HOT DAMN!!!!! Ok so obvious shit out of the way first this game is packed to the brim with color and energy and the art style is definitely hitting the chord of being something like a niche mini series of a show that happened in the early 00s that had this as a tie in game that somehow crossed dimensions over to us in present day... does that sound insane? MAYBE!!!! IDC THIS SHIT WENT HARD AS FUCK!!! And here's why

A rhythm action game is a unicorn of a mashup that honestly i dont think ive ever seen done in this exact way, everything from the environments that bustle and bounce along to the beat of the world around you.. to the beat of your allies and enemies attacks its all SO! FUCKING! A D D I C T I N G! Sometimes id find myself genuinely just lingering around areas for much longer, my play times for these levels that are around maybe 30 minutes a pop each sit around an hour and do you know Why?????? I LOVE TIMING MY SHIT TO THE BEAT, I LOVE GETTING THAT TRIPLE DASH IN EVEN IF I DONT NEED IT, SOMETIMES HANGING ON IT FOR MINUTES ON END ITS SO G O O D

The story also makes a lot of use of this, each boss syncs up with the beat and theyre ALL fun in my opinion. Like youd expect them to run out of steam or something at some point but they Always manage to do something DIFFERENT with each one, now im not completely dicksuckin the game by sayin youll see never before seen concepts before for those boss fights constantly but its lavishly presented in a way thats so fresh and figuratively AND literally keeps the beat going and doesnt dwell too long on one verse. Even the structure for which you approach the bosses can be pretty different as well!!!!

The Story absolutely knows what it is and takes as much opportunity as it can to just get to the point, be pretty funny and even in a cheesy way tug at my heart TBH. It's not winnin any awards in that ballpark, sure, but this is actual candy for your retinas...

Final Thoughts: this shit is STILL unreal to me. a day 1 announcement and release game that shows up and manages to have so much content even after you beat it w/o being trickled in free dlc or paid dlc at all... the OST, the art style the sounds the gameplay oh my fucking god. It's a beautiful taste of early 00s action gameplay like what i felt experiencing via Devil May Cry but weirdly more enjoyable to me... i think what choked me up the most about this game too was that the story and gameplay are all so to the point and the message in it is so pure.. that i think it actually hit at the perfect time in my life. Seeing all these weenies be friends made me taste something, and at first i thought it was envy.. and then i thought harder about it for hours until it clicked that its not Envy but in awe at how this game reminds me of better days. It reminds me of having a tight friendgroup where everyone feels there for each other, it reminds me of how vibrant things felt and how they can Still Be if you seize your own beat in a myriad of others in society. Because if you lose that? It's all just noise, the hardest thing to overcome in the game. Each enemy individually is easy pickings, but in high numbers you cant lose your beat.. that rhythm that guides you and cuts harder than any swing of your guitar.
This game is the first ever that I think has made it sink in that while im thinking about all of these things..
Im getting old :\ ... but thats Good because that means I can appreciate shit like this immensely more than I would if I was a preteen or a kid for the reasons i stated
And I STILL have content to see.....
FUCk.

In my exhaustive review of Sonic Origins, I talked about fans outshining Sega with their own projects. However, I should clarify that I was talking about the community's work to improve established games through mods, in particular the Genesis originals by bringing them into 16:9 with QoL features that "modernize" the experience, something Sega bafflingly refused to do beyond the scope of mobile platforms.

Fan games are a different beast, though they're still driven by the same passion and dedication as projects like Sonic 3 AIR. Many are held back by inexperience, others by trying something experimental that just doesn't land, with few gems standing out among them. For as hit-or-miss as they may be, fan games are nonetheless evidence of the fandom's drive, something Sonic Team seems woefully lacking in. Corporate interference and burnout have colored the last 11 years of Sonic games, leaving the series creatively rudderless, and so often it seems the "freshest" interpretations of Sonic both as a character and a game have been coming from small, independently led projects.

Sonic Triple Trouble 16-Bit is an impressive effort, to be sure. One that is imperfect in many ways, arguably marred by shortcomings common in fan games, yet exuding charm and character that the series hasn't seen since 2017. This is no simple repaint, but a full-on reimagining of Sonic's fourth Game Gear outing, featuring complex level layouts that were impossible for the handheld, new gimmicks, set pieces, and boss encounters. I won't beat the "Sega, hire this man drum," something that's become so tired it's more a point of mockery now than an endorsement of quality, but it's quite clear that Triple Trouble 16-Bit comes from a place of reverence both for Sonic's Genesis outings and the less-beloved Game Gear titles.

Most of all, it seems like it's made by someone with a very competent understanding of the original games. Noah N. Copeland knows his Sonic, and it's clear from the first level that he has a good sense of how these games flow. Levels are well designed, providing just as many speedways as they do opportunities to platform, and are full of inventive gimmicks. Granted, a few in the later half of the game start to repeat a bit too much. It's obvious Copeland has some affinity for see-sawing slides as they show up two zones in a row. Still, Copeland has found a good balance between nudging Sonic's mechanics forward and keeping them rooted in tradition, and it is surprising how close it feels to the originals given it's not a ROM hack.

That said, while the physics are a close approximation of the Genesis games, they're noticeably off in some places. auto-scrolling sequences highlight this best, as Sonic's air-momentum and acceleration both feel unnatural and sluggish. There's also a lot of collision detection issues, primarily in the last level of the game, which I swear to god feels untested. Breaking this level up into separate routes connected by a hub feels like a callback to Titanic Monarch, which I already found to be the weakest level in Sonic Mania, but constantly dropping through floors and getting stuck in walls in the middle of long hazard-riddled raceways with checkpoints few and far between isn't a good time. It's a shame that Triple Trouble almost completely falls apart in its very last act.

Aesthetically, it's a great looking game, although some level assets and badnik designs feel at odds with others. There's a certain lack of cohesion that is characteristic of fan games, usually resulting from sourcing sprites from other games and mixing them all together. The only place where this practice is undeniably apparent is the snowboarding sequence in Robotnik Winter, which is straight up lifted from Mickey Mania's moose chase, and while I can't prove it, I'm convinced the background in Meta Junglira is at least heavily inspired by the temple level in Quack Shot. The soundtrack is fantastic, but for someone with an ear carefully trained to the Yamaha YM2612, it too seems a bit off. I'm not a music man, I have no rhythm and I attract no worms, so I can't articulate exactly how it's off, but my brain knows it is. Really, this is a nitpick given how good the music is overall, and I can't hate a Sonic game for reincorporating the cut Knuckles theme from Sonic 3. I just can't.

Making games is hard, especially when you don't have a corporate backed budget, and yet Triple Trouble 16-bit comes out swinging as one of the better Sonic games - unofficial or otherwise - of the last few years. Yes there's blemishes, there are issues uniquely characteristic of fan projects that it's unable to shake, but it's also so good that I feel it deserves to be evaluated critically. I could probably drop another 20 paragraphs about all the little things I liked and disliked, but I really think you should just check it out yourself.

Sonic Team are so bad at this that you start to actually feel bad for them. Of course games like Sonic Heroes and Sonic 06 had these unnecessarily tortured developments that resulted in completely unwarranted human suffering, especially Takashi Iizuka on Heroes. But then you get games like Unleashed or Forces which are just flatly bad, and from what I've looked for I couldn't find any horror stories about developing them. The directors just came in and said, "alright, let's make something truly hideous."

I am not a nintendo fan, I resent them and their fans, but I do at least admire that they have some kind of quality control for their brands. If a Mario game comes out it can be relied on to be good if not great, but Sonic has absolutely zero quality control. It's why the average movies have garnered such rapturous reception from Sonic fans despite being otherwise generic kids movies: they are FINE!!! Do you know how long it has been since Sonic Team has made a Sonic game that can even be described as fine?? People joke "hire this man!" about fan content, but when Sega hired that man a good Sonic game came about it!!! It's genuinely baffling.

You don't really need to say anything about Sonic Forces to review it, honestly. People can see that it says Sonic and was developed by the Sonic Team and put 2 and 2 together that the game isn't good, no review needed. "Oh it controls so bads!" Yeah man, it says Sonic Team on the front doesn't it? "Christ I'm clipping through the floor!!" Hey buddy, didn't you see the Sonic Team logo there? This team developed some of my all-time favorite games in the 90s...Sonic Adventure, Nights, Ristar, Burning Rangers, they were just bursting with creativity of what games could be and what an interactive experience meant.

I don't wish to put all the blame on the developers, as a lot of them are just doing their jobs. If management says make a dogshit stage for Knuckles you aren't just going to refuse. I empathize with people working on something that probably isn't going to turn out very good. The leadership at Sonic Team and Sega seems woeful and the directors of these games seem to come in with their worst ideas underlined and bulleted. It's mostly just sad, Sonic Adventure obviously has a lot of jank but is so creative and energetic, so passionately made, that I admire it even when it is being willfully bizarre. I'm willing to go on that journey with Sonic Adventure because I know I'm not getting it anywhere else. Sonic Forces feels like it was made by the bargain bin, for the bargain bin, it's just nothing.