Lemonstrade
2006
I finally found him... the Iblis Trigger!
One might argue about Sonic 06 being the worst Sonic game out there, or even one of the worst games ever made, but as someone who just got into the series a while ago, I personally don't share that sentiment. It has a fair share of issues, like universally reused levels across the three different routes and a really bad camera, but as an actual game, I think it's playable enough.
That being said, I do need to mention that I played it exclusively on Xenia, so the infamous long loading screens did not affect my enjoyment at all, as they were cut short to about a tenth of their supposed normal time. There's really a lot of them and it's silly how you even find them randomly popping up in the middle of a level. So if you're playing on original hardware, bring a book for the trials in Sonic's and Silver's routes.
Sonic's campaign is the most normal out of the three, he retains most of his Sonic Adventure moveset, but with a worse spindash and special mach speed sections. These speed sections are pretty much the prototype to the boost segments in Generations, except the speed is incredibly overtuned here and you're likely to crash every other second or get sent across the stage with just a slight misstep. It's especially frustrating when the camera shifts back and forth like in the Crisis City tornado chase, because it completely messes up your inputs and steers you in the wrong direction despite going for the right way before it shifts. But I'm not just going to limit my issues with the camera to the mach speed segments, it stays problematic for the entire game. For starters, the camera controls are inverted and you can't change it in the options at all. While this might seem jarring to get used to at first, the real culprit when it comes to 06's camera, is especially how it automatically "fixes" itself during homing attacks. Every time you attack an enemy with it, the auto camera shifts away from the ground and gives you a front view on the enemy - this is especially horrible for airborne enemies, when you don't have solid ground beneath you. It's definitely one of the worst cameras I have ever seen in a game and it made platforming much more worse than it had to be.
Silver's playstyle is mostly centered around projectile-based attacks and he has no normal melee moves at all, the closest thing you'll get is his electric ground pound, which allows you to throw most of the enemies you electrify afterwards - something I realized in Silver's final level, because the game does NOT tell you about it. So if you play through his campaign without knowing about this, two issues arise. The first one is clearly the dependency on throwables in the nearby vicinity, most of the time these are crates, but more than often also barrels or the bullets of enemies. In many scenarios a few crates just respawn indefinitely at certain locations to supply you with enough stuff to throw at the bad guys, but there are a few times where it's really bothersome when they don't respawn. My favorite example for this is the escort mission near the end of Silver's campaign, where you have to bring an NPC from one side of the town to the other, but you only have a few barrels on the way at your disposal and it takes a long time for them to respawn and I'm sure some didn't even respawn at all. I still think it's pretty strange that the playable Silver can't pick up the tables and chairs on the plaza, as he could do it perfectly fine in his boss fight in Sonic's campaign. Now, putting the scarcity of throwables aside, another big point is how reliant you're on the auto-aim. In most cases it works fine when you throw it in the general direction of an enemy, but when you're fighting a good amount of them at once, the aiming gets messy and can't really decide which enemy to go for anymore. I also found it extremely difficult to get the homing shots to hit the screws of the big robots when they're on the ground, so I had to skip finishing them every now and then just because most og the crates I threw just bounced off the robots instead of going for the screws. Again, a little melee move to just deal that final blow would have changed so much already. That being said, ultimately Silver was a nice change of pace from Sonic (even if it meant considerably slower combat) and it was fun to skip a few sections by abusing the horribly broken levitation mechanic - try mashing A instead of holding it, and you can fly like 50% over the intended distance to access areas where you're definitely not supposed to be.
Shadow the Hedgehog is a great character, but he's also the character with the worst opening level, which caused me to postpone his campaign until after Silver's. For the most part he plays similar to Sonic, but trades the spindash for an extended aerial combo and... armed vehicles? There clearly still was some Shadow 05 inspiration left behind, except he doesn't have guns this time. Either way, Shadow's campaign is no marvel in gameplay design, as the stage recycling is very apparent in this route and I'd say about 90% of the content (including bosses) are taken from Sonic's Story. Gameplay aside, the story direction in this campaign is pretty interesting and I like the emphasis on Mephiles as a villain, he also has a very cool theme. Shadow's conflict here feels like a more refined version of Shadow 05 and I think Mephiles plays a large part in this, as Black Doom just had that cartoonish tone to him, which didn't make him as imposing as... Shadow's literal shadow. So that was nice.
To round it all off, the Last Story truly is the cherry on top after all the already established misery and one-ups it with arguably the single most nerve-wracking and unfair level in the entire game. The End of the World consists of several smaller sections, where you play as the entire cast back-to-back in order to reclaim the Chaos Emeralds. Conceptually this sounds like a great way to end the game, a best-of consisting of... entirely copy pasted segments from the main levels, randomly spawning and unfairly placed insta-kill black holes and a random blue-ish color filter slapped on everything, but at least the background track gets you pumped. It's just not a good level and especially the black holes make things way more frustrating than they should be, the fact that they can just randomly pop up in your face is awful too. You get the point. As for the final boss, it's unfortunately just a really unengaging fight, but atleast the ending is alright.
And of course you can't miss the soundtrack in a Sonic game: His World, The Water's Edge and Kingdom Valley are some of my top picks for 06. (Those vocals in the Kingdom Valley track remind my a lot of NieR Automata, pretty nice.) Just another all-around great soundtrack overall and I'm glad to see that even haters of this game can admit the OST is good at the very least.
Would I recommend Sonic 06 to a friend? Probably not, you're likely better off playing Project 06 when it's finished.
Did I have fun regardless? Yeah.
One might argue about Sonic 06 being the worst Sonic game out there, or even one of the worst games ever made, but as someone who just got into the series a while ago, I personally don't share that sentiment. It has a fair share of issues, like universally reused levels across the three different routes and a really bad camera, but as an actual game, I think it's playable enough.
That being said, I do need to mention that I played it exclusively on Xenia, so the infamous long loading screens did not affect my enjoyment at all, as they were cut short to about a tenth of their supposed normal time. There's really a lot of them and it's silly how you even find them randomly popping up in the middle of a level. So if you're playing on original hardware, bring a book for the trials in Sonic's and Silver's routes.
Sonic's campaign is the most normal out of the three, he retains most of his Sonic Adventure moveset, but with a worse spindash and special mach speed sections. These speed sections are pretty much the prototype to the boost segments in Generations, except the speed is incredibly overtuned here and you're likely to crash every other second or get sent across the stage with just a slight misstep. It's especially frustrating when the camera shifts back and forth like in the Crisis City tornado chase, because it completely messes up your inputs and steers you in the wrong direction despite going for the right way before it shifts. But I'm not just going to limit my issues with the camera to the mach speed segments, it stays problematic for the entire game. For starters, the camera controls are inverted and you can't change it in the options at all. While this might seem jarring to get used to at first, the real culprit when it comes to 06's camera, is especially how it automatically "fixes" itself during homing attacks. Every time you attack an enemy with it, the auto camera shifts away from the ground and gives you a front view on the enemy - this is especially horrible for airborne enemies, when you don't have solid ground beneath you. It's definitely one of the worst cameras I have ever seen in a game and it made platforming much more worse than it had to be.
Silver's playstyle is mostly centered around projectile-based attacks and he has no normal melee moves at all, the closest thing you'll get is his electric ground pound, which allows you to throw most of the enemies you electrify afterwards - something I realized in Silver's final level, because the game does NOT tell you about it. So if you play through his campaign without knowing about this, two issues arise. The first one is clearly the dependency on throwables in the nearby vicinity, most of the time these are crates, but more than often also barrels or the bullets of enemies. In many scenarios a few crates just respawn indefinitely at certain locations to supply you with enough stuff to throw at the bad guys, but there are a few times where it's really bothersome when they don't respawn. My favorite example for this is the escort mission near the end of Silver's campaign, where you have to bring an NPC from one side of the town to the other, but you only have a few barrels on the way at your disposal and it takes a long time for them to respawn and I'm sure some didn't even respawn at all. I still think it's pretty strange that the playable Silver can't pick up the tables and chairs on the plaza, as he could do it perfectly fine in his boss fight in Sonic's campaign. Now, putting the scarcity of throwables aside, another big point is how reliant you're on the auto-aim. In most cases it works fine when you throw it in the general direction of an enemy, but when you're fighting a good amount of them at once, the aiming gets messy and can't really decide which enemy to go for anymore. I also found it extremely difficult to get the homing shots to hit the screws of the big robots when they're on the ground, so I had to skip finishing them every now and then just because most og the crates I threw just bounced off the robots instead of going for the screws. Again, a little melee move to just deal that final blow would have changed so much already. That being said, ultimately Silver was a nice change of pace from Sonic (even if it meant considerably slower combat) and it was fun to skip a few sections by abusing the horribly broken levitation mechanic - try mashing A instead of holding it, and you can fly like 50% over the intended distance to access areas where you're definitely not supposed to be.
Shadow the Hedgehog is a great character, but he's also the character with the worst opening level, which caused me to postpone his campaign until after Silver's. For the most part he plays similar to Sonic, but trades the spindash for an extended aerial combo and... armed vehicles? There clearly still was some Shadow 05 inspiration left behind, except he doesn't have guns this time. Either way, Shadow's campaign is no marvel in gameplay design, as the stage recycling is very apparent in this route and I'd say about 90% of the content (including bosses) are taken from Sonic's Story. Gameplay aside, the story direction in this campaign is pretty interesting and I like the emphasis on Mephiles as a villain, he also has a very cool theme. Shadow's conflict here feels like a more refined version of Shadow 05 and I think Mephiles plays a large part in this, as Black Doom just had that cartoonish tone to him, which didn't make him as imposing as... Shadow's literal shadow. So that was nice.
To round it all off, the Last Story truly is the cherry on top after all the already established misery and one-ups it with arguably the single most nerve-wracking and unfair level in the entire game. The End of the World consists of several smaller sections, where you play as the entire cast back-to-back in order to reclaim the Chaos Emeralds. Conceptually this sounds like a great way to end the game, a best-of consisting of... entirely copy pasted segments from the main levels, randomly spawning and unfairly placed insta-kill black holes and a random blue-ish color filter slapped on everything, but at least the background track gets you pumped. It's just not a good level and especially the black holes make things way more frustrating than they should be, the fact that they can just randomly pop up in your face is awful too. You get the point. As for the final boss, it's unfortunately just a really unengaging fight, but atleast the ending is alright.
And of course you can't miss the soundtrack in a Sonic game: His World, The Water's Edge and Kingdom Valley are some of my top picks for 06. (Those vocals in the Kingdom Valley track remind my a lot of NieR Automata, pretty nice.) Just another all-around great soundtrack overall and I'm glad to see that even haters of this game can admit the OST is good at the very least.
Would I recommend Sonic 06 to a friend? Probably not, you're likely better off playing Project 06 when it's finished.
Did I have fun regardless? Yeah.
2024
It's pretty disappointing.
While the combat flows better than similar games, a lot of Wuthering Waves still feels half-baked, ranging from technical performance to the UI and worldbuilding. The characters' voicelines repeat themselves anytime you open a menu, there are huge lag spikes and I experienced a random crash too. Like I said, it's just disappointing, considering the game already had two beta tests and it still came out like this on release.
As for the story, I didn't find it particularly engaging from what I've played. After a cool intro cinematic, you're subject to an one-hour exposition dump, which could have just easily been explained as "there's dissonance in this world, so these monsters have appeared; you can also absorb their powers", but instead you get to hear increasingly verbose explanations about everything and their cool names. (Tacet Discord? There's a lot of things you could name monsters, but why would you name them Tacet Discords?)
I'm trying to not end this review on a negative note, there's still some enjoyment to be had in Wuthering Waves - the character designs look good, the first city you visit is pretty, the combat feels smooth and the animations flow well, so if you're a fan of Kuro's previous game, Punishing Gray Raven, this might interest you. As for me, I can't really see myself getting hooked on this world because of the established reasons, so I'll continue playing my gacha of choice about some train in space. Some kind of star rail.
While the combat flows better than similar games, a lot of Wuthering Waves still feels half-baked, ranging from technical performance to the UI and worldbuilding. The characters' voicelines repeat themselves anytime you open a menu, there are huge lag spikes and I experienced a random crash too. Like I said, it's just disappointing, considering the game already had two beta tests and it still came out like this on release.
As for the story, I didn't find it particularly engaging from what I've played. After a cool intro cinematic, you're subject to an one-hour exposition dump, which could have just easily been explained as "there's dissonance in this world, so these monsters have appeared; you can also absorb their powers", but instead you get to hear increasingly verbose explanations about everything and their cool names. (Tacet Discord? There's a lot of things you could name monsters, but why would you name them Tacet Discords?)
I'm trying to not end this review on a negative note, there's still some enjoyment to be had in Wuthering Waves - the character designs look good, the first city you visit is pretty, the combat feels smooth and the animations flow well, so if you're a fan of Kuro's previous game, Punishing Gray Raven, this might interest you. As for me, I can't really see myself getting hooked on this world because of the established reasons, so I'll continue playing my gacha of choice about some train in space. Some kind of star rail.
2011
Just meh. I can count the things I liked in this game on one hand - Water Palace, the return of a certain SA2 boss and Emerald Coast Act 1.
Generations 3DS is a strange game, the first three Act 1s all have the level design stolen 1:1 from their original counterparts, Classic Sonic has a homing attack and Modern Sonic isn't even 3D. That's right, no 3D levels on a 3DS. This leads to Classic Sonic just feeling like a worse Modern Sonic here, as the spindash is a worse boost and they both share the rest of their moveset anyways. It's genuinely such a baffling design choice to me, why even include two different characters if they play the same? The switching between Classic and Modern was a huge part of Generations' identity, and it's completely lost in this version.
If the level design atleast made up for it, it would have been fine, but it doesn't. Radical Highway and Tropical Resort are both some of the most unfun levels I've seen in a Sonic game (I've seriously considered dropping the game because of Tropical Resort), and those are already two out of eight levels total. The rest of the levels are fine, nothing particularly stood out to me except Water Palace, but I somewhat liked Act 1 of Emerald Coast too. The bosses are hit or miss, you have some interesting remade ones like Big Arms from Sonic 3 and a late boss from SA2, or boring 2D races against bosses like Silver, who is in Tropical Resort for some reason! There is nothing "special" about the Special Stages either, you run through the same glass pipe seven different times, similar to the ones in Sonic 2, would have been cool if they were atleast designed to fit the design of their respective levels.
In the end, there's not really a good reason to play the 3DS port of Sonic Generations, but I suppose it's a decent way to kill some time if you're looking to scratch that Sonic itch on a 3DS specifically.
Generations 3DS is a strange game, the first three Act 1s all have the level design stolen 1:1 from their original counterparts, Classic Sonic has a homing attack and Modern Sonic isn't even 3D. That's right, no 3D levels on a 3DS. This leads to Classic Sonic just feeling like a worse Modern Sonic here, as the spindash is a worse boost and they both share the rest of their moveset anyways. It's genuinely such a baffling design choice to me, why even include two different characters if they play the same? The switching between Classic and Modern was a huge part of Generations' identity, and it's completely lost in this version.
If the level design atleast made up for it, it would have been fine, but it doesn't. Radical Highway and Tropical Resort are both some of the most unfun levels I've seen in a Sonic game (I've seriously considered dropping the game because of Tropical Resort), and those are already two out of eight levels total. The rest of the levels are fine, nothing particularly stood out to me except Water Palace, but I somewhat liked Act 1 of Emerald Coast too. The bosses are hit or miss, you have some interesting remade ones like Big Arms from Sonic 3 and a late boss from SA2, or boring 2D races against bosses like Silver, who is in Tropical Resort for some reason! There is nothing "special" about the Special Stages either, you run through the same glass pipe seven different times, similar to the ones in Sonic 2, would have been cool if they were atleast designed to fit the design of their respective levels.
In the end, there's not really a good reason to play the 3DS port of Sonic Generations, but I suppose it's a decent way to kill some time if you're looking to scratch that Sonic itch on a 3DS specifically.
2011
Fanservice Sensory Overload
In the light of Sonic x Shadow Generations' release later this year, there's a good chance the original Generations would get delisted from Steam, so I went ahead and grabbed it as long as I still could, but waited until finishing Origins, as I wanted to see as many references as possible - wise choice!
As I've already mentioned in the opener, Sonic Generations is fanservice incarnate. Every stage present here is a reimagining of an already existing one and you're going through them in release order. Each level has two acts, with the first one always being 2D and the second one being a mixture of 3D and 2.5D - although I think it would have been better if Modern Sonic's stages were just 3D, since the 2D sections take out the speed from the levels they were built around, but also because there are cases like Planet Wisp's Act 2, where the 2D segments end up being a lot longer than the 3D ones, despite the latter being the main draw of Modern Sonic's levels. However, Classic Sonic is not all sunshine and rainbows either, as his physics feel a bit off compared to the original games, but I can turn a blind eye to this, as Generations runs on an entirely different engine. It's also worth noting that the 2D level structure generally feels a bit strange and half-baked at times, City Escape Act 1 stands out especially in that regard to me. YMMV.
In terms of presentation, Generations still looks fantastic 13 years later and is the prettiest Sonic game I've played so far. It's the type of game to leave a smile on your face as you rush through those familiar levels with newly composed remixes and experience them from a different perspective - 2D zones in 3D and the other way around. Seeing Speed Highway for the first time on the hub world gave me joy, the same can also be said for the revamped Shadow chase (good lord, that fight was messy in SA2) and the second boss in Generations. But I've already said enough, some of those surprises are just better if you see them with your own eyes.
Despite being rather short compared to the Adventure duology, Sonic Generations doesn't overstay its welcome with the main story and still has enough side content for those who want to play it a bit more. As an anniversary game, it completed its task successfully - celebrating 20 years of Sonic with a really fun time.
In the light of Sonic x Shadow Generations' release later this year, there's a good chance the original Generations would get delisted from Steam, so I went ahead and grabbed it as long as I still could, but waited until finishing Origins, as I wanted to see as many references as possible - wise choice!
As I've already mentioned in the opener, Sonic Generations is fanservice incarnate. Every stage present here is a reimagining of an already existing one and you're going through them in release order. Each level has two acts, with the first one always being 2D and the second one being a mixture of 3D and 2.5D - although I think it would have been better if Modern Sonic's stages were just 3D, since the 2D sections take out the speed from the levels they were built around, but also because there are cases like Planet Wisp's Act 2, where the 2D segments end up being a lot longer than the 3D ones, despite the latter being the main draw of Modern Sonic's levels. However, Classic Sonic is not all sunshine and rainbows either, as his physics feel a bit off compared to the original games, but I can turn a blind eye to this, as Generations runs on an entirely different engine. It's also worth noting that the 2D level structure generally feels a bit strange and half-baked at times, City Escape Act 1 stands out especially in that regard to me. YMMV.
In terms of presentation, Generations still looks fantastic 13 years later and is the prettiest Sonic game I've played so far. It's the type of game to leave a smile on your face as you rush through those familiar levels with newly composed remixes and experience them from a different perspective - 2D zones in 3D and the other way around. Seeing Speed Highway for the first time on the hub world gave me joy, the same can also be said for the revamped Shadow chase (good lord, that fight was messy in SA2) and the second boss in Generations. But I've already said enough, some of those surprises are just better if you see them with your own eyes.
Despite being rather short compared to the Adventure duology, Sonic Generations doesn't overstay its welcome with the main story and still has enough side content for those who want to play it a bit more. As an anniversary game, it completed its task successfully - celebrating 20 years of Sonic with a really fun time.
2005
I Am... All Of Me.
Shadow the Hedgehog has been my favorite Sonic character ever since Sonic Adventure 2, so naturally I was looking forward to trying out the one game, where he plays the main role - despite the overall divisive reception of Shadow 2005.
That being said, you know you're in for a ride when the very first level already leaves a sour taste in your mouth. Have you ever wondered how Shadow would control like if he was constantly ice-skating? Probably not, but Shadow 2005 takes that question off your mind by providing you with physics that feel floaty and entirely different from the previous 3D games. Even with those complaints in the beginnning, everything was still tolerable enough for me to keep my motivation to a certain point, but while playing through Iron Jungle, it dawned on me that this game was infamous for a reason. The cherry on top was the Egg Breaker boss afterwards though, who should have been named Camera Breaker, cause that's all he does while Shadow is running little laps around the base in the center of the arena ad infinitum. No offense to Lava Shelter though, it was the final level on the route I played and I actually enjoyed it a good amount after the mess that the previous stage was.
Enough talk about the gameplay, as the unique way of storytelling is also a key aspect of Shadow 2005. There are unironically 326 possible routes to play and they even have their own unique names - but it doesn't change the fact that the storytelling is nonsensical in many cases. So basically there's an alignment system in the levels, which you can advance through completing certain objectives towards your alignment. If you want to be evil, do Black Doom's requests. If you want to remain neutral, just run through the level and get the Chaos Emerald. This way of storytelling is actually an interesting concept for a game like Shadow the Hedgehog, as he is this morally ambiguous character, who can be easily interpreted as a player for both sides. Depending on which objectives you complete, the selection of levels across the stage flowchart changes accordingly and I'm sure the idea is that you don't have to play the same levels twice. Quite ironic, considering you have to play through Westopolis at least ten times in order to see the true ending, all while doing the same, repetitive tasks. Considering the amount of "kill [x] amount of enemy" challenges present, it would have been nice if you weren't required to kill every single enemy in the stage. You missed one? Good luck backtracking and finding them, cause the game surely won't tell you where to search. I couldn't really bring myself to do those challenges, so I went for a run that's mostly on the neutral side, but even that required me to play arduous levels like Iron Jungle to the end. Playing it several times would not be something on my priority list, so I only played a single route and called it quits for now.
Sorry for the amount of unorganized rambling in the second half. I still had my fair share of fun with Shadow the Hedgehog, even if some of it comes from a "so bad it's good again" perspective, cause there's something about it that sticks with me here, but I can't quite put my finger on it. Either way, if I have to give the game some credit where it's due, it's for the soundtrack - the remix for Eggman's theme and the title theme "I Am... All Of Me" are both bangers.
Shadow the Hedgehog has been my favorite Sonic character ever since Sonic Adventure 2, so naturally I was looking forward to trying out the one game, where he plays the main role - despite the overall divisive reception of Shadow 2005.
That being said, you know you're in for a ride when the very first level already leaves a sour taste in your mouth. Have you ever wondered how Shadow would control like if he was constantly ice-skating? Probably not, but Shadow 2005 takes that question off your mind by providing you with physics that feel floaty and entirely different from the previous 3D games. Even with those complaints in the beginnning, everything was still tolerable enough for me to keep my motivation to a certain point, but while playing through Iron Jungle, it dawned on me that this game was infamous for a reason. The cherry on top was the Egg Breaker boss afterwards though, who should have been named Camera Breaker, cause that's all he does while Shadow is running little laps around the base in the center of the arena ad infinitum. No offense to Lava Shelter though, it was the final level on the route I played and I actually enjoyed it a good amount after the mess that the previous stage was.
Enough talk about the gameplay, as the unique way of storytelling is also a key aspect of Shadow 2005. There are unironically 326 possible routes to play and they even have their own unique names - but it doesn't change the fact that the storytelling is nonsensical in many cases. So basically there's an alignment system in the levels, which you can advance through completing certain objectives towards your alignment. If you want to be evil, do Black Doom's requests. If you want to remain neutral, just run through the level and get the Chaos Emerald. This way of storytelling is actually an interesting concept for a game like Shadow the Hedgehog, as he is this morally ambiguous character, who can be easily interpreted as a player for both sides. Depending on which objectives you complete, the selection of levels across the stage flowchart changes accordingly and I'm sure the idea is that you don't have to play the same levels twice. Quite ironic, considering you have to play through Westopolis at least ten times in order to see the true ending, all while doing the same, repetitive tasks. Considering the amount of "kill [x] amount of enemy" challenges present, it would have been nice if you weren't required to kill every single enemy in the stage. You missed one? Good luck backtracking and finding them, cause the game surely won't tell you where to search. I couldn't really bring myself to do those challenges, so I went for a run that's mostly on the neutral side, but even that required me to play arduous levels like Iron Jungle to the end. Playing it several times would not be something on my priority list, so I only played a single route and called it quits for now.
Sorry for the amount of unorganized rambling in the second half. I still had my fair share of fun with Shadow the Hedgehog, even if some of it comes from a "so bad it's good again" perspective, cause there's something about it that sticks with me here, but I can't quite put my finger on it. Either way, if I have to give the game some credit where it's due, it's for the soundtrack - the remix for Eggman's theme and the title theme "I Am... All Of Me" are both bangers.
Featuring Knuckles from Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles!
I love Sonic 3K, and I can see why it's widely regarded as one of the best games in the series, it really feels like the full package of 2D Sonic (...and Knuckles).
While Sonic 2 rewarded speed in the level design, 3K emphasizes exploration again in a similar fashion to Sonic CD; the player needs to track down hidden large rings in a level to gain access to the special stages, where Sonic navigates across a maze-like board to activate blue orbs, while steering clear of red ones. Simple in theory, but certainly tricky at times. I would absolutely recommend going out of your way to do these special stages, because you'll unlock the ability to transform into Super Sonic after getting all seven Chaos Emeralds, and blazing through later levels in the Super Saiyan form is a joy. That's enough talk regarding the special stages though, as the actual main level design is the meat of the game.
With over a dozen different levels with multiple acts, Sonic 3K is the longest entry from the classic 2D games, and it's very nice to see how consistent the quality remains throughout its runtime. I'm not going to bring up every stage here (like in my Sonic 1 review), as I don't have extensive thoughts on all of them. There will also be a bunch of inevitable comparisons to other (Sonic) games, as I bear the curse of only recently becoming a fan in 2024 and those games just happen to be fresh in my memory.
Angel Island Zone is an amazing opening level, as it introduces the player right to the design philosophy of 3K and has many easily accessible special stages and multiple of the newly introduced elemental shields. For those who don't know, the elemental shields replace the shield power-up from the previous games and all are special in their own way. The lightning shield allows Sonic to double jump and attract rings, the bubble shield provides a move similar to Bounce Bracelet in Sonic Adventure 2 and allows him to breathe underwater (so the bubbles aren't required), while the fire shield gives immunity to fire (including lava) and a mid-air dash. In Angel Island Zone no shield is particularly better than another, so it's a good place to try their abilities before using them in later levels which make extensive use of their specific traits. One of those levels is Hydrocity Zone, which follows directly afterwards - here the use of the bubble shield is encouraged, as the bubble placements in the levels are only at certain spots and the ability to freely navigate underwater is very important if you actually want to explore there to find special stages without a rush. Marble Garden is arguably the longest and most confusing stage in the game, but it's still enjoyable in its own way. Carnival Night is plenty of fun to rush through too and has some nice underwater segments, while Ice Cap Zone is one of my favorites in the game with the snowboarding intro and overall satisfying level structure - this is particularly cool, because I was already very fond of Ice Cap in Sonic Adventure 1. Meanwhile, Flying Battery Zone is the result of "what if we made Wing Fortress Zone but actually good", taking the airship aesthetic of that level and making it more fun and sightreadable and Sandopolis is an innovative desert level, where the second half reminded me a lot of Pyramid Cave in Sonic Adventure 2. Afterwards follows Lava Reef Zone, which felt very reminiscent of Celeste's Core to me, but also stood out from the rest with its more vertical level design and great soundtrack, causing it to quickly become a favorite. Everything is rounded off with the Death Egg Zone, which gave me huge SA2 vibes again, as the atmosphere felt quite similar to the ARK levels in that game, same with the gravity switching mechanic. The final boss for 3K was also surprisingly fun compared to the other classic 2D entries, and Doomsday Zone is a great bonus for players who got all the Chaos Emeralds. Man, I love Super Sonic, no matter how basic the idea behind him is.
Sonic 3's soundtrack is an interesting one to discuss, as I completed the game through Sonic Origins, which uses the prototype versions of a few songs, as I believe the licensing for Michael Jackson's songs ran out (don't quote me on this). I don't think those prototype versions are as horrible as some make them out to be, and I actually prefer Carnival Night's prototype rendition to the original. Can't say the same for Ice Cap though, the original song is iconic for a good reason and I love how it ties in with the snowboard section at the beginning. The prototype version just sounds a bit too upbeat for my taste here, considering the original track conveys the gloomy feeling of an icy cave perfectly fine. Putting the differences of MJ and prototype songs aside, some other songs I thoroughly enjoy are Angel Island Zone, Hydrocity Zone (Act 1) and Lava Reef Zone (Act 1).
Even 30 years after its original release, Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles managed to provide me with a surprisingly good time and I hope that many more people will continue to play it over the years. I really wish I would have grown up with the Sonic games in my childhood...
I love Sonic 3K, and I can see why it's widely regarded as one of the best games in the series, it really feels like the full package of 2D Sonic (...and Knuckles).
While Sonic 2 rewarded speed in the level design, 3K emphasizes exploration again in a similar fashion to Sonic CD; the player needs to track down hidden large rings in a level to gain access to the special stages, where Sonic navigates across a maze-like board to activate blue orbs, while steering clear of red ones. Simple in theory, but certainly tricky at times. I would absolutely recommend going out of your way to do these special stages, because you'll unlock the ability to transform into Super Sonic after getting all seven Chaos Emeralds, and blazing through later levels in the Super Saiyan form is a joy. That's enough talk regarding the special stages though, as the actual main level design is the meat of the game.
With over a dozen different levels with multiple acts, Sonic 3K is the longest entry from the classic 2D games, and it's very nice to see how consistent the quality remains throughout its runtime. I'm not going to bring up every stage here (like in my Sonic 1 review), as I don't have extensive thoughts on all of them. There will also be a bunch of inevitable comparisons to other (Sonic) games, as I bear the curse of only recently becoming a fan in 2024 and those games just happen to be fresh in my memory.
Angel Island Zone is an amazing opening level, as it introduces the player right to the design philosophy of 3K and has many easily accessible special stages and multiple of the newly introduced elemental shields. For those who don't know, the elemental shields replace the shield power-up from the previous games and all are special in their own way. The lightning shield allows Sonic to double jump and attract rings, the bubble shield provides a move similar to Bounce Bracelet in Sonic Adventure 2 and allows him to breathe underwater (so the bubbles aren't required), while the fire shield gives immunity to fire (including lava) and a mid-air dash. In Angel Island Zone no shield is particularly better than another, so it's a good place to try their abilities before using them in later levels which make extensive use of their specific traits. One of those levels is Hydrocity Zone, which follows directly afterwards - here the use of the bubble shield is encouraged, as the bubble placements in the levels are only at certain spots and the ability to freely navigate underwater is very important if you actually want to explore there to find special stages without a rush. Marble Garden is arguably the longest and most confusing stage in the game, but it's still enjoyable in its own way. Carnival Night is plenty of fun to rush through too and has some nice underwater segments, while Ice Cap Zone is one of my favorites in the game with the snowboarding intro and overall satisfying level structure - this is particularly cool, because I was already very fond of Ice Cap in Sonic Adventure 1. Meanwhile, Flying Battery Zone is the result of "what if we made Wing Fortress Zone but actually good", taking the airship aesthetic of that level and making it more fun and sightreadable and Sandopolis is an innovative desert level, where the second half reminded me a lot of Pyramid Cave in Sonic Adventure 2. Afterwards follows Lava Reef Zone, which felt very reminiscent of Celeste's Core to me, but also stood out from the rest with its more vertical level design and great soundtrack, causing it to quickly become a favorite. Everything is rounded off with the Death Egg Zone, which gave me huge SA2 vibes again, as the atmosphere felt quite similar to the ARK levels in that game, same with the gravity switching mechanic. The final boss for 3K was also surprisingly fun compared to the other classic 2D entries, and Doomsday Zone is a great bonus for players who got all the Chaos Emeralds. Man, I love Super Sonic, no matter how basic the idea behind him is.
Sonic 3's soundtrack is an interesting one to discuss, as I completed the game through Sonic Origins, which uses the prototype versions of a few songs, as I believe the licensing for Michael Jackson's songs ran out (don't quote me on this). I don't think those prototype versions are as horrible as some make them out to be, and I actually prefer Carnival Night's prototype rendition to the original. Can't say the same for Ice Cap though, the original song is iconic for a good reason and I love how it ties in with the snowboard section at the beginning. The prototype version just sounds a bit too upbeat for my taste here, considering the original track conveys the gloomy feeling of an icy cave perfectly fine. Putting the differences of MJ and prototype songs aside, some other songs I thoroughly enjoy are Angel Island Zone, Hydrocity Zone (Act 1) and Lava Reef Zone (Act 1).
Even 30 years after its original release, Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles managed to provide me with a surprisingly good time and I hope that many more people will continue to play it over the years. I really wish I would have grown up with the Sonic games in my childhood...
Just when you think "it can't get more complicated", this story will find a way to get more complicated.
Then Wake to Weep is a satisfying story finale for Penacony with some stunning setpieces - Dreamflux Reef is particularly pretty. It's about twice as long as the previous patch, but that's also because of the increasingly verbose explanations for everything related to the dream world, so if you're interested in all the additional worldbuilding, the storytelling of 2.2 might be right up your alley.
I wish Boothill would have gotten more screentime and relevance, considering the devs teased him playing a big role, but he's mostly a comic relief character here. Maybe he'll get his time to shine in the upcoming epilogue, since that should tie up some loose ends as well. With that out of the way, I still had a great time with the overall narrative and the twists and turns present in Then Wake to Weep, especially since a bunch of characters with overall less screentime in the previous two chapters got their spotlight here. The boss fight at the end was also a great way to wrap everything up and I loved the song that played during the final phase.
Despite some missed potential, it's a fitting end to Penacony with an interesting villain, and lured me in well enough to finish it within just a single day - but I can't say it sticks with me more than Aventurine's story in the previous patch, that one felt special.
Then Wake to Weep is a satisfying story finale for Penacony with some stunning setpieces - Dreamflux Reef is particularly pretty. It's about twice as long as the previous patch, but that's also because of the increasingly verbose explanations for everything related to the dream world, so if you're interested in all the additional worldbuilding, the storytelling of 2.2 might be right up your alley.
I wish Boothill would have gotten more screentime and relevance, considering the devs teased him playing a big role, but he's mostly a comic relief character here. Maybe he'll get his time to shine in the upcoming epilogue, since that should tie up some loose ends as well. With that out of the way, I still had a great time with the overall narrative and the twists and turns present in Then Wake to Weep, especially since a bunch of characters with overall less screentime in the previous two chapters got their spotlight here. The boss fight at the end was also a great way to wrap everything up and I loved the song that played during the final phase.
Despite some missed potential, it's a fitting end to Penacony with an interesting villain, and lured me in well enough to finish it within just a single day - but I can't say it sticks with me more than Aventurine's story in the previous patch, that one felt special.
1991
Gotta go fast!
After Sonic Adventure has served as my personal gateway into the series and Sonic Adventure 2 gave me an even better experience, I can proudly call myself a fan of the series now. A fan who only played 3D Sonic. That being said, Sonic Origins opened up a whole new dimension to me: 2D Sonic!
Here's a quick rundown of the zones: Green Hill was surprisingly the least engaging zone for me, but I can appreciate it for how iconic it is and being a good introduction with a timeless theme. I didn't have an issue with Marble Zone's methodical approach for the most part, although some of the random pop-up spikes felt a little cheap. Spring Yard is fine, but gets repetitive after a while. Now, Labyrinth Zone seems to be pretty universally hated, but I didn't find myself having much of an issue with it and thought it was rather refreshing after going through Spring Yard, the underwater sections were cool. Star Light Zone had cool catapults and Scrap Brain was... rather hard compared to the rest of the game - but that makes sense, it's the last level for a reason! The final fight itself though was a bit underwhelming and the ending was cheap.
But in the end, I enjoyed my time with the Blue Blur's debut game, even if most of the level design goes against the whole "gotta go fast" motif, which apparently is a dealbreaker for many. And while 2D Sonic is fun, I'd be lying if I told you I didn't miss the homing attack from Adventure at first.
After Sonic Adventure has served as my personal gateway into the series and Sonic Adventure 2 gave me an even better experience, I can proudly call myself a fan of the series now. A fan who only played 3D Sonic. That being said, Sonic Origins opened up a whole new dimension to me: 2D Sonic!
Here's a quick rundown of the zones: Green Hill was surprisingly the least engaging zone for me, but I can appreciate it for how iconic it is and being a good introduction with a timeless theme. I didn't have an issue with Marble Zone's methodical approach for the most part, although some of the random pop-up spikes felt a little cheap. Spring Yard is fine, but gets repetitive after a while. Now, Labyrinth Zone seems to be pretty universally hated, but I didn't find myself having much of an issue with it and thought it was rather refreshing after going through Spring Yard, the underwater sections were cool. Star Light Zone had cool catapults and Scrap Brain was... rather hard compared to the rest of the game - but that makes sense, it's the last level for a reason! The final fight itself though was a bit underwhelming and the ending was cheap.
But in the end, I enjoyed my time with the Blue Blur's debut game, even if most of the level design goes against the whole "gotta go fast" motif, which apparently is a dealbreaker for many. And while 2D Sonic is fun, I'd be lying if I told you I didn't miss the homing attack from Adventure at first.
2012
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 Squareaimlessly 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.
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
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.
Good enough as a multiplayer runner, matches are quick and it's basically the equivalent of Mario Kart Tour for Sonic games. I like the character designs here a lot and basically every major Sonic character is playable, including some unique redesigns.
Unfortunately, Speed Battle falls into the same trap as Clash Royale or similar games, gating character unlocks and even their respective upgrades behind lootboxes, which take several real-life hours to open up. Even then, you don't just get characters like that, they're locked behind a card system, so you could get like 20 out of 90 cards for Knuckles out of a chest, and it'd still take you some time to get him. Or you could pay, and buy something like this advertised 4X VALUE pack in the shop to get 1000 cards for Chaos instantly and you even get 75k coins on top - if that isn't a good deal, then what is. All for the low price of 60€. Not to mention that those deals are so good, the game has to constantly remind you of them through pop-ups whenever you just browse through the main menu. Also, you're forced to watch ads after every match. Awesome.
Unfortunately, Speed Battle falls into the same trap as Clash Royale or similar games, gating character unlocks and even their respective upgrades behind lootboxes, which take several real-life hours to open up. Even then, you don't just get characters like that, they're locked behind a card system, so you could get like 20 out of 90 cards for Knuckles out of a chest, and it'd still take you some time to get him. Or you could pay, and buy something like this advertised 4X VALUE pack in the shop to get 1000 cards for Chaos instantly and you even get 75k coins on top - if that isn't a good deal, then what is. All for the low price of 60€. Not to mention that those deals are so good, the game has to constantly remind you of them through pop-ups whenever you just browse through the main menu. Also, you're forced to watch ads after every match. Awesome.
2021
(Played this a while back, but forgot to log it.)
One of my friends really loves Class of '09, so I bought it sometime ago on a Steam Sale for cheap to try it out and played a bunch of routes, but the novelty wore off rather quickly and it got boring real fast. The humor was too over the top for my liking and the writing felt like it became generic satire early on, not to mention the same jokes were repeated over and over across several routes and it's lazy. Especially the pedophilia jokes were recycled way too much and I feel like a lot of swearing was thrown into the writing just to make it feel more mature and edgy, but it comes off as needlessly corny. Maybe I'm just not the target audience.
As I only played two routes, I don't have much to add in regards to content, except that I enjoyed the voice acting for the most part - especially Nicole's voice direction is very well done. Still, there are better visual novels out there, and funnier ones too. Class of '09 might be worth looking into if you're a fan of this very specific type of humor, else I wouldn't bother with it at all.
One of my friends really loves Class of '09, so I bought it sometime ago on a Steam Sale for cheap to try it out and played a bunch of routes, but the novelty wore off rather quickly and it got boring real fast. The humor was too over the top for my liking and the writing felt like it became generic satire early on, not to mention the same jokes were repeated over and over across several routes and it's lazy. Especially the pedophilia jokes were recycled way too much and I feel like a lot of swearing was thrown into the writing just to make it feel more mature and edgy, but it comes off as needlessly corny. Maybe I'm just not the target audience.
As I only played two routes, I don't have much to add in regards to content, except that I enjoyed the voice acting for the most part - especially Nicole's voice direction is very well done. Still, there are better visual novels out there, and funnier ones too. Class of '09 might be worth looking into if you're a fan of this very specific type of humor, else I wouldn't bother with it at all.
...or maybe I'll take it all!
Fun patch, lots of Aventurine content and also introduces storytelling from the perspective of multiple protagonists (something I'd like to see used again in the future). The new twists are nice, but ultimately many things still feel like a setup for the final act, as Act 2 literally ends on two separate cliffhangers, but I enjoyed Aventurine's little sidestory a lot - just wish the writing didn't overuse the "going all-in/betting your life" aspect so much, it felt like doing him a disservice by pushing that trait so much. Either way, I'm stoked to see where the finale is headed!
Fun patch, lots of Aventurine content and also introduces storytelling from the perspective of multiple protagonists (something I'd like to see used again in the future). The new twists are nice, but ultimately many things still feel like a setup for the final act, as Act 2 literally ends on two separate cliffhangers, but I enjoyed Aventurine's little sidestory a lot - just wish the writing didn't overuse the "going all-in/betting your life" aspect so much, it felt like doing him a disservice by pushing that trait so much. Either way, I'm stoked to see where the finale is headed!
1998
The NieR of Sonic games...? What?
I never played a Sonic game before, but after reading Phantasm's review and having heard Wheatie advocate for this game for quite some while now, I decided to finally check out the series with Sonic Adventure - and I'm glad I did!
To make sense of the weird opening one-liner, Sonic Adventure is a game told through the eyes of six different characters - which means you need to play through the story six different times to fully understand what's going on. Each character comes with an unique gimmick and win condition, ranging from collecting Emerald Shards as Knuckles to catching a pet frog as Big the Cat. The narrative itself is nothing groundbreaking, it's fairly standard fare with Eggman trying to use an ancient evil named Chaos to destroy the local Station Square and rebuild it under his management. Chaos is an interesting villain though, since he functions basically the same as Resident Evil's Nemesis and you fight him several times with different characters in different power levels, as he grows in power each time he consumes a Chaos Emerald (you see, the name is as straightforward as it gets). As for the individual character stories themselves, you're free to approach them in any order you'd like, as long as you met the character in Sonic's story and the game will notify you when a new story is available. Only after completing all six story modes, you'll gain access to an epilogue and be able to fight the true final boss.
The levels themselves have some interesting mechanics, and they especially get to shine in Sonic's levels (as he's not a gimmicky character), I'll take the Lost World level as an example. While Knuckles can just crawl up the walls here with his moveset, Sonic has to rely on switches that allow him to walk on certain anti-gravity tiles on the wall or use mirrors to shine light on mirrors to illuminate a dark path. But it doesn't always have to be so complex, sometimes snowboarding down a giant mountain with an avalanche in the background is all you need. Even if I had a fun time with most of the levels, one of my biggest complaints is still the rebellious auto camera, which especially hates Sonic zooming through the zones at lightning speed and then jumps to some nonsensical angles, causing you to have no clue what's going on and miss your inputs. I'm not particularly mad at those camera shenanigans (would be lying if I told you it wasn't funny), but there are times where the jank goes from charming to annoying territory. Another thing I'd like to address is the strange progression sometimes outside of levels in the hub worlds. Thankfully there are red hint orbs in the game telling you where to go when you're feeling lost, but even then, sometimes the hints are so vague that I still found myself resorting to GameFAQs guides in order to locate where to head next. This would hardly be an issue on replays, but I couldn't find the raft for the life of me the first time I had to use it.
Sonic Adventure is a very ambitious game for the time it released and it's not only reflected in the level design, but also in the soundtrack, which covers a variety of musical genres and also uses higher quality instruments as opposed to a MIDI soundfont, which was possible thanks to the Dreamcast's advanced audio hardware. My favorite song is Amy's theme, My Sweet Passion, but I'm also particularly fond of Tikal's Theme and Mechanical Resonance. The Egg Carrier Theme needs a shoutout for itself, just for how catchy it is.
In the end, Sonic Adventure was a nice little departure from all the JRPGs I've played recently and I'm now eager to try the acclaimed Adventure 2 and other Sonic games in general - this includes the Steam version of Sonic Adventure DX, where I'm hoping to go for 100% when I get to it :D
I never played a Sonic game before, but after reading Phantasm's review and having heard Wheatie advocate for this game for quite some while now, I decided to finally check out the series with Sonic Adventure - and I'm glad I did!
To make sense of the weird opening one-liner, Sonic Adventure is a game told through the eyes of six different characters - which means you need to play through the story six different times to fully understand what's going on. Each character comes with an unique gimmick and win condition, ranging from collecting Emerald Shards as Knuckles to catching a pet frog as Big the Cat. The narrative itself is nothing groundbreaking, it's fairly standard fare with Eggman trying to use an ancient evil named Chaos to destroy the local Station Square and rebuild it under his management. Chaos is an interesting villain though, since he functions basically the same as Resident Evil's Nemesis and you fight him several times with different characters in different power levels, as he grows in power each time he consumes a Chaos Emerald (you see, the name is as straightforward as it gets). As for the individual character stories themselves, you're free to approach them in any order you'd like, as long as you met the character in Sonic's story and the game will notify you when a new story is available. Only after completing all six story modes, you'll gain access to an epilogue and be able to fight the true final boss.
The levels themselves have some interesting mechanics, and they especially get to shine in Sonic's levels (as he's not a gimmicky character), I'll take the Lost World level as an example. While Knuckles can just crawl up the walls here with his moveset, Sonic has to rely on switches that allow him to walk on certain anti-gravity tiles on the wall or use mirrors to shine light on mirrors to illuminate a dark path. But it doesn't always have to be so complex, sometimes snowboarding down a giant mountain with an avalanche in the background is all you need. Even if I had a fun time with most of the levels, one of my biggest complaints is still the rebellious auto camera, which especially hates Sonic zooming through the zones at lightning speed and then jumps to some nonsensical angles, causing you to have no clue what's going on and miss your inputs. I'm not particularly mad at those camera shenanigans (would be lying if I told you it wasn't funny), but there are times where the jank goes from charming to annoying territory. Another thing I'd like to address is the strange progression sometimes outside of levels in the hub worlds. Thankfully there are red hint orbs in the game telling you where to go when you're feeling lost, but even then, sometimes the hints are so vague that I still found myself resorting to GameFAQs guides in order to locate where to head next. This would hardly be an issue on replays, but I couldn't find the raft for the life of me the first time I had to use it.
Sonic Adventure is a very ambitious game for the time it released and it's not only reflected in the level design, but also in the soundtrack, which covers a variety of musical genres and also uses higher quality instruments as opposed to a MIDI soundfont, which was possible thanks to the Dreamcast's advanced audio hardware. My favorite song is Amy's theme, My Sweet Passion, but I'm also particularly fond of Tikal's Theme and Mechanical Resonance. The Egg Carrier Theme needs a shoutout for itself, just for how catchy it is.
In the end, Sonic Adventure was a nice little departure from all the JRPGs I've played recently and I'm now eager to try the acclaimed Adventure 2 and other Sonic games in general - this includes the Steam version of Sonic Adventure DX, where I'm hoping to go for 100% when I get to it :D
2021
The real disillusion is the combat here.
A while ago, I found out about Disillusion in some youtube video and the game looked very intriguing with its bizarre art direction and strange vibe, so I wanted to play it in the near future. Considering this is an indie game that's about 3€ and won't go on sale anytime soon, I just decided to snag it recently and check it out (since I had nothing else I wanted to play at the time).
I'll give credit where it's due, the intended atmosphere is well done and the exploration was also exciting for most of the time: you navigate through the tower in a first-person dungeon crawler perspective, while stumbling upon various weird creatures and portals leading you to other places. Some of these places are a classroom, a shrine or even some... jumbled mess. It's fun to explore those areas, since they have a surreal feel to them I can't really put into words, even if there's not much gameplay here. I mean, there is gameplay with the combat, but it's not good. Sometimes an enemy blocks the way and you can't pass through, so you need to resort to the most basic and barebones RPG Maker combat out there to fend them off. While many people don't like OMORI's combat, atleast that game tried for an unique approach (which I personally liked too). With a plethora of useless skills and needlessly spongy enemies, the normally fun exploration comes to a screeching halt and you'll just engage in this really boring combat for a large amount of your playtime. I know the game is a walking simulator for the most part, so why even include fights in the first place? I'm sure me and many others are playing it just to run around those strange settings and not to fight monsters, which are all copy pasted and use the same three attacks anyways. The worst part is really dying to some random crit and having to do entire areas over again if you forgot to save, but to be fair, you're warned early on to save often. You get the gist.
Surprisingly, unlike games like Yume Nikki, Disillusion actually has a story, dealing with themes like rebirth and eternal damnation. It's not a central focus, as you only get vague hints spoonfed through your companion Mel and you're expected to piece together the remaining pieces for yourself. Speaking of Mel, she's pretty cool and probably one of the main reasons I didn't drop this game earlier, her banter at times is nice even if it's nothing special by writing standards. There's... not much else to be said about her, except that she's green and also plays a bigger role in the overarching narrative.
Alright, so Disillusion is a decent game, but I just can't get myself to finish it, knowing that it's going to mess with my PC's resolution again (for some reason it breaks windowed applications like Discord and you need to resize them anytime after going into this game's fullscreen mode) and I'd have to go through more arduous random encounters. Despite this, I'd still recommend it for the most part for anyone interested, as the exploration aspect is rather intriguing and you can get a few hours of content for the low price of 3€.
A while ago, I found out about Disillusion in some youtube video and the game looked very intriguing with its bizarre art direction and strange vibe, so I wanted to play it in the near future. Considering this is an indie game that's about 3€ and won't go on sale anytime soon, I just decided to snag it recently and check it out (since I had nothing else I wanted to play at the time).
I'll give credit where it's due, the intended atmosphere is well done and the exploration was also exciting for most of the time: you navigate through the tower in a first-person dungeon crawler perspective, while stumbling upon various weird creatures and portals leading you to other places. Some of these places are a classroom, a shrine or even some... jumbled mess. It's fun to explore those areas, since they have a surreal feel to them I can't really put into words, even if there's not much gameplay here. I mean, there is gameplay with the combat, but it's not good. Sometimes an enemy blocks the way and you can't pass through, so you need to resort to the most basic and barebones RPG Maker combat out there to fend them off. While many people don't like OMORI's combat, atleast that game tried for an unique approach (which I personally liked too). With a plethora of useless skills and needlessly spongy enemies, the normally fun exploration comes to a screeching halt and you'll just engage in this really boring combat for a large amount of your playtime. I know the game is a walking simulator for the most part, so why even include fights in the first place? I'm sure me and many others are playing it just to run around those strange settings and not to fight monsters, which are all copy pasted and use the same three attacks anyways. The worst part is really dying to some random crit and having to do entire areas over again if you forgot to save, but to be fair, you're warned early on to save often. You get the gist.
Surprisingly, unlike games like Yume Nikki, Disillusion actually has a story, dealing with themes like rebirth and eternal damnation. It's not a central focus, as you only get vague hints spoonfed through your companion Mel and you're expected to piece together the remaining pieces for yourself. Speaking of Mel, she's pretty cool and probably one of the main reasons I didn't drop this game earlier, her banter at times is nice even if it's nothing special by writing standards. There's... not much else to be said about her, except that she's green and also plays a bigger role in the overarching narrative.
Alright, so Disillusion is a decent game, but I just can't get myself to finish it, knowing that it's going to mess with my PC's resolution again (for some reason it breaks windowed applications like Discord and you need to resize them anytime after going into this game's fullscreen mode) and I'd have to go through more arduous random encounters. Despite this, I'd still recommend it for the most part for anyone interested, as the exploration aspect is rather intriguing and you can get a few hours of content for the low price of 3€.
It has a character named Kino...
Future Connected takes place one year after the events of Xenoblade Chronicles and takes Shulk and Melia to an unexplored region of the Bionis, where they stumble upon two stowaways who help them against the seemingly untouchable Fog King terrorizing the local people. Yes, this premise is pretty basic, but it's more of an expansion to round off Melia's character arc than an actual story expansion.
The highlight and key aspect of Future Connected is the exploration of Bionis' Shoulder, a previously unreleased area that has been planned ever since the original release of Xenoblade Chronicles on the Wii, but never made the cut. Now it has been repurposed as the central setpiece of the epilogue and I'm quite glad for this decision, as it's easily one of my favorite areas in the game now and I had a lot of fun exploring it. There are many great views and it looks particularly cool during thunderstorms (even better when there's a cutscene playing). Fairly early on you're introduced to the Ponspectors, a group of archaeologist Nopon, who have lost their boss and now are scattered all across the Shoulder, where you can pick them up (most of the times you need to do a short quest beforehand) and add them to your own personal Nopon army. This literal army of furball companions not only deals passive damage during combat, but also replaces the chain attacks with some QTE combos, which can be upgraded by adding more Ponspectors to your squad. They're also masters of taking a toll on the framerate, as things can get seriously laggy when there's a dozen Nopon hammering away on a bunch of enemies during a thunderstorm while several other flashy animations are playing. Despite this, I thought the Ponspectors were a fun change of pace in terms of combat usage, but there was something else I disliked instead in terms of combat, and that's the removal of vision attacks. This sounds insane at first, considering vision attacks only make your life harder, but the thing is that they're still in the game, you're just not informed when the enemy will hit you with them anymore. Always a pleasure to see a boss hit you with "Attack VIII" without warning just to survive with a mere sliver of health, so the existence of the Shield and Impulse Monado Art hardly justify themselves in Future Connected, as they are practically useless - you're better off using the Armor Art instead.
I don't think the story present here is that bad, just considerably weaker than the main narrative, which is to be expected from a free expansion that released 10 years after the source material. For me the main issues are the underwhelming villains (the fate of one major villain here is literally revealed in a sidequest) and the lack of any real stakes here, so the true highlight are the character interactions instead. The heart-to-heart mechanic from the main game has been rebranded to "quiet moments" and is now available anytime after certain points in the story have been passed, as long as the time is right and the party members you need for the support are in your current party setup. They're also fully voiced and do not require any previous affinity building between characters, which is something that would be very cool to see in future Xenoblade games (or atleast Xenoblade 3, considering 2 released before Future Connected), as voice acting alone in these moments can make them a lot more impactful and memorable already. While Kino's and Nene's supports help characterize Riki further, Melia's are particularly interesting as she as a person had to undergo significant changes after the events of the main storyline. Shulk takes the backseat here and is more of a mentor for the Nopon kids, which is sweet in its own way.
To wrap it up, it's a nice little bonus campaign after the grand scope of Xenoblade's main story and I'd recommend it to anyone who just wants more of the same. As far as I know, Future Connected is ultimately skippable, but there's no harm in giving it a try atleast - else you're missing out on some fantastic tracks like the Bionis Shoulder battle theme or the Fogbeasts encounter theme.
Future Connected takes place one year after the events of Xenoblade Chronicles and takes Shulk and Melia to an unexplored region of the Bionis, where they stumble upon two stowaways who help them against the seemingly untouchable Fog King terrorizing the local people. Yes, this premise is pretty basic, but it's more of an expansion to round off Melia's character arc than an actual story expansion.
The highlight and key aspect of Future Connected is the exploration of Bionis' Shoulder, a previously unreleased area that has been planned ever since the original release of Xenoblade Chronicles on the Wii, but never made the cut. Now it has been repurposed as the central setpiece of the epilogue and I'm quite glad for this decision, as it's easily one of my favorite areas in the game now and I had a lot of fun exploring it. There are many great views and it looks particularly cool during thunderstorms (even better when there's a cutscene playing). Fairly early on you're introduced to the Ponspectors, a group of archaeologist Nopon, who have lost their boss and now are scattered all across the Shoulder, where you can pick them up (most of the times you need to do a short quest beforehand) and add them to your own personal Nopon army. This literal army of furball companions not only deals passive damage during combat, but also replaces the chain attacks with some QTE combos, which can be upgraded by adding more Ponspectors to your squad. They're also masters of taking a toll on the framerate, as things can get seriously laggy when there's a dozen Nopon hammering away on a bunch of enemies during a thunderstorm while several other flashy animations are playing. Despite this, I thought the Ponspectors were a fun change of pace in terms of combat usage, but there was something else I disliked instead in terms of combat, and that's the removal of vision attacks. This sounds insane at first, considering vision attacks only make your life harder, but the thing is that they're still in the game, you're just not informed when the enemy will hit you with them anymore. Always a pleasure to see a boss hit you with "Attack VIII" without warning just to survive with a mere sliver of health, so the existence of the Shield and Impulse Monado Art hardly justify themselves in Future Connected, as they are practically useless - you're better off using the Armor Art instead.
I don't think the story present here is that bad, just considerably weaker than the main narrative, which is to be expected from a free expansion that released 10 years after the source material. For me the main issues are the underwhelming villains (the fate of one major villain here is literally revealed in a sidequest) and the lack of any real stakes here, so the true highlight are the character interactions instead. The heart-to-heart mechanic from the main game has been rebranded to "quiet moments" and is now available anytime after certain points in the story have been passed, as long as the time is right and the party members you need for the support are in your current party setup. They're also fully voiced and do not require any previous affinity building between characters, which is something that would be very cool to see in future Xenoblade games (or atleast Xenoblade 3, considering 2 released before Future Connected), as voice acting alone in these moments can make them a lot more impactful and memorable already. While Kino's and Nene's supports help characterize Riki further, Melia's are particularly interesting as she as a person had to undergo significant changes after the events of the main storyline. Shulk takes the backseat here and is more of a mentor for the Nopon kids, which is sweet in its own way.
To wrap it up, it's a nice little bonus campaign after the grand scope of Xenoblade's main story and I'd recommend it to anyone who just wants more of the same. As far as I know, Future Connected is ultimately skippable, but there's no harm in giving it a try atleast - else you're missing out on some fantastic tracks like the Bionis Shoulder battle theme or the Fogbeasts encounter theme.