The existence of this game is infinitely fucking funny to me. Like, imagine being a Sega fan back in September of 1996. You have owned a Saturn for over 2 years now (i know this is a review for the genesis version, but bear with me here for a sec). The Genesis hasn't let you down, so you have faith that Sega will deliver a breakout hit for their 3D console anyday now. A new Sonic game that will make that 399$ price tag and 2 years of waiting totally worth it. Meanwhile, your friends at school are talking about Super Mario 64, Crash Bandicoot, and how cool as hell those games are, and oh my gosh, the 3D!!! It's so amazing!!! But all you have is your Saturn. And unless you dipped your hands into Panzer Dragoon, or Nights into Dreams, neither of which proved to put the console on the map... you don't really have anything you can boast about. All you can do is wait, while listening to your friends talking about how they made all the right life choices.

But, November rolls around, and you finally get your Mario 64 competitor. And this is it. This is the representation of your revolutionary new console. Sonic 3D Blast. This utter fucking marketing lie of a title, is all you're getting for the foreseeable future. Sega simply couldn't deliver a 3D Sonic title in time to compete against everyone else, so they figured if they would just slap the word "3D" into their isometric pre-rendered platformer, it'd be enough to fool the dumb children who were unfortunate enough to put their faith in a game publisher. I mean, I guess at this point you have something you can talk about to your school friends. But are you really going to?

Within historical context, I consider 3D Blast to be a disaster of comedic proportions. This one game single-handedly disqualified Sonic as Mario's rival for the rest of eternity, even if people may have not felt this at the time. From here on out, there was no more consistency to be found in a Sonic game, no gurantees made, all expectations belonged to the fools, fools such as me. Whereas Mario was an experimental playground with consistent rules, Sonic began to no longer care about rules, cohesion, or its audience as a whole. We have now entered an era where Sonic just kinda does whatever the fuck it wants. Sometimes, this leads to some great things, other times it doesn't. Next to Knuckles Chaotix, Sonic 3D Blast is one of the first examples of where it really doesn't.

Taking out all historical context however, it's not like 3D Blast is the spawn of satan, or anything... by itself, this is just a very okay game. Probably the biggest mistake it commits is citing one of its inspirations as Sonic Labyrinth, which I cannot imagine anyone in their right mind doing today. But, as a whole, it's functional, beatable, and even a casual player could see its true ending. We were only just exiting out of the age of insanely difficult games mind you, so having something like this back then was pretty nice. That is, if you cared less about challenge, and more about just having an experience that doesn't frustrate you.

Perhaps this is my just my fondness for collect-a-thons coming out, but I do enjoy the loop of exploring a level to find the 5 flickies required to progress onward. Labyrinth influences aside, it's pretty difficult to get lost in here, everything is very contained and exploration segments are segregated into digestible chunks. It's doable, and that's good. The bad, is that once you've cleared one level, you've basically seen them all. The only thing that sets them apart from there on is visual variety, but the gameplay loop fails to introduce new elements at a consistent enough rate to not make every level feel like you're doing the same thing. Perhaps introducing more inventive ways of catching flickies would've helped, alongside new types of flickies that behave in different manners. But the game shows all its cards in just one stage. From there on, you catch them in the exact same way, every single time.

I think it also goes without saying that a game like this absolutely does not lend itself to the style of gameplay that Sonic is known for. Being originally created for the Genesis, means that the isometric field of view can't be too large, and the field of view being like this means that you can't make Sonic go too fast, lest you'll be running into obstacles all the time. So, out goes the speed that Sonic is primarily known for, in favor of a leisurely jog. Which in hindsight, makes me realize that this game could've probably made a lot more sense if they didn't use Sonic for it at all. But, that'd of course means less copies sold, so here he is. In name only.

I've never been a big fan of the previous special stages that accompanied the classic Sonic games, and the ones found here aren't all that better either, buuut... they are pretty easy. This leads back into me saying how even a casual player could see the game's true ending, as it honestly takes very little effort to access the special stages in this game. And the special stages themselves are shockingly banal, a literal short-width bridge you run straight across, with some spikes you occasionally jump over. Missing the rings here is near-impossible, they all last less than 20 seconds, and there is barely any difficulty ramp-up to speak of. As long as you explore the stages a tiny bit, you'll get the 7 chaos emeralds in no time.

Interestingly, the Saturn version completely redid the way its special stages work. While the rest of the game was created by Traveller's Tales, I hear that Sonic Team stepped in for the Saturn special stages. And get this: They're the best part of the game, and a huge reason to play that version of the game over this Genesis counterpart. They're like the Sonic 2 special stages, but done right. They're in actual proper 3D, ensuring smooth scrolling and movement, Sonic himself feels pretty good to control in them, and they're just better designed, maintaining a good flow throughout. If the entire game was just an endless runner version of these stages, I'd hop into it more often. Unfortunately as it is, they're just one small good part of an ultimately mediocre package.

But wait! There is something else I can praise about this, and - you guessed it - it's the soundtrack! I have absolutely no idea what caused Jun Senoue to score Sonic Superstars the way he did, because if you go back all the way here... he did the entire soundtrack for the Genesis version of 3D Blast, and it's great! This is what I'm talking about! It feels like an extension of the music found in Sonic 3. Same style, same general instrumentation, but more strong melodies, and a unique song for every single act. The CD Audio soundtrack composed by Richard Jacques for the Saturn port is no slouch either. It's a very different style compared to the type of Sonic music we're generally used to, but it's very bright, cheery, and nostalgically welcoming. Completely unlike Richard, when he finds out people make covers of his songs!

Well, in any case, a good soundtrack and a series of excellent special stages for a specific port of the game is not quite enough to save the whole thing. It's only enough to elevate 3D Blast into a totally passable experience. It sure as heck functions, but it couldn't have been possibly made in a worse time and place. Accompanied by a true follow-up to Sonic 3 & Knuckles, 3D Blast could've been remembered as a neat distraction for when you're bored. In the present reality however, 3D Blast IS the Sonic 3 & Knuckles follow-up, whether that was its intention or not. The circumstances made it that way. Now, that's all I'll remember it for. And the memory will make me giggle.

THIS REVIEW IS SPONSORED BY RED BULL

I really don't have a lot of racing game experience. I'm planning to fix that in the future, but for the time being, the PS1 Wipeouts have been one of my most prominent investments into the genre, especially as a kid. I liken them somewhat to a grittier Mario Kart, mostly just because of the arcade racing structure, combined with item usage to get an edge in the course. But, I'm aware that's a pretty insane generalization of what this series is.

In any case, I absolutely fuck with this. I don't have to worry about number crunching stats on vehicles because there's only like 4-5 to choose from, alongside a pretty limited amount of tracks. These would've been negatives back in 1996, but in emulation form, Wipeout XL lends itself well as an entry point into the genre, and a game that I can spend one peaceful afternoon on, get some thrills out of it, and move on. The learning curve is braindead easy, but the vehicles feel weighty in just that right way. Narrowly scraping against the walls as sparks come flying out, instinctively leaning left and right as I brace myself against those tougher turns, and feeling each and every bump like it was impacting me in reality. The items themselves pack a lot of punch, and on that rare occasion where you nail the use of the insta-kill laser to take out your opponent, it makes you feel like the harbinger of doom. The AutoPilot item is the true harbinger though, I can't even count the amount of times It sent me directly into a wall. Fuck that thing.

Bonus points go to the overall presentation and the readability of its race tracks, on top of that very specific UK-produced assortment of techno music that could've only existed in that era of video games. No doubt a lot of my fondness can be attributed to nostalgia, as has been the case for my other recent reviews. And if I were to look at it from another way, it's true that Wipeout's appeal lies more in a niche techno sci-fi aesthetic than a wide-ranging amount of character and personality. Without an appreciation for the currently existing appeal, Wipeout's probably closer to a 3.5 or a 4 star rating. But for me, this game has never let me down. It has only ever promised me a good racing time, and that's exactly what it gives. Sometimes, I only wish there was more of it. And I don't mean more Wipeouts, or spiritual successors. I mean like, 6 more levels for this game. Maybe 8. But then again, short and sweet is better than long and stale.

Why she walk like Sly Cooper tho

Anyway, it's... pretty good! I was so instantly captivated by its moody atmosphere and strong sound design, it only took 20 minutes of playing for me to stop just to tell my friends that they should probably check this out. Part-time Hotline Miami in its surreal choice of colors, and part-time Killer7 in its viscerally gushing fountains of blood. The blend of sniper and puzzle genres is a very unique one, and the emphasis on taking out every enemy with nothing but a single ricocheting bullet leads to some very satisfying victories once you nail down the right order.

Puzzle games are not usually my strong suit, and I grow impatient with them far more easily than I should. Most of the time, my brain just ain't capable of thinking several steps ahead, I think in the moment instead. Despite this, I've found that Children of the Sun's difficulty is relatively lenient for the majority of the game's 3-4 hour duration, and allows for multiple solutions to one problem with a little bit of improvisation. At the same time, none of it felt mindless, and I still felt like I had to put in the effort to clear a good chunk of the stages. The balance was struck very well here to make dumbos like me feel a little more clever, while at the same time leaving the option for more skilled play depending on what you can come up with.

I feel like the only exception to this was the final level, which I think escalated the difficulty way too suddenly from the previous stages. We've gone from somewhat tricky but short-length stages, to a marathon that demanded twice the amount of steps than anything before. Losing here felt really draining, and having to think about replicating everything I just did was even moreso. I think this could've been in part fixed if the game remembered the position from where you fired at, so I wouldn't have to walk over there each time. Hiding a bunch of the mooks inside buildings was also a bit of a frustrating process that led to a bunch of time wasted just trying to scout them out across several failed attempts. I nearly gave up here, but eventually pushed on through and won. It's just a shame that for every single level I felt satisfied in, the finale was the only one where satisfaction was replaced with a feeling of relief instead.

Even so, it can't be ignored that for 95% of Children of the Sun's duration, I had a ton of fun. One subjectively frustrating level aside, this is still a raw as hell video game, and one that paints a very strong first impression for its developer. They're definitely on my radar now, and I'm looking forward to seeing what they'll create next.