We are in 2024, graphics are getting better than we could have ever imagined before, and companies are still racing against each other in hopes of reaching a technical finish line that, time and time again, has been proven to not exist.

Not only famous game directors are receiving more mainstream attention, but big-name actors are also getting interested in the industry, attracting a significant number of outsiders as a result.

From the biggest AAA studio to a single-handed indie developer, all sorts of resources are easily available to help make their projects a reality, and because of it, we are getting more and more releases per year to the point where it's impossible to keep track of them all.

But for some reason, despite all that, this ugly as a sin 2008 game made in the ancient RPGMAKER2000 engine of all things, borrowing licensed music and numerous visual assets, achieved something that's rarely seen in gaming: using the video game format to create something personal; something real.

The uniqueness of its presentation and its quirky, loud nature, completely devoid of ego, hooked me from the start, and it never let me go, not even once it started to get darker as we dived into its abyss.

The plot hit me like a truck because I could feel its sincerity, especially after that ending, which I would feel like a criminal for spoiling because it's one of the absolute bests I have ever seen in any artistic medium.

So, yeah, please give this one a try. Take your time to explore and talk to every NPC you see. Whether you end up loving it or hating it, I'm certain that the experience is not going to leave you indifferent. And goddamn, isn't that alone such a beautiful thing?.

Dreadful, absolutely dreadful.

It's not just the rubber band mechanic, which makes your partner either constantly slow you down or get in your way by going one hundred miles per hour, making the camera shake as if you were both inside of a blender, nor is it just the fact that the power ups screw you over all the time, to the point where you need to wait for them to wear off until you can proceed with the stage, it's also the level design on its own.

I'm gonna be honest, this is one of the most boring games i have ever played in my life. It's bland, uninspiring; there are barely any enemies; there are no real obstacles that get in your way and the game does absolutely nothing interesting with the rubber band mechanic, you know, the mechanic on which the game is based on?

No interesting puzzles, no challenging platform, no rewarding exploration, no twists, no nothing.
Knuckles Chaotix is basically an abysmal 2D walking simulator that drags for over 2 hours.

Boss battles are ungodly too; making it a requirement to land a series of successful hits on an already difficult-to-control game is just straight up immoral.

The bonus stage is awful too; it's constantly suffering from slowdowns, and the 3D hexagonal tubes have this incredibly jarring clipping effect that makes you feel like you are constantly on the verge of falling off the stage, which, by the way, CAN actually happen.

Yes, music is awesome but that doesn't make the game worth it at all.
Would you like to listen to your favorite album while a herd of dogs bite your balls?
This game is like listening to your favorite album while a herd of dogs bite your balls.

It took me over 20 years to finally sit down and play this through to the very end, and it was fun!

I've got to say, at least on a personal level, that the Sega Genesis will always be, for me, the system with the best-looking games ever, at least if we are talking about pixel art. There's something just so charming about its very limited yet extremely versatile color palette. This, the Illusion games, Sparkster, Dynamite Headdy, Beyond Oasis, Thunder Force IV, and Sonic 3, among many others, will forever be the peak of how video games can and should look.

While I was looking for a longplay on this game to solve a puzzle that I couldn't figure out, I read one comment that said, "Graphics never got any better than this," and I can definitely agree with that statement.

Your main weapon, the plunger gun, is such a cool idea; you can stack them up against a wall and use them to climb, or stick them into an enemy and grab the handle of a plunger to use them to ride on them... I just wish it was implemented in more ways, as it feels like there are so many unexplored possibilities, and that's my overall biggest complaint with the game; as fun as it is, it feels a bit simplistic in its design.

Levels feel kind of bland towards the middle of the game, with Maharajah and the South Pole being the best examples of this, and that's what's stopping me from giving it a higher ranking, as well as the fact that some bosses have very finicky hit boxes and can be a pain. You just feel like the game is trying to give you a hard time for no reason other than to annoy you.

The ending is silly, and I loved it, and the music is fantastic—not the best in the vast Genesis catalog, but still up there.

But yeah, other than those two complaints, I loved it, and I already see myself playing it many, many more times in the future.

Friedrich Nietzsche once said, "If you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you" and that's exactly how I felt playing Final Fight.

At first, it was fun; punching people in the face was satisfying enough, and the music was good. But then, slowly but surely, something within me started to awaken. Something evil, foul, and far beyond my comprehension

Maybe it was that it seemed as if I was punching the same people over and over again wearing different clothing to an endless infinity, the fact that you have very limited moves, or maybe it was simply watching the enemies repeat animations before standing up again. And I stood there countless times, patiently waiting for them to come out of the bounderies of the TV screen until they were ready to return to the world inside the video game...

Suddenly, big enemies appeared, grabbing me and giving me no chance to fight back, draining my life with just one move and my soul with it. And I swear for everything that's good and almighty that I've seen the same dog barking at me on this bridge at least four times by now.

I decided to play Final Fight, but I never thought it would be the game that would end up playing me.

One of the most boring beat 'em ups I have ever played so far.

Repetitive as hell, the sprites are huge and the screen small, so you are constantly waiting for the enemies to appear, and when they do, they drain your life in three seconds. Good visuals, though.

I ain't gonna bother finishing this one; I was halfway through, got stuck on a difficult spike, and I just couldn't care less, so I watched the last 20 minutes or so I had left on Youtube and called it a day.

I have many games yet to play, and the two hours or so I dedicated to this one felt like a huge waste of my time.

Games don't have to be hard in order to be enjoyable or memorable; if anything, at my age, I really appreciate when I can just relax and have a simple, short, yet compelling adventure such as this one.

Controls are tight and responsive; power-ups are downgraded compared to Super Star in terms of versatility, but to compensate for this, each and every one has different variations depending on which companion you choose. The addition of puzzles was also a welcomed new feature, and some of them were actually quite clever despite the game obviously aiming for a younger audience. The graphics are beautiful; they look like they were drawn with a crayon, giving its visuals a very unique style that no other Kirby game has. As for level design, I don't think they were as "flat" as some people say; they are very simple and straight-forward, but there are tons of secrets to be found, and the games offer a nice variety, especially if you aim for 100% completion.

7/10. I would definitely spend a whole night going through it again.

This is not a very easy title to sum up, so please bear with me while I try my best to describe the Nights into Dreams experience with my broken english.

Nights into Dreams is not an easy game to understand at first. This is mostly because the game won't tell you anything about how it is meant to be played, and while visually it conveys enough information for players to manage their way for a couple of levels, you'll soon find out that the game won't allow you to play the last ones if you haven't mastered its gameplay, which comes with a lot of guessing, experimentation, and good old trial and error.

Simply put, Nights into Dreams is a very peculiar game, truly one of a kind. You fly through its levels, collecting all sorts of items that will affect Nights in various ways:
Going through rings will raise your boost meter, which allows you to go faster; collecting stars will give you points, which are necessary to get a better score at the end of the level; and spheres, which are required to beat all four of the level mid bosses. Every time you collect one of these items in a row, regardless of which one, you'll form a "link" combo. The more items you get without stopping your momentum, the bigger the combo, and the better the game will evaluate you at the end of the stage, ranking you from F to A depending on how well you did. Now, the trick to getting high scores is to defeat the midboss first and then explore through the section without heading towards the goal right off the bat. Instead, you need to aim for a high link combo, do all sorts of acrobatics, and find special eggs so Nightopians (this game's mascots) can hatch from them. So as you can see, it has a heavy focus on going through the levels several times in order to memorize where everything is, plan ahead, and create your own path to make the largest link combo possible.

Once you beat a level, there are boss battles that are all unique and hard to explain. You'll mostly use Night's dash attack to bounce enemies and cause them damage, but everyone behaves differently, so it's possible that you won't be able to defeat them the first time you fight them. One of them will make you bounce it through a large corridor until you reach its end, and there's another one with the same exact moveset as you that will try to bounce you back for a change, just to name a couple.

As original as the game is though, it does have some notable flaws: if you lose a boss battle, you'll be forced to play the level all over again regardless of how well you did; the gameplay is simply too fast; and if you are playing with a regular Saturn controller, your thumb will start hurting after long sessions because it requires fast and precise input reactions, it can get pretty intense. Sometimes there's too much visual information on screen, and more often than not some parts of the levels will overlap with each other, which can be very confusing, but once you understand what you are doing and get a hold of it, it's very satisfying to play, and it rewards players for sticking up to its particular design.

Artistically, this is top-notch stuff. Not many games of this era come close to what Nights into Dreams accomplished with its dreamy visuals, incredible character design, and vibrant backgrounds. It's no surprise to find out that Naoto Oshima was behind the game's conception, working mostly as the main director. This game has his mark all over the place, and it's a great experience to play something made by such a talented, creative artist. The music is also amazing; props to Sega's sound team; they were at the top of their game during the Saturn era.

I can definitely see why people won't get into Nights into Dreams or just won't have the patience necessary to learn it, and I have to admit, this is a pretty eccentric game, but I persevered and enjoyed a fantastic experience as a reward for my efforts.

Stick Canyon is a horrible level, though, jesus Naoto, give me a break, man.