It's strange how this game deviates so much from Sonic’s established formula, while still feeling boring and uninspired. Lost World introduces many new ideas to 3D Sonic, it tries lots of things, and for that I give it praise. Everything else though is a jumbled mess.

To start with something positive, the game does look nice. It's bright and colourful, there's a lot of polish, and it runs at a smooth 60fps. I like how the minimalist art style makes the badniks look like their original concept art from the 90s. I love the weird Zelda, Yoshi and NiGHTS DLC levels, and they even brought back the super peel out! However, a lot of the level aesthetics feel bland. If you take away the rings and the badniks, some of these environments look more like Mario or Kirby levels then they do Sonic. The generic grass, desert, beach, and ice world level progression doesn't help matters either. This sentiment applies to the music as well. It's not bad by any means, there are a lot of tracks I like, but it doesn't quite have the style that I look for in Sonic.

Most importantly though, it simply does not feel good to play. The run button could have been a good idea to give players more control over their movement, right? Unfortunately, the implementation winds up doing the opposite. The reason why the run button in 2D Mario feels so good is because 1) it gradually accelerates, and 2) you can use it in the air. Lost World does neither of these, and without this level of nuance in the basic controls, the whole game feels stiff and clunky. Well, what about the parkour system? While there are moments where it’s fun, it never works quite like you want it to, and the level design doesn’t develop it or use it to its full potential. Then when you add on top of all this, how turning feels strange and stilted, how 2D levels feel too slow, how the multiple homing attack system never quite works, it all adds up to make gameplay that just isn't fun.

Then there's the characters and story, which are maybe the most insufferable a Sonic game has ever had. Firstly, the Deadly Six suck. Not only are they boring, one-note stereotypes, but their designs look more like knock-off skylanders than they do Sonic characters (again, one of the main appeals of Sonic is its distinct aesthetic, so to see this game ignore that repeatedly is frustrating). The writing sticks with the saturday morning cartoon tone of Colours and Generations (which I've never liked for Sonic) but combines it with incredibly forced character drama, and dialogue that turns Sonic into an unlikable prick. Ya know what I love about Sonic the Hedgehog? It's not his heroism, or his carefree attitude, or his love of adventure. No, what I love about Sonic is how he makes fun of fat people for eating too much, and calling women dumb superficial bitches.

So while the game is at least functionally competent, there's not actually much to enjoy here. The visuals feel generic, the mechanics are a mess, and its narrative is actively unpleasant. It also gave us Zavok which is an unforgivable sin, because for some ungodly reason they've kept forcing him into the series ever since. If there are mods which can iron out the control issues, then there might be something here, but ultimately I would rather play Shadow The Hedgehog or Sonic ‘06, because at least those game's failures are funny.

It breaks my heart to know that director and lead designer Takashi Iizuka crunched so hard to make this game that he couldn't sleep and lost 22 pounds. A game that was so formative to me was hell for the people that made those memories possible. I know that lots of games I love were made with the same callous disregard for workers that happens all the time in this capitalist hellscape, but it stings just a bit more with this one. A game regarded by many as the beginning of the decline, marking the start of Sonic's “dark age” (a time where the series had lots of good games, but that's besides the point).

But this game is way too cool and made with too much passion for that to be its legacy. Firstly, this game's aesthetic is aggressively vibrant. Sonic and co. are such bold primary colours that at times they look almost cel shaded. The level themes and set pieces are all really inspired too; Ocean Palace and Egg Fleet are both all-timers. While the title track is a bit too “cartoon theme song” for me, there's still plenty of great music here, Mystic Mansion and What I'm Made Of are personal favourites. Being able to switch between different characters on the fly and having them all work together is such a great premise. It makes the game feel dynamic in a way that having all those same mechanics used by just 1 character wouldn't be.

And the cast of characters here is, as far as I'm concerned, iconic. Not only do we have the classics from the Mega Drive and Dreamcast, but also obscure characters from the 32X are brought back, along with 2 brand new mainstays (Cream did appear first in Advance 2, but she was made for this game). This was around the time that the “Sonic’s annoying friends” narrative started to develop, but I'm officially here to say, fuck that shit. Wanting these games to only have Sonic, Tails and Eggman is boring. From the very beginning every Sonic game introduced new characters, each one with a unique personality and great character design. There is a reason that Sonic OCs are some of the most prevalent OCs of any fandom (like, who wants to make a Mario OC?).

You can really tell that Sonic Team wanted to take advantage of this being the first multi-platform Sonic game. A game that would introduce newcomers to a large feeling world full of colourful characters, while blowing them away with blistering speed and non-stop pacing. A game that says “Hey! This is what you guys have been missing!” and for all its problems (and there are many), it certainly succeeds in leaving an impression. It’s definitely not the best Sonic game, but in some ways, it is the MOST Sonic game.

Also fun fact, the 60hz option in the PAL release of this game is a goddamn turbo mode, seriously. For some inexplicable reason, in order to make the PAL version run at 60hz, they actually SPEED UP the game by about 17%! This also includes all in-engine cutscenes, which means they gradually go out of sync with the audio. Now tell me, how can you not love that?

Sonic Adventure has an energy like no other, the jump from Sonic & Knuckles to this is wild. It's not surprising that this game started life as an RPG, there's just so much here; 6 playable characters, each with their own interconnecting stories, a large hub world full of NPCs, a completely optional in-depth virtual pet system. And none of this is even touching on the actual levels.

Sonic’s levels have these big, multi-act structures, each act often having its own music, aesthetic, and gimmicks. There’s so much variety, so much spectacle, and the visuals and music are off the charts. In fact, Sonic’s levels are so sprawling and varied that every other character's levels are just small pieces of these ones.

This game was an achievement. Yeah, alot of it's jank and parts of it suck, but who cares? It slaps! And if you can't vibe with the jank in this game, then buddy, you need to lighten up.

Also, the fishing's bad, but if they didn't give Big the Cat such an obnoxious “stupid person” (ableist) voice in the english dub, he would be way less hated.

The game that made classic Castlevania finally click with me. The level design and enemy placement are near perfection that makes playing through a level and wanting to master it practically addictive. The pixel art and cutscenes are gorgeous, the voice acting is wonderfully cheesy and fun, and the enemy designs are so good I almost can’t blame Symphony of the Night for stealing them all. And then there’s the best bit, Maria.

I was hitting a brick wall with the penultimate boss, so I decided to replay one of the earlier levels, as I remembered finding a key that I didn’t know what to do with. So I went back, got the key, found a locked door, and unlocked a new playable character, Maria Renard. Maria is wonderful, and she completely changes the tone of the game in the best way. She is essentially an easy mode, not with boring stat increases, but because she has a bunch of unique moves that make her fun to play in her own way.

Unlocking Maria, using her to get past that brick wall, and then seeing her alternate ending was so much fun. Part of me thinks they deliberately made that boss so hard so that players would replay earlier levels and find her. Either way, a classic game.