You would think having experienced this game across 3 separate iterations, 4 movies, a (brief) skim through the latter half of the manga, and an unhealthy amount of revisits of the game's strongest moments in the span of 2 months would result in just being sick of what the story has to offer at some point, or at least a temporary burn out and move on to another series for a time. Instead I came out of this even more confident in the feelings FES had already brought out by the time the credits rolled.

I already held Persona 3's story, tone and characters to a higher standard than the other two modern games, with the only real problems I had being the sheer amount of dead time during day and night and the eventual feeling that despite the randomized nature of Tartarus, every visit felt the same. And that wouldn't be a problem if the gameplay loop for the first half of FES is some of the most exhausting shit ever as a result of the fatigue system paired with the nigh incomprehensible AI decisions that disregarded any tactics you employ under certain circumstances. That aside its still hard for me not to recommend FES before or even after playing reload for the sake of noticing the subtle (and not so subtle) differences between the two. The main thing to really consider about Persona 3 Reload is that it is not a remake of OG, FES or Portable; its an amalgamation of every official version of this story that even takes liberties from the movies and the Femc route of Portable. I'd go farther to say that Reload's biggest issue is something brought about by Portable's existence: cutscene direction. While it doesn't hurt the narrative in the long run, I can't help but wonder why these changes had to exist in the first place. The immediate scene that comes to mind is Aigis' resolution in December. Aigis is a character I am completely normal about and totally have not formed a confirmation bias regarding the structure of her character and shared fate with the main character being turned on its head by November into being the most natural and heartwarming relationship between a silent protag and party member in the series. That aside, while her awakening is still fine when it comes to the back and forth between her comrades (I'd even go as far to say her new voice actress kills these scenes and especially her social link), the tone and shot direction of the original is axed in favor of this static conversation on the couch with the most expression being Aigis standing up and sitting down (but eventually smiling so I again I can't fully hate the scene lol). In comparison OG makes use of the cramped setting of the dorm to give this inherently dramatic composition paired with an emotionally distant Aigis who isn't looking any of her teammates in the eyes, all the while holding her wrist close to her chest (something she does in Reload eventually but again the problem is THIS scene specifically), eventually leading to her outright falling to the ground, paralyzed in fear of death, not of her own concern, but because of everybody that has allowed her a chance at life, despite her contradictory existence. Again this point gets across in Reload as well, and at the end of the day this is pretty nitpicky considering how many cutscenes are revamped to give more dynamic expressions and animations for the cast, Strega and the social links especially are noticeably given love in this area, as well as them now being fully voiced for every rank.

Brainrot aside, the gameplay side of Reload is something I was expecting to be more mixed about. Instead I just had a good ass time making stupid ass builds no different from FES and Royal. Of course Reload may be a bit overtuned for the player if you aren't on merciless but like, so was FES if you put in enough time in those tartarus visits. I was especially confused as to the discourse around Nyx's difficulty, which I probably don't have the right to speak on as I was overleveled every time I fought them. Point is I don't see the same problems in the scaling as FES fans do, its all up to your agency to grind in advance to hitting the eventual wall or just saying fuck it and beat your head against every wall until you've gotten past everything on your own terms, a mindset that will most likely be carried on to this games version of The Answer, which day one content aside, I hope is handled well.

The daily sim of these games was always something I'm pretty indifferent to overall, mainly due to how much dead time can build up for the sake of giving the player time to rationalize the situation at hand (October through December). Social links have always been hit or miss in all of these games, Akinari and Aigis being the only ones I could confidently call great in FES, and still honestly believe after accidentally doing a max social link run this playthrough. However, voiced social links through every rank did wonders for characters like Bebe, Yuko, and the party members, especially when paired with platonic routes that alleviate how awkward the transition towards romance is handled in this series, even if Yukari should have enough chemistry with the mc in the main story to negate this, it still ends up not landing for me most of the time personally. Naturally this also means the jealousy system is gone entirely and with it Fuuka is automatically much better for not bricking my save file by October and forcing me to drop two entire social links in fortune and strength like she did in FES. Linked Episodes are also a welcome addition but not really something you can implement naturally without there being prior knowledge of who even is a social link in the main game. Overall an improvement from prior games but can be infinitely expanded upon if Atlus so wishes.

The main story is mostly untouched, outside of the aforementioned changes in direction, and animated cutscenes (and lack thereof in certain places) that pairs with the more familial bond SEES has throughout the game that FES had more than enough time to expand on. Strega is given much more attention, with Chidori specifically getting just a bit more to do with Junpei in her closing moments (disregarding the revival event which I still like) and explicitly mirrors the main character's final moments on Graduation Day, somehow making this entire stretch hit even harder than it did any other time previously.

I'm sure there's much more to mention but I'd just be recounting all of the best moments these games highlight enough in a given playthrough, so I'll just close with the soundtrack honestly containing my favorite tracks in any game I've played so far. Memories of the School was given so much justice to the point it outright surpasses its original composition to me, Color your Night is just peak and nobody should question it, and this game's version of Burn my Dread Last Battle adds a more somber tone from the perspective of the mc alongside the swan song feeling the original gave from the perspective of those that gave him life.

Overall an amazing remake given form by its predecessors, not made for the purpose of replacing any version previous regardless of your opinion on it, but instead made to stand alongside its roots while hopefully paving a new standard for the future games to inevitably not follow up on.

This game is pretty much what Web of Shadows fans think their game is (and if you asked me 2 weeks ago I'd have been no different).

When comparing it to the first game though, Spider-Man 2 lacks the same emotional weight the first game's third act contained, despite the stakes being much higher. Outside of that though, the story and characters that aren't just named Peter Parker are much more consistent and focused than the first, which tried to juggle 6+ villains in the main story and only one of them having the proper development to be remembered in the contents of the game. There's also the ending, which while promising, isn't as satisfying as it could be, and much like Across the Spider-Verse, is kind of the point. But just like that ending its hard to judge the direction taken until the next entry arrives.

Only other gripe is definitely the post game content, or severe lack thereof. Despite the leaps and bounds made for the combat and traversal, despite how much more quality the side missions are while cutting out the fat the first game threw at random, Insomniac seemingly cut way more than intended, leaving post game being way more empty compared to Miles' game, which is rather disappointing, not to mention New Game Plus and Day/Night cycles being absent at launch, though already confirmed for future patches.

Great game for anyone wanting more out of the first two entries, but deserved a few more months of development to surpass the quantity the first game delivered at its base.

As usual I'm just going to be spitballing, but I should make it clear that any game I have under 2 stars is just straight up bad to me. Even with it getting 2 it is just BARELY getting past that point, as to me Shadow is the lowest point this franchise went in every way except polish, because for some reason of all games in the series that one has the least amount of bugs (in terms of 3D games). Outside of that though its just impossible to cook up a tangible reason I would have Shadow over 06 instead of the contrary, but I guess I should actually talk about the game in question, huh?

The story of 06 is something that I'm... admittedly fond of. I say that but Sonic's story is just shit from beginning to end for me, even if his gameplay is the third least bad in the cast. Shadow and Silver's campaigns were pretty fun to sink my teeth into though, and the game somehow delivered my favorite iteration of Shadow in the games thus far. Most of the credit for that goes to Omega and Mephiles though, of whom hard carry whenever they're on screen and it just feels like a waste of time when they aren't. Pacing is definitely the worst problem the story has to offer, and this is most apparent with Sonic/ Silver, who often have downright incomprehensible Point A to Point B transitions, that aren't helped by the (admittedly cool) time travel gimmick in this game. The less I speak of it the better, but the time traveling in this game is possibly the most convoluted shit in any game I've played, and I love it to death. I'd even venture to say this is one of the best 3D Sonic stories in the franchise... but that's not saying much since the best two I can think of are uh, idk probably Unleashed of Frontiers. Black Knight was pretty good if I remember correctly, but story focused Sonic games have rarely worked up to this point, and even past it.

The gameplay speaks for itself: worse Adventure formula with about the same level of automation as SA2 (but not as bad as Shadow because that's impossible until Sonic 4). Its a shame too because I find myself having fun with Shadow, Blaze, and for the most part Sonic for the most part. Even Shadow's stupid vehicle gimmicks are fun despite how broken every section is. It never felt like I was working against the game's with the vehicles outside of White Acropolis. Tails and Omega are fine as well, and the treasure hunting duo are more jank versions of their past selves, but harmless aside from the occasional clipping to a wall. Silver just seems like an afterthought, mainly due to his speed because Jesus Christ why is he that SLOW? I like his psychokinesis too, but what was stopping them from just upping his speed sliders even a little? Amy sucks so I'm gonna ignore her, making for an unremarkable cast, only worse off with the level designs that just aren't built for them. It sucks too because the stages themselves are pretty good, and varied for the most part, which is good to see, its just that half of them don't play well, dependent on which character is being used for that section. For example Sonic is just unplayable in Wave Ocean, like seriously who thought that would work for him as a first stage? But Blaze on the other hand is perfect, kinda like she was the basis for Sonic's movement and arsenal and they just scrapped it midway through and gave it to her instead. Shes less slippery, and easily has the best air control in the entire cast, which is like, required for a platformer. Last but not least are the mach speed sections, and while these are cool in concept, they are waaaay too punishing for how unresponsive the controls are, which lead to the most undeserving deaths in any game I've ever played.

But despite all of that, despite the gimmicks, the automation, that damn ball puzzle, I still can't consider this the worst game in the series. Too many good concepts and enjoyable story beats with Shadow in particular for me to say it is deserving of that judgement. And besides I'd rather the story end with a complete reset here, as the character moments aren't meant to recontextualize the cast in any way, just make their personalities shine more, something I cannot say for Shadow (or most of the series honestly lol). So yeah, this game sucks. But despite that I cannot say my time was wasted. This is a game I can point and laugh at any given moment, and I never found myself bored, more angry or relieved when I got something time consuming done. With Shadow, it all felt hollow, like I was just wasting time because the game said so, aimlessly going stage to stage for an eventual boss encounter that was no different than the last 4 times I played it before. The difference here is that I can explain what went wrong, and that there IS worth in a lot of the problems at hand here, problems and mechanics that would be fully realized and released to the public a decade later with P-06. With Shadow, as much as I can laugh at that story, there isn't anything else I enjoyed or even thought worth salvaging, it truly was doomed from the jump.

What I'm trying to say is that its not THAT bad, but at the same time, it really is THAT bad, y'know?

One would think having this game be their first full experience of a fromsoft title would make it even more encouraging to look back on after finishing the rest the company has to offer. Instead, a year later I'm still stuck wondering what my full thoughts of this game even are. I've already tried writing this multiple times, deleted a previous review before replaying the game the most recent time, so hopefully my thoughts can be put to rest, along with the time I've wasted trying my best to act like I enjoy everything this game has to offer in its final act (until the dlc comes out and hopefully nulls my problems with the game currently).

One of my biggest gripes with Fromsoft is their inability to make dungeons fun, despite the shit ton of rewards given simply for exploring. The opposite can be said for Elden Ring, wherein you have the best designed legacy dungeons to date, with no good loot to compensate for it. Obviously this has to do with the nigh infinite build diversity, however it doesn't change how bad the loot is spread across all dungeons and the open world by extension. For example merchants might as well be pointless outside of rune arcs and stonesword keys, as the buyable armor is often just starting class with little to no perks worth dumping money into. Same goes for the weapons, which makes even less sense to me with how many cool weapons/ ashes of war are locked behind fucking 4% loot drops on the most random enemies possible (i.e Executioner's Greataxe, Halo Scythes, Bandit Curved swords, etc.). It just baffles me how bad this is handled with how good the combat is, in theory at least.

Like all other games in the series, Elden Ring isn't afraid to ask the question "What if we made certain enemy encounters boring?" And like all other games, this situation is present in every level of the game, be it in the form of multiple knights wielding wind and can close the distance to you immediately, while simultaneously making it impossible to escape their frame one wind attack. This extends to bosses like Godrick (who I should mention is still a top 5 boss in this game somehow) who can at any point pause your aggression with the same attack the knights have, even if it is a little slower. This wouldn't and shouldn't be a problem if poise weren't such a huge issue in this game, so big that if it wasn't the most important part about combat for a strength build I would just ignore it because dear god how do you go from sekiro's competence to this. To sum up my problem, a game like Elden Ring requires your reflexes to be at their absolute peak at all times, which is okay, its sort of like meshing sekiro's pattern reading with dark soul's reaction time. It should be a natural evolution of what fromsoft has built up to this point and theoretically results in their most engaging combat system to date. But instead of that, combat is based on how fast you can hit an opponent until they die, and due to the fuck ton of moves every boss has, you will never fully master what they have to offer in all of your runs. You could play for 100 hours and still see a new combo string/ ai response from bosses like Mohg and Malenia (I'll get to her later). Of course that wouldn't be a problem if the player has a coherent and natural way to counter these new moves. The problem is, these bosses aren't built to teach you or test you on what you've learned, but rather a pop quiz that lasts several hours depending on how compatible your build is with the enemy in front of you. In other words: a DPS test.

Now I should stress that every attack in the game COULD be dodged hypothetically, but that means nothing if the attack following it clips you anyway, unless you deliberately try to react to it completely removed from every other attack the boss can string at any given moment. This applies mainly to bosses like margit and his summon sword infinite combo and Radahn's pre-alpha ass hitbox (still a cool fight but the patches haven't made him any more or less good mechanically to me lol). This is ESPECIALLY apparent in every boss during and after Mountaintop of the Giants, as it is the peak of the game's difficulty. Uh but oops looks like fromsoft forgot to turn down the damage modifier after that level and now Farum Azula, Consecrated Snowfield, and the Haligtree are scaled to what feels like ng+2 at the base difficulty. During this point its made apparent fromsoft forgot how to level design and just copy pasted caelid mobs in to mountaintop and snowfields, juxtaposed to farum which does something cool actually, bringing back lone mobs at the very start of the game in the form of the Beastman found in a cave in Limgrave. Oh but don't worry this level still isn't good, here's the 30th crucible knight and some birds with knives on their talons like in Stormveil, wasn't that cool 60 hours ago!!!! Thankfully fromsoft granted us with two cool bosses in Farum, but in two opposite ways. Beast Clergyman/ Maliketh looks annoying to fight and is a treat to learn while Placidusax is the most eye candy fromsoft has every produced but is some of most slow paced slop since DS1. I'm neglecting areas and most bosses in Limgrave, Mountaintop, Caelid, Raya Lucaria, and all of those simply because I couldn't care less after the first playthrough. The first 2/3s of the game become such a cakewalk after first playthrough to the point its almost a void in my mind entirely.

It should come as no surprise that Horah Loux is what I and many other consider to be the peak of this game in difficulty, fairness, and most important of all, fun. I could go on forever about how perfect this boss alone is, from the opening cutscene itself being the most important moment in the entire game to his fucking power bombs in his second phase that instakill you in pretty much every scenario. This fight feels like a mesh of everything fromsoft has done right, while at the same time fixing what they couldn't pre-DS3. His grabs are very well telegraphed, he is highly aggresive but still at a point where punishing him is optimal for any playstyle matching his aggression. His first phase is fine of course, but its just Goldfrey from the first time around through Leyndell, outside of a few changes like a phase 1.5, where he can now create earthquakes at will. All in all, best fight in the game, and one of five bosses I would willingly tangent about in a fromsoft game in the middle of a review (Gael, Midir, Ludwig and Maria being the others, among many other great bosses not immediately coming to mind).

Immediately after this fight is where the game falls apart for me all at once. Radagon was and has been built up from the very first trailer of the game and throughout the course of the game's story itself, and it would make sense to close the game with him, and naturally have a phase 2 incorporate Marika in some way... right? Well Radagon has about 3 phases through the span of his own healthbar, each phase being more boring than the other. The first phase is fine, normal attacks with varying windups like usual, and its made abundantly clear that radagon can close gaps instantly with the swing that carries him across the entire arena basically, not to mention his projectiles he can spam at any point for zoning. Phases 2 and 3 just make this fight unfun with the wrong rng. His attacks are still fine for dodging, and learning how his holy slams worked were pretty fun, the problem comes with his teleports and the mixups paired with it. Radagon can teleport. He can teleport right after a riposte. He can teleport after attacking. He can teleport as a reponse to a jump attack, or any attempt to close distance. HE CAN TELEPORT OUT OF A TELEPORT. There is no way to know Radagon is about to teleport until he initiates it. I am aware of this attack being dodgeable but at the same time there are little to no weaknesses depending on how much fromsoft feels like fucking with you on the given day. This means you must anticipate the attack and play around it instead of interacting with his entire moveset at all times. This isn't fun. I don't think I need to explain why that isn't fun to me so I won't. Instead, how about that final boss huh!

Elden Beast sucks so I'm going to just skip it and talk about Malenia. Surprisingly. Malenia is good actually, start to finish she is somehow one of the more fair Remembrance bosses in the game. Like Radagon, her problem comes in the single form of Waterfowl, which cannot be dodged if locked in an attack animation for even 1 second before she initiates it. There are no other bullshit attacks, so it is just rng until you miraculously brute force a way to dodge it. This isn't my problem with the fight honestly, she is the only demi god in the game that feels like an actual deity in strength, speed and reaction to your attacks, which is because she is a human sized boss, comparable to Maria, Orphan of Kos and Gehrman (I love bb if thats not clear). My problem with Malenia comes with her healing. Seriously I don't understand why this is a thing, it makes no sense for her character and her great rune doesn't even grant the same ability, instead giving you a rally mechanic akin to that of bloodborne or dead cells. A better solution would be to give her a rally mechanic, but a way more potent one that lasts longer than the player's (after getting her great rune). Something like how Thymesia's health bar works but in reverse... if that makes sense. Pretty mixed on this fight but its two hotfixes away from being the best the game has to offer.

This whole thing probably comes off as negative but this is still some of the best this company has to offer, the sales don't lie and for its price it is the best bargain quantity wise in the industry as of right now. Its quality does falter, yes, but it is about the best first attempt at an open world one can ask for.

If it weren't for the disgrace of a video game I have as my only .5 star, Shadow The Hedgehog would probably be the closest game to being the absolute worst I've played to completion. Its 4am when writing this and I could make the argument that this game wasted more of my time than UDG, but that could just be due to how fucking long each route drags on despite only clocking in about an hour after the first couple runs.

This game isn't worth going the extra mile to analyze gameplay or story wise so I'll just summarize my thoughts as best as I possibly can. Story wise, I genuinely think this is the worst the franchise has to offer. The story is so fucking bad that I'm blanking on literally anything to say, as it retreads the worst beats SA2 covers, defeating the point of what that game and Heroes were trying to set up. Instead of this being about Shadow rediscovering himself through those living in the present, of which are his friends(?), we instead have him leaving his past behind him and making good on his promise to Maria (and now Gerald)... AGAIN. Its a waste of time by itself and I'm just describing half of the routes. The Dark side routes are laughably bad as morality choices and spit in the face of every single character involved, but it would be a pretty cool mechanic in a competent game. The idea of siding with the heroes for 90% of the game then switching at the very end to the Black Arms would be hilarious, as long as it meant playing a game that wasn't this. Speaking of the routes, hope you like playing the game 10 times to get the "true ending"! I'm perfectly fine with replaying zones in Sonic games, sometimes even just for an hour straight to familiarize myself with the level in its entirety, but there isn't a single stage in this game that deserves that kind of repeated attention, its just lazy and each level isn't designed for this at all, as these are probably the most linear stages in the series other than Forces. For the gameplay itself, it is quite literally Heroes but even more slippery, thats it. As per the course with Sonic Team games, there's always something unfinished about it to its core, and the reuse of the engine and past level assets are flat out vile. To specify the reuse of engine would be fine but Heroes handling shouldn't be used in anything but that game, as it rarely even worked there either. As far as the gunplay, its not the worst thing ever. There are a lot moments of jank but its one the only new additions to this game that I can say I'm fine with. The other new addition I can say I like is the new english cast. Not much to say as they don't stay very long but this, Sonic X and 06 are probably the worst way to start voicing the characters, as Sega didn't have much in mind for what they wanted them to be. It wasn't until Unleashed where I'd say they hit their stride consistenly, which sucks but such is the enjoyment of mid 2000s voice direction.

So yeah this wasn't fun, and it didn't help that I had no nostalgia of this entry to speak of, something I can't say for most of the other games of this era and going forward. Also I know its not that serious but at the same time, the people who pass this off as just mid or harmless in context of the franchise are part of the problem as to why Sonic had an identity crisis after this point (although Sega is mostly to blame for it obviously, about 75% I'd say).

Redoing this one too because I didn't realize how much different this version of 3&K was compared to its original release or A.I.R. Not too big of a list of complaints for the game itself but the engine used in Origins clearly wasn't finished, which was explained by the devs by the time of the game's release. The momentum is just off in particular moments in Carnival Night and Ice Cap paired with the shit ton of collision issues that might actually be worse than its Genesis counterpart. The new compositions reek of Sega's inability to give developers comfortable working schedules (to the point they just didn't allow the original team to work on the game post launch), mainly because of how easily they could've upscaled the audio of the Prototype soundtracks, instead of just dumping them on entirely different hardware like idiots. But that aside this is still Sonic 3K at its core, and the level design is as rich as it is in every other version that exists. I should also mention that this project was a remake from the ground up, something I wasn't aware of during my initial playthrough, and it is very apparent from the tons of new sprites for Sonic and the animations for cutscenes to bridge the gaps the original couldn't, since Sega wasn't any better on their employees back then either :/. I'd definitely recommend AIR or even just the original release over this but for modern consoles it is competent, and unfortunately the ONLY official way to buy the game for modern hardware, as every other version was delisted when Origins came out, along with the other games in the collection having the same treatment. I hope Sega learns how much they'd gain by just giving their workers time to finish a product, because by all accounts, Sonic Origins as a collection is competent, and the amount of work put in to it is apparent, but it is far from the definitive product it could've been and showed signs of being throughout its runtime.

Accidentally logged the 1993 release instead of this one last time, (not that it would really make a difference) so yeah.

Ok replayed the game going for the good ending and jesus christ did it expose some of the technical problems the game has. The first half of Past generator hunting is actually pretty fun, but everything after Quartz Quadrant is probably the most unfun shit I've played in a while. Such a shame too with how creative the levels look at face value, and how fun warping through time can be when it feels like working. Problem is of course that it doesn't work 85% of the time, which will probably lead you to doing the special stages, of which are...meh. Not going in to detail since they are just as optional as the generators but they're just less fun Mania special stages, with the rewards being a good future for each zone sporting an entirely different layout and theme compared to the other time frames, plus a slightly different ending card.

So yeah Sonic 3 and Mania trivialize this game in every way sadly (but to be fair the same can be said for every Classic game to me). Soundtrack is still arguably the best in the franchise though. And while the zones themselves aren't as interesting as Sonic 1, the fluidity of Sonic's movement are a step above what that game had to offer, but that doesn't help the game much overall.

It hurts me to my core to admit that the first Sonic game I played hasn't held up as well as those before it. I still enjoyed myself while playing this time around of course, but there was just so much sticking out compared to SA2 for example, something I don't hold as high as others to begin with.

To start off, the four (five, technically) campaigns are a cool idea and a natural evolution of the last two games in the series. These isolated stories don't go as far character wise as I would like to, ESPECIALLY in Team Dark's case, which is a shame because Sonic 06 of all games might have the best to offer in their department. Even with the lack of character progression, Heroes makes up doubly with the interactions each group has, Team Chaotix specifically being some of the most charming in the franchise as a whole possibly. Ignoring the Story being a slight step down from SA2, I'd still say its the middle child within the first trilogy of Sonics 3D titles, SA1 being way more weak in most departments other than individual character's more memorable dialogue. Nothing too special overall but far from bad or even mid stories to choose from.

Gameplay wise, however, is where Heroes begins to waver as the years go by. Despite what many have told me, Team Sonic and Rose were by far some of the most miserable stages I've had to go through, either because of how long the stages dragged on, or in Rose's case, nothing of substance at all. I mean seriously, her entire team just feels like an excuse for the special stages to exist (of which are some of the worst in the series if you don't know how to cheese them). Team Sonic however suffers from the sheer amount of gimmicks the game feels like throwing at you per zone, instead of sticking to what SA1 and 2 action stages excelled at. Essentially, its trying to be too many things at once, and fails at being what it should be at its core. That being said though the gimmicks can be fun, all things considered tbh. Its funny that I say that, even though Team Dark is by far longer in every stage, but idk their levels just always felt more complete and focused compared to Sonic's. On that subject, Team Dark is definitely my favorite of the 4 rosters to work with, most likely because of how broken their team blast is, being one of like two games to showcase Shadow's abilities through gameplay in the entire series. Even with that in mind, both of these teams (Team Sonic especially), have the exact opposite problems they did in SA2, in the sense of the controls being more competent, but outright unresponsive in the most important moments. The light speed dash is completely broken and doesn't work 70% of the time with Sonic, but for some reason Shadow's is fine? The homing attack is probably the best its been so far but still jank without a reticle to judge who is top priority to the character. The worst addition is the Rocket accel to me, which is the only move in the game that constantly fights with another, being the light speed dash of course. How this got past play testing is beyond me, but there's nothing to do about it I guess, just have to deal with two completely opposite movement options being mapped to the same button. Team Rose an Chaotix don't have this issue of course, and they are almost better because of it. I say almost because as I said earlier Team Rose just sucks level wise and bored me half to death honestly. Chaotix, on the other hand, took me by surprise by how much I enjoyed just fucking around with for their entire campaign. I really don't want to be a contrarian for the 2000th time but yeah, these stages are much more competent than Sonic and Rose's by a landslide to me, despite being the most gimmicky of all. The thing is though, these gimmicks are pretty loosely tied to the plot, and lead to genuine exploration at times in these levels that cleverly hide behind linearity pretty frequently. That and their movesets are the best behind Team Shadow, with Espio being the only thing holding them back (like seriously what do any of his moves do besides the cloak?). The levels themselves are really cool, and in my opinion better than most in SA2 not named City Escape and Metal Harbor. But then again this game also has Frog Forest, which may as well be unplayable without an emulator. Like holy shit this and Rail Canyon expose how rushed the rail grinding was for this era, but at least with SA2 there is still a fundemental skill gap to be had, despite how poorly explained and implemented it was in most stages (except Final Rush), but in Heroes it is either unresponsive or a one way ticket to death. Frog Forest also had the worst use of the light speed dash, and I'm not sure what causes it to glitch out, but my theory is that the camera can reset your momentum if its being flicked by the LSD, but I'm probably wrong on that entirely. But yeah I really wish they'd give this and the adventure formula another go, some real fun to be had thats bogged down by the colossal amount of bugs that lead to unearned deaths, padding game time out probably past twice its intended length. Its for that reason that I can't begin to recommend this game for anything but an emulator, as you can save state as much as you want to negate the game screwing you over for playing it completely right. You didn't hear that from me though, never pirate games that billion dollar companies refuse to rerelease after 20 fucking years.

TL;DR: Team rankings go 1. Dark 2. Chaotix 3. Sonic 4. Rose, but with a REMAKE, yes I'm going to fall on that for every 3d sonic game pre unleashed, the potential for this game is limitless.

Of all Sonic games I expected to see less of when coming back, this may have been the absolute last one I could've predicted. The gameplay has been tightened to match the speed Sonic and Shadow are capable of, the treasure hunting levels are way more complex, and the story is just about the best it can be for a 3D Sonic game, even to this day (unfortunately). So, what is the problem?

Well to start off, I'm not exactly fond of most of the speed stages outside of Radical Highway, Metal Harbor and Green Forest. City Escape is great in concept but there's just something... wrong with the physics for me at times, especially the rails. This carries on for most of the game until the very end for sonic in Final Rush, which is probably the most skill based level in the series thus far, as it requires mastery of rail grinding, the level layout itself, and the absurdly shit camera controls, all of which I have none! But I can respect the sheer amount of branching pathways with varying rewards regardless. The absolute worst part about these stages though is the complete incompetence placed into Sonic and Shadow's kits. Wanna Spindash? Hold the action button, which now has a delay in this game but its not a problem in my eyes, considering the new Somersault mechanic, tied to the same button! Wanna Light Speed Dash? Tap the action button but not really because you'll just Somersault instead. Well how about the new Bounce attack? Obviously tap the action button while in the air repeatedly to gain height. You get the point, so many new things to work with and because of how hard they wanted to maintain the single button does all mentality from the classic games, the levels and by extension my enjoyment is as inconsistent as the controls themselves.

Tails stages just suck, filled with enemies that spawn right on top of you, bad platforming, a terrible camera that doesn't fix when going down (universal problem for all characters) and a gameplay loop that isn't even satisfying in the first place. Its even more frustrating that the answer to all of these problems is simply playing as Eggman, who has way better level design and intriguing levels (I'm only saying this because I A ranked Cosmic Wall first try 😁). Even with that going for him, both Eggman and Tails suffer from shitty collision with the levels themselves, which lead to the main cause of death throughout my time as them, other then Artificial Chaos' of course. I won't even go into detail about Artificial Chaos' but like imagine an enemy that can stunlock you and hide their only weakspot from you whenever they please, and appear in sections where you're falling where you just so happen to have a single shot at killing them, usually after you've been hit and too late to react. Other than that, these could easily be fixed by just making the aim more accurate akin to that of gamma from SA1, which these two are biting directly off of, yet done worse in every way somehow, leave it to Sonic Team I guess.

Just like SA1, I enjoyed my time with both treasure hunting characters, so outside of the obvious radar problem, there isn't much for me to comment on. That being said, FUCK MAD SPACE. Meteor Herd didn't give me too much trouble but I could've just gotten lucky, but holy shit who thought Mad Space was a good mesh with this games mechanics. My biggest problem isn't even the radar being absent for this stage, instead the god awful camera mixed with there being literal planets with their own gravitational pull that just serve to pad the time out every single time you drop down either on purpose or by the games sheer hatred of you. Somehow I felt lucky to beat this in 20 minutes, as I did cheat a bit and look into some of the possible locations of the shards, I got lucky enough after about 14 minutes of doing nothing and got my ticket out of that hellhole. Its a shame how bad Sega is at handling different characters considering how well they did it in the LAST GAME, even with Big in consideration he didn't void out the good parts of the game, especially because of how short his story was and how funny the context of that section was.

The last story is something I'm entirely conflicted on. On one hand the mech parts aren't terrible, but Eggman stoops down to Tails' level in terms of its layout so idk. The time stop mechanic is pretty cool but is abused during Knuckles and Rouge's sections, to the point it just becomes another gimmick getting in the way of finishing the level quicker. Also I drowned like 3 times as Knuckles here because I didn't know there was an upgrade to breathe underwater, leading to me getting a game over as Sonic. Speaking of, his section is... meh. Pretty short if you know what you're doing but I almost wish more was done here, but I can only assume Sonic Team realized how punishing the Knuckles section was and trimmed this down in late development. I guess now would be a good time to mention the bosses, yeah? Long story short, the rival bosses are boring, with the Eggman and Tails ones just being utterly mind numbing mechanically. Sonic and Shadow's bouts are pretty cool visually, but shallow like the rest mechanically. Biolizard/Hazard was pretty fun, and highlights the standard selling point of Sonic games: the soundtracks. As over the top as ever, I find it interesting how much more SA2's tracks blend together naturally (outside of Knuckle's rap songs but even those are a joy in their own right), and seem to use similar production, unlike SA1 which are varied due to how unstructured and isolated those levels were.

The last thing I should probably bring up is the characters themselves. Personally, I'm content with the cast, but the voice work is pretty hit or miss depending on the character. Ryan Drummond is still great as Sonic of course, and David Humphrey is arguably the best depiction of Shadow to this day, however I prefer his work in Heroes a bit more. Deem Bristow is an amazing Eggman, who nearly edges out Shadow as my favorite member of this cast. Rouge, Tails and Knuckles' voices fit them for sure but it just seems like they weren't given as good of direction as the main stars of the game, which is a shame because I enjoy their interactions (for as rare as they are outside of plot dumps). Amy is solid too but her inclusion just feels random, maybe just a placeholder for the Battle rerelease I guess but I'd rather her as well as many other side characters in this franchise do nothing in the story than just not show up at all, although it would be nice for them to have a purpose once in a while.

This is definitely the turning point for Sonic as a franchise, and it just so happens that I didn't grow up on it as much as many others who hail it as the peak of the franchise. I can certainly see through the cracks of this game's problems, within it lies yet another ambitious title, one that took in one too many ideas for its gameplay and didn't execute on a majority of them. Here's hoping for a remake, same as the last game, but for vastly different reasons.

Coming back to this game after what I assume is a decade at this point, I had lowered my expectations and assumed the core gameplay loop wouldn't interest me by the final story... and I'm happy to have been proven wrong again, even if my bias is still in effect for this game as well.

For the first step into 3d, Sonic Adventure did just about everything it possibly could during its time, despite being a launch game with the Dreamcast, its gameplay is ahead of even a handful of Modern games, (and in my opinion sonic 1 2 and CD but thats besides the point). The gameplay is so smooth across all characters to the point I wonder why Heroes and Shadow just ditched the Adventure style to begin with.

Sonic is pretty self explanatory, just abuse every single mechanic possible to gain max speed, and with an extra dimension to play with, there's no worry of off screen obstacles dousing your momentum every 20 seconds. Of course this is the first game to feature the homing attack, and its, fine. I'm not too big on homing attacks without a reticle, but it gets the job done 70% of the time, except against a boss like Egg Viper which just seems like an unnecessary skill check that zaps any fun away.

Tails is the same as hes been up until now: Sonic easy mode. Just like Sonic his story is servicable, and also features some minor dialogue changes, which is prevelant throughout every campaign, which I find pretty neat, albeit convoluted.

Knuckles grew on me pretty quickly, and I might as well cherish it before SA2, where I remember him controlling better but the trade off being the worst second attempt at the treasure hunting forumla, which I'm pretty sure ended up being its last in the series.

Amy was surprisingly good too. Not much to say since she has the least amount of levels in the cast with a whopping 3, all being prey to a robot with about as much lore as the Deadly Six (probably still more honestly).

Big sucks to play, but I don't mind his inclusion, as he turns out to be vital for and against the main cast, which is a pretty funny way to introduce a character everybody will hate past this game.

Gamma is as good as I remembered, braindead combat and all. I wish more time were spent on his story as it indirectly sets up Sonic Heroes in the sense of Eggman being so incompetent as to implement sentience in his machines, most likely through the flickies as they've been the most intelligent non-anthropomorphic animals in this series. Which would explain why he ditches these machines starting with Heroes and Shadow, but I'm probably giving sega too much credit.

It upsets me that playing the definitve version of this game either requires buying a system triple its genuine value, or modding it on PC to get it to its ORIGINAL STATE. Sonic Team's incompetence with ports is truly something to behold. While on the topic, the only negative things to say about this game are due to its hardware limitations and semi weak overarching story, both things that could easily be fixed with a REMAKE, but seeing as Sega would rather recycle levels throughout every era now with Frontiers, I doubt thats even on their mind. Regardless :itspeak:

This game is probably the best example of stockholm syndrome I've seen in the medium, and this is coming from somebody who almost considered it one of the greatest experiences I've ever had on first playthrough. Ask any sane person if they like the story, they'll probably say "not really" because of how little progress is made until the last 10 hours (out of 90+ depending on your playstyle). Ask if they like the antagonists and you'll get a definitive "Fuck no" outside of the occasional Akechi stans who think he's well written. Side note, haven't touched Royal so if Akechi is better in there as well as whatever Maruki is like I wouldn't know! The cast has fun interactions but individually just start to blend in with one another the moment their introduction palace is over. Makoto is the worst offender, mainly because of how important she is to the penultimate palace, and having no character arc during or after it. The confidant system is very shit mechanically, turning the game from a tactical jrpg with snarky dialogue options to a dating sim where every single choice matters... except they don't actually! Certain responses will increase the bond with the corresponding person, usually at the most random times leading to wasting days to get their next event, assuming you don't use a daily guide of course. This system is half baked start to finish, and is bogged down the moment you realize how automated every. single. Confidant. is. The worst part is the fact that most of these confidants aren't even rewarding in both unlockable mechanics and the stories they present. None of the presented side stories interact or interfere with the main story at all except sojiro's (naturally the only good one), and this just makes the atmosphere feel wasted, and somehow empty. The gameplay is good, nothing of note there but I wish there was more banter in fights to drown out the annoying ass Futaba Makoto and Morgana call outs. The dungeons themselves are shallow, fitting with how boring each antag is I guess, but it just becomes weightless after a while, and I start to wonder "Do these fights even matter?" This goes for the shadows themselves and the boss fights, ESPECIALLY in Okumura's case. The daily life is fine enough as a mechanic, a little stressful for someone as impatient as me, but it adds to the game in a positive way I think. Surely I won't drop this rating any further in the future!

Another game veterans alike hail as one of the landmarks of the franchise, and for good reason of course. As for me I don't have much to really add on to what's already been said a million times. The first thing that comes to mind are the bosses having more weight than the first game, especially the finale on the Death Egg. The Zones are pretty average to good overall. The biggest problem I can think of for most of them is that they aren't long enough, which says a lot for the quality each one has. Oil Ocean specifically is just missing something, but I honestly couldn't say what in particular. Metropolis just wasn't play tested and results in every single death not feeling warranted, making things worse when you die right next to a checkpoint on a gear you have to spin, and getting stunlocked by Slicers and Asterons (the lack of widescreen for this version of the game only makes this worse honestly). The less I speak of Wing Fortress the better, its just not the most mechanically sound or responsive stage, and also pretty short for the penultimate fight. Movement wise the game can be floaty at random, usually at the absolute worst times at that. Not to mention the roll-lock that took until the end of my playthrough to adapt to. But besides that I'd say 75% of the time its responsive and proper building grounds for the classic formula.

Not gonna rate this because visual novels aren't a medium I'm fond of, (nor will that ever be the case really) and also because of how short it is, with little substance behind it. It would be like critically rating a cartoon you enjoy for how stupid it is in the self contained episodic plots y'know? Regardless I just think its pretty funny that it took a visual novel for the Sonic cast to interact naturally in video game form outside of the one on one banter in the sonic racing series. Last time we got this was probably... jesus either Black Knight or Free Riders. Definitely worth playing for the whopping 8 remaining sonic fans in existence but I feel as if a comic spin off would've done this concept more justice.