A game is very special when it’s something that’s near and dear to my heart, yet lets me find new ways to approach and enjoy it or new details that I’d notice. Pokemon Platinum is that. Diamond and Pearl had a very interesting region with excellent lore, but it was tied to poor pacing and a ridiculously slow engine, along with a small Pokedex with limited variety. Platinum saw all of these flaws, and fixed them. Yes, it still runs somewhat slow as a product of being on the generation 4 engine, but it’s infinitely faster than what DP was. And adding 59 more Pokemon to the regional dex while tweaking others’ learnsets? It’s fantastic for replayability and variety, and improving the game’s pacing in terms of story and badge progression, on top of adding more dialogue really helps to build the world and make the characters feel tangible. Small things like visual tweaks, be they shading changes or additions of snow in some areas, or making the Lost Tower more haunted looking, to outright redoing some maps helps the game stand out, both in an individuality sense and also visually. It’s a treat to look at, and it’s fun seeing the same, good lore get expanded upon in a game that structures itself in a way that can hold my attention. It’s filled to brim with sidequests, and ensures that you will encounter the entire Pokedex’s worth of Pokemon in a regular run if you simply engage with its content, and that’s extremely rewarding to me. I took it at my own pace this run, engaging with daily content, fighting morning/night specific trainers and catching Pokemon that spawn only at specific times, and felt a stronger connection to the game for it. It’s a game I can always escape to, as Sinnoh fundamentally reminds me of growing up in the middle of nowhere in North Georgia, and staying with my grandparents on native land in North Carolina. It’s a mountainous, chilly region with a lot of myth to it, but that’s what makes it feel so much like a home to me. Coupled with the brilliant soundtrack, which changes depending on the time of day, it’s really easy for me to find myself immersed with the game, engrossed wholly. As characters are expanded upon dramatically, and the game’s pacing no longer feels like a slog which lacks in Pokemon variety, a game which is built upon a rather weak foundation emerges as frankly, one of the best in the series. There is a strong commitment to variety in enemy teams and movesets, and ensuring that the game’s areas all stand out in fresh and memorable ways, and the game oozes with charm for it. Playing for the first time as a child, and seeing the expanded Pokedex was mindblowing. Hell, seeing some trainer sprites move blew me away. As an adult, the game remains a “comfort” media of sorts, which I’ve replayed annually for the past four years. In 2021 and 2022 it was an escape from my father’s cancer diagnosis, and my own chronic illness, respectively. This year, playing it on a break of sorts from school, I’m unfettered and able to experience it purely as it is, and that is so precious and blissful. I cannot stress how much this game means to me.

I so desperately want to give this a 3 and a half star rating, but I can’t. It may be a good step in some ways, but it’s so regressive in others. The animations and visuals and physics? They’re all there, and the game is a joy to control and look at. The new emerald powers are neat and on the fly, and can sync pretty nicely with level design. The first 7 zones and Frozen Base are actively very fun, but there’s a caveat. It should never be 60 dollars for this game, especially with its issues. Boss design is terrible. Whether it’s long I-Frames which, while I understand them in a multiplayer context, do not belong in single player, or extremely long patterns to simply get a hit in, that is present here, and to a worse extent than it is in other games guilty of this, like Rush and 4 Episode 2. This hits a crescendo with the Golden Capital and Egg Fortress bosses, being about 5 minutes long a piece with no checkpoints and filled with attacks that can blindside you. Level quality also just, takes a big hit after Press Factory. Golden Capital is absolutely a fine zone, but it’s another pinball zone and thus, doesn’t feel unique. Cyber Station, however, is just bad. Be it through pace breaking gimmicks like the squid game and mouse sections, or circuits dropping frames when you exit them, which seems to be intentional, it sucks. Frozen Base’s Phantasy Zone homage is a bit jarring, but mercifully benign and short. Egg Fortress is a fine zone on paper, but there are clear collision issues here that led to me being crushed when I wouldn’t have been. I really enjoyed it until it fell off, in spite of the bosses, though. Soundtrack wise, I’m going to echo the same complaints as everyone. There are good, great songs here, even if there’s less cohesion between act 1 and 2 themes than I would like. However, Jun Sunoe’s tracks are mostly abominable. They’re fine compositions, but use horrible fake Genesis synth and drum instrumentation that’s actively hard on the ears. For example, Speed Jungle’s Sonic act has a genuinely excellent song! You’re not going to hear it though, because Fang’s theme, a horribly synth infested track, interrupts it regularly. Perhaps worst is that when I went to configure the game’s sound, as I do when I get any new game as I’m audio-sensitive, I got blasted by the menu theme, which sounds like a Sega Genesis panting for help. So that was great. It’s a shame that the only track to use this instrumentation well is Sky Temple Zone. Otherwise, it’s other composers doing the heavy lifting, and admittedly producing some bangers. Listen to Speed Jungle Act 1, for example. Tee Lopes has still got it. I’m glad to see a character like Fang return, but I’m sad it’s done with such a bad boss fight and theme. He deserved better. The new character, Trip, is great. You’ll never hear me say otherwise. I think she fits so naturally with the classic cast and aesthetic, and seeing Naoto Oshima design a Sonic character again after 28 years has me beaming with joy. The tragedy is, I did enjoy myself, but the boss fights and probably 1/3 of the OST make replayability feel very slim for me, and that’s a shame when Classic Sonic games ride on this. If some of the jank is patched, I’ll gladly bump this to a 3.5. My heart wants to say it’s a good time beyond the bosses and OST harming replayability, but those issues bled into the level design. I need to make it so crystal clear, I enjoyed a lot here. A simple fact is that my gripes just mounted, and the part of the game I consistently relied on as enjoyable, being level design took a hit in the last 1/3 of the game. I know to many this game is a step forward for the brand, and I get that, but I’m also tired of tolerating steps forward that are littered with flaws, like this and Frontiers. I did enjoy them, but where do we draw the line and get tired? This could have been one of the best Sonic games, and was on track to be a pretty solid 3.5-4/5 rating for me, but still lost the plot. Mania got the formula perfectly, and I swear, with some tweaks, Superstars could have too. I’ll gladly up my rating if they patch some things, but as it stands, it’s just decent, with moments of greatness and some moments of immense frustration. Don’t get this at full price. It shouldn’t have been a 60 dollar game to begin with, especially when other 2.5D retro revivals like Mega Man 11 are 30 at base and are more refined. Just wait for a sale, and maybe even updates before you buy. If nothing else, a solid formula is here, but what needs refining needs to be refined severely.

Looks beautiful, amazingly narrated and good conceptually, but the gameplay just couldn’t mesh with me much. It isn’t bad, I don’t want to propagate that, but I feel you’re handed so much with too little time to mesh with it, and the shrine bonuses really don’t have the draw to them I’d like. It’s just, fine. The story is interesting, and I like the dichotomy of the ending and what it represents, but I don’t necessarily vibe with a “our people did bad, don’t hate us though we’re the ones fixing it” type narrative. That may just be me though. Nevertheless, a lot of what became hallmarks of Supergiant, from game to visual to sound design is here. I think for a first game, it’s admirable and a good framework. I personally just didn’t mesh with everything as I’d have liked to.