30 Days of Sonic 2023
Day 7: 3D Blast (Saturn)
There are two types of difficulty: There's difficulty, and then there's a sub-machine turret in a 2.5D isometric platformer treasure hunting game with poor depth perception.
The Gimmick of the Week
3D Blast has an interesting design philosophy. Most games in this era implemented Badniks as obstacles, and most of the time players got to choose how they dealt with this obstacle; they'd either kill it, evade it, or sometimes even use it as an extra footstool for speedruns. However, as my earlier statement implied, Traveller's Tales and SEGA decided that for 3D Blast, they wanted to create the world's most frustrating isometric scavenger hunt experience of all time. And thus the game released, and lo and behold, save for one level, every level is reduced to a mini treasuring hunting map, where players have two options: kill Badniks and collect Flickies, or quit the game. Binary options in my Sonic game? No fucking way.
Granted, the level designers at least had the restraint of making the player search for these stupid fucking birds 5 at a time, and thus each level is split into 2-3 mini segments where the objective is always the same: find the birds, go through the hoop, onto the next part. On paper this doesn't sound too bad - with only 5 Badniks per area, all I have to do is platform, kill them and get to the hoop, right?
Well, obviously that wouldn't be the case, doing this would make the game far too easy. So the game designers had a few decent options:
Make each Badnik its own miniboss that requires 3 hits to defeat, then you get a Flicky. Simple, and you can get really creative with the miniboss design. This is an option that Frontiers would later adapt when it came to their enemy design.
Have the player use their brains while navigating these mini-areas: maybe have a more difficult platforming segment that leads to the Badnik? Or maybe stash the Badnik away behind a visibly cracked wall? This option DID make it into the finished product, actually… for the special stages.
So you may be asking: what was Eggman cooking?
Well, to deter Sonic’s progress through Flicky Island, Eggman deviously concocted three things: a whole lotta fucking traps and natural hazards, baffling movement physics, and the worst depth perception known to mankind.
The Three Musketeers of Frustrating Isometric Platformer Design
It’s impossible to discuss any particular topic separately, as in reality, pointing the blame at one aspect tends to tie heavily to the others anyway. On paper, these traps aren’t too bad. You’ve got exploding mines, exploding snowmen, electrified floor tiles, spears protruding from the ground, lava, rotating fans- wait, rotating fans? This game is fucking weird man what can I say. And for the most part, you’d be right! You can dodge the exploding everything as well as the electrified floor tiles and Spring Stadium spike traps by simply jumping past them. And that’s mostly owing to Sonic’s superb air control, since his air speed is so fast you can actually jump past entire pits at will, much like in the Genesis titles!
Unfortunately, I should emphasise ‘for the most part’. Because while you can jump past these obstacles, you will get hit by the exploding mines, you will get hit by the spears, and unless you have a Red Shield, you will constantly lose rings in Volcano Valley. And that’s primarily owing to the depth perception in this game, because holy fuck is it as awful as you’d expect a 2.5D isometric platformer to be. Usually, in a full 3D game, you have a clear view of what’s ahead of you, and can therefore react accordingly and do exactly what you need to cross a certain obstacle.
However, that luxury is taken from you when you remove ½ from that number, and most times it’s hard to predict Sonic’s trajectory off a jump. You could randomly get hit by an exploding mine projectile you’d think you cleared, or miss a platform entirely and be forced to redo an entire platforming section. As you’d expect, the shadow quality does not help in the slightest, so Sonic can even struggle with basic things such as jumping on an item box. Or a Badnik. Which can still damage you if you land too close to it after missing a jump. Yeah no this shit’s fucking terrib-
Fear not, because Sonic’s toolkit actually helps make things easier! For once, rolling is actually the optimal method of defeating Badniks, since you don’t risk the chance of missing your jump and getting hit for it! And it’s pretty easy, too - simply press the B button while moving and you’ll be dunking straight into the Badnik! Hell yeah! Those nasty platforming sections in Rusty Ruin? Don’t worry, the Spin Dash jump also works in this game! Just hold B in a standstill and Sonic will automatically rev up his Spin Dash for the first time in Sonic history (hey that’s something SA1 and SA2 adapted!), and with a well-timed jump those platforming sections are solved in one fell swoop!
If only Sonic’s ground movement was good! Sonic’s stellar air physics might be compensation for how awful he feels on land. One word: slippery. Half the time Sonic would be skidding all over the map without much of the restraint that made him fun to control in the main Genesis games, and due to this he’s much more prone to the aforementioned hazards and traps unless he opts to Just Jump. Which honestly feels like the biggest bit of advice I could give to a newcomer who wants to play this game. When in doubt or in danger, just jump. It’s much better than actually running.
Which is genuinely unfortunate, because this game actually has… slope physics?! Sonic’s movement speed on the ground is actually relative to the indent of the slope he’s on, much like in the Classic 2D games - he slows down uphill, goes faster downhill, yada-yada. And this somehow simultaneously gives this game much more realism and speed, but also further hampers your movement more because even the smallest indent can cause Sonic to slide ever so slightly, possibly even getting hit in the process. And then this net positive completely falls apart when you realise Sonic’s momentum physics do not translate when he rolls - he still rolls at that same awkward speed unless it's one of those automated sections that transition you between parts of the level.
This gets even fucking weirder when you find out that the fucking Special Stages have momentum physics as well! And they’re even more accurate since Sonic actually gains massive speed down a slope! Tragically this doesn’t even get put to good use unless you’re passing through a speed gate, because while the music fucking slaps and the halfpipe design is much better than in Sonic 2 (there’s much more bells and whistles like the aforementioned slopes, high paths and low paths, speed gates and speed boosters, as well as stellar sound design because the sound effects actually get muffled when you’re in a tunnel), the problem of limited field of vision still persists and you’d wind up accidentally careen into a row of bombs at high speeds, possibly even costing you the special stage in the process.
Speaking of accidentally careening into traps, honestly Eggman should just quit the Badnik industry and focus instead on these inhumane ass traps since those seem to do a much better job at getting me to press Alt + F4. See, these traps don’t just hit you, they can hit the Flickies you collected as well. And after you get hit, they scatter. The Blue and Purple Flickies aren’t much of a hassle to recollect since they stay close to Sonic anyway, but then there’s the Red Flicky. Fuck him. Fuck his emo looking hair and the way he constantly jumps around. You wanna pick him up? Have fun trying when the depth perception constantly gets in the way and you’re constantly missing his obnoxious ass. The Green, fat bastard can also fuck off too, for similar reasons.
Now to actually discuss the traps in question: all of the aforementioned traps aren’t really a problem once you get used to the controls (yes, you can get used to them). But then, in the penultimate level of the game, Eggman decides to unleash literally Satan’s hellspawn onto the planet: a single turret, with semi-automatic firing speeds, 360-degree rotation and bullets the size of fuck you. The level designers must’ve realised that they needed to increase the difficulty scale of the game to keep the gameplay loop fresh. And instead of naturally raising the difficulty, they chose to spawn 1, sometimes even 2 Badniks next to this fucking piece of shit. Imagine you have 4 Flickies, and the last one happens to be wandering around one of these Turrets. You either get hit by the Badnik due to dodgy slippery controls, or you miss a jump, or you can get hit by the turret. Now you have to recollect all 5 Flickies in that singular area, All while the turret mercilessly fires its bullshit at you. The worst part about this? Most of the Flickies you collect are the Red and Green fucks. GRAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-
Everything Else
The boss fights in 3D Blast, are without exaggeration, the most bipolar series of bosses in the entire series. First there’s Green Grove’s boss fight, which is your standard mediocre ‘stand and wait until the boss makes himself vulnerable’ battle. Of course, depth perception makes every hit on Eggman a 70/30, but it’s relatively easy in the long run.
Then the game fucking hardcuts to Rusty Ruin’s boss, which involves you waiting for Eggman to slam one of the paws on this ancient mech so that you can follow it as it rises to hit him. Not a particularly difficult task from the sound of it, but then you actually play the fight and realise the depth perception fucks you over because of course it does. It doesn’t help that the ring drops fucking suck in this game as well, because the game is inconsistent with how long they remain for Sonic to collect. Half the time they work as intended and only vanish after a few moments; the other half they just disintegrate immediately after you get hit. This is a significantly worse problem in boss fights when you only have a limited resource of rings to go by.
The game continues to flip-flop between both sides of the spectrum - Spring Stadium’s fight is more of the same with Green Grove, another fight where you run around waiting for Eggman to make himself vulnerable before hitting him. The same applies to Diamond Dust, but this fight is much better (and easily the best boss fight in the game) since you can make Eggman hover back down immediately by blowing up the exploding snowman he drops. And most of the time, it’s a free hit.
Then Traveler’s Tales decides to throw good boss design into the bin for the rest of the game because Volcano Valley is easily a bottom 10 Sonic boss, in my opinion. This boss requires incredible precision in not just avoiding the auto-aim flame projectile (how the fuck does that even work), but also in not accidentally jumping into lava when landing on the super-thin pipes that give you a clear shot at hitting Eggman. AND you have to pray to God that you don’t randomly get hit by the fire spewers guarding Eggman, AND pray that your rings don’t FUCKING disintegrate immediately when you try recollecting them, THEN pray your next jump actually lands you back on the pipe.
Gene Gadget then merges the ‘run and wait’ boss design with a treadmill and garbage depth perception, since weirdly enough the only way to guarantee a hit on Eggman is by hitting the cockpit from the front - even hitting him from the sides is more likely a miss or the reversal where YOU get hit. After these two fights, Panic Puppet and the Final Fight can be painfully cheesed by standing in a corner or running around for most of the fight and waiting for Eggman to make himself vulnerable.
Graphically, I’m mixed. On one hand, the attention to detail is gorgeous - the levels are all spruced to life in the Saturn release, with small additions like mice popping out of the large vases in Rusty Ruin, the way the tiles glow whenever you step on them in the Final Fight, and all the various weather effects like rain and fog in Rusty Ruin, and the snow in Diamond Dust. However, the sprite work in general is less than stellar (in the main gameplay). Sonic in particular looks limp, shiny and lifeless, with all his main animations feeling more stilted and awkward. Sure, he, Tails and Knuckles look far better when you enter a Special Stage, but that’s just a momentary feeling of aesthetic pleasure before you’re forced back into terrible pre-rendered model land.
However, I will say that this game is probably the most 90s aesthetic ever. The whole game just has a very awkward, mid 90s early 3D vibe to it, and its age has definitely shown. But there was clearly effort put into it - the pause menu in each stage is different, and each and every one of them screams 90s right at your face.
And then there’s the soundtrack.
It definitely contributes to the overall 90s vibe of 3D Blast Saturn further, but don’t let that make you believe that it doesn’t hold up today, because it absolutely does. Both acts of Green Grove, Diamond Dust Act 2, Rusty Ruin Act 2, Gene Gadget Act 1 and the Special Stage music serve as the best the soundtrack has to offer, with each of these pieces extenuating and oozing with classic 90s disco/pop/hip-hop charm. The same goes for the other unmentioned stages, as they all are great in their own right.
Except for Spring Stadium Act 2. We don’t talk about Spring Stadium Act 2.
But to me, that isn’t even the main draw of the soundtrack. Richard Jacques and TJ Davis collaborated for the first time with the Saturn release of 3D Blast, creating the main theme of the game “You’re My Hero”.. While the song itself is unremarkable compared to the rest of Sonic’s vocal theme library and especially pales in comparison to their later work in Sonic R, note how the link I redirected you to explicitly takes you to the 48th second of the video, where the chorus begins. Now I need you to listen to the keys that play when TJ Davis sings “cause’ you’re my hero”, because that is incredibly important to this massive revelation I’m about to deliver. Richard Jacques was also responsible for composing the soundtrack of the game, and as he did so, he ended up implementing the beginning of the chorus to every single level theme in the game. This, as it turns out, made 3D Blast Saturn’s soundtrack the first in the Sonic franchise to incorporate a leitmotif throughout the entire game.
Don’t believe me? Listen closer.
Every single one of those characters sends you to videos of every level in the game, and the exact second you can start hearing the leitmotif. The fact that no one has ever really mentioned this is shocking to me, and this is one aspect of 3D Blast Saturn’s soundtrack that I believe is heavily underappreciated, even for an album of such quality. And for that, I have to give Mr. Jacques massive respect.
Oh, and the leitmotif was used in almost every level. Guess which level didn’t use the leitmotif.
SCREAMS IN CIRCUS MUSIC
Final rating: 5/10
(p.s.: play the Director's Cut version. It's so much better it's not even funny.)
Day 7: 3D Blast (Saturn)
There are two types of difficulty: There's difficulty, and then there's a sub-machine turret in a 2.5D isometric platformer treasure hunting game with poor depth perception.
The Gimmick of the Week
3D Blast has an interesting design philosophy. Most games in this era implemented Badniks as obstacles, and most of the time players got to choose how they dealt with this obstacle; they'd either kill it, evade it, or sometimes even use it as an extra footstool for speedruns. However, as my earlier statement implied, Traveller's Tales and SEGA decided that for 3D Blast, they wanted to create the world's most frustrating isometric scavenger hunt experience of all time. And thus the game released, and lo and behold, save for one level, every level is reduced to a mini treasuring hunting map, where players have two options: kill Badniks and collect Flickies, or quit the game. Binary options in my Sonic game? No fucking way.
Granted, the level designers at least had the restraint of making the player search for these stupid fucking birds 5 at a time, and thus each level is split into 2-3 mini segments where the objective is always the same: find the birds, go through the hoop, onto the next part. On paper this doesn't sound too bad - with only 5 Badniks per area, all I have to do is platform, kill them and get to the hoop, right?
Well, obviously that wouldn't be the case, doing this would make the game far too easy. So the game designers had a few decent options:
Make each Badnik its own miniboss that requires 3 hits to defeat, then you get a Flicky. Simple, and you can get really creative with the miniboss design. This is an option that Frontiers would later adapt when it came to their enemy design.
Have the player use their brains while navigating these mini-areas: maybe have a more difficult platforming segment that leads to the Badnik? Or maybe stash the Badnik away behind a visibly cracked wall? This option DID make it into the finished product, actually… for the special stages.
So you may be asking: what was Eggman cooking?
Well, to deter Sonic’s progress through Flicky Island, Eggman deviously concocted three things: a whole lotta fucking traps and natural hazards, baffling movement physics, and the worst depth perception known to mankind.
The Three Musketeers of Frustrating Isometric Platformer Design
It’s impossible to discuss any particular topic separately, as in reality, pointing the blame at one aspect tends to tie heavily to the others anyway. On paper, these traps aren’t too bad. You’ve got exploding mines, exploding snowmen, electrified floor tiles, spears protruding from the ground, lava, rotating fans- wait, rotating fans? This game is fucking weird man what can I say. And for the most part, you’d be right! You can dodge the exploding everything as well as the electrified floor tiles and Spring Stadium spike traps by simply jumping past them. And that’s mostly owing to Sonic’s superb air control, since his air speed is so fast you can actually jump past entire pits at will, much like in the Genesis titles!
Unfortunately, I should emphasise ‘for the most part’. Because while you can jump past these obstacles, you will get hit by the exploding mines, you will get hit by the spears, and unless you have a Red Shield, you will constantly lose rings in Volcano Valley. And that’s primarily owing to the depth perception in this game, because holy fuck is it as awful as you’d expect a 2.5D isometric platformer to be. Usually, in a full 3D game, you have a clear view of what’s ahead of you, and can therefore react accordingly and do exactly what you need to cross a certain obstacle.
However, that luxury is taken from you when you remove ½ from that number, and most times it’s hard to predict Sonic’s trajectory off a jump. You could randomly get hit by an exploding mine projectile you’d think you cleared, or miss a platform entirely and be forced to redo an entire platforming section. As you’d expect, the shadow quality does not help in the slightest, so Sonic can even struggle with basic things such as jumping on an item box. Or a Badnik. Which can still damage you if you land too close to it after missing a jump. Yeah no this shit’s fucking terrib-
Fear not, because Sonic’s toolkit actually helps make things easier! For once, rolling is actually the optimal method of defeating Badniks, since you don’t risk the chance of missing your jump and getting hit for it! And it’s pretty easy, too - simply press the B button while moving and you’ll be dunking straight into the Badnik! Hell yeah! Those nasty platforming sections in Rusty Ruin? Don’t worry, the Spin Dash jump also works in this game! Just hold B in a standstill and Sonic will automatically rev up his Spin Dash for the first time in Sonic history (hey that’s something SA1 and SA2 adapted!), and with a well-timed jump those platforming sections are solved in one fell swoop!
If only Sonic’s ground movement was good! Sonic’s stellar air physics might be compensation for how awful he feels on land. One word: slippery. Half the time Sonic would be skidding all over the map without much of the restraint that made him fun to control in the main Genesis games, and due to this he’s much more prone to the aforementioned hazards and traps unless he opts to Just Jump. Which honestly feels like the biggest bit of advice I could give to a newcomer who wants to play this game. When in doubt or in danger, just jump. It’s much better than actually running.
Which is genuinely unfortunate, because this game actually has… slope physics?! Sonic’s movement speed on the ground is actually relative to the indent of the slope he’s on, much like in the Classic 2D games - he slows down uphill, goes faster downhill, yada-yada. And this somehow simultaneously gives this game much more realism and speed, but also further hampers your movement more because even the smallest indent can cause Sonic to slide ever so slightly, possibly even getting hit in the process. And then this net positive completely falls apart when you realise Sonic’s momentum physics do not translate when he rolls - he still rolls at that same awkward speed unless it's one of those automated sections that transition you between parts of the level.
This gets even fucking weirder when you find out that the fucking Special Stages have momentum physics as well! And they’re even more accurate since Sonic actually gains massive speed down a slope! Tragically this doesn’t even get put to good use unless you’re passing through a speed gate, because while the music fucking slaps and the halfpipe design is much better than in Sonic 2 (there’s much more bells and whistles like the aforementioned slopes, high paths and low paths, speed gates and speed boosters, as well as stellar sound design because the sound effects actually get muffled when you’re in a tunnel), the problem of limited field of vision still persists and you’d wind up accidentally careen into a row of bombs at high speeds, possibly even costing you the special stage in the process.
Speaking of accidentally careening into traps, honestly Eggman should just quit the Badnik industry and focus instead on these inhumane ass traps since those seem to do a much better job at getting me to press Alt + F4. See, these traps don’t just hit you, they can hit the Flickies you collected as well. And after you get hit, they scatter. The Blue and Purple Flickies aren’t much of a hassle to recollect since they stay close to Sonic anyway, but then there’s the Red Flicky. Fuck him. Fuck his emo looking hair and the way he constantly jumps around. You wanna pick him up? Have fun trying when the depth perception constantly gets in the way and you’re constantly missing his obnoxious ass. The Green, fat bastard can also fuck off too, for similar reasons.
Now to actually discuss the traps in question: all of the aforementioned traps aren’t really a problem once you get used to the controls (yes, you can get used to them). But then, in the penultimate level of the game, Eggman decides to unleash literally Satan’s hellspawn onto the planet: a single turret, with semi-automatic firing speeds, 360-degree rotation and bullets the size of fuck you. The level designers must’ve realised that they needed to increase the difficulty scale of the game to keep the gameplay loop fresh. And instead of naturally raising the difficulty, they chose to spawn 1, sometimes even 2 Badniks next to this fucking piece of shit. Imagine you have 4 Flickies, and the last one happens to be wandering around one of these Turrets. You either get hit by the Badnik due to dodgy slippery controls, or you miss a jump, or you can get hit by the turret. Now you have to recollect all 5 Flickies in that singular area, All while the turret mercilessly fires its bullshit at you. The worst part about this? Most of the Flickies you collect are the Red and Green fucks. GRAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-
Everything Else
The boss fights in 3D Blast, are without exaggeration, the most bipolar series of bosses in the entire series. First there’s Green Grove’s boss fight, which is your standard mediocre ‘stand and wait until the boss makes himself vulnerable’ battle. Of course, depth perception makes every hit on Eggman a 70/30, but it’s relatively easy in the long run.
Then the game fucking hardcuts to Rusty Ruin’s boss, which involves you waiting for Eggman to slam one of the paws on this ancient mech so that you can follow it as it rises to hit him. Not a particularly difficult task from the sound of it, but then you actually play the fight and realise the depth perception fucks you over because of course it does. It doesn’t help that the ring drops fucking suck in this game as well, because the game is inconsistent with how long they remain for Sonic to collect. Half the time they work as intended and only vanish after a few moments; the other half they just disintegrate immediately after you get hit. This is a significantly worse problem in boss fights when you only have a limited resource of rings to go by.
The game continues to flip-flop between both sides of the spectrum - Spring Stadium’s fight is more of the same with Green Grove, another fight where you run around waiting for Eggman to make himself vulnerable before hitting him. The same applies to Diamond Dust, but this fight is much better (and easily the best boss fight in the game) since you can make Eggman hover back down immediately by blowing up the exploding snowman he drops. And most of the time, it’s a free hit.
Then Traveler’s Tales decides to throw good boss design into the bin for the rest of the game because Volcano Valley is easily a bottom 10 Sonic boss, in my opinion. This boss requires incredible precision in not just avoiding the auto-aim flame projectile (how the fuck does that even work), but also in not accidentally jumping into lava when landing on the super-thin pipes that give you a clear shot at hitting Eggman. AND you have to pray to God that you don’t randomly get hit by the fire spewers guarding Eggman, AND pray that your rings don’t FUCKING disintegrate immediately when you try recollecting them, THEN pray your next jump actually lands you back on the pipe.
Gene Gadget then merges the ‘run and wait’ boss design with a treadmill and garbage depth perception, since weirdly enough the only way to guarantee a hit on Eggman is by hitting the cockpit from the front - even hitting him from the sides is more likely a miss or the reversal where YOU get hit. After these two fights, Panic Puppet and the Final Fight can be painfully cheesed by standing in a corner or running around for most of the fight and waiting for Eggman to make himself vulnerable.
Graphically, I’m mixed. On one hand, the attention to detail is gorgeous - the levels are all spruced to life in the Saturn release, with small additions like mice popping out of the large vases in Rusty Ruin, the way the tiles glow whenever you step on them in the Final Fight, and all the various weather effects like rain and fog in Rusty Ruin, and the snow in Diamond Dust. However, the sprite work in general is less than stellar (in the main gameplay). Sonic in particular looks limp, shiny and lifeless, with all his main animations feeling more stilted and awkward. Sure, he, Tails and Knuckles look far better when you enter a Special Stage, but that’s just a momentary feeling of aesthetic pleasure before you’re forced back into terrible pre-rendered model land.
However, I will say that this game is probably the most 90s aesthetic ever. The whole game just has a very awkward, mid 90s early 3D vibe to it, and its age has definitely shown. But there was clearly effort put into it - the pause menu in each stage is different, and each and every one of them screams 90s right at your face.
And then there’s the soundtrack.
It definitely contributes to the overall 90s vibe of 3D Blast Saturn further, but don’t let that make you believe that it doesn’t hold up today, because it absolutely does. Both acts of Green Grove, Diamond Dust Act 2, Rusty Ruin Act 2, Gene Gadget Act 1 and the Special Stage music serve as the best the soundtrack has to offer, with each of these pieces extenuating and oozing with classic 90s disco/pop/hip-hop charm. The same goes for the other unmentioned stages, as they all are great in their own right.
Except for Spring Stadium Act 2. We don’t talk about Spring Stadium Act 2.
But to me, that isn’t even the main draw of the soundtrack. Richard Jacques and TJ Davis collaborated for the first time with the Saturn release of 3D Blast, creating the main theme of the game “You’re My Hero”.. While the song itself is unremarkable compared to the rest of Sonic’s vocal theme library and especially pales in comparison to their later work in Sonic R, note how the link I redirected you to explicitly takes you to the 48th second of the video, where the chorus begins. Now I need you to listen to the keys that play when TJ Davis sings “cause’ you’re my hero”, because that is incredibly important to this massive revelation I’m about to deliver. Richard Jacques was also responsible for composing the soundtrack of the game, and as he did so, he ended up implementing the beginning of the chorus to every single level theme in the game. This, as it turns out, made 3D Blast Saturn’s soundtrack the first in the Sonic franchise to incorporate a leitmotif throughout the entire game.
Don’t believe me? Listen closer.
Every single one of those characters sends you to videos of every level in the game, and the exact second you can start hearing the leitmotif. The fact that no one has ever really mentioned this is shocking to me, and this is one aspect of 3D Blast Saturn’s soundtrack that I believe is heavily underappreciated, even for an album of such quality. And for that, I have to give Mr. Jacques massive respect.
Oh, and the leitmotif was used in almost every level. Guess which level didn’t use the leitmotif.
SCREAMS IN CIRCUS MUSIC
Final rating: 5/10
(p.s.: play the Director's Cut version. It's so much better it's not even funny.)
Reviewed on May 30, 2023