I always looked back on this one even more fondly than the original trilogy, but playing them all now as an adult, this is definitely much weaker. Levels are now small and mazelike, and often have a very random, slapped-together feel.^ None of the level flow or enemy placement (or enemy design, for that matter) feels particularly thought-through. The only time when you can perceive much deliberation from the designers is when you encounter a cheap deathtrap that you know exists just to be annoying. That occasional 'gotcha' game design was probably classic iD's worst trait.

^It doesn't even have a proper final area! It just cuts to the ending cinematic whenever you beat all the levels in whatever order you feel like.

Looks nice! But inferior to the previous three games in just about every other way.

P.S.: This has to be easily the worst Bobby Prince soundtrack, right?

Incredibly, this game ends the first Keen trilogy by having you invade the homeworld of the alien enemies from previous games, where you proceed to lay waste to their entire civilization. You literally conduct a candy-colored one-kid genocide against this race of puppy-dog looking aliens (who you have been told are actually peaceful and merely being mind controlled!!), blasting your way through apartment buildings, cutting down whole families, shooting up a schoolhouse (kids, schoolmarm and all) with "KILL KEEN" translated into their language on the blackboard, and eventually progress to their military installations and the secret base of their mysterious controller. The idea that you're doling out this pint-sized holocaust against goofy aliens as Billy the precocious pre-teen is extremely funny and the scenario actually makes for many interesting new level designs, given that each area is roughly based on an everyday location (or the alien equivalent thereof). Some of the levels are a little too cute to be much fun, and the difficulty has been ratcheted up again. But the final boss is cool, and the whole idea is too fresh for the series and amusingly disturbing to be denied. They really went for it with this one!

It's hard for me to talk about the early Keens because they were some of the first video games I ever played -- this one in particular may have been THE first, I'm not sure. So there's a lot of nostalgia there.

Trying to separate myself from that somewhat, I think it's fair to say that this is a competent if simplistic platformer for its day. It's definitely better than a lot of its PC contemporaries, even some of the other ones from Apogee or iD themselves. And I'd say it's more charming.

The very basic gameplay kind of works in its favor, giving it a stark, no-frills focus. And although I can see how some might bristle at how the jumping/physics work, I like the sense of weight and momentum and having to sort of plan your jumps beforehand. But then again, maybe I've just played a lot of it. Less up for debate is how awesome the pogo stick is - truly an excellent powerup.

I probably remember these games a lot more fondly than most people do just because they were so foundational for me. PCs were a little behind in this era when it came to platformers, obviously, but I still managed to develop a love for the genre by finding the stronger titles, like this one. It's good clean fun.

Lots to like, but it's hamstrung by pervasive bugs, shit console optimization, fussy mechanics, and one or two very questionable design decisions. A little bit more polish would have gone a long way, as small things like the ship controls or the 'level design', if you will, of enclosed areas or structures are startlingly amateurish. On top of that, despite the game having an actual plot with required milestones, there is essentially zero quest design AND no map of any sort, and both of these things cannot be true if you expect your player to not have to check a guide to see what to do next in your open world game. And that kind of spoils the fun!

Didn't finish, couldn't be bothered wandering aimlessly to find the next new mineral after a certain point.

Pretty good! Excellent meat and potatoes racing and great damage modeling on the cars. There's nothing particularly groundbreaking and the career/progression is only serviceable, but in its best moments there is an exhilarating sense of destructive mayhem that I've never quite gotten from any other racer^. Careening around tracks littered with the burning husks of the other competitors, watching their numbers dwindle as they wreck (or you wreck them) -- it's a good time!

^I'm not exactly a big racing game guy though, so take this whole review knowing that it might just be that I'm an easy lay in this category.

Works from the template of the previous Master System Sonic but tries to focus more on speed and gimmicks as in the 16-bit versions. The increased pace in a lot of areas works fine, although it often makes levels feel very short. The gimmicks, however, like hang gliders, controllable air bubbles, and zipping through tubes, are almost all busted, and make much of the game feel like a janky hodgepodge.

By this second one I think they should have realized that they were better off making the 8-bit conversions their own thing instead of trying to haphazardly mimic the Genesis games. With a shift in strategy they could have made something a lot more fun.

P.S.: Additional half star off for -another- intolerable underwater zone. Even the real SONIC THE HEDGEHOG 2 had the sense to not do one!

A respectable simplification. Because of the Master System's limitations, the focus here is on much more simple platforming challenges, as in a Mario game. In fact, the whole thing very much reminds me of SUPER MARIO LAND and how that game related to its big brother. Judging it by that framework, it's competent but not particularly impressive. The controls and physics are good enough (and familiar enough, to players of the Genesis version) that you can pull off some daring jumps, but the level design isn't all that exciting. In fact, it ranges from run-of-the-mill to bad, with autoscrollers (which feel verboten in a Sonic game), janky vertical levels (where you can't fall back down past the screen at all or you instantly die) and, yes, Labyrinth Zone (you would have thought most of the levels being original to this game would have meant they could leave it out!! But no, here it is!! And it's even worse!!) The signature speed does show up from time to time, but mostly you'll be plodding along at a plumber's pace, carefully jumping and dealing with one enemy at at time.

Probably the most impressive thing about this is how much of Sonic's charm they were able to capture in this format. It can't live up to the big boys but they gave it a good shot.