I love the UI, I love the art style, I love every level's visuals, and every song I heard was a amazing. It all combines into placing this game into my list of favourite game aesthetics. Most of the levels are actually really fun, and I think the team system opens up a lot for playing through the levels. Team Shadow was probably the best one to play because their levels had a lot of options and high skill actions to perform to feel cool. I enjoyed Team Chaotix more than I thought it would, it was a fun (other) way to play. Team Rose was kind of lame because of the baby levels, and Team Sonic was good, just plain.

Upon replaying this the first time since childhood though I have seen so many fucking cracks in this game its insane. I didn't even really beat the game because I got stuck on something in every campaign. Team Sonic was the weird trial thing in Mystic Mansion where it wants you to Homing Attack ghosts, but Homing Attack just feels broken in this game and doesn't work (or you aren't level enough so you dont one shot the enemies). Team Shadow was the Mystic Mansion boss fight because its like 7 minutes straight of wave combat and I died on close to the last wave probably, so I just gave up. Team Rose and Chaotix I stopped at Egg Emperor because that boss can just stop you mid air and you fall and die!

The leveling system is just bad I think, or at least losing all your levels on death. It makes dying feel so fucking bad, like yup, now I've died AND I just have to play the level worse than I was when I hit the checkpoint. I mainly hate it for when there is a Homing Attack route and if you are low level, you won't one shot the enemies, so you get stuck attacking the first one.

Every fucking boss sucks. I dont like chasing down eggman's planes, fighting the other teams doesnt even feels so bad like you arent even doing anything, the wave fights can be fine except some of them are insanely grueling (team shadow in haunted mansion), and the final egg emperor is just straight bullshit.

I was a lot harsher on the actual level designs when I first started, but I think I learned how to actually get do whatever they wanted. However, that doesn't change the Casino levels from basically not having any stuff to let you go fast, its just 70% pinball and 30% short platforming/fighting. I hated rail canyon at first because the rails are way too skinny to land on them, I got the hang of it, but they are still jank as fuck.

I'm also deathly scared of every loop in this game because holding forward on the stick won't guarantee you go forward on the track, you might just run off and die.

Despite the huge gamer rage I got from this game and its huge amounts of bullshit, I still think its really fun to play, and again, killer aesthetic.

I stopped playing Hearthstone after 8 years of playing it, it's problems just kept slowly accruing while the modes they added didn't draw my attention enough. PvE content was basically dead and it didn't seem like they wanted to add more. After that I didn't really want to start another card game because I started Hearthstone from Beta, so I amassed so much shit. I get this feeling with online card games that if I didn't start playing when it launched, I'll just be behind and its not worth it.

Well I did start playing Runeterra a couple months after I quit Hearthstone because I heard the PvE content is fun. And yeah, I can confirm Path of Champions is pretty fun. Takes the baseline of Slay the Spire (so baseline fun), and does its own stuff to spice it up. I started before the big rework, which was honestly more annoying beforehand. Progression was tied to individual champions, which would make it slower. The balance for some of the adventures were also way too hard.
The big rework did make it way more fun. Three tiers of progression (Champion level to upgrade your healthpool/deck/ability to upgrade stuff mid run, General levels to upgrade shops/rerolls/revives, and champion dust or some shit to upgrade an extra passive for specific champs) makes it better to just start from the bottom on new champs. The champion dust is kind of fucked because they are tied to specific champions, its not general dust; so if you max out a champion, you can just keep getting dust for them that you can't do shit with. There are more quests focused on the PvE and there is more story stuff to keep you engaged. I have run through all the content and maxxed out 1 champion and only have weekly/daily quests to keep me playing and I wish there was more endgame because there is only 1 max difficulty adventure. It does have slightly different end bosses, but its 90% the same every run so that sucks. They also said they were gonna shift major focus away from PvE and I don't know from their wording if they were just gonna stop updating it or only have a couple people working on it, but I hope to God they keep updating it.

Besides the Path of Champions, I haven't really engaged with any constructed content, but I will say this game gives you so much free shit its insane. Hearthstone doesn't really give you jack shit, like yeah you can get gold to buy packs, but Runeterra's multiple battlepass system just gives you proportionally more.

So yeah, if you really want a card game rogue like to try out, I recommend this

Update: Shortly after they did the big Path of Champions update they announced that they would also put way less focus on it. I feared that what they released would be it and it wouldn't be updated anymore. Well they just added 4 new champions and ONE new adventure. All the champions in the big update had 2 story adventures unique to them and would give you rewards like any other adventure. These 4 do not have them. They did add a new level 3 difficulty adventure that you can play with any champion, but that still provides me with 8 less reward opportunities. It just really annoys me.

They also updated the game so you can get wild shards to upgrade champions so one of my previous complaints is gone so thats cool.

Im surprised how much I cared about the characters at the end. They all have very good voice acting coupled with endearing/relatable troubles that make them feel grounded. Beffica being a motherfucker who just keeps doing wrong shit and ruining friendships, yeah I get that. The guy who just doesn't want to work a shitty job anymore, marital troubles, realizing you can't do everything by your own force of will, developing belief in yourself, its all so believably written and just made me care about them all. Especially Chandlo and Snorpy, its so refreshing just seeing some gay dudes with no bullshit.

Now for the bugsnax catching, its for the first couple hours, but then I realized some of them are insanely bullshit to catch (im looking at your flaming cheepoof), and just made me immediately stop caring. I don't think too much would be lost if they were simpler to catch, but its whatever, still neat that they are all puzzles.

One day, when they have run out of shit to nostalgia bait us with, they will have to go searching deep. Deep in the ancient ruins of a warehouse in California, a disc will be found, and upon that mighty circular artifact will be the writings of PYST. Knowing that they have landed the jackpot, the Future Media Conglomerate will set off creating the newest hit universe. There will be PYST limited series, PYST movies, and most importantly, PYST video games. They will all stay extremely faithful to the charming 1990's style and will even resurrect John Goodman with AI and CGI! Sadly, it will be a huge flop just as it was in 1996 because the world doesn't want media that shows the utter decay of such a beautiful landscape, mirroring the dystopia they live in. I know, however, that if I was alive in such a time, that I would be clapping my hands and wiggling all 8 of my oversized toes to get my hands on PYST 2: RePyst.

Prototype 2 is pretty much better than P1 in every way. It's combat is better, your bio-weapons actually are effective this time and the enemies are way better to fight (they still have the same issues, but toned the fuck down so its not really bad). The weapons in this are for sure better than P1, but I feel like you will rely on like 2 out of the 5 anyways. The story is actually a story, not insanely better, but it feels more like something is being told. The missions are more varied, they run into their own re-use problems in this but there is still more variety.

However, I don't really think Prototype 2 nails what P1 was going for. It goes its own direction and it was better, but for everything wrong with P1, I missed the promise I felt in it. Running is kind of gimped in P2, you just move much slower comparatively, and have less control on dodge turning, but jumping and gliding is better so shrug. I did like the upgrade system in this game since it requires you hunting down things that would logically evolve your powers, but the problem is they are RNG spawns, and they do not spawn frequently enough (if you wanted to max out everything). I also missed the upgrade system from the first game since it was more like DMC with buying moves with currency. That system sucked in P1 because shit cost too much, but it did allow for more combat moves to be bought; which would be cool if combat was good in P1.

After playing playing both Prototypes, im left wishing for another one with snappy, responsive combat that has a real use for every bio-weapon. I could probably sacrifice the ability to run/jump super fast because I think that kind of limits a lot of the design of this game (even though it is fun).

Prototype is a very good foundation, its just too bad the dev's didn't even get close to utilizing it. The main draw, the evolutionary powers you get, are really neat and would seem fun to use. They are not, they all pretty much suck because the enemies in this game are either fodder, or insane constant hitboxes. A lot of the Minibosses/bosses just punish you for being too close with insane damage AOE's, and guess what, most of your moves are melee based, so why use them? It always just seems better to grab a helicopter, tank, or missile launcher and just shoot at things from a distance. The Devastation moves are also insanely strong, but they are tied to you being full health, which fucking sucks with the enemies I described, or what I'll say in the next paragraph.
Another problem is you are constantly taking damage and there almost no way to avoid this. Trying to heal back health is also way too hard to do. I think you should get I-frames when you are absorbing enemies for health, but you constantly just lose health WHILE you are attempting to regain it.
The final boss is probably the most piece of shit thing I've fought in a while. I literally dont understand how to fight it without grabbing a helicopter that flies around and just shoot at it. The dev's obviously dont want you doing that because they put turrets all around the air carrier you fight on to shoot you down, but they just dont wanna shoot. Dude does way too much damage, leaves no oppurtunties to heal, and damage him with your attacks is impossible. Also he has devastators like you, and the one that has a huge AOE around him can one shot you.

So yeah, I think this game has a really fun base that just got fucked over.

I was having Bethesda brain worms and I was getting pretty desperate to try one of them I haven't played yet, so I tried Daggerfall. Its pretty cool, and I enjoy the sprite characters and 3D enviroments, the combat was something I wanted to do more of. The thing that kind of made me stop was just that I need some drive to do stuff. Its very cool that this game is basically a life simulator and you can just whatever the fuck you want, but I need more incentive.

I also found it kind of hard to just go to a dungeon and do it compared to modern Bethesda games. LIke yeah, I can just go to a dungeon, but the map is huge and I didnt find one super quick so it irked me.