Despite an obvious dog whistle of a title and story, the game is honestly...fine? Like, don't get me wrong, it plays well and has a charming, if overly simplistic, art style, but did we really need Wario Land 5 with a sprinkling of Sonic the Hedgehog? This is not the next big world-changing combination since Harry Reese discovered the culinary genius that is chocolate mixed with peanut butter. Instead, we have a Wario game that emphasizes going as fast as possible and not taking your time and enjoying the inventive level themes and enemy designs. Why craft all these things if you just want us to run past them? I suppose that's the culture nowadays, people want everything over with as quickly as possible. Such is the era of TikTok and McDonald's...sigh

To understand why this game is so divisive these days, one must first look back at the circumstances in which this game was first released. It was a game released solely on an expensive expansion to the Genesis known as the Sega CD. Due to its prohibitive price, the Sega CD was only accessible to those in prestigious, intellectually intensive careers like engineers or high class escorts. The developers, knowing this, decided to make a game that appealed to said intellectual elite. Unfortunately, the game has become accessible to an audience it was never intended for. Many people today don't like Sonic CD, but they also very likely would not enjoy reading an advanced physics textbook. These products were not intended for the masses, and thus cannot be judged by them. In many schools of Buddhist meditation, the knowledge of the illusoriness of the self is often safeguarded and only shown to the most diligent of practitioners. The reason for this is that the common man, when faced with such profundity, often responds with a gormless "so what?". This sadly mirrors the reception Sonic CD has today.

A genuinely great and underrated game. I think this game doesn't get near the amount of credit it deserves. The presentation is pretty sub-par, there's a few too many repeat bosses, and the scoring system isn't great. Still, I think those core mechanics are so good that the game really shines in spite of them. The game has a very classic Platinum/Kamiya approach to difficulty, where it incentivizes you to learn the game until you're playing on the highest difficulty, where some core mechanic is changed or removed. Here, the formation system is nerfed significantly on Platinum Hard, but I think it makes the game far more strategic and interesting on that difficulty. I really see something special here, and I hope to see Platinum tackle other smaller projects and bring their knack for really inventive gameplay hooks to other classic genres.

Considering how similar they are, I'm just going to copy and paste my Bayonetta 1 review because pretty much all of my thoughts carry over:
For basically the first of its kind, this game does an absolutely great job. Sure, there's a lot I could complain about. Like the fixed camera angles giving away its origins as a Resident Evil title, or that the voice acting is really rough compared to modern games, or how Dante has a very limited set of weapons that he can't change on the fly. All of that, however, is small potatoes compared to what this game completely nails: atmosphere. Mallet Island is genuinely one of the most delightfully spooky locations in all of video games, and I don't say that lightly! It really reminds me of old Universal monster movies that I'm such a big fan of. And how could I forget Dante? Dante is the pitch perfect protagonist to explore this madhouse of wonders. Effectively an anime version of John Rambo, he doesn't flinch in the face of any of the game's innumerable crazy creatures. To top it all off, these disparate tones and ideas are wrapped up into a cohesive package, that tells a surprisingly heart-warming tale about redemption and what it means to be human.