(Edit: they shadow-dropped a balance patch. most stuff on here got fixed but I'll leave the previous comments as a time capsule of sorts)

Fuck me, did we really hurt Sonic Team that bad? The best way I can describe this DLC is sadistic and perplexing

Let's get this out of the way: story was better than its initial ending. Happy ending, some good moments too. I somehow managed to avoid the new Cyberspace levels, so no comment on those. New music fucks hard
Now gameplay wise, fuck this. I gave this game a fair 7.5, 8 at best with all the issues I had with it. This DLC took the parts I hated the most and made them worse. Ouranos is a fucking mess, just floating platforms everywhere with no actual parkour on the ground. And I never minded the pop in initially, but you can't fucking avoid it here. Shit just renders at such a short distance too.
The playable characters. The best part of this update, yet they still have their problems. Amy is great, no issues with me. Knuckles has such a weird glide, he has to do an animation before he actually starts, and the steering is awful. Tails breaks the game as usual, so I like him, but his flight is so weird. You can't change altitude after you start flying. Guess that's why they gave him his plane. Platforming with them is a joke! If you know the game's physics, you can skip so much of the challenge and get to the end easily! Fun, but come on.

The. Fucking. Towers. That's where sadistic comes from. Platforming these fuckers were some of the biggest challenges in my life, and I've done crazier. The platforming is so precise, and the design is so bad. It's just random assets and cubes everywhere. Get to the top, and participate in a challenge. Some were fine, some were evil. I'm looking at you, Snake and Master King. Deadass had to tone it down to Easy mode so that I don't lose my sanity.

And now, the final boss rewrite. Supreme stayed the same!!! No changes whatsoever! The wings he grows in phase 2? Still not there. Unimplemented QTE's that dataminers found? Not used. It fucking sucked dude, they could've gave him a little more care too...
But then comes The End. Holy fuck, that was pretty fun this time... when you know how to sever the cable. I was losing my mind until my friend pulled up a reddit post of people having the same problem. (Punch his head, then dodge. That's how you hit it)

Overall, they fumbled in my eyes. There are positives, but they are far outweighed by the negatives. I liked the story upgrade, but the game was not it. Then again, the initial story wasn't it, but the original Ouranos design was actually fine. Which is why I find this update so perplexing. I just don't know what to think about this DLC other than thank god it's free, and I hope Sonic Team gets actual Yakuza level QA for its next title. This gameplay is a solid foundation that needs its kinks ironed out to be good, but as it stands this is certainly an experiment of a game. I'd still give the whole game a 7.5/10 honestly. Definitely one of the best 3D Sonic games in a while

This version is the best one you can play honestly. You can still play it the classic way (2 weapons, one style), but it officially supporting the Freestyle mod fixed one of my main issues with the game (having one style at a time sucked on some occasions). Having access to all weapons is cool too... sometimes. Mashing your trigger buttons to get the weapon you want in the heat of the battle isn't great. I can't tell you how many times I wanted to use Beowulf only to use Nevan instead...
I still got issues with the base game though. Grinding XP to level up a style sucks, some weapons not having Air Hike is stupid, having to buy Air Hike three times is stupid, the segment of the Arkham boss where you can't DT or use your style because you can control Vergil (who can defend you from the greatest threat known as the air if you don't summon him next to you) sucks, Vergil doesn't feel that good to play (maybe I got spoiled with how well he played in 4 & 5), and Beowulf's boss fight can choke on a traffic light. It's not that good of a game for me, but I still appreciate the impact it had on future games.

It's hard to forget the initial state this game came in, but even then it wasn't a bad time.

Gameplay wise, hit or miss. I like the idea of an open world Sonic game where you platform for collectibles, but the game cheats so much by making over 85% of the platforming in the air. Very little parkour happens on the ground, making the open worlds more of a ground floor if you fall than anything. Puts your reflexes to the test though, and the 2nd update introducing the new Koco challenges were a great time. Visually beautiful, but it's hard to appreciate them.
Combat? Needs some work. It's not bad per-say, but I never liked games where you have ALL of your special attacks available. They could've taken a page from Yakuza's book and made some sort of heat bar to limit some attacks, because combat is really not fluid when you can use any attack at any given time. The boss fights though?? Holy. Shit. I'm scared Sonic Team might've peaked too quick lmao.
Cyberspace sucks. We all agree on that. Recycling level layouts suck, and not all of them worked with this Sonic's controls. Levels from the Adventure games worked great, but Boost Era games? Horrendous. And the 2D levels? God, no. Stop with the 2D, or at least do it like in the Boost Era games. Music is pretty damn good though
Story? Pretty good, up until the climax. The rush to ship out the game shows around that area, and it really sucks. I loved the character work, don't like how Eggman's stuff is relegated to audio logs that you need to fish for Big to give them to you... I'm definitely gonna add more thoughts once Update 3 drops, maybe the story will be better

This game has its flaws. Many so. But it's a good time nonetheless, and for goodness sake it's playable start to finish. No Forces shit anymore. The new updates made the game even more fun than it should be. Should its contents have been at launch instead of actively fixing the game after release? Oh totally, but it at least shows us they care and want to make amends. Even the director of the game admitted that they wouldn't have made the updates if Sega didn't see success in it. So just blame Sega for not having much faith in Sonic anymore. God forbid a Sonic game gets the same amount of quality and care as a Yakuza game.

Time to upset the Super Metroid dickriders by saying this is my favorite 2D Metroid. Period. (Still doesn't beat Prime 1 as favorite of the series for me though)

What an adventure. A great story if you're a long time fan, and some great gameplay to boot. The game's exploration has a perfect balance of Super's cryptic exploration and Zero Mission's', and Samus is so buttery smooth to control. EMMIs put me on edge much more than the SA-X did, so good job Mercury Steam. My hands did become pretzels on many occasions when in boss fights, but holy does the final boss go hard. It might be my favorite boss fight in a video game ever?
Only real complaint is the music, apart from the final boss, didn't strike me in any way. I remember more of Fusion's soundtrack than this one's. Also, the obligatory water sections without the gravity suit could go fuck themselves. And an extra fuck you to whoever put water to slow you down from the Speed Booster EMMI

So uh I won't comment on the cesspool that is the Multiplayer of this game, I never played Halo for that

Campaign was solid, I like the open world structure of it (albeit it felt very short?) , story was okay, music was okay. I've always liked a human Chief, and this game has a good balance between that and badass. Other characters were kinda one-note. I feel this gameplay is a solid foundation for the future, just make it last longer

Oh boy, playing this campaign in multiplayer tho. Here's a list of bugs and such me and my friend encountered:
- Spartan Cores were not getting added to my count unless my friend left the game
- Several cases of inability to switch between abilities unless we died
- One Outpost failed to load, we could just walk about until we restarted the game
- Loading screen splash screen didn't appear once, so we got to see the world and textures load in real time
- Several instances of my friend not seeing his player model, weapons and grapple were basically floating
- Completed the first part of the final mission so fast we softlocked ourselves
- Poorly timed achievements
It's a mess, but it's playable

"Hideaki Itsuno had the goal for this installment to be his best work". Well good fucking job mate!

After marathoning the series, DMC5 was an incredible way to cap it off (for now at least). What a game this was. From story, to gameplay, it was all great.
Story was actually interesting this time around? It was predictable, more so if you binged the series like I did, but the character work was fantastic and the ideas the team had were really good. This game is just filled to the brim of fan-service for people who've played all the games beforehand, but I can see why people also say it's a good starting point. Every main character was so fun and interesting to follow, and to play!

Nero was even more fun to play this time! His new Devil Breaker arms added so much more variety to combat, though keeping track of all the arms you can use is a little bit of a hassle. Some were also kinda... there, the Helter Skelter had to be the worst arm for me. And hey, if you don't like the arms, you can always get your Buster back as an arm! Pulling Exceed attacks also felt less strict than DMC4, which made me feel like a god when playing him correctly. His song, Devil Trigger, is such a banger! I had my head bopping the whole time I was in a fight. Its remixes like Tropical Devil and Silver Bullet were also great.

V. Who knew standing around as gameplay would work? Having minions attack for you, but you having to deal the killing blow is a great idea for gameplay, but I definitely needed more time to adjust with him. Keeping track of two minions and yourself is kinda overwhelming sometimes, and making your minions do combos is such a challenge when you're trying to stay alive. Crimson Cloud was probably the weakest song of the bunch for me. Not that it's bad, but it's just my least favorite. Damn did I ever chant the chorus out loud whenever I heard it.

Oh boy, Dante. I can only describe him as a gimmick packed character. His styles all got some sort of good changes to them (infinite dash with Trickster, RG uses DT if you don't hit it correctly) and his weapons have so. many. things. to remember! Balrog? Remember to Ignite the flame! Cavaliere (side note, what kinda shit did they smoke to make a twin chainsaw weapon that turns into a motorcycle too? Cause goddamn dude)? Gear mechanic making your attacks faster! And etc. I felt overwhelmed playing him sometimes, and to quote some comment I read somewhere, "He's comfortable to play if you had three hands". I will remain one of Subhuman's strongest defenders though, his song fucks so hard, and I don't even like death metal! Listen to this segment and tell me you aren't headbanging, I will not believe you

And for the first time, I actually played as Vergil start to finish. My god is he broken fun. Keeping your Concentration gauge by playing in a Vergil-like manner is really fun, and all his weapons are so fun to use. Gotta hand it to him for keeping the same style of fighting after 3 games. Dante sells the Beowulf? Get that shit back! Dante holds the Sparda sword, which was the Force Edge? Make a spectral copy of it! And I don't need to mention how good Bury The Light is, we all know this by now.

What a great end to this marathon I did. Can't wait for the future of the series, if this game is the standard going forward.

This is the best way to experience the older Prime games. Let me tell you, Primehack + this version? Beautiful

I absolutely enjoyed my time with all Metroid Prime games, with the first one even becoming one of my favorites of all time. Prime 2 really takes a while to get good (and by then you're almost done with the game), and Prime 3 is pretty decent and could've served as a good conclusion to the Prime series.

Alas, Prime 4 is still (hopefully) cooking over at Retro, so I'm happy to say that I can now join the bandwagon in waiting for any news to come

Another fun installment in the series. Life did get in the way while I was experiencing this game, so I'll admit that I didn't care about the plot that much. (Not like you were supposed to care)

Nero took me a while to like, in terms of character and playing as him. He's very one note, always trying to save his girlfriend (who is also one note) and didn't make me attached to him. Playing him is fun... when you get the moves you need. His swordplay is nice, trying to time attacks to get an extra kick with the Exceed ability was quite fun. His Buster arm? Goddamn was it ever fun to grab an enemy and smack the fuck out of them, whether it'd be suplexing an angel or giving a beating to a priest. Like DMC3 though, you're pretty much expected to quickly master Nero to not get an ass-kicking. I didn't do so well as him, my ranks being rather low with him for a while.

Dante on the other hand? Holy. I felt right at home with him after playing DMC3, he's just as fun to play (I managed to get A ranks in all of his missions somehow!) and a great character throughout the story. Not a fan of how he backtracks through Nero's missions, it removed some uniqueness he should've had. Playing as him is great, love how his shotgun was a default acquired weapon and I love the style switching mechanic. Didn't use Gunslinger or Royal Guard a lot (if not at all), but I'm so mad at how they nerfed Trickster to only one dash! It caused me to appreciate Swordmaster more though. What I am glad is that you don't have to grind enemies to level up your styles. Someone has to explain to me how the Lucifer works though.

Soundtrack is bopping as fuck. Nero's theme is so damn catchy to listen, and I love how Dante's theme is a remix of his DMC1 battle theme. I loved that game's soundtrack.

And to whoever designed the secret mission challenges: What is wrong with you.