There's been this notion around the Sonic games that if Sega just stopped making stupid decisions, it'd be perfect and we'd all have a great time. You know, I don't buy that. Maybe I'm just a little sick of Sonic.

Despite everything else, the old Mega Drive games are still fairly precious to me, and I have some affection for a half dozen other Sonic titles, but I wasn't as bowled over with Mania as most seemed to be. There wasn't a lot of truly new stuff in it. I just don't know how fertile this formula is. If running around rollercoaster tracks and jumping when necessary is all that captivating, or if it can really be taken to interesting new places without a radical shake-up.

Don't get me wrong, Superstars is pretty crap. They've been understandably keen to promote the physics they've pulled from Sonic Mania, but that doesn't save the poor collision models, the rotten level design or the dogshit mechanics. Even if Sonic runs up hills properly now, it doesn't prevent the game from being tedious as all get out. It just doesn't seem to have been designed with much insight. Sonic Team have included a Fantasy Zone level in here, solely because they didn't get the joke when they saw Mania's Mean Bean Machine boss. I struggle to recall any moments where I had fun. Mostly, I remember the shock when I saw they thought to bring back the bouncy floor from Sonic CD's Wacky Workbench.

Oh, and everybody's already talked about it, but those bosses are truly appalling. I couldn't bring myself to replay a single level, knowing one of those were at the end of it.

There's pockets of positivity in the project. Basically all aesthetic. The character models are generally pretty nice, but their limited animation makes them look like they were extracted from a better game and dumped onto a Steam community page. Sonic Mania/Shredder's Revenge boy, Tee Lopes, has composed a few typically great tracks, and they stand out alarmingly in among the synthesised dredge from Sonic Team. The 2D animation sequences are nice too, as is typical of all the post-Mania stuff, and like those, they're let down by lacklustre music.

At its best, it's a halfhearted retread. It's attempting to mine nostalgia from a source that's been tapped out relentlessly for decades. Bold, youthful confidence used to be Sega's whole thing. They'd speed into new potential anywhere they saw it, and all their most beloved projects carried a sense of boundless energy. Now, they're sitting in the paddling pool, trying to make Samba de Amigo a thing again, and too scared to do a Yakuza game without Kazuma Kiryu.

I wasn't even excited for this, and I'm still bitterly disappointed. They've really fucked this one up, and if you bought it on launch day, you might have paid £55 for it. I can't recall the last time I've been this upset with a new game, and I'm in the middle of playing Flashback 2 right now.

I was hooked on this game when it first launched, but as time went on I realized that while there were a lot of cool additions, the core gameplay is just a worse version of 2.

Story mode is good, Salmon Run always being online is good, Lobbies are good, but it's just so stripped down in comparison to a game already on the same system I own.

There are less weapons, less maps, less clothing; it's kind of a shame.

Stopped playing not long after finding out characters can only wear what is gender-assigned to them, and as a woman whose fashion revolves around dressing more masculine, that for me was a bit of a big strike. A big part of fashion in real life is going against social norms, so it’s disappointing to offer a fashion game that forces you into so many boxes. The game is a bit boring from how simple it is, too, and having two characters feels impossible, as my wife and I share the game and found that when someone online makes you an outfit, you have no idea which character it’s supposed to be for! Adding an additional character seems to be just for having an extra face to dress up as the story progression is shared between the two characters, too. So weird.

2/5

i always love a game that has a sole focus on it's core mechanic and builds around that, i think this game has a solid idea and executes it well (for what it's worth). it's all i really care for in games nowadays; BUT, do i find this game fun? hmm... i think the real question is, "is addiction fun?" depends on the person but a definite no for me. this game has consumed a good chunk of my day, thinking to myself "just one more time and surely i'll beat my highscore" and 5 hours later i'm still not satisfied. psychologically this game is addicting and satisfying, but holy shit is this a time waster, it feels so unhealthy to play. just getting a hold of it makes me feel dirty and gross but i can't put it down. i can't argue that this game feels incredibly rewarding and satisfying to play, it's up there in game feel and polish, it's just an addicting concept all round. big numbers go up, easy dopamine rush, lose and the desire for that dopamine rush encourages you to continue and the cycle repeats until you've wasted 5 hours. i love/hate this game, leaning towards hate.
don't play it for your own sake, just watch other people play it and live vicariously through them. trust me, you are not missing out

Tears of the Kingdom feels like a pile of extra mechanisms inelegantly fused onto Breath of the Wild. Manipulating and attaching objects together is cumbersome. Fusing adds an inventory tax to combat. Breath of the Wild already had a lackluster inventory and nothing has been done to streamline the system, let alone reduce the overwhelming number of necessary baubles, trinkets, and knick-knacks.

The world has been expanded in an interesting way, and I'm sure there's a lot to love later on in the game. The problem is that every interaction requires a tiny papercut of annoyance, and I don't have the endurance to power through a thousand of them.

hehe oh good i got this game added to igdb! well, I was researching fortune telling and divination last month so I decided to check out one of these games. you enter some basic information about yourself and then you can get all sort of info - daily horoscopes, or fortunes tailored to particular topics... love...work...

The horoscopes are kind of fun, they say whether it'll be a good day for X, Y or Z. Like "you'll have trouble with business negotations today!" it told me on a day where I did end up having trouble...

You can also specify friends' or.. potential lovers... names and see your compatibility.

There's a wide variety of divination methods. A lot of complicated chinese ones where you don't really understand what's going on at all.

Overall this kind of lacks that social dynamic going to a real in-person fortune teller would have, but it's also just fun to think about your day through these random fortunes. The social elements are amusing as well.

I've always thought fortune/divination would be an interesting thing implemented in game somehow - if approached from a cultural standpoint. But most of the time it's a pretty dry, stat-based treatment about passing certain dialogue choices, increasing drop rates, etc, rather than getting at the social appeal of divination and how it goes back and has held appeal for humanity for millennia as we seek to feel more certain about the future or ourselves...