Quite possibly my favorite game I've ever played, and one of the few games I've ever cried at. I wish I could go in depth but I'll probably hit a character limit so I'll keep it simple. The story and characters are some of the best I've ever seen in a platformer, the soundtrack is a banger, the art direction is beautiful, and the gameplay is amazing puzzle platformer action. The worst I can say about it is that playing this game is pretty annoying since copies are super rare and PS2 emulators can barely run this game at all. If you somehow manage to get your hands on it though, I would highly highly highly recommend experiencing it for yourself.

Diamond/Pearl/Platinum are some of the most beloved games in the series by fans, and for good reason. To this day, they're debatably some of the most ambitious and challenging games in Pokemon history. The physical/special split was a much needed mechanical change, there's plenty of fun side content to sink your teeth into, and the introduction of Wi-Fi was huge for the series. All us troglodytes could finally play with others in the comfort of our own abodes! I have plenty of respect for Platinum for everything influential it did. ...That doesn't mean I have to like it, though.

Pokemon Platinum is a game that had already gotten worse for me with each revisit. That in mind, I assumed with my hiatus from the franchise that I would be able to enjoy the game with a fresh mindset. After all, I enjoyed my time with older instalments such as Emerald and Crystal. I even had a lot of fun with Blue version, which I never played before! There were definitely moments when I was having fun with Platinum, but the overall experience left me far more frustrated and burnt out than anything.

As much of a low hanging fruit as it is, Platinum really is a slog. And that's not only because it runs on the slowest engine in the series. It often feels like the game is actively designed to slow the player down as much as possible.

To avoid spoilers, I won't be diving extensively into the story, but as a whole I find it incredibly irritating and a waste of time. Most of the characters; particularly the grunts of Team Galactic, speak in such a robotic manner and always state the obvious. I don't know if it was an attempt at being funny, but lines like "You have forced our hand into making a show of force!" or "Tougher than I can put into words, and I know a lot of words!" sound so unnatural and fall flat.

It doesn't help that the grunts don't seem to understand what they're doing; most of their schemes come out of left field and tend to not connect to their end goals in any way. Even the schemes that do relate to their motives like bombing the lakes come out of nowhere because the story does such a poor job building up to these events. The best they do is vaguely hint at what they're doing, but it fails to create any real urgency.

Apparently, the intention of the story was to create a perfect world for everyone. This does tie into Team Galactic's ringleader motive, as he constantly expresses his desire for such. The problem is that he acts like the world they live in is flawed and imperfect, yet Team Galactic are the only ones causing problems.

Nothing is ever expanded upon besides the bullet points, so what could have been an interesting story amounts to saturday morning cartoon villains trying to take over the world. Everything is super showy and over the top to compensate for how shallow the plot truly is. And the real kicker of all? I'm FORCED to sit through this! I can't exactly overlook this game's story when it's constantly forced upon me while I'm playing.

But you know what? Maybe Team Galactic was right about the world being imperfect. After all, Sinnoh might just be the most tedious region to explore if you ask me. It's designed with plenty of branching paths and cities to explore. Yet it's more railroaded than ever. They constantly throw up roadblocks to prevent the player from progressing where they shouldn't, and they feel so out of place. HMs in particular are required more than ever. I often got lost because of how confusing the progression is.

Sinnoh feels like it was designed to be open ended, but rarely takes advantage of all the alternating paths it has. More often than not, when the player has to return to an area, they're required to backpedal through the same path they already explored with hardly anything new to see. It doesn't help that as the story progresses, the next required location is often so far away that flying is practically a necessity. Sure, there may be a few extra items to grab with any newly obtained HMs, but they feel a lot less rewarding with the backtrack being necessary.

This ties more into my biggest grievance with Platinum, but the design of the routes tend to feel unnatural. It's like they threw a bunch of set pieces and items in without much care, and it makes it really hard to believe these are routes the characters in this world would actually walk through. Hell, there are a few routes that rely on obnoxious gimmicks! Swamp that sinks the player in place, snow to trudge through at an incredibly slow pace, etc. It makes already haphazard level design even more agonising.

This all brings me into what bothers the most about Platinum, though. I fail to feel any sense of immersion or connect to the world. As if the artificial characters and haphazard world design weren't enough. I find it difficult to distinguish most of the areas because they tend to blend together. There are some unique areas that I do greatly appreciate, however. Canalave and Sunyshore city in particular stand out to me. I could not tell the difference between a city like Hearthome or Veilstone, though.

This is mostly a personal issue, but I also find a lot of the hues used in the overworld incredibly garish. The neon grass in particular was so overstimulating for me that I had to turn my DS's brightness down to the lowest setting. I still don't understand why they used such bright colours like the GBA games did when the DS had backlit screens.

This onion might be spicy enough to get me slaughtered, but... I'll be blunt. I do not vibe with a majority of the brand new Pokemon introduced. Not only do they also tend to use really jarring and overstimulating hues, but there are often so many unnecessary flourishes with their designs that makes them feel way more artificial. A majority of the Pokemon look more like over the top action figures to me than creatures, and it makes it harder for me to feel connected to them. There are a handful that I adore, but a majority are add-ons to older Pokemon I already liked. All in all, it leaves me way less interested in using these new Pokemon they designed for this generation.

I should note that Platinum does make some significant improvements over Diamond/Pearl. The Pokedex in particular goes from one of the worst to one of the best, with plenty of variety and options. On top of that, the engine runs a bit faster and the story adds a few new characters and details that make it a bit more redeemable. I don't think Platinum really fixes any of the core issues, however. I still don't like Team Galactic, I still don't enjoy exploring Sinnoh, and I still don't feel very immersed in the experience.

I'm sure quite a few of these problems could be traced back to some of the older games. Hell, I've seen plenty of people compare its problems to Ruby and Sapphire in particular. I don't think that excuses Platinum, though. If anything, it's even worse, because not only is it repeating those mistakes but it's also doubling down on them. Platinum reveals how desperately the formula needed tweaking. But you know what? If that's what Game Freak needed to polish and improve the formula, then maybe it was for the best. And for those who adore the old formula for Pokemon; warts and all, then maybe Platinum is all they could ask for.

I really ought to focus on Pokemon games I still enjoy rather than the ones I don't, yet I probably have more to say about Diamond/Pearl/Platinum than I do with any other Pokemon game. Sure, it's mostly criticism, but I've never felt so passionate ranting about a Pokemon game. I'll reiterate what I stated in the beginning. I may not enjoy Platinum much any more, but I still have a ton of respect for it. We truly do have a complicated relationship, Platinum and I.

Apparently I'm the first person to review this game on the site lol. That should speak volumes for how obscure it is. It has some fun puzzles to solve, and some songs are amazing. So amazing they were remixed in Klonoa 2! That sums up everything interesting about this game. The story is completely forgettable, the spritework isn't nearly as good as some other wonderswan games and the experience starts to get arduous and bland as the game goes on. Also some songs make me want to rip my ears out. Play the GBA games instead. ...It's no wonder no one else could write a review for this game.

Before I replayed Pokemon HeartGold, I never expected to place all my faith into an ice breathing pig.

Pokemon HeartGold overall was a breezy yet fun and relaxing experience for me. That in mind, I had struggled a couple time here and there throughout my journey. That stupid cow, catching the birb on the boxart, and the needless grinding from the wonky level scaling. Nothing, however, compared to Lance.

This dude had three damn dragons which were all ten levels above my own team. Most of my team was equipped to deal with his other party members. Tristessa the Ampharos easily knocked out Gyarados, Beau the Togekiss dealt with Charizard, and both Ozma the Forretress and Souvlaki the Espeon were able to wall long enough to heal my fighters. The only two who were capable of taking on the Dragonites were Toledodile the Feraligatr and Oink Oink the Mamoswine.

Up to this point, I hadn't utilized Oink Oink much. I caught her pretty late into the game, and I couldn't even evolve her into Piloswine until after I beat Claire. She was difficult to use until I fully evolved her, and by that point, what was left? Some trainers along the way that use level 30 Mareep?

Oink Oink had a dastardly trick up her sleeve, however. She knew Ice Shard; an ice type attack that while weak had priority. Her defences weren't the best, and one Dragonite knew Fire Blast; a move that would instantly kill her if it connected. So, she was my last hope. If this didn't work, I was bound to lose and soft reset until my luck finally pulled through.

Because Toledodile is a slow ass bitch, he didn't even survive to throw an icy punch at those dragons. Oink Oink meanwhile took advantage of her specialty and swept through the dragons. She did pass out to Lance's most powerful Dragonite, but a max revive later and she was back on her feet. She barely survived the dragon rushes and evaded the other attacks that I forgot about already. And with one last ice shard, Oink Oink pulled it off. She knocked out all the Dragonites.

I entered the hall of fame with a newfound respect for Oink Oink. She went from my most underutilized team member to the shining star. Which is saying a lot, because up until that point, Tristessa and Beau were doing most of the heavy lifting. Oink Oink proved her worth, however.

Now, I wouldn't call Oink Oink my favourite Pokemon ever. Flaaffy exists, after all. But she's certainly left an impact on both my heart and soul in flavours of silver and gold.

Thank you, Oink Oink.

Mega Man at its very core has always been about options. Selecting stages in any order you want, using whichever special weapon you prefer, etc. Mega Man Zero 3 encapsulates and achieves that tenfold. You're offered so much variety from your weapons skills, enhancement chips, cyber-elves, combo system, and how you approach stages and bosses that the replay value is practically endless. There are some serious balancing issues sadly, and the game is noticeably easier than the other Zero games. But top the unlimited variety with mostly fun levels, an amazing story, and great spritework and music for the GBA and you have what amounts to what I'd easily call the best Mega Man game. ...And what plenty others agree with nowadays.

In honor of how incohesive and haphazardly designed Wrath of Cortex is, I would like to pay tribute by writing this review in the most incohesive and haphazardly written method possible.

WoC doesn't even try to set its own identity. Rather, it seemed to try its hardest to hide in the shadow Of course, Crash 3 also had plenty of eggs in one basket, but WoC never seemed to try justifying its random gimmicks Even the core gameplay, which you probably spend like 40% of the game actually playing The challenge these levels offer only amount to the absurd amount of nitro boxes they seemed to spam everywhere With how much 3D platformers had changed since even Crash 3, this game just feels horribly out of touch for 2001 Aside from the first power-up, which wasn't even utilized much aside from some bonus areas from what I remember The level design is basically just walking through hallways with little to no platforming or challenge And then after THAT, you're thrown into a marble madness clone??? I don't find Crash very engaging from a design or mechanical standpoint, and the depth perception always throws me off That doesn't change just how uninspired and unpolished the final product is.

I’d like to start this review by talking about the horrendous PS3 version. Don’t play it, even if all you have is a PS3. Unless you want to deal with constant slowdown, screen tearing, random freezing and crashes, annoying glitches, voices cutting out, abysmally long load times (it seriously took me five minutes to return to the pod), and the works. If I were basing this off the PS3 version I’d rate it a 3/10.

The PS4 version on the other hand... is fun but still not that great. It's still the same floaty platforming and level creator as the first two games, and the story mode does offer some really fun puzzles and such. But almost everything new it adds feels really gimmicky and underutilized, the game is rampant with glitches and bugs, and the online barely works. It's just a huge disappointment, especially after how ambitious the second game was.

This game has been beaten to death. So much so that saying it’s been beaten to death is beaten to death. Anyways, I think Sonic’s playstyle is the best that Sonic’s ever played in 3D with explorative levels and mostly fluid controls. I don’t really care for the other playstyles since they’re super shallow, but they’re at least short. Big’s playstyle is insufferable though. Oh and the cutscenes are unskippable in the dreamcast version who thought this was a good idea anyways Sonic Adventure is pretty fun