but otherwise doesn't really stray far from the average platformer formula. That is to be expected though, as this is the first Sonic game made.

CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 9/10

This game gets a big bonus for giving us the debut of Sonic and introducing speed as such a prevalent feature in its design, something you didn't really see anywhere else on this level. Is it very unique apart from those things? Definitely not, but I don't think it needs to be, at least until Sonic the Hedgehog 2 releases in November 1992.

REPLAYABILITY | 2/5

How replayable would this game be after you beat it once? Not a lot. You are unlikely to collect all Chaos Emeralds your first time through and will likely receive the bad ending, so the main motivations to play this again would be to beat your previous score and obtain the good ending.

PLAYABILITY | 5/5

The game worked well at all times, apart from the very few areas where I experienced slowdown, though that was a given for pretty much all Sega Genesis games at the time, and in the number of times it happened here, not a big deal at all.

OVERALL | 65/100

You want to know if Sonic the Hedgehog is worth playing today? I'd say so. Unlike Super Mario World, which was this game's main competitor at the time, I can't say Sonic the Hedgehog aged quite as well. That's tough to do however, as I would say that Super Mario World is probably the best platformer of the early 90s. Sonic the Hedgehog remains the debut game for Sonic however, and this piece of video gaming history is definitely worth experiencing, and once you get comfortable with the game, gaining more and more speed with Sonic will feel more and more satisfying. Future entries will of course present you with much cleaner experiences however.

WHAT THEY SAID AT THE TIME

Steve Harris for EGM, Issue 24 (July '91): "Definitely, without a doubt, positively the most incredible action game ever created for the Genesis!"

Boogie Man for Game Pro, Issue 23 (June '91): "Sonic the Hedgehog's multi-scrolling graphics are a knockout"

There's two ways to look at Donkey Kong Country 3: A decent yet underrated send off to DKC that released too late and whose reputation was tarnished by the boom of 3D gaming, or a piece of crap garbage game that replaces Donkey Kong with a baby. A baby!!

Me? I like to think the truth is uh, somewhere in the middle.

While this is wild speculation, the impression I get from Double Trouble is that much of the talent from the last two games vacated before this project began to get to work on titles for the Nintendo 64. The formula is intact, this feels like a proper Donkey Kong Country on its surface, but the level design is so much more flat, gimmicks don't land nearly as well and are often irritating, and outside of a mostly unnecessary but kinda cool overworld, there's not a whole lot that feels like it's pushing these games forward in a positive way. It would not surprise me if this was a Mega Man 5 situation where everyone shrugged and asked "well, what the hell do you do after Diddy's Kong Quest?"

You put a hideous baby in the game, apparently. I don't like babies! I think they're gross! I gag when I see baby-related paraphernalia, I don't want to play as one. Every time I see a baby I think "Ugh. Baby." Babies vomit and crap all over themselves, they cannot forge for food, their skulls are soft, they are not the protagonists of video games! You might protect a baby in a game, but they aren't the stars of their own adventure, you don't put them on the front of a box!!

It's also a little weird that there's three Donkey Kong Country games for the SNES and you only play as DK in the first one, right?

Even the presentation is off. There's this uncanny quality to a lot of the sprites, the music feels very uninspired, and the setting lacks a lot of the charm and uniqueness of the previous games. Yet despite all my misgivings, I don't think Double Trouble is a bad game, so much as it's just mediocre. Diddy's Kong Quest was a tough act to follow, especially for a game coming out on the very tail end of the SNES' lifecycle and during a holiday season where it had to compete with games like Mario 64. I've heard people talk about this game in extremely negative ways, and like, if they played Mario 64 before this - or worse, were expecting Mario 64 for Christmas and got fucking Dixie Kong's Double Trouble instead - I honestly can't say I'd blame them for harboring some long-standing resentment for it. I'd be pretty disappointed, too.

This is the most "throw things at a wall and see what sticks" game I've played maybe ever. So many random gimmicks and ideas that SOMETIMES come together to make level design that I'd call coherent and fun, but the other 90% of the time I find myself asking.. why, why, why? I'm frustrated by the missed potential- what an unfortunate way to end a trilogy, especially as a follow-up to DKC2, one of the best platformers ever made. It's worse because the game isn't outright bad, but it's so painfully mediocre in a way that feels like such a letdown coming from Rare.

Another classic from my childhood. I definitely understand why it has its current reputation. And I get why the opinion on it has so drastically changed into the negative. It's one of the only Mario games that lacks the Nintendo standard of polish, and almost every bit of it feels like it is being held together by shoestrings and chewing gum. But Super Mario Sunshine is creative, and unique.

The Fludd adds a good deal to the platforming, it makes me wish there was a Sunshine 2 where they could have expanded it further. Clearing off the goop with the water jets is satisfying, and you get to use it in a couple creative ways. Sure, a lot of times moving and jumping with Mario feels wonky, but the different secondary nozzles are all fun enough to make up for it.

So yeah, it's good, and yes it has problems. Yes, the brightness is legitimately blinding and they lock the ability to adjust it behind 50 shines, and yes they make you reset that again every time you go back to the hub. Yes the final boss is piss easy. Yes the secret red coin pachinko game is really annoying and made me want to shove Miyamoto in the face, and sure, on my 5th time trying to get through that boat section in Corona Mountain I wanted to hurt him physically. Absolutely.

But the game is still a blast. It's pretty, the music is great, and it feels different to other games like Mario 64 or Odyssey. Try it out again. For me.