Have so much to say but I can't write much. Have so much to express but I can't find the words. Have so much to elaborate but I don't have the energy. Have so much to expound but I can't be able to convey them.

I became conscious of death when my grandmother had passed, but it wasn't until my grandfather went away a few years after I fully became inundated as to what it meant. I can't think of many people as integral to my well being and personality as they were. I cannot recall a time where I wasn't thinking about that stark, orange colored block of a hospital room where the latter had laid, unknowing it would be the last I would ever see of him. I cannot recall a time where death wasn't something I had feared, an abstraction lay unto forces beyond my control, surrounding me so sickly as I continue to grow older. I was lost during my twilight years in high school where I was slowly accustoming into what adulthood would become like. Even now, it haunts me.

"...I finally began to understand...what it means to live... Thinking for yourself... Not running away... Accepting the inevitable... All things eventually come to an end... Every living thing will one day disappear... Only by accepting this can one discover what they truly want... What the meaning of their life will be..."

I wouldn't say Persona 3 was an answer I needed to these fears, but it helped a lot. It was the first game I had ever purchased second handed, and I remembered just the bare minimum when going into it after seeing an LP. A lot of people postured it as a game exploring death, but it's more about the examinations of life as we know it. Death is constant, but it isn't the weight. Turmoil is abundant, but it shouldn't be the reason for demise. Jealousy and apathy are thorns, which is why compassion and hope for tomorrow need to be accentuated now more than ever. Your actions to the other, no matter how insignificant it may be, can blossom and (re-)kindle something into the heart that they may have forgotten. You are your own person, even as you masquerade various personas in multiple conversations and meetups. You are the pillar and support for people, even if you never realize it.

"I decided that I would continue to protect you. I want to be your strength. I know I'm not the only one who can do this... but that's okay... My life will be worth living if it's for this reason... Thank you..."'

Both FES and Reload's combat mechanics are great to me. Though the AI tactic configuration is but a mere husk of its former design principle, stripped to bareness in each subsequent entry as any nuances and underlying appeal have since dissipated, leaving behind a set of reductions and glaring blemishes that, cumulatively, makes the initial appearance seem worse than it actually was - of which someone’s already making sure to right this wrong, I garnered some enjoyment from it regardless. Theurgy wasn't as intrusive as I had thought it was, instead an extension of person's psyche as well as the idea that the power we wield can be used to secure a better tomorrow. It’s been mocked as “cope” to say the old approach was an intentional decision behind the gameplay, but well, a collective interview between various Double Jump board users and Atlus when 4 was coming out has shown that’s just the truth indeed, and I find merit in how that form factor escalates into the feeling of a group coming together and bonding further and further into becoming a simple family. The relationship between Tartarus Guardians and Full Moon Shadows are intrinsically tied, but now reversed - you are no longer gauging the Dark Arcanas as a check for the Guardians' enforcement atop the higher floors, but are instead compartmentalizing the Guardians in an effort to combat the ephemeral being that can't and won't understand you. It's good. It's cyclical. It's the reverse of the cards we all face at some point.

"You don't have to save the world to find meaning in life... Sometimes all you need is something simple, like someone to take care of. I'll keep on living no matter what , so that I can protect you..."

I don't think this is entirely perfect. I actually much prefer the old Tartarus structure since this one is made much more convenient, and I don't agree with the false notion that the party system was archaic even if I understand not everyone will like it regardless. The presentation has some nice flourishes but, especially in the animation department, there are placements and alterations made that took me away from the intended effect. I also find it incredibly suspect that The Answer has been announced of a faux "expansion pass" relatively sooner than expected with two other "pre order bonus" ass costume DLCs preceding it, all without word on FeMC. At the end of it all, I still find FES to be the experience I'd attain whenever I want to revisit this world. Yet, I am content. It's one of very few things in fiction that has brought me to tears. It was wonderful to revisit this story (twice, even, since I replayed FES beforehand). If it means more people can experience this masterpiece, then so be it. Just another face for the fool to don as it shows itself onto the public.

"You can close your eyes. I'll always remain here by your side."

It's a shame Sonic Dream Team is exclusive to Apple Arcade because I think it may be the best 3D Sonic since, like, Unleashed! Dropped seemingly out of nowhere with a different team backing it, it'd be understandable to be skeptical of its approach. Even though Apple Arcade doesn't allow for microtransactions, that doesn't stop some games from incorporating ill-fitting "long-term engagement" mechanics that can drag down an otherwise clean experience. Air Twister is good, but I don't know if anyone's wanting to play it for 100 hours! Despite the format, Dream Team feels far more like a console Sonic game than it does a mobile one, only more polished, concise, and focused on what it wants to be.

Ostensibly, you could lump this game in with the "Boost Games" of the series and that would make perfect sense. You do a lot of boosting, after all. But I think that'd be selling it short. You see, what makes Dream Team cool is that it understands that Sonic isn't actually about going fast 100% of the time and never has been! Dream Team isn't a slow game and much of the level design still does consist of straight corridors to pass through, but anyone familiar with the series will immediately notice that the boost feels slower, your max speed without it even moreso, and that your boost gauge is pretty small as well. This might seem ridiculous, but it's actually a very smart decision that turns Dream Team into a more exploratory game, giving it a more distinct identity that even channels a tiny bit of that Adventure magic.

Dream Team is structured a lot like Sonic Colors, or so I hear since I haven't played that one yet. You get one juicy main mission and several smaller missions in each level in a zone. The main mission has all the trappings you'd expect, including various collectables, new interactions with the environment, and branching paths that you can experiment with on subsequent runs. The level design is overall on the simple side, resulting in quite an easy game that finishes up right as it runs out of tricks, but I found that there was a lot to appreciate despite that. I think my biggest gripe with modern Sonic game design is how inefficient it is. Each level probably took weeks of hard work and skill to craft, but then you blast through them in a minute (because they're under the impression that speed is all people want from Sonic) and never think about them again unless you're a completionist or a speedrunner. It just feels bad and wasteful to have so much detail and care put into them only for it to be over so quickly, you know?

That's why Dream Team's approach is so refreshing. Sure, the levels still aren't gigantic, but you have actual incentive to stop and look around now. There are a lot of pretty details stuffed into the level design, whether that be background elements, some of the best visuals I've seen in a mobile game, or clever platform arrangements designed to teach players valuable lessons, and the number of branching paths and rail-heavy design probably allows for some neat timesavers on subsequent runs, so you can still get some of those speedrun thrills anyway. Some levels have you searching around for keys in a way that's reminiscent of emerald hunting in Adventure 1+2 (albeit much simpler). The collectibles are very well hidden and encourage you to make use of different characters, which in turn allows for an even greater appreciation of the level designers' craft. The sub-missions do a great job of tipping the player off to these things since they take place in bite-sized chunks of the main levels. If you play through a level first as, say, Sonic, then when a mission makes you play as Knuckles instead, you'll get to see an entirely new path with new challenges. Instead of rail grinding, maybe you're climbing on a moving wall and dodging hazards, or if you're playing as Tails, maybe you get to do a prolonged flight sequence where precision suddenly matters a whole lot. Amy, Cream, and Rouge are here, too, and it's great to have such a big roster in a modern Sonic game, but they're identical to Sonic/Tails/Knuckles in functionality, which is unfortunate. Cheese can't even be used as a weapon like in Sonic Advance 2, which kills a lot of the fun of Cream's return for me. It's not as robust as the Adventure games (I really miss finding permanent upgrades), but it's a step back towards that direction, and at this point, even a slight whiff of Adventure is enough to give me the vapors.

The core of the Dream Team experience is extremely focused and polished, but as you look at the more fringe and inconsistent elements of the game, you do begin to see some room for improvement. The boss fights are conceptually really solid and always a spectacle, but they're very easy to beat and don't offer any kind of incentive to replay them, which feels like a bit of a waste. I really enjoyed seeing how different each one was (though I do wonder if making the final boss into a prolonged level instead of a fight was the right choice...) and it's easy to imagine ways to spice them up, so having them be such a miniscule part of the experience is surprising. The collectibles are inherently fun to collect because the act of playing the game is fun, but I do wish the rewards were more interesting. A majority of the missions need to be completed just to reach the end of the game, but the rewards for the entirely optional blue rings are just Smash Bros-style trophies without the cute descriptions and history lessons those had. I agree with the idea of the journey being more important than the destination, especially since the plot here isn't particularly notable, but it'd be nice if they greased my palms a little bit, you know?

Sonic Dream Team is still a quick playthrough like most modern Sonic games, but it manages to feel a lot more substantial and confident than some of the recent ones have. It avoids rehashing the same 2D era levels for tired "nostalgia" ploys (Scrambled Shores rules because it's not just Green Hill Zone for once), it isn't afraid to try new things here and there, and it doesn't hesitate to make Sonic's ensemble cast have a meaningful presence, all of which is immensely appreciated as a long-time Sonic enjoyer. I've been very pleased with the direction of the series in recent years, between Frontiers placing Sonic in a wholly new context and The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog realizing that there's a lot of value in these characters and leveraging that, and Dream Team continues this positive trend by finally trying a different approach to 3D Sonic level design while still using a familiar foundation. I really hope Sega Hardlight gets another shot at something like this on a larger scale platform because I think they could make some of the best games the series has ever seen if they're given the chance to improve upon this idea. Hopefully, this game gets ported/expanded upon for modern platforms so that others can see how Sonic can be and should be so much more than just going fast.

I can't believe it. They actually made me care about Yuffie as a character. Not only was she really fun to play as in the Remake system, but she actually has a tangible, emtional connection to the story now.

Clearing the main downsides out of the way first: it is short and because of its length, the balance of combat scenarios feels very lopsided. Too few and too simple in the first half; too many in the later half. This isn't a huge complaint from me, because I like the system here and especially how Yuffie and Sanon work within it. But solid pacing is the key to keeping a combat system enjoyable in the long term.

Touching on the art and sound then: its still VII Remake, which means it's still bloody gorgeous. My word I love the environment design in this game. But even better is this MUSIC. I won't say it's quite near Persona 5 levels, but these new tracks are way bloody closer than they needed to be.

The first act was pretty straightforward and simplistic narratively. Yuffie shows up in Midgard, she tags up with some co-conspirators, and she heads on her way to screw over Shinra. With Yuffie's exaggerated animations and general goofiness as a character, it felt like watching an old anime, and the music is what made it kick.

No longer really mattered if the story was going to have any big revelations for the rest of the Remake games or if it had any more depth. I was just having fun throwing shurikens, casting ninja magic, and doing all the Fort Condor mini-game challenges.

— Which it can't be understated how much of a feat that was as well. I hated the old Fort Condor mini-game in the original. Love that it exists for how odd it was, but I dreaded ever doing it again. —

Another audio thing that made a big difference for me was switching to the Japanese VO. I know most people won't care or need to hear their native language to be able to engage with the plot, but hearing Yuffie do a Sengoku Era play accent just makes everything about her make so much more sense. Might just be me, but the humor of her character actually works when the "Chuuni Ninja" actually uses that accent.

Like imagine someone roleplaying Shakespeare and not trying to sound as stereotypically British as possible.

So anyway, I was just jiving then the finale delivered an emotional suckerpunch to me out of left field, and then followed it up with a one-two punch of one really nice epilogue scene and one that has me scratching my head. So par the course for the Remake, I guess.

I also liked that they gave Scarlet more time to develop as well. She fits the villain role better here than in the core content of Remake, I think.

So I believe I like it quite a lot, just not too much because it isn't quite satiating. If you bought Remake on PC, then no risk, give this a go too. If you're on PlayStation, it might be worth the rigamaroll of whatever they have setup there.

I really hope this means she'll be a proper addition to the party early into Remake Part 2 and will be involved this time around.

There is a moment in Mushihimesama where I started to feel guilty. Not for the act of playing the game or anything but upon hearing Reco the game's protagonist death scream a bit too frequently as I weave her into yet another purple ball of bug plasma. This really struck home though when I paused the game and the music and sound effects stopped but her scream continued, echoing into the void reminding me of my failure.

In case it's not apparent I'm still pretty green to shoot 'em ups though I've been investing time playing them more and more since joining backloggd. I see people here discussing in their reviews completing a 'one CC' run and I laugh at the the very idea of the practice it would take me to do such a thing. You see I normally play a shoot 'em up once, see the credits, take time to think about what I played, what did I like? what didn't I? and then move on. There is something about Mushihimesama though that keeps drawing me to play it again and again. For the first time I feel I almost understand hardcore STG players, at least a little bit.

The immediate thing I need to talk about with the actual game though is the cover art here. It's the thing that made me aware of this games existence. A friend here started playing it before I started delving more into the genre a couple of years ago and my first thought was "what on earth is that?" You only make first impressions once and it's absolutely sublime. Taking a mixture of anime and art nouveau with the curved backdrop, colours and flowing hair. It's like if Alphonse Mucha had become an anime artist and I utterly adore it. The art is one of the stand out elements of this title for both aesthetics and design. Taking influence from studio Ghibli's animated classic Nausica Valley of the Wind, you play the afore mentioned Princess Reco. She is due to be sacrificed to stop the Miasma that threatens her village from the giant Koju insects. On her 15th birthday she takes flight on her Rhinoceros beetle to stop them. The game's theme is entirely about insects bugs and nature, even the game's title Mushihimesama translates roughly to bug princess.

It spans five stages and I love the visuals and details. Lush looking forests, petrified centipede husks with fauna growing out of them, lava stages, crane flies floating on water and not to mention the way the stages are so active in the backgrounds. On one stage you can see this ginormous beetle fortress traveling under the canopy whilst you fight smaller enemies above before appearing as the boss. Another level with a giant beetle attached to a chasm wall that flies up to engage you. It's just a really cool looking title for concept art and in game visuals. Where it's clever though is in it's usage of art and colour in this design. This game is extremely vibrant with hues of green, red, blue, yellow all over but they reserve purple very specifically for enemy fire. Bright purple. Such a small thing but mechanically makes it very easy to understand what it a threat to you and is also very visually striking at the same time. I've played games where I simply couldn't see what was coming at me due to colour blends between backgrounds and fire. This eliminates that issue entirely, just because something is clear though, doesn't mean it is easy to avoid, this is a bullet hell after all.

This is my first real one in fact and I understand a good one for that because it's actually incredibly simple in a lot of ways through how it's been designed as mentioned above. You get one character Reco, but have three firing modes to choose from in how her bullets fire. She gets some basic power ups for her main gun and satellites which can be used either in a spread pattern or more focused fire. Seed bombs can briefly clear the screen of bullets to save you when firing and everything else is positioning and prioritising targets. There isn't a lot to learn at the base level but there is a lot to master. Knowing where to be on a level, taking out a bigger Koju first to control the flow and watching the onscreen bullets fade out or dodging through an absolute torrent of fire and coming out the other side is an absolute rush when it happens. I actually prefer playing it on Manic over normal difficulty despite the increase in bullet density coming my way because the game just feels good to play moment to moment but I am still learning a lot every time I play.

Though I am reviewing the arcade game here I played through once I would recommend getting the Mushihimesama HD release on steam for it's crisper visuals and extras I'll review separately another time. Regardless of version though I'm really glad this actually lived up to both the word of mouth around it and my expectations based on the art, fun music and footage I've seen. This is actually my first Cave game having weirdly played some games that eventually led to their formation prior. It's probably not my favourite shoot 'em up but I must say it's an extremely good one and I look forward to playing more of Cave's works.

Reco's death scream however will continue to haunt me for some time but I am getting better to prevent her suffering.

+ Concept art is gorgeous.
+ In game visuals and art are also gorgeous.
+ Simple clear design but still a challenge.

A charming though uneven experience that captures a lot of the feel of the original Sonic titles and creates some genuinely exciting snapshots of gameplay. It's a little too faithful to the old style for my taste, however, particularly in its level design and use of screen real estate.

I did have some preconceptions about the game going in, but much to my suprise the opening monologue from our titular hero managed an impressive feat for the indie mascot platformer and it actually made me interested in the character and setting. Not in some deep or emotional way, but in a, "Ah, okay, this was made by someone real who cares about this and is having a lot of fun."

And by extension, it made we want to dig right in even if I'm frankly not the biggest fan of 2D Sonic games and picked it up out of a sense of curiosity after one friend's journey with the series.

The art style was also a bit of an unexpected hit. I'm not one to be nostalgic for the 8/16-bit era platformers that aren't called "Super Mario World" so it didn't hit immediately, but quite a few of the zones, backdrops, and sprites are quite well done and look great in motion. I'm also particularly fond of the animated cutscenes. While Pizza Tower is the newer release, I can't help but compare because the animation style is very clearly of a "cheap digital paint tool" style, but they also feel like the person making them has used that tool for a while.

It's a bit unfortunate to me, then, that this was not the title to convince that I'll ever be a big fan of how Sonic-style Platformers play. There were a few levels in the mid to late part of the game where I felt like I was starting to get it and it made a decent enough flow. Otherwise, some of my lingering issues with the genre were present here—and they certainly weren't helped by a handful of sections that used some naturally frustrating platforming tropes without the finesse to make it work.

For one, I'll never understand how a game designed around speed and flow does everything it can to make a player trip and stumble on their first playthrough. There's a physical limit to what a human can react to, and for visuals it's around 0.2 seconds.

To put it another way: if an unexpected object crosses the screen in 1 second, it will be 1/5th of the way across the screen before your brain registers its existence. The brain then has to decide the correct response. Now throw in a small multiple sources of surprise and potential conflicting response options, and the time needed to actually engage with the controls, and a half to full second to respond becomes likely.

Of course, people who play a lot of 2D platformers can short circuit most of the decision making with their reflexes and heuristics, but even then: if your player sprite is 1/6-1/5th from their edge of the screen, and the object is moving faster than than 1-screen-width-per-second, then that decision making time starts to evaporate quickly. And so playing the game well becomes impossible without trial and error.

Which you won't do, because the punishment for blunders is not severe enough to make you run it again and try to be better. You will just keep blundering along.

I should reiterate that this is a problem I have with a lot of retro sidescrollers. So don't take that as a slight against Spark alone. If you enjoy 2D sonic, you will have little issue here. I just think these games would be objectively better if they zoomed the visible space out a bit, ran at a minimum of 90fps, and had a bit more responsive camera look-ahead (it's never cool when your sprite sits at the bottom of the screen when you have to fall).

Sparks only sin here is emulating its heroes too closely.

Oh, and the time-gated platform sections. I will never like those.

The last thing I think I feel compelled to mention is the swappable, kirby-esque powers. I thought a lot of them were pretty fun, but unfortunately some of them were too fun and holding onto those ones when you're stumbling around is difficult. There was a sword that came with an acceleration buff and a wind hat that gave a passive double jump and float and had an ability that let you rocket yourself in any of the four cardinal directions.

Those two combined made the levels fluid and fun to the point where the game felt sluggish as soon as they were gone (after a good 6 stages with them).

In any case, the game is good, but it sits comfortably in its niche and isn't looking to move out aside from dipping its toes into its next door neighbor's pool. If you find the original Sonic games fun, this will be too. It's not my favorite cup of tea, but I hear the third game of the series is like Sonic Adventure, so I will be returning for that.