This game is amazing, it feels like a great follow up to Sonic 3 & Knuckles. The physics and level design are on point, no Dimps pits here.

The Zones all feel unique, even when they are using themes that we have seen previously. And the gimmicks feel fun and work well when it comes to maintaining flow.

The bosses feel like a little bit of a weak point but I still enjoy them. They can have a bit of an issue with waiting to attack them but I find most have attack patterns that are interesting enough to counteract that.

My biggest problem with the bosses come down to two things. First are any that have insta-kill attacks, with how few rings you can get when respawning it just feels like padding. Same with my second issue, if you die on a boss with multiple phases you go back to the first phase. In a game with infinite lives I don't feel this really adds much challenge and after a while redoing the first phase to reach the second can get kinda tedious.

I have seen some talk about the final boss being a bit too hard but I honestly don't see this as a problem. They felt no more difficult than my first time with any of the Sonic 3 final bosses (Giant Egg Robo, Knuckles' Mecha Sonic and Doomsday) and felt appropriate for the finale to the story.

The last thing I want to mention is the music. I enjoyed all of it but just wished it had a more consistent style.

This game is wonderful (please laugh).

This game is a breath of fresh air for 2D Mario. Now I'm not as hard on NSMB as most people are (I think they are solid and well made 2D platformers), but this game is on a whole other level. Everything just feels so fresh, both the new stuff and returning elements. And no aspect of the game overstays it's welcome, but unlike some games it doesn't go too far in the opposite direction. If a mechanic is fun enough it will turn up again in a later level.

And then there is the topic of the Wonder Seeds. Before we even get into the main gimmick just having some of the collectaphon elements of 3D Mario is a great way to spice up the more linear 2D offerings of the series. And as for the wonder effects themselves, they are a brilliant way to add variety to the gameplay. A lot of them end up altering the game in ways that go beyond what a mere stage gimmick or power up can offer.

And on the topic of power ups each one is a joy to use. The fire flower obviously returns and is the typical offensive move it has always been. But all of the new ones go a long way to making the game stay entertaining. Surprisingly the game is lacking the now traditional flying power up, a welcome change in my opinion as I believe they can sometimes be a bit too OP.

But power ups aren't the only way to change up your moveset. New to Wonder are the badges. These alter how the player controls in various different ways. From extra moves like a glide, more passive abilities like the higher and floaty jump usually reserved for Luigi (all characters except for Nabbit and the Yoshis have the same moves and physics), helpful perks that make the game easier like getting a free super mushroom when staring a level/respawning or challenge badges, such as constantly running without being able to stop.

All that is to say don't pass on this game if you think 2D Mario has been getting stale.

This game starts out feeling great, the character pairing is a great way to add variety to the gameplay and most of the levels are designed to encourage experimenting with that mechanic to find the best way through each one.

But this is overshadowed by some glaring issues. The first that came up to me was the Twinkle Snow boss, it's a difficulty spike that feels really bad because if you get hit once then you will just fall and die and have to start again.

Where I think this gets really bad is in the final zone. This already has the issue of an overabundance of bottomless pits and enemy/spike traps that you can't predict (there was literally one point where I didn't see an enemy because it was obscured by foreground elements in the level.) This is really bad in the third act where the entire stage is basically one whole bottomless pit and much like the Twinkle Snow boss one hit will send you falling to your death, sure there are checkpoints but once you get your first Game Over you only have 3 lives to work with before having to start the Act over.

The boss of this level is also frustrating, because of how the arena is setup it is very easy to not be able to recollect your rings when you get hit. Add to this how the boss can easily hit you without warning and this too saps a lot of lives.

I think the final boss after this may be somewhat less frustrating but honestly at this point I just wanted the game to end so I quite literally Cheesed the boss using Cream's Chap.

I really want to love this game but the final moments bring it down for me.

First and foremost Sonic is a game for kids. So you would think that it wouldn't ask too much of the player when set to easy. Let's just get straight to the point, the difficulty in this DLC is busted.

It is pretty much required to look up a guide on how to do a lot of the challenges in this DLC. Not only do all your stats get reset to 1 but you are also limited to spefic moves and on a timer (either literally or because of ring depletion). Not only that but one of the challenges is actually harder if you use the attack it says you are limited to.

This has been compared to soulsborne games but I don't think that is correct, because those games are much fairer when it comes to being hard. The limitations that are imposed on the player means that you are fighting enemies and bosses that were designed for what is essentially a different moveset than what you have available to you. I didn't feel a sense of accomplishment when beating a challenge, it felt like I cheesed my way through with techniques that were far from the intended solution but were the only viable option.

And that isn't even the only problem. The other playable characters are laughably limited at the start for what is the final island of the game, and leveling them up and unlocking skills is tedious to the point of feeling pointless. And some of the platforming segments (especially the tower climbs) just exacerbate an already janky feeling camera and homing attack. Both of these things I would have been able to forgive if the aforementioned challenges were worth the trouble.

I have decided to shelve this for now in hopes that a patch or mod can address the difficulty balance. But as there is little sign of this happening any time soon the game is abandoned in all but name.

But hey, at least the music is good.

Klonoa: Door to Phantomile

This game is really amazing. The gameplay has a great sense of flow to it and the story is moving not in spite of it's simple presentation but partly due to it.

There is one gripe I had and that is that the game still has that 90s difficulty. Thankful the Easy mode helps mitigate that as it increases the amount of damage you can take and gives you unlimited lives. In my opinion whilst it is called easy mode I would say it just brings the game inline with modern sensibilities.

Really didn't go much on this one. Sure the controls and physics were good but there were too many fundamental problems that stopped this game from feeling good for me.

First up the level design doesn't follow the standard Classic Sonic rule of fast but difficult top routes and slow but easier bottom routes. Instead it goes for a labyrinth style structure with falling usually dropping you into into a previous part of a stage or a short diversion that brings you back to where you just were. Whilst some people might enjoy this, and it can be considered a good adaptation of the 3D Blast level design to 2D, I just found this frustrating.

Second is enemy placement. There were a lot of times where I would get blindsided by an enemy that is hard to react to in time. Now normally this wouldn't be a problem as enemies like that are usually placed in areas where you should be rolling and that will take care of them, but this game also places those types of enemies on slopes going upwards, where you would likely be running not rolling. It isn't even easy to slow down to avoid these enemies as you will struggle to keep the momentum needed to get up the hill.

My third and final problem is the bosses, a lot of them have attack patterns that are hard to predict and very short windows of opportunity where you can get an attack in, leading to a lot of lost rings and lost lives. Sometimes I would even get rebounded into the bosses attacks after a successful hit of my own.

By far the best way to play Sonic CD. Takes the already great base of the 2011 port and elevates it to the next level. (Played with the & Knuckles add-on).

Sonic has access to his full classic moveset with the drop dash and insta-shield being added to the game, the former being a great tool for time travel.

Tails hasn't changed much appart from the added flight cancel, making it much easier to fly through the stages quickly.

Amy is a new addition in Restored, she is limited to the Sonic CD spindash meaning she can't pick up speed as well as the others but her double jump makes up for that turning her into a platforming focused character.

Knuckles is a part of the "& Knuckles" addon and is a perfect addition to this game. His gliding and climbing are really well suited to hunting for robot generators and Metal Sonic holograms.

This is just scratching the surface of what these two mods together have to offer, with a whole host of options being available to change up the gameplay. For example I turned on the options to start in a random time zone and play as a random character at the start of each stage/when traveling time to make a Pseudo-Encore Mode.

This is an amazing Kart racer that holds up really well today. It's certainly not an easy one, and there is still lots of extra stuff I can do/unlock still.

The main attraction of this game is World Tour, a campaign mode that mixes standard races with other types of events (like drifting or flying through rings) that can be played single player or with up to 4 Players in a hybrid competitiv/coop mode.

I will probably dip back into this game now and again (to unlock the extra content I need to replay World Tour events at a higher difficulty to get more stars) but for the time being I am done.

Honestly not that great of a game. Music, animations and graphics are great, and it looks good in motion. Which is probably what has given it such prestige amongst the fan base.

The gameplay is nothing to write home about, just a series of linear obstacle courses with some sort of harzard chasing you to keep you moving. For the most part it is an easy game, apart from some cheap moments in later stages.

This may ruffle some feathers but it is probably for the best that this hasn't seen a rerelease on any of the various Sonic collections over the years.

This game is like a strange fever dream version of the early Simpsons.

I had problems trying to play this game. Enemy attacks are poorly telegraphed which means that the bast way to fight them is to rush in get in a couple hits and rush out, but then even with jump attacks there was still a decent chance of getting hit. As you can imagine this is made worse when you are surrounded.

Maybe this game works better with two or more players but as a single player game I don't think it cuts it.

Klonoa 2: Lunatea’s Veil

Damn.

I was not expecting this game to hit me as hard as it did.

First of all let's get the easy part out of the way, the gameplay. This game does what every sequel should do and build upon what worked on the original, so if you like the original you will like this too. Although this game does also introduce hoverboard stages, I feel these are a great addition because they build upon the grabbing and throwing mechanics of the main gameplay so that they don't feel too far removed and are infrequent enough to be fun way to break up the main gameplay without detracting from it.

And now the story, this is hard to quantify as it is a very emotional story. The characters are great, with good character growth. There were two moments in particular (an important character moment for one of the side characters and the ending of the game) that honestly had me on the verge of tears.

Do not let this game pass you by, play it on easy if you have to. One of the best stories in gaming.