MacBlank
Here's the good stuff. Hot damn, do I love this entire package. Far and away my favorite game(s) in the series when I first played them back in '05, and the only games that have since superceded them have been newer releases. Sonic's one of those series I've been into since before I owned game consoles - I have to thank demo kiosks at stores for Sonic Adventure 2: Battle and Sonic Heroes for that - but I was never sure about 2D Sonic going into the GameCube Mega Collection. Sonic 1 and Sonic 2 lost me after a bit, but from the moment I tried Sonic 3, the game had me.
...of course, a big part of that was that Sonic 3 is the first game in the series to have a proper save feature, so when I was inevitably bad at the video game, it was easy to pick up the pieces and try again. I actually had a slightly harder time getting into the Sonic & Knuckles half for precisely that reason; yeah, it's more Sonic 3 goodness, but no save meant I had to start over at dumb ol' Mushroom Hill when I doofed up.
Save feature or no, though - both halves of Sonic 3 & Knuckles are great games in their own right. If Sonic 2 represented a start of understanding what made Sonic compelling in 2D, Sonic 3 & Knuckles represented full confidence in this knowledge. Levels are huge and expansive, naturally integrating spectacle set pieces with exploration and gameplay mechanics. Of course the most obvious thing is how each Zone shifts between the first and second Acts: Angel Island catches fire, the power goes out in Carnival Night, the magma cools in Lava Reef, etc, all complete with melodic progressions as the composition shifts from the first to the second Act's version of the music. But there are things baked into the levels, too, like the slopes of Marble Garden, the jets and hydroplaning in Hydrocity, the turns and outdoor segments of Flying Battery, the ghost chase in Sandopolis, etc... So many things that naturally invite the player to explore and experiment with the game's physics systems, so many things smartly built into the makeup of the worlds. I'd argue that the mobius strips and loop-de-loops that characterize key moments of Sonic 1 and 2 felt like they were shoehorned into the levels (I'll be honest, the loops in Green Hill look unnatural to me), while everything in S3&K feels like something that might incidentally exist within the parameters of this world, gleefully being subverted by Sonic & friends. I really do love just about every set piece here.
...and, yes, I include in that the infamous drums in Carnival Night. I don't think I had issues figuring those out? What, kids in the early 90s never thought to pump the D-Pad up and down on their own?
Another show of confidence is the expansion of playable characters. Tails now has a fully expanded moveset, with his flight being naturally integrated into level design (and something that translates into swimming! The animation of him paddling is adorable). Knuckles becomes playable with Sonic & Knuckles, presenting a slower but more exploration-oriented approach to levels. Not to be outdone, Sonic gets access to the Insta-Shield (which I never really experimented with, admittedly), plus those nifty elemental shields' secondary functions. Having a full 4 different ways to play the game adds a ton of replayability to the experience, particularly since the routes themselves through the game change bit by bit. Tails is good for cutting your teeth on the game (though good luck with that Marble Garden boss), Sonic solo/Sonic & Tails represent a standard run, and Knux is sort of a bonus round.
And those bonus stages, though! Not content with the standard 1 Special Stage archetype, the team ultimately wedged FOUR of them suckers in here! Even my least-favorite of these, the glowy sphere one, is a solid enough time. But, like, Blue Sphere? Hoh baby, I love love love Blue Sphere. Finally, a bonus stage that represents a completely different challenge from the usual cadence of 2D Sonic gameplay but derives its difficulty from the same sort of speed and careful planning that high-level Sonic play asks for. I love that feeling of slowly-building panic I get as the game speed picks up, and I try to track down whichever Blue Spheres I've missed. It's a completely fair game, one that has lots of regular means of optimization - not just route-planning overall, but also that question of how best to turn each grid of Blue Spheres into Rings. And the music builds and builds and grows faster and faster with each loop, and... man! I love love love it. And I love that there are over ONE HUNDRED MILLION different variations! Yeah, I know they're semi-randomly generated, but still!
It's genuinely hard for me to find things to complain about with Sonic 3 & Knuckles. If I had to complain, I guess I don't love Mushroom Hill? It makes sense if you're playing Sonic & Knuckles alone, but in the context of a combined game, it feels like a second Green Hill wedged into the game's midpoint. There's also something to Sonic & Knuckles that makes it feel way shorter than Sonic 3, even though the two halves have roughly the same amount of stages. Maybe it's that the Special Rings go away after Lava Reef, so playing after that without all Chaos/Super Emeralds feels like an extended failed run? Um... I sorta think Sonic 3 ends on a weird place, like it's pretty obvious that Launch Base is a fake final level in retrospect, with Big Arm cobbled together as something that can approximate a final boss...
Oh, actually, speaking of Launch Base - I think it's a bit mean to have the timer running for that extended sequence where Sonic and/or Tails rides an Egg Mobile over to the bottom of the Death Egg. I got screwed over in an early run at that point, clearing the Ball Shooter with like 9:30 on the clock. I had to slooooooowly run out the rest of my lives with Time Over after Time Over, trying fruitlessly to see the cutscene through. In retrospect it's a minor thing, but it was pretty annoying at the time!
Most of the time, when Sonic does throwbacks to its Genesis roots, it does so specifically to Sonics 1 and 2. There are a number of reasons for this - the first entry tends to win out with these sorts of throwbacks, Sonic Team was more heavily involved with those games, Spin Dash was introduced in Sonic 2, Sonic 3 proved to be less of an evolutionary throughline for the series, Developer SEGA Technical Institute was kind of an internal punching bag, etc etc etc. I get it, but there's a part of me that qualifies how good a Sonic game is based entirely around if its throwbacks harken to Sonic 2 or 3. Sonic Heroes, Sonic Rush, Sonic 4? Bah! Sonic Mania? Now THAT'S where it's at. This is reductivist, of course, but I mention it mostly to represent how GOOD I think S3&K is. If Donkey Kong Country is a series that unquestionably hit its stride in 2 and spent its third title with lower-stakes experiments, Sonic the Hedgehog is a series that hit its stride in 2, then redoubled its pace and really hit its stride in 3 & Knuckles.
...of course, a big part of that was that Sonic 3 is the first game in the series to have a proper save feature, so when I was inevitably bad at the video game, it was easy to pick up the pieces and try again. I actually had a slightly harder time getting into the Sonic & Knuckles half for precisely that reason; yeah, it's more Sonic 3 goodness, but no save meant I had to start over at dumb ol' Mushroom Hill when I doofed up.
Save feature or no, though - both halves of Sonic 3 & Knuckles are great games in their own right. If Sonic 2 represented a start of understanding what made Sonic compelling in 2D, Sonic 3 & Knuckles represented full confidence in this knowledge. Levels are huge and expansive, naturally integrating spectacle set pieces with exploration and gameplay mechanics. Of course the most obvious thing is how each Zone shifts between the first and second Acts: Angel Island catches fire, the power goes out in Carnival Night, the magma cools in Lava Reef, etc, all complete with melodic progressions as the composition shifts from the first to the second Act's version of the music. But there are things baked into the levels, too, like the slopes of Marble Garden, the jets and hydroplaning in Hydrocity, the turns and outdoor segments of Flying Battery, the ghost chase in Sandopolis, etc... So many things that naturally invite the player to explore and experiment with the game's physics systems, so many things smartly built into the makeup of the worlds. I'd argue that the mobius strips and loop-de-loops that characterize key moments of Sonic 1 and 2 felt like they were shoehorned into the levels (I'll be honest, the loops in Green Hill look unnatural to me), while everything in S3&K feels like something that might incidentally exist within the parameters of this world, gleefully being subverted by Sonic & friends. I really do love just about every set piece here.
...and, yes, I include in that the infamous drums in Carnival Night. I don't think I had issues figuring those out? What, kids in the early 90s never thought to pump the D-Pad up and down on their own?
Another show of confidence is the expansion of playable characters. Tails now has a fully expanded moveset, with his flight being naturally integrated into level design (and something that translates into swimming! The animation of him paddling is adorable). Knuckles becomes playable with Sonic & Knuckles, presenting a slower but more exploration-oriented approach to levels. Not to be outdone, Sonic gets access to the Insta-Shield (which I never really experimented with, admittedly), plus those nifty elemental shields' secondary functions. Having a full 4 different ways to play the game adds a ton of replayability to the experience, particularly since the routes themselves through the game change bit by bit. Tails is good for cutting your teeth on the game (though good luck with that Marble Garden boss), Sonic solo/Sonic & Tails represent a standard run, and Knux is sort of a bonus round.
And those bonus stages, though! Not content with the standard 1 Special Stage archetype, the team ultimately wedged FOUR of them suckers in here! Even my least-favorite of these, the glowy sphere one, is a solid enough time. But, like, Blue Sphere? Hoh baby, I love love love Blue Sphere. Finally, a bonus stage that represents a completely different challenge from the usual cadence of 2D Sonic gameplay but derives its difficulty from the same sort of speed and careful planning that high-level Sonic play asks for. I love that feeling of slowly-building panic I get as the game speed picks up, and I try to track down whichever Blue Spheres I've missed. It's a completely fair game, one that has lots of regular means of optimization - not just route-planning overall, but also that question of how best to turn each grid of Blue Spheres into Rings. And the music builds and builds and grows faster and faster with each loop, and... man! I love love love it. And I love that there are over ONE HUNDRED MILLION different variations! Yeah, I know they're semi-randomly generated, but still!
It's genuinely hard for me to find things to complain about with Sonic 3 & Knuckles. If I had to complain, I guess I don't love Mushroom Hill? It makes sense if you're playing Sonic & Knuckles alone, but in the context of a combined game, it feels like a second Green Hill wedged into the game's midpoint. There's also something to Sonic & Knuckles that makes it feel way shorter than Sonic 3, even though the two halves have roughly the same amount of stages. Maybe it's that the Special Rings go away after Lava Reef, so playing after that without all Chaos/Super Emeralds feels like an extended failed run? Um... I sorta think Sonic 3 ends on a weird place, like it's pretty obvious that Launch Base is a fake final level in retrospect, with Big Arm cobbled together as something that can approximate a final boss...
Oh, actually, speaking of Launch Base - I think it's a bit mean to have the timer running for that extended sequence where Sonic and/or Tails rides an Egg Mobile over to the bottom of the Death Egg. I got screwed over in an early run at that point, clearing the Ball Shooter with like 9:30 on the clock. I had to slooooooowly run out the rest of my lives with Time Over after Time Over, trying fruitlessly to see the cutscene through. In retrospect it's a minor thing, but it was pretty annoying at the time!
Most of the time, when Sonic does throwbacks to its Genesis roots, it does so specifically to Sonics 1 and 2. There are a number of reasons for this - the first entry tends to win out with these sorts of throwbacks, Sonic Team was more heavily involved with those games, Spin Dash was introduced in Sonic 2, Sonic 3 proved to be less of an evolutionary throughline for the series, Developer SEGA Technical Institute was kind of an internal punching bag, etc etc etc. I get it, but there's a part of me that qualifies how good a Sonic game is based entirely around if its throwbacks harken to Sonic 2 or 3. Sonic Heroes, Sonic Rush, Sonic 4? Bah! Sonic Mania? Now THAT'S where it's at. This is reductivist, of course, but I mention it mostly to represent how GOOD I think S3&K is. If Donkey Kong Country is a series that unquestionably hit its stride in 2 and spent its third title with lower-stakes experiments, Sonic the Hedgehog is a series that hit its stride in 2, then redoubled its pace and really hit its stride in 3 & Knuckles.
2020
People are tepid-at-best on this one? Man, I had a great time with it.
Playing this as my first foray into the series definitely felt like I was missing something. You can sorta infer what you missed through pop culture osmosis (I think most folks who pick up Battletoads these days will know what Turbo Tunnel is), but I know that a couple of the levels and remixes benefit from having experience with the NES game and knowing what a particular sequence is supposed to be referencing. Still, this had just come out, and a 3-player co-op game was perfect for my friends at Designing For and me to play on-stream (you can watch our playthrough here).
Battletoads is sort of a beat-em up. I mean, that's definitely the main hook, with the belt-scroller levels and the arenas and the big movesets with supers and such, but that's really only about half of what you're doing over the course of the game. Sometimes you're doing Turbo Tunnel, sometimes you're playing Toadshambo, sometimes you're participating in a decathlon... the game likes to switch things up, mostly because it can, and it's grown bored of whatever the hell else it was doing. Makes for a great party game, honestly, when it keeps you guessing on what it's gonna throw your way next.
And it's not pulling punches, either! When it's a platformer, it's kind of dickish. When it's Turbo Tunnel, it's unapologetically brutal. There's embarrassing footage of me screaming in unbridled fury at one point, grinding out a particular late-game sequence. I... sort of love the game for that? Please, by all means, make me work for it. You're a Battletoads, game, you have a reputation to uphold.
Dlala definitely had a ton of fun writing this, too. I think the art style - which I'm starting to see is Dlala's signature touch, first and foremost, if Disney Illusion Island is anything to go by - does a lot for these characters and this world. Yes, the Dark Queen is unrecognizably different, and yes, I'd probably miss the old design if I knew that one better. But I kinda like this take on her? Especially her being a bit older and kinda put-upon, surrounded by these three crazy brothers ("Are we brothers? We don't really talk about it!"). Surprised that my favorite takeaway character was Pimple and his comparative gentle calm, contrasted with Zitz and Rash-rash-rashrash. All are fun all the same (though I could've done without seeing Zitz in a diaper).
I dunno, if you have exactly two friends who are down to clown and a ton of time to grind stuff out, I kinda think this is a pretty great time. Try not to be disappointed when the game decides it doesn't want to be a dedicated beat-em up, and just enjoy the ride.
Playing this as my first foray into the series definitely felt like I was missing something. You can sorta infer what you missed through pop culture osmosis (I think most folks who pick up Battletoads these days will know what Turbo Tunnel is), but I know that a couple of the levels and remixes benefit from having experience with the NES game and knowing what a particular sequence is supposed to be referencing. Still, this had just come out, and a 3-player co-op game was perfect for my friends at Designing For and me to play on-stream (you can watch our playthrough here).
Battletoads is sort of a beat-em up. I mean, that's definitely the main hook, with the belt-scroller levels and the arenas and the big movesets with supers and such, but that's really only about half of what you're doing over the course of the game. Sometimes you're doing Turbo Tunnel, sometimes you're playing Toadshambo, sometimes you're participating in a decathlon... the game likes to switch things up, mostly because it can, and it's grown bored of whatever the hell else it was doing. Makes for a great party game, honestly, when it keeps you guessing on what it's gonna throw your way next.
And it's not pulling punches, either! When it's a platformer, it's kind of dickish. When it's Turbo Tunnel, it's unapologetically brutal. There's embarrassing footage of me screaming in unbridled fury at one point, grinding out a particular late-game sequence. I... sort of love the game for that? Please, by all means, make me work for it. You're a Battletoads, game, you have a reputation to uphold.
Dlala definitely had a ton of fun writing this, too. I think the art style - which I'm starting to see is Dlala's signature touch, first and foremost, if Disney Illusion Island is anything to go by - does a lot for these characters and this world. Yes, the Dark Queen is unrecognizably different, and yes, I'd probably miss the old design if I knew that one better. But I kinda like this take on her? Especially her being a bit older and kinda put-upon, surrounded by these three crazy brothers ("Are we brothers? We don't really talk about it!"). Surprised that my favorite takeaway character was Pimple and his comparative gentle calm, contrasted with Zitz and Rash-rash-rashrash. All are fun all the same (though I could've done without seeing Zitz in a diaper).
I dunno, if you have exactly two friends who are down to clown and a ton of time to grind stuff out, I kinda think this is a pretty great time. Try not to be disappointed when the game decides it doesn't want to be a dedicated beat-em up, and just enjoy the ride.
My last Mario RPG for ages was Super Paper Mario (I didn't like Partners in Time, so after Super Paper, I just had no interest in pursuing later MaRPGios), so this was a chance to see what I'd been missing. Origami King had just come out, and I'd been inundated with discourse surrounding Sticker Star for years, but I actually knew little of what to expect for Color Splash. More of what people disliked about Sticker Star?
Well... probably... but I do think it's a fine enough game on its own.
The main thing is that you basically have to treat Paper Mario before and after Sticker Star as different series. A shared aesthetic lineage, to be sure, but the goals of each sub-sub-series is so different as to be incomparable. Color Splash has no interest in matching the world-building of Paper Mario, the scope of Thousand Year Door, or the tragedy of Super Paper; it just wants to be a silly series of incidental adventures with some Mario characters. And that's perfectly fine! I don't need every game to be a deceptively expansive RPG or anything like that. Simple li'l adventurey deckbuilders are okay, too.
Not that combat is especially interesting. Deckbuilding at least naturally encourages the player to experiment with the standard cards, but there really aren't too many, and you're likely to settle into something after a while. The ridiculously-named "Things" are the main bit of spice, essentially being one-off summons. They're... I guess it's cute how they change things up, but being one-and-done, it's hard to get real jazzed up about experimenting with them, especially knowing that some puzzles and some fights require some of the Things, and it's not always telegraphed what you'll need. You can at least grind 'em out if you need one you already used, but, like... was this really the easiest way to handle this mechanic?
Nah, you're definitely mostly here for the scenarios and writing. And there's a good deal of variety there! To name a few, there's a pirate adventure, a [muffled Shy Guy voice] BATTLE ROYALE, a Metal Gear Solid-esque infiltration sequence, a cooking challenge... to my knowledge, this is even the first Mario game to have the dubious honor of a Hot Springs Episode. Not to bring up a tired conversation point, but would this all be better with distinct Paper Mario OCs? Perhaps, but I'd argue that it's more effective in some ways to have some no-name Shy Guy randomly confide in Mario his own existentialist ennui. Anyway, it's fun to see how this game develops established supporting members of the Mario cast. Being a former Lemmy's Land Tourist, I'll frankly take any characterization I can for the Koopalings. And Birdo's reinvention as a lounge singer just... feels right for her. Definitely my current headcanon for her day job.
Also, without giving it away - the Green Power Plant was such a cool surprise. Holy moly.
My main emotional takeaway from this game is that it ended at precisely the right time. I had a lot of fun with its scenarios, and its mechanics were enough to lead me through them, but I think any longer - even one or two more stages - and the game would've worn out its welcome. Maybe that's a sign that tracking down each and every one of those Toads was a bit much? Whatever the case, while I definitely am more of a fan of the original Paper Mario series, this at least showed me that modern Paper Mario has its own merits. Solid enough time.
P.S., Thank you for remembering the Super Mario Land Staff Roll theme existed, game.
P.P.S., Another entry for the "when the hell else will I be able to recount this" list. This was my first regular livestreamed game for Designing For (viewable here), following our experiment with Live-A-Live. I didn't already own it, so I ordered a physical copy off GameStop's website (since I generally prefer physical media as a rule). I was confused when the disc wouldn't work on my Wii U, like the console simply couldn't read the disc. I had to check over and over again before I finally caught it - inexplicably, I'd received the German copy of the game in the mail from GameStop, and my Wii U was region-locked. I actually did try looking for a copy at physical stores (while observing social distancing, this being in the middle of COVID), but I ultimately just bought the game digitally off Wii U eShop. Still own that German copy, tho.
Well... probably... but I do think it's a fine enough game on its own.
The main thing is that you basically have to treat Paper Mario before and after Sticker Star as different series. A shared aesthetic lineage, to be sure, but the goals of each sub-sub-series is so different as to be incomparable. Color Splash has no interest in matching the world-building of Paper Mario, the scope of Thousand Year Door, or the tragedy of Super Paper; it just wants to be a silly series of incidental adventures with some Mario characters. And that's perfectly fine! I don't need every game to be a deceptively expansive RPG or anything like that. Simple li'l adventurey deckbuilders are okay, too.
Not that combat is especially interesting. Deckbuilding at least naturally encourages the player to experiment with the standard cards, but there really aren't too many, and you're likely to settle into something after a while. The ridiculously-named "Things" are the main bit of spice, essentially being one-off summons. They're... I guess it's cute how they change things up, but being one-and-done, it's hard to get real jazzed up about experimenting with them, especially knowing that some puzzles and some fights require some of the Things, and it's not always telegraphed what you'll need. You can at least grind 'em out if you need one you already used, but, like... was this really the easiest way to handle this mechanic?
Nah, you're definitely mostly here for the scenarios and writing. And there's a good deal of variety there! To name a few, there's a pirate adventure, a [muffled Shy Guy voice] BATTLE ROYALE, a Metal Gear Solid-esque infiltration sequence, a cooking challenge... to my knowledge, this is even the first Mario game to have the dubious honor of a Hot Springs Episode. Not to bring up a tired conversation point, but would this all be better with distinct Paper Mario OCs? Perhaps, but I'd argue that it's more effective in some ways to have some no-name Shy Guy randomly confide in Mario his own existentialist ennui. Anyway, it's fun to see how this game develops established supporting members of the Mario cast. Being a former Lemmy's Land Tourist, I'll frankly take any characterization I can for the Koopalings. And Birdo's reinvention as a lounge singer just... feels right for her. Definitely my current headcanon for her day job.
Also, without giving it away - the Green Power Plant was such a cool surprise. Holy moly.
My main emotional takeaway from this game is that it ended at precisely the right time. I had a lot of fun with its scenarios, and its mechanics were enough to lead me through them, but I think any longer - even one or two more stages - and the game would've worn out its welcome. Maybe that's a sign that tracking down each and every one of those Toads was a bit much? Whatever the case, while I definitely am more of a fan of the original Paper Mario series, this at least showed me that modern Paper Mario has its own merits. Solid enough time.
P.S., Thank you for remembering the Super Mario Land Staff Roll theme existed, game.
P.P.S., Another entry for the "when the hell else will I be able to recount this" list. This was my first regular livestreamed game for Designing For (viewable here), following our experiment with Live-A-Live. I didn't already own it, so I ordered a physical copy off GameStop's website (since I generally prefer physical media as a rule). I was confused when the disc wouldn't work on my Wii U, like the console simply couldn't read the disc. I had to check over and over again before I finally caught it - inexplicably, I'd received the German copy of the game in the mail from GameStop, and my Wii U was region-locked. I actually did try looking for a copy at physical stores (while observing social distancing, this being in the middle of COVID), but I ultimately just bought the game digitally off Wii U eShop. Still own that German copy, tho.
I don't think it's any surprise to call Phoenix Wright a great game, and Ace Attorney by large a great series. Gripping mystery series, fantastic writing, terrific characters (there isn't a single major character I don't love here), great music, super fun gameplay... a lot of Ace Attorney, and the first game in particular, are easy recommendations from me.
The first game probably ends up being my second favorite in the series overall. In some respects it feels the most "average" experience you'll have with the series, with a great early finale in "Turnabout Goodbyes" and no real clunker cases ("Turnabout Samurai" runs a little long, but I can't hate Wendy Oldbag and Sal Manella). The offset is how simple it is, with "The First Turnabout" and "Turnabout Sisters" resolving themselves so quickly. Not surprising, since they're introductory cases, and later games have little need for that sort of thing by contrast. If anything, it's all the better for the series to start on such an approachable tone. It's made the series super super easy for me to introduce to people, be they casual gamers or (in the case of this replay - my third time through the game) a friend group of experienced gamers.
"Rise from the Ashes" tends to be pretty divisive, being both a radical gameplay shift (incorporating mechanics from the then-in-planning Apollo Justice - remember that the first four cases represented the original GBA release, and Cacpcom wanted to throw in something extra to help justify the DS port) and far and away the longest case in the series. I think the game would've benefitted greatly from labelling it a bonus episode or something, since that's really what it is, as much as an attempt is made to neatly slot it into the themes and timeline of the first game. I also definitely fall into the camp of calling "Rise from the Ashes" pretty great, essentially being an entire Ace Attorney 1½ snuck into the scope of a single episode. Sort-of why I'm not completely opposed to it occasionally being paid DLC in later releases/compilations, since I think that at least better conveys the intent of the case. Plus, hey, this has to be a contender for one of the best breakdowns in the series.
Case rating, I probably go 4 > 5 > 2 > 1 > 3, with none bad and 3 being a'ight at worst.
NOTE - I wrote this misremembering that I'd played this myself back in 2017, only confirming in my notes afterwards that I'd only watched a friend play it at that time. As a rule, I only log stuff on Backloggd if I have a confirmed or approximate date to represent a playthrough, which is why I mostly focus on games I (re)played after 2015 (the year I started recording dates for my video game playthroughs). I didn't want this write-up to go to waste, and I've played through the game twice on my own, so I just took my best guess on a date here.
The first game probably ends up being my second favorite in the series overall. In some respects it feels the most "average" experience you'll have with the series, with a great early finale in "Turnabout Goodbyes" and no real clunker cases ("Turnabout Samurai" runs a little long, but I can't hate Wendy Oldbag and Sal Manella). The offset is how simple it is, with "The First Turnabout" and "Turnabout Sisters" resolving themselves so quickly. Not surprising, since they're introductory cases, and later games have little need for that sort of thing by contrast. If anything, it's all the better for the series to start on such an approachable tone. It's made the series super super easy for me to introduce to people, be they casual gamers or (in the case of this replay - my third time through the game) a friend group of experienced gamers.
"Rise from the Ashes" tends to be pretty divisive, being both a radical gameplay shift (incorporating mechanics from the then-in-planning Apollo Justice - remember that the first four cases represented the original GBA release, and Cacpcom wanted to throw in something extra to help justify the DS port) and far and away the longest case in the series. I think the game would've benefitted greatly from labelling it a bonus episode or something, since that's really what it is, as much as an attempt is made to neatly slot it into the themes and timeline of the first game. I also definitely fall into the camp of calling "Rise from the Ashes" pretty great, essentially being an entire Ace Attorney 1½ snuck into the scope of a single episode. Sort-of why I'm not completely opposed to it occasionally being paid DLC in later releases/compilations, since I think that at least better conveys the intent of the case. Plus, hey, this has to be a contender for one of the best breakdowns in the series.
Case rating, I probably go 4 > 5 > 2 > 1 > 3, with none bad and 3 being a'ight at worst.
NOTE - I wrote this misremembering that I'd played this myself back in 2017, only confirming in my notes afterwards that I'd only watched a friend play it at that time. As a rule, I only log stuff on Backloggd if I have a confirmed or approximate date to represent a playthrough, which is why I mostly focus on games I (re)played after 2015 (the year I started recording dates for my video game playthroughs). I didn't want this write-up to go to waste, and I've played through the game twice on my own, so I just took my best guess on a date here.
This review contains spoilers
These write-ups will fill out a lot more as the series goes along, but the first game just gets a quick write-up because it's been a while. Also because the first Uncharted is easily the worst (depending on how you qualify Golden Abyss).
Not a bad time, though, just rough compared to what the series would become. You can see the hallmarks of what would make the series so strong here: its character dynamics, its set pieces, its natural flow from jumpy-climby stuff to cover shooter stuff, etc. But I do feel like there's something missing yet. Nate and Sully have an instantly fun dynamic, but we don't get to spend nearly enough downtime with them to really feel their connection. Elena needs the second game to really tease out the extent of her relationship with Nate, but the start's there. The set pieces are great conceptually - the long-lost U-Boat in the middle of the Amazon is certainly striking - but it's rare for the game's spectacle to be used in a way that shakes up the gameplay experience. The search for El Dorado is a great high-concept, but I feel like the game's too quick to let Nate and Sully find SOMEthing.
I do sorta miss the focus this game has on its supernatural twist, given how supernatural elements get de-emphasized as the series progresses. I feel like it's almost genre work, so not having it in later games is a bit odd to me. ...at the same time, "zombies" is perhaps a bit too off-beat. I know it's a super-virus that's been sealed away forever blah blah blah - I dunno, I'd think that the virus would've gone extinct in the time between the Nazis showing up and Nate et al. showing up. Never mind the idea that the infected Spaniards could still be running around after 400 years, or that the preserved corpse would still be a vector. Ah, well.
Also, lobbing grenades with the Six-Axis motion controls is poopy. I get why it's there, Uncharted being so early in the PS3's life cycle, but still. Definitely glad later games moved away from it.
It's a modest start to what would become a great series. In a way, that's sort of perfect, given how much import the series places on the Sir Francis Drake motto "Greatness from Small Beginnings". But don't be too thrown if you don't love this game. This one's the stepping stone.
Not a bad time, though, just rough compared to what the series would become. You can see the hallmarks of what would make the series so strong here: its character dynamics, its set pieces, its natural flow from jumpy-climby stuff to cover shooter stuff, etc. But I do feel like there's something missing yet. Nate and Sully have an instantly fun dynamic, but we don't get to spend nearly enough downtime with them to really feel their connection. Elena needs the second game to really tease out the extent of her relationship with Nate, but the start's there. The set pieces are great conceptually - the long-lost U-Boat in the middle of the Amazon is certainly striking - but it's rare for the game's spectacle to be used in a way that shakes up the gameplay experience. The search for El Dorado is a great high-concept, but I feel like the game's too quick to let Nate and Sully find SOMEthing.
I do sorta miss the focus this game has on its supernatural twist, given how supernatural elements get de-emphasized as the series progresses. I feel like it's almost genre work, so not having it in later games is a bit odd to me. ...at the same time, "zombies" is perhaps a bit too off-beat. I know it's a super-virus that's been sealed away forever blah blah blah - I dunno, I'd think that the virus would've gone extinct in the time between the Nazis showing up and Nate et al. showing up. Never mind the idea that the infected Spaniards could still be running around after 400 years, or that the preserved corpse would still be a vector. Ah, well.
Also, lobbing grenades with the Six-Axis motion controls is poopy. I get why it's there, Uncharted being so early in the PS3's life cycle, but still. Definitely glad later games moved away from it.
It's a modest start to what would become a great series. In a way, that's sort of perfect, given how much import the series places on the Sir Francis Drake motto "Greatness from Small Beginnings". But don't be too thrown if you don't love this game. This one's the stepping stone.
Maybe silly to admit, but the start of COVID saw me shotgun a bunch of extremely disposable licensed games that had nevertheless been on my to-do list for years. I realized that I was gonna be home a lot, and I decided that I was gonna need a lot of light entertainment to buck me up. Do keep in mind that I was playing a lot of these around re-listening to Larry Correia's Monster Hunter International (a favorite comfort series), so you sorta have to imagine me playing these while listening to ultra-violent urban fantasy to get the full effect of my early pandemic experience. I suspect a lot of folks have similarly weird tonal clashes like this in the media they consumed around that time, for one reason or another (see also: all those memes about Isabelle and Doomguy being best friends).
Anyway, Land Before Time. This was sort of a weird one to play, because while I watched the first like six or so as a kid, I haven't directly revisited any of the movies in decades. Also, because this game is kind of nothing, and I don't think I would've gotten much out of it even when I was a kid. There's something kind of hollow and lifeless to a game that is just a footrace. No modifiers, few obstacles, no significant strategy - just pick a character and go. At least in something like Sonic R, you have the fun soundtrack and the novelty of what the game is exactly. Great Valley Racing Adventure just feels like a small set of Crash Bandicoot levels without the crates to crash into. An inoffensive but perfectly bland experience, in other words.
I dunno, is there something else I can randomly bring up to pad out this write-up? There's genuinely so little to this game that there isn't much to say.
Anyway, Land Before Time. This was sort of a weird one to play, because while I watched the first like six or so as a kid, I haven't directly revisited any of the movies in decades. Also, because this game is kind of nothing, and I don't think I would've gotten much out of it even when I was a kid. There's something kind of hollow and lifeless to a game that is just a footrace. No modifiers, few obstacles, no significant strategy - just pick a character and go. At least in something like Sonic R, you have the fun soundtrack and the novelty of what the game is exactly. Great Valley Racing Adventure just feels like a small set of Crash Bandicoot levels without the crates to crash into. An inoffensive but perfectly bland experience, in other words.
I dunno, is there something else I can randomly bring up to pad out this write-up? There's genuinely so little to this game that there isn't much to say.
1998
Alright, so a lot of this score is nostalgia, no point in denying that. But I also think this is a surprisingly inspired 3D platformer. One of those licensed games I had access to early on, when I didn't have access to console games. I tended to assume games like this represented a whole genre of video games that existed on the Nintendo 64 and the like. But no - so far as I know, nothing's really tried playing with the systems that define A Bug's Life.
The game's a 3D platformer, but it spices up its own platforming with its seed system. Throughout different levels are seeds, with some embedded into the ground while others are portable. Jumping on a seed grows a plant. By collecting medals, you can change the seed's color and gradually gain access to different and improved seeds with increasingly more powerful applications. You always start with brown mushrooms (yeah yeah I know not a plant, shh), but collecting more brown medals turns this 'shroom into a spinner fan, a dandelion that lets you glide, and finally a high-firing cannon. Alternatively, collecting green medals and changing the seed's color lets you grow increasingly tall sprout ladders. The idea here being that different environmental puzzles are built around different interactions with these seeds, both in terms of what seeds are used and where seeds are placed.
There's a surprising amount of depth to this system, but it never reads as excessive. The levels introduce the different seeds and their interactions slowly enough that they don't overwhelm the player. Keep in mind as well that this is in addition to standard level gimmicks as well as the game's OTHER systems, tied to other collectables and combat. Yes, this game even features an upgradeable weapon system that dovetails with its seed system, and even that comes across as fairly intuitive. I'm particularly impressed by the fourth boss fight, which tells a mechanical joke based around the interplay of its different network of systems (I asked my friends at Designing For to talk about it here). That the game is so confident in itself to attempt and pull off this type of joke is quite the feat!
I'll say that the platforming and movement is good-not-great when it's firing on all cylinders. Flik himself is a perfectly serviceable character to run and jump as, but he's got this startup and end lag on his run that makes some positioning awkward, particularly the few times the game asks the player to clear a bottomless pit (not much of that in this game, thankfully, and one of the upgraded plants helps with these). There's some screwiness with collisions, too. Not much, but enough that you notice it when trying to land on rounded edges or try to figure out the sweet spot on those leaf sprouts.
Also... Flik talks a LOT. You sorta have to get used to repeated voice clips after a fashion. I'm so used to it myself that I find it more funny than anything (Ahhhh, the life of an ant), but I can definitely imagine it getting old after a while if you didn't grow up on it.
But this is still a game of little moments, even around its interlocking moments. There's some genuinely neat spectacle, insofar as that could exist in a 3D platformer of its era. "Level Four: Dandelion Flight" (or "Cliffside"? I never knew how to refer to these levels) isn't much, but that it places so much emphasis on itself, its change of scenery, the next boss, and the newly-introduced Dandelion kinda gives it its own weight. There are a lot of unique set pieces, like the big tree or the rolling can. That butt slide has no reason to exist, but it's fun. Likewise for those bonus levels in the circus tent...
I dunno. Say what you must regarding the quality of Jon Burton's games, but I feel like he always has something fascinating to offer with his design ideas. If you're there for it, there's really something for you to sink your teeth into. Weird as it is to say about A Bug's Life, given its status in retrospect as a fairly forgettable early Pixar movie, but its video game was an easy highlight for me back when these were the only sorts of games I could play. Even now, I keep finding new things to hold my attention. I can't hate something like that.
The game's a 3D platformer, but it spices up its own platforming with its seed system. Throughout different levels are seeds, with some embedded into the ground while others are portable. Jumping on a seed grows a plant. By collecting medals, you can change the seed's color and gradually gain access to different and improved seeds with increasingly more powerful applications. You always start with brown mushrooms (yeah yeah I know not a plant, shh), but collecting more brown medals turns this 'shroom into a spinner fan, a dandelion that lets you glide, and finally a high-firing cannon. Alternatively, collecting green medals and changing the seed's color lets you grow increasingly tall sprout ladders. The idea here being that different environmental puzzles are built around different interactions with these seeds, both in terms of what seeds are used and where seeds are placed.
There's a surprising amount of depth to this system, but it never reads as excessive. The levels introduce the different seeds and their interactions slowly enough that they don't overwhelm the player. Keep in mind as well that this is in addition to standard level gimmicks as well as the game's OTHER systems, tied to other collectables and combat. Yes, this game even features an upgradeable weapon system that dovetails with its seed system, and even that comes across as fairly intuitive. I'm particularly impressed by the fourth boss fight, which tells a mechanical joke based around the interplay of its different network of systems (I asked my friends at Designing For to talk about it here). That the game is so confident in itself to attempt and pull off this type of joke is quite the feat!
I'll say that the platforming and movement is good-not-great when it's firing on all cylinders. Flik himself is a perfectly serviceable character to run and jump as, but he's got this startup and end lag on his run that makes some positioning awkward, particularly the few times the game asks the player to clear a bottomless pit (not much of that in this game, thankfully, and one of the upgraded plants helps with these). There's some screwiness with collisions, too. Not much, but enough that you notice it when trying to land on rounded edges or try to figure out the sweet spot on those leaf sprouts.
Also... Flik talks a LOT. You sorta have to get used to repeated voice clips after a fashion. I'm so used to it myself that I find it more funny than anything (Ahhhh, the life of an ant), but I can definitely imagine it getting old after a while if you didn't grow up on it.
But this is still a game of little moments, even around its interlocking moments. There's some genuinely neat spectacle, insofar as that could exist in a 3D platformer of its era. "Level Four: Dandelion Flight" (or "Cliffside"? I never knew how to refer to these levels) isn't much, but that it places so much emphasis on itself, its change of scenery, the next boss, and the newly-introduced Dandelion kinda gives it its own weight. There are a lot of unique set pieces, like the big tree or the rolling can. That butt slide has no reason to exist, but it's fun. Likewise for those bonus levels in the circus tent...
I dunno. Say what you must regarding the quality of Jon Burton's games, but I feel like he always has something fascinating to offer with his design ideas. If you're there for it, there's really something for you to sink your teeth into. Weird as it is to say about A Bug's Life, given its status in retrospect as a fairly forgettable early Pixar movie, but its video game was an easy highlight for me back when these were the only sorts of games I could play. Even now, I keep finding new things to hold my attention. I can't hate something like that.
1994
It's trying really hard to be the Genesis game on Game Boy. In some respects that's commendable, but it's obvious that the Game Boy wasn't geared to handle it. The only way the team found to translate that Disney animation onto handheld was to sloooowwwww the game speed down to accommodate all the extra frames. Levels are fairly minimally updated, so a lot of sequences that benefitted from the extra screen real estate are now needlessly tricky and leap-of-faith-y. This of course means levels that were already dickish like "The Escape" are just even meaner this time around. I do think a better call would've been to take more of the approach Dark Techologies did later on with The Lion King, where the general ideas of these levels are preserved but updates are made to account for the reduced screen space, etc. Not good, but it's at least over and done with quickly enough with the Disney Classics Collection port and its special features.
1993
For years, it was always so strange to me to hear that this was one of the most beloved licensed games of all time. When my family started exploring retro gaming (what would have been retro circa '06, anyway), we mostly went all-in on Nintendo consoles, so my experience with 16-bit Disney was limited to SNES games. Most of the time, the difference was negligible (Lion King, Jungle Book, etc) - but then there was Aladdin. I always thought SNES Aladdin (from what I saw of my brother playing it) was fine. Nowhere near as good as Maui Mallard or anything, but perfectly acceptable. Far from what everyone else was saying about it.
But of course, SNES Aladdin is a different beast from Genesis Aladdin. And while I owe Capcom's efforts on SNES a revisit, I definitely get the hype around Virgin Interactive's Aladdin. I'm not as head-over-heels for it as a lot of folks - a simple consequence of playing it late, and it having to measure up against my beloved Maui Mallard - but it is still a good time.
The main draw is of course the presentation. Getting actual Disney animators to help with the spritework doesn't represent any technological leaps forward, but it did much to show what was possible for games of the time, particularly when backed by big talent. Aladdin himself looks GREAT, as do many of the enemies and backgrounds. It's neat to see how much of the movie naturally lends itself to platforming sequences; in particular, the "Friend Like Me" sequence is a suuuuper fun interpretation, with its loopy platforming and environments. Audio for that matter is great as well, with nice covers of movie music and a great original composition in "Arab Rock".
I do think the game is a bit lopsided as an adaptation. It's fine enough to expand upon getting to the Cave of Wonders, but the entire second and third acts of the movie are reduced to individual stages! I guess there wasn't a whole lot that could be done to make those interesting as platformer segments? Jasmine is shockingly absent for much of the adventure - like, we couldn't even have a quick "A Whole New World" sequence? Ah, well.
"The Escape" is a harsh level, a completely dickish wall with some leap of faith platforming, but you hardly need me to say that. I love love love "Rug Ride", though, very much appreciate that that level's functionally optional. Sort of exploring either extreme of the infamous "Can't Wait to be King" level from Virgin's later Lion King title.
I do owe Virgin's other efforts with Disney properties a revisit (I understand Jungle Book holds up pretty well), but I suspect Aladdin will end up the runaway winner. Lion King is a game I love in spite of itself, but Aladdin is just a rock-solid title all around. Good stuff.
But of course, SNES Aladdin is a different beast from Genesis Aladdin. And while I owe Capcom's efforts on SNES a revisit, I definitely get the hype around Virgin Interactive's Aladdin. I'm not as head-over-heels for it as a lot of folks - a simple consequence of playing it late, and it having to measure up against my beloved Maui Mallard - but it is still a good time.
The main draw is of course the presentation. Getting actual Disney animators to help with the spritework doesn't represent any technological leaps forward, but it did much to show what was possible for games of the time, particularly when backed by big talent. Aladdin himself looks GREAT, as do many of the enemies and backgrounds. It's neat to see how much of the movie naturally lends itself to platforming sequences; in particular, the "Friend Like Me" sequence is a suuuuper fun interpretation, with its loopy platforming and environments. Audio for that matter is great as well, with nice covers of movie music and a great original composition in "Arab Rock".
I do think the game is a bit lopsided as an adaptation. It's fine enough to expand upon getting to the Cave of Wonders, but the entire second and third acts of the movie are reduced to individual stages! I guess there wasn't a whole lot that could be done to make those interesting as platformer segments? Jasmine is shockingly absent for much of the adventure - like, we couldn't even have a quick "A Whole New World" sequence? Ah, well.
"The Escape" is a harsh level, a completely dickish wall with some leap of faith platforming, but you hardly need me to say that. I love love love "Rug Ride", though, very much appreciate that that level's functionally optional. Sort of exploring either extreme of the infamous "Can't Wait to be King" level from Virgin's later Lion King title.
I do owe Virgin's other efforts with Disney properties a revisit (I understand Jungle Book holds up pretty well), but I suspect Aladdin will end up the runaway winner. Lion King is a game I love in spite of itself, but Aladdin is just a rock-solid title all around. Good stuff.
2005
Once you know that this started life as a sequel to Diddy Kong Racing, it's quite striking how many surface-level similarities there are between this and one-third of DKR. The controls for piloting have been fairly faithfully translated to GBA, with only a little bit missing; I definitely miss being able to quickly steer by holding "R", but the fact that they were able to implement stuff like the loop-de-loops and aileron rolls into a sprite-based isometric game is pretty impressive. There's also little stuff like the appearance of the dash rings, or the inexplicable Smoky the Dragon cameo, or the Jiggy Challenges being parallels to the Silver Coin Challenges, or the fact that one of the characters (Grunty) is incomparably worse than the rest of the cast as Krunch was in DKR.
Banjo-Pilot had a pretty rough dev cycle, only in part due to the Microsoft buy-out. It's fairly well-documented that there were at least four different iterations to this game before they settled on what was released. To be honest, I think the team spun their tires on this game because they genuinely couldn't find a good way to make the project work. Diddy Kong Racing for GBA is a super ambitious idea, one that frankly wasn't possible for the hardware. The closest attempt to realizing this - the 2004 build done in voxels - apparently ran so slowly as to be unplayable, which is why the team reverted back to their 2003 build and cleaned that up for release. I suspect they just needed to get any version of the game out by 2005 to get their return on investment.
Unfortunately, it's not hard to see why the team didn't originally commit to the 2003 build. It's not bad, but there's just so little to Banjo-Pilot to make it stick out. 3D was what made flying interesting in Diddy Kong Racing, and the Mode 7 illusion of 3D simply isn't able to replicate the feeling. There are so few obstacles to contend with, and the tracks are so barebones, that races are just over and done with so quickly. I don't think any track lasts longer than 2 minutes? And the difficulty exists entirely within the character you choose, more than anything offered by the track or the AI. There's no "rival" system in place, the way it exists in Mario Kart, so it's ridiculously easy to run away with Grand Prixs and the like.
Relatedly, nothing whatsoever is done to balance Bottles versus Grunty in the Jiggy Challenges. So your reward for struggling through all the Bottles Challenges against the most broken character in the game is a piss-easy rehash against the worst character in the game. I generally find that the Reverse tracks add little to the overall experience, largely because the tracks themselves have little mechanical identity such that a Reversed run would change them up. I think Freezing Furnace is the only track to express a clear mechanical idea (splitting everything across those three-to-five channels along the straightaways), with everything else simply being about the shape of the track.
It is sorta interesting that this is the game where Jolly Roger first started to get a push. Jamjars would've felt like a more logical inclusion, since Humba Wumba's there already herself. But I'm not inclined to complain or anything, I'm all for the more off-beat character inclusions. Even if they don't exactly make sense; why does Bottles control lightning in his versus matches? Or Banjo launch his WISHYWASHY incarnation at people?
Mario Kart: Super Circuit feels like a natural point of comparison, in much the same way Diddy Kong Racing invites natural comparisons to Mario Kart 64. Super Circuit is an arbitrarily mean game, with sloppy controls and a strict definition of what it considers mastery. Banjo-Pilot is simply a title without teeth. Maybe those Staff Ghosts require getting good to clear, but I wasn't really interested in trying to grind those out. Stop 'n' Swop is dickish here, but that's sort of the joke as well. Everything else just... kinda exists. I imagine this would've made for a much more enjoyable portable experience than Super Circuit back in the day, by virtue of it being easier to master, but it's so nothing that it doesn't much feel like an improvement. A decent experiment, but kind of a failure, sad to say.
Banjo-Pilot had a pretty rough dev cycle, only in part due to the Microsoft buy-out. It's fairly well-documented that there were at least four different iterations to this game before they settled on what was released. To be honest, I think the team spun their tires on this game because they genuinely couldn't find a good way to make the project work. Diddy Kong Racing for GBA is a super ambitious idea, one that frankly wasn't possible for the hardware. The closest attempt to realizing this - the 2004 build done in voxels - apparently ran so slowly as to be unplayable, which is why the team reverted back to their 2003 build and cleaned that up for release. I suspect they just needed to get any version of the game out by 2005 to get their return on investment.
Unfortunately, it's not hard to see why the team didn't originally commit to the 2003 build. It's not bad, but there's just so little to Banjo-Pilot to make it stick out. 3D was what made flying interesting in Diddy Kong Racing, and the Mode 7 illusion of 3D simply isn't able to replicate the feeling. There are so few obstacles to contend with, and the tracks are so barebones, that races are just over and done with so quickly. I don't think any track lasts longer than 2 minutes? And the difficulty exists entirely within the character you choose, more than anything offered by the track or the AI. There's no "rival" system in place, the way it exists in Mario Kart, so it's ridiculously easy to run away with Grand Prixs and the like.
Relatedly, nothing whatsoever is done to balance Bottles versus Grunty in the Jiggy Challenges. So your reward for struggling through all the Bottles Challenges against the most broken character in the game is a piss-easy rehash against the worst character in the game. I generally find that the Reverse tracks add little to the overall experience, largely because the tracks themselves have little mechanical identity such that a Reversed run would change them up. I think Freezing Furnace is the only track to express a clear mechanical idea (splitting everything across those three-to-five channels along the straightaways), with everything else simply being about the shape of the track.
It is sorta interesting that this is the game where Jolly Roger first started to get a push. Jamjars would've felt like a more logical inclusion, since Humba Wumba's there already herself. But I'm not inclined to complain or anything, I'm all for the more off-beat character inclusions. Even if they don't exactly make sense; why does Bottles control lightning in his versus matches? Or Banjo launch his WISHYWASHY incarnation at people?
Mario Kart: Super Circuit feels like a natural point of comparison, in much the same way Diddy Kong Racing invites natural comparisons to Mario Kart 64. Super Circuit is an arbitrarily mean game, with sloppy controls and a strict definition of what it considers mastery. Banjo-Pilot is simply a title without teeth. Maybe those Staff Ghosts require getting good to clear, but I wasn't really interested in trying to grind those out. Stop 'n' Swop is dickish here, but that's sort of the joke as well. Everything else just... kinda exists. I imagine this would've made for a much more enjoyable portable experience than Super Circuit back in the day, by virtue of it being easier to master, but it's so nothing that it doesn't much feel like an improvement. A decent experiment, but kind of a failure, sad to say.
1992
I'll tackle this right away - I hate Metropolis and Death Egg so much that they completely tank my enjoyment of this game. Metropolis moreso, since Death Egg's main sticking point for me really just being the complete lack of a margin of error. Yeah, yeah, I know, I just need to get good at the video game. But would one ring really have been too much for two bosses? Particularly Death Egg Robot, since that undercarriage's hitbox is deceptively fiddly?
Metropolis just suuuuuuucks. Oh the music's great, and the visuals are cool, but I never have fun actually playing it. I know it's trying to be Scrap Brain again, what with being a slower level that's a dive into Robotnik's factories. I guess that's fair, but I feel like Scrap Brain was still presenting lots of interesting new puzzles that tested the player's timing and understanding of the game's physics systems, to say nothing of the subversive Act 3. Metropolis just feels like putzing and other busywork, with cheap shots as far as the eye can see. Maybe a decent candidate for blitzing through as Super Sonic, but as a normal playthrough? Bleh. And then there's an inexplicable Act 3, and you have to deal with more Metropolis for EVEN LONGER! Bleh!
So long as I'm complaining, this is more petty, but I've never liked Sonic 2's Special Stages. The game draws those Ring sprites too late for me to react to them, and I'm never able to get a good rhythm much past the first Special Stage. Again, I know I just need to get good - but how can I get good when Tails keeps blundering into the dumb mines??? And don't tell me not to play with Tails; the game wants me to have a little buddy, darn it! I definitely think the dumb Sonic 2 halfpipe gets better in games where you can see those rings way earlier in advance (and Tails doesn't trundle into mines). But honestly, just give me Blue Sphere and I'll be happy.
...those are my main complaints. I don't want to undersell them, but the truth is that I like the rest of the game well enough that the spectre of Metropolis and all the other stuff feels like that much more of a blemish. I think this is the Sonic game that first started to consistently nail the series' strengths. Spin Dash as a DIY momentum-builder does a TON for the overall experience, showing that Sonic Team was confident enough in the physics system they created in the first game to allow the player to more freely play with it outside intended set pieces. A lot of the levels are more conducive to the sort of speed platforming best exemplified by the first game's Green Hill. Emerald Hill and Chemical Plant feel like the truest expressions of this, but I also like how the first game's slower three levels - Marble, Spring Yard, Labyrinth - all have spiritual successors here that complement the new momentum focus. Hill Top feels like a less claustrophobic Marble, Labyrinth feels like it's been distilled across Aquatic Hill and Mystic Caves, and Spring Yard feels much better realized as Casino Night. Casino Night is probably the strongest new level, feeling like a full-on mini-game that naturally implements pinball into the standard gameplay loop. Sky Chase doesn't feel as natural of a change of pace as Casino Night, but it's still plenty fun, and I'll honestly take a complete switch-up following Metropolis.
I think, if Sonic 1 is a game where I like and love the first and third thirds but hate the middle third, Sonic 2 is a game where I love the first third, like the second third, and tolerate-at-best the final third. I think, now that I've finally put Sonic 2 to bed, if I were to revisit the game, I'd probably just play through Oil Ocean and call it good. Maybe jump ahead to Sky Chase in level select, if I wanna?
The best version of Sonic 2 is, without question, Sonic 2: Special Edition. Clearly the fine folks at IGDB need to get their act together and patch this conspicuous absence in their database.
Metropolis just suuuuuuucks. Oh the music's great, and the visuals are cool, but I never have fun actually playing it. I know it's trying to be Scrap Brain again, what with being a slower level that's a dive into Robotnik's factories. I guess that's fair, but I feel like Scrap Brain was still presenting lots of interesting new puzzles that tested the player's timing and understanding of the game's physics systems, to say nothing of the subversive Act 3. Metropolis just feels like putzing and other busywork, with cheap shots as far as the eye can see. Maybe a decent candidate for blitzing through as Super Sonic, but as a normal playthrough? Bleh. And then there's an inexplicable Act 3, and you have to deal with more Metropolis for EVEN LONGER! Bleh!
So long as I'm complaining, this is more petty, but I've never liked Sonic 2's Special Stages. The game draws those Ring sprites too late for me to react to them, and I'm never able to get a good rhythm much past the first Special Stage. Again, I know I just need to get good - but how can I get good when Tails keeps blundering into the dumb mines??? And don't tell me not to play with Tails; the game wants me to have a little buddy, darn it! I definitely think the dumb Sonic 2 halfpipe gets better in games where you can see those rings way earlier in advance (and Tails doesn't trundle into mines). But honestly, just give me Blue Sphere and I'll be happy.
...those are my main complaints. I don't want to undersell them, but the truth is that I like the rest of the game well enough that the spectre of Metropolis and all the other stuff feels like that much more of a blemish. I think this is the Sonic game that first started to consistently nail the series' strengths. Spin Dash as a DIY momentum-builder does a TON for the overall experience, showing that Sonic Team was confident enough in the physics system they created in the first game to allow the player to more freely play with it outside intended set pieces. A lot of the levels are more conducive to the sort of speed platforming best exemplified by the first game's Green Hill. Emerald Hill and Chemical Plant feel like the truest expressions of this, but I also like how the first game's slower three levels - Marble, Spring Yard, Labyrinth - all have spiritual successors here that complement the new momentum focus. Hill Top feels like a less claustrophobic Marble, Labyrinth feels like it's been distilled across Aquatic Hill and Mystic Caves, and Spring Yard feels much better realized as Casino Night. Casino Night is probably the strongest new level, feeling like a full-on mini-game that naturally implements pinball into the standard gameplay loop. Sky Chase doesn't feel as natural of a change of pace as Casino Night, but it's still plenty fun, and I'll honestly take a complete switch-up following Metropolis.
I think, if Sonic 1 is a game where I like and love the first and third thirds but hate the middle third, Sonic 2 is a game where I love the first third, like the second third, and tolerate-at-best the final third. I think, now that I've finally put Sonic 2 to bed, if I were to revisit the game, I'd probably just play through Oil Ocean and call it good. Maybe jump ahead to Sky Chase in level select, if I wanna?
The best version of Sonic 2 is, without question, Sonic 2: Special Edition. Clearly the fine folks at IGDB need to get their act together and patch this conspicuous absence in their database.
1991
In retrospect, a strikingly different tone from what the series would go for. It does always take me a minute to adjust to the lack of Spin Dash when I revisit, but I don't think that's all there is to it. Sonic 1 feels more interested in separating its spectacle from its puzzle segments, likely because the team was breaking new ground with the game's spectacle, and they didn't know/have the confidence in making the whole game like that. A consequence of that is that a lot of the series-defining speed feels like the exception to what Sonic's going for than the rule. A buddy of mine holds that Sonic as a series punishes speed in the first couple games; I don't know that I agree with that completely, but I definitely think speed is a different priority here.
Like, so, Green Hill. Not "Hold Right to Win" or anything, but there are so many stretches where it's easy to get a good run going that the player's able to just explore the world at high speed, doing loop-de-loops, sliding through underground tunnels, and getting a ton of horizontal distance on a high jump. Yeah, there's that one bit in Act 2 where you can easily run off into a spike bed and die, but that's the exception rather than the rule - most of Green Hill is about building and playing with momentum. Then the game draws a hard contrast with its next three zones. Marble is all about claustrophobic platforming, pushing blocks, and lava. Spring Yard is... kinda suffering, honestly... but it feels like a technical demonstration of spring and jump mechanics. Labyrinth is playing against water puzzles and that timer of doom, platforming in open areas but with additional restrictions.
Thinking about this, there's a lot of experimentation with what is meant by speed and how the game best wants to explore that. Marble is fast because you're running from something. Spring Yard is fast because you're being flung about. Labyrinth makes the player want to go fast to escape the water portions. Later games would better find ways to integrate these speed-related ideas into the type of experience the player gets out of Green Hill's open freedom and would be much better for it in my opinion. But for the first game in the series, a completely new title trying to find itself? I'm willing to understand the lack in confidence with what the game could do and desire to present things more familiar to gamers of '91.
I do think the unfortunate consequence is that Sonic 1, for me, is a game that stops me in my tracks after a while. That's why, even though I had access to all the Genesis Sonics at the same time thanks to the GameCube Mega Collection, it took me a full 15 years to finally beat Sonic 1. Green Hill is always a great time, and Marble is solid enough, but Spring Yard and Labyrinth have always traditionally killed my interest in a playthrough. That, and the Special Stages. They're not bad, but getting the True Ending in any Sonic where you can't easily revisit Special Stages is a hard sell for me. But for this playthrough, I got good at the video game, took a mulligan on the Special Stages, and soldiered on through.
And honestly? Scrap Brain and especially Star Light are a great time. Very much worth pushing myself to get through. Star Light's a nice breather after Labyrinth and feels like a great little spectacle level - not as wide open as Green Hill or anything, but with lots of opportunities to explore mechanics and zip around. Scrap Brain is a fun final area, getting right into the heard of Robotnik's evil lair and appropriately challenging - and then Act 3 is a fun twist that, honestly, I kinda wish retro Sonic played with a bit more. Some good stuff in the game's last third there.
It'd take a bit for Sonic to find a template that appeals to me, specifically. But I don't think this is bad - just different.
Like, so, Green Hill. Not "Hold Right to Win" or anything, but there are so many stretches where it's easy to get a good run going that the player's able to just explore the world at high speed, doing loop-de-loops, sliding through underground tunnels, and getting a ton of horizontal distance on a high jump. Yeah, there's that one bit in Act 2 where you can easily run off into a spike bed and die, but that's the exception rather than the rule - most of Green Hill is about building and playing with momentum. Then the game draws a hard contrast with its next three zones. Marble is all about claustrophobic platforming, pushing blocks, and lava. Spring Yard is... kinda suffering, honestly... but it feels like a technical demonstration of spring and jump mechanics. Labyrinth is playing against water puzzles and that timer of doom, platforming in open areas but with additional restrictions.
Thinking about this, there's a lot of experimentation with what is meant by speed and how the game best wants to explore that. Marble is fast because you're running from something. Spring Yard is fast because you're being flung about. Labyrinth makes the player want to go fast to escape the water portions. Later games would better find ways to integrate these speed-related ideas into the type of experience the player gets out of Green Hill's open freedom and would be much better for it in my opinion. But for the first game in the series, a completely new title trying to find itself? I'm willing to understand the lack in confidence with what the game could do and desire to present things more familiar to gamers of '91.
I do think the unfortunate consequence is that Sonic 1, for me, is a game that stops me in my tracks after a while. That's why, even though I had access to all the Genesis Sonics at the same time thanks to the GameCube Mega Collection, it took me a full 15 years to finally beat Sonic 1. Green Hill is always a great time, and Marble is solid enough, but Spring Yard and Labyrinth have always traditionally killed my interest in a playthrough. That, and the Special Stages. They're not bad, but getting the True Ending in any Sonic where you can't easily revisit Special Stages is a hard sell for me. But for this playthrough, I got good at the video game, took a mulligan on the Special Stages, and soldiered on through.
And honestly? Scrap Brain and especially Star Light are a great time. Very much worth pushing myself to get through. Star Light's a nice breather after Labyrinth and feels like a great little spectacle level - not as wide open as Green Hill or anything, but with lots of opportunities to explore mechanics and zip around. Scrap Brain is a fun final area, getting right into the heard of Robotnik's evil lair and appropriately challenging - and then Act 3 is a fun twist that, honestly, I kinda wish retro Sonic played with a bit more. Some good stuff in the game's last third there.
It'd take a bit for Sonic to find a template that appeals to me, specifically. But I don't think this is bad - just different.
This review contains spoilers
Great proof of concept, great showcase of what Kojima wanted to do with MGS5, nice bringing back MGS4's gameplay style into MGS1's gameplay template.
I'll be honest - the ending to this felt like such a mean slap in the face and huge escalation compared to MGS's whole thing that I've never fully wanted to play Phantom Pain. Now, I've never played Peace Walker, so I've never been attached to Paz as a character, nor did I understand that she's an adult (p-probably?). So I sure as shit thought the ending of this demo was that Big Boss recovers this child soldier and pulls a bomb out of her stomach, only to discover too late that she had a second bomb stuffed in her vagina. Is it better that Paz is an adult, or that maybe the bomb was placed elsewhere (but, like, where? They checked her digestive tract and only found the first one)? Man, I don't know the answer to that question, but I really have no interest in seeing if that gets answered in Phantom Pain.
I'll be honest - the ending to this felt like such a mean slap in the face and huge escalation compared to MGS's whole thing that I've never fully wanted to play Phantom Pain. Now, I've never played Peace Walker, so I've never been attached to Paz as a character, nor did I understand that she's an adult (p-probably?). So I sure as shit thought the ending of this demo was that Big Boss recovers this child soldier and pulls a bomb out of her stomach, only to discover too late that she had a second bomb stuffed in her vagina. Is it better that Paz is an adult, or that maybe the bomb was placed elsewhere (but, like, where? They checked her digestive tract and only found the first one)? Man, I don't know the answer to that question, but I really have no interest in seeing if that gets answered in Phantom Pain.
2014
inFAMOUS is generally a series I found got worse over time, which unfortunately puts Second Son at the unenviable bottom of the set. I don't think it's that bad of a game, though; truth be told, most of the inFAMOUS series is pretty close, and all are games I at least consider "good". But Second Son is generally the title I'm least interested in revisiting.
I think what it is is how unnecessary the morality system feels? Morality was never really one of inFAMOUS's strong suits; the game does a lot to flavor itself with its morality system, trying to act like the choices posed have real consequences, but it's very rarely something more than a binary "be nice/be a jerk" sort of thing. That one Penny Arcade always comes to mind, and yeah, stuff's largely like that. This isn't to say that I'm opposed to the simple binary, as it's certainly a way to add replayability, and that's clearly what the main thrust of it is. But it's never been enough to entice that second playthrough out of me. Same with the first BioShock: much-lauded for its moral choice, always felt like "...that's it?" to me. Blockbuster games can do moral choice compellingly, but this isn't it. With Second Son in particular, there's one choice that feels like it carries the right amount of weight (if you've played the game, you know the one). Everything else is just... there, I guess. Or is the inFAMOUS Evil ending, which... is probably why this game uses a fictional Native American people rather than any real-world tribes.
But the draw to inFAMOUS's morality system isn't its narrative application, but rather its mechanical implementation. The first two inFAMOUSes were good about this, but I kinda think Second Son drops the ball here, too? There was a decent amount of variety with how you played Cole vs Evil Cole in the first two games, but I feel like a lot of the variance in Deslin's moveset is more aesthetic or minor. This is especially pronounced with Deslin's Concrete ability, which has no real variation (though the game also gives you Concrete late, so maybe there wasn't much point in the extra bit of flavor).
For that matter, while I think this game's choice of elements is SOOOOO COOOOOOL, I found the movesets to be kinda limited? Deslin can only change affinities by re-absorbing from a power source, so each element represents a commitment on the player's part until they find something better. That's fair, I guess, but a consequence of this design is that if the game wants to tease out a specific function from the player, either the game must provide a source for that element, or it must be a function that the player will always have ready access to. Every element has standard shots, shotgun-like energy blasts, Melee-enhancers, grenades, rockets, and finishers. Elements have unique elements, but I would have rather had these as the core of the moveset rather than a splash of flavor. By way of comparison, Fetch has just enough flavor in First Light to make her feel different from Deslin's take on Neon, while Deslin's Neon powers feel comparable in broad strokes to his Smoke or Video powers. I guess it's fair of the game to homogenize its powers a bit, but it's still kinda a bummer.
But since I mentioned it - the idea of the power suite is such a cool take. How inspired, to theme elements not from traditional Lightning/Fire/Ice like we've seen done endlessly, but rather from the "elements" of an urban landscape. Smoke, Neon, Video, and Concrete, with the implied presence of Paper, Wire, and Glass existing elsewhere in this world. I don't love how all of these are executed - in particular, Deslin directly copying Eugene's manifestation of Video, where all iconography is lifted from Eugene's Heaven's Hellfire video game, feels like an extreme limitation on a theoretically infinite power and a missed opportunity to examine the kind of virtual imagery that would be relevant to Deslin. But I feel like I'm nitpicking there.
It's definitely nitpicking to comment on how strange it is for the game to take place in Seattle rather than some fictional stand-in for Seattle. I guess it doesn't really matter, but after playing around with stand-in New York City and stand-in New Orleans, it's a little distracting to be in Seattle-Seattle. Ah, well.
It's also a pretty short game? Definitely shorter than But it was a launch window game for the PS4, so honestly I'll give it a bit of leeway there.
I've mostly been grumbling, but it is a good game overall. "More inFAMOUS" is always a good time for me, so I had a good time with this. As always, Sucker Punch is great at writing characters, and a lot of the major players are super interesting. Deslin's pretty fun to move around as, and tagging, while a minor thing, is a fun little mechanic. The moment-to-moment experience of the game is a good time, and it was fun while it lasted. At this point, I dunno that we'll ever see another one of these, but this was a nice title all the same.
I think what it is is how unnecessary the morality system feels? Morality was never really one of inFAMOUS's strong suits; the game does a lot to flavor itself with its morality system, trying to act like the choices posed have real consequences, but it's very rarely something more than a binary "be nice/be a jerk" sort of thing. That one Penny Arcade always comes to mind, and yeah, stuff's largely like that. This isn't to say that I'm opposed to the simple binary, as it's certainly a way to add replayability, and that's clearly what the main thrust of it is. But it's never been enough to entice that second playthrough out of me. Same with the first BioShock: much-lauded for its moral choice, always felt like "...that's it?" to me. Blockbuster games can do moral choice compellingly, but this isn't it. With Second Son in particular, there's one choice that feels like it carries the right amount of weight (if you've played the game, you know the one). Everything else is just... there, I guess. Or is the inFAMOUS Evil ending, which... is probably why this game uses a fictional Native American people rather than any real-world tribes.
But the draw to inFAMOUS's morality system isn't its narrative application, but rather its mechanical implementation. The first two inFAMOUSes were good about this, but I kinda think Second Son drops the ball here, too? There was a decent amount of variety with how you played Cole vs Evil Cole in the first two games, but I feel like a lot of the variance in Deslin's moveset is more aesthetic or minor. This is especially pronounced with Deslin's Concrete ability, which has no real variation (though the game also gives you Concrete late, so maybe there wasn't much point in the extra bit of flavor).
For that matter, while I think this game's choice of elements is SOOOOO COOOOOOL, I found the movesets to be kinda limited? Deslin can only change affinities by re-absorbing from a power source, so each element represents a commitment on the player's part until they find something better. That's fair, I guess, but a consequence of this design is that if the game wants to tease out a specific function from the player, either the game must provide a source for that element, or it must be a function that the player will always have ready access to. Every element has standard shots, shotgun-like energy blasts, Melee-enhancers, grenades, rockets, and finishers. Elements have unique elements, but I would have rather had these as the core of the moveset rather than a splash of flavor. By way of comparison, Fetch has just enough flavor in First Light to make her feel different from Deslin's take on Neon, while Deslin's Neon powers feel comparable in broad strokes to his Smoke or Video powers. I guess it's fair of the game to homogenize its powers a bit, but it's still kinda a bummer.
But since I mentioned it - the idea of the power suite is such a cool take. How inspired, to theme elements not from traditional Lightning/Fire/Ice like we've seen done endlessly, but rather from the "elements" of an urban landscape. Smoke, Neon, Video, and Concrete, with the implied presence of Paper, Wire, and Glass existing elsewhere in this world. I don't love how all of these are executed - in particular, Deslin directly copying Eugene's manifestation of Video, where all iconography is lifted from Eugene's Heaven's Hellfire video game, feels like an extreme limitation on a theoretically infinite power and a missed opportunity to examine the kind of virtual imagery that would be relevant to Deslin. But I feel like I'm nitpicking there.
It's definitely nitpicking to comment on how strange it is for the game to take place in Seattle rather than some fictional stand-in for Seattle. I guess it doesn't really matter, but after playing around with stand-in New York City and stand-in New Orleans, it's a little distracting to be in Seattle-Seattle. Ah, well.
It's also a pretty short game? Definitely shorter than But it was a launch window game for the PS4, so honestly I'll give it a bit of leeway there.
I've mostly been grumbling, but it is a good game overall. "More inFAMOUS" is always a good time for me, so I had a good time with this. As always, Sucker Punch is great at writing characters, and a lot of the major players are super interesting. Deslin's pretty fun to move around as, and tagging, while a minor thing, is a fun little mechanic. The moment-to-moment experience of the game is a good time, and it was fun while it lasted. At this point, I dunno that we'll ever see another one of these, but this was a nice title all the same.
See, this is why I love playing and replaying these licensed games. There's a deceptive amount of stuff to analyze if you know what to ask about or look into.
Like, so, this game. Pretty basic 3D platformer. Three worlds, four levels per world, three medals per level, each medal requires spooping robot childrens or collecting coins. Some racing stages to break things up. Movie clips as a reward. Simple-simple, no great levels but some fun enough biomes and the occasional annoying-as-hell gimmick (that one dumb Nerve in "The Oasis" suuuuuuuuucks). GREAT animation - easily the highlight of the whole thing - and some decent vocal impersonators. I swear Mike Wazowski's "Not bad for a guy with ONE EYE!!!!" is a line I always forget wasn't delivered by Billy Crystal. Weirdly Mike Wazowski is way more fun to control due to getting a bounce, a roll, and a hover on top of Sulley's moveset. Otherwise pretty disposable title.
...this would be all I'd have to say if I wasn't curious about this game. But I am. Part of that's because I got the game new (for PC), and I've been thinking about the game for over 20 years. Part of that's how much I loved Monster's Inc., easily a runaway early favorite Pixar movie for me. But there are things that you think about, as a consequence of all that.
The premise, to begin with. The setup is decidedly not a direct adaptation, instead showing Sulley and Mike Wazowski training to become Scarers as a pseudo-prequel. Fine enough; contradicted by Monsters University, of course, but that was years later. However! If you've seen the movie, you'll remember that Mike Wazowski was not a Scarer, so logically, he shouldn't be out on the field scaring.
Then you start to think about other stuff. Like how the receptionist is the teacher character from the movie's opening rather than the expected Celia. Or how the worlds don't have much of anything to do with the movie's theming (why is there a Waternoose Sphinx???). Or how, in a game where you constantly unlock video clips, the game opens by showing the movie's teaser trailer, released a year before the movie came out...
So we don't get as many of these movie tie-in games any more, but for this era, it was common for these games to be developed in concert with the source material. So goes for all tie-in media, naturally; part of marketing a big release is getting in that multimedia marketing blitz. Part of THAT is coordinating different individuals and teams to work on different cross-media content, which means sharing details ahead of time to people.
In something like a movie with multimedia tie-ins, it comes down to the movie's production team on how and when they inform the other creative teams on what they need to know. This is why we sometimes see discrepancies with tie-in media. My go-to example for this is the novelization for the movie Alien. When Alan Dean Foster was hired to pen the novelization, he was given a working film script, three weeks, and no description of the Xenomorph's appearance. Foster did a great job working with what he was given, but this is why the novelization includes the deleted scene of Dallas being cocooned as well as a reference to the alien's "tentacle". Things Foster couldn't anticipate wouldn't exist in the final product, simply because he did not have access to the same information/creative direction that the film team had.
I mention all this because this appears to be transparently the case with Scream Team/Scare Island. The game came out before the movie, so Behaviour Interactive had to be working with prerelease info. The game's setup doesn't make sense with the tone of the movie, but it is in-line with the teaser trailer, which presents a proof-of-concept scenario where Mike and Sulley are in the human world. Part of the movie would need to be known, to explain the presence of Waternoose, the teacher character, Roz, and Randall - so it's likely the team had access to a press kit and that prologue scene from the final movie, involving a monster training in a simulation with a robot child. Completely obvious when you think about it.
But remember that there are film clips you unlock as you play the game. These jump around the movie, mostly focusing on the opening. But it gets into the plot beats of the movie, with Boo showing up in the monster world; the chase to put that thing back where it came from, or so help me; and... oh yes, Waternoose's reveal as the twist villain. Immediately contrasted by Waternoose being a non-ironic support character throughout the game, congratulating and rewarding you for your hard work.
I have a conspiracy theory about Scream Team that goes like this. Behaviour developed their game, based on the teaser and what limited press kit they had access to. They developed a scenario that made sense: a prequel to the movie, where Waternoose guides Mike and Sulley into becoming top scarers. They got this on lock, leaving space for movie clips when Pixar finally had it developed far enough along to share with them. They finally got access to the movie, watched it, and went, "Oh no. Oh no." In a huff, they decided to sequence in the film clips in the most vitriolic way they could. They front-loaded it with clips from early in the movie. When they ran out of material, they sequenced out-of-context bits from the tail end of the movie, culminating in the very end of the climax. They deliberately chose NOT to show a scene wrapping up the movie out of spite.
Yeah, maybe that's a little far-fetched. But how else do you explain the game's 100% completion reward? There's a cutscene award ceremony featuring Waternoose giving Mike and Sulley their Gold Medals. Then we get the movie scene where Waternoose gets caught and arrested, ending with him telling Sulley that he's just doomed Monstropolis. Then there's a hard cut to the game's credits, and the game's over.
Like I said - this is why I love to analyze this stuff. Not a great game, but fun to think about.
Like, so, this game. Pretty basic 3D platformer. Three worlds, four levels per world, three medals per level, each medal requires spooping robot childrens or collecting coins. Some racing stages to break things up. Movie clips as a reward. Simple-simple, no great levels but some fun enough biomes and the occasional annoying-as-hell gimmick (that one dumb Nerve in "The Oasis" suuuuuuuuucks). GREAT animation - easily the highlight of the whole thing - and some decent vocal impersonators. I swear Mike Wazowski's "Not bad for a guy with ONE EYE!!!!" is a line I always forget wasn't delivered by Billy Crystal. Weirdly Mike Wazowski is way more fun to control due to getting a bounce, a roll, and a hover on top of Sulley's moveset. Otherwise pretty disposable title.
...this would be all I'd have to say if I wasn't curious about this game. But I am. Part of that's because I got the game new (for PC), and I've been thinking about the game for over 20 years. Part of that's how much I loved Monster's Inc., easily a runaway early favorite Pixar movie for me. But there are things that you think about, as a consequence of all that.
The premise, to begin with. The setup is decidedly not a direct adaptation, instead showing Sulley and Mike Wazowski training to become Scarers as a pseudo-prequel. Fine enough; contradicted by Monsters University, of course, but that was years later. However! If you've seen the movie, you'll remember that Mike Wazowski was not a Scarer, so logically, he shouldn't be out on the field scaring.
Then you start to think about other stuff. Like how the receptionist is the teacher character from the movie's opening rather than the expected Celia. Or how the worlds don't have much of anything to do with the movie's theming (why is there a Waternoose Sphinx???). Or how, in a game where you constantly unlock video clips, the game opens by showing the movie's teaser trailer, released a year before the movie came out...
So we don't get as many of these movie tie-in games any more, but for this era, it was common for these games to be developed in concert with the source material. So goes for all tie-in media, naturally; part of marketing a big release is getting in that multimedia marketing blitz. Part of THAT is coordinating different individuals and teams to work on different cross-media content, which means sharing details ahead of time to people.
In something like a movie with multimedia tie-ins, it comes down to the movie's production team on how and when they inform the other creative teams on what they need to know. This is why we sometimes see discrepancies with tie-in media. My go-to example for this is the novelization for the movie Alien. When Alan Dean Foster was hired to pen the novelization, he was given a working film script, three weeks, and no description of the Xenomorph's appearance. Foster did a great job working with what he was given, but this is why the novelization includes the deleted scene of Dallas being cocooned as well as a reference to the alien's "tentacle". Things Foster couldn't anticipate wouldn't exist in the final product, simply because he did not have access to the same information/creative direction that the film team had.
I mention all this because this appears to be transparently the case with Scream Team/Scare Island. The game came out before the movie, so Behaviour Interactive had to be working with prerelease info. The game's setup doesn't make sense with the tone of the movie, but it is in-line with the teaser trailer, which presents a proof-of-concept scenario where Mike and Sulley are in the human world. Part of the movie would need to be known, to explain the presence of Waternoose, the teacher character, Roz, and Randall - so it's likely the team had access to a press kit and that prologue scene from the final movie, involving a monster training in a simulation with a robot child. Completely obvious when you think about it.
But remember that there are film clips you unlock as you play the game. These jump around the movie, mostly focusing on the opening. But it gets into the plot beats of the movie, with Boo showing up in the monster world; the chase to put that thing back where it came from, or so help me; and... oh yes, Waternoose's reveal as the twist villain. Immediately contrasted by Waternoose being a non-ironic support character throughout the game, congratulating and rewarding you for your hard work.
I have a conspiracy theory about Scream Team that goes like this. Behaviour developed their game, based on the teaser and what limited press kit they had access to. They developed a scenario that made sense: a prequel to the movie, where Waternoose guides Mike and Sulley into becoming top scarers. They got this on lock, leaving space for movie clips when Pixar finally had it developed far enough along to share with them. They finally got access to the movie, watched it, and went, "Oh no. Oh no." In a huff, they decided to sequence in the film clips in the most vitriolic way they could. They front-loaded it with clips from early in the movie. When they ran out of material, they sequenced out-of-context bits from the tail end of the movie, culminating in the very end of the climax. They deliberately chose NOT to show a scene wrapping up the movie out of spite.
Yeah, maybe that's a little far-fetched. But how else do you explain the game's 100% completion reward? There's a cutscene award ceremony featuring Waternoose giving Mike and Sulley their Gold Medals. Then we get the movie scene where Waternoose gets caught and arrested, ending with him telling Sulley that he's just doomed Monstropolis. Then there's a hard cut to the game's credits, and the game's over.
Like I said - this is why I love to analyze this stuff. Not a great game, but fun to think about.