SONIC the HEDGEHOG. One of the GREATEST and MOST ATTRACTIVE characters ever thought up. He can run at sound speed, take out enemies in a FLASH, and BEST OF ALL, he's BLUE colored and knows how to handle the FEMALES. SPEAKING of females, the Sonic universe might be classified as HOT CHICK HEAVEN, cause there's such a mess of very BEAUTIFUL and TOUGH women, that it'll make you love the franchise EVEN MORE. And since VALENTINES DAY is around the corner, I've been inspired to make a TOP TEN list of the most BEAUTIFUL female Sonic characters. Grab yourself a SNACK and a glass of ORANGE JUICE, and TRY not to reach through the screen because HERE WE GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

More like NinjaBAD GAME HAH!

As the 3D platformer guy on my friends' Discord server, I sort of felt an obligation to at least dip my toes into the waters. That, and they were really begging for content. So I, knowing full well that this was considered one of the worst video games of all time, took the plunge and lo and behold, it's even worse than what I've seen.

Shitty camera angles that often pop into walls behind you or to the side of you with no freecamera control. An uncomfortably narrow FOV and a super close camera at times that prevent you from seeing your enemies. A really uncomfortably fast character with no sense of agency or pacing that has trouble landing on platforms because the hit detection for landing onto the ledges of platforms is extremely poor, so you'll end up falling a lot. Some of the shittiest motion controls I've ever experienced for a sword that works 25% of the time and shurikens aiming that doesn't lock onto enemies without several failed attempts (much less my problems even getting the Wii remote reticle to appear), not to mention that attacks feel like they have no impact due to lack of vibration/satisfying sound effects and spongy enemies with limited hitboxes/damage on your attacks. No map at all in the game; you just get an orange arrow pointing at... something. Nothing is explained very well in the game, so I was collecting these things and running away from these things as a lifeless being that emits no sound or personality in a lifeless N64 texture world that all looks the same but doesn't loop in any meaningful way being chased by annoying and bland enemies that fired barely perceptible projectiles at me and collecting things that I suppose had to be collected to progress while listening to the same generic droning guitar tune on loop. Oh, and checkpoints aren't explained at all but I think they exist, and I don't believe there are any free health pick ups unless you fight the spongy and annoying enemies which deal tons of successive damage, so is it worth it, really?

It took me a solid 5 minutes to enter the final door of the first level by the way, due to the wack detection of the doorframe and the fact that my character couldn't land on the elevated top due to the controls. Not even Balan Wonderworld can make this shit up. So the answer to the previous question? Yeah, probably not.

Despite the memes and some of the jank, this is actually one of the best if not the best Smash clone. I had a decent amount of fun playing against people online and didn't have as many issues with the netcode as I have experienced with Smash's online. Most of the characters have fun or at least tolerable playstyles with some variety mixed in there. Even though I have praised the game quite a bit, it is still quite flawed. The movement can feel a bit janky at times, the new voices feel off, and a lot of the presentation feels low budget. Most of it can be excused to some extent as Nick was not expecting the positive attention the game got, but it should have been delayed and given a bigger budget in response. There is potential with this game and I hope Nickelodeon makes a sequel that improves upon this game's shortcomings.

I fuck with the visuals, the aesthetics, the vibes, the twisted horror of this world that feels impossible to truly engage or interact with. Vague in presentation, other beings feeling so alien and disconnected, doing your best to stay focused on whatcha need to get done. I liked how the intrusive thoughts were interspersed with the nicer options, not blocked off to show you how the MC is doing her best to hold on with these meds that just aren't working that well for her. Working just well enough to function and get things done but not enough to stop the pain of the awful shitty thoughts at least being there. You have to see them even if you don't want to/don't pick them. Empty vacant holes within the self you constantly are stepping over to keep functioning.

Simplistic tasks made seemingly herculean by anxieties driven via trauma and continued loops driven by conditions both within and outside of yourself. Agoraphobia transforming others into insurmountable obstacles with nonsensical rules.

I don't think it's necessarily perfect in everything it tries to do. But I dig it and its structure. I dig the separation between the thoughts and you yourself as the reader. I dig the way it tackles disassociation especially. I dig the end and the dread instilled by it. Exhausting and continuous, seemingly never ending in its cruelty. Gotta get that milk.

Compared to Cing's later works in Hotel Dusk and Last Window, Trace Memory feels more like a rough tech demo for the DS... but what a charming little tech demo it is! You play as Ashley Mizuki Robbins, the daughter of two scientists who were presumed dead years ago, only for Ashley's father to send her a letter years later asking her to come to Blood Edward Island to learn the truth. Accompanying her is a device named the Dual Trace System (DTS), which very much resembles the classic DS model and can read DS game cards data cards scattered around the island of her father's logs. She eventually bumps into the ghost of a boy named "D", who also doesn't remember a thing of his past, and together, Ashley and D must navigate the abandoned island's sprawling mansion to unravel the mysteries of their respective pasts.

Puzzles are a bit of a mixed bag admittingly. A few of them are a bit rough around the edges; during multiple parts of the game, I had trouble grabbing or contacting objects on the screen with my stylus due to really imprecise or tiny hitboxes. In addition, a good chunk of the puzzles are extremely simple: some are tap and drag puzzles like breaking a bottle or rotating a crank, and a few are just inventory puzzle chains (item A will get you item B which is used to obtain item C). Nevertheless, I do have to respect the ambition for certain sequences. The DTS also comes with an in-game camera to take pictures of scenery so you don't necessarily need a pencil and paper alongside you while playing, but there's also a nice overlay feature that lets you place images on top of another image made transparent to decode hidden passwords; it's a nice little gimmick that I wish was utilized a bit more. I also have to give Trace Memory credit for utilizing practically every feature of the DS, with a couple of microphone puzzles and another DS open-shut puzzle that I think is basically Cing's speciality considering I have yet to see any other developer tinker with that idea. Outside of these interactive puzzles however, I do wish that the inventory puzzles were a bit more facilitated: key items have to be obtained from tapping around observable scenes that appear to have a lot of distinct items of interest, but upon tapping in many of these areas, most end up as red herrings that only provide a single line of flavor text. I also admit that as short as the game is (five hours, about half the length of Hotel Dusk), it was a bit easy to get lost within the mansion since I wasn't provided with a map but often had to backtrack to previously explored locations in past chapters for key items that became obtainable once I passed the right checks in future chapters.

Trace Memory's doesn't quite achieve the same feeling of presence as what I'd come to expect for Cing, with its strange mouth animations upon still-figures (as opposed to Hotel Dusk's distinct inky animated character models) or its fairly contrived puzzles that seem to make little sense in the context of its narrative (as per most tech demos), but I do think its heart is in the right place. Despite how much flavor text I had to mash through just tapping everywhere, picking up on those little details to add to D's past or stumbling upon another data card kept me engrossed in the central mysteries for tighter world-building. While I do prefer the first-person 3D environments of Hotel Dusk as opposed to the top-down exploration of Trace Memory, I have to concur with MelMellon that the ability to highlight more specific areas of interest in 2D while displaying its more vast environments in 3D grants Trace Memory a combination of detail and immersion that few games manage to achieve. Finally, even if the central narrative isn't quite as intricate or intimate as Cing's future work, the game wrapped itself up quite nicely with no plot holes (and keeps you aware of the running plotline with its end-of-chapter summary quizzes, much like Hotel Dusk would later utilize), and the final reveal of D's fate as a reward for thoroughly exploring the mansion and unlocking all his memories made the whole experience worthwhile. I came in expecting a short cozy adventure game highlighting both the potential of the DS and Cing's early ambitions, and I got just that, so all in all, I'd say it was a pretty good day.