The gameplay of persona 4 is pretty decent, I like time management mechanics and the combat can be pretty fun. Sadly everytime I got into the groove of the time management mechanics the game was like, "No fuck you, you can't do social links because the persona 4 cast needs to become a boyband in like 2 days and it's barely mentioned ever again." I don't care when it's actually storybeats but most of the time it's just some random bullshit like them going to the beach or some other boring jargon. I do actually like murder mysteries, but for most of the early game it's just "Oh damn despite us knowing the next target the killer somehow got to them without being seen again!!!" until the game finally picks up around when it's summer vacation in game. (Yes I know persona 3 also has a badly paced story but that game just makes me feel happy and I actually like the characters there so fuck you!!!) Talking about characters, I don't really enjoy any of them in the main story outside of social links. Most of them are just kinda boring in the main plot or just very fucking annoying. None of the characters actually have that much character growth in the main plot, that's social link exclusive, and no doing the social links don't really change how they act. Leaving even the murder mystery part of the game feeling a little boring until november. Of course I don't expect them to show character growth in the filler scenes where they just be hanging out but I'll be real a lot of the scenes aren't too fun to watch. You have to blame me but I don't see how being puked on or Yosuke being homophobic everytime he interacts with Kanji is enjoyable to see. Sure sometimes a funny line or something of the sort will be thrown out but for the most part unless Nanako or Dojima are there isn't really much to write home about. There's an extra dungeon added in golden but in all honesty the actual final dungeon is like way better. Like the actual final dungeon has a great aesthetic, great villain, and song to it. I also never really liked when rpgs set up villains and then when you finally defeat them the game goes "Actually a random archaic god was behind it the whole time!!!" and persona 4 already hits you with one of those I don't see the point of adding another god to the mix. It kinda goes "Oh you thought THAT god was behind the mysterious events of this game??? Wrong! It was actually this other god so you have to beat the shit out of it now!". It doesn't feel needed, not to mention the epilogue messes up the tone the normal ending has. Either way the story was really enjoyable once november-december hit but there's just so much unenjoyable shit before it for me to really enjoy it. Also it could just be me but I feel like the port of this game really just fucked up the atmosphere the original game was going for. I'd honestly rather recommend the ps2 version, it has less filler to it and if you don't care about one or 2 qol improvements I found it to be a lot more enjoyable.

The more I play and think about this game the more I feel like it's not good. Everything in this game is so god damn repetitive. "Fight this boss 3 times, Do this annoying skychase section 4 times". Sonic has always been a series where the wanted you to replay and master the game. Sa1 isn't different but there's just way more tedious bullshit you have to get through. Replaying anyone but Sonic's stages is such a chore. Amy and Big are of course really boring and not that fun. Tails is a fun novelty but just flying through stages is kinda lackluster not to mention the pile of filler Tails has to go through. Homies stages are like one minute then he has to go the worse boss fight in gaming chaos 4, a surfing minigame, and 2 skychases almost back to back. Knuckles is also just kinda there. I guess he isn't that bad but he's about as noteworthy as white bread. Gamma is fun I guess not much to say about him he's just sa2 mechs but a little less baked. Sa1 honestly feels like they made Sonic's story realized it was pretty short so they crammed it with required tech demos if you actually want to beat the final boss. Said final boss is also dogshit all you do is hold forward and they just stop playing the Open you Heart halfway through which is another dogshit decision on top of the ones this game has already made. Can't really put into words how repetitive Sa1 is but I hope I did a decent enough job. I guess you could just play Sonic's story but ignoring the dogshit parts of a game does not make it good.

I keep coming back to this game, this goofy little game.

Sa1 as we all know is cut up into multiple little segments. Here's where you'll be playing as Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy, Gamma, and Big the cat.

Sonic: Sonic's story is the best one here and the longest. Sonic has 10 different stages and all of them have a plethora of skips to pull off. All thanks to the spindash this game has. The spindash in sa1 is over powered. You can basically spindash jump off of almost any incline and make a skip out of it. The only draw back to zipping around the stages like a monkey on cocaine is that the camera will be constantly holding you back at times. The camera is in this game can be almost as janky as the collision but unlike the collision fucking with it is less fun more than it is annoying. You'll probably face a few time losses due to the camera being fucked and you'll have to stop and fix the best you can. But it doesn't really matter to me, baring Lost World and Casionoplis all of Sonic stages are a joy to play.


Tails: This is where I find the flaws of sa1 to come in. Everyone who isn't Sonic can seem like they have a lackluster story. All of Tails' stages are too short due to Tails ability to fly over them. Not only are his stages lackluster, he has to go through a lot of sections that were kind of mediocre already as sonic. Chaos 4, and 2 sky chases. These were fine with Sonic's story since his stages are longer and more fullfilling but with tails it can be draining to play through.

Knuckles: Honestly not much to say, His stages are just worse sa2 knuckles and other than having to do chaos 4 again it's stomachable.

Amy: She's ass idk what to say, she's slow and not fun to control. Her stages are also meh

Big: I actually like fishing?? It's honestly kinda relaxing at times. Also almost nothing is reused from the rest of the game. It's fresh and kinda fun really I'm a fan.


Gamma: Mech stages are always fun to play for me. Big numbers go up and I'm all for it. Gamma is awesome to play as and he genuinely has a great story over other characters. I love this little guy


Anyways yeah maybe as a whole Sa1 is mediocre but honestly I don't have to play the bad part so moving forward I think I'll only be revisiting Sonic's story from now on.

I don't know what to say about this game really. Y'know 3 years ago I used to argue about this game a lot with someone. Looking back it was just me being an immature idiot who couldn't handle a differing opinion. Maybe I'm still that immature idiot I'm not really sure. I think the reason why I felt so strongly about this game is because it was part of my childhood, it made me who I was now as a person. It had given me irreplaceable memories so when someone said it sucked I had felt as if they were calling a vital part of my childhood dogshit. Nowadays I get the complaints, this game isn't a great rpg. Everyone knows about the level curve being ass but honestly I don't really care anymore. This game is lovely, I love everything about it even the faults. I love Johto, I love walking around exploring areas in this game, I love Johto's new pokemon, I love that they can follow behind me. I love doing the battle frontier and the postgame, battling friends. Sure this game has faults but in the end it doesn't bother me much because this game is irreplaceable.