I'll be the first to admit that I'm not the target audience for this game. I'm a trans lesbian whose enjoyment of otome games typically stems from either the bizarre stories or the (often unintentional) exploration of kink, trauma, and relationship dynamics.

That being said, Virche Evermore is fascinating to me. On one hand, it's got a really neat setting, some genuinely likable character writing, and tries to tackle some themes that I rarely see games even acknowledge. On the other hand, it's a fifty-four hour long slog that's filled with a bunch of half-assed story threads, a distinct lack of anything romantically appealing, some of the worst attempts at Sci-Fi that I've ever read, and some genuinely uncomfortable depictions of abuse that are handled really, REALLY poorly.

[i]The TL;DR is that I would recommend Virche Evermore, but only to those players like myself who enjoy playing a lengthy, middling game every now and again. Virche Evermore likely isn't going to change your life, but it will worm its way into your brain and fester there. This game is fascinating, but that doesn't make it good.[/i]

[b]- CW // Mentions of Spousal Abuse, Death, Violence -[/b]

From here on, this is more my stream of consciousness thoughts.

I think that Virche is at it's best when it's simply telling you a story. The story of Arpéchéle, of the people who live there and the history of the setting, is some genuinely solid background. For the first few routes, that was enough to pull me in. The routes that have a narrative focus feel far sharper than the routes that focus on relationships, and while the romance didn't land for me, I think that this narrative-precedence would still affect me even had I fallen for one of the guys. Without spoiling, there's three routes that feel far more important than the rest, and as a result, everything lands so much better for them.

I also appreciate how much of the story revolves around its core themes: that of life and death. Each character interacts with and approaches these issues differently, and while I don't always agree with the conclusions, I like how much variety there is in the LI's thoughts on the subject. It helps to flesh them out, and the world as a whole too.

The characters are...alright? Having gone through all the routes (and most of the bad ends), I have my favorites. But unfortunately, because of the awkward pacing and the (at times) bizarre lead-ins to the third act conflicts, you get very little time to actually get to know them. Hell, most of each character's characterization comes from the common route. Generally for each character, their route is a third fun and cute fluff, and two-thirds drama. That only amounts to an hour or two of romance per LI, and while the true endings give you a bit more, I could see people interested in Virche Evermore's romance being sorely disappointed. The only genuinely interesting character, in my opinion, is Ceres. And even then, she often takes a back seat while plot is dolled out.

This undercuts much of the drama. It's hard to get emotional over character deaths when even side-characters tend to be constrained to a single route. And when there's so many deaths, murders, and suicides in one game, the raw, visceral impact of such gruesome writing evaporates. By the end it starts to get comical, and you'll be counting how many times you see the same alleys and the same bedrooms covered in blood.

This leads into my biggest issue with the game; it seems completely unaware that all of these relationships are - in some shape or form - abusive. I'm not a prude about toxic dynamics, and I enjoy some unhealthy and violent dynamics myself from time-to-time. But Virche Evermore gets under my skin with how uncritically it leads Ceres into terrible situations. Again, I won't be specific, but one of the routes feels eerily similar to real-life abusive relationships that I've witnessed. And in that route, Ceres' determination to love her abusive husband is framed as a genuinely noble and good thing by the game, which feels very...bad.

Beyond that though, most of the routes involve men completely controlling Ceres. Doing things to her against her whim, going to great lengths to control her, controlling her autonomy. There are some instances where this is clearly in service of kink, and I don't mind those cases. But it happens so frequently, and is so unaddressed by the game, that it gets uncomfortable if I think about it for too long. That, combined with every non-Ceres woman in the game being written as a cruel noble or a jealous prostitute, paints a really unflattering picture of those behind this game. Though I don't think this game is actively malicious or anything, just poorly written.

Virche Evermore wants to be a shocking, violent, cruel otome with brilliant sci-fi writing and a pile of plot twists meant to keep players talking for ages. What it is, however, is a confused, floundering mess that is just as charming as it is infuriating. It never delivers on its metaphors, it never even seems aware that it's as complex as it is, and despite all of that, some of it's shots land true. It's like a child swinging at a baseball on a tee. Every miss is infuriating. "You had it! It was right there!" But every so often it manages to hit the ball, and you can't help but smile.

I have a lot to say about this game, far more than I can squeeze into this review. But though I felt frustrated and annoyed most of the time, I'm still glad that I played this game. If you can enjoy bad games - if you love picking through the muck and looking for the pretty stones within - give Virche Evermore a shot. But don't expect a diamond in the rough. Just expect a pretty flower, one that wilts hours after it's plucked.

We were young, and we were still learning. Coming into our own, yet still not quite there.

The second generation was much like some of us who had experienced the series from the beginning as bright eyed and optimistic children. Maturing, finding our footing in life, and trying to figure things out for what we really wanted out of our future. Do we continue onward with our current path and continue developing our skill? Are we seeking to make a career of said skill? Those drawings bearing a similar crudeness to generation one sprites that we etched on the back of our tests, those little characters that you made from your own two hands and the ocean of your imagination. They would need to be refined, perhaps to the point you would be sick of seeing them again through the months and months of practice. We struck gold on something we were good at, but were we ready to make this our life? How do we get ready for life? Would we even make it to that path we dreamed of?

For us, this was the sequel. A sequel to childhood, and the path to maturity.

If we were to get ready for life, we would need to learn how to maintain a schedule and utilize a form of communication to keep in touch with our contacts. Through our little battery-powered clock in our cartridges, we kept track of the time of day in order to search for different friends on different paths. We would remember what day it was, so we could participate in a bug catching contest and try to find that Scyther. If we couldn't get up in the morning early enough to catch a Ledyba, what good were we in participating in life? It was at this point we were starting to get into the thick of things, we weren't children anymore, but teenagers who aspired to be more like adults. We were excited of all that upcoming opportunity that would only be granted to us with age, and with that age in due time came responsibility and expectations to provide. Life would soon not be all about fun anymore.

It was soon time to grow up, and perhaps move away from home to master our craft elsewhere...

It's hard however to leave behind everything that you grew up with. We traveled to Johto to learn how to better ourselves, perhaps like the bike shop owner who got unlucky on their new shop placement in Goldenrod, but for us it wasn't truly home. We would long for our old pals, our old hangout spots, and our favorite order from our childhood fast food place. We desired a return trip home to Kanto, so we can say hello to everybody one last time before we begin our life's career. Home however, wasn't quite the same as we had remembered. Forests were chopped down, caves were cleared out, and Lavender Town's place of remembrance had been converted into a radio tower. Kanto has changed, or has it matured like us? Resources have been plundered for practical use over the thoughts of those who had lived there, and spirituality has been pushed to the side in the name of technological advancement. Have we lost our way, or is this what is to be expected of us in the future?

When I finally climb this mountain and end this visit home, what will await me at it's peak?

The last lingering strand of childhood I had left made manifest, the past me armed with the very first friends I had made on this adventure. If I must let go of the past, I must defeat the longing memories of what once was. Even if I were victorious, will the memories finally rest or will they continue pursuing me? With the destruction of the past, we make way for the future. This is the way. This is the way we grow up. We no longer have room for trifling matters such as our childhood friends, memories, or the places we once held dear. It's time to make way for adulthood and to only go forward without ever looking back. Home is no longer home, it's no longer even a memory for us, it was thrown back into the toybox where it belonged. With this we continue our adventure elsewhere, and we leave everything behind. It was a fad, and it's time to bury those McDonalds toys and trading cards in a box or sell them off in a yard sale.

It was never to be the same again, for we have both grown up. Us now simple mature adults, and them a fully-realized juggernaut of a franchise with no end in sight. We've defeated our childhood, there was no reason to keep going with this series obviously geared towards what we had grown out of. We could take a peek once in a while to check on them when they make the television, but we would do so with a look over our shoulder to try and maintain our mask of adulthood and maturity. It was time to only watch mature programming, and play mature games while doing other such mature things, like swearing while our parents weren't around. This is what is expected of us now, it's time to leave it behind to the next generation who will grow with the next set of games, whom may also leave once they have grown past it....with another generation to follow.....and the cycle repeats....

My time was over, much like Kanto and the Game Boy, but despite what life and middle school demanded of me, I would never be too far away.

I am home, I always have been.

Gimmick! is honestly pretty great. It's extremely daunting at first, with how slippery the player character, Yumetaro, is and the physics of his star attack (also a traversal method since Yumetaro can jump onto it with some good timing. I'm not very good at it, though) can take a bit to learn as well as the fact that only one star can be on screen at a time, so missing a shot can leave you extremely defenseless for a few seconds. Enemies can also be quite aggressive, and I'd say most stages have at least one pretty BS trial and error section to suffer through. Quite surprising considering how cute the game looks.

It gets even harder when going for the true ending (which I, of course, did, and that's why my playtime is almost 8 hours. My actual final playthrough was just 38 minutes long, and that was honestly pretty slow) where you have to get the secret treasure on every stage, and get through the first six stages without using a single continue, but through that challenge I got a real appreciation of all the systems at work, and the very smart level design that both gives you the feeling that this is an actual, breathing world that you're going through and not just something designed for a video game, with enemies very carefully placed and unique to their stages, and some not even being hostile to you.

The game also very clearly wants you to always move forward, either by spawning enemies behind you, having the ground collapse beneath your feet or just very clearly showing that standing in one spot for too long is extremely unwise. It reminds me a bit of something like the first Ninja Gaiden game, where you barely stay still for a second of the entire playthrough, and I really enjoy that kind of 2D platformer. It's very difficult when you start out, but with some practice, and a whole lot of frustration, it becomes sort of like a dance, and just supremely satisfying to get through what previously seemed impossible without much issue, and look cool while doing it.

Since it's a Sunsoft game made in the 90's, you can also expect Gimmick! to sound and look fantastic. I wouldn't say the levels themselves look all that impressive (not bad at all, but there are certainly NES games with better looking backdrops), but the fact that it has these really impressive physics (slopes!) at play at all times, the enemy AI actually seems sort of dynamic (they at least have very clear line of sight), the amount of things often on screen at the same time, and everything being extremely well animated, it's super impressive how rock solid the frame rate is. Especially when thinking of other technically impressive NES games like Kirby's Adventure where it feels like the game's about to explode at any moment. The fact that this game was made by, like, three people makes this an even more impressive feat, and it doesn't hurt that the soundtrack isn't just among the best on the entire NES, but also feels like wizardry and something that simply shouldn't be technically possible on an 8-bit console, and yet it is.

So yeah, I definitely recommend everyone with a love for NES platformers to play this. It's very difficult and not for the impatient type, but give it a little time and it will click eventually.

Sometimes you hit the end of a game and you just start sobbing because Video Games, and holy shit, is Live a Live ever Video Games! I love weird experimental shit like this from the SNES that just spends a lot of time fucking around with what sorts of stories you can tell through gameplay and what sorts of gameplay gimmicks you can use within the confines of the JRPG structure.

The game being split up into individual character stories across different time periods naturally means that they’re going to vary in quality and general appeal, but I’ll admit to finding them all pretty charming and creative. There’s Street Fighter meets Mega Man! There’s sci fi survival horror! There’s super robots! There’s a stealth mission where you can do a pacifist run! And it’s all set to a banger soundtrack!

And man, just wait to see how they all come together! There are some running gags throughout but the actual ending is buckwild. There is a choice you can make at a certain point where I was like “wait, what happens if I go with this guy considering everything?” And I did it and was rewarded with an absolutely wild gameplay segment. It fucking rules man, the final boss is deeply hype. The characters aren’t super deep but I deeply love some of them anyway, particularly my darling child Cube. They are just a little guy and my heart could not take their little beepboops and spins.

I was probably going to get around to playing the fan translated rom at some point if this hadn’t come out, but the 2.5D presentation, the remixes, and the voice acting are an excellent treat. I could see a lot of big name VAs for the Japanese voice track, but I feel like the cast choices for the EN version added some cool genre flavor. I have head that some bits of UI flavor were lost in this version, but there’s plenty of flavor in other areas to keep things spicy.

I will admit that the battle system itself is…. okay. It’s pretty fun for most of the game, but I do feel like it gets a little tedious at the end. I think it’s worth trying to do as much as you can, but I can imagine some people finding it a little tedious. I do have to sat I’m interested in revisiting the game at some point, since the chapters seem packed with alternate choices and fun little Easter eggs to spice things up.

I’m really happy this weird little cult classic got a chance to be introduced to a new generation both in Japan and the west, and I’m happy it seems to be a pattern with Square-Enix’s back catalog. It’s cool and good.

REACH FOR MY HANDDD, I'LL SOAR AWAYYY, INTO THE DAWNNN, OH I WISH I COULD STAYYYY!

Fire Emblem: Three Houses is the sixteenth installment of the series Fire Emblem. As much as I like to joke about the game, I really enjoyed my time with the game, and from time to time I actually come back and play it. If I could describe it, it's essentially a persona-fied fire emblem, and that's not a bad thing, I love both series. It's definitely a lot different for people used to classic Fire Emblem but I think it has enough going for it to be a great game.

Just want to say that this was the first Fire Emblem game I completed. I had previously started Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright but got extremely bored near the end and never finished it, so this review may be a littleeeee biased, but I'll try to be as objective as possible!

Now, let's talk about the story, which I will try to keep spoiler-less. I love the concept of 'Three Houses' and us, as the protagonist having the choice of what house to teach as a professor. The game interests me with it's deep lore and many organisations, like the Church of Seiros, and then we have the three nations of Adrestia, Faerghus, and The Leicester Alliance. I'm a sucker for world building so I just love all of the lore about the game and it really gets me to hyperfixate on it. Now, time to talk about the actual story. The starting chapters make sense, considering every unit you have besides the protagonist is a student that isn't accustomed to fighting and killing, so no marks off for me. For the most part, I actually enjoy most of White Clouds, with peak being Chapter 7 (imo). I will say one major flaw I have with the story in this game. I just feel like the game is terribly designed for a replay, especially for a game that emphasises 'Three Houses' and therefore multiple routes that you can do. At the time, I had no issue replaying White Clouds three times in the span of the month, I was in the Fire Emblem rabbit hole, but now that I think back to it, that's probably what has drained me from Fire Emblem for a little bit. Honestly, that's really one of the only faults I have with White Clouds, it's essentially a set-up for the second-half of the game. Depending on the house you chose, you get a specific route to play, and I've played the three main ones so I'll focus my review on those three. I feel like Crimson Flower is good, but the ending just isn't it for me. It feels like we have a lot more to do, but it just ends. However, Crimson Flower has my favourite map of the game in the final chapter, so it doesn't lose that much points from me. Azure Moon seems much more cohesive (in my personal opinion and from what I'm remembering, it's been almost 5 years give me a break). Azure Moon seems much more character-driven, and that's probably why I enjoy it more. Not to mention I think I just enjoy the characters in Azure Moon much more. Verdant Wind was my starting route and probably my favourite because of how epic it is. Though, I dislike how much it shares in common with Silver Snow, but I guess there were time restraints in development time? Overall, I enjoy the story, and although there might be a couple of loose threads, they aren't terrible by any means.

Now time to talk about the characters. I enjoyed them a lot, and the three house leaders do make a good first impression, but Claude will forever be my favourite character. I wish we got to interact a bit more with the characters from each house before making a decision. I love seeing the supports between different students as I just love seeing the different interactions and situations that each support goes through. I enjoy the faculty and how much some of them bicker with each other, I love it. Also, I can't forget mentioning the ultimate Gatekeeper, what a great character. I actually don't think there's a single character I hate in this game, I might be meh on some, but there's none I can really say I hate (unless they're antagonists but I believe that's the point of what an antagonist should be).

Gameplay! This game was my first true introduction to fire emblem, and I enjoyed the gameplay. I want to start by saying that I played this game on Normal because for some reason I just suck at Fire Emblem on hard mode. There's Combat Arts, Crests, Gambits, and Hero's Relics. Combat Arts are interesting because they have different properties and consume a different amount of durability on a weapon depending on the type of combat art you used. Some can even hit from multiple tiles away. Crests are innately built into some characters kits based on a lore reason that I won't delve too deep into. Essentially they provide the wielder with a specific effect that enhance their combat capabilities. Some of them are quite good when they actually activate. I enjoy them, but I don't go out of my way to get them to work. Gambits are new to Fire Emblem, and this comes with monster enemies having multiple HP bars that need to be depleted in order to defeat the enemy. Gambits can hit multiple squares and can stun these monster enemies, and some even have supporitve properites like increasing movement or healing. I love abusing Stride on certain maps to achieve the win condition in one turn. I'll be honest, I rarely used Hero's Relics because I hate having to go to the armory to repair them with specific material that I may not have. Although, they're good to have when I might be unable to kill an enemy unless I use a Hero's Relic. Also, I want to talk about the elephant in the room, which are the Certifications. I love how they made it so that every character can become any class (except gender specific ones), but that is kind of made obsolete thanks to the fact that certain classes are just superior to others, and some are just not worth the investment. It's also painful to get skills from specific classes because of the number of times you have to engage in battles with enemies. Despite what I've said, I enjoy the gameplay in this game.

MUSIC. My favourite part. The music slaps. Edge of Dawn is GOATed. The battle themes arer so intense that they just make me pumped. The Spirit Dais is just so mysterious and it fits the theme. And he monastery themes are honestly perfect to convey the start of a chapter compared to the end of a chapter when you embark on a mission. Overall, great music.

Okay, I think it's time to actually talk about the main elephant in the room, which is the Monastery. As a concept, it's great, an explorable main-hub where you can do multiple things, such as improving stats on your protagonist, raising your support level with other units, tea time, gifts, buying things from the marketplace, gardening, fishing, petting animals, battling at the training ground, cooking, eating meals with different units, doing choir, and talking to the many NPCs around the monastery. Those are all great additions and the little sidequests make you go all around the monastery, however, on replays, the monastery is kind of draining. And if you decide to slack off at the monastery, then you're kind of screwing yourself over because there are just so many benefits that come from the monastery. Honestly, I enjoy the monastery, but I know that it is one of the main complaints of the game.

And finally, let's talk about tutoring/seminars. I actually like being able to set a course for each unit in terms of what stats they should aim to improve. They get different combat arts, and some units have budding talents that give them a boost when they are fully ranked up. Honestly, I have zero complaints with this system, except when you get a terrible session and all of their motivation goes down, that sucks.

Overall, this is a great entry into fire emblem if you're coming from some more story-focused games, though there are other entries into the series that might be a little better. I highly highly highly recommend you play this game! It's great!

Danganronpa brings some great ideas to the table, but ultimately fails to do anything meaningful or creative with them. While the graphics and music are really great, and the gameplay passable, the biggest flaw is the writing.

In my opinion, two things are necessary for the death-game format to work well; fun characters and solid mysteries. This game has neither. Nearly every character - out of the initial 15 - feels purposefully written to be as obnoxious and boring as possible. By the end of the game, I'd only connected with three of them, two of which had died early on. And if you're not invested in the cast, it's difficult to care when someone dies.

I also thought the intrigue just...wasn't there. Admittedly, I might be spoiled by the zero escape series, but Danganronpa never felt like it could focus on a secret long enough to build it up. Any time a new, mysterious, paranoia-inducing twist is hinted at, it's inevitably revealed in the next hour. You don't spend hours wondering who a masked participant really is, or find a weird clue that rattles around in your head until its relevant twenty hours later. It's all disappointingly simple.

Danganronpa - putting it bluntly - is baby's first death-game. That's not a bad thing, and indeed, I don't think Danganronpa is a bad game in isolation. You can have fun with it, and I can see why its a cult-classic. But if you're already familiar with the genre before you play it, Danganronpa feels a bit disappointing. All it does is wet your appetite, and make you wish you were playing your personal favorites. And while Danganronpa does pull some good story beats in its final hours, its not enough.

If you've never played a death-game before, and you want a friendlier starting point, I'd say give Danganronpa a try. And if you're a bored teenager who wants to try Danganronpa out because you like the aesthetic, then give it a shot. But if you're not particularly interested in the art or music, and if you've already played similar games before, I'd say Danganronpa is an easy pass.

The NieR of Sonic games...? What?

I never played a Sonic game before, but after reading Phantasm's review and having heard Wheatie advocate for this game for quite some while now, I decided to finally check out the series with Sonic Adventure - and I'm glad I did!

To make sense of the weird opening one-liner, Sonic Adventure is a game told through the eyes of six different characters - which means you need to play through the story six different times to fully understand what's going on. Each character comes with an unique gimmick and win condition, ranging from collecting Emerald Shards as Knuckles to catching a pet frog as Big the Cat. The narrative itself is nothing groundbreaking, it's fairly standard fare with Eggman trying to use an ancient evil named Chaos to destroy the local Station Square and rebuild it under his management. Chaos is an interesting villain though, since he functions basically the same as Resident Evil's Nemesis and you fight him several times with different characters in different power levels, as he grows in power each time he consumes a Chaos Emerald (you see, the name is as straightforward as it gets). As for the individual character stories themselves, you're free to approach them in any order you'd like, as long as you met the character in Sonic's story and the game will notify you when a new story is available. Only after completing all six story modes, you'll gain access to an epilogue and be able to fight the true final boss.

The levels themselves have some interesting mechanics, and they especially get to shine in Sonic's levels (as he's not a gimmicky character), I'll take the Lost World level as an example. While Knuckles can just crawl up the walls here with his moveset, Sonic has to rely on switches that allow him to walk on certain anti-gravity tiles on the wall or use mirrors to shine light on mirrors to illuminate a dark path. But it doesn't always have to be so complex, sometimes snowboarding down a giant mountain with an avalanche in the background is all you need. Even if I had a fun time with most of the levels, one of my biggest complaints is still the rebellious auto camera, which especially hates Sonic zooming through the zones at lightning speed and then jumps to some nonsensical angles, causing you to have no clue what's going on and miss your inputs. I'm not particularly mad at those camera shenanigans (would be lying if I told you it wasn't funny), but there are times where the jank goes from charming to annoying territory. Another thing I'd like to address is the strange progression sometimes outside of levels in the hub worlds. Thankfully there are red hint orbs in the game telling you where to go when you're feeling lost, but even then, sometimes the hints are so vague that I still found myself resorting to GameFAQs guides in order to locate where to head next. This would hardly be an issue on replays, but I couldn't find the raft for the life of me the first time I had to use it.

Sonic Adventure is a very ambitious game for the time it released and it's not only reflected in the level design, but also in the soundtrack, which covers a variety of musical genres and also uses higher quality instruments as opposed to a MIDI soundfont, which was possible thanks to the Dreamcast's advanced audio hardware. My favorite song is Amy's theme, My Sweet Passion, but I'm also particularly fond of Tikal's Theme and Mechanical Resonance. The Egg Carrier Theme needs a shoutout for itself, just for how catchy it is.

In the end, Sonic Adventure was a nice little departure from all the JRPGs I've played recently and I'm now eager to try the acclaimed Adventure 2 and other Sonic games in general - this includes the Steam version of Sonic Adventure DX, where I'm hoping to go for 100% when I get to it :D

Oh, Sonic Adventure 2...

At first, the shift from hub worlds to linear storytelling was a change I had to get used to - the pace of doing levels back to back feels way different from walking around Station Square aimlessly to get to the next stage and I didn't like how it felt here. However, my stance changed about halfway through the HERO story (which I played first), and I began to appreciate the storytelling of the sequel over SA1, because you get the story (on your side atleast) told in chronological order without having to puzzle it together and you constantly switch characters, so it doesn't get boring. So on the HERO side you're already getting a full story about Sonic and his friends alone, but the villains are contextualized in the DARK story. Personally, I preferred the DARK story, it just felt like the more complete package overall and the cast is more interesting.

As for the gameplay, Adventure 2 brought some noticeable changes to the Treasure Hunt stages, put an extended focus on mech levels (which play similar to Gamma from SA1) and also changes the physics and controls a bit from the first game - nothing worse than no longer being able to overly rely on Sonic's spindash, as it's not overpowered anymore. You get used to it fast, but that was a death sentence in the first hours of playing! Concerning the Treasure Hunt stages... I'm not a fan of what they did to the radar, the beeping noise is even more obnoxious (and louder) than before and only having the shards show up in a set order is frustrating. However, sometime during Knuckles' final level it came to me that I've developed stockholm syndrome towards the Treasure Hunt gameplay and after reflecting and replaying the Knuckles stages again, I had a lot more fun with them than before. They're an acquired taste, a guilty pleasure.

You know what else is guilty of being TOO LOUD? The mech levels - just hold down the lock-on button and you'll get a free trial of tinnitus, all while you've got a full Michael Bay movie with thirteen different kinds of explosions going down in the background. Weapons Bed might actually be one of the loudest levels I have ever played in ANY game. It's not like the audio mixing was good to begin with, the volume of sound effects during regular gameplay is so comically overtuned and you might as well believe the conversations in cutscenes were recorded during a rave by how often the voices get drowned out by the music. But generally, the soundtrack of Adventure 2 really delivers. Favorite songs are Escape from the City, Live & Learn and E.G.G.M.A.N.

Not much more to say, except that I missed out on the Chao Garden in this playthrough entirely, just because I had no clue how to hatch the eggs. A shame, cause that's apparently a big aspect of the game - so I'll be sure to check it out sometime. What else, Shadow and Rogue are awesome and this game is a blast to play despite the issues. I'm considering bumping it up to five stars if the Chao part of the game turns out to be good. It's just chaotic and fun.

In which other game can you experience Tails using his special move of crashing the game twice after telling Eggman how powerful he is? I can't think of one.