ShinGenX
So… Meta Ridley sure was a boss fight, huh?
In Metroid games, atmosphere is paramount. The fundamental ability to effortlessly immerse a player into the imaginative planets they embark upon is crucial to their success, and it’s arguably Metroid’s defining characteristic as a video game franchise. Much like its predecessors, Prime succeeds in crafting a captivating ambience that convincingly places the player in the boots of Samus through unmatched realism in both its audio and visual design. This much should be undisputed - the amount of detail encoded into the various lifeforms of Tallon IV should not be overlooked, with every room richly constructed with detailed lighting and natural sonorousness to make them feel like genuine articles. The implementation of a first-person perspective and by extension the scan visor further amplifies the scale of Prime’s scope, literally allowing players to view the world from Samus perspective and unravel the narrative surrounding the world at the same pace she does. As a nice additional bonus, the visor also takes into account minor changes in Samus’ POV - fog can cause Samus’ vision to become clouded, and bright flashes allow players a brief glimpse into her eyes. Overall, Metroid Prime is inarguably a masterclass in terms of how it pushes the technical boundaries of its audio-visual presentation, certainly one of the most beautiful looking games, even today. Given how rushed Prime’s development appeared to be, this is nothing short of a miracle.
What isn’t a miracle, however, is Metroid Prime’s unfortunate pacing problems that distills the illusion of immersion.
Metroid Prime takes a puzzle box-esque approach to its level design, much akin to the likes of Super Metroid before it, fashioning every area as their own self-contained environment which revolves around a particular puzzle or platforming challenge players must solve in order to progress to the next task. This isn’t an inherently poor concept, however most puzzles in Prime demand the acquisition of an item that you’re unlikely to have obtained at that point in the game, mandating backtracking to retrieve said item to bypass the gate only to then be immediately gatekept by another unretrieved item! This scenario is ever-present throughout an average playthrough of Prime, with items uncovered in the second half being conveniently scattered at great distances between each other following the otherwise butter smooth pacing of the game’s first half - this only serves to inflate the runtime beyond what was necessary. Generally, environmental traversal is further worsened by the sluggish movement speed Samus seems to travel at in this game (this is an exception if you know scan dashing - a technique most newcomers and casual gamers would be unaware of).
As aforementioned, Super Metroid did take a similar approach in how it designed its world layout, and does frequently require backtracking for certain items if played linearly. However, one thing that draws a major divide between Super and Prime is that Super is much more open-ended - speedrunners can defeat Phantoon even before obtaining the Gravity Suit, whereas in Prime Samus needs her entire arsenal to even access the Impact Crater without glitches. Super also does have the reduced drawbacks of being a 2D platformer with a run button, as well as less connecting tunnels between every area compared to Prime. Most crucially, however, is that most doors in Super only require regular shots to unlock them after using the required weapon on them the first time - this is not included in Prime, forcing players to constantly swap awkwardly between beams while backtracking for hidden items.
Another glancing difference between the progression flow of Metroid Prime and Super Metroid can be observed in terms of how they handle endgame enemies - in Super, players are rewarded for deep progression into the game with strong weapons such as the Plasma Beam and the Screw Attack, which instantly trivialise most common enemies that had previously troubled them throughout their travels on the planet. This is a trend that future games opt to emulate, and often the gratifying satisfaction of steamrollering past what once were annoying obstacles empowers the player as they near the climactic finale of their journey.
In a puzzling design choice, however, Prime opts to go in the opposite direction - enemies introduced later into the game are much more substantial in hit points, with most of them requiring several charged attacks to destroy, and with a number of these encounters being mandatory fight sequences. From a narrative perspective, this makes sense - keen observers of the scan logs in research facilities reveal the Space Pirates are learning to adapt to Samus’ numerous weaponry by enhancing their armor’s resistance towards most of her beams. The fact that they are capable of learning is frankly terrifying and adds to the abnormality of your presence in this hostile environment and leaves you feeling encased in a grueling, bitter fight. Unfortunately, in an ironic twist, their armor has a singular weakness - the beams which share the same colour as the pirates themselves. This results in a very clunky and arbitrary combat mechanism, where players have to once again clumsily flip-flop between different beam configurations to defeat these colour-coded pirates. Additionally, their absurd ability to tank hits, further hampered by the lock-on reticle feeling more like an incredibly rough approximation than a guaranteed hit, makes these fights unnecessarily tedious and much worse, boring. The same can unfortunately be said about the Chozo Ghosts, which despite being a stellar setpiece when first discovered, only serve as another fancy roadblock that’s fortunately rather easy to ghost past (haha).
These aforementioned issues seem much more bizarre when viewing the narrative of Prime’s story as a whole - upon landing in Tallon IV Samus is intentionally heavily nerfed following the tutorial, serving as an effective incentive to motivate players into regaining their lost abilities and storm through this foreign planet quicker. Plopping more challenging enemies runs contrary to the usual narrative Metroid games usually follow, and leaves a conflictive bottleneck in terms of player empowerment by leaving them just as helpless as they were at the beginning, despite being arguably more powerful than before they set foot on the planet!
All this culminates in an endgame scavenger hunt that while on paper is an intriguing premise - a trek throughout previously explored caverns and ruins in search of 12 missing artifacts sounds incredibly fun! Rooms that were previously written off as trivial are suddenly given renewed purpose, and it is up to the player to solve the puzzles enlisted at the Temple to find these cleverly hidden pieces. I’ll be the first to admit that I enjoyed the Chozo Artifact searching. What I very obviously didn’t enjoy, however, was the mind-numbingly tedium of backtracking through unchanged rooms just to reach these specific artifacts. The slowness of your movement, the frequency of long, empty hallways, the repetitive and frustrating enemies, combined with all the previous backtracking you already had to do unless you discovered the Artifact Temple early (which I fortunately avoided because I’m a curious bastard who opens every door I can possibly open first chance) and have to return to it to obtain the second half of the clues which, why, just why, results in the pacing of Metroid Prime coming to a screeching halt towards its climax, which is subsequently followed by an arduous, sluggish crawl inch-by-inch across the finish line. Obviously, this does not have great forebodings on my perception of Metroid Prime.
Nevertheless, it cannot be understated the positive outlook that this game provided, which revitalised public interest in the Metroid series - Metroid Prime, alongside the release of the (much better title) Fusion that same year, proved to be a watershed moment in its long history, resulting in two further sequels being released before an Other M brought the whole brigade down in an embarrassing heap of flames. It still remains a fantastic case study into how detailed visuals and appropriate sound mixing can enhance the atmosphere of a video game environment, and provide maximum immersion into the wondrous boundaries of Metroid’s nuanced environmental storytelling.
Despite this, it should also serve as a warning sign of how poor design implementations can likewise shatter that immersion and disrupt the pacing of an otherwise brilliant game.
Final score: 7/10
Focus: Metroid Prime’s second half and its pace-breaking issues.
In Metroid games, atmosphere is paramount. The fundamental ability to effortlessly immerse a player into the imaginative planets they embark upon is crucial to their success, and it’s arguably Metroid’s defining characteristic as a video game franchise. Much like its predecessors, Prime succeeds in crafting a captivating ambience that convincingly places the player in the boots of Samus through unmatched realism in both its audio and visual design. This much should be undisputed - the amount of detail encoded into the various lifeforms of Tallon IV should not be overlooked, with every room richly constructed with detailed lighting and natural sonorousness to make them feel like genuine articles. The implementation of a first-person perspective and by extension the scan visor further amplifies the scale of Prime’s scope, literally allowing players to view the world from Samus perspective and unravel the narrative surrounding the world at the same pace she does. As a nice additional bonus, the visor also takes into account minor changes in Samus’ POV - fog can cause Samus’ vision to become clouded, and bright flashes allow players a brief glimpse into her eyes. Overall, Metroid Prime is inarguably a masterclass in terms of how it pushes the technical boundaries of its audio-visual presentation, certainly one of the most beautiful looking games, even today. Given how rushed Prime’s development appeared to be, this is nothing short of a miracle.
What isn’t a miracle, however, is Metroid Prime’s unfortunate pacing problems that distills the illusion of immersion.
Metroid Prime takes a puzzle box-esque approach to its level design, much akin to the likes of Super Metroid before it, fashioning every area as their own self-contained environment which revolves around a particular puzzle or platforming challenge players must solve in order to progress to the next task. This isn’t an inherently poor concept, however most puzzles in Prime demand the acquisition of an item that you’re unlikely to have obtained at that point in the game, mandating backtracking to retrieve said item to bypass the gate only to then be immediately gatekept by another unretrieved item! This scenario is ever-present throughout an average playthrough of Prime, with items uncovered in the second half being conveniently scattered at great distances between each other following the otherwise butter smooth pacing of the game’s first half - this only serves to inflate the runtime beyond what was necessary. Generally, environmental traversal is further worsened by the sluggish movement speed Samus seems to travel at in this game (this is an exception if you know scan dashing - a technique most newcomers and casual gamers would be unaware of).
As aforementioned, Super Metroid did take a similar approach in how it designed its world layout, and does frequently require backtracking for certain items if played linearly. However, one thing that draws a major divide between Super and Prime is that Super is much more open-ended - speedrunners can defeat Phantoon even before obtaining the Gravity Suit, whereas in Prime Samus needs her entire arsenal to even access the Impact Crater without glitches. Super also does have the reduced drawbacks of being a 2D platformer with a run button, as well as less connecting tunnels between every area compared to Prime. Most crucially, however, is that most doors in Super only require regular shots to unlock them after using the required weapon on them the first time - this is not included in Prime, forcing players to constantly swap awkwardly between beams while backtracking for hidden items.
Another glancing difference between the progression flow of Metroid Prime and Super Metroid can be observed in terms of how they handle endgame enemies - in Super, players are rewarded for deep progression into the game with strong weapons such as the Plasma Beam and the Screw Attack, which instantly trivialise most common enemies that had previously troubled them throughout their travels on the planet. This is a trend that future games opt to emulate, and often the gratifying satisfaction of steamrollering past what once were annoying obstacles empowers the player as they near the climactic finale of their journey.
In a puzzling design choice, however, Prime opts to go in the opposite direction - enemies introduced later into the game are much more substantial in hit points, with most of them requiring several charged attacks to destroy, and with a number of these encounters being mandatory fight sequences. From a narrative perspective, this makes sense - keen observers of the scan logs in research facilities reveal the Space Pirates are learning to adapt to Samus’ numerous weaponry by enhancing their armor’s resistance towards most of her beams. The fact that they are capable of learning is frankly terrifying and adds to the abnormality of your presence in this hostile environment and leaves you feeling encased in a grueling, bitter fight. Unfortunately, in an ironic twist, their armor has a singular weakness - the beams which share the same colour as the pirates themselves. This results in a very clunky and arbitrary combat mechanism, where players have to once again clumsily flip-flop between different beam configurations to defeat these colour-coded pirates. Additionally, their absurd ability to tank hits, further hampered by the lock-on reticle feeling more like an incredibly rough approximation than a guaranteed hit, makes these fights unnecessarily tedious and much worse, boring. The same can unfortunately be said about the Chozo Ghosts, which despite being a stellar setpiece when first discovered, only serve as another fancy roadblock that’s fortunately rather easy to ghost past (haha).
These aforementioned issues seem much more bizarre when viewing the narrative of Prime’s story as a whole - upon landing in Tallon IV Samus is intentionally heavily nerfed following the tutorial, serving as an effective incentive to motivate players into regaining their lost abilities and storm through this foreign planet quicker. Plopping more challenging enemies runs contrary to the usual narrative Metroid games usually follow, and leaves a conflictive bottleneck in terms of player empowerment by leaving them just as helpless as they were at the beginning, despite being arguably more powerful than before they set foot on the planet!
All this culminates in an endgame scavenger hunt that while on paper is an intriguing premise - a trek throughout previously explored caverns and ruins in search of 12 missing artifacts sounds incredibly fun! Rooms that were previously written off as trivial are suddenly given renewed purpose, and it is up to the player to solve the puzzles enlisted at the Temple to find these cleverly hidden pieces. I’ll be the first to admit that I enjoyed the Chozo Artifact searching. What I very obviously didn’t enjoy, however, was the mind-numbingly tedium of backtracking through unchanged rooms just to reach these specific artifacts. The slowness of your movement, the frequency of long, empty hallways, the repetitive and frustrating enemies, combined with all the previous backtracking you already had to do unless you discovered the Artifact Temple early (which I fortunately avoided because I’m a curious bastard who opens every door I can possibly open first chance) and have to return to it to obtain the second half of the clues which, why, just why, results in the pacing of Metroid Prime coming to a screeching halt towards its climax, which is subsequently followed by an arduous, sluggish crawl inch-by-inch across the finish line. Obviously, this does not have great forebodings on my perception of Metroid Prime.
Nevertheless, it cannot be understated the positive outlook that this game provided, which revitalised public interest in the Metroid series - Metroid Prime, alongside the release of the (much better title) Fusion that same year, proved to be a watershed moment in its long history, resulting in two further sequels being released before an Other M brought the whole brigade down in an embarrassing heap of flames. It still remains a fantastic case study into how detailed visuals and appropriate sound mixing can enhance the atmosphere of a video game environment, and provide maximum immersion into the wondrous boundaries of Metroid’s nuanced environmental storytelling.
Despite this, it should also serve as a warning sign of how poor design implementations can likewise shatter that immersion and disrupt the pacing of an otherwise brilliant game.
Final score: 7/10
Focus: Metroid Prime’s second half and its pace-breaking issues.
“Shouldn’t you be heading home as well?”
–
The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask is fundamentally a game about grief, regret, and most importantly, healing. At the heart of this core philosophy is the Song of Healing which, when played, emits an appropriate aura of warm, pink hearts. It is perhaps a happy coincidence that the notes that compose the song in Majora’s Mask are the exact notes used to play Saria’s Song, albeit backwards. The contrast between both songs is surreal: while Saria’s Song provides superficial happiness in the form of dance, the Song of Healing provides genuine happiness in the form of a spiritual, comforting embrace. Given how the Skull Kid is implied to be the same Skull Kid that the Hero of Time befriended in the past, though, I strongly doubt this was a connection formed through pure chance.
The Song of Healing initially begins a sorrowful, descending tune, and dwells on it for a moment, as if to acknowledge the despair and sadness of the listener. Halfway through the song, however, the piano reascends up the scale, and the song takes on a more bittersweet sound, uplifting the spirits of those listening, wrapping them in a sense of comfort that aims to give them closure. Whether it be a lifelong promise, a fulfilled purpose or a brief moment of pleasure in a period of disarray, the Song of Healing soothes the soul, both metaphorically and physically, with the latter being represented in the form of Masks.
–
Masks in Majora’s Mask are seen as the culmination of one’s purest form of happiness, only formed once their troubles have been answered. To obtain these masks, the Hero of Time must perform various tasks and acts of goodwill throughout Termina to give joy to the people there. It can be something as mundane as reforming the Great Fairy in Termina, or something emotionally profound, like saving a helpless father possessed by a Gibdo, allowing him to reunite with his daughter who not only protected him, but also comforted him as soon as he regained consciousness. These individuals all have their wishes and desires fulfilled by a magical child who quite literally appeared from nowhere, and acquired happiness through his selfless efforts.
However, this is Majora’s Mask - the masks aren’t only a form of happiness, they’re also a form of closure.
There’s the constant underlying factor of the Moon that will inevitably crash into Termina if the hero does not act. No matter how much the joyful music of Clock Town attempts to mask the fate of its residents, it eventually gives way to an erratic sense of discomfort and imminent dread. Slowly but surely, Termina comes to terms with its terminal fate. All the Hero of Time is able to do while he rushes through the various landscapes is offer the people of Termina a sense of closure. The Bunny Hood Mask, arguably the most important optional mask in the game, requires the hero march a coop of chicks into maturity so their caretaker gets to see them fully grown before moonfall. The Goron and Zora Masks are acquired by offering their inhibitors closure - Darmani by promising that the Gorons will be saved from the perilous snowfall, Mikau by promising that his bandmates are able to perform at the Carnival of Time. A particularly noteworthy mention would be Anju and Kafei’s Couples’ Mask, which requires player input throughout the entirety of Majora’s Mask’s 3-day cycle. The extensive length of this quest is a beautiful reminder that love requires patience to nurture, and that when both parties are so dedicated to each other that they’re willing to overcome all trials and tribulations to be with each other, their love can transcend all boundaries, even time.
–
Link originated from humble beginnings. He spent most of his early life believing he was one of the Kokori, despite the lack of a fairy companion. It was quaint and simple, yet it was sufficient. Then the events of Ocarina of Time shattered the facade of his reality, revealing that the entire foundation of his existence was a fabrication, built to mask the truth behind his destiny. It was Link who withheld the burden of growing up against his own will, in order to fulfill the prophecy that foretold the prevailing victory of the forces of light against a castle of pure evil. He carried the weight of the world on his shoulders, and despite his success, his deeds are chalked off as an obscure legend to most.
Despite being allowed to return to his childhood, the ordeal ensured Link’s life would never recover. To him, Kokori Forest no longer felt like a true home. And so, in search of the one remnant of his fragmented childhood that remained ever-present throughout his journey, Navi, he inadvertently found himself saving another different world. Once again, however, the curse of being the Hero of Time burdened him, and all the memories he formed with the people of Termina were constantly swept away in the white blanket of time as he rewinded the clock to eventually save their lives. In the end, his selfless acts touched the souls residing in Termina, bringing forth positive change in their lives. However, all that lingers in Termina is a fleeting memory of a hero who came and went, much like the spring breeze.
Throughout the entire journey, Link is the one to play the Song of Healing for all the wounded souls he came across. Despite this, he has never been the recipient of the song, with even the Happy Mask Salesman teaching him the song to pacify the Deku Spirit inhibiting his soul. The mantle of ‘Hero of Time’ is one that requires sacrifice - by the end of the game, despite all his efforts, Link never reaches his goal: he never finds Navi, and he is once again forced to become a mere passerby of a world he saved as he continues his hopeless quest.
Ultimately, Link is the saviour of two worlds, yet is a stranger of both. He can never truly call Hyrule or Termina his true home, as he has no calling and no longer serves a purpose for either world. He is forever displaced in time, cursed by his destiny, trapped in a mind that experienced insurmountable trauma others can barely comprehend. He departed the living realm without ever finding full acceptance, regretting his inability to pass on his learnings, and regretting living as an anonymous entity to the world. Such is the tragedy of the Hero of Time.
–
You saved Hyrule. You saved Termina. But did you save yourself?
Did you allow yourself the time to heal?
Final score: 10/10
Focus: The Song of Healing, and how it connects to the self-sacrificial tragedy of the Hero of Time and the burden of destiny.
Theme: Healing and self-sactifice.
ShinGen's "Greatest Game of All Time" Certification
Review 77.
–
The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask is fundamentally a game about grief, regret, and most importantly, healing. At the heart of this core philosophy is the Song of Healing which, when played, emits an appropriate aura of warm, pink hearts. It is perhaps a happy coincidence that the notes that compose the song in Majora’s Mask are the exact notes used to play Saria’s Song, albeit backwards. The contrast between both songs is surreal: while Saria’s Song provides superficial happiness in the form of dance, the Song of Healing provides genuine happiness in the form of a spiritual, comforting embrace. Given how the Skull Kid is implied to be the same Skull Kid that the Hero of Time befriended in the past, though, I strongly doubt this was a connection formed through pure chance.
The Song of Healing initially begins a sorrowful, descending tune, and dwells on it for a moment, as if to acknowledge the despair and sadness of the listener. Halfway through the song, however, the piano reascends up the scale, and the song takes on a more bittersweet sound, uplifting the spirits of those listening, wrapping them in a sense of comfort that aims to give them closure. Whether it be a lifelong promise, a fulfilled purpose or a brief moment of pleasure in a period of disarray, the Song of Healing soothes the soul, both metaphorically and physically, with the latter being represented in the form of Masks.
–
Masks in Majora’s Mask are seen as the culmination of one’s purest form of happiness, only formed once their troubles have been answered. To obtain these masks, the Hero of Time must perform various tasks and acts of goodwill throughout Termina to give joy to the people there. It can be something as mundane as reforming the Great Fairy in Termina, or something emotionally profound, like saving a helpless father possessed by a Gibdo, allowing him to reunite with his daughter who not only protected him, but also comforted him as soon as he regained consciousness. These individuals all have their wishes and desires fulfilled by a magical child who quite literally appeared from nowhere, and acquired happiness through his selfless efforts.
However, this is Majora’s Mask - the masks aren’t only a form of happiness, they’re also a form of closure.
There’s the constant underlying factor of the Moon that will inevitably crash into Termina if the hero does not act. No matter how much the joyful music of Clock Town attempts to mask the fate of its residents, it eventually gives way to an erratic sense of discomfort and imminent dread. Slowly but surely, Termina comes to terms with its terminal fate. All the Hero of Time is able to do while he rushes through the various landscapes is offer the people of Termina a sense of closure. The Bunny Hood Mask, arguably the most important optional mask in the game, requires the hero march a coop of chicks into maturity so their caretaker gets to see them fully grown before moonfall. The Goron and Zora Masks are acquired by offering their inhibitors closure - Darmani by promising that the Gorons will be saved from the perilous snowfall, Mikau by promising that his bandmates are able to perform at the Carnival of Time. A particularly noteworthy mention would be Anju and Kafei’s Couples’ Mask, which requires player input throughout the entirety of Majora’s Mask’s 3-day cycle. The extensive length of this quest is a beautiful reminder that love requires patience to nurture, and that when both parties are so dedicated to each other that they’re willing to overcome all trials and tribulations to be with each other, their love can transcend all boundaries, even time.
–
Link originated from humble beginnings. He spent most of his early life believing he was one of the Kokori, despite the lack of a fairy companion. It was quaint and simple, yet it was sufficient. Then the events of Ocarina of Time shattered the facade of his reality, revealing that the entire foundation of his existence was a fabrication, built to mask the truth behind his destiny. It was Link who withheld the burden of growing up against his own will, in order to fulfill the prophecy that foretold the prevailing victory of the forces of light against a castle of pure evil. He carried the weight of the world on his shoulders, and despite his success, his deeds are chalked off as an obscure legend to most.
Despite being allowed to return to his childhood, the ordeal ensured Link’s life would never recover. To him, Kokori Forest no longer felt like a true home. And so, in search of the one remnant of his fragmented childhood that remained ever-present throughout his journey, Navi, he inadvertently found himself saving another different world. Once again, however, the curse of being the Hero of Time burdened him, and all the memories he formed with the people of Termina were constantly swept away in the white blanket of time as he rewinded the clock to eventually save their lives. In the end, his selfless acts touched the souls residing in Termina, bringing forth positive change in their lives. However, all that lingers in Termina is a fleeting memory of a hero who came and went, much like the spring breeze.
Throughout the entire journey, Link is the one to play the Song of Healing for all the wounded souls he came across. Despite this, he has never been the recipient of the song, with even the Happy Mask Salesman teaching him the song to pacify the Deku Spirit inhibiting his soul. The mantle of ‘Hero of Time’ is one that requires sacrifice - by the end of the game, despite all his efforts, Link never reaches his goal: he never finds Navi, and he is once again forced to become a mere passerby of a world he saved as he continues his hopeless quest.
Ultimately, Link is the saviour of two worlds, yet is a stranger of both. He can never truly call Hyrule or Termina his true home, as he has no calling and no longer serves a purpose for either world. He is forever displaced in time, cursed by his destiny, trapped in a mind that experienced insurmountable trauma others can barely comprehend. He departed the living realm without ever finding full acceptance, regretting his inability to pass on his learnings, and regretting living as an anonymous entity to the world. Such is the tragedy of the Hero of Time.
–
You saved Hyrule. You saved Termina. But did you save yourself?
Did you allow yourself the time to heal?
Final score: 10/10
Focus: The Song of Healing, and how it connects to the self-sacrificial tragedy of the Hero of Time and the burden of destiny.
Theme: Healing and self-sactifice.
ShinGen's "Greatest Game of All Time" Certification
Review 77.
Played on the Ship of Harkinian PC Port at 30 FPS.
"Now, go home, Link. Regain your lost time! Home... where you are supposed to be... the way you are supposed to be...
What is there to say that hasn't already been said? Ocarina of Time is the eternal critical darling of the masses, an astounding transition of 2D to 3D that just does so many things right, basically consolidating the formula for many, many Zelda games to come. A story that comfortably tells a thematic narrative of time, adolescence and coming-of-age. A visual style so distinct that when Link, Zelda and Ganondorf are brought up, it is this game's depiction of them that immediately comes to mind. A soundtrack so iconic, even people who aren't familiar with video games know a track or two. The dungeon designs, the dark comedy, Z-targeting, the harem (?), all of it is so, so good, to the point where despite OOT clearly showing signs of age and retrospective reviews have rightfully argued against its masterpiece status, it still remains true to its namesake, serving as a long-standing, timeless mantlepiece of successfully executed early 3D game design.
I may not be new to the debate, but in the next 1000 words, I'll try to provide an authentic, fresh perspective of my experience:
i hate spiders i hate spiders i hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spiders i hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spiders dear lord i hate how the fucking skulltulas look why did they make me collect this many fuck spiders i hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders the person who designed skulltulas should be tried and sentenced to eternal imprisonment for hate crimes.
Final rating: i h8.5piders/10
Focus: i hate spiders
Theme: i hate spiders
"Now, go home, Link. Regain your lost time! Home... where you are supposed to be... the way you are supposed to be...
What is there to say that hasn't already been said? Ocarina of Time is the eternal critical darling of the masses, an astounding transition of 2D to 3D that just does so many things right, basically consolidating the formula for many, many Zelda games to come. A story that comfortably tells a thematic narrative of time, adolescence and coming-of-age. A visual style so distinct that when Link, Zelda and Ganondorf are brought up, it is this game's depiction of them that immediately comes to mind. A soundtrack so iconic, even people who aren't familiar with video games know a track or two. The dungeon designs, the dark comedy, Z-targeting, the harem (?), all of it is so, so good, to the point where despite OOT clearly showing signs of age and retrospective reviews have rightfully argued against its masterpiece status, it still remains true to its namesake, serving as a long-standing, timeless mantlepiece of successfully executed early 3D game design.
I may not be new to the debate, but in the next 1000 words, I'll try to provide an authentic, fresh perspective of my experience:
i hate spiders i hate spiders i hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spiders i hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spiders dear lord i hate how the fucking skulltulas look why did they make me collect this many fuck spiders i hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders i hate spidersi hate spiders the person who designed skulltulas should be tried and sentenced to eternal imprisonment for hate crimes.
Final rating: i h8.5piders/10
Focus: i hate spiders
Theme: i hate spiders
2023
SONIC SUPERSTARS GAME OF THE YEAR BABYYYYYY YEAR OF AMY AMY WOOHOO CLASSIC SONIC IS SO FUCKING BACK WE SONIC FANS STAY WINNING BECAUSE MUH MUH MUH MOMENTUM PHYSICS ARE BACK ON THE TABLE ANOTHER STEP IN THE RIGHT FUCKING DIRECTION WOOOOOOOOO-
-I don’t know man, I’m just kinda… whelmed.
Sonic is my favourite video game franchise ever, so it was obvious I’d break my backlog routine to play it, and I even sucked it up and paid the full $60 price of entry. I refunded on release day.
Sonic Superstars is… competent. That is the best way I can possibly use to describe it, and I think that is the most justifiable term to summarise my experience with the game overall. Yet, I can’t help but feel incredibly bitter about this. Which is funny, because if you know me on r/Sonic’s Discord server (hi bitches), you’d know that I was pessimistic towards Superstars and the overwhelming hype in the fanbase surrounding it. I was so prepared for every single Classic Sonic supremacist to pop out the woodworks screaming about how Superstars’ quality just proves Sonic only works as a barebones, classic 2D formula. Prepared for people to yell about how Amy and the Chaos Emerald powers further push the Classic Sonic formula when girlie, Amy is just additional content. The emerald powers, on paper, should be enhancing the replayability of the game and giving players new tools to approach the levels with the philosophy of ‘getting better at Sonic by beating the levels faster and faster’, when realistically, the only power that does this is discount Burst wisp, which also has the unforeseen consequence of breaking the level in half.
I was so bitter about the prospect of Superstars getting such critical acclaim that SEGA, notorious for being overly-sensitive towards fan feedback, would buy into this and just keep things the exact same for the next 2D Sonic release instead of actually innovating the formula in a fun way. In a very cynical sense, I wanted Superstars to fail. Ironic for a Sonic fan, yes, but I wanted Superstars to fail because I just couldn’t bear the mere thought of Classic Sonic dickriders kissing this game’s ass.
Somehow, the actual outcome ended up being far, far worse.
I believe Backloggd has made their view clear: this game is horribly mid and having played the entire game from Bridge Island Act 1 to the last story, I can certainly ascertain that this is the Classic Sonic game of all time. Somehow, this leaves me upset anyways, because Arzest, somehow, actually does a few really good things - for one, as much as I joke about muh muh momentum, the fact that it’s there, and actually a pretty close emulation of Mania physics, definitely brings it closer to fan game quality! The level design, for the most part, is also quite fun and has a pretty nice flow to it, with plenty of alternative paths to incentivise players to go after faster times in Time Attack mode. The characters are all pretty fun to play as well, with the standouts being Sonic and Trip (yes she’s playable don’t pretend this was an absolute fucking shock it was obvious from the start), albeit Trip renders Knuckles and Amy completely obsolete (and Knuckles controls like dogshit anyway so who cares). The bulk of my points for this game come from these few factors, because ultimately, level design and control characters are crucial for a Sonic game’s overall performance, and Superstars does all this quite decently.
Now let’s talk about where it all falls apart.
The Unfocused and Indecisiveness in Game Mode Priority
A lot of people draw comparisons between Superstars and NSMB in terms of its primary game mode - both games placed heavy emphasis on its co-op mode during promotions and advertisements, so you’d expect the game to work well in co-op gameplay, right?
Nope. In fact, I’d argue that Superstars tried too hard to find a balance between single player and co-op, and ended up falling short on both ends of the stick.
I never actually got to experience co-op with anyone because they didn’t bother implementing an online function and also I’m a Sonic fan in Asia. From what I’ve heard, however, co-op works similarly to Sonic 2/3K, where you could have a second player control Tails, but they would be unable to go offscreen and explore by themselves. Certain mechanics also only work for one player, forcing the rest of the group to wait until they can move.
The single-player experience, meanwhile, is definitely affected by the necessity to comply with the limitations of co-op. Bubbles underwater (particularly in Lagoon City) spawn at a more frequent rate compared to most Sonic games, and are more sparsely available. This was clearly designed so a group of 4 players could easily prevent themselves from drowning, unfortunately, inhaling an air bubble also causes players to transition from a ball jump into a state of vulnerability, which leaves them open to hits. Combined with the sluggish water physics and the design of the platforming in Lagoon City Act 2 especially, may cause players to unintentionally grab an air bubble mid-sequence, become vulnerable to a hit, and then proceed to get hit.
The bosses, meanwhile, have already garnered infamy from the general public for being excessively long, with countless time spent invulnerable to attacks and counter attacks that are fairly easy to dodge with ease being regarded as time padding. This was clearly done because the developers knew that if they designed the fights in traditional Classic Sonic fashion, a group of 4 can easily tear down bosses to shreds within seconds, completely eliminating the challenge in the process. Single-player is made to suffer as a result, as players are stuck sitting and waiting for the boss to expose itself to an attack, with this flaw especially being exposed with Trip’s gameplay where the already tediously long bosses require more hits to defeat. More on the bosses later.
The Most Embarrassing Fucking Camera in Sonic History
One common complaint with 2D Sonic, as well as Sonic games in general, is the awful field of depth. The Genesis games, Game Gear games, and especially the Advance games collectively struggle to present important information regarding the level so the player is able to anticipate upcoming hazards or enemies and map out routes correctly due to the limitations of their respective hardware. Eventually, this problem was fixed primarily for the Genesis games with Origins and all the fan ports that allowed players to experience Sonic in glorious 16:9 widescreen. It didn’t completely fix the issue, but it certainly allowed for less frustrating moments where you get hit by something you couldn’t see on the screen.
With this in mind, Superstars having all the aforementioned issues while being developed in widescreen is fucking appaling. MANIA had a better field of depth, and that shit is even more of a nostalgic nod to the 16-bit era compared to Superstars! The camera zoom in Mania also had the advantage of allowing players to fucking see what’s ahead of them, and that is crucial when it comes to maintaining fluidity during the run of a level. Can’t have a bajillion alternate paths if I’m only ever able to SEE ONE AT A TIME! Did Arzest really have to commit to making the Superstars so realistically that they even decided to emulate the inability to fucking see??
Press Factory Act 2 and Egg Fortress Act 1 suffer the most from the atrocious camera zoom - in Press Factory’s case, an actually well-designed level revolving around a gimmick is tarnished for others because they couldn’t see a set of crushers directly ahead of them. Egg Fortress Act 1 is a bad level, but the lack of camera zoom to allow players to see the empty bottomless pit ahead of an isolated chamber MULTIPLE DIFFERENT TIMES. The effect of having platforms spawn only when a player enters the sub-room is acceptable, but not in a fast-paced platformer like Sonic where information has to be presented to the player quickly. To be fair, Spin Dashing into a bottomless pit because the camera or nothing about the game indicating there was a bottomless pit there to begin with is completely accurate to the Genesis games. /s
And you wanna know what adds salt to the wound? The fact that the FUCKING CO-OP CAMERA IS ACTUALLY PROPERLY ZOOMED OUT!!!! I CAN FUCKING SEE SHIT IN CO-OP THAT WOULD’VE MADE THE PLATFORMING A LOT MORE FAIR AND MY MISTAKES MUCH MORE APPARENT BECAUSE I CAN ACTUALLY ANTICIPATE SHIT THAT’S 1 FUCKING SECOND AWAY FROM ME-
-don’t even get me fucking started on the Cyber Station. Actually, no, fuck you, I will.
Gimmicks, Gimmicks Everywhere
Sonic games are no stranger to gimmicks - even going back as far as the classic games, Sonic 2 had a level centralised around pinball tables, Sonic 3K had Sandopolis Act 2, and CD is infamous for Wacky Workbench’s bouncy floor gimmick.
No Sonic game comes close to Superstars when it comes to the sheer amount of gimmicks implemented into the game. Unfortunately, this is a negative.
Naoto Ohshima was the director of CD, and that game had a similar arcade-style feel to it; stuffing generators and holograms throughout every level, which in turn incentivises the player to find all of them to achieve the good ending (or get better at collecting rings for the Time Stones). The difference here is CD always had a more abstract design philosophy that played to exploration of a terrain using Sonic’s skillset to complete a treasure hunt as quickly and efficiently as possible, and the whole bizarre atmosphere of Little Planet also helps ease the implementation of the level gimmicks somewhat.
With Ohshima returning as executive producer of Superstars, it isn’t surprising that this game tries an arcade-style approach as well. However, when your level design and gameplay philosophy is attempting to emulate Mania and 2 rather than CD, you have an inherent mismatch of ideals clashing against each other. The issue is aggravated even further because the arcade gimmicks of Superstars are significantly more overtuned to the point where they serve as pacebreakers or substanceless setpieces that interrupt the flow of the level design. Special stages are now distributed in spots easily spottable, and unlocking all 7 emeralds will still force you into the well that was a special stage alright special stage for the medals. Warp portals can appear in front of your face when you least expect it, and instead of transporting you to a much better route than what can be offered in a normal playthrough of a level, wastes seconds of time showering you with rings before thrusting you to who knows where in the level. Flow completely ruined.
This isn’t even to mention the level specific gimmicks, which honestly feels more like Arzest throwing a bunch of darts at random and seeing what sticks. Sometimes it works, like the aforementioned Press Factory Act 2’s progress urging button pressing and Frozen Base Act 1’s conveyor belts. But then you get stuff like Speed Jungle Act 2's glow in the dark set pieces, Sky Temple’s janky air fans, Egg Factory’s tediously long elevators crawls and anti-gravity chambers, and Cyber Station’s fucking rat maze, which wouldn’t even be that bad if the camera allowed you to see upcoming virus enemies. There are two fucking pinball-based levels out of 11, for fucks sake, as if it wasn’t already how obvious the arcade gimmick-feel of Superstars is. The less I say about the optional fruit levels, the better.
It’s not like there’s even value in exploration anyway, as the elemental shields have been replaced with a standard magnet aura (that doesn’t even shield you from attacks) and boring, boring blue shield. I’ve literally only found Speed Shoes on Bridge Island, and rings don’t fucking matter when there isn’t even a substantial score system here anyway. Oh yeah, the score system here is so pointless, they didn’t even bother to add it to the user interface unless you pause the game. It’s quite literally eye candy because in previous games, the score system would at least reward you with extra lives every 50,000 points, but now? Unlimited lives are the norm for modern AAA games, which means that you don’t even get to earn extra lives. Instead you get medals!!! Medals which can only be used for an online multiplayer mode I couldn’t give less of a shit about!!! And without extra lives to reward players for exploring away from the main path, what do they use to replace it? MORE FUCKING MEDALS!!!!!!!!!
I love losing my sanity
It’s Just So… Uninspiring.
You can honestly kinda tell when the developers decided “OK, we’re almost out of time and we gotta throw out this game soon, let’s just do a Dimps and shit the floor on the second half of the game”, and proceed to shit the floor on the second half of the game. The difference here is that Dimps never shit the floor in the audio-visual department, ever.
Tee Lopes’ presence departs from the game as soon as he pleasures us with ear orgasm #200 (also known as Lagoon City Act 2), and we’re left with a horrid mismatch of composers trying to do their best imitation of a Genesis synth… or a complete lack thereof, in some cases. Leading the charge is Jun Senoue, who once again looks fundamentally lost in the sauce (in a negative way) when it comes to synths. It becomes even more baffling that he insists on going for this when you realise that he still fucking kills the guitar shreds even today, with this incredible orchestral rendition of the Superstars opening theme. Even more baffling is the shockingly headless direction of the soundtrack in general, with the composers seemingly just unable to put together a coherent soundtrack that sounds consistent across the board, leading to one of the franchise’s worst soundtracks despite there being some bangers here and there by Lopes and Rintaro Soma. Say what you want about Advance 2, at least Egg Utopia and Techno Base both had fire music. They both looked visually cool as well.
The art, meanwhile, well… it’s definitely Classic Sonic, alright. Some of the environments do look pretty, but ultimately, they just feel like a hapless, lifeless slideshow crammed with colours and stuff to make it look Classic I guess. Pinball Carnival does have the minor niche of being more horror-themed (but even that visual aesthetic isn’t played with enough), but in terms of actual level themes, we’re left with…
…Not Green Hill 6, Stardust Speedway Past, Brown Sky Sanctuary, Casino Level 5, Beige Water Palace, Sandopolis 2, Boring Press Garden, Golden Capital (which unfortunately also has the poor distinction of being the worst level in the game), Bad Techno Base, Frozen Base and Not Death Egg 3. Absolutely inspiring assortment of levels. Also, remember earlier on in the game when you’d be able to catch a glimpse of the other characters doing stuff in the background? Yeah that shit’s gone in the second half of the game it’s not even consistent lmao. Not even the non-game graphics hold up, because while Superstars opening theme is serviceable, the animation, without Hesse on board (presumably) is choppy and incredibly inconsistent in terms of cinematography. The in-game animated cutscenes are error prone, and do not have the refined, high-quality feel of the animated prologue done by Hesse FOR Superstars!
2023, year of Amy, she’s the central focus of Murder, gets her own anniversary comic, is playable in both Origins and now Superstars, and is once again the heart of the story’s only real character moment! Metal Sonic? Who cares, give him a cameo at the end of Murder and make him the villain of the Amy comic STARRING Amy, we don’t even need for him to show up in Superstars! Even though the Cyber Station boss fight literally has Eggman piloting a bunch of Custom Robots to attack you which would’ve literally been the perfect chance for Metal to show up??? Man, I’m not even a huge Metal Sonic fanboy and even I feel terrible for Metal fans.
Golden Capital Zone Act 2 Boss Fight
Yes, that’s right, this entire section is a shoutout to a single fucking boss fight.
As mentioned earlier, the bosses in Superstars are horrid. Prolonged i-frame periods do not mesh well with the quick-natured flow of Sonic bosses, especially when the boss fight’s duration sometimes lasts longer than the actual fucking level itself. The autoscroller Fang fight in Golden Capital, in particular, perfectly encapsulates everything wrong with the design of Sonic Superstars. Ungodly tedious amounts of waiting for this fucking jerboa to open himself to a single hit while he fires off barrage after barrage of attacks that are comically braindead and easy to dodge. Multiple phases. A phase where you can’t hit him for AN ENTIRE FUCKING MINUTE while you dodge flamethrowers and lava dispensers THAT THE FUCKING CAMERA WON’T SHOW YOU UNTIL YOU’RE LITERALLY RIGHT ABOUT TO GET HIT BY IT. Instant-kill missiles IN PHASE 2. NOT A SINGLE CHECKPOINT. Even at your best pace, the boss fight takes at least FOUR FUCKING MINUTES. FOUR. And Fang’s not even the final fucking boss. He is certainly one of the worst boss fights in the history of the franchise, however, right up there with 06’ Iblis fight and Advance’s X-Zone.
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Despite all my complaints, I still insist on my verdict assigned earlier in this review: Sonic Superstars is a competent game. It's only claim to fame is being a successful emulation of the beloved Genesis physics and some of the level design aspects that made the classics fun to begin with. Imagine this scenario: You go into a fine dining restaurant and they serve you a great steak, much like those you’d expect from Michelin-grade restaurants. However, they also served literal shit as the sides to accompany the steak. Would you still be eager to drop that positive review?
Sonic fans seem pretty happy to do so, apparently.
This may make me sound like an outright hypocrite: I literally wrote this review of Advance 2 yesterday, despite Advance 2 being an incredibly flawed game outside of its core gameplay mechanics. Two things:
One, if Superstars’ level design and physics were a generic good steak, then Advance 2’s mechanical resonance is an exotic, exquisite steak that has a taste so distinctly flavourful, that you’ll literally never find it anywhere else in the world. Superstars’ steak, meanwhile, you can find in places like Sonic 1, Sonic 2, Sonic CD, Sonic Mania, Sonic 3 and Knuckles…
Two, I’m biased. I’m not ashamed to admit that Advance 2 is a guilty pleasure and a favourite child of mine. It’s not like Sonic fans have their biases either, with factions of Classic fans, Adventure fans and Boost fans gathered in legions to bitch and whine about how the other gameplay styles suck and how their gameplay style is vastly superior.
My journey throughout my backlog has given me experiences I’d never have learned from had I stayed in the Sonic vacuum. Klonoa 2 taught me how a platformer can still tell a thematically rich, emotionally felt story. Metroid Fusion taught me how atmospheric gameplay can also tell a narrative perfectly describing symbiotic relationships. Mega Man X (and indirectly, Advance 2) taught me how a classic, tried and true formula can be innovated in a way to make it radical and even more exhilarating than its predecessor. Chrono Trigger taught me how simplistic elements can merge to form a masterpiece when crafted under professional expertise.
Sonic Superstars taught me that by playing it safe, Sonic fans will shower you with praise and love for merely being competent.
Maybe I’m wrong and this game will probably warm up to me in future playthroughs - I’ve made it clear that a simple zoom-out of the camera in single player to match the camera zoom in co-op would substantially increase the potential enjoyment this game squirms out of me. Maybe I’d even attempt time attack runs of the levels. But for now, why would I pay $60 for a significant downgrade from Mania, which is 3 times cheaper? Heck, Triple Trouble 16-bit is a fully completed, cash-free fan game available right now, and I’d argue it's a truer representation of what made the Classic titles so great while having loads of content for Sonic enthusiasts to savour!
I’ve spent this entire review trying my damndest not to compare Superstars to literally any other game in the Classic formula except in a few specific scenarios, because I’m a firm believer of appraising games on their own individual merit. I’ve done this with almost all my reviews since 3D Blast, where I instead focused on one or more distinct aspects of a game that I found fascination in and wrote about that specifically. One of the few exceptions, ironically, is Klonoa 2: Dream Champ Tournament, which I also slammed for betraying the definition of a Klonoa game.
I’ll tell you this, if I were to actually compare Superstars to literally any other classic Sonic title, Superstars would come out of the battle significantly worse. I find it incredibly laughable how Sonic fans lazily wave off justifiable criticism and notable flaws within the game, passing it off as ‘another step in the right direction’. Right direction my ass, Mania came out 6 years ago and completely solos the fuck out of Superstars. Maybe I can see people giving this game an 8/10 at maximum. Maybe they like it more than Sonic 1 or CD, which, fair enough, I can see why people dislike those games. Maybe it's their favourite Classic Sonic game, sure! I can see why people love Superstars, even if I obviously don’t.
But to call Sonic Superstars the best Classic Sonic game ever made, simply because it nails physics that were already refined and optimised 29 fucking years ago, and has level design that is a shallow imitation of games that came before, is not only an insult to literally every Classic Sonic game, but to critical game design theory in general.
Am I setting my standards too high? Or is it true that the Sonic fanbase has been subjected to mediocre game after mediocre game and constant mockery from other fanbases, that they’d bow down to whatever semblance of competency comes their way? Am I even truly a Sonic fan for detesting this much of what people love about Superstars? Am I allowed to call myself a Sonic fan after writing this review? I honestly don't know.
I care about this franchise a lot. It was my first ever favourite video game franchise, and it is still my favourite, and the friends I’ve made in the fandom hold a special place in my heart. I don’t hold any ill will towards any of them who played Superstars and adored it to bits, though I will and always have argued back when someone claims it's one of the best classic Sonic games ever made. Maybe I just care too much about opinions. I don’t fucking know anymore, man.
Regardless, if this is the direction Sonic Team chooses to take with 2D Sonic, then maybe I should kiss my dreams of a boost mode game that harmonises both classic and modern qualities into one outstanding title farewell.Classic Sonic used to be cute and cool, but now he’s just the cute one and there’s also a cool counterpart now, and if fans are OK with that, then good for them. It just simply isn’t for me. After this really, really long tirade, there really is just one conclusion - Sonic Superstars is a perfectly adequate, competently designed game. Despite this, I hate Sonic Superstars, its disillusionment with how it wants to present itself and the disillusionment it made me feel about myself as a Sonic fan, who can't seem to find the positives in Sonic games like everyone else would.
Final score: 5.5/10
Focus: The fatal flaws of Sonic Superstars
Theme: Disillusionment
Review 75.
-I don’t know man, I’m just kinda… whelmed.
Sonic is my favourite video game franchise ever, so it was obvious I’d break my backlog routine to play it, and I even sucked it up and paid the full $60 price of entry. I refunded on release day.
Sonic Superstars is… competent. That is the best way I can possibly use to describe it, and I think that is the most justifiable term to summarise my experience with the game overall. Yet, I can’t help but feel incredibly bitter about this. Which is funny, because if you know me on r/Sonic’s Discord server (hi bitches), you’d know that I was pessimistic towards Superstars and the overwhelming hype in the fanbase surrounding it. I was so prepared for every single Classic Sonic supremacist to pop out the woodworks screaming about how Superstars’ quality just proves Sonic only works as a barebones, classic 2D formula. Prepared for people to yell about how Amy and the Chaos Emerald powers further push the Classic Sonic formula when girlie, Amy is just additional content. The emerald powers, on paper, should be enhancing the replayability of the game and giving players new tools to approach the levels with the philosophy of ‘getting better at Sonic by beating the levels faster and faster’, when realistically, the only power that does this is discount Burst wisp, which also has the unforeseen consequence of breaking the level in half.
I was so bitter about the prospect of Superstars getting such critical acclaim that SEGA, notorious for being overly-sensitive towards fan feedback, would buy into this and just keep things the exact same for the next 2D Sonic release instead of actually innovating the formula in a fun way. In a very cynical sense, I wanted Superstars to fail. Ironic for a Sonic fan, yes, but I wanted Superstars to fail because I just couldn’t bear the mere thought of Classic Sonic dickriders kissing this game’s ass.
Somehow, the actual outcome ended up being far, far worse.
I believe Backloggd has made their view clear: this game is horribly mid and having played the entire game from Bridge Island Act 1 to the last story, I can certainly ascertain that this is the Classic Sonic game of all time. Somehow, this leaves me upset anyways, because Arzest, somehow, actually does a few really good things - for one, as much as I joke about muh muh momentum, the fact that it’s there, and actually a pretty close emulation of Mania physics, definitely brings it closer to fan game quality! The level design, for the most part, is also quite fun and has a pretty nice flow to it, with plenty of alternative paths to incentivise players to go after faster times in Time Attack mode. The characters are all pretty fun to play as well, with the standouts being Sonic and Trip (yes she’s playable don’t pretend this was an absolute fucking shock it was obvious from the start), albeit Trip renders Knuckles and Amy completely obsolete (and Knuckles controls like dogshit anyway so who cares). The bulk of my points for this game come from these few factors, because ultimately, level design and control characters are crucial for a Sonic game’s overall performance, and Superstars does all this quite decently.
Now let’s talk about where it all falls apart.
The Unfocused and Indecisiveness in Game Mode Priority
A lot of people draw comparisons between Superstars and NSMB in terms of its primary game mode - both games placed heavy emphasis on its co-op mode during promotions and advertisements, so you’d expect the game to work well in co-op gameplay, right?
Nope. In fact, I’d argue that Superstars tried too hard to find a balance between single player and co-op, and ended up falling short on both ends of the stick.
I never actually got to experience co-op with anyone because they didn’t bother implementing an online function and also I’m a Sonic fan in Asia. From what I’ve heard, however, co-op works similarly to Sonic 2/3K, where you could have a second player control Tails, but they would be unable to go offscreen and explore by themselves. Certain mechanics also only work for one player, forcing the rest of the group to wait until they can move.
The single-player experience, meanwhile, is definitely affected by the necessity to comply with the limitations of co-op. Bubbles underwater (particularly in Lagoon City) spawn at a more frequent rate compared to most Sonic games, and are more sparsely available. This was clearly designed so a group of 4 players could easily prevent themselves from drowning, unfortunately, inhaling an air bubble also causes players to transition from a ball jump into a state of vulnerability, which leaves them open to hits. Combined with the sluggish water physics and the design of the platforming in Lagoon City Act 2 especially, may cause players to unintentionally grab an air bubble mid-sequence, become vulnerable to a hit, and then proceed to get hit.
The bosses, meanwhile, have already garnered infamy from the general public for being excessively long, with countless time spent invulnerable to attacks and counter attacks that are fairly easy to dodge with ease being regarded as time padding. This was clearly done because the developers knew that if they designed the fights in traditional Classic Sonic fashion, a group of 4 can easily tear down bosses to shreds within seconds, completely eliminating the challenge in the process. Single-player is made to suffer as a result, as players are stuck sitting and waiting for the boss to expose itself to an attack, with this flaw especially being exposed with Trip’s gameplay where the already tediously long bosses require more hits to defeat. More on the bosses later.
The Most Embarrassing Fucking Camera in Sonic History
One common complaint with 2D Sonic, as well as Sonic games in general, is the awful field of depth. The Genesis games, Game Gear games, and especially the Advance games collectively struggle to present important information regarding the level so the player is able to anticipate upcoming hazards or enemies and map out routes correctly due to the limitations of their respective hardware. Eventually, this problem was fixed primarily for the Genesis games with Origins and all the fan ports that allowed players to experience Sonic in glorious 16:9 widescreen. It didn’t completely fix the issue, but it certainly allowed for less frustrating moments where you get hit by something you couldn’t see on the screen.
With this in mind, Superstars having all the aforementioned issues while being developed in widescreen is fucking appaling. MANIA had a better field of depth, and that shit is even more of a nostalgic nod to the 16-bit era compared to Superstars! The camera zoom in Mania also had the advantage of allowing players to fucking see what’s ahead of them, and that is crucial when it comes to maintaining fluidity during the run of a level. Can’t have a bajillion alternate paths if I’m only ever able to SEE ONE AT A TIME! Did Arzest really have to commit to making the Superstars so realistically that they even decided to emulate the inability to fucking see??
Press Factory Act 2 and Egg Fortress Act 1 suffer the most from the atrocious camera zoom - in Press Factory’s case, an actually well-designed level revolving around a gimmick is tarnished for others because they couldn’t see a set of crushers directly ahead of them. Egg Fortress Act 1 is a bad level, but the lack of camera zoom to allow players to see the empty bottomless pit ahead of an isolated chamber MULTIPLE DIFFERENT TIMES. The effect of having platforms spawn only when a player enters the sub-room is acceptable, but not in a fast-paced platformer like Sonic where information has to be presented to the player quickly. To be fair, Spin Dashing into a bottomless pit because the camera or nothing about the game indicating there was a bottomless pit there to begin with is completely accurate to the Genesis games. /s
And you wanna know what adds salt to the wound? The fact that the FUCKING CO-OP CAMERA IS ACTUALLY PROPERLY ZOOMED OUT!!!! I CAN FUCKING SEE SHIT IN CO-OP THAT WOULD’VE MADE THE PLATFORMING A LOT MORE FAIR AND MY MISTAKES MUCH MORE APPARENT BECAUSE I CAN ACTUALLY ANTICIPATE SHIT THAT’S 1 FUCKING SECOND AWAY FROM ME-
-don’t even get me fucking started on the Cyber Station. Actually, no, fuck you, I will.
Gimmicks, Gimmicks Everywhere
Sonic games are no stranger to gimmicks - even going back as far as the classic games, Sonic 2 had a level centralised around pinball tables, Sonic 3K had Sandopolis Act 2, and CD is infamous for Wacky Workbench’s bouncy floor gimmick.
No Sonic game comes close to Superstars when it comes to the sheer amount of gimmicks implemented into the game. Unfortunately, this is a negative.
Naoto Ohshima was the director of CD, and that game had a similar arcade-style feel to it; stuffing generators and holograms throughout every level, which in turn incentivises the player to find all of them to achieve the good ending (or get better at collecting rings for the Time Stones). The difference here is CD always had a more abstract design philosophy that played to exploration of a terrain using Sonic’s skillset to complete a treasure hunt as quickly and efficiently as possible, and the whole bizarre atmosphere of Little Planet also helps ease the implementation of the level gimmicks somewhat.
With Ohshima returning as executive producer of Superstars, it isn’t surprising that this game tries an arcade-style approach as well. However, when your level design and gameplay philosophy is attempting to emulate Mania and 2 rather than CD, you have an inherent mismatch of ideals clashing against each other. The issue is aggravated even further because the arcade gimmicks of Superstars are significantly more overtuned to the point where they serve as pacebreakers or substanceless setpieces that interrupt the flow of the level design. Special stages are now distributed in spots easily spottable, and unlocking all 7 emeralds will still force you into the well that was a special stage alright special stage for the medals. Warp portals can appear in front of your face when you least expect it, and instead of transporting you to a much better route than what can be offered in a normal playthrough of a level, wastes seconds of time showering you with rings before thrusting you to who knows where in the level. Flow completely ruined.
This isn’t even to mention the level specific gimmicks, which honestly feels more like Arzest throwing a bunch of darts at random and seeing what sticks. Sometimes it works, like the aforementioned Press Factory Act 2’s progress urging button pressing and Frozen Base Act 1’s conveyor belts. But then you get stuff like Speed Jungle Act 2's glow in the dark set pieces, Sky Temple’s janky air fans, Egg Factory’s tediously long elevators crawls and anti-gravity chambers, and Cyber Station’s fucking rat maze, which wouldn’t even be that bad if the camera allowed you to see upcoming virus enemies. There are two fucking pinball-based levels out of 11, for fucks sake, as if it wasn’t already how obvious the arcade gimmick-feel of Superstars is. The less I say about the optional fruit levels, the better.
It’s not like there’s even value in exploration anyway, as the elemental shields have been replaced with a standard magnet aura (that doesn’t even shield you from attacks) and boring, boring blue shield. I’ve literally only found Speed Shoes on Bridge Island, and rings don’t fucking matter when there isn’t even a substantial score system here anyway. Oh yeah, the score system here is so pointless, they didn’t even bother to add it to the user interface unless you pause the game. It’s quite literally eye candy because in previous games, the score system would at least reward you with extra lives every 50,000 points, but now? Unlimited lives are the norm for modern AAA games, which means that you don’t even get to earn extra lives. Instead you get medals!!! Medals which can only be used for an online multiplayer mode I couldn’t give less of a shit about!!! And without extra lives to reward players for exploring away from the main path, what do they use to replace it? MORE FUCKING MEDALS!!!!!!!!!
I love losing my sanity
It’s Just So… Uninspiring.
You can honestly kinda tell when the developers decided “OK, we’re almost out of time and we gotta throw out this game soon, let’s just do a Dimps and shit the floor on the second half of the game”, and proceed to shit the floor on the second half of the game. The difference here is that Dimps never shit the floor in the audio-visual department, ever.
Tee Lopes’ presence departs from the game as soon as he pleasures us with ear orgasm #200 (also known as Lagoon City Act 2), and we’re left with a horrid mismatch of composers trying to do their best imitation of a Genesis synth… or a complete lack thereof, in some cases. Leading the charge is Jun Senoue, who once again looks fundamentally lost in the sauce (in a negative way) when it comes to synths. It becomes even more baffling that he insists on going for this when you realise that he still fucking kills the guitar shreds even today, with this incredible orchestral rendition of the Superstars opening theme. Even more baffling is the shockingly headless direction of the soundtrack in general, with the composers seemingly just unable to put together a coherent soundtrack that sounds consistent across the board, leading to one of the franchise’s worst soundtracks despite there being some bangers here and there by Lopes and Rintaro Soma. Say what you want about Advance 2, at least Egg Utopia and Techno Base both had fire music. They both looked visually cool as well.
The art, meanwhile, well… it’s definitely Classic Sonic, alright. Some of the environments do look pretty, but ultimately, they just feel like a hapless, lifeless slideshow crammed with colours and stuff to make it look Classic I guess. Pinball Carnival does have the minor niche of being more horror-themed (but even that visual aesthetic isn’t played with enough), but in terms of actual level themes, we’re left with…
…Not Green Hill 6, Stardust Speedway Past, Brown Sky Sanctuary, Casino Level 5, Beige Water Palace, Sandopolis 2, Boring Press Garden, Golden Capital (which unfortunately also has the poor distinction of being the worst level in the game), Bad Techno Base, Frozen Base and Not Death Egg 3. Absolutely inspiring assortment of levels. Also, remember earlier on in the game when you’d be able to catch a glimpse of the other characters doing stuff in the background? Yeah that shit’s gone in the second half of the game it’s not even consistent lmao. Not even the non-game graphics hold up, because while Superstars opening theme is serviceable, the animation, without Hesse on board (presumably) is choppy and incredibly inconsistent in terms of cinematography. The in-game animated cutscenes are error prone, and do not have the refined, high-quality feel of the animated prologue done by Hesse FOR Superstars!
2023, year of Amy, she’s the central focus of Murder, gets her own anniversary comic, is playable in both Origins and now Superstars, and is once again the heart of the story’s only real character moment! Metal Sonic? Who cares, give him a cameo at the end of Murder and make him the villain of the Amy comic STARRING Amy, we don’t even need for him to show up in Superstars! Even though the Cyber Station boss fight literally has Eggman piloting a bunch of Custom Robots to attack you which would’ve literally been the perfect chance for Metal to show up??? Man, I’m not even a huge Metal Sonic fanboy and even I feel terrible for Metal fans.
Golden Capital Zone Act 2 Boss Fight
Yes, that’s right, this entire section is a shoutout to a single fucking boss fight.
As mentioned earlier, the bosses in Superstars are horrid. Prolonged i-frame periods do not mesh well with the quick-natured flow of Sonic bosses, especially when the boss fight’s duration sometimes lasts longer than the actual fucking level itself. The autoscroller Fang fight in Golden Capital, in particular, perfectly encapsulates everything wrong with the design of Sonic Superstars. Ungodly tedious amounts of waiting for this fucking jerboa to open himself to a single hit while he fires off barrage after barrage of attacks that are comically braindead and easy to dodge. Multiple phases. A phase where you can’t hit him for AN ENTIRE FUCKING MINUTE while you dodge flamethrowers and lava dispensers THAT THE FUCKING CAMERA WON’T SHOW YOU UNTIL YOU’RE LITERALLY RIGHT ABOUT TO GET HIT BY IT. Instant-kill missiles IN PHASE 2. NOT A SINGLE CHECKPOINT. Even at your best pace, the boss fight takes at least FOUR FUCKING MINUTES. FOUR. And Fang’s not even the final fucking boss. He is certainly one of the worst boss fights in the history of the franchise, however, right up there with 06’ Iblis fight and Advance’s X-Zone.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Despite all my complaints, I still insist on my verdict assigned earlier in this review: Sonic Superstars is a competent game. It's only claim to fame is being a successful emulation of the beloved Genesis physics and some of the level design aspects that made the classics fun to begin with. Imagine this scenario: You go into a fine dining restaurant and they serve you a great steak, much like those you’d expect from Michelin-grade restaurants. However, they also served literal shit as the sides to accompany the steak. Would you still be eager to drop that positive review?
Sonic fans seem pretty happy to do so, apparently.
This may make me sound like an outright hypocrite: I literally wrote this review of Advance 2 yesterday, despite Advance 2 being an incredibly flawed game outside of its core gameplay mechanics. Two things:
One, if Superstars’ level design and physics were a generic good steak, then Advance 2’s mechanical resonance is an exotic, exquisite steak that has a taste so distinctly flavourful, that you’ll literally never find it anywhere else in the world. Superstars’ steak, meanwhile, you can find in places like Sonic 1, Sonic 2, Sonic CD, Sonic Mania, Sonic 3 and Knuckles…
Two, I’m biased. I’m not ashamed to admit that Advance 2 is a guilty pleasure and a favourite child of mine. It’s not like Sonic fans have their biases either, with factions of Classic fans, Adventure fans and Boost fans gathered in legions to bitch and whine about how the other gameplay styles suck and how their gameplay style is vastly superior.
My journey throughout my backlog has given me experiences I’d never have learned from had I stayed in the Sonic vacuum. Klonoa 2 taught me how a platformer can still tell a thematically rich, emotionally felt story. Metroid Fusion taught me how atmospheric gameplay can also tell a narrative perfectly describing symbiotic relationships. Mega Man X (and indirectly, Advance 2) taught me how a classic, tried and true formula can be innovated in a way to make it radical and even more exhilarating than its predecessor. Chrono Trigger taught me how simplistic elements can merge to form a masterpiece when crafted under professional expertise.
Sonic Superstars taught me that by playing it safe, Sonic fans will shower you with praise and love for merely being competent.
Maybe I’m wrong and this game will probably warm up to me in future playthroughs - I’ve made it clear that a simple zoom-out of the camera in single player to match the camera zoom in co-op would substantially increase the potential enjoyment this game squirms out of me. Maybe I’d even attempt time attack runs of the levels. But for now, why would I pay $60 for a significant downgrade from Mania, which is 3 times cheaper? Heck, Triple Trouble 16-bit is a fully completed, cash-free fan game available right now, and I’d argue it's a truer representation of what made the Classic titles so great while having loads of content for Sonic enthusiasts to savour!
I’ve spent this entire review trying my damndest not to compare Superstars to literally any other game in the Classic formula except in a few specific scenarios, because I’m a firm believer of appraising games on their own individual merit. I’ve done this with almost all my reviews since 3D Blast, where I instead focused on one or more distinct aspects of a game that I found fascination in and wrote about that specifically. One of the few exceptions, ironically, is Klonoa 2: Dream Champ Tournament, which I also slammed for betraying the definition of a Klonoa game.
I’ll tell you this, if I were to actually compare Superstars to literally any other classic Sonic title, Superstars would come out of the battle significantly worse. I find it incredibly laughable how Sonic fans lazily wave off justifiable criticism and notable flaws within the game, passing it off as ‘another step in the right direction’. Right direction my ass, Mania came out 6 years ago and completely solos the fuck out of Superstars. Maybe I can see people giving this game an 8/10 at maximum. Maybe they like it more than Sonic 1 or CD, which, fair enough, I can see why people dislike those games. Maybe it's their favourite Classic Sonic game, sure! I can see why people love Superstars, even if I obviously don’t.
But to call Sonic Superstars the best Classic Sonic game ever made, simply because it nails physics that were already refined and optimised 29 fucking years ago, and has level design that is a shallow imitation of games that came before, is not only an insult to literally every Classic Sonic game, but to critical game design theory in general.
Am I setting my standards too high? Or is it true that the Sonic fanbase has been subjected to mediocre game after mediocre game and constant mockery from other fanbases, that they’d bow down to whatever semblance of competency comes their way? Am I even truly a Sonic fan for detesting this much of what people love about Superstars? Am I allowed to call myself a Sonic fan after writing this review? I honestly don't know.
I care about this franchise a lot. It was my first ever favourite video game franchise, and it is still my favourite, and the friends I’ve made in the fandom hold a special place in my heart. I don’t hold any ill will towards any of them who played Superstars and adored it to bits, though I will and always have argued back when someone claims it's one of the best classic Sonic games ever made. Maybe I just care too much about opinions. I don’t fucking know anymore, man.
Regardless, if this is the direction Sonic Team chooses to take with 2D Sonic, then maybe I should kiss my dreams of a boost mode game that harmonises both classic and modern qualities into one outstanding title farewell.
Final score: 5.5/10
Focus: The fatal flaws of Sonic Superstars
Theme: Disillusionment
Review 75.
2002
Sonic fans will always want a game that plays like what they expect from a Sonic game. Momentum physics, stunning set pieces, continuously flowing platforming, high speed action, you know the formula by now.
But has there ever been a game that plays like Sonic?
Super speed is undoubtedly a coveted superpower most people yearn for - but do they really understand the mastery it demands to make split-second decisions in the blink of an eye? Indeed, limitless speed is extremely useful, but it is simultaneously an untamed beast that can drive you headfirst into a barrier at mach speeds. This is how Sonic always views the world, as a disfigured blur of colourful masses where a split-second glimpse of a hazard may be the last image he ever witnesses.
Across every single game in the franchise, Sonic Advance 2 is consistently the best representation of how it feels to be Sonic.
Of course, the most accurate Sonic experience cannot be completed without suiting music and visuals to back up the gameplay. Thankfully, Advance 2 delivers on both aspects, with the sharpest, most striking 2D Sonic sprite to date, complete with cool-looking afterimages to express your dominance and control over the game’s pace. The environments themselves have a sharp edge to them, with contrasting color palettes littering the terrain and background to further push the cool vibes Advance 2 goes for. The visuals go well with the constant high-octane, high adrenaline music, which leaves its mark with a consistent and prominently featured rhythmic pulse beat that constantly urges the player to rush past everything around them.
It has been commonly theorised that the Dimps GBA trilogy is modeled from the mainline Adventure trilogy that was released around the same timeframe, and I personally agree with this standpoint. Advance 1 takes a more tamer, simplistic approach that introduces Modern elements into 2D Sonic, much as Adventure brought about the origins of the Modern classification in general. Later on, Advance 3 would also take inspiration from Heroes’ team-based gameplay mechanics with its Tag Action gimmick. This leaves Advance 2 as the 2D counterpart of Adventure 2, and if you observe the design of SA2’s speed stages, you’d notice similarities in how both games play. They both implement a trick system that incentivises players to storm through the level in style, and both have specialised attention to the speed and spectacle of their levels. Heck, SA2’s most iconic set piece has Sonic skateboarding on a constant downhill slope, just like literally every level in Advance 2! That being said, while I do disagree with Dimps’ approach to making every level share the exact same geographical structure, and acknowledge it as a flaw present within the game, the design intention is still apparent. A fast-paced, non-stop hurdle of an obstacle course that offers high rewards in exchange for high skill, filled to the brim with cool set pieces to make Sonic’s conquest of the area as cool as humanly possible.
What sets Advance 2 apart from SA2, however, as well as every other game in the franchise, is its insurmountable yet satisfying to achieve skill ceiling.
While SA2’s trick system focuses on the player’s skill to chain together attacks and usage of the B button, Advance 2’s trick system retains that feel of being Cool As Shit while also focusing on something far more important - movement. Each trick is designed to grant Sonic that extra push of aerial movement he needs to reach a distant platform, and allows him to keep momentum going as soon as he lands on his feet. Combined with the fact that you get much higher vertical jump height by pressing the jump button before a grind rail/ramp launch, aerial movement with the trick system is versatile and incredibly precise to master. The trick system also has the unspoken niche of giving Sonic the ability to interrupt his aerial trajectory, allowing him almost complete control over where he wishes to go without sacrificing boost mode in the process.
Oh yeah boost mode
Boost mode is, in my own personal opinion, the single most innovative addition to 2D Sonic as a formula. Unlike later iterations that made the Boost immediately available and invulnerable towards most enemies, Boost Mode is a reward for expert gameplay, demanding a high level of skill, smart memorisation of the level layout, quick decision-making and free-flowing platforming in order to earn it, while still being vulnerable to enemies to prevent complacency from the players’ end. And much like the later boost games, Advance 2’s obstacle course level design also constantly hurls itself at the player, challenging their ability to maintain this wildly uncontrollable form of speed against wave after wave of hazards and enemies. The ring system also gets some much-needed love beyond being a recognition of the player’s ability to not take damage (an incredibly easy feat if you go slow SMH), with higher ring counts making attainment of Boost Mode quicker. In a way, Boost Mode fully embraces the speedrunning nature of video games, requiring players to master their craft of the trick system, recognise the ideal route for optimum speed, be constantly aware of their surroundings and the hazards ahead, and discovering dash pads that allow them to maintain Boost Mode while weaving past the complexity of the level design.
All three mechanics come together to form an unprecedented sense of resonance and harmony with one another, forming a satisfying feedback loop that constantly intertwines within itself in a short timeframe. Get rings. Faster activation of boost mode. Utilise trick system to maintain boost mode. Up to this point I’ve yet to mention Sonic’s Air Dash, which, with its (admittedly flawed) difficult input, further raises the bar required to master the high speeds of Advance 2. When everything blends together, the end result is a thrilling adrenaline rush which pushes you to the absolute limit. A perfect middle line between Classic Sonic's focus on momentum, fluidity and earning speed, and Modern Sonic's focus on decision-making, adrenaline-fueling thrills and maintaining speed.
In Advance 2, every action and decision is a commitment from the player that can either see them passing with flying colours or crash and burn. With its notoriously high skill ceiling, the average players’ experience is extremely divisive. You either fail miserably, or you run like the coolest motherfucker on the planet. Just like Sonic. Just like those split-second decisions that often decide life or death.
To me, Sonic Advance 2 represents the pinnacle of Sonic as a control character. It simply feels like Sonic. Nothing else comes quite as close.
Never fear the fall.
Final score: 8.5/10
Focus: How Advance 2 represents the peak of Sonic as a playable character.
...but definitely fear the random monkey obscured by the tiny GBA screen.
But has there ever been a game that plays like Sonic?
Super speed is undoubtedly a coveted superpower most people yearn for - but do they really understand the mastery it demands to make split-second decisions in the blink of an eye? Indeed, limitless speed is extremely useful, but it is simultaneously an untamed beast that can drive you headfirst into a barrier at mach speeds. This is how Sonic always views the world, as a disfigured blur of colourful masses where a split-second glimpse of a hazard may be the last image he ever witnesses.
Across every single game in the franchise, Sonic Advance 2 is consistently the best representation of how it feels to be Sonic.
Of course, the most accurate Sonic experience cannot be completed without suiting music and visuals to back up the gameplay. Thankfully, Advance 2 delivers on both aspects, with the sharpest, most striking 2D Sonic sprite to date, complete with cool-looking afterimages to express your dominance and control over the game’s pace. The environments themselves have a sharp edge to them, with contrasting color palettes littering the terrain and background to further push the cool vibes Advance 2 goes for. The visuals go well with the constant high-octane, high adrenaline music, which leaves its mark with a consistent and prominently featured rhythmic pulse beat that constantly urges the player to rush past everything around them.
It has been commonly theorised that the Dimps GBA trilogy is modeled from the mainline Adventure trilogy that was released around the same timeframe, and I personally agree with this standpoint. Advance 1 takes a more tamer, simplistic approach that introduces Modern elements into 2D Sonic, much as Adventure brought about the origins of the Modern classification in general. Later on, Advance 3 would also take inspiration from Heroes’ team-based gameplay mechanics with its Tag Action gimmick. This leaves Advance 2 as the 2D counterpart of Adventure 2, and if you observe the design of SA2’s speed stages, you’d notice similarities in how both games play. They both implement a trick system that incentivises players to storm through the level in style, and both have specialised attention to the speed and spectacle of their levels. Heck, SA2’s most iconic set piece has Sonic skateboarding on a constant downhill slope, just like literally every level in Advance 2! That being said, while I do disagree with Dimps’ approach to making every level share the exact same geographical structure, and acknowledge it as a flaw present within the game, the design intention is still apparent. A fast-paced, non-stop hurdle of an obstacle course that offers high rewards in exchange for high skill, filled to the brim with cool set pieces to make Sonic’s conquest of the area as cool as humanly possible.
What sets Advance 2 apart from SA2, however, as well as every other game in the franchise, is its insurmountable yet satisfying to achieve skill ceiling.
While SA2’s trick system focuses on the player’s skill to chain together attacks and usage of the B button, Advance 2’s trick system retains that feel of being Cool As Shit while also focusing on something far more important - movement. Each trick is designed to grant Sonic that extra push of aerial movement he needs to reach a distant platform, and allows him to keep momentum going as soon as he lands on his feet. Combined with the fact that you get much higher vertical jump height by pressing the jump button before a grind rail/ramp launch, aerial movement with the trick system is versatile and incredibly precise to master. The trick system also has the unspoken niche of giving Sonic the ability to interrupt his aerial trajectory, allowing him almost complete control over where he wishes to go without sacrificing boost mode in the process.
Oh yeah boost mode
Boost mode is, in my own personal opinion, the single most innovative addition to 2D Sonic as a formula. Unlike later iterations that made the Boost immediately available and invulnerable towards most enemies, Boost Mode is a reward for expert gameplay, demanding a high level of skill, smart memorisation of the level layout, quick decision-making and free-flowing platforming in order to earn it, while still being vulnerable to enemies to prevent complacency from the players’ end. And much like the later boost games, Advance 2’s obstacle course level design also constantly hurls itself at the player, challenging their ability to maintain this wildly uncontrollable form of speed against wave after wave of hazards and enemies. The ring system also gets some much-needed love beyond being a recognition of the player’s ability to not take damage (an incredibly easy feat if you go slow SMH), with higher ring counts making attainment of Boost Mode quicker. In a way, Boost Mode fully embraces the speedrunning nature of video games, requiring players to master their craft of the trick system, recognise the ideal route for optimum speed, be constantly aware of their surroundings and the hazards ahead, and discovering dash pads that allow them to maintain Boost Mode while weaving past the complexity of the level design.
All three mechanics come together to form an unprecedented sense of resonance and harmony with one another, forming a satisfying feedback loop that constantly intertwines within itself in a short timeframe. Get rings. Faster activation of boost mode. Utilise trick system to maintain boost mode. Up to this point I’ve yet to mention Sonic’s Air Dash, which, with its (admittedly flawed) difficult input, further raises the bar required to master the high speeds of Advance 2. When everything blends together, the end result is a thrilling adrenaline rush which pushes you to the absolute limit. A perfect middle line between Classic Sonic's focus on momentum, fluidity and earning speed, and Modern Sonic's focus on decision-making, adrenaline-fueling thrills and maintaining speed.
In Advance 2, every action and decision is a commitment from the player that can either see them passing with flying colours or crash and burn. With its notoriously high skill ceiling, the average players’ experience is extremely divisive. You either fail miserably, or you run like the coolest motherfucker on the planet. Just like Sonic. Just like those split-second decisions that often decide life or death.
To me, Sonic Advance 2 represents the pinnacle of Sonic as a control character. It simply feels like Sonic. Nothing else comes quite as close.
Never fear the fall.
Final score: 8.5/10
Focus: How Advance 2 represents the peak of Sonic as a playable character.
...but definitely fear the random monkey obscured by the tiny GBA screen.
2023
Are you happy now, classic Sonic purists?
Is this uninspiring, unambitious pile of mediocrity what you want classic Sonic to be for the next gazillion years?
Doesn't really matter because 'muh momentum', right?
(full review when I beat the game) (currently a 5.5/10)
Is this uninspiring, unambitious pile of mediocrity what you want classic Sonic to be for the next gazillion years?
Doesn't really matter because 'muh momentum', right?
(full review when I beat the game) (currently a 5.5/10)
they finally gave luxray a prominent presence in pokemon for the first time since the xy anime and THIS IS WHAT I GET????
i cant fucking win man
i cant fucking win man
first you must forgor to check if the bad guy is really unconscious… then you must watch the bad guy land your best friend into a trap! and then you get forgor land! yippee!!!
When Mario and Sonic took their respective maiden bows in the third dimension, they both presented stellar introductory levels that set the tone for their respective approaches to game design. Big Bob-omb on the Summit served as an open playground where movement was entrusted to the player’s creativity and expressiveness, being incredibly loose with its object placement and usage of space to allow full freedom over Mario’s control. Emerald Coast, meanwhile, takes a more linear but more stylish and adventurous spin with its level design; focusing more on the flair and coolness of Sonic, while still maintaining a loose grip towards player interpretation, allowing for them to utilise SA1’s notoriously overpowered Spin Dash in ways that expresses creative freedom.
While both big colourful mascot kahunas took the plunge into 3D at an incredibly early stage, Kirby happily remained in 2D for decades. Therefore, when Nintendo finally announced Kirby’s first ever fully 3D mainline entry for the franchise’s 30th anniversary, the pressure was on to ensure that the jump into the third axis was seamless. To do that would require a solid introductory level that captures the player’s attention and interests them into the world of Kirby and its surface level cheerfulness and subtle crust of maddening darkness.
Point of Arrival is fucking perfect.
Kirby starts off on a sunny, yet strangely deserted coastline where the only option for progress is a foggy, narrow pathway directly ahead. Entering the woods leads you to the game’s tutorial segment, where even a player completely foreign to video games before this can have a basic understanding of Kirby’s fundamentals and how he controls - he can jump, he can inhale and use inhaled objects to attack. Through the glowing sparkle on the rocks and the flower buds, you learn that you can also examine certain objects on the map for rewards. And if you were to accidentally jump again in mid-air, you’d also know he can hover!
The atmosphere also lends a lot of contributing power to Point of Arrival’s stature as a memorable, incredibly well-designed first level. For this section in particular, the densely packed, dimly-lit forest adds to that element of mystique that lingered from the beginning of the level. To add to the stillness is the noticeable lack of music. The only thing audible to the player’s ears at this point are Kirby’s every pace of movement and the distant chirping of the crickets. But occasionally, you’d hear the chirping of birds, singing an unfamiliar tune that you don’t quite recognise.
Following this, the level leads to another narrow pathway, where a crumpled empty can captures your attention. What would an empty soda be doing in the middle of the wilderness-
HOLY FUCK.
The trees part way to greet a clear, bright blue sky, while the camera swoops upwards to reveal a massive, breathtaking cityscape wrapped in overgrown foliage ahead. A vivid rainfall of flower petals greets Kirby, as if to celebrate this momentous occasion of him stepping foot into this newfound region for the first time. At the same time, an orchestral piece kicks in, a warm, inviting song that complements this grandiose entrance into the game’s opening dish. This one singular moment immediately establishes the tone for the game, and reels you in with the main hook - exploration of a long-lost environment. It’s absolutely perfect and executed with utmost professionalism. You’ll also quickly realise that the opening of this song is the exact tune the birds in the forest were humming, a great attention to detail.
As Kirby ventures forward into the new world, the game introduces Copy Abilities to the player, once again easing them into the concept with its most simple yet iconic Sword. This small, enclosed segment continues the developer’s practice of subtly introducing the various mechanics of the copy ability to the player, utilising well-placed platforms and level design to teach the player everything they need to know - the Sword can be used for a simple Slash, a Spin Slash while mid-air, and a Spin Attack when charged on the ground. Attentive players can also use the knowledge that the Sword cuts grass to cut the grass all the way back in the forest to earn 30 Star Coins for themselves, further enforcing the game’s dedication to rewarding players for keen exploration.
After another short tutorial on hovering, the game introduces a second Copy Ability - Bomb, a perfect complementary copy ability to showcase alongside Sword, as it strikes a perfect balance to express the diversity of the Copy Abilities, ranging from long ranged projectiles and close-ranged combat. Much like the previous Sword section, the game introduces basic platforming puzzles for players to dip their toes into so they can be familiarised with Bomb’s range of abilities as well. At the end of this section, you’re greeted with a downward slope, where you can discover that this game has SLOPE PHYSICS. Incidentally, Bomb is also the only projectile Kirby uses that is directly influenced by physics, making this attention to detail more impressive.
Following a cutscene, the latter half of the level is predominantly focused on THE CAR. At this point, the music has reached its second half, modulating from a C major to a D major while adding in more harmonising orchestral elements to sweeten the serotonin boost. Promotional material aside, Car Mouth serves a great introductory point to Mouthful Mode, having the most simplistic controls and self-explanatory functions. It also helps that Car Kirby’s controls are incredibly smooth and responsible, allowing you to make incredibly tight movements and turns that will be useful in future levels.
After breaking the cracked wall ahead with your Turbo Dash, the game offers you a miniature playing field to understand Kirby’s new configuration - you learn that Car Mouth retains the slope physics from before, can break past cracked surfaces, Turbo Dash basically kills everything, you can jump with the car, and when you’ve gotten a basic understanding of how the car works, you can test yourself by following the higher, more challenging pathway to collapse a bridge that rewards you with an entire pile of Star Coins! Utilising the knowledge obtained from this section, you break the rock in front of the bridge, causing the drawbridge to topple over and grant you access to the larger city ahead. Cue incredibly catching opening theme. Cue title card. That is one hell of a bold statement. Welcome to Kirby and the Forgotten Land. Welcome to 3D Kirby. Welcome to the New World.
The rest of the level is straightforward - a simple boss area with a few Awoofies you can easily handle with the knowledge the game has imbued unto you at this point, and with that, you free Elfilin, and subsequently set course for the rest of the game.
Every first level should aspire to be a stage that effectively conveys the atmosphere, setting and tone, while enabling new players to grasp the basics of the game and its controls. Most importantly, however, it should entice the player into trying out more of the game, as well as engross and immerse them into the world surrounding it. Point of Arrival, with its memorable music, clever cinematography, and intuitive tutorial feedback loop, achieves this with flying colours, serving as a great benchmark for first level game design, while also lecturing players about the importance of exploring your surroundings.
–
In reality, life often takes us on an autonomous conveyor belt. Daily life becomes a slog of a routine, with the increasing demands of modern society enslaving us to a monotone, stale lifestyle. There is no time to not go with the grain, because if one yearns for objective success in life, they must work extensively for hours to even stand a chance. We are forced into a capitalistic wasteland where nothing matters except financial stability, a crown jewel that demands complete attention. In search of this idealistic definition of success, one tends to develop tunnel vision, only perceiving the goal straight ahead and nothing more.
Kirby and the Forgotten Land is the antithesis to that perspective.
The titular forgotten land primarily comes to exist because mankind, so hungry to discover salvation in a promised land, worked tirelessly for it. Once they achieved that goal, however, they leapt forward recklessly, and ultimately left a perfectly content world behind. Did anyone ever regret diving brazenly into this brave new world? Did they have any second thoughts?
This is never explicitly answered, however, the consequences of humanity’s selfish desires had left its mark, with Fecto Elfilis made to suffer for it. Sure, Elfilis was an invasive force who could’ve annihilated the world, but instead of attempting to reach out to its compassionate half, mankind chose to enable its malevolent half, effectively fuelling its hatred for the world by toying with it, experimenting with it, even marketing the creature as an exhibition display without ever empathising with its enslavement. A heartless procedure conducted by success first, and the welfare of those involved second.
It isn’t surprising why Fecto Forgo was this vengeful. By single-mindedly aiming for paradise, the world they lived in was laid to waste, powerless to halt the impending apocalypse they unknowingly caused. The forgotten land that once stood proudly was once again at the mercy of Facto Elfilis, a product of humanity’s hubris, self-centeredness and misguided progression.
You may not realise it, but by showering you with Waddle Dees and hidden goodies all over the place, Kirby and the Forgotten Land aims to interest players in exploring this wasted paradise. If you were to ignore every single detail that surrounds this lovingly-crafted world, and make a straightforward beeline to the goal; you’d be pressed to believe that the game lacks substance in its level length, and you’d be justified to make that claim because the levels are, from a surface glance, shortened in their overall length.
However, in terms of overall scope, Forgotten Land absolutely hits the mark, filling every single setting with as much detail as they possibly can on the Switch’s limited hardware. Part of the reason why this works so well is because the camera does a sizable portion of heavy lifting. Its dynamic, fixed camera pans often fixates the player’s lens towards a grand, majestic view of the immediate surroundings as well as what lays beyond, often making the journey feel like a high-budget sightseeing tour. The aforementioned camera swoop to the abandoned skyline at Point of Arrival exemplifies this.
People often tend to be fascinated by pictures of abandoned architecture, and it’s not hard to see why - there’s something striking yet hauntingly beautiful about seeing the wild vegetation consume these empty buildings, places that linger with the essence of liveliness that once permeated and surrounded the atmosphere. In an ironic twist of fate, it makes people appreciate these places even more than they were when they weren’t forgotten. Kirby and the Forgotten Land is full of locations like these - the pristine shores of Everbay Coast, the vibrant joyfulness of Wondaria’s Parade and the noble clock tower at Northeast Frost Street are all given attentive detail that leaves the player wowed and impressed, while also making them wonder why the civilisation of this forgotten land chose to abandon it.
In addition, the Waddle Dee missions play a huge factor towards incentivising exploration as well. While the fact that the hidden missions are only revealed at the end a level, I’d make the counterargument that having the missions fully displayed before you even attempt the level is counterintuitive to Kirby and the Forgotten Land’s goal of having the player explore its setting by their own will, because levels would instead be considered as a checklist that they’d feel obliged to complete. Not because the world is interesting, but rather because the game directly commands them to do so. Yes, that same logic can still somewhat be applied to how missions are implemented in-game, however, by masking these missions, players will approach levels with more observation of their surroundings and investigate every nook and cranny to discover the more cleverly hidden secrets contained in the levels. These missions often reward you for taking the effort to pause along your journey to do incredibly ordinary things, such as reuniting a bunch of ducklings for their mother, FINDING THE COMPUTER ROOM, and sometimes it's as simple as making a few tulips bloom!
But that’s the point, isn’t it? Being stuck in a rat race has made society forget what it's like to live - it's the little things in life we tend to neglect. While the surroundings appear dreary and hazy in our perspective, for Kirby, it’s an adventure where you’re free to roam rampantly. Kirby and the Forgotten Land shows that even the most carelessly thrown aside world can still contain tiny slices of underappreciated beauty. Its dedication to emulating the realism of the real world in a fantastical abandoned setting draws comparisons to how we contemplate life. Perhaps if we choose to raise our heads a little more often to appreciate all the mundane little moments of excitement, or take a moment to explore the fascinating facets of the world around us, then the world we live in may no longer be forgotten.
Maybe take a detour to a road you’ve never tried before. Try petting the stray cat you often see loitering around the alleyways. Along your daily routine, stuff your belly and nap awhile. Just let your heart take the wheel and show you the way. But as you run free and explore new opportunities, never forget to stop and smell the roses.
Heart: The first of many to come.
Growing up, I simply didn’t experience video games as much as most of my peers today. My overall experience with them were primarily the Sonic and Pokemon franchises, and even then, my experience with both of their games were shallow at best.
It wasn’t until 2020 and the COVID lockdown when I began branching out, falling in love with the Zelda games. By the end of 2021, there were 4 games on my wishlist for 2022 - Legends: Arceus, Tears of the Kingdom, Sonic Frontiers and Kirby and the Forgotten Land. I also started forming my own backlog of games, a way of cataloging games from both past and present that I wanted to play that I previously missed out on.
Around the time of Forgotten Land’s release, I played through both Kirby’s Adventure and Kirby’s Dream Land and found both games charming. Despite initially only wanting to focus on what I had downloaded and listed on my backlog (weirdly enough, my Switch library was only limited to the games I owned physically at the time), the appeal of the old Kirby games combined with the growing critical acclaim the game was receiving on Backloggd.com, made me cave - I got the game and ran it on Yuzu the day after.
Everything changed.
Klonoa 2 may be my favourite game of all time, but Kirby and the Forgotten land was, in retrospect, the first time that I ever so thoroughly loved a game through all its rough patches and notable flaws. Sure, Copy Ability variety is limited, however, each ability is distinguishable from one another and alongside the Mouthful Modes, provides quality over quantity in its variation. I do wish we get more Copy Ability next game, though.
Every person has their most memorable first when it comes to video games. For a lot of people on this site, it is usually a game from their childhood, something from the late 90s or early 00s. But for me, every time my mind drifts to that first game I genuinely love wholeheartedly, it's Kirby and the Forgotten Land. A game that I can return to for some simplistic, yet warm, welcoming gameplay. A challenge that’s also willing to push my limits with its incredibly rigid Treasure Road target times. An experience where you learn you can perfect dodge during boss fights, and use that to your fullest advantage to finally take out tough bosses damageless. A place where I can relax in the peaceful hub world, greet the Waddle Dees I worked so hard to rescue and watch them greet me back, go fishing without a single worry in the world.
I may end up having more favourite video games of all time (in fact, Klonoa 2 is a perfect example of that), but Kirby and the Forgotten Land will always hold a place in my heart, even as time passes by. The memories I have experiencing this masterpiece for the first time are memories I will genuinely cherish. And I do absolutely hope that this is the first of many games to come, as I continue to break through my backlog game by game, experiencing all the joys that video games have to offer.
Kirby and the Forgotten Land is my comfort food. That’s really all that matters, isn’t it?
Final rating: 10/10
Focus: How Kirby and the Forgotten Land achieves peak first level design.
Theme: Stopping to smell the roses.
Heart: The first of many to come.
ShinGen’s 2nd Favourite Video Game Ever Made
When Mario and Sonic took their respective maiden bows in the third dimension, they both presented stellar introductory levels that set the tone for their respective approaches to game design. Big Bob-omb on the Summit served as an open playground where movement was entrusted to the player’s creativity and expressiveness, being incredibly loose with its object placement and usage of space to allow full freedom over Mario’s control. Emerald Coast, meanwhile, takes a more linear but more stylish and adventurous spin with its level design; focusing more on the flair and coolness of Sonic, while still maintaining a loose grip towards player interpretation, allowing for them to utilise SA1’s notoriously overpowered Spin Dash in ways that expresses creative freedom.
While both big colourful mascot kahunas took the plunge into 3D at an incredibly early stage, Kirby happily remained in 2D for decades. Therefore, when Nintendo finally announced Kirby’s first ever fully 3D mainline entry for the franchise’s 30th anniversary, the pressure was on to ensure that the jump into the third axis was seamless. To do that would require a solid introductory level that captures the player’s attention and interests them into the world of Kirby and its surface level cheerfulness and subtle crust of maddening darkness.
Point of Arrival is fucking perfect.
Kirby starts off on a sunny, yet strangely deserted coastline where the only option for progress is a foggy, narrow pathway directly ahead. Entering the woods leads you to the game’s tutorial segment, where even a player completely foreign to video games before this can have a basic understanding of Kirby’s fundamentals and how he controls - he can jump, he can inhale and use inhaled objects to attack. Through the glowing sparkle on the rocks and the flower buds, you learn that you can also examine certain objects on the map for rewards. And if you were to accidentally jump again in mid-air, you’d also know he can hover!
The atmosphere also lends a lot of contributing power to Point of Arrival’s stature as a memorable, incredibly well-designed first level. For this section in particular, the densely packed, dimly-lit forest adds to that element of mystique that lingered from the beginning of the level. To add to the stillness is the noticeable lack of music. The only thing audible to the player’s ears at this point are Kirby’s every pace of movement and the distant chirping of the crickets. But occasionally, you’d hear the chirping of birds, singing an unfamiliar tune that you don’t quite recognise.
Following this, the level leads to another narrow pathway, where a crumpled empty can captures your attention. What would an empty soda be doing in the middle of the wilderness-
HOLY FUCK.
The trees part way to greet a clear, bright blue sky, while the camera swoops upwards to reveal a massive, breathtaking cityscape wrapped in overgrown foliage ahead. A vivid rainfall of flower petals greets Kirby, as if to celebrate this momentous occasion of him stepping foot into this newfound region for the first time. At the same time, an orchestral piece kicks in, a warm, inviting song that complements this grandiose entrance into the game’s opening dish. This one singular moment immediately establishes the tone for the game, and reels you in with the main hook - exploration of a long-lost environment. It’s absolutely perfect and executed with utmost professionalism. You’ll also quickly realise that the opening of this song is the exact tune the birds in the forest were humming, a great attention to detail.
As Kirby ventures forward into the new world, the game introduces Copy Abilities to the player, once again easing them into the concept with its most simple yet iconic Sword. This small, enclosed segment continues the developer’s practice of subtly introducing the various mechanics of the copy ability to the player, utilising well-placed platforms and level design to teach the player everything they need to know - the Sword can be used for a simple Slash, a Spin Slash while mid-air, and a Spin Attack when charged on the ground. Attentive players can also use the knowledge that the Sword cuts grass to cut the grass all the way back in the forest to earn 30 Star Coins for themselves, further enforcing the game’s dedication to rewarding players for keen exploration.
After another short tutorial on hovering, the game introduces a second Copy Ability - Bomb, a perfect complementary copy ability to showcase alongside Sword, as it strikes a perfect balance to express the diversity of the Copy Abilities, ranging from long ranged projectiles and close-ranged combat. Much like the previous Sword section, the game introduces basic platforming puzzles for players to dip their toes into so they can be familiarised with Bomb’s range of abilities as well. At the end of this section, you’re greeted with a downward slope, where you can discover that this game has SLOPE PHYSICS. Incidentally, Bomb is also the only projectile Kirby uses that is directly influenced by physics, making this attention to detail more impressive.
Following a cutscene, the latter half of the level is predominantly focused on THE CAR. At this point, the music has reached its second half, modulating from a C major to a D major while adding in more harmonising orchestral elements to sweeten the serotonin boost. Promotional material aside, Car Mouth serves a great introductory point to Mouthful Mode, having the most simplistic controls and self-explanatory functions. It also helps that Car Kirby’s controls are incredibly smooth and responsible, allowing you to make incredibly tight movements and turns that will be useful in future levels.
After breaking the cracked wall ahead with your Turbo Dash, the game offers you a miniature playing field to understand Kirby’s new configuration - you learn that Car Mouth retains the slope physics from before, can break past cracked surfaces, Turbo Dash basically kills everything, you can jump with the car, and when you’ve gotten a basic understanding of how the car works, you can test yourself by following the higher, more challenging pathway to collapse a bridge that rewards you with an entire pile of Star Coins! Utilising the knowledge obtained from this section, you break the rock in front of the bridge, causing the drawbridge to topple over and grant you access to the larger city ahead. Cue incredibly catching opening theme. Cue title card. That is one hell of a bold statement. Welcome to Kirby and the Forgotten Land. Welcome to 3D Kirby. Welcome to the New World.
The rest of the level is straightforward - a simple boss area with a few Awoofies you can easily handle with the knowledge the game has imbued unto you at this point, and with that, you free Elfilin, and subsequently set course for the rest of the game.
Every first level should aspire to be a stage that effectively conveys the atmosphere, setting and tone, while enabling new players to grasp the basics of the game and its controls. Most importantly, however, it should entice the player into trying out more of the game, as well as engross and immerse them into the world surrounding it. Point of Arrival, with its memorable music, clever cinematography, and intuitive tutorial feedback loop, achieves this with flying colours, serving as a great benchmark for first level game design, while also lecturing players about the importance of exploring your surroundings.
–
In reality, life often takes us on an autonomous conveyor belt. Daily life becomes a slog of a routine, with the increasing demands of modern society enslaving us to a monotone, stale lifestyle. There is no time to not go with the grain, because if one yearns for objective success in life, they must work extensively for hours to even stand a chance. We are forced into a capitalistic wasteland where nothing matters except financial stability, a crown jewel that demands complete attention. In search of this idealistic definition of success, one tends to develop tunnel vision, only perceiving the goal straight ahead and nothing more.
Kirby and the Forgotten Land is the antithesis to that perspective.
The titular forgotten land primarily comes to exist because mankind, so hungry to discover salvation in a promised land, worked tirelessly for it. Once they achieved that goal, however, they leapt forward recklessly, and ultimately left a perfectly content world behind. Did anyone ever regret diving brazenly into this brave new world? Did they have any second thoughts?
This is never explicitly answered, however, the consequences of humanity’s selfish desires had left its mark, with Fecto Elfilis made to suffer for it. Sure, Elfilis was an invasive force who could’ve annihilated the world, but instead of attempting to reach out to its compassionate half, mankind chose to enable its malevolent half, effectively fuelling its hatred for the world by toying with it, experimenting with it, even marketing the creature as an exhibition display without ever empathising with its enslavement. A heartless procedure conducted by success first, and the welfare of those involved second.
It isn’t surprising why Fecto Forgo was this vengeful. By single-mindedly aiming for paradise, the world they lived in was laid to waste, powerless to halt the impending apocalypse they unknowingly caused. The forgotten land that once stood proudly was once again at the mercy of Facto Elfilis, a product of humanity’s hubris, self-centeredness and misguided progression.
You may not realise it, but by showering you with Waddle Dees and hidden goodies all over the place, Kirby and the Forgotten Land aims to interest players in exploring this wasted paradise. If you were to ignore every single detail that surrounds this lovingly-crafted world, and make a straightforward beeline to the goal; you’d be pressed to believe that the game lacks substance in its level length, and you’d be justified to make that claim because the levels are, from a surface glance, shortened in their overall length.
However, in terms of overall scope, Forgotten Land absolutely hits the mark, filling every single setting with as much detail as they possibly can on the Switch’s limited hardware. Part of the reason why this works so well is because the camera does a sizable portion of heavy lifting. Its dynamic, fixed camera pans often fixates the player’s lens towards a grand, majestic view of the immediate surroundings as well as what lays beyond, often making the journey feel like a high-budget sightseeing tour. The aforementioned camera swoop to the abandoned skyline at Point of Arrival exemplifies this.
People often tend to be fascinated by pictures of abandoned architecture, and it’s not hard to see why - there’s something striking yet hauntingly beautiful about seeing the wild vegetation consume these empty buildings, places that linger with the essence of liveliness that once permeated and surrounded the atmosphere. In an ironic twist of fate, it makes people appreciate these places even more than they were when they weren’t forgotten. Kirby and the Forgotten Land is full of locations like these - the pristine shores of Everbay Coast, the vibrant joyfulness of Wondaria’s Parade and the noble clock tower at Northeast Frost Street are all given attentive detail that leaves the player wowed and impressed, while also making them wonder why the civilisation of this forgotten land chose to abandon it.
In addition, the Waddle Dee missions play a huge factor towards incentivising exploration as well. While the fact that the hidden missions are only revealed at the end a level, I’d make the counterargument that having the missions fully displayed before you even attempt the level is counterintuitive to Kirby and the Forgotten Land’s goal of having the player explore its setting by their own will, because levels would instead be considered as a checklist that they’d feel obliged to complete. Not because the world is interesting, but rather because the game directly commands them to do so. Yes, that same logic can still somewhat be applied to how missions are implemented in-game, however, by masking these missions, players will approach levels with more observation of their surroundings and investigate every nook and cranny to discover the more cleverly hidden secrets contained in the levels. These missions often reward you for taking the effort to pause along your journey to do incredibly ordinary things, such as reuniting a bunch of ducklings for their mother, FINDING THE COMPUTER ROOM, and sometimes it's as simple as making a few tulips bloom!
But that’s the point, isn’t it? Being stuck in a rat race has made society forget what it's like to live - it's the little things in life we tend to neglect. While the surroundings appear dreary and hazy in our perspective, for Kirby, it’s an adventure where you’re free to roam rampantly. Kirby and the Forgotten Land shows that even the most carelessly thrown aside world can still contain tiny slices of underappreciated beauty. Its dedication to emulating the realism of the real world in a fantastical abandoned setting draws comparisons to how we contemplate life. Perhaps if we choose to raise our heads a little more often to appreciate all the mundane little moments of excitement, or take a moment to explore the fascinating facets of the world around us, then the world we live in may no longer be forgotten.
Maybe take a detour to a road you’ve never tried before. Try petting the stray cat you often see loitering around the alleyways. Along your daily routine, stuff your belly and nap awhile. Just let your heart take the wheel and show you the way. But as you run free and explore new opportunities, never forget to stop and smell the roses.
Heart: The first of many to come.
Growing up, I simply didn’t experience video games as much as most of my peers today. My overall experience with them were primarily the Sonic and Pokemon franchises, and even then, my experience with both of their games were shallow at best.
It wasn’t until 2020 and the COVID lockdown when I began branching out, falling in love with the Zelda games. By the end of 2021, there were 4 games on my wishlist for 2022 - Legends: Arceus, Tears of the Kingdom, Sonic Frontiers and Kirby and the Forgotten Land. I also started forming my own backlog of games, a way of cataloging games from both past and present that I wanted to play that I previously missed out on.
Around the time of Forgotten Land’s release, I played through both Kirby’s Adventure and Kirby’s Dream Land and found both games charming. Despite initially only wanting to focus on what I had downloaded and listed on my backlog (weirdly enough, my Switch library was only limited to the games I owned physically at the time), the appeal of the old Kirby games combined with the growing critical acclaim the game was receiving on Backloggd.com, made me cave - I got the game and ran it on Yuzu the day after.
Everything changed.
Klonoa 2 may be my favourite game of all time, but Kirby and the Forgotten land was, in retrospect, the first time that I ever so thoroughly loved a game through all its rough patches and notable flaws. Sure, Copy Ability variety is limited, however, each ability is distinguishable from one another and alongside the Mouthful Modes, provides quality over quantity in its variation. I do wish we get more Copy Ability next game, though.
Every person has their most memorable first when it comes to video games. For a lot of people on this site, it is usually a game from their childhood, something from the late 90s or early 00s. But for me, every time my mind drifts to that first game I genuinely love wholeheartedly, it's Kirby and the Forgotten Land. A game that I can return to for some simplistic, yet warm, welcoming gameplay. A challenge that’s also willing to push my limits with its incredibly rigid Treasure Road target times. An experience where you learn you can perfect dodge during boss fights, and use that to your fullest advantage to finally take out tough bosses damageless. A place where I can relax in the peaceful hub world, greet the Waddle Dees I worked so hard to rescue and watch them greet me back, go fishing without a single worry in the world.
I may end up having more favourite video games of all time (in fact, Klonoa 2 is a perfect example of that), but Kirby and the Forgotten Land will always hold a place in my heart, even as time passes by. The memories I have experiencing this masterpiece for the first time are memories I will genuinely cherish. And I do absolutely hope that this is the first of many games to come, as I continue to break through my backlog game by game, experiencing all the joys that video games have to offer.
Kirby and the Forgotten Land is my comfort food. That’s really all that matters, isn’t it?
Final rating: 10/10
Focus: How Kirby and the Forgotten Land achieves peak first level design.
Theme: Stopping to smell the roses.
Heart: The first of many to come.
ShinGen’s 2nd Favourite Video Game Ever Made
2022
Warning: Very Mild Spoilers for Update 3: The Final Horizon. You have been warned.
By the time of Sonic Frontiers’ release, the Super Sonic fights that used to be a staple during the first half of Sonic’s 3D ventures have been… underwhelming, to say the least. Colors was the first to disregard the tradition in favor of having Sonic take on Eggman in his base form (plus the wisps). Then after Generations and its infinite homing shots tarnished the legacy of the Super Sonic boss fight, Sonic Team seemed to have dropped the set piece entirely in both Lost World and Forces. Meanwhile, Mania did have a Super Sonic final boss, but honestly, it just doesn’t pack the same punch.
To me, a Super Sonic fight represents an exciting, climatic grand finale that is the culmination of the build-up you saw across your playthrough of a Sonic game. A big finish to celebrate experiencing the joyful thrills or rage-inducing bullshit (depending on your opinion of any particular game) with one last victory lap. SA1 had you taking on a literal god made of water, Sonic’s biggest weakness. SA2 is a dramatic, climatic set-piece with world-ending stakes at hand. Heroes has you beating up a gigantic mech with the REAL SUPER POWER OF TEAMWORK! Even 06 had a perfectly competent final boss that actually worked as intended.
These fights are backed by incredible soundtracks that, unlike most AAA titles, enhance the threat level of the boss itself; instead, they empower you, the player, giving you an edge of superiority and invincibility as you rush headfirst into whatever apocalyptic kaiju Sonic has to beat down.
I am pleased to say that Kellin Quinn and Sonic Frontiers didn’t just revitalise the Super Sonic fights, but made them the greatest in the series.
The Vulnerability of the Weakened Spirit
An element I believe to be crucial to the payoff of the Titan fights in Frontiers itself, which opens up a surprisingly more vulnerable side to the cast’s main leads - Amy, Knuckles and Tails all struggle with finding direction and purpose for their futures in their respective side stories. Through interacting with Sonic and the islands they reside in, however, they gain inspiration, and come to understand what their hearts desire. They finally find the truth of who they’re meant to become, another path they must now walk on.
(haha see what I did there)
Despite his main role as a source of inspiration for them, Sonic isn’t entirely the bulletproof, quip-hungry stereotype he’s been relegated to since Colors anymore. No, this is a complete return to form for him, and with this comes a newfound sense of vulnerability. Sonic quite literally gets his ass punted by Giganto earlier on, an immediate statement of how powerless he is compared to them at his base form. That, combined with his growing cyber-corruption (a consequence of his selflessness for his friends), gives him a more compelling narrative and makes his unsubtly concealed struggles both refreshing and painful to watch. However, much like the friends he inspires, Sonic is strengthened and emboldened by his undying desire to hold the ones he loves and keep them safe.
And this is where Kellin Quinn and the Super Sonic fights come to play.
The Invincibility of the Empowered Soul
Immediately after entering the fight, your ears are greeted by a vaguely similar, yet unfamiliar genre. This is Ohtani and Quinn’s newest innovation to the Super Sonic set piece - heavy metal. Despite the change in genre, the psychological adrenaline boost that a Super Sonic fight theme usually provides is still present in heaps, while also doing a fantastic job making the fight feel epic.
Each Titan theme brings something to the table. Undefeatable is a fast-paced, upfront declaration of invincibility that represents Sonic’s newly empowered state turning the tables in his rematch against Giganto, making the Goliath kaiju seem weak and feeble compared to their first encounter. Break Through it All’s steady build-up and subsequent bombastic delivery of its chorus represents Sonic’s resilience and determination in overcoming Wyvern and its constant bombardment of missiles and tail strikes in a thrilling, sky-high chase. Find Your Flame offers an intense back-and-forth wrestle between rap and vocals as Sonic and Knight engage in a chivalrous joust in the middle of a chasm. Finally, I’m Here (thanks, Final Horizon) is the embodiment of Sonic’s friends character arcs and the journey they experienced in reaching their new resolutions, as Sonic, emboldened by their support, takes on the final obstacles standing in their path in a climatic final fight. Throughout all this, Kellin Quinn just fucking nails his vocal delivery, his voice bringing a more youthful, energetic vibe akin to Johnny Gioeli, and his death metal screams further fuel the intensity of the Super Sonic vibes, giving the Titan themes incredibly strong 2000s shonen anime AMV vibes. All these songs just add to the sense of invincibility that Super Sonic fights used to deliver on.
Thankfully, it isn’t only the music doing the heavy lifting for the Super Sonic fights, because the gameplay holds up well, too. Super Sonic in Frontiers, for the first time since Heroes, actually controls exactly the same as regular Sonic, with the exception that he flies and is invincible now. This means that Titans can essentially be viewed as Guardians+, and what you’ve learnt about the combat system up to that point can be applied accordingly to these massive behemoths as well. Sure, this does mean that the fights can easily be cheesed with certain strategies, but that doesn’t quite diminish their overall quality to the point where it becomes a genuine flaw. Giganto especially, in compliance with its theme of becoming the hunted after previously being the hunter, is fun combo food where you basically have free reign to freestyle with your combat combos, serving as an incredibly memorable first boss fight to showcase your invincibility and basically being the symbol of this newly reinvented type of Super Sonic battle.
As if Sonic Team knew about how shonen these fights were going to get, they also introduced mid-fight cutscenes and power-ups ala DBZ, as well as tons of set piece QTEs where all you do is either mash the attack button or hit it at the perfect timing. This would normally be a blight but Unleashed, Colors and Forces did it with their boss fights too, so if I’m not complaining about them there, I won’t complain about them here. That being said, Frontiers more than compensates by making these set-pieces the coolest fucking things you’ve ever seen Super Sonic do ever. Sonic casually lifting a giant laser beam above his head and flinging it away effortlessly? Sick. Sonic stopping the tracks of Wyvern through sheer force and strength alone? Awesome. Sonic taking Knight’s gigantic blade for himself and using it to slice it in half? Fucking incredible. Truly makes Super Sonic feel like an unstoppable, invincible force. Overall, Titan fights in Frontiers just straight up have the most breathtaking and beautiful cinematography in the franchise, hands down, contributing to how groundbreaking these fights were in general.
For all of Sonic Frontiers’ many, many flaws, how it reinvigorated and brought Super Sonic fights back on the map will always be an obvious highlight and an incredibly positive sign of things to come with the new direction this game takes. May Frontiers 2 not shit itself on arrival.
Final rating: 7.5/10
Focus: How Kellin Quinn and Sonic Frontiers revived the Super Sonic boss fights.
Theme: Vulnerability and Invincibility
By the time of Sonic Frontiers’ release, the Super Sonic fights that used to be a staple during the first half of Sonic’s 3D ventures have been… underwhelming, to say the least. Colors was the first to disregard the tradition in favor of having Sonic take on Eggman in his base form (plus the wisps). Then after Generations and its infinite homing shots tarnished the legacy of the Super Sonic boss fight, Sonic Team seemed to have dropped the set piece entirely in both Lost World and Forces. Meanwhile, Mania did have a Super Sonic final boss, but honestly, it just doesn’t pack the same punch.
To me, a Super Sonic fight represents an exciting, climatic grand finale that is the culmination of the build-up you saw across your playthrough of a Sonic game. A big finish to celebrate experiencing the joyful thrills or rage-inducing bullshit (depending on your opinion of any particular game) with one last victory lap. SA1 had you taking on a literal god made of water, Sonic’s biggest weakness. SA2 is a dramatic, climatic set-piece with world-ending stakes at hand. Heroes has you beating up a gigantic mech with the REAL SUPER POWER OF TEAMWORK! Even 06 had a perfectly competent final boss that actually worked as intended.
These fights are backed by incredible soundtracks that, unlike most AAA titles, enhance the threat level of the boss itself; instead, they empower you, the player, giving you an edge of superiority and invincibility as you rush headfirst into whatever apocalyptic kaiju Sonic has to beat down.
I am pleased to say that Kellin Quinn and Sonic Frontiers didn’t just revitalise the Super Sonic fights, but made them the greatest in the series.
The Vulnerability of the Weakened Spirit
An element I believe to be crucial to the payoff of the Titan fights in Frontiers itself, which opens up a surprisingly more vulnerable side to the cast’s main leads - Amy, Knuckles and Tails all struggle with finding direction and purpose for their futures in their respective side stories. Through interacting with Sonic and the islands they reside in, however, they gain inspiration, and come to understand what their hearts desire. They finally find the truth of who they’re meant to become, another path they must now walk on.
(haha see what I did there)
Despite his main role as a source of inspiration for them, Sonic isn’t entirely the bulletproof, quip-hungry stereotype he’s been relegated to since Colors anymore. No, this is a complete return to form for him, and with this comes a newfound sense of vulnerability. Sonic quite literally gets his ass punted by Giganto earlier on, an immediate statement of how powerless he is compared to them at his base form. That, combined with his growing cyber-corruption (a consequence of his selflessness for his friends), gives him a more compelling narrative and makes his unsubtly concealed struggles both refreshing and painful to watch. However, much like the friends he inspires, Sonic is strengthened and emboldened by his undying desire to hold the ones he loves and keep them safe.
And this is where Kellin Quinn and the Super Sonic fights come to play.
The Invincibility of the Empowered Soul
Immediately after entering the fight, your ears are greeted by a vaguely similar, yet unfamiliar genre. This is Ohtani and Quinn’s newest innovation to the Super Sonic set piece - heavy metal. Despite the change in genre, the psychological adrenaline boost that a Super Sonic fight theme usually provides is still present in heaps, while also doing a fantastic job making the fight feel epic.
Each Titan theme brings something to the table. Undefeatable is a fast-paced, upfront declaration of invincibility that represents Sonic’s newly empowered state turning the tables in his rematch against Giganto, making the Goliath kaiju seem weak and feeble compared to their first encounter. Break Through it All’s steady build-up and subsequent bombastic delivery of its chorus represents Sonic’s resilience and determination in overcoming Wyvern and its constant bombardment of missiles and tail strikes in a thrilling, sky-high chase. Find Your Flame offers an intense back-and-forth wrestle between rap and vocals as Sonic and Knight engage in a chivalrous joust in the middle of a chasm. Finally, I’m Here (thanks, Final Horizon) is the embodiment of Sonic’s friends character arcs and the journey they experienced in reaching their new resolutions, as Sonic, emboldened by their support, takes on the final obstacles standing in their path in a climatic final fight. Throughout all this, Kellin Quinn just fucking nails his vocal delivery, his voice bringing a more youthful, energetic vibe akin to Johnny Gioeli, and his death metal screams further fuel the intensity of the Super Sonic vibes, giving the Titan themes incredibly strong 2000s shonen anime AMV vibes. All these songs just add to the sense of invincibility that Super Sonic fights used to deliver on.
Thankfully, it isn’t only the music doing the heavy lifting for the Super Sonic fights, because the gameplay holds up well, too. Super Sonic in Frontiers, for the first time since Heroes, actually controls exactly the same as regular Sonic, with the exception that he flies and is invincible now. This means that Titans can essentially be viewed as Guardians+, and what you’ve learnt about the combat system up to that point can be applied accordingly to these massive behemoths as well. Sure, this does mean that the fights can easily be cheesed with certain strategies, but that doesn’t quite diminish their overall quality to the point where it becomes a genuine flaw. Giganto especially, in compliance with its theme of becoming the hunted after previously being the hunter, is fun combo food where you basically have free reign to freestyle with your combat combos, serving as an incredibly memorable first boss fight to showcase your invincibility and basically being the symbol of this newly reinvented type of Super Sonic battle.
As if Sonic Team knew about how shonen these fights were going to get, they also introduced mid-fight cutscenes and power-ups ala DBZ, as well as tons of set piece QTEs where all you do is either mash the attack button or hit it at the perfect timing. This would normally be a blight but Unleashed, Colors and Forces did it with their boss fights too, so if I’m not complaining about them there, I won’t complain about them here. That being said, Frontiers more than compensates by making these set-pieces the coolest fucking things you’ve ever seen Super Sonic do ever. Sonic casually lifting a giant laser beam above his head and flinging it away effortlessly? Sick. Sonic stopping the tracks of Wyvern through sheer force and strength alone? Awesome. Sonic taking Knight’s gigantic blade for himself and using it to slice it in half? Fucking incredible. Truly makes Super Sonic feel like an unstoppable, invincible force. Overall, Titan fights in Frontiers just straight up have the most breathtaking and beautiful cinematography in the franchise, hands down, contributing to how groundbreaking these fights were in general.
For all of Sonic Frontiers’ many, many flaws, how it reinvigorated and brought Super Sonic fights back on the map will always be an obvious highlight and an incredibly positive sign of things to come with the new direction this game takes. May Frontiers 2 not shit itself on arrival.
Final rating: 7.5/10
Focus: How Kellin Quinn and Sonic Frontiers revived the Super Sonic boss fights.
Theme: Vulnerability and Invincibility
1990
The cover of Mega Man 3 is an accurate representation of how my experience was playing it.
I'm the robot. Mega Man is the game. The laser is the asinine slowdown this game suffers from. My balls will never recover from this.
I'm the robot. Mega Man is the game. The laser is the asinine slowdown this game suffers from. My balls will never recover from this.
1998
The misty swirls of the horizon. The eerie darkness of the underground chambers. The imposing fog of the valleys and the oceans. What do they all represent? To me, it represents a sense of uncertainty, especially for the future that lays ahead.
Panzer Dragoon Saga’s reverence in the industry is one of myth - a one-of-a-kind game that even 25 years later, still provides an innovative and refreshing RPG experience with a combat system that no other title has come close to recreating. It’s quite literally an impossible game - a game created completely from scratch, that pushed the capabilities of the Saturn and its developers to the absolute limit. Panzer Dragoon Saga aims to stun its audience, even when it's breaking itself apart to deliver the technical pedigree required to run such an ambitious game, and its audience is practically non-existent. Even with the boundaries pushed to get this game to run as well as it does, there is one issue that persists throughout the entirety of PDS’ 4-disc run: the field of depth. After all, when so much meticulous attention is placed onto making the graphics feel as realistic as possible, something has to give. In this case, it was the draw distance.
MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD FOR PANZER DRAGOON SAGA'S STORY. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
However, in a surprising twist, the draw distance actually helps drive home this feeling of uncertainty that the atmosphere of Panzer Dragoon Saga demonstrates. The story takes place in a continent where the future of the world is uncertain, subjected to a predetermined fate prescribed to them by Sestren and the Towers. There is no predicting the time when your entire town will be razed to the ground by a wave of sudden monster appearances. The places Edge and his dragon travel to loom with the uncertain threat of an impending monster attack. They can barely see what lies ahead of them, whether it be friend or foe. Where most would be left second-guessing on their decisions, however, they choose to trudge forward regardless.
Ironically, the crippled field of depth in Panzer Dragoon Saga ends up being a perfect representation of not just that theme of uncertainty within the game itself, but its implications towards the circumstances surrounding the game is also just as bizarrely interconnected. Panzer Dragoon Saga was always destined to be released on the Saturn, with developers stating that only the Saturn could emulate the intended atmosphere of the world. Unfortunately, the Saturn was never destined to succeed against the almighty Playstation, and by the year 1998, it was on its dying breath. The Dreamcast was already on its way to take its place, and by the time of Panzer Dragoon Saga’s release, the Saturn’s fate was already sealed. Even then, SEGA’s future in the console market hung in the balance. It was uncertain whether they could weather the storm.
For Team Andromeda, that same feeling of uncertainty lingered in their minds as development progressed. Much like the game they produced, their output was pushed to the absolute limit, and yet I’m certain they knew they were releasing their magnum opus on an obsolete console, which meant that sales profits would be near impossible to achieve. People working on this game were strained, they suffered from mental health issues, a few even died. It’s an extremity that is incredibly rare across all media, and for what? Would Team Andromeda even survive beyond Panzer Dragoon Saga? The future existence of this very team was just as uncertain as the future of the company they worked for.
The motives of the people surrounding Edge throughout his journey of vengeance are just as uncertain. The target of his scorn, Craymen, who betrayed Edge and his mercenary team to retrieve Azel, is revealed to be fighting for what he believe to be a good cause - taking control of a Tower to extinguish a power-hungry and destructive force as well as halting the self-destructive nature of humanity, all while unwittingly becoming the thing he swore to destroy. Vaiman, the eccentric old man from Zoah who earnestly seeks Edge’s help in destroying the Empire’s air force, only aims to manipulate Edge for his own personal gain. Even Gash, Edge’s first friend during his journey, is secretly part of an organisation aiming to use him as a weapon in their plight to free humanity from the shackles of the Towers. Throughout this entire story, Edge, despite having the clearest and sincerest motivation of all the characters (to hunt down Craymen as revenge), ends up being the one being controlled.
Despite this, all of these actions are done through Edge’s own volition, his own choice to act. The dragon, despite being the reason why all the senior figures desire to control Edge, ultimately ends up being the one who gives Edge control. Control to travel the continent to fulfill his quest for vengeance. Control of every action in the heat of combat, the choice of how to strike and where to strike. The dragon is what frees Edge from the control of the imperialism placed upon him and society, the freedom of flying symbolising the freedom of choice he is granted. Ultimately, it’s his undying will and the choices he makes that convinces Azel to acknowledge and reconcile with her human side, and give her the choice of free will and agency over her own decisions.
Yet, that’s far from the truth now, isn’t it?
Even from the very beginning, Edge’s fate has always been the biggest point of uncertainty. Did he die when Zastava shot him in the opening cutscene? If so, why is he still alive? Will he still be alive when the journey is over? At the climax of the game, Craymen finally falls - but not at the hands of Edge. Even in his dying breath, he beckons Edge to control his own destiny. However, when Sestren eventually falls, Edge seemingly ends up becoming a martyr to his own cause - by taking control of his own destiny and choosing the path that he ended up taking, he ends up trapped in eternity. The world he saves ends up in environmental turmoil without the sustainment of the Towers, but even with the uncertainty of survival increasing, humanity finally has control of their own destiny, and the freedom of choice.
But this isn’t an effort credited entirely towards him - it is us, the Divine Visitor, the one who controls Edge, who guides him as he and the dragon overcome all the uncertainties that laid ahead, granting the world a choice.
In the real world, where nothing is certain, the only things that are true is the way we take control of our own actions, the choices we make in our lives, and the ideals we believe in.
Final score: 10/10
Focus/Theme: How Panzer Dragoon Saga’s field of depth encapsulates the themes of doubt, control and choice.
Panzer Dragoon Saga’s reverence in the industry is one of myth - a one-of-a-kind game that even 25 years later, still provides an innovative and refreshing RPG experience with a combat system that no other title has come close to recreating. It’s quite literally an impossible game - a game created completely from scratch, that pushed the capabilities of the Saturn and its developers to the absolute limit. Panzer Dragoon Saga aims to stun its audience, even when it's breaking itself apart to deliver the technical pedigree required to run such an ambitious game, and its audience is practically non-existent. Even with the boundaries pushed to get this game to run as well as it does, there is one issue that persists throughout the entirety of PDS’ 4-disc run: the field of depth. After all, when so much meticulous attention is placed onto making the graphics feel as realistic as possible, something has to give. In this case, it was the draw distance.
MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD FOR PANZER DRAGOON SAGA'S STORY. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
However, in a surprising twist, the draw distance actually helps drive home this feeling of uncertainty that the atmosphere of Panzer Dragoon Saga demonstrates. The story takes place in a continent where the future of the world is uncertain, subjected to a predetermined fate prescribed to them by Sestren and the Towers. There is no predicting the time when your entire town will be razed to the ground by a wave of sudden monster appearances. The places Edge and his dragon travel to loom with the uncertain threat of an impending monster attack. They can barely see what lies ahead of them, whether it be friend or foe. Where most would be left second-guessing on their decisions, however, they choose to trudge forward regardless.
Ironically, the crippled field of depth in Panzer Dragoon Saga ends up being a perfect representation of not just that theme of uncertainty within the game itself, but its implications towards the circumstances surrounding the game is also just as bizarrely interconnected. Panzer Dragoon Saga was always destined to be released on the Saturn, with developers stating that only the Saturn could emulate the intended atmosphere of the world. Unfortunately, the Saturn was never destined to succeed against the almighty Playstation, and by the year 1998, it was on its dying breath. The Dreamcast was already on its way to take its place, and by the time of Panzer Dragoon Saga’s release, the Saturn’s fate was already sealed. Even then, SEGA’s future in the console market hung in the balance. It was uncertain whether they could weather the storm.
For Team Andromeda, that same feeling of uncertainty lingered in their minds as development progressed. Much like the game they produced, their output was pushed to the absolute limit, and yet I’m certain they knew they were releasing their magnum opus on an obsolete console, which meant that sales profits would be near impossible to achieve. People working on this game were strained, they suffered from mental health issues, a few even died. It’s an extremity that is incredibly rare across all media, and for what? Would Team Andromeda even survive beyond Panzer Dragoon Saga? The future existence of this very team was just as uncertain as the future of the company they worked for.
The motives of the people surrounding Edge throughout his journey of vengeance are just as uncertain. The target of his scorn, Craymen, who betrayed Edge and his mercenary team to retrieve Azel, is revealed to be fighting for what he believe to be a good cause - taking control of a Tower to extinguish a power-hungry and destructive force as well as halting the self-destructive nature of humanity, all while unwittingly becoming the thing he swore to destroy. Vaiman, the eccentric old man from Zoah who earnestly seeks Edge’s help in destroying the Empire’s air force, only aims to manipulate Edge for his own personal gain. Even Gash, Edge’s first friend during his journey, is secretly part of an organisation aiming to use him as a weapon in their plight to free humanity from the shackles of the Towers. Throughout this entire story, Edge, despite having the clearest and sincerest motivation of all the characters (to hunt down Craymen as revenge), ends up being the one being controlled.
Despite this, all of these actions are done through Edge’s own volition, his own choice to act. The dragon, despite being the reason why all the senior figures desire to control Edge, ultimately ends up being the one who gives Edge control. Control to travel the continent to fulfill his quest for vengeance. Control of every action in the heat of combat, the choice of how to strike and where to strike. The dragon is what frees Edge from the control of the imperialism placed upon him and society, the freedom of flying symbolising the freedom of choice he is granted. Ultimately, it’s his undying will and the choices he makes that convinces Azel to acknowledge and reconcile with her human side, and give her the choice of free will and agency over her own decisions.
Yet, that’s far from the truth now, isn’t it?
Even from the very beginning, Edge’s fate has always been the biggest point of uncertainty. Did he die when Zastava shot him in the opening cutscene? If so, why is he still alive? Will he still be alive when the journey is over? At the climax of the game, Craymen finally falls - but not at the hands of Edge. Even in his dying breath, he beckons Edge to control his own destiny. However, when Sestren eventually falls, Edge seemingly ends up becoming a martyr to his own cause - by taking control of his own destiny and choosing the path that he ended up taking, he ends up trapped in eternity. The world he saves ends up in environmental turmoil without the sustainment of the Towers, but even with the uncertainty of survival increasing, humanity finally has control of their own destiny, and the freedom of choice.
But this isn’t an effort credited entirely towards him - it is us, the Divine Visitor, the one who controls Edge, who guides him as he and the dragon overcome all the uncertainties that laid ahead, granting the world a choice.
In the real world, where nothing is certain, the only things that are true is the way we take control of our own actions, the choices we make in our lives, and the ideals we believe in.
Final score: 10/10
Focus/Theme: How Panzer Dragoon Saga’s field of depth encapsulates the themes of doubt, control and choice.
1995
In an era where Hollywood and the media masses enforce the narrative of time travel doing more harm than good (looking at you, The Flash), it's always a relief that we can always fall back on Chrono Trigger for a simple, feel-good time travel story.
One popular review on Backloggd cited disinterest towards Chrono Trigger due to its overly simplified mechanics. That review weighed heavily on the back of my mind as I began my own playthrough of the game, and initially, I would've been inclined to agree. But as soon as I unlocked the first Dual Tech, everything suddenly began to click. The rest of the playthrough flew by and I was left astoundingly impressed by the entire experience. Yet somehow, that reviewer was also right in their critique of Chrono Trigger.
The most apt comparison I can make to Chrono Trigger is, interestingly enough, 'fundies' characters from fighting games. See, 'fundies' characters tend to have very simplistic movesets and techniques that make them easily approachable by newcomers. These characters also serve an ulterior purpose - they allow players to gradually grasp the fundamental aspects of a fighting game and develop their skills in all the core mechanics incentivised by the game. The skill floor for 'fundies' characters is just low enough that anyone can pick them up and play expertly with them in a short period.
That same philosophy can also be applied to Chrono Trigger, as weird as it is to say.
The 'Dream Team' made Chrono Trigger a simple RPG at its core. It has all of its foundations and fundamentals set in stone, most of them being general key elements present in most RPGs - setting, story, gameplay, and obviously the soundtrack and graphics. What makes the game stick out amongst its peers, however, is the fact that it was developed with not just dedication and heart, but professional expertise. Its world is so minimalistic it can be considered a sandbox standing amongst its more advanced siblings from the Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy series, yet every landmark and timeline is crafted with so much expertise that it sticks out more to casual players. Throughout your playthrough of the game you'll mostly end up listening to the same few tracks, especially the battle theme, but they're all so expertly composed that the soundtrack continues lingering in your mind - in a positive manner. The story is rather simple for RPG standards, especially in contrast to the grandiose tales told in the Final Fantasy games, yet is handled with utmost care and polish that the time travelling somehow leaves no plot holes whatsoever within the narrative. Everything is seamless and feels natural, further backed by tightly paced sequencing and a forgiving and respectful attitude towards the target audience's time. The strategies and gameplay loop stay consistent throughout the experience, never once throwing random curveballs at unsuspecting newcomers (except Son of the Sun, I'm looking at you you RNG ass boss fight); and while they are indeed simplistic, have a strong basis to build upon, with the implementation of Techs providing veteran RPG players fancy toys to tinker around with. The biggest and strongest standout of my Chrono Trigger experience, however, was easily its expertly designed spritework. Hands-down some of the most expressive, fluid and drop-dead stunning spritework and graphics from 16-bit hardware, and I mean that full-heartedly.
Chrono Trigger is simple, yes, but simplicity isn't necessarily a bad thing. In fact, its this simplicity that I believe has earned Chrono Trigger its widespread acclaim. The game itself is rather easy compared to its more technically advanced siblings, but I believe that's why so many people have fond memories of it, owing to its difficulty making it much more approachable as an RPG. In some ways, one can view Chrono Trigger as a phenomenal introductory medium into the genre, as its simplicity simply entices the gaming audience to experiment with their interest towards RPG as a whole. It's easily accessible mechanics and basic implementation of the Active Time Battle system serve as the perfect groundwork for newcomers to delve within, and ease them into more challenging titles in the future.
Speaking of the ATB system, while most of my writings may infer that Chrono Trigger is a game that relies solely on its strong fundamentals, but that is far from the truth. Chrono Trigger is also innovative: not only did it help popularise Square's modus operanti - the Active Time Battle system, as well as the concept of New Game+, but it also proved that a game revolving around time-travelling as part of its core narrative can be executed properly without the caveats and risks that come with it (COUGH COUGH SONIC 06). In fact, New Game+ further increases the replayability of Chrono Trigger compared to most RPGs at the time, since players are not only encouraged to experiment with different characters or different strategies, but also different pathways to reach the 12 different endings that are achievable through various means.
I do hold one specific criticism towards Chrono Trigger, though - while it does execute whatever character interactions they include in the game well, what we have overall is slightly lacking, honestly. Magus, in particular, feels like an afterthought despite his great backstory and integral role in the game's biggest twist, his addition to the party feels too late. The game also doesn't capitalise on the potential of Frog and Magus being on the same side, with the two barely sharing any character interactions. I brought Ayla to the primal dancing area of the festival, only to be disappointed by her lack of reaction towards her culture being preserved or perhaps even disapproval at the shallow replication of her culture. Chrono Trigger is clearly capable of stuff like this - Marle actively reacts to Crono's antics whenever you participate in a game at the festival, and even has a unique conversation exclusive to her when Queen Leene is rescued, so its a bit of a let-down, to say the least.
However, for the game that alongside Final Fantasy VII, redefined and popularised RPG in the faces of the media, it feels like I'm asking for a cherry on top of a wedding cake. Chrono Trigger is comfort food - its easy to dig into, have a good time with, and leave with a smile on your face. It's simplicity is complemented by the expertise of the hands that carefully unleashed it onto the world, and much like the characters its story dictates, transcends eras and time itself.
Final score: 10/10
Focus: How Chrono Trigger's simplicity is enhanced by expertly handled game design
Theme: Simplicity & Expertise
One popular review on Backloggd cited disinterest towards Chrono Trigger due to its overly simplified mechanics. That review weighed heavily on the back of my mind as I began my own playthrough of the game, and initially, I would've been inclined to agree. But as soon as I unlocked the first Dual Tech, everything suddenly began to click. The rest of the playthrough flew by and I was left astoundingly impressed by the entire experience. Yet somehow, that reviewer was also right in their critique of Chrono Trigger.
The most apt comparison I can make to Chrono Trigger is, interestingly enough, 'fundies' characters from fighting games. See, 'fundies' characters tend to have very simplistic movesets and techniques that make them easily approachable by newcomers. These characters also serve an ulterior purpose - they allow players to gradually grasp the fundamental aspects of a fighting game and develop their skills in all the core mechanics incentivised by the game. The skill floor for 'fundies' characters is just low enough that anyone can pick them up and play expertly with them in a short period.
That same philosophy can also be applied to Chrono Trigger, as weird as it is to say.
The 'Dream Team' made Chrono Trigger a simple RPG at its core. It has all of its foundations and fundamentals set in stone, most of them being general key elements present in most RPGs - setting, story, gameplay, and obviously the soundtrack and graphics. What makes the game stick out amongst its peers, however, is the fact that it was developed with not just dedication and heart, but professional expertise. Its world is so minimalistic it can be considered a sandbox standing amongst its more advanced siblings from the Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy series, yet every landmark and timeline is crafted with so much expertise that it sticks out more to casual players. Throughout your playthrough of the game you'll mostly end up listening to the same few tracks, especially the battle theme, but they're all so expertly composed that the soundtrack continues lingering in your mind - in a positive manner. The story is rather simple for RPG standards, especially in contrast to the grandiose tales told in the Final Fantasy games, yet is handled with utmost care and polish that the time travelling somehow leaves no plot holes whatsoever within the narrative. Everything is seamless and feels natural, further backed by tightly paced sequencing and a forgiving and respectful attitude towards the target audience's time. The strategies and gameplay loop stay consistent throughout the experience, never once throwing random curveballs at unsuspecting newcomers (except Son of the Sun, I'm looking at you you RNG ass boss fight); and while they are indeed simplistic, have a strong basis to build upon, with the implementation of Techs providing veteran RPG players fancy toys to tinker around with. The biggest and strongest standout of my Chrono Trigger experience, however, was easily its expertly designed spritework. Hands-down some of the most expressive, fluid and drop-dead stunning spritework and graphics from 16-bit hardware, and I mean that full-heartedly.
Chrono Trigger is simple, yes, but simplicity isn't necessarily a bad thing. In fact, its this simplicity that I believe has earned Chrono Trigger its widespread acclaim. The game itself is rather easy compared to its more technically advanced siblings, but I believe that's why so many people have fond memories of it, owing to its difficulty making it much more approachable as an RPG. In some ways, one can view Chrono Trigger as a phenomenal introductory medium into the genre, as its simplicity simply entices the gaming audience to experiment with their interest towards RPG as a whole. It's easily accessible mechanics and basic implementation of the Active Time Battle system serve as the perfect groundwork for newcomers to delve within, and ease them into more challenging titles in the future.
Speaking of the ATB system, while most of my writings may infer that Chrono Trigger is a game that relies solely on its strong fundamentals, but that is far from the truth. Chrono Trigger is also innovative: not only did it help popularise Square's modus operanti - the Active Time Battle system, as well as the concept of New Game+, but it also proved that a game revolving around time-travelling as part of its core narrative can be executed properly without the caveats and risks that come with it (COUGH COUGH SONIC 06). In fact, New Game+ further increases the replayability of Chrono Trigger compared to most RPGs at the time, since players are not only encouraged to experiment with different characters or different strategies, but also different pathways to reach the 12 different endings that are achievable through various means.
I do hold one specific criticism towards Chrono Trigger, though - while it does execute whatever character interactions they include in the game well, what we have overall is slightly lacking, honestly. Magus, in particular, feels like an afterthought despite his great backstory and integral role in the game's biggest twist, his addition to the party feels too late. The game also doesn't capitalise on the potential of Frog and Magus being on the same side, with the two barely sharing any character interactions. I brought Ayla to the primal dancing area of the festival, only to be disappointed by her lack of reaction towards her culture being preserved or perhaps even disapproval at the shallow replication of her culture. Chrono Trigger is clearly capable of stuff like this - Marle actively reacts to Crono's antics whenever you participate in a game at the festival, and even has a unique conversation exclusive to her when Queen Leene is rescued, so its a bit of a let-down, to say the least.
However, for the game that alongside Final Fantasy VII, redefined and popularised RPG in the faces of the media, it feels like I'm asking for a cherry on top of a wedding cake. Chrono Trigger is comfort food - its easy to dig into, have a good time with, and leave with a smile on your face. It's simplicity is complemented by the expertise of the hands that carefully unleashed it onto the world, and much like the characters its story dictates, transcends eras and time itself.
Final score: 10/10
Focus: How Chrono Trigger's simplicity is enhanced by expertly handled game design
Theme: Simplicity & Expertise
2002
When Ciel resurrects Zero in that abandoned underground laboratory, her circumstances are at their most dire.
The dwindling population of reploids live under the threat of immediate genocide they remain powerless to impede; a massive energy shortage crisis looms in the horizon, promising to bring about mass apocalypse. Heck, right before Zero awakens, Ciel can do nothing but watch as her lapse of judgment continues to befell her, as all her companions are mercilessly slaughtered, slayed and sacrificed before her eyes, leaving her as the last one standing. Zero is quite literally her last hope at achieving world peace.
When Zero offers assistance towards Ciel's plight, the situation is far, far worse than one might think.
The resistance base is restrictive and compact; the rebellion's continuously failing efforts to fight back against the constant onslaught of vicious enemy assault have shrunken their numbers and their territory. They are constricted, trapped, and foolishly stepping foot outside the borderlines of the base practically guarantees instant death. This gives the base and its surrounding areas where missions take place a sense of connection, establishing the connective tissue that forms Mega Man Zero's worldbuilding. It's fittingly small in size to encompass the dire situation and lack of breathing room faced by the resistance, emphasising the importance of Zero's mission - should he fail, even this morsel of ground the resistance occupies will crumble underneath the tremendous pressure.
When Zero emerges from a century of cryogenic sleep without the memories of his past, its almost as if a toddler was plunged into a battle against trained soldiers.
At the beginning of Mega Man Zero, Zero is seemingly just as powerless as the Reploids he's tasked with defending. Every slash of the saber is heaved with mounds of great effort, and every bullet of the buster feels as if they barely leave a dent against the powerful adversaries Zero faces. This induces a sense of brutality within the gameplay, as every enemy is relentless and unforgiving, and every boss fight serves as an immovable barricade. This game wants you to feel the struggle the resistance is coping with in their uphill battle, and that is evident in how difficult this game is compared to every other entry in the series.
However, with every small victory Zero and the player steal from the jaws of defeat, the paradigm of the war begins to shift in the resistance's favour ever so slightly.
The previously barren corridors of the resistance base slowly grows in numbers as Zero saves each and every one of them from peril, providing a sense of accomplishment and proving your efforts weren't meaningless. But more importantly, every successful mission gradually imbues a glimmer of hope - Zero's abilities and swordsmanship gradually return to him as the game progresses, and soon enough, he's the unstoppable force that legends spoke of, a shining beacon of hope that is pivotal to the growing numbers of the resistance. Previously daunting obstacles are now taken care of in a few slashes, and the bosses that once terrified you are now seen as a fair challenge. Still an arduous task that requires great hardship and sheer will to overcome, but one that can be handled painlessly if the player has mastered the gameplay loop of Mega Man Zero. Combined with the fluidity of Zero's movement and the satisfaction of executing masterful slashes against the incoming horde of enemies, the latter half of the game injects a subtle feel-good factor within the player. Just like the resistance, they will begin to believe that maybe, just maybe, they can fully overcome the harrowing obstacles laid before them and emerge victorious.
Even when Zero finally infiltrates Neo Arcadia and deals the critical slash that eliminates the threat of Copy X, victory is yet to be ascertain - the looming threat the energy shortage crisis still dances dangerously on the brink, and while the resistance can rest easy for the moment, they still have the rest of the world to reclaim from the oppression of Neo Arcadia. With Zero leading the charge, though, they have someone to look towards.
Total victory may be far off reach for now; but the resistance are slowly beginning to fight back.
This shit is better than Sonic Forces and it's not even close LMAO
Final score: 8/10
Focus: The overall tone of Mega Man Zero and how it complements the narrative and difficulty of the gameplay.
The dwindling population of reploids live under the threat of immediate genocide they remain powerless to impede; a massive energy shortage crisis looms in the horizon, promising to bring about mass apocalypse. Heck, right before Zero awakens, Ciel can do nothing but watch as her lapse of judgment continues to befell her, as all her companions are mercilessly slaughtered, slayed and sacrificed before her eyes, leaving her as the last one standing. Zero is quite literally her last hope at achieving world peace.
When Zero offers assistance towards Ciel's plight, the situation is far, far worse than one might think.
The resistance base is restrictive and compact; the rebellion's continuously failing efforts to fight back against the constant onslaught of vicious enemy assault have shrunken their numbers and their territory. They are constricted, trapped, and foolishly stepping foot outside the borderlines of the base practically guarantees instant death. This gives the base and its surrounding areas where missions take place a sense of connection, establishing the connective tissue that forms Mega Man Zero's worldbuilding. It's fittingly small in size to encompass the dire situation and lack of breathing room faced by the resistance, emphasising the importance of Zero's mission - should he fail, even this morsel of ground the resistance occupies will crumble underneath the tremendous pressure.
When Zero emerges from a century of cryogenic sleep without the memories of his past, its almost as if a toddler was plunged into a battle against trained soldiers.
At the beginning of Mega Man Zero, Zero is seemingly just as powerless as the Reploids he's tasked with defending. Every slash of the saber is heaved with mounds of great effort, and every bullet of the buster feels as if they barely leave a dent against the powerful adversaries Zero faces. This induces a sense of brutality within the gameplay, as every enemy is relentless and unforgiving, and every boss fight serves as an immovable barricade. This game wants you to feel the struggle the resistance is coping with in their uphill battle, and that is evident in how difficult this game is compared to every other entry in the series.
However, with every small victory Zero and the player steal from the jaws of defeat, the paradigm of the war begins to shift in the resistance's favour ever so slightly.
The previously barren corridors of the resistance base slowly grows in numbers as Zero saves each and every one of them from peril, providing a sense of accomplishment and proving your efforts weren't meaningless. But more importantly, every successful mission gradually imbues a glimmer of hope - Zero's abilities and swordsmanship gradually return to him as the game progresses, and soon enough, he's the unstoppable force that legends spoke of, a shining beacon of hope that is pivotal to the growing numbers of the resistance. Previously daunting obstacles are now taken care of in a few slashes, and the bosses that once terrified you are now seen as a fair challenge. Still an arduous task that requires great hardship and sheer will to overcome, but one that can be handled painlessly if the player has mastered the gameplay loop of Mega Man Zero. Combined with the fluidity of Zero's movement and the satisfaction of executing masterful slashes against the incoming horde of enemies, the latter half of the game injects a subtle feel-good factor within the player. Just like the resistance, they will begin to believe that maybe, just maybe, they can fully overcome the harrowing obstacles laid before them and emerge victorious.
Even when Zero finally infiltrates Neo Arcadia and deals the critical slash that eliminates the threat of Copy X, victory is yet to be ascertain - the looming threat the energy shortage crisis still dances dangerously on the brink, and while the resistance can rest easy for the moment, they still have the rest of the world to reclaim from the oppression of Neo Arcadia. With Zero leading the charge, though, they have someone to look towards.
Total victory may be far off reach for now; but the resistance are slowly beginning to fight back.
This shit is better than Sonic Forces and it's not even close LMAO
Final score: 8/10
Focus: The overall tone of Mega Man Zero and how it complements the narrative and difficulty of the gameplay.
1994
So according to the manual, Pulseman the character only exists because a scientist got so horny for a literal e-girl that he digitised himself so he could bang her.
90s Japan was wiiiiiiiiild-
Pulseman's game design is especially interesting to me - its visual style effectively harmonises both reality and cyberspace as you flip-flop your way past this dazzling palette of vibrant colours that aims to stimulate your brain at every given moment. The backgrounds are astonishingly filled to the brim with detail, with the external environments depicting bright, colourful casinos and skylines, as well as glittering coral caves; while the digital environments have a more abstract feel to them, sometimes depicting a trippy rotating group of trees, and sometimes just displays eerie, pitch black environments occasionally illuminated by abstract shapes that constantly shift in hues. Towards the end of the game, Pulseman really leans into its futuristic, cyberspace aesthetic by thrusting you into the setting of a video game (complete with a credit count!), and then the constantly flickering coloured scanlines of a CRT, and finally plunges you into an area consisting of nothing but pure static at the beginning of the final fight.
Even the level design does a great job distinguishing the blend of synthetic and natural environments, with real environments utilising real objects with uneven terrain and things such as cameras, tree branches and cacti that you can platform on. These areas encourage players to use Pulseman's natural speed and jump to reach the goal.
On the other hand, cyberspace areas take advantage of, well, artificial terrain, with the level design being incredibly blocky and rigid, standardised as a digitalised setting would realistically feel. In these areas, players are instead incentivised to interact with their environment using all of Pulseman's artificial Voltteccer attack to traverse the narrow mazes scattered throughout the digital landscape. This sort of synchronised game design is a sight for sore eyes in modern gaming, especially with Pokemon, so to see Game Freak pull it off in 1994 is particularly astounding.
Of course, this being a 90s platformer, players can always opt to forgo the thematic significance of Pulseman's moveset and instead learn to master the surprisingly intricate mechanics laid within. By double-tapping the left/right directional keys, Pulseman does a dash forwards. More important than the dash itself is the pulse charge that is generated from it, allowing players to immediately get off a Slash Arrow or Voltteccer as soon as their dash animation ends. This little quirk allows for a significant amount of movement optimisation, giving players the chance to think outside the box and find opportunities to use their dashes and Voltteccers optimally to beat the level in the most stylish, fastest way possible. Much like the classic Sonic games, Pulseman movement has a low skill floor and a high skill ceiling, making full mastery of the game's ins and outs satisfactory.
However, while the game's visuals push the boundaries of the Genesis' hardware, perhaps it was a bit too ambitious for its own good. I'm not sure if its just my emulator, but I noticed a concerning number of frame drops throughout my playthrough when a lot is happening on the screen, which alongside the fact that I can accidentally clip through certain assets (mainly the gears in the Thailand level) tells me that the game could've used a bit more polish.
Between this and Drill Dozer, I find it extremely disappointing how Game Freak now chooses to churn out shitty quality Pokemon games on a yearly basis rather than actual good games. We may never get a game like Pulseman ever again, but honestly? I'm perfectly content with that.
Final score: 9/10
(Partial) Focus: The synchronicity between reality and digital environments in Pulseman's visual design, level design and movement.
90s Japan was wiiiiiiiiild-
Pulseman's game design is especially interesting to me - its visual style effectively harmonises both reality and cyberspace as you flip-flop your way past this dazzling palette of vibrant colours that aims to stimulate your brain at every given moment. The backgrounds are astonishingly filled to the brim with detail, with the external environments depicting bright, colourful casinos and skylines, as well as glittering coral caves; while the digital environments have a more abstract feel to them, sometimes depicting a trippy rotating group of trees, and sometimes just displays eerie, pitch black environments occasionally illuminated by abstract shapes that constantly shift in hues. Towards the end of the game, Pulseman really leans into its futuristic, cyberspace aesthetic by thrusting you into the setting of a video game (complete with a credit count!), and then the constantly flickering coloured scanlines of a CRT, and finally plunges you into an area consisting of nothing but pure static at the beginning of the final fight.
Even the level design does a great job distinguishing the blend of synthetic and natural environments, with real environments utilising real objects with uneven terrain and things such as cameras, tree branches and cacti that you can platform on. These areas encourage players to use Pulseman's natural speed and jump to reach the goal.
On the other hand, cyberspace areas take advantage of, well, artificial terrain, with the level design being incredibly blocky and rigid, standardised as a digitalised setting would realistically feel. In these areas, players are instead incentivised to interact with their environment using all of Pulseman's artificial Voltteccer attack to traverse the narrow mazes scattered throughout the digital landscape. This sort of synchronised game design is a sight for sore eyes in modern gaming, especially with Pokemon, so to see Game Freak pull it off in 1994 is particularly astounding.
Of course, this being a 90s platformer, players can always opt to forgo the thematic significance of Pulseman's moveset and instead learn to master the surprisingly intricate mechanics laid within. By double-tapping the left/right directional keys, Pulseman does a dash forwards. More important than the dash itself is the pulse charge that is generated from it, allowing players to immediately get off a Slash Arrow or Voltteccer as soon as their dash animation ends. This little quirk allows for a significant amount of movement optimisation, giving players the chance to think outside the box and find opportunities to use their dashes and Voltteccers optimally to beat the level in the most stylish, fastest way possible. Much like the classic Sonic games, Pulseman movement has a low skill floor and a high skill ceiling, making full mastery of the game's ins and outs satisfactory.
However, while the game's visuals push the boundaries of the Genesis' hardware, perhaps it was a bit too ambitious for its own good. I'm not sure if its just my emulator, but I noticed a concerning number of frame drops throughout my playthrough when a lot is happening on the screen, which alongside the fact that I can accidentally clip through certain assets (mainly the gears in the Thailand level) tells me that the game could've used a bit more polish.
Between this and Drill Dozer, I find it extremely disappointing how Game Freak now chooses to churn out shitty quality Pokemon games on a yearly basis rather than actual good games. We may never get a game like Pulseman ever again, but honestly? I'm perfectly content with that.
Final score: 9/10
(Partial) Focus: The synchronicity between reality and digital environments in Pulseman's visual design, level design and movement.
2002
It should come to no one's surprise that Metroid Fusion, a game where Samus Aran fights a horde of parasitical organisms, conveys the themes of symbiosis spectacularly.
Parasitism is often defined as a symbiotic relationship where one party benefits, while the other is harmed. This theme is ever-present throughout the entire game, with the most obvious example being Samus' X infection that nearly costs her life.
But then there's the more subtle instances of parasitism - and one of them is the very game itself. It's been discussed to death how Metroid Fusion swings its unprecedented linear level design to its favour, by rivalling Metroid II's atmosphere, albeit to a larger extreme. Without her Varia Suit Samus takes higher damage from hits, and yet it is those same monsters that produce the parasites that she requires to restore her health. Samus benefits, the monsters are harmed. Parasitism. This sense of vulnerability is akin to the feeling of not knowing when a Metroid is going to show up the last time you were here - but this time, it's far, far worse. The enemies are much more hostile and threatening, and the linear design ends up dragging you through these sub-stations against your will. For the first time in Metroid, the true narrative of the game isn't that the monsters are stuck with you, moreso the inverse -
You're stuck with the monsters. And there's no escape until you get the job done.
Speaking of the job, Federation constantly jostles and orders Samus around the BSL station, leaving Samus to risk her life constantly while they sit back and collect data for their own selfish gains. Federation benefits, Samus is harmed. Parasitism. The Federation are also incredibly stingy with their map distribution, with most sub-sections having almost half the map hidden away for one to explore. And yet, this works in the favour of Metroid Fusion, because it ends up compensating for the linear level design by providing the player with much more secrets to discover within the levels.
All of these instances of parasitism also incidentally results in an unforeseen consequence - the loss of Samus' freedom and agency. For the most part. This is pretty self-explanatory, with Samus no longer having the license to roam a planet at free will and pick up hidden items whenever she wants to. There is only one chartered course from start to finish, and if Samus breaks order by any means, the superior authorities that bind her tighten the rope.
However, there is one thing that shines through within the bleak themes of parasitism - Samus' compassion. That same compassion that made her spare the Metroid hatchling's life, which ended up being the main reason she lives to experience the events of Fusion. Samus survives, and its because she helped that Metroid survive. That same compassion also made her spare the endangered animals in the habitation deck, despite them not being the human survivors she was tasked with searching for. And it's those animals that end up saving Samus' life when she's facing the brink of death. Samus survives once more, and the animals are saved, too. Both of these acts of kindness fall under this specific term:
Mutualism. The symbiotic relationship in which both parties benefit from one another.
By the end of the game, Samus is practically back to her prime (pun intended), and while in some cases this might be a cop-out in comparison to the bleak, horror-esque atmosphere the game had fostered before that, it feels more than justified. That's because when Samus sends BLS Station on a crash course with SR388, she regains her agency, doing the right thing and finally going against Federation orders to annihilate the X parasite. By doing so, she finally breaks away from the absurdly unfair odds stacked against her by both the station and the authorities.
Freedom at last.
Final score: 9.5/10
Focus: How Metroid Fusion explores the themes of parasitism... and mutualism.
Theme: Symbiotic relationships.
Parasitism is often defined as a symbiotic relationship where one party benefits, while the other is harmed. This theme is ever-present throughout the entire game, with the most obvious example being Samus' X infection that nearly costs her life.
But then there's the more subtle instances of parasitism - and one of them is the very game itself. It's been discussed to death how Metroid Fusion swings its unprecedented linear level design to its favour, by rivalling Metroid II's atmosphere, albeit to a larger extreme. Without her Varia Suit Samus takes higher damage from hits, and yet it is those same monsters that produce the parasites that she requires to restore her health. Samus benefits, the monsters are harmed. Parasitism. This sense of vulnerability is akin to the feeling of not knowing when a Metroid is going to show up the last time you were here - but this time, it's far, far worse. The enemies are much more hostile and threatening, and the linear design ends up dragging you through these sub-stations against your will. For the first time in Metroid, the true narrative of the game isn't that the monsters are stuck with you, moreso the inverse -
You're stuck with the monsters. And there's no escape until you get the job done.
Speaking of the job, Federation constantly jostles and orders Samus around the BSL station, leaving Samus to risk her life constantly while they sit back and collect data for their own selfish gains. Federation benefits, Samus is harmed. Parasitism. The Federation are also incredibly stingy with their map distribution, with most sub-sections having almost half the map hidden away for one to explore. And yet, this works in the favour of Metroid Fusion, because it ends up compensating for the linear level design by providing the player with much more secrets to discover within the levels.
All of these instances of parasitism also incidentally results in an unforeseen consequence - the loss of Samus' freedom and agency. For the most part. This is pretty self-explanatory, with Samus no longer having the license to roam a planet at free will and pick up hidden items whenever she wants to. There is only one chartered course from start to finish, and if Samus breaks order by any means, the superior authorities that bind her tighten the rope.
However, there is one thing that shines through within the bleak themes of parasitism - Samus' compassion. That same compassion that made her spare the Metroid hatchling's life, which ended up being the main reason she lives to experience the events of Fusion. Samus survives, and its because she helped that Metroid survive. That same compassion also made her spare the endangered animals in the habitation deck, despite them not being the human survivors she was tasked with searching for. And it's those animals that end up saving Samus' life when she's facing the brink of death. Samus survives once more, and the animals are saved, too. Both of these acts of kindness fall under this specific term:
Mutualism. The symbiotic relationship in which both parties benefit from one another.
By the end of the game, Samus is practically back to her prime (pun intended), and while in some cases this might be a cop-out in comparison to the bleak, horror-esque atmosphere the game had fostered before that, it feels more than justified. That's because when Samus sends BLS Station on a crash course with SR388, she regains her agency, doing the right thing and finally going against Federation orders to annihilate the X parasite. By doing so, she finally breaks away from the absurdly unfair odds stacked against her by both the station and the authorities.
Freedom at last.
Final score: 9.5/10
Focus: How Metroid Fusion explores the themes of parasitism... and mutualism.
Theme: Symbiotic relationships.