Riding off of 358/2 Days, I expected something better as this game is on a handheld with higher fidelity than the DS, but this game took everything I liked and appreciated about Days and took a big ol' horse shit on it.

If I had to describe this game in one word, it'd be "useless."
This game fails at everything it attempts to do. The characters are terrible, by having another trio reflection of Sora, Riku, and Kairi, but with no personality or defining character traits to make them stand out. The first instance of downright terrible writing in the series, with characters being so oblivious to Xehanort's motives that it almost borders on being a satire of the plot of the Star Wars' prequels. And the worst gameplay in the series, with terrible mechanics such as Command Finishers, Command Styles, and Shotlocks, bundled together in an engine that is two steps away from shitting itself.

For a game that is meant to set up the next major story arc in the series, it's the most contrived, convoluted, and boring series of retcons I have ever had the displeasure of experiencing.

The pre-release for this game was one of the rockiest rides I've ever been on. From a vague CGI reveal trailer to the long wait till that god awful IGN reveal trailer, I probably felt all emotions humanly possible waiting for this game to come out. After Forces, I had almost lost complete faith in this franchise. releasing that game after something like Mania was the greatest fumble I've ever seen in gaming history. It wasn't a good spot for fans, especially since Mania looked like a significant change in how the franchise was being handled. 

After the IGN World premiere, I felt the same feeling I did when Forces dropped. It was over; we were cooked. It wasn't until the demo at Summer Games Fest that everyone would actually get their hands on the game and see for themselves what this game had to offer. I was broke as hell and lazy as fuck, so I didn't go, but the response to the demo on Twitter surprised the hell out of me. To put it bluntly, I was surprised people were saying this game was better than bad; it was great, amazing even, and I just had to take their word for it. I don't think people would lie about liking a Sonic game in the year 2022. I only had witness accounts and terrible-quality phone videos of boost gameplay to go off of, as well as some small gameplay snippets the YouTube channel posted leading up to the game's release. After everything was said and done, the only thing left for me to do was wait for the game to come out. 

When I had the game in my hands, I skipped a class I had that day for the first and only time. I played this game from start to finish twice, once on the Switch (bad) and once on PC (good). On my switch playthrough, I beat that game in 13 hours in one session. I wanted to stop multiple times, but I never actually did. I was hooked on this game, and I loved every bit of it. I liked running around and fighting enemies; it was new and a unique spin on this franchise's formula. The bosses were great, and the soundtrack was phenomenal. and the story wasn't terrible for once; it was actually decent! I saw the light; Sonic was back. Over time, that feeling faded, and my opinions changed, as they should. But there's so much I want to say about this game. 

I don't love this game like I do others like SA1 or Unleashed, but I do have a great deal of respect for Morio Kishimoto, Iizuka, and everyone else who worked on this game. A game like this shouldn't possibly exist in the state it's in. The Sonic Team was in the most unwinnable situation ever. With layoffs for their team, a reduced budget, and strict deadlines up their ass, it looked unwinnable, but they made the game they wanted to make. If Iizuka hadn't negotiated for that extra year of development, then I don't know what would've happened to this franchise; it probably would've sunk, but we don't have to worry about that. 

This game feels like the fresh new gameplay style the series really needed. The series has had multiple gameplay styles before, but I feel like this game has the potential to pave the way for a satisfying middle ground between adventure and boost gameplay in the future. This game has a world design I like to call "McDonald's Play Place.". It's mostly just huge terrain, except that you have tiny, curated spots of platforming segments that reward you for completing them. It's not a bad style at all. I find it fun doing the little platforming sections quickly and moving on to the next in quick succession. The only problems that stood out were during Chaos Island, where you're forced into a 2D camera and get stuck in some challenges by accident. Things like that can get frustrating quickly. The pop-in doesn't do the games any favors either; I'm going to assume the switch port is the main reason why the pop-in is so terrible. I'm of the opinion that the switch port is surprisingly decent, but I still don't think the other ports should suffer because of this one.

Cyberspace is coupled with this game as its second main gameplay style. It's kind of terrible. I can safely say that it's a shallow imitation of good boost level design from before, because it's just reused level design from before. On one hand, yeah, it's terrible, and on the other, deadlines are a bitch, and this was probably the easiest thing they could do. If the controls were half decent, then maybe it wouldn't be so bad, but I'm kind of shocked we got something worse than Sonic's gameplay in Forces. I say kind of terrible because I kind of like how broken and satisfying the air boost is, so that's a plus. Chronos Island has entirely unique level designs for Cyberspace, and they have a good grasp of how to design levels; they just need to be longer than a minute. If they had more time, then maybe their skills would've shown more.

Combat with Sonic is not a bad idea. It's just that this game has more of a stilted and clunky alpha version of a sensible combat system and honestly doesn't feel good to play for me. Kishimoto has stated they thought of DMC combat as a good base for combat, but IMO, I feel like they could do a system more like KH2, where it's very simple on a surface level, but bosses and encounters are built around mastering how to pace yourself in combat and not having complicated combos for the sake of all audiences. All in all, I find myself avoiding all combat unless necessary for the story because it just isn't fun to me. Maybe it will be improved in future outings.

The soundtrack for this game is phenomenal; I understand why it broke the top 10 on Spotify. It deserves all the praise. Tomoya Ohtani continues to prove himself as an amazing composer for the series, and his overwhelming passion shines through his compositions. 

Bosses in this game are the main thing I see people talk about in this game, and for good reason. It's the first time we see Super Sonic used casually throughout a game as a major part of the story. Super Sonic being used in regular boss fights is cool in concept, but due to him being Super Sonic, it makes things hard to balance around. I find these bosses to be great in presentation but bad from a design standpoint. When the worst thing a boss can do is waste your time until you run out of resources, I think you messed up badly. There's no real challenge, but at least it looks cool, I guess. Spectacle can only carry you so far. You need style and substance, not one or the other. I will say, though, that these fights are cool as fuck; I can't hate them.

The story for this game, while not great, is a good change of pace from the self-serious and undercooked plot of Sonic Forces and the laughable embarrassment of a nothingburger that is Sonic Lost World. The subtle writing and dialogue can seem a little corny, like Sonic's constant references to past games, but for once, it feels nice to have some acknowledgement of connected continuity. We haven't had something like that since the adventure era. I'm a sucker for character-focused narratives, and it was awesome to have Sonic and his friends think about old times and reflect on their time together. I'm mixed on Ian Flynn's abilities as a writer, but he did well this time. Sage is an okay addition to the cast. I think it's neat that Eggman has a new member of his cast that isn't an annoying robot. She just needs to spread her wings more in the future.

As an experience, I say it does lose its muster towards the end. Rhea Island and Ouranos Island feel like they were bundled together at the last minute, and the final boss fight against Supreme is terrible and severely disappointing. The end fight in Hard Mode is also terrible. Maybe I don't see the vision because I haven't played Ikaruga, but I didn't think it was a good experience, especially since it was just a reused minigame style. On the topic of minigames, fuck that pinball minigame on Chaos Island that shit never worked properly for me. 

I have to commend Kishimoto and Iizuka for believing in Sonic as much as they do. I believe they echo the same love and passion long-time fans have for the series. Whether you love or hate this game, we can't deny the impact it has had on the franchise. Sonic is doing well for the first time in Japan in a looooooooong time. More heads are turning to the series, and the developers have a vision for the future of this series. We just have to believe in them as much as they believe in Sonic.

Right now, the franchise seems to be doing great (mostly thanks to the success of the movies). Sonic Team is recruiting again, and it looks like it's only going to get better from here.

Let's just hope Sega doesn't screw it up.

Ghosts 'n Ghoblins might just be one of the earliest examples of a video game designed to not respect the player's time. It's the kind of late 80s, early 90s arcade game that gave arcade games today the stigma of being pure quarter munchers, with the pure intent of syphoning as much money out of teenagers as possible, where deaths are common, cheap, and sometimes totally unavoidable.

Ghosts 'n Goblins on its own today would only be a bit offensive when it comes to its core game design and design philosophy, in the light of emulator savestates, rewind, and infinite continues, but this game still manages to take the cake by telling the player, after beating the penultimate level, after climbing this insane vertical shaft of enemy spam and a few totally unavoidable hits, that "THIS WEAPON HAS NOT EFFECT, TRY AGAIN.", and sends you back two fucking stages. I had absolutely no issues getting through the stages using a couple continues, but this really rubbed me the wrong way.

That's right, me, the player, in my infinite wisdom, surely should have known that you had to use the shield against the boss. Silly me.

So I reluctantly did stage 4 again, farmed enemy drops until I got the shield, beat stage 5 and subsequently the game. I actually knew about the two loops required to get the true ending in advance, so I was satisfied with the final boss beaten one time. Never again, though.

I have a serious love-hate relationship with this game. I initially enjoyed a lot of things about this game starting—with the characters, the combat, the environments, etc. The anticipation for what was to come, especially seeing the gameplay demos years before. After playing it, I felt unsatisfied. The game felt very unfinished and was a fragment of the potential it set itself to be. Most of the cast was one-dimensional (the exceptions being Ajna and Dhar), the story is lackluster, and the gameplay can get repetitive & boring with nothing to spice it up a bit.
I know of Mike Z's tom foolery and how it led to why the game ended up like this. I still had fun and appreciated what was there, but it had HEAVY flaws.

This game is one of the most tedious and annoying games I have ever played. It managed to make playing cards the most unfun thing to do on planet earth. This game asks too much of someone's attention and patience for one of the worst real time actions card game gimmicks I've ever had the displeasure of playing. All of its content is just reused assets and story beats from KH1 but Sora says "erm I don't remember this guys this is so freaking weird!?" I don't think any of the new content is worth actually playing the game for when I can just watch the cutscenes on YouTube since 75% of this games' story is needless and repetitive filler.
There is nothing worthwhile that I get for finishing this game except an achievement on my PSN profile.
Moving on to Kingdom Hearts 2 and never looking back.

Growing up, this was one of the only games I had to play on my FAT PlayStation 2. I bought it for 6 dollars pre-owned at a GameStop because I begged my mom for a new game so I could stop playing Nicktoons Unite!

I remember having so much fun playing this game. I played it over and over I think I fucked up the game disc because of it. It might've been the best thing I've ever experienced up until that point in my life. Back then, it was awesome.

Now that I'm grown up, I realize. This game fucking blows. I've tried replaying this game on five separate occasions over the years, and nowadays I keep dropping it around halfway through Team Sonic's campaign because this game is mindless and, honestly, really boring as it goes on.

I don't mind the controls for the game; after playing it extensively, I've grown accustomed to them, and it feels like second nature. In this game, it feels like you have to be super careful so as not to have the game freak out on you, like in Mystic Mansion or Rail Canyon. Sometimes mistakes don't even feel like your fault, and it's just the game shitting itself for no reason. I don't think I should shit my pants trying to position myself correctly so the lightspeed dash doesn't fuck up for no reason, and the Rocket Accel being inconsistent is annoying too. I will say, though, that when you get the right momentum with the game, it can be a blast, especially during the earlier levels.

You can tell Iizuka was struggling with designing the levels towards the end of the game because they just turn into repeated platforming and combat set pieces, and it gets more apparent towards the end of the game. I'm not shitting on Iizuka; I believe he did the best with what he could, and not a lot of people would do what he did in his position, so I respect him a lot for his work here.

Iizuka aside, I don't feel as if this game has content good enough to justify four repeated playthroughs (I'm aware of how different Team Rose/Chaotix's levels are, and I still don't like them). It's kind of a shame, though, because I think this game has very good environmental design and art direction that makes all levels stand out in amazing ways, but the level design itself is nothing to write home about past Power Plant.

Bosses are either too easy or just a chore to sit through. Egg Hawk is embarrassingly easy, and Team battles are mind-numbingly broken. BUT, they're at least better than Robot Carnival/Robot Storm which just feel like they waste time and do nothing interesting except spawn waves of enemies over and over. The final boss is... okay I guess. playing as all teams is a neat idea but they all play the same and the super sonic portion is a nice spectacle fight but that's all it really is to me. Spectacle.

If this game didn't force you to play the same 14 levels and boring/annoying boss fights four times, then I wouldn't be so hard on it, but I can only take so many of the same levels, Robot Carnivals, and bad level design before I turn the game off and play something better.

If I had to pick a favorite team, though, it would be Team Dark. Their campaign has the best balance of challenge and platforming that I like out of all the playthroughs.

I feel like an outlier when I say I really love this game. Compared to all of the other classic games, I find myself revisiting this one the most and enjoying each playthrough I have of it. I never grew up with this game, and I only beat it during my time in middle school. I still love replaying and beating this game in one sitting to this day. There's not a lot to this game, but there's a lot to love. It's a stellar and unique art direction, paired with the amazing music from Masato Nakamura. It all adds to the unique style Sonic was exuding back in the 90s. I have the Special Stage music from this game as my ringtone because I love it that much.

A lot of people tend to have this misconception that Sonic has and always will have the gameplay mentality of "going fast" and critique this game based on that misconception. I think that Sonic, from a design standpoint, has always encouraged players to properly learn the level design throughout the game and earn the satisfaction of beating a level quickly through skill and memorization. I feel like people give too much hate to Marble Zone and Labyrinth Zone because they refuse to engage with the level design and just want to hold right the whole time, like they can do in Green Hill. People forget that Sonic has always had level design that rewards exploration, and there are routes and gameplay tricks you can use to skip entire sections of levels. Scrap Brain Zone Act 3 has a shortcut that cuts the time from 2 minutes to 20 seconds. I don't think there's anything wrong with slowly but surely making your way through a level. At maximum, levels can take about 2 and a half minutes to complete with plenty of mistakes, and people overblow how long these levels actually are. I'm not going to act like the game is perfect; some of the enemy placement and level design in Labyrinth Zone and Starlight Zone are pretty annoying, and Scrap Brain can get tiring. It's got first-game syndrome, sure, but it isn't terrible. It can be pretty frustrating on first playthroughs, but I feel like that's everyone's first experience playing a Sonic game. It's a rite of passage at this point. 

In retrospect, this game can seem pretty terrible, but I have my own fun with it. I wish people shared the same sentiment. Special stages are bad, though I won't deny it; I've just gotten used to them over time.