Before playing this game, the only 3D Sonic I ever played was Sonic Colors. And even then, a good chunk of that game was in 2D. So Adventure was my first fully 3D Sonic game ever. For years, I'd hear people say this game was broken beyond belief or just simple a "guilty pleasure" game that they enjoy despite being shit. While I did not love it like some people do, I can personally say I did not think the games were either of those things.

The game is broken up into 6 (technically 7 if you complete all other routes) character routes. You can play as Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy, Big the cat and Gamma respectively. Each of these characters play differently from each other, whether it's for better or worse, and even tho each playthrough varies in quality, I can at least commend how ambitious this is. Because in each character's playthrough, you get different cutscenes and also context for certain scenes that may not be explained in earlier playthroughs. As my friend Lemonstrade said, it's sort of similar to what Drakennier does which again is super cool conceptually, especially for a 1998 game.

But back to the actual characters, Sonic is the clear best one here. He has his spin dash, is of course the fastest in the game and also has a super fun aerial dash. I've heard people say the controls are bad in this game and I simply don't get that at all. Sonic, at least, feels simply perfect to control. The levels on the other hand, I can see people having issues with. I disagreed with the fact this game is broken beyond belief, but it definitely can be a bit broken if you're unlucky. I only glitched through the stage like 2 or 3 times, but the first time it happened was on the very first stage. That made me think the entire game would be broken, but it wasn't. Unless I got lucky, those claims, while still credible sometimes...are massively overblown. Besides that though, Sonic's stages while still fun, can feel incredibly janky just because of how fast he goes. It's hard to explain but if you've played the game you'd know, a lot of times the animations and your movement through levels can feel very unwieldly. It can be really hard to control sonic sometimes, and it often looks super awkward when looking back at it. Like I said it's hard to explain, and while I still had a ton of fun with his levels (just because he feels so good to controls) I can't help but think thee levels feel off. Again, this is mostly when you're at full speed going through loop de loops and shit. When it's slower sections you're going through, it's not an issue.

As for the other characters, they all have significantly less stages than Sonic. Tails has you racing against sonic, and with him being able to glide, you can take some seriously crazy shortcuts. The game itself even encourages this which I thought was pretty neat. Knuckles has you searching for three master emerald shards. It's basically a treasure hunt, with the emerald icons turning different colors depending on how close you are to them. These were alright, but story-wise I wasn't really a fan. Honestly thought his story would be more different from Sonic's than it was, not to mention the final Chaos fight was barely different from Sonic's (and Tails had a unique fight for his ending). Amy was probably my least favorite character to use. Her levels consisted of getting to the end like Sonic, while running away from one of Robotnik's robots. Problem is, while her hammer bounce is kinda cool, her moveset isn't nearly as fun as Sonic's yet her levels are still long like Sonic's (which isn't much of an issue with Tails and Knuckles). That plus, besides the one Gamma scene, her cutscenes were lame. Big the cat is the most contentious character by far, and honestly I didn't hate him. Yeah his cutscenes are super dumb and don't add much to the story. However his campaign is by far the shortest, and the fishing is actually really easy (and kinda fun) once you get the hang of it. Gamma is by far the best character next to Sonic. Not only are his stages fast paced, with you having to kill enemies quickly to get more time to your total. His story is actually significantly different compared to the others, and quite touching at that. If I had to rank each character's campaigns, I'd say Sonic>Gamma>Tails>Big>Knuckles>Amy.

To go to each actual level, you have to navigate the hubworld. For a 1998 game, it's not bad but it can feel somewhat empty I felt. Though, there are things to get that aren't just apart of the main story. There are some optional collectables and even some minigames you can play. There's also the chao garden which, I tried to get to work but since I was emulating the game, I suspected there was an add on I needed or something idk. But from the little I've heard, it does sound fun.

The story in general, does have its high points, like the aforementioned Gamma campaign and the ending is really nice. It's simple but effective. However, the actual voice acting is horribly stilted a lot of the time. It's not even a so bad it's good situation, it was just mediocre a lot of the time. That is, except for Robotnik who is super over the top but hilarious. Even despite the fact they reuse fight dialogue in actual scenes (which is jarring for sure) his dialogue is super duper memorable and easily the highlight. Something else that was memorable were some of the face animations, goddamn are they awful sometimes.

I didn't like LOVE the soundtrack like some people do, but it is quite nice overall. Very experimental which I appreciate a ton. My favorite songs were probably Red Skull Mountain, Welcome to Station Square and Egg Carrier: A Song That Keeps Us on the Move.

Once you complete all 6 character routes, you unlock the 7th and final one..Super Sonic. This is essentially just the final boss and some closure on the story, but it's definitely satisfying. You become Super Sonic, defeat Chaos's final form at supersonic speed, and in turn this cleanses Chaos of his evil as we find out he wasn't ever bad from the start. The closure on the whole Chao's and the past cutscenes was really nice. That along with Gamma's scenes ofc, easily the highlights of the story.

This game is definitely flawed in some ways, and Adventure 2 might improve on everything in this game idk. But I can officially say, this game is overall good and that Sonic had a good transition to 3D. Not everything works in this game, but I can acknowledge this game is full of heart.

May drop it down to a 6 cuz I was feeling like that for a good while but for now it's a 7.

Whip! Whip! is a really fun take on the arcade clear em up genre that Bubble Bobble and Snow Bros is apart of. The game looks cute, music is alright, story is silly and lighthearted, and the gameplay itself is really addicting. Chaining attacks together to maximize your score feels really good.

While I'm not too huge on the lack of continues, the game is pretty fast to get you back into it. There's 100 Levels and a post game challenge where you need to complete every level in one go.

If you're into games like Bubble Bobble, Snow Bros, and others like it I'd grab Whip! Whip! while you still can. Alpha Unit went defunct sometime ago and in lieu of that, the Switch version of the game was delisted. The game is somehow still up on Steam, so buy it while you're still able to.

Half-Century Challenge Series: https://www.backloggd.com/u/C_F/list/half-century-challenge/

HCC #3 = Pong (1972)

If there is any game that can be called synonymous with video games, it's Pong. When the term "video game" was first coined, it was because the average gamer experience consisted of playing something like tennis or ping pong on their TV. It's no coincidence the term "video game" came into mass usage during the early 1970s, right when Pong exploded.

The importance of Pong cannot be overstated. Dedicated Pong consoles, arcade cabinets, Atari ports, etc all rose into prominence. The idea of porting a game a million times for accessibility, and the sheer mass appeal Pong had over prior 0 player games or text adventures? It's breathtaking how much came out of the game. Remember, just 10 years prior if one wanted to play Space War, there were only a couple locations on earth where they could do so. Pong was even designed with controllers in mind, an early prototype to things like the Atari controller and by proxy controllers by companies like Nintendo or Sega.

One could even call it the genesis point of multiplayer gaming. Being able to play against both AI and another human was beyond novel. Fighting game arcade modes? They owe their thanks to Pong. Which in hindsight, makes it funny that my first time playing Pong was via the embedded port in Mortal Kombat 2. You see, in Mortal Kombat 2 if you win 250 matches in a row, you get to play one round of pong. So one evening as a child, I spent what must have been 2 or 3 hours killing the fake player 2 in my copy of MK2, just to play Pong for 30 seconds. I felt like I had been massively trolled.

That tangent aside, I brought up mini consoles earlier. Indeed, even Nintendo got their start in the game industry with the Color TV Game 6 which was directly inspired by Pong's success. Let alone the NES Classic Mini and SNES Classic Mini some half century later.

It would be easy for me to look at Pong and go "who gives a fuck" but honestly, I can't help but admire this abstract world with nothing more than a few white pixels. Everything comes from something. Even if it's not the most fun game to a newcomer in 2024, it still has plenty of usages. After all, it's a great project to recreate in languages like GML for the sake of learning game development. In fact, a friend and I actually did that for a narrative driven minigame compilation game a while back. https://c-fhacks.itch.io/aikon

With its sheer influence on the industry, the fact it's so helpful for learning game development, and that it's perfectly playable, Pong deserves this score. Perhaps even higher.

Next time: Maze (1973)

Oh, Sonic Adventure 2...

At first, the shift from hub worlds to linear storytelling was a change I had to get used to - the pace of doing levels back to back feels way different from walking around Station Square aimlessly to get to the next stage and I didn't like how it felt here. However, my stance changed about halfway through the HERO story (which I played first), and I began to appreciate the storytelling of the sequel over SA1, because you get the story (on your side atleast) told in chronological order without having to puzzle it together and you constantly switch characters, so it doesn't get boring. So on the HERO side you're already getting a full story about Sonic and his friends alone, but the villains are contextualized in the DARK story. Personally, I preferred the DARK story, it just felt like the more complete package overall and the cast is more interesting.

As for the gameplay, Adventure 2 brought some noticeable changes to the Treasure Hunt stages, put an extended focus on mech levels (which play similar to Gamma from SA1) and also changes the physics and controls a bit from the first game - nothing worse than no longer being able to overly rely on Sonic's spindash, as it's not overpowered anymore. You get used to it fast, but that was a death sentence in the first hours of playing! Concerning the Treasure Hunt stages... I'm not a fan of what they did to the radar, the beeping noise is even more obnoxious (and louder) than before and only having the shards show up in a set order is frustrating. However, sometime during Knuckles' final level it came to me that I've developed stockholm syndrome towards the Treasure Hunt gameplay and after reflecting and replaying the Knuckles stages again, I had a lot more fun with them than before. They're an acquired taste, a guilty pleasure.

You know what else is guilty of being TOO LOUD? The mech levels - just hold down the lock-on button and you'll get a free trial of tinnitus, all while you've got a full Michael Bay movie with thirteen different kinds of explosions going down in the background. Weapons Bed might actually be one of the loudest levels I have ever played in ANY game. It's not like the audio mixing was good to begin with, the volume of sound effects during regular gameplay is so comically overtuned and you might as well believe the conversations in cutscenes were recorded during a rave by how often the voices get drowned out by the music. But generally, the soundtrack of Adventure 2 really delivers. Favorite songs are Escape from the City, Live & Learn and E.G.G.M.A.N.

Not much more to say, except that I missed out on the Chao Garden in this playthrough entirely, just because I had no clue how to hatch the eggs. A shame, cause that's apparently a big aspect of the game - so I'll be sure to check it out sometime. What else, Shadow and Rogue are awesome and this game is a blast to play despite the issues. I'm considering bumping it up to five stars if the Chao part of the game turns out to be good. It's just chaotic and fun.

In which other game can you experience Tails using his special move of crashing the game twice after telling Eggman how powerful he is? I can't think of one.

There's something genuinely special about how Wattam presents itself. Children of all shapes and sizes, coming together and understanding each other through the impromptu act of play. Not even a language barrier can prevent them from settling disagreements or making friends. As it turns out, fun is a universal language.
The game just wants you to have enjoy yourself. It even refrains from dropping achievements until you've closed the game, so as to not take your focus away from the experience.

That experience...sure is something.

The controls feel like the biggest obstacle to this being a universal experience. Climbing is initiated by hugging up against another character, something that can happen purely on accident as you're just trying to move around, or is almost guaranteed to happen when you're surrounded by other characters. Selecting other characters is mapped to the right stick, an awkward choice that always had me swapping two or more times before I finally reached the one I wanted to control. This also means that camera control is mapped elsewhere, on the triggers specifically, and limited to the x-axis. Holding hands is a seamless action, but getting everyone together for a big hand-holding circle is understandably cumbersome. None of this detracts too hard from the laid-back nature of the game, but it did get on my nerves a couple times.

The presentation has "Keita Takahashi" written all over it. Everyone's got the same, simplistic, doofy face, and soft rounded edges. You greet everyone in this game with a tip of your hat and a KABOOM. The circle of life is self>fruit>poop>self. Flush yourself down the toilet if you want to become golden. I don't make the rules, Keita Takahashi does. Every single controllable being has their own weird bio to read in the collection, and dynamically adds their own little melody with their own instruments to the background music while you're moving them around. The jaunty piano and acapella vocals of the title theme provided the most welcoming atmosphere I've experienced in a game in a long time.

It feels weird to say that the story is probably the highlight of this game for me. Its lessons are simple, but easy to forget, particularly by today's society. It can be hard to apologize, difficult to forgive, and impossible to forget. But it's important to cherish what we have. You can never anticipate when it might up and leave your life, or if it'll ever return. These things may never truly be the same, but we still move forward regardless.

And that's how I'm ending this review: by moving on, and keeping the good memories close to my heart. Looking forward to "To a T", and whatever else comes out of Keita Takahashi's head after that.

Enfim, uma das maiores pendências da minha vida se esvai, deixando pra trás um sentimento de arrependimento por nunca ter mergulhado nesse universo antes.

Desde a ascensão do sub-gênero dos "metroidvania", acredito que nada se compara ao nível absoluto de Hollow Knight. Não se trata apenas de uma experiência definitiva, se trata de uma experiência incomparável a qualquer outro similar.

Hollow Knight está no panteão de colossos dentre os maiores e melhores jogos independentes da história.

Muito me fascina o quanto traços de Dark Souls estão presentes por aqui, e não falo da dificuldade, mesmo que seja um ponto muito abordado no jogo.

A forma como cada cenário conta uma história à sua maneira, de um modo sutil e extremamente imersivo, nos ambientando em um universo tomado pela melancolia, fadado a ceder a uma infecção que se alastra cada vez mais, mas que em contraponto nos apresenta pequenas fagulhas de esperança fixadas a personagens únicos e inesquecíveis.

Há muitas memórias que eu gostaria de apagar, apenas para poder reviver todas elas pela primeira vez. Como quando chegamos na Cidade das Lágrimas pela primeira vez, viajamos pelos túneis com o Velho Besouro ou até mesmo quando enfrentamos os Lordes Louva-a-Deus, uma das lutas mais satisfatórias que já experienciei.

Hollow Knight caminha para se tornar um confort game pessoal, e acredito que minha passagem por esse universo ainda esteja distante de um fim.

if you think this game “plays weird” and don’t get the hype i beg you to play 5 other NES platformers then come back, relax, and feel the lushness of the first true strand type game.

super mario bros is not the primordially simple jumping game it is often introduced as. platformers had ages to mature in the hypercompetitive arena of the arcade throughout the 70’s and early 80’s. aside from its understatedly elegant aesthetic, the ambition in SMB is in the elevation of movement from merely a mode of traversal to a gymnastic, expressive activity.

megaman, simon belmont, and ryu hayabusa are all transparently simple state machines— the amount of possible actions they can take is finite and countable. super mario bros did not invent momentum in platforming, nor was it the first to leverage the additional complications that a more involved system of movement entails. the friction between the player avatar and the ground. the acceleration from a dead stop to a full run. the short moment after taking your finger off the jump button before the character truly starts to fall. all the little intricacies and details compound to make mario a much more expressive vessel for a player to inhabit. what sets SMB apart is that the movement is honed to the extent it becomes even more natural than the comparatively simple systems of the above games.

mario’s body doesn’t literally move like the human form does, but negotiating the balance of a jump in mid-air, trying to establish steady footing on unhelpful terrain, and wheelin and dealing with newton’s first law in general is central to the human experience. in super mario bros, nintendo squarely refocuses the platformer from a cabaret of obstacles to a celebration of acrobatic motivity

and so, it became the bedrock upon which their castle was built