This is a pretty short and sweet experience with a good amount of charm to it as well. It's probably not really my thing but I guess puzzle games in general aren't really my thing, especially slide-type puzzle games. I still found this mostly enjoyable regardless of that. If you are a fan of puzzle games like these or the 2D Zelda games which this feels inspired from you'll probably enjoy this more. As it stands though, I found it to be just a neat little romp. My main gripe however comes with replays of the game making the dialogue, while charming initially, rather annoying as there's no way to skip it, which is especially bad if you're trying to go for the sub 15 minute run achievement since you have to mash through it all every attempt, so that's one thing to bear in mind.

I mean, the title doesn't lie, it's a fun racer game. Not sure if it might be a bit odd how I ended up enjoying this spin-off more than the original game. The more condensed and run-based format of this does the timer gimmick better in my opinion, than it's main title where it sometimes came off as intrusive at times there. Some goals are rather annoying like finishing in under 60 seconds which basically requires you to get lucky with trash can combo boosts. But if you just want a short and fun time, you can't go wrong here. Plus it's profits are for a good cause which is nice.

I decided to go ahead and recomplete this but on the GameCube version this time so I could get access to all of Sonic's Game Gear library in this version, and now I can safely say that this game is still just as goofy and janky as I remembered from my original completion several years ago. In terms of an overall experience, I'd say it's alright though. I can't really speak on the quality of the Dreamcast original because I Have Never Owned A Dreamcast, but I generally feel as this is just a more awkward and less polished experience than SA2. I've generally preferred SA2 over this one since I mainly feel it does everything this does but better. Sometimes that works out in it's own benefit, and other times it really doesn't. It's overall jankiness really does make for quite an experience. Seriously, you can really tell how badly all the clear tape and paperclips are holding this game together, it's kinda amazing in it's own right. It really is just lovably jank... well, until it isn't. I'll get to that soon, however.

This main highlights of the game come from Sonic's, Tails', Knuckles', and Gamma's stories. As I cover each gameplay style, I mainly wanna talk about how each of them play normally and how each is affected by their extra stage missions as well. (I like to talk about my experiences not just from casually playing but with doing everything the game has to offer, after all) Sonic is pretty self explanatory, he's the iconic fast man. You run, jump, and spindash through stages. It seems that Sonic is mainly who the game was based around as he has easily the most stages in the game with 10, as the max the others get was 5 iirc. Not sure if it was generally okay to try and build other character's stages off of Sonic stages, as sometimes I feel as certain stages are designed like playing a Sonic stage in a Knuckles stage, or vice versa. This kinda makes most of the stage designs here kinda wonky as they don't really feel as sometime they don't really feel like they were made with a specific playstyle in mind. Speaking of the game being built around sonic, it might also generally reflect on his stage missions as well as his are generally the hardest due to the sheer quantity as well as the strict timers for some of the A missions. Twinkle Park and Lost World are particularly bad cases of this. Twinkle Park has a very strict time limit of 3 minutes for it's A mission, so you have to basically play the level near flawlessly. And Lost World is just generally my least favorite stage in the franchise honestly. It has so many incredibly frustrating bits, and with the 4:30 time limit for the A mission it becomes one real test of how much you can put up with.

Tails might honestly be my favorite story solely on the virtue of how utterly broken it is. Adding in a character that can fly really shows the cracks in this game. Tails can just fucking eviscerate these level designs. There's nothing more hilarious than just skipping the literal entirety of the first stage. The other stages don't get the same mercy either. Aside from Icecap, Tails has plenty of opportunities to soar right past anything the developers intended you to play through legitimately. The only exception to this is Icecap but that's solely because you're locked to a snowboard the entire stage, so I guess this stage gets to feel lucky as it doesn't get to be victim of Tails at his full potential. I haven't even really touched on his other gimmick of racing Sonic/Eggman to the end as you don't even really need to pay attention to them. They're pretty easy to beat even on their A mission variants, and unleashing The Wrath of Tails on them basically means you never really get to see them at all. The fastest thing alive really doesn't seem to mean much when you can just fly past everything he has to maneuver around.

Knuckles is kind of an odd one. He has what might be the one aspect that I feel SA1 does better than SA2, and that's the emerald radar. I'm gonna be honest and say that they really didn't need to limit the emerald radar they way they did there. But I still feel as SA2 does it better mostly and that's mainly due to the stage design. Alot of the gripes I had earlier with the whole "stage design fusion awkwardness" mainly shows in this story. I feel like they tried to somehow make certain stage layout try to work as both Sonic and Knuckles and I don't feel as if it really worked on Knuckles' end, and just ended up being a detriment on Sonic's end. The treasure stages in SA2 to me felt like they were make for the treasure hunting playstyle, unlike here. Aside from those gripes, it's still a rather solid story. Knuckles' A missions can be really annoying though, with the very strict time limits on them combined with the random placement of the emerald shards. I learned you can abuse restarting, as it resets you at the last checkpoint in this game, which for Knuckles is at the last emerald piece he got, so you can scavenge around for the emerald pieces the go straight for them after restarting when you know where they are to potentially make those A missions easier. (i don't remember if this was changed in later rereleases so please don't get angry if it was)

Gamma is another kinda odd one. They have a new shooter-type gameplay style, which went to be expanded upon in the mech stages of SA2. I've heard some people prefer Gamma's gameplay to the SA2 mech but I honestly don't see it. In comparison I feel as the target laser is less responsive and wears off annoyingly fast, and the hover noticeably screws up your momentum when you use it. Like Knuckles I feel as Gamma is still a solid story even with my gripe with it. His A missions aren't too bad aside from Emerald Coast which is another annoying strict one (I only managed to beat that one because of a big combo I got at the very end barely getting me over the time I needed).

And now we get to the parts of SA1 that I really don't like. I've said that this game has alot of endearing jank to it until it doesn't, and these next two stories are where we reach those really low lows, and are what mainly cements SA1 as the lesser game imo. Let's start off with Amy's story. It may only be three stages long but it sure feels like the most exhausting and drawn out three stages I've ever played. God, Amy moves agonizingly slow. Her overall movement feels like such a jarring and sluggish dissonance from the stories we've just been through. Her stage design really doesn't compliment this as well, as they have so many annoying aspects to them that makes slow gameplay that much more unbearable. Her A missions surprisingly weren't that bad but always had that looming feeling that I wasn't sure if I was gonna make it because of how horribly slow Amy was combined with all these annoying stage gimmicks, so that's a relief.

And then there's Big the Cat. Hoo boy, do I have some things to say about Big. Generally when going back through all the A missions again, I didn't have much trouble with them this time around surprisingly enough. I remember having trouble with some of them back in my original completion but dealt with them in very few tries this time around. Hell, the Sky Chase score emblems were one thing I was dreading from having bad memories struggling on them, and I managed to sweep through them almost instantly this time around.
BIG'S MISSIONS TOOK ME SEVERAL HOURS TO COMPLETE.
ONE OF THEM IN PARTICULAR TOOK ME OVER AN HOUR ALONE.
I wanna get into Big's gameplay and how utterly bullshit it is. It's generally infamous from it being a jarring change from action platforming to... an awkward fishing minigame. But oh god do these stage missions show how bad the fishing really is. Big's main story is just whatever, it's funny on it's own. Froggy barely puts up a fight when you're trying to catch him. But the 1000/2000g fish you need to catch for his B/A missions? Someone decided that a good idea to make them hard to catch was to make them as bullshit as possible. First off, when you hook them, they very often just get a head start on you for no goddamn reason. And when you're reeling them in, sometimes they can just go into an advantage state where your reeling does jack shit and you literally can't do anything about it but let them get further from you. They can just activate this at will too, and the heavier they are, the more keen they are at doing this. You basically just have to pray that they cooperate with you for a long enough time for you to catch them and that the don't just set you back to square one just because they felt like it. Hooking the fish is chore in of it's own as well. You have to try and show the lure in front of them, and you can adjust the lure by tapping left and right on the joystick I believe. But from my experience, adjusting the lure is extremely unresponsive. I could tap in a direction multiple times and it still wouldn't move until like a couple seconds later. These controls aren't just unresponsive in casting, the controls for reeling in fish are genuinely painful. The best method I had was maintaining a rhythm of A presses, what was I supposed to do about that advantage state bullshit though? Did jerking the joystick work? I didn't know, so I tried every time I heard that dreaded bubbling noise, but I still wasn't sure if it was helping at all. I eventually came up with a method that ended up having some sort of noticeable difference. It was where I kept my rhythm of A presses while rapingly spinning the joystick around. Can you believe that? The one time I noticed a sort of difference was the method where I felt like I was literally wrestling with the game's bullshit. I'm not quite done yet though, I wanna get into Twinkle Park Mission A. This is the goddamn mission that took me over an hour to finally clear. When I was doing Big's A missions, I had about 2 of the hidden lure upgrades I believe. I was still able to find 2000g fish even without the other 2. Twinkle Park decided it wanted to be the exception to this however. I spent multiple attempts catching several fish in hopes that a big one would spawn but to no avail and eventually before I caved completely and just looked up what the hell I was doing wrong. Twinkle Park is somehow the only stage where you need all of them to get a 2000g fish. So I looked up where the upgrades I was missing were, then got it and went back to the stage, spent several attempts catching many fish in hopes a big one would spawn, and got very nervous thinking that my game might be bugged somehow. As it turns out, I was missing ANOTHER lure upgrade that I didn't know about. So I go and trudge all the way over there, get the upgrade, and go back to Twinkle Park. I had hope now since the robot fish now started to spawn, so I thought that was a good sign. But even then, I had to struggle catching so many goddamn fish to get a 2000g one to spawn in, all the while through all these attempts before and after I found out about the lures I was missing, I was getting repeatedly teased by the game as it kept giving me fish weighing in 1700-1900g. And the one time I actually net a 2000g fish, IT BREAKS MY LINE. So the stage resets and I have to find one all over again. The total relief I felt once I finally got the 2000g fish was unbelievable. Sorry if most of this review is venting about Big, I just really wanted to go into detail how terrible his gameplay made this to complete.

Now I want to talk about something SADX disappointed me on; the Chao Garden. I was such a huge fan of the Chao Garden in SA2, and was excited to try it out here, but ended up finding out it was just kinda... really awkward in comparison to it's SA2 counterpart. I've said that alot about part of this game, but this one was just kinda disheartening honestly compared to the rest. Playing with Chao just didn't feel as good here. There are some other things about SA1's Chao Garden that kinda annoy me as well, like with certain limitations making it feel really inferior like the absence of a school making it hard or impossible to check your Chao's stats and teach it non-animal activities, the lack of a Skeleton Dog making me assume that animal parts are just permanent on your Chao (Which is a shame as the only way to make your Chao stronger here is through the animals), and other stuff like that. I'm not sure if I'm wrong on those but I really hope I am.

And lastly, I wanna talk about mission mode. It honestly just generally feels like padding for completion. You just search around for mission prompts (which is particularly annoying as Amy or Big) and just do them. They have a very awkward difficulty imbalance too. A great majority of them are really easy and forgettable, some are a bit annoying, and then missions 53 and 54 are on new layers of awful. An annoying trend of these missions are having the objectives being quite a ways into or near the end of a stage. These two in particular are right at the end of Icecap, meaning if you screw up on them, you have to go through the same minute and a half of snowboarding just to get another attempt at it. Mission 53 is really bad because you have to do three super precise ramp jumps all in succession, but mission 54, oh mission 54. This was the one mission I was dreading rebeating and for good reason. You have to get 13 flags laid out right at the end of the stage. First off, grabbing the flags are easier said than done because their hitbox is so small, combined with how wonky the snowboarding controls are and your small hitbox as well makes missing them a very frequent occurrence. "Well maybe I can slow down for them and maybe even jump my way back up if I miss one." Unfortunately you don't have such luck, as since you're playing as Tails for this mission, YOU ARE TECHNICALLY TIMED ON THIS AS WELL. Sonic is really keen on darting past you with no regard for any objective you seem to be going for, and if he beats you to the end, THE STAGE JUST ENDS PREMATURELY. And since you don't have the luck of being off of the snowboard, you won't get much opportunities to get distance from Sonic. Ugh, I'm just wondering if this was even playtested. Hopefully I never have to do mission 54 ever again, for real this time.

Damn this was longer than I expected it to be. I guess I just had alot to say. SADX is janky, goofy, and awkward as hell, but I think it's pretty neat for all that. I'd say it's worth experiencing with how dumb it is. It's still a lesser experience than SA2 in my eyes, but it's still one hell of a ride on it's own. Also I wanna talk about how bad these cutscenes are, practically every single one of them are the best worst things I've ever seen and I honestly think SADX's cutscenes are up there with the CDi Nintendo games in terms of hilarious awfulness.

"That's Eggman! I Wonder What Happened To Sonic?"

God damn am I surprised on how much this game's grown on me ever since my first playthrough a while back. I think this might genuinely be my favorite Genesis game as of now. It's just bursting with so much creativity and charm, not to mention it's just super rad as hell too. A stage play is a super cool style to theme a game around, and Treasure truly knocked it out of the park with it. You have super cool set pieces and sequences like the opening chase, practically every fight with Maruyama, the climb through Dark Demon's tower, and the flying stages which honestly became one of my favorite parts of the game. The game is a blast to play as well too, with Headdy's gimmick making for some really fun platforming and combat. I initially had some issues with odd difficulty once I first played it, but I didn't really have that issue this time around. That's probably because I played the original Japanese version, which is noticeably more fair. (Though to be fair, extra knowledge this time around did help as well) Either version would probably be fine for me now though, since I basically love every corner of this game now, but I would recommend the original version if you want to try it out for yourself though. This Genesis classic really is something special.

Also if nobody got me, I know Dynamite Headdy OST - Hustle Maruyama got me. Can I get an amen?

Ristar was one of the Genesis games I've been more familiar with ever since I got interested in Sega's history as a child. I think it was a documentary of sorts where I heard this game was essentially what came of one of the original concepts for Sonic, and I thought that was pretty cool. I also thought the game itself was pretty cool too back then, but I was probably too much of a dumb child to appreciate the whole stretchy-arm-based gameplay gimmicks back when I originally played this in a Genesis collection on the PS3. Now that I'm older I'm finally capable of seeing what it truly has to offer. Practically everything is done simply by using your hands. Simply reach out with your stretchy arms to swing around poles or to grab enemies and pull them in for a headbutt. A simple enough concept to get the hang of but has an impressive amount of range and versatility to it, as your grabbing isn't simply limited to to those basics. Not only can you latch onto poles and handles but use your hands on different sorts of objects or on the very terrain for stronger maneuvering and even climbing. It's creative depth grows with how much you can take advantage of what neat tricks you can string together with your grabs and momentum, with a difficulty curve accurately reflecting so with level designs simple yet slick with an increasing desire for you to use your arms' versatility for some really clever platforming. It does unfortunately falter in it's final stretch however, most notably with the last three bosses in particular with their rather awkward attack patterns and frustrating overall difficulty. The rest of the game thankfully isn't like that, as it was surprisingly forgiving with health pickups and lives.

I'd also really like to say, this game's overall aesthetic is undoubtedly one of the best I've seen on the Genesis. The visuals are so pristinely vibrant and fittingly otherworldly, paired together with some of the most sublime tunes the Genesis' soundchip can offer. Such vibes can only create an experience that shines like, well, a star.

Speaking of the soundtrack, big shoutouts to Star Humming, man. Still one of my favorite ending themes to this day.

This was a pretty neat experience I'd say. It's a sort of lighthearted environmental puzzle game about dropping things into holes. Plus it's story is fittingly goofy for it's gameplay loop and honestly pretty endearing. It's not a very long game at all, but it's probably better as something short and sweet. It's overall gameplay and feel is pretty simple so it's probably better being short so that it doesn't overstay it's welcome. I know some people out there aren't going to enjoy aspects like this game's humor but oh well, I have a soft spot for it I guess.

Quite an oddball Sonic entry here. Definitely my preferred of the Sonic spin-offs for the Genesis, and honestly quite the perfect idea for a spin-off for this guy, especially coming off of the Casino Night stages from Sonic 2. "Since Sonic has this whole thing about curling into a ball, why don't we make a whole pinball oriented game with him?" Big props to whatever employee over at Sega had that stroke of genius. How the Sonic pinball game plays however is more divisive from what I've seen. I generally found it to be pretty cool but I can understand where some people come from with how the overall pinball format can make general progression pretty annoying at times. Plus, its hard. Like, really fucking hard. Quite easily the hardest Sonic game on the system, and possibly the hardest game on the system I've played so far even. With how much of a struggle progression can be it's fairly easy to get yourself killed in the many kinds of death traps, especially so on the game's final stage, The Showdown. Thankfully the collection I played this on has a rewind feature and savestates so I'd recommend using them if you're playing on one that lets you do so. (Ah, the joys of modern accessibility options) Also, I really wanna mention just how completely unhinged this game's style is. All of the setpieces and entities in Robotnik's volcano base feel really alien-like for the series, and that soundtrack is just crispy as all hell. And honestly... I kinda dig it? (Let's be honest, you'd all agree that the options menu theme is a banger if those damn tesla coils didn't feel the need to assert their dominance) It definitely likes to show off with how it's the black sheep of the Sonic entries on the Genesis.

"SMELL MY SOCKS !!"

All I can really say about Flicky is that it could be a good arcade game, however it has a whole bunch of major frustrations that unfortunately hold it back from it's potential of being a simple yet fun experience like most arcade games.

The most notable issues are how this game suffers really badly from it's slippery controls and poorly designed stages. Your weird sliding momentum could be easily handled with on simple assortments of straightaway platforms, but when all of the corners, steps, and alcoves formed by the walls come into the equation, you start seeing how detrimental the controls can be. All of the bouncing off of the walls you're going to be doing by simply trying to maneuver around the stage gets old very fast and immensely annoying when you have to worry about all the enemies you have to weave around as well.

Yes, you also have to dodge around cats and iguanas in the process of gathering all of your chirps and rushing them back to the start. While it makes sense to have a threat to your goal, it's really difficult to make your way around them simply because of your movement. And in all of these odd stage layouts I often had times where I would have several of their patterns overlap in a way that created immensely difficult to handle situations, especially so when that damn iguana enemy is around since it’s allowed to climb on the walls to chase you down and is still allowed to damage you while doing so. The objects you use to take them out only do so much as you often waste them by jumping to higher areas and you can’t use them to hit something right behind you due to your extensive turnaround. (Trust me, that happened to me more often than I would’ve liked) Also I seem to see where Sonic 3D Blast got the whole “enemies scattering the required collectables on contact” mechanic. I didn’t like it there and I don’t like it here either.

However, even with all of these issues I had, I’d say they make this just an okay arcade game though. It’s still fun in a simple way like an arcade game should be, but it’s just disappointing how all of these issues just add up and prevent this from being something better. I still wonder why SEGA chose this guy to be apart of the Sonic canon, though.

Well this was weird as hell. I had quite alot of initial shock starting this from how crispy, goofy, and honestly rather ugly this game's style was but it gives this game it's own charm; in a weird way I guess. The gameplay is a bit jarring at first as well, with the weird physics and all, but it doesn't take too long to get used to how it plays. After that it becomes some pretty standard platforming. It kinda reminds me of Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle in a way, with the whole item inventory, the stage entrances, and even how it looks and plays feels very oddly similar. Were the same developers behind this? Or were things recycled between the two? I dunno, it's just something super odd to think about. I will say that Decap Attack is definitely the better game in comparison, with how it's designed much more fairly than Alex Kidd (For example, you don't die in one goddamn hit here), so their similarities aren't much to worry about. I will say that the 5th world, Pumpington, is rather noticeably more unfair than the rest of the game. Like, seriously, what the fuck was up with that mole boss? I couldn't find any discernable pattern with it, so I just hoped I got lucky with moving under the rocks. Maybe that's close to what you're supposed to do but whatever, it's still frustrating. There's other annoyances as well like the enemies that take multiple hits, enemies that spawn when breaking an item stone so you have to be careful when opening them, and that one comedic relief mechanic where you slide over the edge of a platform and Chuck flails around before falling like he's in a cartoon got a bit intrusive the more it happened as I just wanted to go into a free fall already once I had it happen later in the game. (I also recall it got me hit one time I was trying to get away from an enemy so there's that too)

So yeah, like I said at the start, that was weird as hell. It's sheer zaniness is quite the spectacle, and it was honestly kinda hilarious. (Seriously, I can't really describe the whiplash I felt once I started playing)

Quite a strangely iconic game for the time as it basically marked the start of the Sega Genesis' legacy despite being a port of an arcade game, yet it's very mechanically frustrating and mindless. The first two stages give some promise as they're pretty simple enough to play around with given the game's simple mechanics, and then it all nosedives once you reach the third stage. From this point onward, several frustrating aspects frequently start to show themselves like poorly conveyed mechanics and particular enemies and enemy swarms that you just can't properly handle with how the game works, and with the game's complete lack of invincibility frames and extra lives, it quickly turns a short and simple beat-em-up into a annoyingly prolonged game of trial and error. (Some other aspects I would like to mention are the power-up transformations essentially being a stun as you're still vulnerable after they end yet you can't do anything for a short bit after they do, and also that entire 4th boss in particular) It has some comical enjoyment to it like the crusty dialogue and animations, but it honestly doesn't hold as much merit as games like Decap Attack and Bonanza Bros. so it can only do so much until it's mechanical shortcomings overshadow it's charm.

Also, one thing that was conveyed extremely well was the title screen's button combinations like A + Start which lets you continue where you last got a game over and B + Start which is where the options menu (where you can choose your stage and make the game easier) is located. Would've liked to be wrong about the lack of continues or options before I beat it, GAME.

One of the weirdest pieces of obscure Sonic media, and it's a simple puzzle game with not much to do with sonic at all. People often seem to call this a Puyo Puyo rip-off when it's actually more akin to Columns. And, honestly, is it strange that I kinda prefer this over Columns? It might be a bit strange since people really seem to absolutely detest this game for some reason. Yeah, it's a bit mechanically complicated for a "board-based piece-matching keep-away-from-the-top puzzle game" or whatever it's supposed to be called, and I'm not too big of a fan of round or doubt mode but it was still some pretty decent fun to play. However, it suffers from the same overall problem that Columns does, in that it's rather barebones so playing it can get old pretty quickly and it's generally dull aesthetic-wise but I find the latter point less so in comparison to Columns primarily due to it's strange enigmatic status as obscure media. Like, it's that fascinating old and sleek simplicity of it's time as well as that weird and mostly abrasive soundtrack; it really does a lot for for me than Columns ever did. (Seriously that versus song is my favorite kind of awful)

It's also still honestly worth playing to witness the hilarious visual of Sonic punching another Sonic.

Whenever I think of the Genesis' iconic edge, Vectorman is a prime game that comes to mind. It's radical gritty style is the perfect embodiment of what the Genesis stands for, and man does it go HARD. I don't think I can properly express how much I adore this game's aesthetic, it has the perfect mixture of edge and lightheartedness that I can only describe as "brilliantly radical." I should also mention just how technologically impressive it is for the time only adding on to just how cool it is. It's gameplay is really cool too being a fast paced and high energy run and gun, although it is a bit odd at first with how it has a strange initial learning curve and a less than stellar first impression with the first 2 stages when you're confused on what to do and making things feel rather unfair at first. It's very worth sticking through the iffy start as the game most certainly picks up in the later levels where you've likely figured out how the gameplay works. If you want to know some essential things before you start though, the game has a handy info page in the options menu where you can check out some things you'll want to know, like the TVs that you'll want to break as much of as you can to get those multipliers, extra lives, occasional transformations, and even health upgrades. You won't really need to remember how each transformation mode works though, as they're mostly for context sensitive usage for optional paths that are rather clear for where to be used whenever you get one. It still has some odd bits like the overall screen size, the usage of time limits being detrimental to the whole exploration for goodies incentive, those real awkward gimmick fight stages (that first one is a particular road block for newcomers) and a rather frustratingly difficult final boss but they're not present enough to prove to be extreme issues. In fact, they're mostly solved after you can get over the learning curve. Those gimmick fights in particular are quite literally not present enough to be major issues, they all have only one minute on their time limits because you can easily take them down in less than a minute if you know what you're doing.

Before I wrap this up, did I elaborate how cool this game's aesthetic is enough yet? Because god DAMN how do you make a game this rad

Well the whole game is cool, but the style dude, it's another level