The most damning thing I can say about Ghost of Tsushima is that every time a cutscene or dialogue sequence starts I pull my phone out to scroll twitter. Just incredibly dull writing and characters. A lifeless weeaboo reenactment of clichés from samurai movie classics this game has no business trying to associate itself with.

That said, I’m still playing thirty-odd hours later. So something is really working for me here on a mechanical level. The core exploratory/combat/base-capture loop might be the most successful execution I’ve seen of the Ubisoft sandbox formula.

the threepeater is a plant in this game, which shoots in three lanes. the lane above, the lane its on, and the lane below, right? the threepeater has three heads, each one layered vertically in order to make them visible to the player. whenever a zombie is within one of the three lanes, it fires, and each of it's heads bob in order to show the action and give it a bit more life, as all the plants do. however, if you place the threepeater at the top or bottom lanes - lanes which it cant possible shoot all three - the top or bottom heads respectively wont bob when the threepeater fires, as it's not firing in those non-existant lanes, while the others still will. this game is 5 bucks on steam in case youre wondering

Complete step up from Sonic 1 and a solid platformer overall. Much better zones this time around, though I feel the fun zones are more stacked towards the 1st half of the game. The Special Zone minigame is better than Sonic 1's, but its no Blue Spheres. Playing as Tails actually adds nothing to the game, as he's identical to Sonic gameplay-wise. Sonic 2's length is ideal for any given Sonic game, and Sky Chase was a cool breakaway from the gameplay loop. The final zone was sick and the final boss kicked my ass as a kid.

Not my favorite 2D Sonic but its easy to see why its other's favorite.