When you are making something that is supposed to fall under the horror category, what is the one primary goal that you want to accomplish with your idea? The answer might not be as crystal clear as you think. Of course, most would probably expect the product in question to try to scare you, or to make you feel some sort of uneasiness, which would make sense, as for every great horror movie, game, or whatever one could point out, they have some element that either makes you uncomfortable, nervous, or just straight up scares the fuck out of you, which leads to them having much more of a lasting impression on the audience. That’s not all that a piece of horror media could do though, as they could shift gears from focusing on scaring you to giving you an action-oriented spectacle, just generally being spooky, or even to make you laugh. But, what happens when something related to horror, specifically a franchise, starts out with the intention of scaring you, only to then start to go in a completely opposite direction? Well, in this possible scenario, you could end up with something like Alone in the Dark 2.

I had a curious mindset when it came to going into this particular game, because I wasn’t quite sure what they were going to do with it compared to the first game. Based on screenshots, it didn’t look like it was going to do anything too drastically different from the original game, and the game’s promotional tie-in, Jack in the Dark, may as well be completely unrelated to this, so I figured it was just gonna be more of the same with nothing else to really show for itself. For the most part, I was right in my assumptions, but at the same time, there was something very… different about the game that I couldn’t place a finger on for the longest time, but I knew for a fact that, whatever it was that this game was trying to do, it certainly wasn’t as effective as the original game. It is still a good game though, having all of the same “lovable” elements and quirks that the original game had, but also taking a massive shift in terms of its approach that I wasn’t necessarily the biggest fan of.

The story is somewhat similar to that of the original game, which takes place three months after the original game, where a young girl named Grace Saunders is supposedly kidnapped and taken to a mansion by the name of Hell’s Kitchen (not that Hell’s Kitchen), and when a private eye named Ted Stryker goes to investigate, he mysteriously disappears as well, so it is up to Edward Carnby to go find out what happened to them and uncover the secrets hidden within the mansion, which is a simple enough set-up that you can get behind, only for it to go overboard (almost literally) in the second half of the game. The graphics are about the same as the original game and Jack in the Dark, and by that, I mean it looks like Elon Musk’s wet dream made into a game, but it does still have a certain charm about it that I can’t criticize too heavily, the music is good, even though it has that problem of being played over and over again once more, but at least the tracks themselves are good enough to where I don’t get completely sick of them, and the gameplay/controls are almost identical to the original, both to its benefit and detriment, but the approach to this style of gameplay and controls is… kinda messy.

The game is a survival “horror” game, where you take control of both Edward Carnby and Grace Saunders, alternating between the two throughout the game, go through plenty of locations, both outside and inside of the mansion, fight off against the many different zombie, ghosts and ghouls that you will find within the mansion using whatever tools you happen to find, find many different items and tools within the mansion that can help you out in numerous ways, such as healing you, giving you a means of defending yourself, or solving the game’s many puzzles, uncover the mystery behind what is going on here through many different logs you will find along the way, and try not to get scared along the way…. even though nobody would ever genuinely be scared of any of this. Any AITD veteran will know what they are getting into with this game, as it functions and plays identically to that of the previous two titles, making the game a good time for those who are adjusted to its quirks. However, the approach to all of this, like I have alluded to earlier, is slightly different to that of the original, which somewhat drags it down.

Despite the fact that the original game was not scary in the slightest, the game was at least TRYING to primarily be a horror game, with a foreboding atmosphere, a few enemies that are still deadly if you don’t know how to properly handle them, and a properly spooky environment, which is mixed with the awkward controls and camera angles to make a game that would scare whoever played it, or at the least, make them uneasy as they kept going… at least, it would’ve back in 1992. With this game, however, it shifts heavily from trying to be a horror game, and it more so focuses on the action elements of the game instead, with you now having to face against a group of pirate spirits, as well as the many other things that try to kill you in the game. This, if you ask me, was not the way that a game series like this should’ve been handled at all.

Now, I’m not saying that this ruins the game in terms of its atmosphere or presentation, because once again, these games aren’t scary, so there isn’t much to gain from that perspective either way, but what this change does ruin is how the player approaches the gameplay and the challenges it provides. From the very moment you take control of your character for the first time, you have to quickly kill an enemy that is right by you, and then you have to quickly move into a hedge maze located nearby, while fighting off whatever creatures you may encounter while doing so, or else you run the risk of dying immediately. They just throw you into the fire, without giving you any time to get adjusted to the controls or what’s going on, which may not be so bad for those who have played the previous games, but newcomers will pretty much be boned from the moment they press start.

This is, of course, paired with the fact that you have to deal with the controls used for attacking foes, and the same camera angles from the original game, and you have something that I wouldn’t necessarily call fair a lot of the time. But, with all that being said, none of this makes the game any worse. Fundamentally, it is still Alone in the Dark, which means you still run around, solve puzzles, find items, and defeat enemies in the same way, and it still manages to have that old-school charm that isn’t preferable compared to what other games since this have done, but it can still be fun to mess around with. Not to mention, in terms of the camera angles, they are handled much better off here, with there being none that are too difficult to manage, and none that are zoomed out way too far to where you look like a tiny little speck, so that’s good.

Really, aside from its shift towards action-oriented elements, I didn’t have too many problems with the game as a whole. It does kind of suck that it doesn’t really do anything to change up the gameplay whatsoever, making it feel kinda bland in comparison to the original, and if I had to give one complaint to the game overall, I would say that solving some of the puzzles can be pretty cryptic at times. Yes, I did use a walkthrough to get through this game, just like with the original, but there were still points where I got stuck because things aren’t properly conveyed to the player well enough at points. There is this one part in the game where you can’t proceed forward until you have done everything in the specific area that you are in, and I for the life of me could not figure out what I was doing wrong. I did everything the walkthrough said, I was looking around all over the place, and I had defeated all the enemies, so I was clueless as to what to do next. However, then I noticed that there was one item that I didn’t get before, and the item in question was not only incredibly tiny, but the color of said item made it practically blend into the floor, meaning that the game wouldn’t let me progress all because of this one tiny, miniscule item that nobody would be able to see without knowing it was there to begin with. Yeah, that’s my fault, apparently.

Overall, despite its shift towards action elements, some cryptic parts that can go fuck themselves, as well as… pirates being a thing, I would still say that AITD II is a good game, continuing the same basic gameplay that the original game established, while also branching out the story, environments, and enemies that you fight to where it does feel unique in comparison to its predecessor, even if it is lacking in innovation. I would recommend it for those who were fans of the two previous games, as well as those who don’t mind a little jank every now and then, because despite how jank it is, it still manages to be an interesting example of survival horror in its earliest stages. Although, now I’m wondering, since we now have ghost pirates in this game, how are they gonna top themselves with the next game in terms of the enemies? Are there gonna be ghost aliens? Ghost ninjas? Ghost cowboys?................................... please tell me it doesn’t actually use one of those things.

Game #524

Indescribable speechlessness is common when engaging with art. I often hear variations on the phrase “I need to sit on it" when people experience something they can’t easily come to terms with. We’re so used to this happening that we don’t think much more about it, but our brain’s inability to process something without time is fascinating.

If you’ve ever been around a baby, they often go through long bouts of perplexity. Expose them to something new, whether that be a piece of food, toy, object, or the outside world, and their face appears blank. Their mouth goes ajar and they wear this funny look, seemingly processing everything around them. This doesn’t always happen, but I’ve seen it frequently enough to wonder why it’s so common.

Life is complex and babies have it thrusted at them in huge chunks at a time. It's no wonder they're so confused at that age. Young brains have to unravel thousands upon thousands of phenomena that they eventually see as normal. My brother became a dad more than a year ago, and watching my niece look fascinated by the world has made me realize something: This perplexity isn’t exclusive to babies.

We are experiencing it all the time as adults when exposed to new things, but we might not recognize it as the same behavior because we already understand a majority of what’s around us. We can focus our attention on what we do know while our minds passively process that experience, and even if we think about it actively, it’s still surrounded by things we understand.

In art, we can call works that have this impact “thought-provoking.” They offer new perspectives on life and fresh methods of presenting the medium. We find in them unfamiliar ways of telling a story, crafting a world, or even reframing our views on what a video game can accomplish. This feeling can arise in many ways and you might prefer a number of synonyms to describe the phenomenon, but the idea is everywhere.

Time is required to digest these moments, because the period we spend experiencing something is only the beginning of our engagement with it. Actively thinking about it after the fact, alongside how it passively shapes us, are some of the ways those moments develop. Reflection is a vital component of any experience.

I made a similar metaphor when speaking to a friend about Jak II. I wasn’t shy in expressing how miserable the game made me throughout my 14 hours of playtime. Yet after finishing it, I claimed to be conflicted about its score because I thought I could reflect on it positively with time.

She then asked me, “why can’t you just admit that Jak II is bad?” She didn’t mean that in an objective sense, of course. She was simply referring to how frustrated it made me and how little I enjoyed playing it.

But those 14 hours I spent playing Jak II, regardless of them feeling like an eternity, were only 14 hours. I will spend the rest of my life, dozens of years, with the experience of Jak II permanently a part of me. I won’t be spending every moment of my future thinking about the game, but I do believe the ways in which an experience seeps into every other facet of your life is intrinsically larger than the limited time you spend with it.

Our minds are an enormous canvas, and everything we go through has something to contribute to that canvas. Those experiences shape us in one way or another, for better or worse, with some brushes having more bristles than others. And the experience itself is only the first of many paint strokes originating from whatever that thing might be.

Just this year, one show’s themes resonated with me so strongly that it has informed my future and could result in me making a monumental life choice in the coming years. Even if I don’t make that choice, it is directly responsible for me seeking to fulfill a dream by studying many hours a day, making language exchange calls a few times a week, and hiring a tutor. That 24-episode series, which took no longer than eight hours to finish, has already had its bristles in several other corners of the painting that depicts my life.

How Jak II will impact me isn’t fully in view yet, as completing it only reflected a fraction of its contribution. After all, I’ve spent far too long writing an essay on the concept of reflection because of it. I did not know this would happen when I first completed the game.

This occurs with everything, in often imperceptible ways, regarding each moment. Our tastes, interests, and methods of thinking are a result of what we’ve been exposed to prior. It’s not hard for me to link my favorite genres and styles in gaming to things I played during my most formative years, or my core values to my environment while growing up.

Formative years aside, art can still be educational and continues to shape me even in adulthood. Outer Wilds taught me that it's most rewarding when taking a breath and exercising patience, as the euphoria brought about by grasping at a solution is unmatched. I initially grew frustrated by its puzzles and resorted to Googling solutions, but when the Outer WIlds expansion launched, I beat it without looking anything up.

That initial playthrough taught me something: It revealed how much I value that sort of experience and I regret my lack of patience. I realized that I would’ve enjoyed the game more if I had stuck firmly to my own wits. In summary, that first playthrough of Outer Wilds gave me the tools necessary to experience similar titles (and its expansion) in my own way.

This overlong tangent has a function: It can be difficult to unravel our feelings. Putting them into words is harder.

That happened with Jak II. I’ve tried writing this review five times in the last several months. And I get an itchy sensation at the back of my head whenever I read the result. I’m seemingly incapable of putting my thoughts on this game into words. I assumed this was a result of me needing time to process the experience, but I’ve overestimated the nature of my perplexity.

How deeply I value reflection isn’t to say that I always have to come away from that period of contemplation with a positive outlook. Jak II’s existence confounded me for months. Its shift from a lighthearted platformer to a genre-blending Grand Theft Auto-clone brought my brain to its melting point. I entertained the possibility that I would return from that confusion with a favorable outlook, but that did not end up being the case.

It took me months to accept this, but when I did, I began working on this review. I initially had it separated into four chapters with a prologue, a section detailing expectations, another about the experience, and a finale analyzing thoughts upon reflection. I have several thousands of cut words not making it into this final review.

Some of that goes in-depth criticizing this game’s frustrating victory conditions, awful third-person shooting, minimal weapon variety, open-world boiling down to mindlessly traveling from one point to another, obnoxious sexualization, objectives lacking an organic function within the city, non-existent enemy variety, and repetitive music throughout Haven City.

I don’t want to write that review. Jak II just sucks. Aspects of this game are worthwhile, which is part of why I clung on for so long. Its desert slum occupied by ravaged sandstone buildings, jagged wooden bridges connecting fishing homes haphazardly built upon a river, and totalitarian cityscape constructed from dark metals with a vertical layer of uniform highways are unforgettable. Jak II is visually compelling from start to finish.

But beyond my appreciation for its world, the experience yields a shallow blend of popular gaming trends at the time. It is an amalgamation of mismatched genres birthed out of a harmless, colorful collectathon. The Precursor Legacy instilled a childlike joy within me, but this is an uninspired mess. I’ve spent months letting Naughty Dog’s off-kilter sequel simmer, alongside this unfinished review hanging over me, but it deserves no more of my time.

(Note: I am just putting a general content warning here as I feel that is the right thing to do.)

Everything this game tries to tell you is all wrong.

And yes, it is a game. When I was really young, I had a passion to try and make an adventure game and I used this really awful little program called TADS to make a demo for something called Gates to Purgatory. I only coded a starting area, some basic puzzles and interactions, and an "ending." After that I never touched it again. You can still view the TIGsource thread for it and even play it. (Don't play it.) It's nothing but a bunch of nonsense text, but I still consider it a work of art; a work of creativity. We can argue at length about the intrinsic qualities of art, what constitutes art, what constitutes specific types of art. Entire schools of philosophy discussing these intangibles but in the end its easiest to default to broad interpretations.

Maybe there is no real art to either my game or Notch's, but there is "passion"; in Drowning in Problems there is a passion to appear extremely profound, a passion to sound smarter than everyone else, a passion to express how much of a tortured soul you are. Notch released this in 2014, the same year he jumped ship from Mojang and the creation that had made him a literal millionaire. The game's thesis boiled down to the absolute futility of life and death- baby's first rumination on nihilism. Nothing matters, what's the point?

I went through this exact same conversation with myself well into my mid-20s, dealing with the worst depression of my life. Two inpatient stays, many medical leaves, some broken hearts (I guess it would be 3 on Drowning's meter). I don't look back at this as a deficiency, but I learned from it and grew from it. Notch was 35 years old and rich as hell, and two years later he decided to double down on his prejudices towards the others he felt had somehow wronged him. Going into social media tirades and projecting his own extreme self-hatred on people much more at risk than he is. Notch can pay for therapy. The entire groups of people he chose to antagonize and target, a lot of them cannot. He never learned or grew from Drowning in Problems, he just channeled it into cruelty. This is one of the major problems with adults who choose to be defeatist and nihilist; when all that discontent and dissatisfaction gets funneled through the pipeline of hatred.

You get +Body at the start of this game... there are people who are born into this world without a fully functioning body, or mind. People who can never walk, talk, see. What does Notch propose here? That they have even less in their inventory were we to gamify their existences? There are people born with nothing. Born without any of the comforts or conveniences that you and I share, who still choose to greet each day with courage and strength. People in Gaza are drowning in more than just self-pity and yet they continue to resist in the face of overwhelming death and despair. If nothing matters, what's the point of them doing what they are doing?

Life is worth much, much more than Notch implies it to be. You do not need to be told that what you do doesn't matter. Your actions will affect people no matter what. This tantrum of his could come from the most sincere place of extreme depression and that would not change anything about how fundamentally wrong it is. When I was depressed, I didn't go around telling other people they didn't matter. I felt that about myself, but it was all a product of extreme self-hatred. I knew even then how irresponsible it was to extrapolate my own psychosis and apply it uncritically to everyone else. With the benefit of hindsight, it just feels like Notch is trying to absolve himself of the consequences of having to exist in a world that is always going to be "political" in the way he didn't want it to be.

Just like Notch himself, Drowning in Problems is trash, and as such, belongs to the dustbin of history.

I don't think it's any surprise to call Phoenix Wright a great game, and Ace Attorney by large a great series. Gripping mystery series, fantastic writing, terrific characters (there isn't a single major character I don't love here), great music, super fun gameplay... a lot of Ace Attorney, and the first game in particular, are easy recommendations from me.

The first game probably ends up being my second favorite in the series overall. In some respects it feels the most "average" experience you'll have with the series, with a great early finale in "Turnabout Goodbyes" and no real clunker cases ("Turnabout Samurai" runs a little long, but I can't hate Wendy Oldbag and Sal Manella). The offset is how simple it is, with "The First Turnabout" and "Turnabout Sisters" resolving themselves so quickly. Not surprising, since they're introductory cases, and later games have little need for that sort of thing by contrast. If anything, it's all the better for the series to start on such an approachable tone. It's made the series super super easy for me to introduce to people, be they casual gamers or (in the case of this replay - my third time through the game) a friend group of experienced gamers.

"Rise from the Ashes" tends to be pretty divisive, being both a radical gameplay shift (incorporating mechanics from the then-in-planning Apollo Justice - remember that the first four cases represented the original GBA release, and Cacpcom wanted to throw in something extra to help justify the DS port) and far and away the longest case in the series. I think the game would've benefitted greatly from labelling it a bonus episode or something, since that's really what it is, as much as an attempt is made to neatly slot it into the themes and timeline of the first game. I also definitely fall into the camp of calling "Rise from the Ashes" pretty great, essentially being an entire Ace Attorney 1½ snuck into the scope of a single episode. Sort-of why I'm not completely opposed to it occasionally being paid DLC in later releases/compilations, since I think that at least better conveys the intent of the case. Plus, hey, this has to be a contender for one of the best breakdowns in the series.

Case rating, I probably go 4 > 5 > 2 > 1 > 3, with none bad and 3 being a'ight at worst.

NOTE - I wrote this misremembering that I'd played this myself back in 2017, only confirming in my notes afterwards that I'd only watched a friend play it at that time. As a rule, I only log stuff on Backloggd if I have a confirmed or approximate date to represent a playthrough, which is why I mostly focus on games I (re)played after 2015 (the year I started recording dates for my video game playthroughs). I didn't want this write-up to go to waste, and I've played through the game twice on my own, so I just took my best guess on a date here.

Today, there are little flowers blooming where there were none yesterday

Thats the kind of discovery that warms my heart, you know?


2010 and there is a little girl who wakes up on a Saturday at 5am in her grandma's house. She runs downstairs before the suns risen and before anyone has woken up, a novelty. Like she is the only one there, like it is her house. She makes cereal and watches tv, to the left and through the sliding glass door she can see the sun coming up. At grandma's house the sun always rises in oranges and pinks. The neighborhood is always quiet and always confined. Throwing away the plastic bowl, she walks out into the living room, turns on the tv, turns on the wii. Sets the setting to hdmi 2 and grabs her remote. And she plays this.

Impossibly beautiful and forever welcoming. City Folk and its open spaces, delightful music that defines an hour of your life. Your neighbors that seem to have an unlimited amount of things to say, sending you letters, asking after your other characters, pushing them into pitfalls regardless because it is funny every time. And to this child, it was very real, and deeply mysterious. You could spend hours doing nothing but I remember it all so well, feeling giddy after ordering 50 wheat fields and placing them in my house, walking and hiding in them. Dyeing my hair cyan in the hair salon, feeling rich if I managed to buy one thing at Gracies. Time hopping to winter so I could build an awful snowman. Making constellations with Celeste, in awe of all the colors and the way the stars shined.

At school, it is now recess. Today, I have brought a stuffed dog to school named Moo. It was my father's but he cared little for it, so it is now mine. Unlike my father, I will take care of Moo. I will not abandon him, or treat him like he is nothing. He comes with me everywhere and I hug him on the bus when I know he is scared, because I can feel what he feels and it is something other people can not grasp. I have many other stuffed animals at home, and they all take turns coming with me. There is a tree in the recess yard. All the kids jump on it and stab at it with pencils, and I remember that I felt like something was burning inside me. That tree was no ones friend and no one saw it, but I would and I did. I sat with that tree every day, talked to it and loved it. As an adult I can recognize now that the teachers were always looking at me because I never played with any of the other kids. This little girl cried a lot, she wanted to go home a lot. She had meltdowns and bit other kids. And children pick up on that, and I knew that they knew that there was something untouchable about me and that they should stay away. I never had any friends. But still, I was so loving. I loved everything and wanted to understand everything. I would be a friend to something like myself, like that tree, but still they could never talk back.

But, the villagers in City Folk could. They talked to me like they were real, like they knew me. I listened to them and loved every second. I fell in love with Rolf and bombarded him with letters asking him to marry me, I adored Friga and her mature attitude that I didnt quite understand yet but compelled me nonetheless. I played in Frobert's house a lot because the colors were so pretty, and he had a frog chair. I loved every detail of every little thing about them, and it was something only a child could experience. But it also hurt too, because once more as much as I loved them I knew that they could never sit with me and give me a hug, or push me on the swing or make me a bracelet, any of the many things I saw other girls my age doing. And I didnt know it at the time, but I never would feel that. I would never have any friends. For two decades, I would be alone. And into the years which should of been the best of my life, I would lose the ability to leave the house. I would lose a lot of things that I was otherwise proud of. And I begun to feel like something like me might never be understood or loved at all.

That child in me never really died, sometimes I still feel her sitting in a field behind the school, bawling her eyes out at an impossible lonliness that children really dont ever feel.

But a year ago, to this day, I sent someone a message. We had a lot in common, I thought, and I was so desperate for friends. I had just moved into my first apartment and I was so lonely and scared. I stayed up till 1am listening to my cat wailing and talking with them. I did not know that this person would turn out to be my best friend, my first friend. I was just excited to talk to them the next day. And the day after that. For hours, the whole day even. All the time, for a whole year, they spoke with me. They never once let me be alone like I was. And even though I've never had the chance to speak much, and I might be annoying at times, they have never once held that against me. I can be with them, talk with them about things I like, play games with them. And they listen to me, enjoys having me there. Wants me to be there. Impossible.

Later, I met two other people. They celebrated my birthday with me and I dont think I ever smiled as much as I did on that day. And it was the first time I ever had a party with friends, had someone to remember my birthday. And even though they arent with me physically, I was still so happy. I wont ever forget that. Two days ago, I spent the weekend watching one of them play Bratz all day and we were laughing and having fun. And I thought that a year ago, this would not be possible. A year ago I was much less of a person and more like a slave. But now I have people to talk to, people I respect, people that make my life worth living. And even though I still want to know what its like to be hugged, to have a friend physically there, im still so happy. And I can not believe someone in my position got so lucky as to meet these people.

To Nicole, I love you sooo much. You are such a bright and loving person. You are endlessly talented in so many things, so kind and so thoughtful, everyone should be taking notes. Thank you for all the happy memories you have given me over the past year, and for everything youve done to help me.

And to Hilda, thank you so much. Even though you say you wish you could do more for me and you wish that you were more, I sincerely do not care. Because every day I am excited to wake up and talk to you. You make me laugh every day, you are so funny and beautiful. I am so, so proud to call myself your friend and I am so happy to be liked by the both of you. You have changed my life considerably.

For my first year of being on my own, and the first year ive been on Backloggd, I can not be more pleased. I am still not all together free of the ocd that forced me here, and part of me still feels trapped and lonely. I want to experience the things other people my age take for granted. Ive never been kissed, I've never gone to the mall with my friends. Things like that, but for the first time in my life I can at least finally feel content. And I feel like no matter what happens, I will have always people to go back to, people who care. Thank you all, from the bottom of my heart.


So, it's good to appreciate the times where you've got nowhere to be and nothing to do

Knowledge of game design is a curse, akin to having the flavor of steak forever ruined by the awareness of The Matrix programming you to like it, and you can probably count in one hand the games that predate that red pill moment when gaming language forever became familiar and predictable to you. Pokemon Yellow was fortunately one of those games for me, a joyous moment of my childhood where my whole life existed inside a small square screen that could fit inside my pocket and whose 2D 8-bit walls felt as far away from my grasp as my imagination and curiosity were willing to go.

Picking it up nowadays, more than 20 years since that precious moment of my life where I gladly devoted myself to it, the feeling is a bittersweet one. With its secrets, surprises and discoveries now obsolete, the rudimentary gameplay fails to engage, and its combat is one of mindless grind and broken mechanics that are only challenged by the occasional difficulty spike, once a compelling puzzle to be solved as kid, now serving only to expose the game’s more blatant weaknesses.

Its magic wasn’t totally lost on me just yet, however. The sudden color pallet changes when arriving at a new area, the simplest of chiptunes that were instantly recognizable on note one, the kinesthetic pleasure of speeding through its routes with a newly acquired bike and its cheerful theme, and the occasional excitement at the sight of a personal favorite, managed to sustain my interest throughout its primitive JRPG nature, as it quickly took a backseat to the core allure and fun that made this the biggest franchise of all time, one that never fails to leave you in a state of impending suspense as you watch your pokeball twitch its way into a new catch or fill you with excitement as you witness your personalized team finally evolve after your hard effort, regardless if you already know what it will turn into or not.

Reviewing Pokemon Yellow in a vacuum is nonetheless a fruitless endeavor, considering so much of its purpose and qualities are tied to the social aspect that was so crucial to the Pokemon mania of the 90s, leaving the game itself in an incomplete state whose true experience is forever inaccessible to the ones who are unfortunate to not have lived through those magical years. Think of it as trying to relive the early days of your favorite MMO, it’s just not possible, is it? Nostalgia is a double-edged sword, and it’s no truer than in Pokemon Yellow’s case. Still, climbing the ranks through every Gym and surviving the Elite Four gauntlet so you can slap the grin off the face of Blue with your ever trustworthy Pikachu remains a satisfying throwback to a time when I would gladly listen to fake rumors on how to catch Mew from dumb kids at school.

Maybe, only maybe, after all said and done, I got rhythm after all...

I did feel a bit nervous going into Hi Fi Rush, because even tho I’m not hesitant to show my love and appreciation for the rhythm genre, that doesn’t change the reality that is the fact I’m complete ass at them, so when mixing that with a 3D beat ‘em up combat style which, wouldn’t you know, I usually suck balls at too, then I was scared I’d be facing a doom or gloom situation. Either it all clicked, or I failed to catch its drift and begin to even enjoy it, I only saw those two possibilities and was really scared of the latter. I really wanted to love it, I really wanted to enjoy what seemed like a game made from sheer love and passion for the craft, and the prospect of not ‘’getting it’’ felt like some sort of looming threat over my head... Only now after beating it I realize that, even if that were to be the case, it wouldn’t change my feelings about any other aspect.

There’s so much to enjoy in and about Hi Fi Rush that I don’t really know where to start with; perhaps I could (and will) begin by praising the outstanding visual style, a wonderful mixture of colors and design that made me reminisce of the kind of futuristic punk seen in games like Jet Set Radio or even deBlob, with the difference being that the Vandelay campus doesn't hold back when it comes to being stylish. The corporation may be rotten, but fuck man, whoever oversees decorations needs a raise! Everything pops up with the beautiful cel shading that made me feel like I was playing through a moving comic book at times; seeing cinematics flow together into and after gameplay was a mastery of transition I was not expecting to witness, and how in it to its entirely dances to the rhythm in such a satisfying way.

I could (and will) also gush about the characters; the crew of Chai, Peppermint, Macaron and the rest of the gang with is hunger inducing names is a set of characters I really, REALLY wasn’t expecting to be so fond of, and hey, it’s nice to see a main character I can relate to... a complete idiot! I say that, but Chai manages to walk in the fine line that its between being lovably cocky and completely insufferable and coming out positively from it, and for such a simple and free of conflict narrative, it still manages to give him and the rest some incredibly impactful moments. Hi Fi Rush strays away for what I thought would be predictable plot points and instead tales a relatively simple tale with the perfect cast of goofballs, to the point I found myself wishing to see a little bit more or Peppermint’s struggles, more of Macaron’s character wise in general or that CNMN had more stuff to do ‘cause holy hell I love that fact spitting metal head so much (tho he gets the single best most surprising moment in the game so hey, you lose some you win some!). The villains are also a home run, never mind this game’s whole plot is about defeating dastardly suits — I’ve always wanted to bash a cybernetic CEO’s hed with a guitar!— but they are all so into being the specific trope or character they are going for that it’s impossible to not love to hate them, and honestly the big bad ends up being a bit boring personality wise compared to the rest of them (tho now that I think about, that was the intent, in which case it’d be pretty fitting to be completely honest), because they really are a riot.

Tho the funny factor isn’t limited to the big bads. There are so many jokes and gags that and that I feel like I’m watching an airport; whether it’s just the energy that the characters interactions ooze or simply the way they act between each other, Chais’ stupidity at the beginning (seriously I was laughing my ass off during that dream sequence), the way not just the main villains but the damn normal enemies are introduced and how you can discover that NONE of them were originally designed for combat despite being literal killing machines, or just incredibly funny moments like finding a random log of a disgruntled employee that decided to mess the coffee machine firmware, and for that to be a recurring joke THROUGH THE ENTIRE ADVENTURE, that, that right there, and I don’t use this word lightly (or use it in general for that matter), is PEAK humor. And what’s this? Very spaced use and references to memes that actually work as jokes in the moment and aren’t recent??? Hi Fi Rush, if you wanted my heart, you just had to ask!

Even if you think you know what you are getting yourself into, Hi Fi Rush always finds ways to surprise you. When you think you got this game nailed and it’s just combat sections between platforming and exploration zones then BAM!, it hits you with a new idea, a new enemy that introduces a new design, a new boss fight that completely changes how you approach combat, a new partner, a new cool moment, spaced perfectly between each other so they don’t grow tiring while close enough to keep you engaged. It never presents you with never seen before ideas, but it always finds ways to create jaw-dropping situations and mix and match concepts to create something that feels new, a sort of ‘’yoink and twist’’, if you will. There’s a never-ending feeling of ‘’wholeness’’ in this game, where everything works incredibly well when looked independently, but also as whole; it’s hard to not notice how much the game’s systems and ideas sip into one another and some things wouldn’t hit as hard if there wasn’t te other, like the music! It sounds good, they are fantastic tunes, but something is missing from them in re-listens, even the licensed ones... it misses the ASS-WHOOPING!

Seeing so many accessibility options calmed me down quite a bit when I started, but after a while, after playing and beginning the fights and the dance of combat... I was getting it! Not because I was good, oh no, my tempo is still very much far from perfect, and yet, I was getting it. The music began to flow through the sounds of fight and diging, the enemies attacking with the music the same you do, hitting the right times as well as dancing, it was a slow dance at first, but by the half-way point, I wasn’t going along the music, it felt as if I was making it through fighting alone. The new moves you get, the special attacks and interactions of your partners (which also make for some extremely fun platforming challenges) and upgrades nudge little by little, they compel you to be more daring, to dance faster, to be more aggressive, to know where to defend, to dodge and parry through your riffs and hits. Failing is part of the process in a way, it’s still really hard to get a perfect or even high rhythm score at first, and yet it’s fun, it made me want to keep trying, to be a rockstar.

It’s like a story or battle you’d imagine while listening to an intense rock song, only made into a 10-hour game full dream-like joy, and even beyond that thanks to the meaty post-game and incredibly fun side modes. An adventure with so many things to love that I even at this point in the review I wonder if was truly able to express them fully, Hi Fi Rus is a simple game in theory, but in practice is a wonderful, beautiful and funny odyssey, always hopeful and excited to keep going even when facing the clear dangers of such a conglomerate, always finding ways to surprise, to be welcoming, to make you feel like you got rhythm indeed. I know that many couldn't get into it even with the extra help, and I totally get it, it’s still a game that might reject you simply because it’s combat system is not fun or doesn’t click, that makes sense and I’m happy you at least gave it a go, but if you still haven’t, I implore you to give it a try, and even if you don’t jam with its battle system, who knows, you might find something else to adore about it...

Moral of the story? Finances are cringe, lesbians always win, Deemon can’t parry and 808 is best cat, that adorable (goof)ball is so precious...

as someone with an interest in horror gaming, i follow plenty of horror youtubers and have watched full playthroughs of every Chilla's Art release. they're jank things, speedy turnover reused-asset experiences centered on societal, social, and even supernatural incidents grounded in Japanese culture, but things i always generally enjoyed for some aspect or another. i found Chilla's prior release Night Security actually pretty unique and enjoyable even if just as a viewer, and decided i might actually play the studio's next game myself for once.

Parasocial taught me why i prefer to watch these releases rather than play them myself. there's some immediately interesting concepts at play with the streaming interface, as well as the very real terror of being followed i've personally experienced leaving me a bit shaken. however, the crippling technical performance despite receiving feedback in a patron-exclusive beta made the game nearly unplayable in its current state, as well as the cheeky self-references having the opposite effect.

it's upsetting buying games (particularly indies, which i'm almost always willing to forgive) on launch is no longer encouraged as they are often not ready, and while i understand Chilla's is a two-man project, with their catalogue of works, experience, and fervent fan support i expected a smoother landing. the team's repeated history of utilising young women enduring abuse or manipulation as objects of shock horror bad ends is questionable besides, a trend Parasocial maintains.

It is easy to be dismissive. Be it art, people, food, events, the rapid, continual pace of consumption necessitates the compartmentalisation and categorisation of happenings. One can be dismissive in the positive and in the negative. The complex emotions elicited through our lives fade as quickly as they arise. Perhaps it is a consequence of language, an inability to express the phenomenon of experience. A meal's interplay of tantalising nostalgic aroma and comforting warmth in the belly is, for most of our lives, recalled as good - if it is remembered at all. A film is so bad it's good, some self-fulfilling label that sets expectations and ebbs the need for analysis of artistic merit and failure. A book is well-written. Your ex is a bitch. Last Christmas was good.

In the new hyperactive mode, wherein consumption happens largely for the sake of consumption, categorisation happens more readily, more aggressively, less critically. A director is washed. Your favourite is 🐐-ed. Films are kino or coal. Aesthetics are reduced to haphazard strictures, art pinned as frutiger aero, frasurbane, girlypunk neo-Y2K vectorheart nu-brute. Games are flavour of the month, kusoge, kamige, kiige, bakage, normiecore. Bring something up, and everyone has an opinion, a rote repetition of regurgitated refuse. Exhibit passion for that outside the zeitgeist, and be lambasted. Convey discontent with the beloved, be accused of poor media literacy. Are we even partaking of that which we parade around, or are we playing an elaborate game of telephone?

Even Burger King Orientation CD-i Training cannot escape unharmed. A wave of ironic praise and genuine befuddlement at why this exists, why it is revisited. One must be seeking attention for having such a quirky thing on their profile. It is impossible that it is enjoyed on a deeper level, as a response to a wider fascination, as a dive into historical (non-)import. The new hyperactive mode intentionally seeks signifiers which mark the self as interesting. An intentional facade which begs it won't be scrutinised.

But just because you have constructed this mask does not mean we all wear it. And perhaps I am being dismissive of your own thoughts. The truth of the matter is you don't care what I think, or why I feel a certain way. And to be fair, I feel the same animosity towards you. We are strangers at the conflux of comparison of preference.

I am filled with a genuine glee when I 'play' Burger King Orientation CD-i Training, but maybe it is best I keep the reasons to myself, as with so much else.

After all, you care not for what I think, so what is the difference if those thoughts are no longer laid bare.

The Short Message looks great and the cherry blossom monster design is actually really well done - it looks like a Silent Hill game (despite not being set there at all) and it gives me that grimey feel to the world that the trailers for the upcoming Remake feel like they're cleaned up a bit too much. Sure there are some framerate dips but I'm rarely too fussed by them and they didn't really distract from the experience. It also mostly sounds good - there's another great Yamaoka track in the credits and the intermittent background audio throughout does its absolute best to keep you on edge. It is unfortunately let down a little by less than stellar voicework and an especially unconvincing dub on some live-action cutscenes - not sure if this was meant to be intentionally ethereal but it ended up just looking and sounding bad.

It's major problems come with just about everything else though - the story, script and I guess the Short Message we're getting are eyerollingly blunt and really doesn't tackle any of the themes it mentions with anything more than a puddle's depth of thought. In general, wandering around an abandoned tower block isn't inherently bad but the lack of any kind of tension or real environmental storytelling while you're doing so just makes the experience a bit dull. I think it's trying and I appreciate that, but it just doesn't quite get there in execution.

There are segments with the aforementioned cherry-blossom monster that do give you something to think about, but only fleetingly - you're put through Otherworld maze sections where you're chased until you reach a magical exit door but these sections are mostly pretty linear until the very end where you find yourself wishing they had stayed that way. You're thrown into mazes which are likely meant to disorientate you and ratchet up the tension, they only really succeed in the first point. Chase sequences have been a staple of the first-person horror boom since Amnesia Dark Descent but this feels like another example of something being implemented because it's a genre thing - there's no thought as to how or why this relates the story or characters involved. It's a chase through a maze because that's what horror games do.

It's a very large map and so easy to get lost through doors and hallways that all look very similar, having to collect four items and then an exit all while being chased, with one wrong turn meaning you could run into the monster and need to start again. Less scary and more frustrating, and eventually pretty boring.

Even for free I don't think this is worth your time, even for Silent Hill fans. There are some nods to other games in the series but they're just reminders of better games. I've seen people say you can't be too critical of something that's free but I absolutely disagree - yes, I'm sure a lot of work went into this but it's still a finished product at the end of the day.

There is no such thing as a perfect video game. No matter how good a video game could be, or how much it is beloved by the general gaming public, it will never be able to reach the status of truly being beloved by everybody, to where nobody could find a single flaw in it, or everybody could love it as equally as another. However, even if there will never be a perfect video game, there will always be… our perfect video games. The ones that we hold near and dear to our hearts, ones that we love everything about and will continue to love about all the way until we die, no matter what anyone else says, or even if another video game comes along to take its place as your own perfect video game. So, I figured it was about time that, for my 500th review, I would go ahead and talk about my absolute favorite game of all time, without question: the original Mega Man X.

But, before I get into gushing about this masterpiece, we may as well lay down some history for those that somehow aren’t in the loop as to what this is. At this point, it was 1993, and people were getting FUCKING SICK of Mega Man. There were 13 different Mega Man titles that had been released so far, and while there were some different, unique titles of this bunch that we don’t like to talk about, most of them played exactly the same. Yeah, they each had their own set of differences that made them stand out for hardcore fans of the series, but to the general public, they all just seemed to be the same game over and over and over and OVER again, to the point where franchise fatigue set in pretty goddamn early. So, if Capcom was gonna continue making these games, or even take the series to the next generation of consoles, they were going to have to step up their game a bit. They were going to need to add a bit more attitude, a bit more color, a bit more to do, a bit more to find, and more of this universe to explore. To sum it all up, they were going to need to take Mega Man… to the Xtreme (no, not that Xtreme...not that one either).

Needless to say, this experiment with the series managed to become a major success. This singular game would go onto being widely praised by critics and fans alike, selling over a million copies in its original release, and it is now considered to be one of the greatest video games of all time. Not only that, but it would also lead to creating another separate series alongside the original Mega Man series, one that would continue getting games all the way up to this day, whether it be through main entries that would progress this game’s story and mechanics, side games that would take the series in new and interesting directions, or even things like… Mega Man X Dive… (oh trust me, I have some choice words for that game whenever I get to it… you know, in 5 years). As for what I personally think of it myself… I mean, I think my profile page on this website says everything I need to, but I will go ahead and continue showering this game with all kinds of praise either way. You may as well get a drink or some snacks, because if you couldn’t tell already, this review is gonna be a long one.

I don’t remember specifically when I first learned about Mega Man X, but I do know for a fact that, at that point, I was quite familiar with the Mega Man series, having played quite a bit of the NES games in the past, and falling in love with them enough to where I had become obsessed with them. The first exposure I had to the game was with the original video on it made by The CharityFraudist before it was removed from the internet, and from that first impression I got from the game, I was… mildly interested in it. It did look pretty good, but it just looked like another Mega Man game that just so happened to be made for the SNES. Nothing that I felt like I needed to get my hands on immediately. However, as time would go on… that mild interest I had in the game would only grow from there. I would watch more videos about the game, more videos that would go deeper into it, explaining how it advanced the series further, how it was designed so intricately, and how these decisions made turned it into the classic that we knew and loved today, which got me more eager to get my hands on it then ever before. It was only when I had gotten my Dad’s permission to download it on my Wii U that I finally got the chance to play it for myself, and needless to say… it was love at first sight.

The story of the game is one that is somewhat familiar for the Mega Man series, but at the same time, it takes it to places it had never been before. The game takes place 100 years in the future after the classic series, where an archaeologist by the name of Dr. Cain would discover a capsule within the remains of a robotic facility, one that contains a robot created by the late, great Dr. Light. This new robot, known as Mega Man X, was different from all the other ones, able to feel complex emotions, have human-level intelligence, and even its own free will to do whatever it feels. This type of technology was then replicated by Dr. Cain over the years, in order to create a new set of robots that would also carry these same traits, which would go onto be known as Reploids. Over the years, Reploids and humanity would then co-exist with each other, learning to help each other out and make the world a better place. That is, until some of the reploids started going haywire, starting to cause destruction and commit crimes all over the world, now being labeled as Mavericks.

In response to this, a group of Reploids would be formed to take care of these rogue robots, including Mega Man X, known as the Maverick Hunters. However, eventually, the leader of the Maverick Hunters, Sigma, would end up going maverick himself, and with the help of eight other different mavericks, would go onto spread a level of chaos across the world that nobody had seen before. Feeling partially responsible for this, Mega Man X, or just simply X, decided to set out to take out all of these mavericks, as well as Sigma himself, to ultimately save the world. Again, like I mentioned earlier, it is very similar to the original Mega Man if you only look at it on the surface level, but there is a lot more going on here in comparison, which I can really appreciate and love.

The graphics are fantastic, having the perfect fit for a Mega Man game made for a new generation, while also having plenty of life, energy, and personality through all the stages, characters, enemies, and bosses, the music is some of the best that I have ever heard in all of video game history, having plenty of BANGERS to accompany you through the many different stages present in the game, while also managing to fit the tone for whatever is happening in the game, the control is just right, being mostly what you would expect from a Mega Man title, but also integrating new mechanics that feel buttery-smooth to pull off, making playing the game just that much more satisfying, and the gameplay is, once again, mostly what you would expect from a Mega Man title, but it adds enough to where it feels like a completely new experience, one that many would go to love and adore for years.

The game is a 2D action platformer, where you take control of X, go through many different levels in plenty of different locations, with a good majority of them you can choose to go through in any order you want, run, jump, and shoot your way through many different obstacles and enemies that stand in your way, gather plenty of different health and ammo pickups that will assist you along the way, fight many different bosses and Mavericks of varying types and sizes, and gain plenty of different power ups from these Mavericks that you can use against other enemies and bosses to your advantage. On the surface, it is pretty much what you would expect from your typical Mega Man title, which could cause some who were sick of the series to be drawn away immediately, but when you actually get into the game, not only does it have plenty of new features that would become a staple part of the series, but also that X-factor that breathes new life into this series that it desperately needed at the time.

For starters, aside from the many weapons that you can get from the Mavericks in this game, there are also now many different new, optional goodies that you can find which will greatly benefit you on your journey forward. From the start of the game, you may notice that your health bar is significantly smaller than the life bar from the NES games, which may seem like quite the downgrade at first, but then as you go along the game, you will then find the Heart Tanks, which will increase your health till it is at its proper size. Some may call this completely unnecessary, but I love this change, since it allows for a sense of progression not only for yourself, but also for X as a character, which I will get more into later. Alongside this are the Sub-Tanks, which are the replacement for the Energy Tanks in this game. Unlike E-Tanks, which you could only use once before they go away forever, you are able to use these tanks an infinite amount of times, as long as you are able to store plenty of energy in them to fill you up. Once again, this could be seen as a bit of an unnecessary change for some, but I greatly prefer having a few E-Tanks that I can refill rather than a bunch that I can only use once, so this change is all good in my book.

From the beginning of the game, you can also see that, as an upgraded version of the original Mega Man, X has plenty of new moves and capabilities that the original Mega Man never had. On his own, he is taller, faster, stronger, and he has the ability to jump up walls repeatedly, which is a fantastic enough addition to your moveset already, but that is only the beginning of what X is truly capable of. Throughout the game, you can find many capsules laid around the stage, each one containing a brand new piece of armor for X to use, as well as a message from Dr. Light on how to use it. Of course, there are ones that are pretty situational or typical, such as the helmet upgrade, which lets you break blocks, as well as the body upgrade, which allows you to take less damage when hit, but then you get the GOOD shit, such as the Buster upgrade, where you are able to charge your X Buster even further to fire an extremely powerful shot and to charge up your weapons, and the leg upgrade, which lets you dash along the ground and move through stages a lot faster than before, which would become a staple ability of X for future games in the series.

All of these upgrades and optional goodies that you can acquire are all fantastic in their own way, and they do a great job at making both X and the player much stronger than ever before, able to take on anything that stands in your way with the amount of style and aggression that feels just right. Sure, not all of them are too useful, and you could just view them as a means of completing the game, but not only does it feel satisfy to find a good chunk of these goodies, which are actually pretty cleverly hidden among the stages, but they do add to your character in numerous ways, and they don’t feel like just simple “things to collect”.

Not to mention, they all contribute towards you getting the ultimate reward for your effort, which you can gain from Armored Armadillo’s stage before the end of the game. After performing a cryptic sequence of events, you can then find a final capsule on the edge of a cliff, containing another message from Dr. Light, who just so happens to be wearing a very… familiar costume. You then get the upgrade, and it turns out to be the Hadoken, straight from Street Fighter II, which you not only perform in the exact same manner as in that game, but it also is your most powerful weapon, able to one-shot any enemy and boss no matter what. This, in my opinion, is the PERFECT reward for getting all of the items in the game, not just as a Street Fighter fan, but also just in general, as it feels incredible to nuke every single boss after this with this weapon, but not to the point where it feels broken, since you can only use it if you have full health.

Ignoring all the new additions, the game itself still remains incredibly satisfying, even if you disregard all of the different goodies you can find. This can all be seen as early as the intro stage of the game, which is one of the best intros of any game in video game history, even more so than World 1-1 in the original Super Mario Bros. Upon pressing start, you get thrown right into the game, without any kind of intro cutscene or instructions screen to hold you back, and you can learn all of the basic controls right off the bat, blasting through the many different enemies that you are faced with. Not only that, but it also places you in unavoidable situations where it also teaches you how to use your new abilities, such as when you get thrown down into a pit upon destroying a giant bee robot, forcing you to climb back up the cliff to get back in action.

It not only does a great job at setting you up for the gameplay, but it also manages to integrate the game’s story and theme in perfectly. Upon reaching the end of the stage, you are then stopped in your tracks by a brand new foe: a purple-Boba-Fett-reject in a mech suit known as Vile, and upon fighting him, he seems practically unstoppable! None of your attacks seem to be doing any damage, and he proceeds to wipe the floor with you, with there being seemingly nothing that you can do to counter him whatsoever. It eventually leads to a point where you get trapped in an energy shot, grabbed by the fist of Vile’s mech, and taunted as you face what could be your final moments in the game. That is, until… you hear something from off-screen start to charge up.

All of a sudden, an energy blast is fired from off-screen, ripping through the arm on Vile’s mech suit, and freeing you from his clutches. Vile then flees the scene, as a new ally comes in to chase him off, known simply as Zero. And let me tell you, when you first see this guy in action in this scene, you think he is BADASS. He’s got the style, the power, the attitude of a warrior, and… flowing, blonde locks, which is kinda weird, but he is still cool! Infinitely cooler than you, that is. It is then at this point that X starts to doubt his capabilities as a Maverick Hunter, being unable to defeat this one foe, who seemed to overpower him in every way imaginable. However, Zero then gives both X and the player reassurance, saying that you are destined to take him out, and that you will get stronger as you press forward… maybe even stronger than him.

It is then, from that point on, that your goal is clear. You then proceed to take on all the different stages, defeating all of the Mavericks, gaining all of their powers, finding all of the upgrades, and getting stronger, faster, smarter, and overall better throughout the whole game. You then feel this power fully envelop you as you take on Sigma’s Fortress, defeating the many different enemies, bosses, and even all the Mavericks again with all of your newfound powers and abilities, even going as far as to fully come back around and defeat Vile after all this time. This, right here, is what makes this game perfect in my eyes: that feeling of growth, the immense satisfaction of achieving these goals, the hidden potential you have right from the start, and seeing it through all the way to the end in the best and most timeless manner a game could ever manage. It’s just like real life, when you think about it: just when you are at your lowest point, all you need to do is to just simply pick yourself up and keep on going, trying new things and going down different paths, until you can ultimately find the right path for you, and having the ability to prove all of the nay-sayers wrong. I’m sure we have all felt that at some point. I certainly have, believe me.

Overall, there are some things about the game that I could nitpick here or there, such as the helmet upgrade being useless after a certain point, some points of the game being somewhat annoying to go through, and the boss rush of the game going back to how it was in the original Mega Man, but at this point, none of that matters to me, and none of that ever will matter to me. This is, without a doubt in my mind, my favorite game of all time, one that I loved from the moment I first pressed that start button all those years ago, and one that I will forever continue to love, enjoy, praise, and remember for many, many years to come. I would absolutely recommend it, not just for fans of Mega Man or 2D platformers in general, but for EVERYBODY to play at least once in their lives, as it truly is that great on its own, and it is that special to me. There may come a time where I find a game that will manage to surpass this in terms of… well, everything that I had just mentioned, and when it does, I will gladly welcome it with open arms, but until then, I will always forever love Mega Man X, and I don’t see that changing anytime soon……………………….. so that means it is all downhill from here, folks! No, I kid, I kid, but it is a shame that Zero, Vile, and Sigma are now dead, and that they will never come back after this……………. nope, never. Nope nope nope nope. Certainly not in the next game, no. Certainly not in the third game either, nope.

Game #485

So…I’ve been putting off this review for a while, it’s mainly because I’ve been afraid, afraid that I’m gonna fuck this review up somehow. But it’s time I face my fears and finally returned to review this game and finish the 90’s sonic games. When it comes to Sonic Adventure 2, I’ve always preferred the original, however I’ve had a slight soft spot for this game and that’s why it has a similar score to SA1. So let’s get into it and see what I can say about a very loved sonic game.

We have quite a few new characters, mainly shadow and rouge. The story is split into the hero and dark sides though they all culminate with the same end. Basically eggman finds that his grandad left him a secret weapon named shadow, who is a hedgehog just like sonic. So him and eggman decide to find all the chaos emerald to conquer the world, with rouge joining later as she secretly works for the government. Later it all culminates in the ark where we find out shadow was doing all this naughty shit because of a girl he used to know, named Maria, told him to help mankind yet he interpreted it differently. Basically getting it completely confused and almost completely obliterating Maria’s wishes. So him and sonic defeat the finalhazard and that’s the end of that for now. And there was a lot of piss on the moon.

In terms of gameplay, it’s similar-ish to sonic adventure 1 with a few very clear differences. The structure is much more linear and follows a straight path. Instead of getting to choose characters, you’ll simply go from one level where you play as someone like sonic and then move onto another with playing as knuckles or someone. After every level as well you are forced to be into the chao garden which I’ll talk about a little bit later. The level types as well are mainly inspired by sa1 or at least the better level types. The sonic levels and knuckle levels made it over and the gamma levels somehow made it through though a little modified to make it fit with tails and eggman’s levels.

The chao garden also makes a return. We have 3 gardens actually: the neutral garden, the hero garden, and the dark garden with the latter two being unlocked after raising a hero and dark chao. you basically just raise the chao like you did in the last game. Raise the insufferable, puny, disgusting, cute, adorable, funny, little guys.

The music is also absolutely brilliant. Crush 40 return to do their work on the game and this is probably the only part of the game which I believe completely outshines the last. The music is phenomenal in every single way. I did like how sa1’s ost did have neat callbacks to the older sonic games, especially sonic cd, but this soundtrack is just absolutely exceptional. If anyone hates city escape then you clearly are just hating for the sake of it.

Unfortunately, after sonic adventure 2 released, it was soon announced that the Dreamcast would be discontinued and Sega would end up becoming a third party publisher. So sonic adventure 2 ended up being the end of an era, one full of lots and lots of creativity and experimentation. Even though later games would also experiment I felt that it was a lot more grounded through the Sega genesis (mega drive) era to the Dreamcast era. So with that, it ends my talk on some of the main sonic games for now. But who knows, maybe I will talk about 06…nah.

Great story, decent characters, excellent music, chao return, how do you like that Obama?

This is, beyond a shadow of a doubt, one of the worst games I have ever played. The other half of the star is for the mere concept of it being fun, in execution there is not even a hope of enjoyment to be had with this game. The good reviews for this game are downright sickening. The people who made this are also sickening. This is foolishness, this is buffonery, this is downright robbery and trickery.

Where can I even start with it? It would be easier to talk about the parts of the game that actually work. The basis of the game: you run a rescue center. Theres dogs in it. People adopt the dogs. Not one part of this process functions as it should. Horrible control scheme. Jaw-droppingly stupid. Things that should just be A or X are abominable combinations that I cant even remember half the time. Imagine: decorating. Pick the thing you want then press A to purchase. WRONG. Select your purchase with the left stick, move cursor to place it, put it down with ZL. You didnt actually buy it. Press + to confirm that youre actually buying the thing you already put down. Wait 7 minutes because the ingame PC you're making this transaction on is insultingly slow. In fact, all the menus lag. The game lags. But the menus specifically make me feel like im wading through mud. Oh... tutorial? Did you read it? Sorry, because they are never showing it to you again. The tutorial is shockingly long while also not telling you what to do. And after it is done they leave you clueless. I was stuck for 3 hours trying to figure out how to access a menu.

Pacing issues. Overwhelming pacing issues. Dogs shitting themselves and tearing each other faces off and I cant give them the time of day because 8 new strays just came in for some fucking reason and each dog needs their special food and drink and accommodations. Someone walks into a dog shelter, unsure if they actually want a dog. They ask me to bring out and hand pick 5 dogs for them instead of the customer just walking around the shelter like an actual person. If they dont like all 5 dogs they will decide they were just cruising and leave. Im sure that exciting gameplay loop makes you wet and ready for more action so im so happy to say that that's all there is. If you have a dog with a disability just forget about them because, despite the fact that this is a shelter, customers have exceedingly high standards in direct contrast to the game's ride or die attitude on adopt, dont shop.

Does not function. Nothing about this game functions. Dogs shit in the walls and I cant see it. Dogs get stuck in the walls and get diseases and starve and dehydrate. Dogs have fights through the walls. The game believes certain dogs do not exist and I can no longer interact with them. Dogs get stuck in the play pen and the game will not let the dogs leave, ever. The game crashes and softlocks when you do complicated things such as opening a menu on the PC or taking a dog for a walk. The unstuck button itself fails to work. Unbearable. Inoperable.

Someone once said that we have it all wrong, that we should cry when one enters this world and rejoice when they leave it. Thats how I feel about these fucking dogs. Euthanized and they dont have to bear the weight of being trapped in this horrible game. The person who made this, never dare to even think about making another game again. Any good you put in this world will be a shadow of the torment you put me through. I hate you.


I want my 10 dollars back.