2019
Team Sonic Racing isn't a bad game so much as its a weird step back from Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed. Rather than being a celebration of all things Sega, Team Sonic reduces the roster of racers down to just characters from the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise, and drops the vehicle transformation mechanic that was at All-Stars Racing Transformed's core in favor of a new co-op gimmick where each character represents one class of racer in a team of three. What you end up getting is All-Star's very own Sonic Heroes, not just in the clear mechanical analogs but in spirit as well, as it utterly loses the thread on what made the previous game so special.
Having racers group together in teams of three sounds like a good idea on paper. Speed characters lead the pack, technical characters have better handling and boosting, and power characters can smash through obstacles to open new shortcuts. However, tracks are built in such a way that nine times out of ten you'll just want to rely on whichever racer has the highest speed stat, especially as you creep towards the end game where rubberbanding increases difficulty in lieu of more challenging tracks.
Courses are selected via an overworld map which can be explored somewhat non-linearly. Keys earned by fulfilling special conditions in a race allow you to bypass missions and tracks you might not want to bother with. This is good because a lot of the missions range from "not great" to "inoffensive." I didn't mind the ones where you have to drift through targets, dodging "traffic" is fine until the late game when it becomes frustrating, and skirting around star poles sucks complete ass. It's these missions where you want to rely on technical or power characters, so at least they give you the chance to try out Knuckles or Silver without feeling like you're giving the AI a handicap.
There's an in-game store that allows you to buy new parts for your car with tokens earned from performing well in races. And by "store" I mean "gotchapon machine." At least you aren't able to re-roll items you already unlocked, and it seems like it has a preference for giving you parts for characters you play as frequently. The menus for applying these is weirdly laggy, so the actual act of customizing your vehicle becomes tedious, and I found that a lot of the better looking parts came with the biggest detriments to your stats. I suppose that's a pretty subjective criticism. Whatever, this is all subjective anyway. Who are you to argue with me when I say Vector's car looks better with gold chains hanging off of it and sick flame decals?
Racing at least feels good though, as it should considering it's a follow up to All-Star Racing Transformed. Drifting, stunting, and discovering alternate routes feels as smooth as ever, though the amount of stage variety is lacking in comparison. Transformed had numerous tracks based on specific Sega properties, giving each racer some amount of representation in the circuit. In Team Sonic you get about six courses broken up into three sub-tracks, and many are returning stages from the first All-Star game.
I don't hate this game. Drifting around Sandopolis looks good, sounds good, feels good too. I had a fun time with it overall, even despite some of my complaints. But then, I also had a good time with All-Stars Racing Transformed. A better time, in fact, and it's almost impossible to look past that and accept Sonic Team Racing as being anything other than a huge leap back. Fewer courses, less interesting racers, mediocre missions, and an incredibly weak co-op hook makes it fall just short of the finish line. You won't need a photo finish to tell which is the better game. Maybe Team Sonic Racing should've spent more time with the pit crew. Fourth racing analogy.
Having racers group together in teams of three sounds like a good idea on paper. Speed characters lead the pack, technical characters have better handling and boosting, and power characters can smash through obstacles to open new shortcuts. However, tracks are built in such a way that nine times out of ten you'll just want to rely on whichever racer has the highest speed stat, especially as you creep towards the end game where rubberbanding increases difficulty in lieu of more challenging tracks.
Courses are selected via an overworld map which can be explored somewhat non-linearly. Keys earned by fulfilling special conditions in a race allow you to bypass missions and tracks you might not want to bother with. This is good because a lot of the missions range from "not great" to "inoffensive." I didn't mind the ones where you have to drift through targets, dodging "traffic" is fine until the late game when it becomes frustrating, and skirting around star poles sucks complete ass. It's these missions where you want to rely on technical or power characters, so at least they give you the chance to try out Knuckles or Silver without feeling like you're giving the AI a handicap.
There's an in-game store that allows you to buy new parts for your car with tokens earned from performing well in races. And by "store" I mean "gotchapon machine." At least you aren't able to re-roll items you already unlocked, and it seems like it has a preference for giving you parts for characters you play as frequently. The menus for applying these is weirdly laggy, so the actual act of customizing your vehicle becomes tedious, and I found that a lot of the better looking parts came with the biggest detriments to your stats. I suppose that's a pretty subjective criticism. Whatever, this is all subjective anyway. Who are you to argue with me when I say Vector's car looks better with gold chains hanging off of it and sick flame decals?
Racing at least feels good though, as it should considering it's a follow up to All-Star Racing Transformed. Drifting, stunting, and discovering alternate routes feels as smooth as ever, though the amount of stage variety is lacking in comparison. Transformed had numerous tracks based on specific Sega properties, giving each racer some amount of representation in the circuit. In Team Sonic you get about six courses broken up into three sub-tracks, and many are returning stages from the first All-Star game.
I don't hate this game. Drifting around Sandopolis looks good, sounds good, feels good too. I had a fun time with it overall, even despite some of my complaints. But then, I also had a good time with All-Stars Racing Transformed. A better time, in fact, and it's almost impossible to look past that and accept Sonic Team Racing as being anything other than a huge leap back. Fewer courses, less interesting racers, mediocre missions, and an incredibly weak co-op hook makes it fall just short of the finish line. You won't need a photo finish to tell which is the better game. Maybe Team Sonic Racing should've spent more time with the pit crew. Fourth racing analogy.
1997
Tomba! is a game I didn't even know existed until a few years ago when a friend was lamenting this loss of his copy, having lent it many years earlier to a friend who never returned it. Great game, it turns out. I both understand why my friend would be so upset about losing it, but also why his ex-friend would be so inclined to steal it from him.
Tokuro Fujiwara of Ghosts N' Goblins fame was both the director and art designer on Tomba!, which probably explains both why it feels so good to play and why it's so great to look at. The titular Tomba has a very particular way of moving, a specific gravity to him, which gives platforming a well defined feeling. Similar to Ghosts N' Goblins, it feels as if a lot of consideration and care was put in to designing how Tomba control. If I jump as Tomba I know where I'm going to land, and that's the key to making any platformer feel good. The character designs are equally as great, and the 2D sprites that depict them compliment the vibrant 3D environments they're set in perfectly.
Tomba! has an interesting structure to it, being primarily built around completing individual missions and earning points which can be cashed in for items, upgrades, and to advance the story. A sizeable amount of these missions are optional, you only need so many to complete the game, and this in turn provides the player with quite a bit of freedom in how they want to take on the adventure. Puzzle-platformers can be pretty hit-or-miss with me, but I really liked figuring out some of the missions in Tomba!, and looping around to previously explored locations while chipping away at them never felt tedious or frustrating like they might in other games.
It also has the distinction of being the only game I've played that actually made my Raspberry Pi overheat, which is... interesting. I'm curious how exactly the game is rendering its characters and environments and if something about that process just isn't optimized. I also experienced quite a bit of slowdown which might not be present if played on actual hardware. I am curious how well the game runs in other emulation environments, but have yet to test it on my Pi 4.
Really though, it's a testament to how fun Tomba! is that I was not only willing to push through bouts of slowdown and having to let my Pi cool down but had a pretty damn good time despite it. It's a shame this series was so short lived, but poor sales of both Tomba! and it's sequel put Whoopee Camp under pretty quickly. Then again, considering how "good" Tomba 2 is...
Tokuro Fujiwara of Ghosts N' Goblins fame was both the director and art designer on Tomba!, which probably explains both why it feels so good to play and why it's so great to look at. The titular Tomba has a very particular way of moving, a specific gravity to him, which gives platforming a well defined feeling. Similar to Ghosts N' Goblins, it feels as if a lot of consideration and care was put in to designing how Tomba control. If I jump as Tomba I know where I'm going to land, and that's the key to making any platformer feel good. The character designs are equally as great, and the 2D sprites that depict them compliment the vibrant 3D environments they're set in perfectly.
Tomba! has an interesting structure to it, being primarily built around completing individual missions and earning points which can be cashed in for items, upgrades, and to advance the story. A sizeable amount of these missions are optional, you only need so many to complete the game, and this in turn provides the player with quite a bit of freedom in how they want to take on the adventure. Puzzle-platformers can be pretty hit-or-miss with me, but I really liked figuring out some of the missions in Tomba!, and looping around to previously explored locations while chipping away at them never felt tedious or frustrating like they might in other games.
It also has the distinction of being the only game I've played that actually made my Raspberry Pi overheat, which is... interesting. I'm curious how exactly the game is rendering its characters and environments and if something about that process just isn't optimized. I also experienced quite a bit of slowdown which might not be present if played on actual hardware. I am curious how well the game runs in other emulation environments, but have yet to test it on my Pi 4.
Really though, it's a testament to how fun Tomba! is that I was not only willing to push through bouts of slowdown and having to let my Pi cool down but had a pretty damn good time despite it. It's a shame this series was so short lived, but poor sales of both Tomba! and it's sequel put Whoopee Camp under pretty quickly. Then again, considering how "good" Tomba 2 is...
1992
Streets of Rage 2 might not be my favorite beat-em-up on the Genesis, but it's a damn good one that improves upon everything the first game accomplished. Highly stylized with excellent character designs and animations and one of the best soundtracks on the system, Streets of Rage 2 feels every bit as good to play as it does to look at or listen to.
At a certain point, though, I just find beat-em-ups to be hard to review. Perhaps even the hardest. During this era especially, where games in the genre were so similar mechanically that whether one sank or swam was largely up to how good it felt in your hands. In the case of Streets of Rage 2, the sound effects on impact, the move sets, the way the hitboxes are tuned all add up to something that's just a lot of fun to sit with and blow a couple hours on, especially if you're lucky enough to rope a friend into playing a co-op Genesis game in 2022.
One thing that playing the Streets games with a friend has made me appreciate is how much better couch co-op is in brawlers than matchmaking with some randos online. I played some of Streets of Rage 4 online and, lag aside, it's just so lacking in comparison to sitting on the same couch and yelling at your friend for sucker punching you. Some bosses are also so difficult that it's clear they're designed to be taken on by two players rather than one-on-one. But really, as is the case with all beat-em-ups, this is an arcade game down to its marrow, and by design are meant to be enjoyed with other people in the same room with you.
I don't know where I'm going with this. Streets of Rage 2 is good, I guess? You should probably play it. Even if you can't drag a friend to your place, you should still play it. That's it, that's my review, thank you for read
At a certain point, though, I just find beat-em-ups to be hard to review. Perhaps even the hardest. During this era especially, where games in the genre were so similar mechanically that whether one sank or swam was largely up to how good it felt in your hands. In the case of Streets of Rage 2, the sound effects on impact, the move sets, the way the hitboxes are tuned all add up to something that's just a lot of fun to sit with and blow a couple hours on, especially if you're lucky enough to rope a friend into playing a co-op Genesis game in 2022.
One thing that playing the Streets games with a friend has made me appreciate is how much better couch co-op is in brawlers than matchmaking with some randos online. I played some of Streets of Rage 4 online and, lag aside, it's just so lacking in comparison to sitting on the same couch and yelling at your friend for sucker punching you. Some bosses are also so difficult that it's clear they're designed to be taken on by two players rather than one-on-one. But really, as is the case with all beat-em-ups, this is an arcade game down to its marrow, and by design are meant to be enjoyed with other people in the same room with you.
I don't know where I'm going with this. Streets of Rage 2 is good, I guess? You should probably play it. Even if you can't drag a friend to your place, you should still play it. That's it, that's my review, thank you for read
1995
I've talked at length already about games that eluded me during my youth and the mythical aura I've regarded them in since. Knuckles Chaotix a prime example of this phenomenon. I remember having a magazine which had an extensive preview for Chaotix that I poured over like religious text. I read that feature so much the glue on the spine started to come undone. I practically begged my mom for a 32X, and thankfully was unable to convinced her to pony up the cash, sparing her the indignity of buying a 32X and me a permanently warped perspective on what Knuckles' Chaotix is. I'm sure if I played this game in 1995 I would still be making a case today for how misunderstood it was. Having not played it until just a few years ago, I'm able to look at it more objectively and call it like it is: a no good crap dumb bad game.
Chaotix has a great lineup of characters. I'm talking peak Sonic the Hedgehog design. Vector, Espio, Charmy, and Mighty all look fantastic, and joining Dr.Robotnik as the secondary (arguably primary) antagonist is none other than Metal Sonic. Heavy and Bomb are also here. Unfortunately, rather than giving each character a unique way to play and adhering to the excellent stage design that Sonic Team had perfected with Sonic 3 & Knuckles, you're stuck picking your player character through a roulette system and, worse still, tied to the literal hip with a tag-along character who is also chosen at random. If you thought Tails' pathing was wonky in the original games, just imagine that flopping around behind you, weighing down your jumps.
To be fair, I do recall it being fairly easy to time this mini-game juuust right and get the characters you want, but the stages are not designed in a way that make the best use of each character's unique features. Everyone blends together and your selection will ultimately come down to a preference on who looks the coolest rather than what utility they may have. What you don't want to do, however, is end up with Heavy or Bomb, the two joke characters who actively punish you for having the misfortunate of being partnered with them. What a very neat and cool and super novel feature!
Zones are much more vertically oriented and require you to make use of your partner character to fling yourself towards the goal. You can do this in a number of ways, such as pinning one character in place while running in the opposite direction you want to go, then releasing and allowing the tether connecting you to rubberband your character ahead. The problem is that a lot of stages lack interesting platforming, and many share very similar portions of geometry. The zones themselves look great graphically speaking, but are barren, dull, and at times just plain confusing to navigate. You also select what stage you go to at random, which causes some significant issues with difficulty pacing. This all results in a game that feels like a total mess, with so many scattered ideas and mechanics that utterly fail to coalesce into something playable.
It is such a shame too. My youthful romanticizing of Chaotix aside, I think there's a lot of wasted potential here. The idea of Knuckles and his own gang stuck inside an amusement park operated by Robotnik is great, and Knuckles is a good enough character that he honestly could carry his own game... at least he could have at the time, long before he was turned into the series resident dumbass. The soundtrack, character designs, and sprite work are all terrific, they're just squandered on a game that is designed to be about as fun as walking through a tire fire.
I'm giving this one star for the excellent aesthetic design of Chaotix and awarding an additional star purely for Door into Summer, which is an all-time jam.
Chaotix has a great lineup of characters. I'm talking peak Sonic the Hedgehog design. Vector, Espio, Charmy, and Mighty all look fantastic, and joining Dr.Robotnik as the secondary (arguably primary) antagonist is none other than Metal Sonic. Heavy and Bomb are also here. Unfortunately, rather than giving each character a unique way to play and adhering to the excellent stage design that Sonic Team had perfected with Sonic 3 & Knuckles, you're stuck picking your player character through a roulette system and, worse still, tied to the literal hip with a tag-along character who is also chosen at random. If you thought Tails' pathing was wonky in the original games, just imagine that flopping around behind you, weighing down your jumps.
To be fair, I do recall it being fairly easy to time this mini-game juuust right and get the characters you want, but the stages are not designed in a way that make the best use of each character's unique features. Everyone blends together and your selection will ultimately come down to a preference on who looks the coolest rather than what utility they may have. What you don't want to do, however, is end up with Heavy or Bomb, the two joke characters who actively punish you for having the misfortunate of being partnered with them. What a very neat and cool and super novel feature!
Zones are much more vertically oriented and require you to make use of your partner character to fling yourself towards the goal. You can do this in a number of ways, such as pinning one character in place while running in the opposite direction you want to go, then releasing and allowing the tether connecting you to rubberband your character ahead. The problem is that a lot of stages lack interesting platforming, and many share very similar portions of geometry. The zones themselves look great graphically speaking, but are barren, dull, and at times just plain confusing to navigate. You also select what stage you go to at random, which causes some significant issues with difficulty pacing. This all results in a game that feels like a total mess, with so many scattered ideas and mechanics that utterly fail to coalesce into something playable.
It is such a shame too. My youthful romanticizing of Chaotix aside, I think there's a lot of wasted potential here. The idea of Knuckles and his own gang stuck inside an amusement park operated by Robotnik is great, and Knuckles is a good enough character that he honestly could carry his own game... at least he could have at the time, long before he was turned into the series resident dumbass. The soundtrack, character designs, and sprite work are all terrific, they're just squandered on a game that is designed to be about as fun as walking through a tire fire.
I'm giving this one star for the excellent aesthetic design of Chaotix and awarding an additional star purely for Door into Summer, which is an all-time jam.
1996
Sonic 3D Blast is neither 3D or a blast. Sega wanted to milk their aging hardware, and by 1996 3D gaming was the big new thing. A lot of late era 16-bit games tried to do some sort of pseudo-3D tripe in a desperate bid to keep kids playing, at least those who couldn't afford the brand new consoles (or maybe in the case of the Saturn, couldn't find a retailer willing to carry the damn thing.) In Sonic's case, you end up with a shitty looking isometric platformer where every jump is a clumsy shot in the dark.
Sonic controls like a melting slab of ice, slip sliding into lava pools and beds of spikes at the slightest touch of the d-pad. It doesn't help that completing levels is no longer a simple equation of getting from point A to point B. No, Sonic has to save his stupid animal buddies by bashing open every badnik in the level, collecting the freed Flicky, then doing his very best not to collide with a hazard or else all his Flicky friends will run away. What this means for you, the unfortunate player in this tragic comedy, is that you'll frequently be running all over the place to recollect those little bastards because Sonic feels rotten to control.
It is then a bit ironic that the special stages in this game can be beaten even with your eyes plucked out. They're the least impressive part of the game from a technical level, and are so braindead simple to play that the only obstacle standing between you and all seven chaos emeralds is whether you're capable of holding on to fifty rings to enter the special stages to begin with. Robotnik boss battles are also a clunky ill-conceived affair. It's hard to judge your jumps when fighting Robotnik, and you're just as likely to land a hit on him as you are to misjudge and smack into the side of his egg-o-matic or get beaned by a projectile you thought you were able to clear.
I can't stress enough that not a single part of this game feels good. Traveler's Tales made some very impressive looking games, but even by 1996 3D Blast underwhelms. At least the soundtrack rules, that's the one thing keeping me from rating this 1 star.
Sonic controls like a melting slab of ice, slip sliding into lava pools and beds of spikes at the slightest touch of the d-pad. It doesn't help that completing levels is no longer a simple equation of getting from point A to point B. No, Sonic has to save his stupid animal buddies by bashing open every badnik in the level, collecting the freed Flicky, then doing his very best not to collide with a hazard or else all his Flicky friends will run away. What this means for you, the unfortunate player in this tragic comedy, is that you'll frequently be running all over the place to recollect those little bastards because Sonic feels rotten to control.
It is then a bit ironic that the special stages in this game can be beaten even with your eyes plucked out. They're the least impressive part of the game from a technical level, and are so braindead simple to play that the only obstacle standing between you and all seven chaos emeralds is whether you're capable of holding on to fifty rings to enter the special stages to begin with. Robotnik boss battles are also a clunky ill-conceived affair. It's hard to judge your jumps when fighting Robotnik, and you're just as likely to land a hit on him as you are to misjudge and smack into the side of his egg-o-matic or get beaned by a projectile you thought you were able to clear.
I can't stress enough that not a single part of this game feels good. Traveler's Tales made some very impressive looking games, but even by 1996 3D Blast underwhelms. At least the soundtrack rules, that's the one thing keeping me from rating this 1 star.
I used to be a Star Wars fan. I watched the original trilogy when I was a wee lad, and I was just the right age for the multimedia pseudo-sequel Shadows of the Empire to be a bane on my mother's wallet. I had the toys, I had the clothes, I drank my Boss Nass branded Pepsi and played Yoda Stories like an obsessive little imp. Talk about being the right age for certain media, The Phantom Menace still played just fine for me given my relatively young age, but by the time Attack of the Clones rolled around, it took one viewing in the theater to push me off the franchise. I just didn't care anymore after that, and honestly that's probably for the best.
Sure I'm able to occasionally enjoy something from the series. Whether it's a figure or a TV show or some parts of some movies, but I'm no longer so invested that a mediocre or outright bad product will wound me on some spiritual level. Sometimes I'm even pleasantly surprised, like I was with the recent Obi-Wan Kenobi show, or Jedi: Fallen Order, a game that is definitely not perfect but far better than it has any right to be.
I've heard Fallen Order described as a Souls-like, but I don't think that's a particularly fair or accurate description. It's certainly not as difficult as a Souls game, and the way that actions are mapped on the controller, it definitely doesn't have that feel to it either. Sure you drop your experience on death, but that one little thread isn't so Soulsish to me that I would draw that comparison. Fallen Order's design is far closer to a search-action game, where new abilities for protagonist Cal and his partner BD-1 open up previously blocked off pathways in other areas. A skill tree allows Cal to further enhance his abilities, along with collectibles that increase his Force proficiency and health.
Structurally this all works out pretty well. Each world culminates in a tomb designed around a couple specific force abilities, usually one you already have and one that you'll gain mid-way through the tomb. These more puzzle-centric stretches can drag a bit, and remind me a lot of Uncharted, though not quite as interesting. Outside of tombs there's not much in the way of proper puzzle solving. Though a few that are sprinkled here and there, exploration in the main "levels" of Fallen Order are more action driven with force abilities being used to open those aforementioned pathways, either to secrets to to access new story critical routes.
Combat feels fantastic, and I wonder how much of that is improved by the Dualsense's rumble feature. Lightsaber strikes just feel right. It's a bit hard to explain this, but the tactile sensation of bashing a blade made of hard light has an appropriate springiness to it. Perhaps it's weird to say, but Fallen Order might just get the closest to anything I've experienced at replicating how a lightsaber would feel in your hands. I also like that you can slice apart small animals with your lightsaber, though it's weird that this level of dismemberment doesn't extend to stormtroopers. It's not like Star Wars has been shy about hacking off hands or heads before, so why hold back here?
Unfortunately, Fallen Order is riddled with bugs. On PS5 I actually ran into a fair amount of performance issues early in the game. Something about the junk planet just didn't play nice with my console, I guess, but it does even out after that. There are other problems with certain optional bosses not spawning, boss patterns going wonky to the point where they would only use the same attack over and over again, and getting caught in geometry.
I am also not super impressed by any of the boss encounters. Most are against standard or uncommon enemies that are given a boss health bar, with only three battles in the entire game feeling fleshed out. A few boss battles also end once their health bar is taken down by a set amount, making them more showpieces than actual encounters. There's some bullshitty enemy placement too. I just got done explaining why I don't think it's fair to compare Fallen Order to the Souls games, but it seems whoever was in charge of placing Stormtroopers was really enamored with that one segment of the Tomb of the Giants where the giant skeleton kicks you off the level. There are so many Stormtroopers just hiding around corners, placed with the sole attempt of catching you off guard. Not a fan of this! Once or twice is fine, but it starts to add up and just become a very cheap design element meant to trip you up.
While far from perfect, Fallen Order is still a damn good game, especially if you can pick it up for six or nine bucks, which it is frequently discounted to. I'm looking forward to Jedi Survivor, and I hope they can correct some of the issues I had with this game in the sequel, but it's still an EA game and by the end of the day maybe I should taper my expectations... Or default back to "Star Wars, don't care" and find out it's good well after the fact.
Sure I'm able to occasionally enjoy something from the series. Whether it's a figure or a TV show or some parts of some movies, but I'm no longer so invested that a mediocre or outright bad product will wound me on some spiritual level. Sometimes I'm even pleasantly surprised, like I was with the recent Obi-Wan Kenobi show, or Jedi: Fallen Order, a game that is definitely not perfect but far better than it has any right to be.
I've heard Fallen Order described as a Souls-like, but I don't think that's a particularly fair or accurate description. It's certainly not as difficult as a Souls game, and the way that actions are mapped on the controller, it definitely doesn't have that feel to it either. Sure you drop your experience on death, but that one little thread isn't so Soulsish to me that I would draw that comparison. Fallen Order's design is far closer to a search-action game, where new abilities for protagonist Cal and his partner BD-1 open up previously blocked off pathways in other areas. A skill tree allows Cal to further enhance his abilities, along with collectibles that increase his Force proficiency and health.
Structurally this all works out pretty well. Each world culminates in a tomb designed around a couple specific force abilities, usually one you already have and one that you'll gain mid-way through the tomb. These more puzzle-centric stretches can drag a bit, and remind me a lot of Uncharted, though not quite as interesting. Outside of tombs there's not much in the way of proper puzzle solving. Though a few that are sprinkled here and there, exploration in the main "levels" of Fallen Order are more action driven with force abilities being used to open those aforementioned pathways, either to secrets to to access new story critical routes.
Combat feels fantastic, and I wonder how much of that is improved by the Dualsense's rumble feature. Lightsaber strikes just feel right. It's a bit hard to explain this, but the tactile sensation of bashing a blade made of hard light has an appropriate springiness to it. Perhaps it's weird to say, but Fallen Order might just get the closest to anything I've experienced at replicating how a lightsaber would feel in your hands. I also like that you can slice apart small animals with your lightsaber, though it's weird that this level of dismemberment doesn't extend to stormtroopers. It's not like Star Wars has been shy about hacking off hands or heads before, so why hold back here?
Unfortunately, Fallen Order is riddled with bugs. On PS5 I actually ran into a fair amount of performance issues early in the game. Something about the junk planet just didn't play nice with my console, I guess, but it does even out after that. There are other problems with certain optional bosses not spawning, boss patterns going wonky to the point where they would only use the same attack over and over again, and getting caught in geometry.
I am also not super impressed by any of the boss encounters. Most are against standard or uncommon enemies that are given a boss health bar, with only three battles in the entire game feeling fleshed out. A few boss battles also end once their health bar is taken down by a set amount, making them more showpieces than actual encounters. There's some bullshitty enemy placement too. I just got done explaining why I don't think it's fair to compare Fallen Order to the Souls games, but it seems whoever was in charge of placing Stormtroopers was really enamored with that one segment of the Tomb of the Giants where the giant skeleton kicks you off the level. There are so many Stormtroopers just hiding around corners, placed with the sole attempt of catching you off guard. Not a fan of this! Once or twice is fine, but it starts to add up and just become a very cheap design element meant to trip you up.
While far from perfect, Fallen Order is still a damn good game, especially if you can pick it up for six or nine bucks, which it is frequently discounted to. I'm looking forward to Jedi Survivor, and I hope they can correct some of the issues I had with this game in the sequel, but it's still an EA game and by the end of the day maybe I should taper my expectations... Or default back to "Star Wars, don't care" and find out it's good well after the fact.
If there's one thing that can be said about the average Backloggd user, it's that they likely have Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles in their top five games. I can't say that's too surprising, because I too think it's the perfect platformer, and expands brilliantly on every mechanic and design concept of the previous three games. It's so good, in fact, that the entire series earned an extended rest until 2016's Sonic Mania. Yup, it's hard to believe but there were no Sonic games between 1994 and 2016! It's a little something called "going out on top."
Of course, Sonic 3 & Knuckles is two games in one, or rather two halves made whole again. Thanks to the power of Lock-On Technology™, it's literally one game's contents stacked on top of another with a few additional bug fixes, layout changes, and music swaps thrown in for good measure. Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles both have value on their own, but it's hard not to argue that Sonic 3 & Knuckles is the definitive way to play.
Levels are utterly massive, with single acts taking just as long to complete as full zones in previous Sonic games, and yet they never feel like they overstay their welcome. Tails and Knuckles come with their own unique movesets that open additional pathways inaccessible to Sonic, and similar to Sonic 2, special stage portals are scattered throughout levels rather than being an end-of-stage reward for keeping your rings. What you end up with is a game that takes multiple runs to see completely, and each subsequent jog through S3&K's 13 zones feels better than the last. I touched on the importance of exploration in Sonic games without losing sight of the game's pacing, how finding new paths and hidden areas should continue to push you forward, and I think Sonic 3 & Knuckles is the absolute zenith of this design philosophy in the Sonic series. There's always something new to find, but the game just flows in a way that discovery never comes at the expense of progress.
The zones themselves look incredible, with much more richly detailed sprites than anything seen in the series prior. Mid-act set pieces help change the flow and appearance of levels, like Robotnik's bombing run on Angel Island casting the rest of the level in flames, or an attack from the Death Egg heating up the previously cooled off interior of Lava Reef. Sonic 3 & Knuckles is well known for its cutscenes, which tell a story quite effectively without relying on dialog to give context to character actions or plot twists. Even small details in the backgrounds of levels help flesh out the narrative, like statues of Sonic in the upper portion of Hydrocity serving as an early hint of Sonic's prophesized arrival on the island. This focus on story never gets in the way of the game itself and actually does a remarkably good job at making the adventure feel big. I praised Sonic 1's gradual transition from natural to industrial locations for how it makes you feel like you're working your way from the outskirts of South Island towards the heart of Robotnik's headquarters, but Sonic 3 & Knuckles takes that concept and runs with it. Each Zone features an interstitial cutscene that connects the previous level to the next, making you feel like you're actually chasing Robotnik across the island rather than popping up in unrelated locations because video games. Indeed, the entire premise of the story is built off the back of Sonic 2, with Sonic and Tails following the decommissioned Death Egg in their biplane as it crashes on Angel Island. All of this adds so much character, I don't think you can really go back and do a retro style Sonic game anymore and chunk out these narrative elements. It's one of those things that was done so well it effectively becomes part of the series DNA, an expectation rather than a one-off.
Sonic 3 & Knuckles also features my favorite boss battles in the series. Each encounter offers something unique, and are a fair deal more threatening than those in Sonic 2 while still being intuitive enough so as to not be roadblocks. I also really enjoy the mid-bosses and think it was a smart idea to add these as a way to break up each act. In terms of pacing, these serve as climaxes to the first act as well as pallet cleansers, giving Sonic a reason to stop and plant his feet for a second before transitioning into the next act. This is far more effective than simply having him run through a goal post and fading to black, and actually quite necessary given that doing so after a 4 minute level would just kind of feel awkward.
The blue sphere special stages are perhaps the best in the classic series. I've previously commented on how Sonic special stages are just technical showpieces that Sonic Team couldn't be bothered with actually making fun, but I think blue spheres actually manages to be a good time while still looking impressive. If you smack another cart on top of Sonic & Knuckles you can access a new mode where blue sphere levels are randomly generated. I don't recall the exact number of possible permutations, but there's enough content there that you could go grey before completing them all. And yet, there was a period of my life where I would run through a few of them each day just to see how many I could knock out. I love blue spheres. I'm a danger to myself an others.
Sonic 3 & Knuckles is such an incredible game. Thanks to fans, there's also Sonic 3 Complete and Angel Island Revisted which add various tweaks and improvements to the base game, and I think both are definitely worth checking out. It's fun to play around with Complete's restoration of the original intended level order, and AIR provides so many granular options for tweaking the Sonic 3 experience that you can more or less build your perfect version of the game. Plus it has wide screen sport and the music is crystal clear. The Michael Jackson-like voice samples found in many tracks have all their compression removed, it is almost startling how clear they sound. However, I don't want to get too into the weeds on either of these games. Suffice it to say, I think they're worth checking out.
I could talk about this game forever. At the same time, it's also one that I find difficult to discuss in a focused or nuanced way, because every time I start to describe one element I like it ends up reminding me of another I enjoy just as much, and then my thoughts just become scattered until I'm gushing incoherently about how much I love this game. I just think it's that good. I mean, I like Sandopolis for chrissake. Even people who give this a 5 out of 5 would tell you they don't like Sandopolis. That could've been the whole review and it'd give you just as good an idea of how great I think Sonic 3 & Knuckles is without wasting your whole morning on this essay.
Also, it's pronounced high-draw-city. It's not a city! It clearly looks like an aqueduct that's carrying water to Marble Garden, which is the ruins of an ancient city. It's also a water level that focuses on being fast, Hydrocity is a play on the word "velocity!" Yes I know Yuji Naka said it's actually Hydro City, but he made Balan Wonderworld, are you seriously going to tell me that's who you trust!? I will punch you in the nose if you say "Hydro City" to me, I promise you this.
Of course, Sonic 3 & Knuckles is two games in one, or rather two halves made whole again. Thanks to the power of Lock-On Technology™, it's literally one game's contents stacked on top of another with a few additional bug fixes, layout changes, and music swaps thrown in for good measure. Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles both have value on their own, but it's hard not to argue that Sonic 3 & Knuckles is the definitive way to play.
Levels are utterly massive, with single acts taking just as long to complete as full zones in previous Sonic games, and yet they never feel like they overstay their welcome. Tails and Knuckles come with their own unique movesets that open additional pathways inaccessible to Sonic, and similar to Sonic 2, special stage portals are scattered throughout levels rather than being an end-of-stage reward for keeping your rings. What you end up with is a game that takes multiple runs to see completely, and each subsequent jog through S3&K's 13 zones feels better than the last. I touched on the importance of exploration in Sonic games without losing sight of the game's pacing, how finding new paths and hidden areas should continue to push you forward, and I think Sonic 3 & Knuckles is the absolute zenith of this design philosophy in the Sonic series. There's always something new to find, but the game just flows in a way that discovery never comes at the expense of progress.
The zones themselves look incredible, with much more richly detailed sprites than anything seen in the series prior. Mid-act set pieces help change the flow and appearance of levels, like Robotnik's bombing run on Angel Island casting the rest of the level in flames, or an attack from the Death Egg heating up the previously cooled off interior of Lava Reef. Sonic 3 & Knuckles is well known for its cutscenes, which tell a story quite effectively without relying on dialog to give context to character actions or plot twists. Even small details in the backgrounds of levels help flesh out the narrative, like statues of Sonic in the upper portion of Hydrocity serving as an early hint of Sonic's prophesized arrival on the island. This focus on story never gets in the way of the game itself and actually does a remarkably good job at making the adventure feel big. I praised Sonic 1's gradual transition from natural to industrial locations for how it makes you feel like you're working your way from the outskirts of South Island towards the heart of Robotnik's headquarters, but Sonic 3 & Knuckles takes that concept and runs with it. Each Zone features an interstitial cutscene that connects the previous level to the next, making you feel like you're actually chasing Robotnik across the island rather than popping up in unrelated locations because video games. Indeed, the entire premise of the story is built off the back of Sonic 2, with Sonic and Tails following the decommissioned Death Egg in their biplane as it crashes on Angel Island. All of this adds so much character, I don't think you can really go back and do a retro style Sonic game anymore and chunk out these narrative elements. It's one of those things that was done so well it effectively becomes part of the series DNA, an expectation rather than a one-off.
Sonic 3 & Knuckles also features my favorite boss battles in the series. Each encounter offers something unique, and are a fair deal more threatening than those in Sonic 2 while still being intuitive enough so as to not be roadblocks. I also really enjoy the mid-bosses and think it was a smart idea to add these as a way to break up each act. In terms of pacing, these serve as climaxes to the first act as well as pallet cleansers, giving Sonic a reason to stop and plant his feet for a second before transitioning into the next act. This is far more effective than simply having him run through a goal post and fading to black, and actually quite necessary given that doing so after a 4 minute level would just kind of feel awkward.
The blue sphere special stages are perhaps the best in the classic series. I've previously commented on how Sonic special stages are just technical showpieces that Sonic Team couldn't be bothered with actually making fun, but I think blue spheres actually manages to be a good time while still looking impressive. If you smack another cart on top of Sonic & Knuckles you can access a new mode where blue sphere levels are randomly generated. I don't recall the exact number of possible permutations, but there's enough content there that you could go grey before completing them all. And yet, there was a period of my life where I would run through a few of them each day just to see how many I could knock out. I love blue spheres. I'm a danger to myself an others.
Sonic 3 & Knuckles is such an incredible game. Thanks to fans, there's also Sonic 3 Complete and Angel Island Revisted which add various tweaks and improvements to the base game, and I think both are definitely worth checking out. It's fun to play around with Complete's restoration of the original intended level order, and AIR provides so many granular options for tweaking the Sonic 3 experience that you can more or less build your perfect version of the game. Plus it has wide screen sport and the music is crystal clear. The Michael Jackson-like voice samples found in many tracks have all their compression removed, it is almost startling how clear they sound. However, I don't want to get too into the weeds on either of these games. Suffice it to say, I think they're worth checking out.
I could talk about this game forever. At the same time, it's also one that I find difficult to discuss in a focused or nuanced way, because every time I start to describe one element I like it ends up reminding me of another I enjoy just as much, and then my thoughts just become scattered until I'm gushing incoherently about how much I love this game. I just think it's that good. I mean, I like Sandopolis for chrissake. Even people who give this a 5 out of 5 would tell you they don't like Sandopolis. That could've been the whole review and it'd give you just as good an idea of how great I think Sonic 3 & Knuckles is without wasting your whole morning on this essay.
Also, it's pronounced high-draw-city. It's not a city! It clearly looks like an aqueduct that's carrying water to Marble Garden, which is the ruins of an ancient city. It's also a water level that focuses on being fast, Hydrocity is a play on the word "velocity!" Yes I know Yuji Naka said it's actually Hydro City, but he made Balan Wonderworld, are you seriously going to tell me that's who you trust!? I will punch you in the nose if you say "Hydro City" to me, I promise you this.
For me, The House of the Dead 2 is the quintessential light gun shooter, but I do have some nostalgia for the original House of the Dead as well, having played it in a number of arcades over the years. Next to Turtles in Time, I might be the most prolific cabinet I've seen, though the first time I recall encountering it was in some dive bar my dad dragged me to during a road trip I vaguely remember. Later that night we went to a circus. This whole day exists in my mind like a faintly remembered fever dream, but if there's one positive to going to bars that had arcade cabinets, it was that my dad would get real loose with his money after getting a couple drinks in him.
The House of the Dead is pretty fun for what it is. The first three levels have branching paths that are dependent on what enemies attack you, background objects you shoot, or civilians you save or don't save. Adding to the replay value is a new Saturn Mode which lets you pick between six different characters, all with their own stats. The last of the four levels is a total slog, though, lacking in the non-linearity of the previous levels and mostly being a boss rush with some dull action sequences to break up each fight. It also culminates in a very spongy final boss that feels very underwhelming to fight.
The cutscenes and bits of character dialog you get are fantastic. Some of the absolute worst line delivery in gaming, and I love it. Much like the gameplay, however, I feel this is something that's even better in the sequel. If anything, The House of the Dead's greatest flaw is that the follow up outshines it in pretty much every way. Not that a short and sweet run through the original is a bad time or anything, but for me playing this was almost an obligation. I have a working CRT, a Sega Saturn, and a light gun. I paid my money, at this point not playing The House of the Dead would be downright weird.
The House of the Dead is pretty fun for what it is. The first three levels have branching paths that are dependent on what enemies attack you, background objects you shoot, or civilians you save or don't save. Adding to the replay value is a new Saturn Mode which lets you pick between six different characters, all with their own stats. The last of the four levels is a total slog, though, lacking in the non-linearity of the previous levels and mostly being a boss rush with some dull action sequences to break up each fight. It also culminates in a very spongy final boss that feels very underwhelming to fight.
The cutscenes and bits of character dialog you get are fantastic. Some of the absolute worst line delivery in gaming, and I love it. Much like the gameplay, however, I feel this is something that's even better in the sequel. If anything, The House of the Dead's greatest flaw is that the follow up outshines it in pretty much every way. Not that a short and sweet run through the original is a bad time or anything, but for me playing this was almost an obligation. I have a working CRT, a Sega Saturn, and a light gun. I paid my money, at this point not playing The House of the Dead would be downright weird.
1992
Three myths I believed about Sonic the Hedgehog 2 that I know now are false: Tails is a girl, running back and forth over bubbles makes a large one spawn faster, Sonic 2 is the best game in the series.
This is the first Sonic game I actually owned. I still remember visiting my father one Summer and going with him to the Toys R' Us to pick out a game and debating with myself whether I wanted Sonic 2 more than Sonic 3. Well, Sonic the Hedgehog 2 has more levels, I reasoned, and who am I to argue with the immutable law of More = Better Than?
You better believe I played all 10 of those levels to death. After all, I owned very few Genesis carts, most of the games I played were on weekend rentals. In fact, until my teenage years the only two Sonic games I owned for the system was this and Sonic & Knuckles. Every pixel of those games is tattooed on my brain, I could draw the layout of Mystic Cave Act 2 blindfolded and with my off-hand by this point. I suppose then that there's an argument to be made that I'm mostly just burnt out on Sonic 2, and that may play a bigger factor in why it's my lowest ranked of the Genesis games than any real grievance with its design.
Whereas Sonic the Hedgehog's levels were designed around tricky platforming, often requiring the player to slow down and carefully maneuver moving blocks, conveyors, and crumbling pathways, Sonic 2 favors pure speed, with levels that are designed more like raceways. Springs and bumpers send Sonic rushing forward just as much as they help him reach new heights, loops and declines are in abundance to help the player maintain their momentum, and levels tone down the more vertical nature of Sonic 1 and CD's stage design for more horizontal pathways that keep the player moving. This new emphasis on speed over platforming redefined what people's perception of Sonic was very early on, and arguably has become the basis for what they define as "classic Sonic."
It makes for a pretty good time, at least until the last third of the game where everything just kinda falls apart. I think Oil Ocean might be the last "good" level even if I personally don't care that much for it (frankly I think it's gimmicks are underwhelming and too much of the level's structure repeats, just a boring zone all around), but I suspect I won't get any argument when I say Metropolis is a low point not just for Sonic 2 but perhaps the entire Genesis era of Sonic level design. Three overly long braindead acts filled with enemies that have forward facing attacks you're prone to running directly into both due to the way the level funnels you into them and as a consequence of screen crunch. I tend to find Sonic games more fun when not playing as Super Sonic, but I always go Super for Metropolis just to get it over with more quickly.
Sky Chase is an iconic Zone, one that I think is fairly popular, but I sure as hell don't like it. I don't think there's much room for auto-scrollers in Sonic games give how they're antithetical to the series design ethos, at least for that era. For it to be a particularly sluggish auto-scroller with uninspired enemy patterns and a theme that has an almost lullaby-esque quality to it, well, I think it really ruins the pacing that Sonic 2 has otherwise maintained to that point. Wing Fortress is at least fun, albeit short and perhaps too straight-forward for a final Zone, but Death Egg can just eat me. It's not so much the lack of rings that's the issue, more that the Death Egg robot has exactly two attack patterns it repeats on loop with few open windows to retaliate, some of which will just cause you to clip right through and die. It is at least a more engaging final battle than Robotnik's weird crusher machine from the last game, but good god it's a lousy note to go out on. The series thankfully got better final boss battles, and even the Death Egg robot was redeemed in later games, for what that's worth.
The special stages are another point of contention, and I think probably a more commonly shared complaint of this game. The half-pipe Sonic and Tails race down is technically impressive, but hindered by the choppy way rings and hazards appear down the track. These stages become more about memorization than they do skill, and god help you if you have Tails with you, losing rings due to the slight delay he has in mimicking your movement. It may be helpful to know that resetting the console will preserve your emerald progress while resetting all the star posts used to enter the special stages, allowing you to game the system and collect all the emeralds in Emerald Hill. If you'd prefer not to cheat, the method of entering these special stages is more numerous, making a botched run much more forgiving than Sonic 1 or CD.
All this negativity aside, I do think Sonic the Hedgehog 2 is a great game. It's hard to dismiss how much it pushed the series and the Genesis forward. Graphically it's far more impressive than Sonic 1, more vibrantly colored and much more packed with detail and character. Badniks no longer repeat between levels, which each zone having its own tailored set built not only around the zone's theming but its layout, creating hazards that (to a point) never feel cheap but provide enough of a challenge as to be a threat. Bosses are more inventive, aggressive, and visually interesting. The addition of Super Sonic and Tails add in even more replayability as well. It's a bit surprising to know that Sonic 2 is massively scaled down from Sonic Team's original 18 zone vision, which we've only learned more and more about in decades following its release. The betas of this game that ended up on the net in the early 2000s no doubt helped kickstart the current fascination so many game enthusiasts have with cut content. Hell, one of the leading sites for such content, Hidden Palace, directly lifts their name from an axed Sonic 2 level.
The point is, Sonic 2 is important for many reasons, and it's still a damn good game to play today. I have my issues with it, most of which are loaded in the last act of the game, but it's also hard for me to deny that burn out plays a factor in me preferring the other Genesis Sonics over it. Maybe it's true that you can have too much of a good thing. One thing's for sure, though: when I'm old and decaying in a nursing home, mind addled by dementia that has robbed me of my agency and relationships, the one piece of me that will remain is my memories of Sonic 2. Played too much of it. It's ruined me.
This is the first Sonic game I actually owned. I still remember visiting my father one Summer and going with him to the Toys R' Us to pick out a game and debating with myself whether I wanted Sonic 2 more than Sonic 3. Well, Sonic the Hedgehog 2 has more levels, I reasoned, and who am I to argue with the immutable law of More = Better Than?
You better believe I played all 10 of those levels to death. After all, I owned very few Genesis carts, most of the games I played were on weekend rentals. In fact, until my teenage years the only two Sonic games I owned for the system was this and Sonic & Knuckles. Every pixel of those games is tattooed on my brain, I could draw the layout of Mystic Cave Act 2 blindfolded and with my off-hand by this point. I suppose then that there's an argument to be made that I'm mostly just burnt out on Sonic 2, and that may play a bigger factor in why it's my lowest ranked of the Genesis games than any real grievance with its design.
Whereas Sonic the Hedgehog's levels were designed around tricky platforming, often requiring the player to slow down and carefully maneuver moving blocks, conveyors, and crumbling pathways, Sonic 2 favors pure speed, with levels that are designed more like raceways. Springs and bumpers send Sonic rushing forward just as much as they help him reach new heights, loops and declines are in abundance to help the player maintain their momentum, and levels tone down the more vertical nature of Sonic 1 and CD's stage design for more horizontal pathways that keep the player moving. This new emphasis on speed over platforming redefined what people's perception of Sonic was very early on, and arguably has become the basis for what they define as "classic Sonic."
It makes for a pretty good time, at least until the last third of the game where everything just kinda falls apart. I think Oil Ocean might be the last "good" level even if I personally don't care that much for it (frankly I think it's gimmicks are underwhelming and too much of the level's structure repeats, just a boring zone all around), but I suspect I won't get any argument when I say Metropolis is a low point not just for Sonic 2 but perhaps the entire Genesis era of Sonic level design. Three overly long braindead acts filled with enemies that have forward facing attacks you're prone to running directly into both due to the way the level funnels you into them and as a consequence of screen crunch. I tend to find Sonic games more fun when not playing as Super Sonic, but I always go Super for Metropolis just to get it over with more quickly.
Sky Chase is an iconic Zone, one that I think is fairly popular, but I sure as hell don't like it. I don't think there's much room for auto-scrollers in Sonic games give how they're antithetical to the series design ethos, at least for that era. For it to be a particularly sluggish auto-scroller with uninspired enemy patterns and a theme that has an almost lullaby-esque quality to it, well, I think it really ruins the pacing that Sonic 2 has otherwise maintained to that point. Wing Fortress is at least fun, albeit short and perhaps too straight-forward for a final Zone, but Death Egg can just eat me. It's not so much the lack of rings that's the issue, more that the Death Egg robot has exactly two attack patterns it repeats on loop with few open windows to retaliate, some of which will just cause you to clip right through and die. It is at least a more engaging final battle than Robotnik's weird crusher machine from the last game, but good god it's a lousy note to go out on. The series thankfully got better final boss battles, and even the Death Egg robot was redeemed in later games, for what that's worth.
The special stages are another point of contention, and I think probably a more commonly shared complaint of this game. The half-pipe Sonic and Tails race down is technically impressive, but hindered by the choppy way rings and hazards appear down the track. These stages become more about memorization than they do skill, and god help you if you have Tails with you, losing rings due to the slight delay he has in mimicking your movement. It may be helpful to know that resetting the console will preserve your emerald progress while resetting all the star posts used to enter the special stages, allowing you to game the system and collect all the emeralds in Emerald Hill. If you'd prefer not to cheat, the method of entering these special stages is more numerous, making a botched run much more forgiving than Sonic 1 or CD.
All this negativity aside, I do think Sonic the Hedgehog 2 is a great game. It's hard to dismiss how much it pushed the series and the Genesis forward. Graphically it's far more impressive than Sonic 1, more vibrantly colored and much more packed with detail and character. Badniks no longer repeat between levels, which each zone having its own tailored set built not only around the zone's theming but its layout, creating hazards that (to a point) never feel cheap but provide enough of a challenge as to be a threat. Bosses are more inventive, aggressive, and visually interesting. The addition of Super Sonic and Tails add in even more replayability as well. It's a bit surprising to know that Sonic 2 is massively scaled down from Sonic Team's original 18 zone vision, which we've only learned more and more about in decades following its release. The betas of this game that ended up on the net in the early 2000s no doubt helped kickstart the current fascination so many game enthusiasts have with cut content. Hell, one of the leading sites for such content, Hidden Palace, directly lifts their name from an axed Sonic 2 level.
The point is, Sonic 2 is important for many reasons, and it's still a damn good game to play today. I have my issues with it, most of which are loaded in the last act of the game, but it's also hard for me to deny that burn out plays a factor in me preferring the other Genesis Sonics over it. Maybe it's true that you can have too much of a good thing. One thing's for sure, though: when I'm old and decaying in a nursing home, mind addled by dementia that has robbed me of my agency and relationships, the one piece of me that will remain is my memories of Sonic 2. Played too much of it. It's ruined me.
Look into Klonoa's eyes and tell me you hate him. You can't do it. Everybody loves this little bastard, which is why it's so crazy they only ever gave him two games (four, technically, but I'm not counting that GBA shit.)
Well, Klonoa's back! Maybe! It all depends on whether or not enough of you buy this so-so port of Klonoa's two Playstation outings. The good news is that these games hold up due to the virtue of their design, the bad news is that this collection has some shortcomings that might just make Phantasy Reverie as a package a bit underwhelming. But hey, don't worry, at least none of it is as bad as Sonic Origins.
I never played the original Klonoa and only messed around in the first few levels of Klonoa 2, so I was excited to get a chance to sit down an play these. However, it also means I don't have a very good point of reference for how Klonoa should handle versus how he does in this collection. Both games play similarly, with Klonoa using a ring that allows him to inflate enemies and toss them along the same plane he's on or into the foreground and background. This mechanic is used for some pretty creative though ultimately simple puzzles, as well as providing him the ability to essentially double jump by springing off an enemy. This is used more frequently in the late game where you have to chain enemies and double jumps across large chasms.
Levels are very smartly designed and make great use of 3D space to layer in pathways that you'll eventually loop back to in the background and foreground. This feeds back into the aforementioned tossing mechanic as you sometimes need to clear obstacles from these paths before exploring them properly. I really like getting teased with little bits of the level that I've yet to reach, it's great. You can also collect six hidden characters/dolls in each level, though all but one across both titles are so easy to find that you probably won't need a guide let alone a second trip through a level to get them all. The one outlier seems to require the use of a second player to boost Klonoa up to a hard to reach place, and I do think it's pretty awful to design a single mandatory 2-player collectible. You can get up there by fussing around with two nearby enemies, trying to jump off one and grab the other at the apex of your jump, then double jump off that, but executing this is really finicky and it definitely feels like something you aren't really meant to do.
Klonoa 1 and *2 are so mechanically similar it's easier to talk about them as one game, though 2 does add a few levels where Klonoa surfboards through obstacle courses. These remind me a lot of the minecart levels in Donkey Kong Country, though they swap perspectives from 2D to 3D periodically. The behind-the-back portions of these levels are pretty weak, and it feels like you really have to slam the analog stick all the way to the left or right to get any real movement out of Klonoa. I wish I had more fluid controls during these segments, especially the last couple surfing stages, which see Klonoa surfing on incredibly thin winding platforms suspended over bottomless pits.
Something I observed that I suspect may not be true of the original games are some wonky hitbox detection. Unless Klonoa is dead-center with an enemy when he attacks, it will just whiff completely. I've thrown enemies into other enemies and obstacles and watched them clip right through, and during the later levels when you have to do a lot of very precise double jump chains it just becomes frustrating to screw up mid-way through because Klonoa was ever so slightly too high or too low when using the wind shot, even though it very clearly hits the enemy. This is such a consistent issue between both games that I have to wonder if it's more a consequence of the engine they're both built off of and not a quality they share with the original games. In any case, both Klonoa games are pretty easy and fun throughout, but due to poor hitbox detection I found myself getting pulled out of it during the final stretch of levels in each game.
Seeing as these games were made by the game guy who gave us Ninja Gaiden, it goes without saying that Klonoa is very narrative driven. Characters stop and chat mid-level pretty frequently, and in the case of Klonoa 2 it's rare that a level doesn't at least open or close on a long cutscene. Thankfully, the stories for both games are charming, cute, and surprisingly heartfelt. I was also shocked to see that Klonoa as a character has some genuinely good development between both games. I'm used to stuff like Sonic or Mega Man which also have narrative elements that connect between games, but revert the characters back to the same base personality for each new adventure. Klonoa actually matures considerably between his two games, and by the end of Klonoa 2 you can see that he's grown even more. This is somewhat reflected in his character design as well, which appears aged up for Klonoa 2, though I don't know if canonically that is the case so much as wanting a new design that made better use of the Playstation 2 hardware.
Lacking from this collection are any sort of design docs as unlockables. I would've loved to be able to unlock concept art, old advertisements, interviews, something, anything.* They also did not bother to include the original versions of the two included games. Even if they were just emulated, it would've been nice to have them packed in for posterity. What you see is what you get, though. Two remade games, no frills, no extras. That'll be 40$ please, and if you don't cough it up they'll put Klonoa feet first into a wood chipper, and you'll have to watch them do it!
I paid more than that though, because I just had to have this on disc, something that apparently Namco Bandai figured the American market just didn't want? What the hell is this? I gotta import my children's platformer game from freakin Europe? Terrible.
Well, Klonoa's back! Maybe! It all depends on whether or not enough of you buy this so-so port of Klonoa's two Playstation outings. The good news is that these games hold up due to the virtue of their design, the bad news is that this collection has some shortcomings that might just make Phantasy Reverie as a package a bit underwhelming. But hey, don't worry, at least none of it is as bad as Sonic Origins.
I never played the original Klonoa and only messed around in the first few levels of Klonoa 2, so I was excited to get a chance to sit down an play these. However, it also means I don't have a very good point of reference for how Klonoa should handle versus how he does in this collection. Both games play similarly, with Klonoa using a ring that allows him to inflate enemies and toss them along the same plane he's on or into the foreground and background. This mechanic is used for some pretty creative though ultimately simple puzzles, as well as providing him the ability to essentially double jump by springing off an enemy. This is used more frequently in the late game where you have to chain enemies and double jumps across large chasms.
Levels are very smartly designed and make great use of 3D space to layer in pathways that you'll eventually loop back to in the background and foreground. This feeds back into the aforementioned tossing mechanic as you sometimes need to clear obstacles from these paths before exploring them properly. I really like getting teased with little bits of the level that I've yet to reach, it's great. You can also collect six hidden characters/dolls in each level, though all but one across both titles are so easy to find that you probably won't need a guide let alone a second trip through a level to get them all. The one outlier seems to require the use of a second player to boost Klonoa up to a hard to reach place, and I do think it's pretty awful to design a single mandatory 2-player collectible. You can get up there by fussing around with two nearby enemies, trying to jump off one and grab the other at the apex of your jump, then double jump off that, but executing this is really finicky and it definitely feels like something you aren't really meant to do.
Klonoa 1 and *2 are so mechanically similar it's easier to talk about them as one game, though 2 does add a few levels where Klonoa surfboards through obstacle courses. These remind me a lot of the minecart levels in Donkey Kong Country, though they swap perspectives from 2D to 3D periodically. The behind-the-back portions of these levels are pretty weak, and it feels like you really have to slam the analog stick all the way to the left or right to get any real movement out of Klonoa. I wish I had more fluid controls during these segments, especially the last couple surfing stages, which see Klonoa surfing on incredibly thin winding platforms suspended over bottomless pits.
Something I observed that I suspect may not be true of the original games are some wonky hitbox detection. Unless Klonoa is dead-center with an enemy when he attacks, it will just whiff completely. I've thrown enemies into other enemies and obstacles and watched them clip right through, and during the later levels when you have to do a lot of very precise double jump chains it just becomes frustrating to screw up mid-way through because Klonoa was ever so slightly too high or too low when using the wind shot, even though it very clearly hits the enemy. This is such a consistent issue between both games that I have to wonder if it's more a consequence of the engine they're both built off of and not a quality they share with the original games. In any case, both Klonoa games are pretty easy and fun throughout, but due to poor hitbox detection I found myself getting pulled out of it during the final stretch of levels in each game.
Seeing as these games were made by the game guy who gave us Ninja Gaiden, it goes without saying that Klonoa is very narrative driven. Characters stop and chat mid-level pretty frequently, and in the case of Klonoa 2 it's rare that a level doesn't at least open or close on a long cutscene. Thankfully, the stories for both games are charming, cute, and surprisingly heartfelt. I was also shocked to see that Klonoa as a character has some genuinely good development between both games. I'm used to stuff like Sonic or Mega Man which also have narrative elements that connect between games, but revert the characters back to the same base personality for each new adventure. Klonoa actually matures considerably between his two games, and by the end of Klonoa 2 you can see that he's grown even more. This is somewhat reflected in his character design as well, which appears aged up for Klonoa 2, though I don't know if canonically that is the case so much as wanting a new design that made better use of the Playstation 2 hardware.
Lacking from this collection are any sort of design docs as unlockables. I would've loved to be able to unlock concept art, old advertisements, interviews, something, anything.* They also did not bother to include the original versions of the two included games. Even if they were just emulated, it would've been nice to have them packed in for posterity. What you see is what you get, though. Two remade games, no frills, no extras. That'll be 40$ please, and if you don't cough it up they'll put Klonoa feet first into a wood chipper, and you'll have to watch them do it!
I paid more than that though, because I just had to have this on disc, something that apparently Namco Bandai figured the American market just didn't want? What the hell is this? I gotta import my children's platformer game from freakin Europe? Terrible.
As a grown-ass adult I should probably have more shame than I do for liking the first two Five Nights at Freddy's games, but I will defend my position to the death. Jump scares are cheap, but what makes both of those games so effective is how they constantly ratchet up the tension by essentially being stress management simulators. Throw in a bunch of humor about corporate greed run amok, at the expense of yours and the public's safety, and you have two titles that are as funny as they are frightening. Unfortunately, Scott Cawthon's apparent compulsion to keep churning these out (and their subsequent decline in quality) coupled with a cottage industry of speculative-lore YouTubers made this a series that was just too damn embarrassing to play anymore, and I eventually bounced off.
I am notoriously easy to please when it comes to horror games, though. Really any horror. I own all the Leprechaun movies and I like most of them. I am the way god made me!
Suffice it to say, the first couple of trailers for Security Breach caught my interest, and knowing that development was switching over to an actual studio unencumbered by the increasingly dire imagination of one man made it all the more promising. However, negative reviews and a high asking price scared me off for a while, but one 50% off discount later, and I finally had a chance to sit down and play through Security Breach for myself. My verdict? People are being too harsh... And/or I'm an idiot who thinks Leprechaun 4: In Space is good, actually, and should not be trusted.
In Security Breach you play as Gregory, a boy who is trapped inside the massive Freddy Fazbear Pizzaplex after hours. Befriending the titular Freddy, you have to survive until 6am when the security system disengages, allowing you to escape. You quickly find out that the security guard, Vanessa, has programmed the remaining animatronics to aggressively hunt you, and as you make your way deeper into the Pizzaplex, you come to discover that everything is much more sinister than it seems.
Progress is very similar to a search-action title, with various upgrades and security passes opening more of the labyrinthine Pizzaplex for you to explore. Along the way, you have to hide and creep about to avoid animatronics, and security bots who will raise an alert to summon them. Each animatronic is given a distinct personality. Roxy is plagued by self doubt and narcissism and often gives her location away by giving herself pep talks, Monty is a rage monster that can leap about to cut off your path, and Chica... she likes to eat garbage. Just like me.
The stealth works surprisingly well. You're given a camera system that allows you to scope out what's ahead, but it's never too useful and at times can be detrimental, as using it doesn't pause the game and leaves you open to being jumped. The first person perspective makes it easy to get a lay of the land, in any case. Juking animatronics feels pretty good, and there's some pretty tense set pieces, including a horde of Weeping Angle type enemies that must be carefully maneuvered in the basement level of the complex, and a chase between you and a massive DJ robot that crawls around the complex like a spider.
I also enjoy how Security Breach flips the script, making the security guard the primary antagonist, and eventually tasking you with directly taking on the animatronics, junking them for parts to upgrade Freddy (who is naturally concerned about where all this new equipment is coming from.) As mentioned in my Sister Location review, I could give a crap less about the supernatural elements or the deeper lore that connects these games together, and find that they often hinder my enjoyment of these games. Security Breach only delves into this aspect very late into the true ending route, and otherwise keeps itself focused on being a dark comedy about shitty workplaces.
In fact, it appears that the Pizzaplex has embraced its parent company's dark past, leveraging imagery of past tragedies to advertise itself. The decaying villain of the third game shows up in in-game branding, featured on wet floor signage and arcade cabinets. Text logs reveal all sorts of security protocols to keep families safe, errant behavior reports detail issues with each of the animatronics (such as Chica being addicted to slushies and attacking customers for it), and e-mails detail mass layoffs in favor of using a completely broken security system and all-robotic staff. Intercom messages constantly remind guests to sign waivers absolving the Fazbear company of liability, and gasoline powered generators are stationed in the playplace of the daycare. It's great. It's exactly what I want from this series. At all times the writing should be aiming for Itchy and Scratchy Land.
Security Breach is not without its flaws, though. It's clear that there's some unfinished elements of this game. The endings all feel horrendously tacked on, and Vanny - a creepy fursuiter heavily featured in the game's marketing - only appears very briefly. Apparently there was a cut mechanic where she would be summoned after a meter was filled, and she feels very narratively underdeveloped. The game's performance is also substandard. Frames are dropping all the damn time, especially during a segment in a laser tag arena that becomes absolute hell to navigate due to how choppy it is. I ran the game in performance mode, god help anyone who sets it to fidelity. I thankfully only had the game crash once and it was near a save station, so it was a non-issue, and overall I think performance must have been ironed out by the time I played it. It's still bad, but comparatively it sounds like I had a better time with it than others. However, I question if it will improve much more by this point.
Still, I really liked weaving around the animatronics, I found the story and little memos and e-mail logs you find to be a lot of fun, and I think the focus has been placed precisely on the elements I like the most about this series. I hope they do more of this, and if they do then I also hope they give it more time in the oven. I thought this one was pretty good! You know what else I think is pretty good? Leprechaun 2. In that one, the Leprechaun (whose real name is Lubdan, which I know because I am a TRUE Leprechaun fan) builds a go kart which he spray paints "I WANT ME GOLD" on and drives around terrorizing the main character, who, as it turns out, has his gold! It's great!
I'm a stupid little freak.
I am notoriously easy to please when it comes to horror games, though. Really any horror. I own all the Leprechaun movies and I like most of them. I am the way god made me!
Suffice it to say, the first couple of trailers for Security Breach caught my interest, and knowing that development was switching over to an actual studio unencumbered by the increasingly dire imagination of one man made it all the more promising. However, negative reviews and a high asking price scared me off for a while, but one 50% off discount later, and I finally had a chance to sit down and play through Security Breach for myself. My verdict? People are being too harsh... And/or I'm an idiot who thinks Leprechaun 4: In Space is good, actually, and should not be trusted.
In Security Breach you play as Gregory, a boy who is trapped inside the massive Freddy Fazbear Pizzaplex after hours. Befriending the titular Freddy, you have to survive until 6am when the security system disengages, allowing you to escape. You quickly find out that the security guard, Vanessa, has programmed the remaining animatronics to aggressively hunt you, and as you make your way deeper into the Pizzaplex, you come to discover that everything is much more sinister than it seems.
Progress is very similar to a search-action title, with various upgrades and security passes opening more of the labyrinthine Pizzaplex for you to explore. Along the way, you have to hide and creep about to avoid animatronics, and security bots who will raise an alert to summon them. Each animatronic is given a distinct personality. Roxy is plagued by self doubt and narcissism and often gives her location away by giving herself pep talks, Monty is a rage monster that can leap about to cut off your path, and Chica... she likes to eat garbage. Just like me.
The stealth works surprisingly well. You're given a camera system that allows you to scope out what's ahead, but it's never too useful and at times can be detrimental, as using it doesn't pause the game and leaves you open to being jumped. The first person perspective makes it easy to get a lay of the land, in any case. Juking animatronics feels pretty good, and there's some pretty tense set pieces, including a horde of Weeping Angle type enemies that must be carefully maneuvered in the basement level of the complex, and a chase between you and a massive DJ robot that crawls around the complex like a spider.
I also enjoy how Security Breach flips the script, making the security guard the primary antagonist, and eventually tasking you with directly taking on the animatronics, junking them for parts to upgrade Freddy (who is naturally concerned about where all this new equipment is coming from.) As mentioned in my Sister Location review, I could give a crap less about the supernatural elements or the deeper lore that connects these games together, and find that they often hinder my enjoyment of these games. Security Breach only delves into this aspect very late into the true ending route, and otherwise keeps itself focused on being a dark comedy about shitty workplaces.
In fact, it appears that the Pizzaplex has embraced its parent company's dark past, leveraging imagery of past tragedies to advertise itself. The decaying villain of the third game shows up in in-game branding, featured on wet floor signage and arcade cabinets. Text logs reveal all sorts of security protocols to keep families safe, errant behavior reports detail issues with each of the animatronics (such as Chica being addicted to slushies and attacking customers for it), and e-mails detail mass layoffs in favor of using a completely broken security system and all-robotic staff. Intercom messages constantly remind guests to sign waivers absolving the Fazbear company of liability, and gasoline powered generators are stationed in the playplace of the daycare. It's great. It's exactly what I want from this series. At all times the writing should be aiming for Itchy and Scratchy Land.
Security Breach is not without its flaws, though. It's clear that there's some unfinished elements of this game. The endings all feel horrendously tacked on, and Vanny - a creepy fursuiter heavily featured in the game's marketing - only appears very briefly. Apparently there was a cut mechanic where she would be summoned after a meter was filled, and she feels very narratively underdeveloped. The game's performance is also substandard. Frames are dropping all the damn time, especially during a segment in a laser tag arena that becomes absolute hell to navigate due to how choppy it is. I ran the game in performance mode, god help anyone who sets it to fidelity. I thankfully only had the game crash once and it was near a save station, so it was a non-issue, and overall I think performance must have been ironed out by the time I played it. It's still bad, but comparatively it sounds like I had a better time with it than others. However, I question if it will improve much more by this point.
Still, I really liked weaving around the animatronics, I found the story and little memos and e-mail logs you find to be a lot of fun, and I think the focus has been placed precisely on the elements I like the most about this series. I hope they do more of this, and if they do then I also hope they give it more time in the oven. I thought this one was pretty good! You know what else I think is pretty good? Leprechaun 2. In that one, the Leprechaun (whose real name is Lubdan, which I know because I am a TRUE Leprechaun fan) builds a go kart which he spray paints "I WANT ME GOLD" on and drives around terrorizing the main character, who, as it turns out, has his gold! It's great!
I'm a stupid little freak.
1993
Sonic CD has a reputation. Considered the pinnacle of 'classic' Sonic as often as it's derided for being the series black sheep. To say it's a controversial entry in the Sonic library is an understatement. Being a spineless, fence-sitting Sonic centrist, I neither think it deserves the blind praise or unfiltered vitriol it continues to earn to this day.
For quite some time Sonic CD remained one of the least accessible Sonic games, and the mystique surrounding it no doubt contributed to an inflated sense of value for the game. Thankfully, the excellent remaster by Taxman has changed this, but being able to more easily play this on a number of platforms and with significant quality of life improvements has only helped lift the rose-tinted goggles I viewed the original release through, allowing me to develop what I feel is a more fair assessment of Sonic CD.
At the time of its development, Sonic CD only had the first game as a roadmap for where to go next. Much of that game's design ethos translate quite well into CD, including the more methodical pace of platforming and winding level structure. Indeed, many of CD's levels have analogs with Sonic the Hedgehog. Palmtree Panic is Green Hill of course, Tidal Tempest is Labyrinth, Collision Chaos is Spring Yard, Stardust Speedway is Starlight... There was a point in time where CD was envisioned to be an enhanced remake of the original game before veering off to become the more vertically oriented, exploration focused entry it is today. This seems to be what divides people the most. Some really enjoy taking their time, knocking out all the robot generators, and finding the ideal places to time travel. Others think this is crap from a butt, and when you consider the larger impression (and earlier release) Sonic the Hedgehog 2 had, it's no wonder they prefer its more linear speed-driven gameplay over CD's slower pace.
For a while I fell into the former camp. Sonic CD was so unattainable yet ever-present for me. I occasionally got a chance to play it on my friend's computer, and those brief tastes left me with a lasting impression that morphed into a very assured sense that it was my favorite Sonic game. Years after I bought my own PC copy off Ebay, I still believed this. It was only thanks to the Taxman port and its many quality of life improvements that the blinders were able to come off, and I was allowed to develop a better sense of Sonic CD's weaknesses.
The mantra of CD's defenders is that exploration is fun, but where I feel this fun starts to fall apart is when you're exploring for the robot generators. Taking these out is an all-or-nothing equation if you want the good ending, miss one and you're done. You can fall back on the time stones, which I'll get to, but the generators themselves provide little room for error. The first few times you go hunting for them are quite enjoyable, but once you know where they're at and the most effective means of time traveling to reach them, you'll likely develop a rigid route through the level on subsequent playthroughs. It all becomes very rote and my least favorite way to play through the game. Compare this to Sonic 3, another game that I think is very exploration heavy. In that game, the massive size of the levels breeds curiosity, and when you fall from one path onto another your mistake is rewarded rather than locking you out of an ending. It helps too that Sonic 3's levels are always pushing you towards the same goal, even if you're treading off of the beaten path.
The aforementioned time stones provide you another option for a good ending, but running through the special stages to collect all seven is just awful. This is largely due to a really bad framerate that makes the pseudo-3D environment of the stages hard to navigate. The choppy presentation makes it too difficult to properly assess your jumps, and it's not uncommon to over or undershoot UFOs by misjudging their distance from Sonic. Run out of time and you've wasted one shot at a stone, of which you only have limited attempts. While a time increasing UFO does appear right before you're about to be booted out of a special stage, providing some semblance of a safety net, a lot of the later stages for me tend to play out the same: repeatedly increase the time and continue to flail around trying to pin down one last squirrely UFO while the game's performance actively works to sabotage me.
This is largely mitigated in the Taxman release, which makes the special stages run at a buttery 60fps. Everything is so smooth, scales so naturally, that getting the time stones becomes no less or more challenging than any of the other classic games. But I'm not reviewing the Taxman version, and in the base game they're just terrible. Easily the worst.
When you strip out the conditions for a good ending, I think CD becomes a total blast to play. The level designs are just incredible, richly detailed and gorgeous to look at. The fact that each one has three additional variations really makes me appreciate the sheer amount of work the sprite artists had to put in to get CD out the door. I do genuinely like traveling through time just to get a taste of each level's past and divergent futures, and in that sense I do agree on the point of CD being so strong as an "exploration heavy" twist on Sonic. It is at its most fun when I'm just running through the levels, just playing it like a Sonic game.
Both soundtracks lend so much atmosphere to the game, I really don't think I can decide on which one I prefer. They're very different flavors but both suit the game so well. I also think the way they programmed in the past themes to give them a sort of muffled, aged quality works perfectly for selling the player on being in a bygone version of a zone. The "cutscenes" also feel like a good halfway point between Sonic the Hedgehog and Sonic 3. The player can still move around as the scene plays out, and there's only a few of them with no real level transitions to speak of. But the brief moments you get with Amy chasing you, being picked up by Metal, and freeing her in Stardust Speedway add some charm and provides some amount of narrative without being a distraction.
I also love the boss battles. Each one is its own little puzzle to solve. Sonic 1's bosses are nothing to write home about, and Sonic 2's are so easy that most can be completed before they even get more than one attack in. By comparison, CD's are much more engaging.
CD has some of the most fun and aesthetically brilliant levels in the series, and the time travel mechanic gives it a lot of replayability. However, the steep conditions for the best ending are a bit of a detriment to the flow of the game. A lot of this was smoothed out in the Taxman port, but having played that one to death it only highlights the areas where the original Sonic CD are at its weakest. I definitely don't think it's the best in the classic series, nor do I think it's total crap like some people do. It's pretty good! Just, you know, play that remaster instead.
For quite some time Sonic CD remained one of the least accessible Sonic games, and the mystique surrounding it no doubt contributed to an inflated sense of value for the game. Thankfully, the excellent remaster by Taxman has changed this, but being able to more easily play this on a number of platforms and with significant quality of life improvements has only helped lift the rose-tinted goggles I viewed the original release through, allowing me to develop what I feel is a more fair assessment of Sonic CD.
At the time of its development, Sonic CD only had the first game as a roadmap for where to go next. Much of that game's design ethos translate quite well into CD, including the more methodical pace of platforming and winding level structure. Indeed, many of CD's levels have analogs with Sonic the Hedgehog. Palmtree Panic is Green Hill of course, Tidal Tempest is Labyrinth, Collision Chaos is Spring Yard, Stardust Speedway is Starlight... There was a point in time where CD was envisioned to be an enhanced remake of the original game before veering off to become the more vertically oriented, exploration focused entry it is today. This seems to be what divides people the most. Some really enjoy taking their time, knocking out all the robot generators, and finding the ideal places to time travel. Others think this is crap from a butt, and when you consider the larger impression (and earlier release) Sonic the Hedgehog 2 had, it's no wonder they prefer its more linear speed-driven gameplay over CD's slower pace.
For a while I fell into the former camp. Sonic CD was so unattainable yet ever-present for me. I occasionally got a chance to play it on my friend's computer, and those brief tastes left me with a lasting impression that morphed into a very assured sense that it was my favorite Sonic game. Years after I bought my own PC copy off Ebay, I still believed this. It was only thanks to the Taxman port and its many quality of life improvements that the blinders were able to come off, and I was allowed to develop a better sense of Sonic CD's weaknesses.
The mantra of CD's defenders is that exploration is fun, but where I feel this fun starts to fall apart is when you're exploring for the robot generators. Taking these out is an all-or-nothing equation if you want the good ending, miss one and you're done. You can fall back on the time stones, which I'll get to, but the generators themselves provide little room for error. The first few times you go hunting for them are quite enjoyable, but once you know where they're at and the most effective means of time traveling to reach them, you'll likely develop a rigid route through the level on subsequent playthroughs. It all becomes very rote and my least favorite way to play through the game. Compare this to Sonic 3, another game that I think is very exploration heavy. In that game, the massive size of the levels breeds curiosity, and when you fall from one path onto another your mistake is rewarded rather than locking you out of an ending. It helps too that Sonic 3's levels are always pushing you towards the same goal, even if you're treading off of the beaten path.
The aforementioned time stones provide you another option for a good ending, but running through the special stages to collect all seven is just awful. This is largely due to a really bad framerate that makes the pseudo-3D environment of the stages hard to navigate. The choppy presentation makes it too difficult to properly assess your jumps, and it's not uncommon to over or undershoot UFOs by misjudging their distance from Sonic. Run out of time and you've wasted one shot at a stone, of which you only have limited attempts. While a time increasing UFO does appear right before you're about to be booted out of a special stage, providing some semblance of a safety net, a lot of the later stages for me tend to play out the same: repeatedly increase the time and continue to flail around trying to pin down one last squirrely UFO while the game's performance actively works to sabotage me.
This is largely mitigated in the Taxman release, which makes the special stages run at a buttery 60fps. Everything is so smooth, scales so naturally, that getting the time stones becomes no less or more challenging than any of the other classic games. But I'm not reviewing the Taxman version, and in the base game they're just terrible. Easily the worst.
When you strip out the conditions for a good ending, I think CD becomes a total blast to play. The level designs are just incredible, richly detailed and gorgeous to look at. The fact that each one has three additional variations really makes me appreciate the sheer amount of work the sprite artists had to put in to get CD out the door. I do genuinely like traveling through time just to get a taste of each level's past and divergent futures, and in that sense I do agree on the point of CD being so strong as an "exploration heavy" twist on Sonic. It is at its most fun when I'm just running through the levels, just playing it like a Sonic game.
Both soundtracks lend so much atmosphere to the game, I really don't think I can decide on which one I prefer. They're very different flavors but both suit the game so well. I also think the way they programmed in the past themes to give them a sort of muffled, aged quality works perfectly for selling the player on being in a bygone version of a zone. The "cutscenes" also feel like a good halfway point between Sonic the Hedgehog and Sonic 3. The player can still move around as the scene plays out, and there's only a few of them with no real level transitions to speak of. But the brief moments you get with Amy chasing you, being picked up by Metal, and freeing her in Stardust Speedway add some charm and provides some amount of narrative without being a distraction.
I also love the boss battles. Each one is its own little puzzle to solve. Sonic 1's bosses are nothing to write home about, and Sonic 2's are so easy that most can be completed before they even get more than one attack in. By comparison, CD's are much more engaging.
CD has some of the most fun and aesthetically brilliant levels in the series, and the time travel mechanic gives it a lot of replayability. However, the steep conditions for the best ending are a bit of a detriment to the flow of the game. A lot of this was smoothed out in the Taxman port, but having played that one to death it only highlights the areas where the original Sonic CD are at its weakest. I definitely don't think it's the best in the classic series, nor do I think it's total crap like some people do. It's pretty good! Just, you know, play that remaster instead.
1991
The only media property to become more of an obsession for me as a child than the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was Sonic the Hedgehog. I still vividly remember the first time I saw Sonic. It was at a kiosk in a mall where Sonic the Hedgehog 2 was being advertised before release. My father, who had previously gifted me his Game Boy and a copy of Tetris to shut me the hell up on a long car ride, was visiting my mom and I and just so happened to bring his Sega Genesis. He rented Sonic the Hedgehog for me that night, and I was so glued to the TV he figured hey, might as well give him that Sega too.
In many ways, my father fucked me up for life. He's to blame for all of this!
As a wee child I had a pretty tough time with Sonic the Hedgehog, especially over its two sequels which were just a hell of a lot more accessible. It didn't stop me from trying of course, and after countless rentals on my mom's dime I finally did manage to claw my way to at least Labyrinth Zone, but coming back to it older and more seasoned I found a lot to appreciate about Sonic the Hedgehog's less forgiving, slower-paced, platform focused approach.
Sonic has always felt great to me. The weight he has to his jumps, the momentum he builds while rolling down a hill, even the feedback you get from bouncing on monitors and enemies comes together beautifully. I've also played these games so much that it's perhaps second nature to me now, blinding me to any shortcomings these original games have as raw muscle memory compensates for any wonkiness. That being said, Sonic the Hedgehog still provides some modicum of challenge whereas its sequels are pretty much played on autopilot for me now. Maybe this is also why Labyrinth Zone is my favorite level in the entire game (or maybe it's just those damn banjos...)
There's also just a ton of aesthetic touches that I love about this game, some of which didn't even make it to the US market. I'm talking of course about the Japanese packaging and the way Sonic's branding was handled over there in the early 90s. Bright geometric shapes, squiggly lines, inspirational quotes about living for today or whatever. When you thumb through the japanese manual there's definitely a level of quality and consideration there that you didn't really find in a lot of other Sega games at the time. Presentation was of course a big deal for Sonic, though, as Sega was banking everything on the character becoming the face of the company, and for that to work they had to ensure the game itself was met with a very high adoption rate. They really went all out and it shows.
The in-game presentation is just as good. Sprites still have some of that early Genesis pastel look to them, but is overall much more colorful than a lot of other Sega games of that period. I've always liked that the adventure takes place over the course of a day as represented by the sky gradually inching closer to night. Likewise, having Sonic start the game in an entirely naturalized setting and journeying to more industrialized locations as he makes his way to Robotnik's factories gives the level progression a sense of cohesion that is only matched later by Sonic 3. Tying it all together is a wonderful soundtrack by Dreams Come True bassist Masato Nakamura, who referenced not only his band's own music but a few other tracks that... Well, are maybe a little litigious. Sonic the Hedgehog owes a lot of its vibe to the Japanese music scene of the late 80's/early 90s, and having a key member of a well known band helming the soundtrack gives it that extra layer of authenticity.
So what don't I like about this game? My review has been glowing so far, but this isn't a perfect 5/5. I think it really boils down to two main complaints: the three act structure and the Robotnik boss fights. Some levels start to drag by the time the third act starts, Marble Zone being an egregious offender and so early in the game definitely doesn't help. The Robotnik fights are all very one-note too. Oh here's Robotnik is a fireball, here he is with a spike, here he is with a spike ball. The final boss is pure tedium as you stand around waiting for Robotnik to show himself just long enough to get one hit in, maybe, if you're lucky. Labyrinth's boss is a pure platforming challenging that doesn't even task you with fighting him directly, and while I do think that it is the most engaging fight of the game (all thanks to the pure tension of tricky jumps and a rising water level), it also feels the most bullshitty.
Nostalgia can be an affliction that prevents us from seeing parts of our past for how they truly were, but there's also a comfort there that's not entirely worth discrediting. I need only dust off my Genesis and stick in my cart to be taken back to my old bedroom, warm rays of light cutting through my blinds, cross-legged on the floor and ready to die a million times in Marble Zone Act 3. Sonic the Hedgehog certainly goes beyond pure nostalgia for me, but for a game to be able to take me to that kind of place, well, how can I not love it?
In many ways, my father fucked me up for life. He's to blame for all of this!
As a wee child I had a pretty tough time with Sonic the Hedgehog, especially over its two sequels which were just a hell of a lot more accessible. It didn't stop me from trying of course, and after countless rentals on my mom's dime I finally did manage to claw my way to at least Labyrinth Zone, but coming back to it older and more seasoned I found a lot to appreciate about Sonic the Hedgehog's less forgiving, slower-paced, platform focused approach.
Sonic has always felt great to me. The weight he has to his jumps, the momentum he builds while rolling down a hill, even the feedback you get from bouncing on monitors and enemies comes together beautifully. I've also played these games so much that it's perhaps second nature to me now, blinding me to any shortcomings these original games have as raw muscle memory compensates for any wonkiness. That being said, Sonic the Hedgehog still provides some modicum of challenge whereas its sequels are pretty much played on autopilot for me now. Maybe this is also why Labyrinth Zone is my favorite level in the entire game (or maybe it's just those damn banjos...)
There's also just a ton of aesthetic touches that I love about this game, some of which didn't even make it to the US market. I'm talking of course about the Japanese packaging and the way Sonic's branding was handled over there in the early 90s. Bright geometric shapes, squiggly lines, inspirational quotes about living for today or whatever. When you thumb through the japanese manual there's definitely a level of quality and consideration there that you didn't really find in a lot of other Sega games at the time. Presentation was of course a big deal for Sonic, though, as Sega was banking everything on the character becoming the face of the company, and for that to work they had to ensure the game itself was met with a very high adoption rate. They really went all out and it shows.
The in-game presentation is just as good. Sprites still have some of that early Genesis pastel look to them, but is overall much more colorful than a lot of other Sega games of that period. I've always liked that the adventure takes place over the course of a day as represented by the sky gradually inching closer to night. Likewise, having Sonic start the game in an entirely naturalized setting and journeying to more industrialized locations as he makes his way to Robotnik's factories gives the level progression a sense of cohesion that is only matched later by Sonic 3. Tying it all together is a wonderful soundtrack by Dreams Come True bassist Masato Nakamura, who referenced not only his band's own music but a few other tracks that... Well, are maybe a little litigious. Sonic the Hedgehog owes a lot of its vibe to the Japanese music scene of the late 80's/early 90s, and having a key member of a well known band helming the soundtrack gives it that extra layer of authenticity.
So what don't I like about this game? My review has been glowing so far, but this isn't a perfect 5/5. I think it really boils down to two main complaints: the three act structure and the Robotnik boss fights. Some levels start to drag by the time the third act starts, Marble Zone being an egregious offender and so early in the game definitely doesn't help. The Robotnik fights are all very one-note too. Oh here's Robotnik is a fireball, here he is with a spike, here he is with a spike ball. The final boss is pure tedium as you stand around waiting for Robotnik to show himself just long enough to get one hit in, maybe, if you're lucky. Labyrinth's boss is a pure platforming challenging that doesn't even task you with fighting him directly, and while I do think that it is the most engaging fight of the game (all thanks to the pure tension of tricky jumps and a rising water level), it also feels the most bullshitty.
Nostalgia can be an affliction that prevents us from seeing parts of our past for how they truly were, but there's also a comfort there that's not entirely worth discrediting. I need only dust off my Genesis and stick in my cart to be taken back to my old bedroom, warm rays of light cutting through my blinds, cross-legged on the floor and ready to die a million times in Marble Zone Act 3. Sonic the Hedgehog certainly goes beyond pure nostalgia for me, but for a game to be able to take me to that kind of place, well, how can I not love it?
The first Metal Gear game I actually played on release. Honestly, despite the slightly higher rating I'd say my second favorite Metal Gear fluctuates between this and Metal Gear Solid 2 depending on the day. One big area that I think Snake Eater shines over its predecessor though is its environments. The Big Shell was a very confined space with a lot of identical looking structures and poorly defined landmarks. Comparatively, Naked Snake has much more room to breathe in the lush jungles of... R... Russia? That can't be right...
Look, it's probably best to not think too hard about the setting. Kojima wanted to tell a story set during the Cold War and he also wanted a Metal Gear game that takes place in the harsh, dense landscape of a jungle, so that's exactly what he did. This is a game where a guy shoots bees out of every orifice in his body, and twinks call for backup by meowing. Let the man have his fun. Really, I was surprised how much more funny Snake Eater is over the last two games. Volgin is a great, wacky villain, the bosses are cartoonish and unencumbered by weepy backstories, and your radio crew is perhaps the best gaggle of weirdo freaks to show up in a Metal Gear yet.
The story is also the most emotionally impactful of the series, with Snake's relationship to his mentor, The Boss, acting as the core upon which everything else hangs. By now I think most people already know where Kojima goes in his exploration of Snake and The Boss' relationship, but if you for some reason are still unaware then I really wouldn't want to spoil any of it. Snake Eater deals heavily with the idea of a soldier's duty to the mission being above all else, and how their heart can strain this sense of absolute loyalty to its breaking point.
It's also about having a good time! The jungle is a great place to set a Metal Gear and opens up a ton of potential for new stealth tactics and gameplay challenges. The camo index influences how well Snake is hidden, with anything over 85% being so effective that enemies can practically walk on top of you before spotting you. Likewise, enemies also blend into their environment much better than they have in the last two games, and by losing the soliton radar you have to rely on scoping out what's ahead and carefully planning your route based on what you observe rather than by glimpsing at your map for their sight line. Unfortunately, the fixed camera in the base game is a carry over that is counterintuitive to this new gameplay approach, and is one of the main reasons the enhanced edition, Subsistence, is the better option. The free cam just works a whole hell of a lot better.
The dense jungle flora also does a better job of hiding traps. Trip wire lines and C4 are a lot harder to spot, which helps ratchet up the tension for those who have maybe gotten a bit too comfortable with these games. There is also a new hunting mechanic that was front and center in MGS3's marketing. It's a big part of the game but one that just didn't gel well with me. Snake has to consume food regularly or his stamina drops, which results in all kinds of problems like reduced aim, or making it easier for Snake to pass out. The problem is his stamina ticks down too quickly, and having to constantly jump into the menu to chow down screws with the pace of the game. On the other hand, watching a little video of snake chomping right into a whole-ass fish or proclaiming something is "dis-gusting!" is great, I just think they could have toned down the rate of stamina degradation is all. Similarly, I wasn't a huge fan of dressing Snake's wounds in the menus. It's a novelty, sure, but there's a reason this hasn't made its way into any Metal Gear game since.
The boss battles are in top form, with The End being a series highlight. The final fight against The Boss serves as the best climax to a Metal Gear, easily. Snake Eater is also perhaps the most packed with secrets than any game in the series before or since. The amount of small things you can find is staggering. Hidden codec channels, being able to take out a boss before getting to their boss fight, or getting admonished as a coward for waiting out the battle until they simply just die, or finding a bizarre Devil May Cry inspired minigame by reloading a save at just the right moment... There's just so much to find, I was still learning of little things I missed years after first paying the game.
I can keep coming back to Snake Eater just as easily as I can Metal Gear Solid, though I do think the latter is pretty well solidified as my personal favorite in the series, even despite Snake Eater's numerous strengths. Still, if there's one Kojima game I would recommend to people above any other, it might just be this. There's a lot of winks and nods to later events in the Metal Gear chronology that certainly make it better enjoyed with a broader context of the series and its narrative, but being set that the earliest point in the story makes it easy to slip right into, and the mechanics of the Solid series are at their most refined here. Just a damn good game all around.
Look, it's probably best to not think too hard about the setting. Kojima wanted to tell a story set during the Cold War and he also wanted a Metal Gear game that takes place in the harsh, dense landscape of a jungle, so that's exactly what he did. This is a game where a guy shoots bees out of every orifice in his body, and twinks call for backup by meowing. Let the man have his fun. Really, I was surprised how much more funny Snake Eater is over the last two games. Volgin is a great, wacky villain, the bosses are cartoonish and unencumbered by weepy backstories, and your radio crew is perhaps the best gaggle of weirdo freaks to show up in a Metal Gear yet.
The story is also the most emotionally impactful of the series, with Snake's relationship to his mentor, The Boss, acting as the core upon which everything else hangs. By now I think most people already know where Kojima goes in his exploration of Snake and The Boss' relationship, but if you for some reason are still unaware then I really wouldn't want to spoil any of it. Snake Eater deals heavily with the idea of a soldier's duty to the mission being above all else, and how their heart can strain this sense of absolute loyalty to its breaking point.
It's also about having a good time! The jungle is a great place to set a Metal Gear and opens up a ton of potential for new stealth tactics and gameplay challenges. The camo index influences how well Snake is hidden, with anything over 85% being so effective that enemies can practically walk on top of you before spotting you. Likewise, enemies also blend into their environment much better than they have in the last two games, and by losing the soliton radar you have to rely on scoping out what's ahead and carefully planning your route based on what you observe rather than by glimpsing at your map for their sight line. Unfortunately, the fixed camera in the base game is a carry over that is counterintuitive to this new gameplay approach, and is one of the main reasons the enhanced edition, Subsistence, is the better option. The free cam just works a whole hell of a lot better.
The dense jungle flora also does a better job of hiding traps. Trip wire lines and C4 are a lot harder to spot, which helps ratchet up the tension for those who have maybe gotten a bit too comfortable with these games. There is also a new hunting mechanic that was front and center in MGS3's marketing. It's a big part of the game but one that just didn't gel well with me. Snake has to consume food regularly or his stamina drops, which results in all kinds of problems like reduced aim, or making it easier for Snake to pass out. The problem is his stamina ticks down too quickly, and having to constantly jump into the menu to chow down screws with the pace of the game. On the other hand, watching a little video of snake chomping right into a whole-ass fish or proclaiming something is "dis-gusting!" is great, I just think they could have toned down the rate of stamina degradation is all. Similarly, I wasn't a huge fan of dressing Snake's wounds in the menus. It's a novelty, sure, but there's a reason this hasn't made its way into any Metal Gear game since.
The boss battles are in top form, with The End being a series highlight. The final fight against The Boss serves as the best climax to a Metal Gear, easily. Snake Eater is also perhaps the most packed with secrets than any game in the series before or since. The amount of small things you can find is staggering. Hidden codec channels, being able to take out a boss before getting to their boss fight, or getting admonished as a coward for waiting out the battle until they simply just die, or finding a bizarre Devil May Cry inspired minigame by reloading a save at just the right moment... There's just so much to find, I was still learning of little things I missed years after first paying the game.
I can keep coming back to Snake Eater just as easily as I can Metal Gear Solid, though I do think the latter is pretty well solidified as my personal favorite in the series, even despite Snake Eater's numerous strengths. Still, if there's one Kojima game I would recommend to people above any other, it might just be this. There's a lot of winks and nods to later events in the Metal Gear chronology that certainly make it better enjoyed with a broader context of the series and its narrative, but being set that the earliest point in the story makes it easy to slip right into, and the mechanics of the Solid series are at their most refined here. Just a damn good game all around.
2000
After posting several long-winded reviews for the Metal Gear series already, I'm going to attempt to keep this one succinct.
Ghost Babel is a bite-sized Metal Gear, styled far more in the vein of the original two games than the Solid series they spawned, despite the fact that it uses the Solid branding. Gameplay is presented in a top-down fashion, and the screen-to-screen puzzle based stealth action that I've praised other titles in the series for is even more puzzley, and well tailored to the hardware the game is running on. You can absolutely sit down and do a full run through the game, but similar to Peace Walker it's much better enjoyed in quick bursts.
While the gameplay still works when being scaled down for a handheld, the same cannot be said of the story. I do not remember pretty much anything that happened in it. This is not just a consequence of it being considered a gaiden non-canon story, completely unimportant to Metal Gear's complex over-arching narrative, but because it just wasn't that interesting to me. This seems to be a common thread with the handheld Metal Gear games, for whatever reason. Portable Ops, Ac!d, and even Peace Walker fell flat for me in many ways, but at least the gameplay is so strong in Ghost Babel that it makes up for having a weak story.
Ghost Babel is a bite-sized Metal Gear, styled far more in the vein of the original two games than the Solid series they spawned, despite the fact that it uses the Solid branding. Gameplay is presented in a top-down fashion, and the screen-to-screen puzzle based stealth action that I've praised other titles in the series for is even more puzzley, and well tailored to the hardware the game is running on. You can absolutely sit down and do a full run through the game, but similar to Peace Walker it's much better enjoyed in quick bursts.
While the gameplay still works when being scaled down for a handheld, the same cannot be said of the story. I do not remember pretty much anything that happened in it. This is not just a consequence of it being considered a gaiden non-canon story, completely unimportant to Metal Gear's complex over-arching narrative, but because it just wasn't that interesting to me. This seems to be a common thread with the handheld Metal Gear games, for whatever reason. Portable Ops, Ac!d, and even Peace Walker fell flat for me in many ways, but at least the gameplay is so strong in Ghost Babel that it makes up for having a weak story.