This is not a review of Knuckles Chaotix. I’ve never played that game and most likely never will. I’m using this page to talk about a game tangentially related to the 32x classic, but not deemed relevant enough to have a page on IGDB, and therefore here. A game that, even if on a subconscious level, ever since my younger years, shaped my feelings for video games and cemented them as an integral part of my life. I’m talking about Chaotix Universe, made in Macromedia Fusion 1.2, and released by Alexandre Martins or “lex” around 2002.

After many, many years, maybe two decades, I’ve reconnected with this game through an archive.org download, and immediately after that went searching for whatever information about it that I could find. The most I could get is that lex was a relatively prolific Sonic fangame creator in the early aughts, creating titles such as Sonic Universe 1 & 2 and Neo Sonic Universe, as well as the relatively more well-known Open Sonic as far back as 2009, and recently released the also open-source Open Surge, featuring his original character Surge the Rabbit. And among those was Chaotix Universe. Even in the fangame community, this is a pretty forgotten game, it’s absolutely no Before/After the Sequel or Robo Blast 2, and even in the flash game scene of the time there are games still frequently remembered fondly such as Ultimate Flash Sonic and the Final Fantasy Sonic X games.

The reason why I’m spending time running my fingers through my keyboard is to just put it out there how much this game, and non-profit fangames as a whole mean to me and countless others who frequently played games on theirs on their family’s personal computers. If I ever were to do one of those “formative games” lists people seem to be doing around here, i wouldn’t be able to include this one, and that doesn’t seem right. Playing through this game again, though, after 20 years and hundreds of games of experience behind me, I can see it’s obviously very rough around the edges; the movement and jump physics are weird, the stage designs are all over the place and can mostly be skipped by abusing Knuckles’ wall climb and glitching through platforms to the end. Even for a fangame, it’s absolutely nothing remarkable, I’m sure lex has other more polished titles under his belt for being in the game for so many years, but this is the one that came to me on a Digerati disc bought on a newsstand when I was still learning to read (so it was redistributed for profit after all, sorry lex).

The thing is that, besides the amateurish design, this blew my little mind back then. When you’re a kid and have absolutely no biases, muscle memory or knowledge associated with video games, why would you care if the jumps aren’t intuitive, or if the animations aren’t quite right, or if the levels are all basically sets of floors of flying platforms? What really matters are the beautiful, colorful sprites, the cool character designs in team Chaotix and the enemies, the incredible songs that all remained in my head 20 years later, the overall feel of adventure from the stage variety, all ripped from various Sonic games into one package. When it came to it, even if at the time there were more polished adventures for me to play, such as DKC on my sister’s SNES or later PS1 games when my aunt got me one, what drove me to this is a little magical thing called passion.

That sort of unadulterated passion is why stuff like the fangames, romhacks, mods, itch.io, gamejolt and newgrounds scenes were, and still are so exciting. It’s gaming at its most expressive; taking this game for example, through every choice made in it, shines pure admiration for the Sonic franchise and platformers as a whole, a purity only truer when doing it as a sole labor of love, without any pretensions aside from making something cool with the characters and world you enjoy and sharing it to the world. Meaning, those choices quietly reveal a little bit of the creator’s thought process and personality to the world. I guess that reminding myself of this game made me realize how much, at the end of the day, putting out something you care about and made with love is all it takes to touch someone out there. That sort of passion is, and always will be captivating for people of all ages. In my case, it led me to play hundreds of other games thereafter and even considering taking it on to create some myself. We’ll see what the future holds!

Possibly one of the best games ever made specifically for smartphones. Netflix distribution model aside, this is a game that successfully delivers on that promise from years ago of mobile gaming being a potentially big market for premium games, threatening the then thriving portable consoles, with its huge installbase and pick up and play accessibility. Unfortunately, as we all know, the mobile market has only gotten worse ever since, which is why it's a bit shocking to see such a creative and tightly packed game as POINPY be realeased as late as 2022.

The main reason i believe this is such a successful attempt at game design for mobile phones is that it perfectly matches familiar phone game pacing and framework (i.e.: endless runner, or in this case, climber) with mechanics and a level of polish rarely seen on such games, manifested in its brilliant implementation of roguelite elements, which brings real progression to a genre otherwise known for having no end goal, and its art direction and soundtrack. Honestly, the core gameplay mechanics (most probably inherited from Downwell, which i haven't played) with its inspired touch screen controls makes me believe this wouldn't feel out of place in the Nintendo DS library, specially given its Kirby-esque aesthetics.

There are a few rough edges here and there, which are mostly felt only on the higher levels. I'm aware this is supposed to be a compact game — the overtly minimalist presentation tells as much — and having fewer options is kinda the point, but limiting the player too much can make gameplay feel too restrained, which definitely happens as soon as Poinpy's upgrades are capped at 20, making any progress you made that doesn't directly put you into the end goal absolutely pointless. Having no way of improving the janky yet crucial ground pound mechanic to be more accurate, or to increase the number of hearts, or to get more upgrade slots, is a trap most roguelites would rather avoid, since making the player feel a little "OP" sometimes is part of the appeal of the genre.

But i can't really damn Moppin for that stuff when THAT ending cutscene shows up in my phone screen. It's not like this game has a gripping narrative or anything like that, but there's a bit of a Katamari-esque wackiness going on that gives it a lot of personality, most evident in the late game, which is something would NEVER expect from a phone game. This breed of surrealist aesthetics and the little additions such as the postgame challenges and the puzzle mode make the NDS title comparison a lot more apt. Very recommended if you miss this era of portable gaming and want something decent to play on your phone with no microtransactions or ads or endless grindy gameplay (still requires a Netflix subscription though, nothing's perfect).