(Played using BetterSADX, Dreamcast Conversion and JP Retranslated mods)

"Aged poorly" is a meme phrase at this point but SA1 genuinely has. It must not be forgotten that these graphics and setpieces were mind blowing compared to the competition in 1998. It was well recieved in its day. The stage design and mechanics are a genuinely great adaptation of 2D Sonic to 3D no matter what Nintendo YouTubers said about "rocky transitions", it shows a dramatic emotional story from 6 different connected perspectives and has a killer soundtrack. At this point the Sonic series went full shonen. But playing it today you're really gonna feel the extreme jank, the emptiness of hub worlds, the pathetically easy boss fights, the awkward animations and timing in cutscenes, the lifeless English voice acting.

Most games that get remakes don't need them - I have never truly desired for something to be remade more than SA1. It has so much heart and should be able to wow people again. Today's Sonic Team are not the ones capable of doing it justice though

with that mediocre ass ending out of the way, this game was overall an incredibly wonderful and fun experience.

when it comes to faithfully recreating moments in the original, this game does a great job in that regard, barret’s arc in corel prison and cosmo canyon are great examples of well done recreations, not only that, the added moments that weren’t present in the original were also really well done (e.g gongaga and kalm which didn’t have much relevance in the original) this game really solidifies the main cast as one of my favorites in any jrpg. they’ve done almost everyone so much justice. i especially like how yuffie and vincent were implemented considering the fact that rhey were optional in the original game. rebirth has a lot of funny and wholesome moments which i was super happy about.

the open world, a new feature that i was initially worried about was surprisingly really well done. obviously it has its flaws such as the scattered collectables being annoying if youre doing side content and going for the platinum and there being some jank in some areas, in my playthrough i didn’t go all in for the 100% but as i do more exploring in the post game getting this game’s platinum im sure that i’ll enjoy the open world even more.

the combat remains the same and the added features like synergy, the parry materia from remake being the default dodge and new abilities were really well implemented, i was honestly playing the game like i was playing hard mode (in a sense that i was avoiding using items and cure materia) which was funny to me.

FF7 is just as good people hype it up to be. It starts off in the iconic Midgar with what is probably the most action packed opening of any JRPG, and after a few hours it's already opening up its world. It gets even better the more mysteries are unconvered, the more materia and limit breaks you acquire. The forced minigames are really the only complaint I have with it. It's not hard to understand why this was such a massive deal in the early 3D era with how cinematic and spectacular it is. Even to this day the seamless transitions between gameplay and FMVs with uninterrupted music are mindblowing, and the pre rendered backgrounds have an untouchable aesthetic.

No matter how hard Square Enix try with countless spinoffs and retellings in the same universe with all the advanced technology of today, they aren't able to replicate the magic that was achieved on a PS1 and only make its story retroactively worse. It's not nostalgia talking - this is coming from a person who first played it 23 years after release. There is a great subtlety to the original and its characters that the remakes miss completely. Sephiroth, one of the coolest villains of all time, is basically an entirely different character in every media released after this and his cryptic terrifying aura is lost for the sake of fanservice. I choose to think of this game as existing in a vacuum and will always recommend it over anything else as the most complete consistent work.

Been playing this on and off for months now whenever I have a chance to use my DS and only just now finished it… really enjoyed my time overall! Mechanically this game is perfect to me, it’s like a 2D Sonic Unleashed (despite predating that game) and this was one of the first to really make Sonic FEEL as fast as he is.

Unfortunately, level design ended up being a mixed bag for me. About two thirds of the levels were incredibly fun and I loved every second in them, but the rest I found to have frequent and obnoxious pace breakers through level gimmicks or one of the countless bottomless pits. It’s especially bad in a game with limited screen space because in many cases I assumed I was just progressing the level and then all of a sudden I had died because there was no way of predicting the pit beneath me.

Boss fights could actually be quite challenging but I mostly found these pretty fun and fair aside from a few questionable hit boxes. The game is definitely one of the harder Sonic games overall, but that’s usually not a bad thing.

The good levels here are pretty consistently great and replayable, I definitely wasn’t bored at all during the Blaze playthrough. It’s pretty easy to recommend Sonic Rush, although mildly frustrating that the level design holds it back a bit from its full potential. This could’ve stood shoulder to shoulder with the classic games, but what we have is still great.