This was the last game I really played with an irl friend of mine. I used to go over to his place and we'd play Pokemon, trade with each other and battle each other. It was great but life gets in the way, you move on from things you liked when you were younger, and you have to stress about more things than whether or not you could beat hacked shiny legendaries your friend found off wonder trade with the Greninja you trained to level 100 the week before. I can't really enjoy pokemon anymore the way I did when pokemon sun and moon dropped or when this game launched. I could play Pokemon with online friends but it just isn't the same as playing and shit talking with a guy halfway across the room, I mean how could it?

This game is one of my favorite games of all time. Since I'm really bored I want to rewrite my review of Sa2. I'll be talking about the stages as if you're going for the max rank which is the coveted A rank.

The speed stages this time around a lot more linear than Sa1's speed stages but don't mistake that for Sonic controlling worse. Playing as Sonic or Shadow in this game feels so buttery smooth I love it. Getting A rank in the speed stages require not only speed but interacting stage gimmicks be it timing a jump off of trick ramps, homing attack chains, or jumping from rail to rail the game will award you points. What will or won't give you points depends on a stage to stage basis so it's up to you to experiment with stage and find out what will give you the most score in a timely manner. I still find new secrets and point awards when I replay this game it's awesome.

Gonna talk about the mech stages next. This is like a run and gun game. The goal is to get a long enemy chain before firing your shots and making sure to avoid enemy attacks in order to not lose your chain and the points you gain along with it. It's somewhat simple but each mech stage has a unique gimmick, whether it be blasting down doors before you run into them, a focus on platforming, or a risk and reward mechanic. Given the mechs can move a bit clunky but at this point I don't really care.

The treasure hunting stages are the hardest for newcomers and if you aren't a fan I can't blame you honestly. These stages have a hard focus on exploration and speedrunning. You'll need to map out a route of each stage which lets you backtrack and run through it the fastest in order to collect those tiny rocks. On the more vertical stages there are rockets which will blast you up high in the level which can help with your search. Usually riding the rocket will even help you start detecting where the master emerald shards are hidden such as on Pumpkin hill or Meteor herd from time to time. There are also more cramp stages which can really put your exploration skills to the test and it's a really good time either way. Also helps that the music on those stages are all time bangers.

I'm still really shocked at how good this game's level design is, especially after learning it was only developed in 6 months. There's only like 2 or 3 stages in this game that I genuinely dislike. The music is also as usual an absolute bop. Each character has a genre of music that fits their character and no song in this ost is a miss. The story is also surprising good even if the voice acting can be hit or miss. Still Ryan Drummond as Sonic and Dean Bristow as Eggman nail their characters and the vas for Shadow and Rouge aren't half bad either. All and all I'd say this game rocks

Wanted to rewrite this review because I wrote the last one at 3 in the morning.

Let's start with my least favorite part of this game. The levels, specifically the casino and rail levels. Each level theme has 2 acts. The casino stages aren't really much fun, and the music gives me a headache, casino gimmicks in sonic games aren't the best. It's just really annoying pinball and slot machines and you combine that with heroes tendency to have longer levels and it just isn't for me. The casino levels are then followed immediately by the rail levels. This aren't really horrible just boring. The rail mechanics in any game outside of sa2 (not going to make this a discussion about why sa2 rails better though) just feel lacking. It really kills my motivation to play this at all after the second stage theme because I have no desire to suffer through the casino or rail level themes. I also feel the final and ghost levels are rather weak but it's not as bad as the casino or rail levels.

The controls themselves are also slippery and feel off. I should talk about the level up system. If you kill enemies they will eventually drop orbs and if you pick them up your characters will level up and be able to do a lot more on top of getting a power/speed/flight duration boost depending on the type. Leveling up speed characters make them go insanely fast, to the point where I found myself running into walls or flying off into the abyss. Power characters and flight characters are really slow so switching to them for turns or running in a straight line because I don't really trust the speed character to implode feels off. Switching characters does just feel weird at least to me but you do get used to it. Flying also just isn't my thing in this game. You can throw your teammates which is the flight characters basic attack for a bit more air time or just spam the fly button for more height but both methods just don't feel very good. Power characters are alright even though I think the combat is button mashy.

You have to beat the game 4 times to even see the final boss which wouldn't be worse but the character variety and stages aren't much different between each character so it can repetitive. Team Rose is especially bad because despite it being the third team listed it's the easy mode. So it's just the same game you've played probably twice already except your speed character has a worse tornado jump and can't light speed dash unlike Sonic or Shadow, and with easier more shorter stage design. This wouldn't be the worse but after playing the game twice when the Team Rose stages just randomly end halfway through it just feels off, they also lack the bang most stages finish off with. Team Chaotix's stages feel like a predecessor to Shadow the Hedgehog's stage objectives which is not a good thing.

I think that wraps up all the things I dislike about this game from what I remember. If you enjoy this game though hats off to you I wish I could find enjoyment in this game. Sadly for me the best stages in this game are somewhat mediocre for me to run through.

I was like writing down plotpoints for this game but I forgot to do it for the first act so like uhh from what I remember Liquid is spotted in the middle east so Campell takes Snake who has aged like 70 years in 2 out of retirement so he can beat some ass. Wars become a well oiled machine and there's a guy with a monkey in a diaper who follows you around the whole game (Drebin is awesome). Anyways enjoy the notes I wrote for this game because I didn't feel like writing a real review

Liquid is chilling in South Africa, he wants to break free of the patriots control, and has control of most of the major PMCS. The patriots want to take over the nanomachines in the soldiers because this will allow them to control the war economy, and basically continue controlling the peace and information flow of the world. The soldiers have basically become a well oiled machine. Their nanomachines control their emotions and abilities basically making them combat vets over night. It also controls what weapons they can fire. So basically Patriots control the nano machines which controls the soldiers and that controls war which controls the peace equilibrium. Anyhow the current mission is to save Naomi from Liquid’s base in South Africa. If you hack into the Patriots AI SOP you get a safe haven where you can hide from them which is what Liquid is aiming for. Turns out the Patriots already basically control the war economy all that’s left is retaking information control. The SOP controls emotions and sense, so when Naomi deactivated them all the soldiers were hit with guilt and grief so immense they started to lose it. Also turns out Snake was born with a limited lifespan in mind. They didn’t want the clones of Big Boss to be used by the enemy so the clones were born with excelled aging. His lifespan is further decreased by the foxdie inside him which is mutating to become an airborne disease that kills anyone. He has 3 months to live. On another note Liquid wants to take over the SOP so he can rebel against the patriots. Finally Snake does rescue Naomi and that’s that. Next Snake meets up with Big Mama in Europe, she’s Eva from MGS 3 and is technically Snake and Liquid’s mom. She has big boss’ body and Liquid has been gunning for it cause he needs BB’s biological data to infiltrate the Patriot’s AI. After a chase sequence and a whole lot of trolling Eva dies, Johnny Sasaki makes out with Meryl, and Liquid gets the corpse. Next up he wants to fire a nuke, and he needs to pump the shit out of the MGS 1 fan service machine in order to do it. He goes back to Shadow Moses in search of Metal Gear Rex’s railgun. This lets him bypass the patriot’s system cause they got a lot of like walls and security you gotta bypass if you want to drop a nuke and Liquid ain’t having any of it. Anyhow after like an hour or 2 of fan service Snake kills Vamp, and then Naomi says she has cancer and that she’s like Vamp in the sense she’s a walking corpse only kept alive by nanomachines so she decides to kill herself then and there. Poor Otacon huh? Every woman he’s close to dies tragically while he can only watch. After Otacon stops being depressed Snake and the BOYS (Raiden is there) hop onto Rex and start gunning mfs down while escaping Shadow Moses. The act ends with Snake fighting Liquid in a battle of Rex vs Ray, which is raw as hell and probably the peak of the game. I mean idk at the time of writing this I haven’t seen act 5. Liquid escapes to a ship while being the world’s biggest dickhead and like I gotta say he is the best villain in all of Metal Gear. Yeah sure Armstrong is cool but Liquid is such a shitposter in anyway or form he shows up in this series you gotta love him. Anyhow since Snake is like having a panic attack really close to the boat Liquid tries to run his ass over with his boat, and Raiden just stops this shit? He cuts off his arm moments prior and then just brings this giant ass floating bunker to a standstill??? Raiden the fucking goat how did anyone ever hate this man. Snake needs to infiltrate Liquid’s little bunker and has to go through a microwave hallway, there’s a few bumps in his way but he makes it to the G.W control room thing and Otacon uploads a virus called Foxalive into it, this was made by Naomi to destroy the entire AI network and as a video plays of her last words she tells Otacon he made her feel joy. After the AI shits itself Snake fistfights Liquid at the top of Outer Haven. This fight is amazing it takes you through every mgs game and the fight finally ends with MGS 4, Old Snake is playing in the background as you lay the final hits on Liquid. Ocelot regains control of himself as he dies and hits you with the last “You’re pretty good” of the series. Oh also there’s a wedding between Johnny and Meryl but I don’t care honestly.

So like I was playing this game right, and I use a nintendo switch controller to play emulated games y'know. I've been doing this for like 5 years. And the game that does my controller in? Pikmin 2. I'd say like every gamecube, wii, ps2/ps1, and n64 game I have ever logged on here I've played with that controller and Pikmin 2 is the one that breaks it. Funny thing too is that I was so close to 100%ing it, like I had 2 dungeons left in the game and the doomsday apparatus left to collect before finishing this game and then my controller just stops reading up inputs. God did not want me 100%ing pikmin 2 but have my word, I will do it.

Pikmin 3 is awesome but this game is like really easy to a fault, I had like 500 pikmin deaths from me being careless mostly and playing on hard but still had like 200 of each pikmin type by the end of the game and I never once even grinded to get more pikmin. I would probably have 300 of each if I actually payed attention during the boss fights. I don't think you could even get away with that amount of carelessness in pikmin 1 and 2 and basically walk away unscathed. Not to say being easy is bad and pikmin 3 is still a fun very chill experience but maaaaybe sometimes it feels a little braindead when it comes to enemy encounters. Especially in the switch port where they added a charge button which practically just works as a delete button on most enemies. Still collecting fruit is fun and I highly recommend it.

I'll admit I might be nostalgia blind with this one. Sonic Unleashed was the first ever videogame I ever saw. I didn't get to play it but little 5 year old me was hooked on the story and how fun the game looked. And well years later here I am finally playing it.

To say Sonic Unleashed met my expectations and THEN some would be an understatement. The daytime stages are genuinely some of the most fun I've ever had in a videogame, getting a good S rank run or pb is one of the most satisfying things I've experienced in recent years. Stages like Rooftop Run, Cool Edge, or Jungle Joyride never fail to get my blood pumping. Every daystage will put your reaction speed and memorization to the test and finally putting it all together for a good run is super rewarding. Anyways time to talk about the werehog!!!

Honest to god the werehog isn't too bad. Don't get me wrong the DMC fan in me is dying slowly about the combat. All I can say is that it's kinda okay to maybe decent if you just hyper focus upgrading combat and strength, there's also quick time events that look kinda cool that I'm pretty sure is an instakill against enemies. The werehog also has a focus on platforming. I think the platforming is pretty fun but it's by no means remarkable. They're like all 20-30 minutes if you actually participate in the combat sections but if you REALLY hate werehog you can like skip 90% of them and just shove chilidogs down sonic's gullet to make up for the lack of exp.

Should probably talk about medals. They honestly aren't too bad. I played all the night stages looking out for all of them and barely had to replay night stages as a result. If you keep an eye out for them then you'll have enough to get to the next stage, I spent way more time replaying day stages during my play through than I did playing werehog stages in general. During this I accidentally got like most of the medals available in the day stages.

Anyways in conclusion I really love this game and I'm super glad it met 5 year old me's expectations of peak gameplay. I totally get if you dislike this game but for me? This is one of the best games I've ever played.