So after like literally 3 playthroughs beforehand where I disliked a significant portion of this game, I really didn't expect anything to change here. I thought I'd come out of this last chance I gave this game the same as the last. But something just... finally clicked here. This is to say, I can now appreciate this even with the pretty significant flaws I think it has.

If I had to compare this game to it's predecessor in one phrase it would be "One (huge) step forward, two (small) steps back." On every front this game takes SA1 up to 11 but is brought down by some strange and honestly frustrating decisions that were made in the Mech and Treasure Hunting stages. Mainly that; Tails and Eggman feel significantly worse to control for me than Gamma, and the radar in treasure hunting is only able to track one emerald at once. These are definitely still issues to me but I was able to finally slightly overlook them now? Even still I'm definitely going to be playing with mods that fix these from now on (in addition to a mod that tunes down the mech noises cause holy shit the aiming noise hurts my ears LOL)

Aside that this game's got the vibes of all time. From City Escape to Cannon's Core, the game has a sense of style that's really unparalleled by any other Sonic game. Fantastic soundtrack cranks it up even further.

So yeah, finally like this game. It's got its annoyances but it kinda makes up for that. Can't comment on the chao garden because (god forbid) it hasn't really interested me yet, maybe I'll come back to do it sometime. Even if I'm gonna just be replaying the speed stages mostly, rest of the game is still pretty alright and thankfully all my issues with those are easily fixed with mods. So glad I'm finally able to like Sonic Adventure 2!

Oh yeah, and happy 100th review, me!

It feels weird to be taking this review at all seriously considering its a game where Mario "The Great Gunsales" Mario fights Grodan, The leader of the Nazi Community, the Iranian Marines, and the X-Nautis, but I have to nonetheless. While I still rec this hard for anyone that wants a replay of TTYD with something switched up, I can't rec it as hard as I do with Book of Mario 64. Hence why I give that one a rating and this one I don't; it really doesn't improve the experience at all, in ways that I really can't blame the creator, Fatguy for. This was the first of the two translations he did, in addition to this game having a lot better and more dialogue than 64, so likely in order to make sure that all this effort doesn't go into something that's not gonna be worth it, only mandatory dialogue is translated for 95% of the game (exceptions being goombell's enemy tattles and such). Even then some mandatory dialogue here and there is missed. Overall in general its still funny as hell (comedy density less than pm64's translation, though) and well worth a playthrough if you've been wanting to play through TTYD again but don't just wanna play vanilla again. If you just want a funny Paper Mario experience and haven't played Book of Mario 64 though, just go for that one instead.

played:
A -> C -> E -> H -> M -> S -> X
A -> B -> D -> G -> K -> Q -> V
A -> C -> F -> J -> O -> U -> V'

Having played through this three times today I can safely say it goes hard. Pretty much a home run in every aspect, but most notably presentation and music. The bosses I suppose are a bit rough sometimes, there's not always a clear way to weave through attacks and sometimes you just have to throw out bombs on it. One of the final bosses in particular (I believe V') is very nasty. On an emulator though, you can honestly just spam credits and brute force your way through.

This is the first arcade version of Darius to really sell me. 1 looks ridiculous and isn't fun at all whereas 2 is way too hard on arcade versions, meanwhile this one gets just about everything right. That being said, the Genesis version of 2 is great too. Would strongly suggest both.

First things first; I love this game. There really isn’t a mainline Mario I don’t have a great amount of affection for. But something’s missing here, compared to its predecessor.

Super Mario Galaxy is amazing. You all know it. Mario’s first adventure through space is universally (get it) adored, so in making a sequel (originally supposed to be dlc basically) there’s some pretty damn big expectations to live up to. Streamlining is the name of the game here, and Galaxy 2 sure does it, with all the good and bad that comes with it. The levels themselves have some of the best linear platforming that’s ever come out of Mario, and that seems to be enough for a lot of people, more power to ‘em. But again, the streamlining got rid of something I hold in high regard in the first game. Compared to the original, it doesn’t feel nearly as gorgeous or epic, in general less atmospheric. Starry Skies skyboxes are much less frequent, replaced with blue skies with white clouds. There are less beautiful orchestral pieces, replaced with… what feels like just plain orchestral Mario music (and sometimes just is, see Hightail Falls, Haunty Halls, the slide theme, etc.). This change in music is strongly reflected on the games title screens, giving off entirely different feelings, Galaxy 1’s being a feeling of drifting in space, looking at the beauty of the twinkling stars around you, while Galaxy 2’s is much more peppy and cheery, and feels more like a more generic “start to a Mario adventure” song. Sure, Galaxy 1 doesn’t keep this up the entire time, for example Toy Time Galaxy is an extremely silly level, but not much in Galaxy 2 compares to the feeling that levels like Space Junk Galaxy’s music and visual atmosphere together create.

Story took a hit as well, although it's not either game’s strong suit. Rosalina’s story book was a genuine surprise for so many, due to being a very emotional look into a character's backstory (pretty damn rare for a mario game, if you somehow didn’t know that). That’s why when Rosalina was basically ignored in Galaxy 2 in favor of Lubba, a character without much depth at all, it feels like something was taken. Speaking of these two support figures, the hub worlds they reside in also reflect what’s missing. I barely need to talk about The Comet Observatory hopefully, its music and scale perfectly describe itself (in addition I just genuinely have no idea how to talk about it because it’s a game location that means tons to me). In contrast, Starship Mario, while serving its function outside of being a gateway to the world map, doesn’t have much to offer outside of discussion with some NPC’s. It’s also simply a floating Mario head, which really just further cements how much more “Mario-like” Galaxy 2 is. (in addition having a mario head that doesn’t ask if it can have my computer is a sin)

This isn’t to say Galaxy 2 doesn’t have its atmospheric moments however, which I feel like really shine through in Cosmic Cove Galaxy (honorable mention to Slimy Spring, which I only didn’t choose because I have less to say about it). Cosmic Cove is my favorite level in Galaxy 2 because of its strong atmosphere, the music has made me tear up even while listening to it while writing this, the beautiful aurora-like sky, it’s gorgeous aquatic environment that even when frozen later I love skating over, and the couple penguins that live there as well making it feel like it has a native population. There are other music tracks as well that show that Galaxy 1 epicness in them as well, take Melty Monster as an example. It's intense, and perfectly builds up to a truly very grand musical climax. These examples and other moments within Galaxy 2 show that if they wanted, they could have kept that epic feel that Galaxy 1 captured so elegantly.

Galaxy 2 took what Galaxy 1 did and streamlined every part of it, the platforming and levels benefitting from it while the atmosphere of the game is harshly damaged. So in the end, is this trade-off worth it? It’s up to you to decide, of course, but personally? I don’t think so.

I preferred this one over the first game this time, if only by a little. It has a totally different atmosphere, which is quite refreshing and a pretty great decision rather than rehashing the original's. Power ups and transformations are a lot better here as well, Vectorman himself has a bit more personality here, and level design is generally improved.

Screen crunch is still pretty bad though, especially when exploring around to regain health or get health upgrades. They're a real chore to find in both games, definitely my least favorite aspect of both, and you kind of need them lest the subpar damage spongey bosses get the drop on you. Sometimes you'll just find health upgrades while going around normally, but other times they're really out of the way like in Magma P.I. and Recycle or Die. There are time limits as well, which are actually super lenient but they still give off that feeling of looming over you.

I think this game was put out before it was completely done, so that it wouldn't release in 1997 when the console was basically dead except for some brief Majesco nonsense. There are lots of things about it regarding the presentation that just feel like placeholders. For example the game over screen is followed by the credits for some reason, and the final boss is completely uninteresting and only really has one or two attacks while staying in place. The ending is just completely perplexing. It's hilariously poor on its own, but have you compared it to the opening cutscene before? Or the title screen? Think about that contrast, and that's what I'm talking about here. There's zero way that wasn't meant to be replaced with something better.

Both of these games have big shortcomings but I generally still enjoy them a decent amount, and they definitely kick the shit out of those earlier Jurassic Park games by the same people. The Genesis seems to have a lot of pretty poor releases in its final years, and I'm happy to see this is an exception. Still, I have to wonder how all these Blue Sky games have these same screen crunch issues. How do they do things over there for it to be such a recurring issue?

Recently I played through Jurassic Park Rampage Edition and Spider-Man: Web of Fire, also by Blue Sky. They're honestly pretty bad, mostly due to screen crunch and bad level design mixed together. When I thought about it though, I remembered that being an issue in these two games as well despite liking them before. Figured I would revisit them to see if my opinion has changed significantly.

Well, it didn't grow off as much as I expected it to. It has the same problems as the aforementioned two games but a big difference is it's actually decently fun at its core. Presentation also bumps this up a good amount, there's lots of really incredible lighting going on all throughout, most notably in Arctic Ridge and Nightscape. It reuses the first level's assets a lot of times for some reason, which is kind of weird, but with new and exciting backgrounds to mostly make up for it. I really like looking at this game, and I'm quite glad replaying it wasn't as bad as I expected it to be.

One thing I really don't care for though is these very brief stages such as Metalhead and Rock 'n Roller, which despite being really simple once you know what you're doing are at first very unintuitive and weird. It would be nicer probably to have them go on a bit longer but starting with some new smaller enemies or something to ease you in a bit, instead of throwing you right into a big menacing guy who plows through your health.

Also, Warhead is way too easy of a final boss? I kind of just fiddled about this time and he was dead before I had lost any lives. The boss two stages prior is a lot more difficult and frustrating. I'm not sure which of these two is a bigger issue, maybe they're both just not very good bosses.

I don't know how people speedrun this, let alone complete it at all without savestates. Very surreal and dreamlike, which I always really love! But GOD it is nightmarishly hard. So many failed stunts at the hands of enemies that just...randomly spawn while I'm trying to do my shit. The enemies are probably my only major complaint, aside from a small amount of lives and no continues (which on emulator is like, no problem right? but it still makes me wonder like how the fuck do people sit down and complete this on original hardware)

To sum up I guess it's honestly just not a fun experience due to the sheer difficulty, but it gets several brownie points from me bc i love the visuals and the strange aura it has as a whole i dunno