roxanneB
184 Reviews liked by roxanneB
has an industrial harbor level but features zero intermodal containers. if you put meteor herd OR mad space in a 10/10 game, either would drag it down to a 7/10. the tails stages are like filing unemployment paperwork and the knuckles stages are like having dreams about your old department store job, which makes the sonic stages like the distant dying memories of your fondest ten minute smoke breaks. ive watched SOV basement gore movies with better audio mixing. anyway its pretty good. i like rouge the bat.
The Wonder Flower portions were neat and all, but just being short segments of otherwise regular Mario levels made them more intrusive than a natural addition to the Mario formula. Levels feel more segmented than ever, and frankly I think this game is a lot less divorced from the New series than people make it out to be. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, I love the NSMB games, but it just felt like this game was going to be something more than that. I also just kinda blasted through this game with very little difficulty, it's hard to justify spending sixty bones on these anymore.
Yet, it's still a 2D Mario game, and I can't really imagine a modern 2D Mario game being anything but really good. I think there's room for improvement, though. I think not being so structured would benefit Mario moving forward. Yeah, they probably want to make it approachable for non-gamers/kids, but they can still usually count up to seven, I think dropping such heavy structure will be ok. I would also really appreciate more challenge. Nothing here was hard except for the very finale optional level, and that's mostly because of the gimmick of that level.
Yet, it's still a 2D Mario game, and I can't really imagine a modern 2D Mario game being anything but really good. I think there's room for improvement, though. I think not being so structured would benefit Mario moving forward. Yeah, they probably want to make it approachable for non-gamers/kids, but they can still usually count up to seven, I think dropping such heavy structure will be ok. I would also really appreciate more challenge. Nothing here was hard except for the very finale optional level, and that's mostly because of the gimmick of that level.
Sonic Superstars
2023
SONIC SUPERSTARS GAME OF THE YEAR BABYYYYYY YEAR OF AMY AMY WOOHOO CLASSIC SONIC IS SO FUCKING BACK WE SONIC FANS STAY WINNING BECAUSE MUH MUH MUH MOMENTUM PHYSICS ARE BACK ON THE TABLE ANOTHER STEP IN THE RIGHT FUCKING DIRECTION WOOOOOOOOO-
-I don’t know man, I’m just kinda… whelmed.
Sonic is my favourite video game franchise ever, so it was obvious I’d break my backlog routine to play it, and I even sucked it up and paid the full $60 price of entry. I refunded on release day.
Sonic Superstars is… competent. That is the best way I can possibly use to describe it, and I think that is the most justifiable term to summarise my experience with the game overall. Yet, I can’t help but feel incredibly bitter about this. Which is funny, because if you know me on r/Sonic’s Discord server (hi bitches), you’d know that I was pessimistic towards Superstars and the overwhelming hype in the fanbase surrounding it. I was so prepared for every single Classic Sonic supremacist to pop out the woodworks screaming about how Superstars’ quality just proves Sonic only works as a barebones, classic 2D formula. Prepared for people to yell about how Amy and the Chaos Emerald powers further push the Classic Sonic formula when girlie, Amy is just additional content. The emerald powers, on paper, should be enhancing the replayability of the game and giving players new tools to approach the levels with the philosophy of ‘getting better at Sonic by beating the levels faster and faster’, when realistically, the only power that does this is discount Burst wisp, which also has the unforeseen consequence of breaking the level in half.
I was so bitter about the prospect of Superstars getting such critical acclaim that SEGA, notorious for being overly-sensitive towards fan feedback, would buy into this and just keep things the exact same for the next 2D Sonic release instead of actually innovating the formula in a fun way. In a very cynical sense, I wanted Superstars to fail. Ironic for a Sonic fan, yes, but I wanted Superstars to fail because I just couldn’t bear the mere thought of Classic Sonic dickriders kissing this game’s ass.
Somehow, the actual outcome ended up being far, far worse.
I believe Backloggd has made their view clear: this game is horribly mid and having played the entire game from Bridge Island Act 1 to the last story, I can certainly ascertain that this is the Classic Sonic game of all time. Somehow, this leaves me upset anyways, because Arzest, somehow, actually does a few really good things - for one, as much as I joke about muh muh momentum, the fact that it’s there, and actually a pretty close emulation of Mania physics, definitely brings it closer to fan game quality! The level design, for the most part, is also quite fun and has a pretty nice flow to it, with plenty of alternative paths to incentivise players to go after faster times in Time Attack mode. The characters are all pretty fun to play as well, with the standouts being Sonic and Trip (yes she’s playable don’t pretend this was an absolute fucking shock it was obvious from the start), albeit Trip renders Knuckles and Amy completely obsolete (and Knuckles controls like dogshit anyway so who cares). The bulk of my points for this game come from these few factors, because ultimately, level design and control characters are crucial for a Sonic game’s overall performance, and Superstars does all this quite decently.
Now let’s talk about where it all falls apart.
The Unfocused and Indecisiveness in Game Mode Priority
A lot of people draw comparisons between Superstars and NSMB in terms of its primary game mode - both games placed heavy emphasis on its co-op mode during promotions and advertisements, so you’d expect the game to work well in co-op gameplay, right?
Nope. In fact, I’d argue that Superstars tried too hard to find a balance between single player and co-op, and ended up falling short on both ends of the stick.
I never actually got to experience co-op with anyone because they didn’t bother implementing an online function and also I’m a Sonic fan in Asia. From what I’ve heard, however, co-op works similarly to Sonic 2/3K, where you could have a second player control Tails, but they would be unable to go offscreen and explore by themselves. Certain mechanics also only work for one player, forcing the rest of the group to wait until they can move.
The single-player experience, meanwhile, is definitely affected by the necessity to comply with the limitations of co-op. Bubbles underwater (particularly in Lagoon City) spawn at a more frequent rate compared to most Sonic games, and are more sparsely available. This was clearly designed so a group of 4 players could easily prevent themselves from drowning, unfortunately, inhaling an air bubble also causes players to transition from a ball jump into a state of vulnerability, which leaves them open to hits. Combined with the sluggish water physics and the design of the platforming in Lagoon City Act 2 especially, may cause players to unintentionally grab an air bubble mid-sequence, become vulnerable to a hit, and then proceed to get hit.
The bosses, meanwhile, have already garnered infamy from the general public for being excessively long, with countless time spent invulnerable to attacks and counter attacks that are fairly easy to dodge with ease being regarded as time padding. This was clearly done because the developers knew that if they designed the fights in traditional Classic Sonic fashion, a group of 4 can easily tear down bosses to shreds within seconds, completely eliminating the challenge in the process. Single-player is made to suffer as a result, as players are stuck sitting and waiting for the boss to expose itself to an attack, with this flaw especially being exposed with Trip’s gameplay where the already tediously long bosses require more hits to defeat. More on the bosses later.
The Most Embarrassing Fucking Camera in Sonic History
One common complaint with 2D Sonic, as well as Sonic games in general, is the awful field of depth. The Genesis games, Game Gear games, and especially the Advance games collectively struggle to present important information regarding the level so the player is able to anticipate upcoming hazards or enemies and map out routes correctly due to the limitations of their respective hardware. Eventually, this problem was fixed primarily for the Genesis games with Origins and all the fan ports that allowed players to experience Sonic in glorious 16:9 widescreen. It didn’t completely fix the issue, but it certainly allowed for less frustrating moments where you get hit by something you couldn’t see on the screen.
With this in mind, Superstars having all the aforementioned issues while being developed in widescreen is fucking appaling. MANIA had a better field of depth, and that shit is even more of a nostalgic nod to the 16-bit era compared to Superstars! The camera zoom in Mania also had the advantage of allowing players to fucking see what’s ahead of them, and that is crucial when it comes to maintaining fluidity during the run of a level. Can’t have a bajillion alternate paths if I’m only ever able to SEE ONE AT A TIME! Did Arzest really have to commit to making the Superstars so realistically that they even decided to emulate the inability to fucking see??
Press Factory Act 2 and Egg Fortress Act 1 suffer the most from the atrocious camera zoom - in Press Factory’s case, an actually well-designed level revolving around a gimmick is tarnished for others because they couldn’t see a set of crushers directly ahead of them. Egg Fortress Act 1 is a bad level, but the lack of camera zoom to allow players to see the empty bottomless pit ahead of an isolated chamber MULTIPLE DIFFERENT TIMES. The effect of having platforms spawn only when a player enters the sub-room is acceptable, but not in a fast-paced platformer like Sonic where information has to be presented to the player quickly. To be fair, Spin Dashing into a bottomless pit because the camera or nothing about the game indicating there was a bottomless pit there to begin with is completely accurate to the Genesis games. /s
And you wanna know what adds salt to the wound? The fact that the FUCKING CO-OP CAMERA IS ACTUALLY PROPERLY ZOOMED OUT!!!! I CAN FUCKING SEE SHIT IN CO-OP THAT WOULD’VE MADE THE PLATFORMING A LOT MORE FAIR AND MY MISTAKES MUCH MORE APPARENT BECAUSE I CAN ACTUALLY ANTICIPATE SHIT THAT’S 1 FUCKING SECOND AWAY FROM ME-
-don’t even get me fucking started on the Cyber Station. Actually, no, fuck you, I will.
Gimmicks, Gimmicks Everywhere
Sonic games are no stranger to gimmicks - even going back as far as the classic games, Sonic 2 had a level centralised around pinball tables, Sonic 3K had Sandopolis Act 2, and CD is infamous for Wacky Workbench’s bouncy floor gimmick.
No Sonic game comes close to Superstars when it comes to the sheer amount of gimmicks implemented into the game. Unfortunately, this is a negative.
Naoto Ohshima was the director of CD, and that game had a similar arcade-style feel to it; stuffing generators and holograms throughout every level, which in turn incentivises the player to find all of them to achieve the good ending (or get better at collecting rings for the Time Stones). The difference here is CD always had a more abstract design philosophy that played to exploration of a terrain using Sonic’s skillset to complete a treasure hunt as quickly and efficiently as possible, and the whole bizarre atmosphere of Little Planet also helps ease the implementation of the level gimmicks somewhat.
With Ohshima returning as executive producer of Superstars, it isn’t surprising that this game tries an arcade-style approach as well. However, when your level design and gameplay philosophy is attempting to emulate Mania and 2 rather than CD, you have an inherent mismatch of ideals clashing against each other. The issue is aggravated even further because the arcade gimmicks of Superstars are significantly more overtuned to the point where they serve as pacebreakers or substanceless setpieces that interrupt the flow of the level design. Special stages are now distributed in spots easily spottable, and unlocking all 7 emeralds will still force you into the well that was a special stage alright special stage for the medals. Warp portals can appear in front of your face when you least expect it, and instead of transporting you to a much better route than what can be offered in a normal playthrough of a level, wastes seconds of time showering you with rings before thrusting you to who knows where in the level. Flow completely ruined.
This isn’t even to mention the level specific gimmicks, which honestly feels more like Arzest throwing a bunch of darts at random and seeing what sticks. Sometimes it works, like the aforementioned Press Factory Act 2’s progress urging button pressing and Frozen Base Act 1’s conveyor belts. But then you get stuff like Speed Jungle Act 2's glow in the dark set pieces, Sky Temple’s janky air fans, Egg Factory’s tediously long elevators crawls and anti-gravity chambers, and Cyber Station’s fucking rat maze, which wouldn’t even be that bad if the camera allowed you to see upcoming virus enemies. There are two fucking pinball-based levels out of 11, for fucks sake, as if it wasn’t already how obvious the arcade gimmick-feel of Superstars is. The less I say about the optional fruit levels, the better.
It’s not like there’s even value in exploration anyway, as the elemental shields have been replaced with a standard magnet aura (that doesn’t even shield you from attacks) and boring, boring blue shield. I’ve literally only found Speed Shoes on Bridge Island, and rings don’t fucking matter when there isn’t even a substantial score system here anyway. Oh yeah, the score system here is so pointless, they didn’t even bother to add it to the user interface unless you pause the game. It’s quite literally eye candy because in previous games, the score system would at least reward you with extra lives every 50,000 points, but now? Unlimited lives are the norm for modern AAA games, which means that you don’t even get to earn extra lives. Instead you get medals!!! Medals which can only be used for an online multiplayer mode I couldn’t give less of a shit about!!! And without extra lives to reward players for exploring away from the main path, what do they use to replace it? MORE FUCKING MEDALS!!!!!!!!!
I love losing my sanity
It’s Just So… Uninspiring.
You can honestly kinda tell when the developers decided “OK, we’re almost out of time and we gotta throw out this game soon, let’s just do a Dimps and shit the floor on the second half of the game”, and proceed to shit the floor on the second half of the game. The difference here is that Dimps never shit the floor in the audio-visual department, ever.
Tee Lopes’ presence departs from the game as soon as he pleasures us with ear orgasm #200 (also known as Lagoon City Act 2), and we’re left with a horrid mismatch of composers trying to do their best imitation of a Genesis synth… or a complete lack thereof, in some cases. Leading the charge is Jun Senoue, who once again looks fundamentally lost in the sauce (in a negative way) when it comes to synths. It becomes even more baffling that he insists on going for this when you realise that he still fucking kills the guitar shreds even today, with this incredible orchestral rendition of the Superstars opening theme. Even more baffling is the shockingly headless direction of the soundtrack in general, with the composers seemingly just unable to put together a coherent soundtrack that sounds consistent across the board, leading to one of the franchise’s worst soundtracks despite there being some bangers here and there by Lopes and Rintaro Soma. Say what you want about Advance 2, at least Egg Utopia and Techno Base both had fire music. They both looked visually cool as well.
The art, meanwhile, well… it’s definitely Classic Sonic, alright. Some of the environments do look pretty, but ultimately, they just feel like a hapless, lifeless slideshow crammed with colours and stuff to make it look Classic I guess. Pinball Carnival does have the minor niche of being more horror-themed (but even that visual aesthetic isn’t played with enough), but in terms of actual level themes, we’re left with…
…Not Green Hill 6, Stardust Speedway Past, Brown Sky Sanctuary, Casino Level 5, Beige Water Palace, Sandopolis 2, Boring Press Garden, Golden Capital (which unfortunately also has the poor distinction of being the worst level in the game), Bad Techno Base, Frozen Base and Not Death Egg 3. Absolutely inspiring assortment of levels. Also, remember earlier on in the game when you’d be able to catch a glimpse of the other characters doing stuff in the background? Yeah that shit’s gone in the second half of the game it’s not even consistent lmao. Not even the non-game graphics hold up, because while Superstars opening theme is serviceable, the animation, without Hesse on board (presumably) is choppy and incredibly inconsistent in terms of cinematography. The in-game animated cutscenes are error prone, and do not have the refined, high-quality feel of the animated prologue done by Hesse FOR Superstars!
2023, year of Amy, she’s the central focus of Murder, gets her own anniversary comic, is playable in both Origins and now Superstars, and is once again the heart of the story’s only real character moment! Metal Sonic? Who cares, give him a cameo at the end of Murder and make him the villain of the Amy comic STARRING Amy, we don’t even need for him to show up in Superstars! Even though the Cyber Station boss fight literally has Eggman piloting a bunch of Custom Robots to attack you which would’ve literally been the perfect chance for Metal to show up??? Man, I’m not even a huge Metal Sonic fanboy and even I feel terrible for Metal fans.
Golden Capital Zone Act 2 Boss Fight
Yes, that’s right, this entire section is a shoutout to a single fucking boss fight.
As mentioned earlier, the bosses in Superstars are horrid. Prolonged i-frame periods do not mesh well with the quick-natured flow of Sonic bosses, especially when the boss fight’s duration sometimes lasts longer than the actual fucking level itself. The autoscroller Fang fight in Golden Capital, in particular, perfectly encapsulates everything wrong with the design of Sonic Superstars. Ungodly tedious amounts of waiting for this fucking jerboa to open himself to a single hit while he fires off barrage after barrage of attacks that are comically braindead and easy to dodge. Multiple phases. A phase where you can’t hit him for AN ENTIRE FUCKING MINUTE while you dodge flamethrowers and lava dispensers THAT THE FUCKING CAMERA WON’T SHOW YOU UNTIL YOU’RE LITERALLY RIGHT ABOUT TO GET HIT BY IT. Instant-kill missiles IN PHASE 2. NOT A SINGLE CHECKPOINT. Even at your best pace, the boss fight takes at least FOUR FUCKING MINUTES. FOUR. And Fang’s not even the final fucking boss. He is certainly one of the worst boss fights in the history of the franchise, however, right up there with 06’ Iblis fight and Advance’s X-Zone.
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Despite all my complaints, I still insist on my verdict assigned earlier in this review: Sonic Superstars is a competent game. It's only claim to fame is being a successful emulation of the beloved Genesis physics and some of the level design aspects that made the classics fun to begin with. Imagine this scenario: You go into a fine dining restaurant and they serve you a great steak, much like those you’d expect from Michelin-grade restaurants. However, they also served literal shit as the sides to accompany the steak. Would you still be eager to drop that positive review?
Sonic fans seem pretty happy to do so, apparently.
This may make me sound like an outright hypocrite: I literally wrote this review of Advance 2 yesterday, despite Advance 2 being an incredibly flawed game outside of its core gameplay mechanics. Two things:
One, if Superstars’ level design and physics were a generic good steak, then Advance 2’s mechanical resonance is an exotic, exquisite steak that has a taste so distinctly flavourful, that you’ll literally never find it anywhere else in the world. Superstars’ steak, meanwhile, you can find in places like Sonic 1, Sonic 2, Sonic CD, Sonic Mania, Sonic 3 and Knuckles…
Two, I’m biased. I’m not ashamed to admit that Advance 2 is a guilty pleasure and a favourite child of mine. It’s not like Sonic fans don't have their biases either, with factions of Classic fans, Adventure fans and Boost fans gathered in legions to bitch and whine about how the other gameplay styles suck and how their gameplay style is vastly superior.
My journey throughout my backlog has given me experiences I’d never have learned from had I stayed in the Sonic vacuum. Klonoa 2 taught me how a platformer can still tell a thematically rich, emotionally felt story. Metroid Fusion taught me how atmospheric gameplay can also tell a narrative perfectly describing symbiotic relationships. Mega Man X (and indirectly, Advance 2) taught me how a classic, tried and true formula can be innovated in a way to make it radical and even more exhilarating than its predecessor. Chrono Trigger taught me how simplistic elements can merge to form a masterpiece when crafted under professional expertise.
Sonic Superstars taught me that by playing it safe, Sonic fans will shower you with praise and love for merely being competent.
Maybe I’m wrong and this game will probably warm up to me in future playthroughs - I’ve made it clear that a simple zoom-out of the camera in single player to match the camera zoom in co-op would substantially increase the potential enjoyment this game squirms out of me. Maybe I’d even attempt time attack runs of the levels. But for now, why would I pay $60 for a significant downgrade from Mania, which is 3 times cheaper? Heck, Triple Trouble 16-bit is a fully completed, cash-free fan game available right now, and I’d argue it's a truer representation of what made the Classic titles so great while having loads of content for Sonic enthusiasts to savour!
I’ve spent this entire review trying my damndest not to compare Superstars to literally any other game in the Classic formula except in a few specific scenarios, because I’m a firm believer of appraising games on their own individual merit. I’ve done this with almost all my reviews since 3D Blast, where I instead focused on one or more distinct aspects of a game that I found fascination in and wrote about that specifically. One of the few exceptions, ironically, is Klonoa 2: Dream Champ Tournament, which I also slammed for betraying the definition of a Klonoa game.
I’ll tell you this, if I were to actually compare Superstars to literally any other classic Sonic title, Superstars would come out of the battle significantly worse. I find it incredibly laughable how Sonic fans lazily wave off justifiable criticism and notable flaws within the game, passing it off as ‘another step in the right direction’. Right direction my ass, Mania came out 6 years ago and completely solos the fuck out of Superstars. Maybe I can see people giving this game an 8/10 at maximum. Maybe they like it more than Sonic 1 or CD, which, fair enough, I can see why people dislike those games. Maybe it's their favourite Classic Sonic game, sure! I can see why people love Superstars, even if I obviously don’t.
But to call Sonic Superstars the best Classic Sonic game ever made, simply because it nails physics that were already refined and optimised 29 fucking years ago, and has level design that is a shallow imitation of games that came before, is not only an insult to literally every Classic Sonic game, but to critical game design theory in general.
Am I setting my standards too high? Or is it true that the Sonic fanbase has been subjected to mediocre game after mediocre game and constant mockery from other fanbases, that they’d bow down to whatever semblance of competency comes their way? Am I even truly a Sonic fan for detesting this much of what people love about Superstars? Am I allowed to call myself a Sonic fan after writing this review? I honestly don't know.
I care about this franchise a lot. It was my first ever favourite video game franchise, and it is still my favourite, and the friends I’ve made in the fandom hold a special place in my heart. I don’t hold any ill will towards any of them who played Superstars and adored it to bits, though I will and always have argued back when someone claims it's one of the best classic Sonic games ever made. Maybe I just care too much about opinions. I don’t fucking know anymore, man.
Regardless, if this is the direction Sonic Team chooses to take with 2D Sonic, then maybe I should kiss my dreams of a boost mode game that harmonises both classic and modern qualities into one outstanding title farewell.Classic Sonic used to be cute and cool, but now he’s just the cute one and there’s also a cool counterpart now, and if fans are OK with that, then good for them. It just simply isn’t for me. After this really, really long tirade, there really is just one conclusion - Sonic Superstars is a perfectly adequate, competently designed game. Despite this, I hate Sonic Superstars, its disillusionment with how it wants to present itself and the disillusionment it made me feel about myself as a Sonic fan, who can't seem to find the positives in Sonic games like everyone else would.
Final score: 5.5/10
Focus: The fatal flaws of Sonic Superstars
Theme: Disillusionment
Review 75.
-I don’t know man, I’m just kinda… whelmed.
Sonic is my favourite video game franchise ever, so it was obvious I’d break my backlog routine to play it, and I even sucked it up and paid the full $60 price of entry. I refunded on release day.
Sonic Superstars is… competent. That is the best way I can possibly use to describe it, and I think that is the most justifiable term to summarise my experience with the game overall. Yet, I can’t help but feel incredibly bitter about this. Which is funny, because if you know me on r/Sonic’s Discord server (hi bitches), you’d know that I was pessimistic towards Superstars and the overwhelming hype in the fanbase surrounding it. I was so prepared for every single Classic Sonic supremacist to pop out the woodworks screaming about how Superstars’ quality just proves Sonic only works as a barebones, classic 2D formula. Prepared for people to yell about how Amy and the Chaos Emerald powers further push the Classic Sonic formula when girlie, Amy is just additional content. The emerald powers, on paper, should be enhancing the replayability of the game and giving players new tools to approach the levels with the philosophy of ‘getting better at Sonic by beating the levels faster and faster’, when realistically, the only power that does this is discount Burst wisp, which also has the unforeseen consequence of breaking the level in half.
I was so bitter about the prospect of Superstars getting such critical acclaim that SEGA, notorious for being overly-sensitive towards fan feedback, would buy into this and just keep things the exact same for the next 2D Sonic release instead of actually innovating the formula in a fun way. In a very cynical sense, I wanted Superstars to fail. Ironic for a Sonic fan, yes, but I wanted Superstars to fail because I just couldn’t bear the mere thought of Classic Sonic dickriders kissing this game’s ass.
Somehow, the actual outcome ended up being far, far worse.
I believe Backloggd has made their view clear: this game is horribly mid and having played the entire game from Bridge Island Act 1 to the last story, I can certainly ascertain that this is the Classic Sonic game of all time. Somehow, this leaves me upset anyways, because Arzest, somehow, actually does a few really good things - for one, as much as I joke about muh muh momentum, the fact that it’s there, and actually a pretty close emulation of Mania physics, definitely brings it closer to fan game quality! The level design, for the most part, is also quite fun and has a pretty nice flow to it, with plenty of alternative paths to incentivise players to go after faster times in Time Attack mode. The characters are all pretty fun to play as well, with the standouts being Sonic and Trip (yes she’s playable don’t pretend this was an absolute fucking shock it was obvious from the start), albeit Trip renders Knuckles and Amy completely obsolete (and Knuckles controls like dogshit anyway so who cares). The bulk of my points for this game come from these few factors, because ultimately, level design and control characters are crucial for a Sonic game’s overall performance, and Superstars does all this quite decently.
Now let’s talk about where it all falls apart.
The Unfocused and Indecisiveness in Game Mode Priority
A lot of people draw comparisons between Superstars and NSMB in terms of its primary game mode - both games placed heavy emphasis on its co-op mode during promotions and advertisements, so you’d expect the game to work well in co-op gameplay, right?
Nope. In fact, I’d argue that Superstars tried too hard to find a balance between single player and co-op, and ended up falling short on both ends of the stick.
I never actually got to experience co-op with anyone because they didn’t bother implementing an online function and also I’m a Sonic fan in Asia. From what I’ve heard, however, co-op works similarly to Sonic 2/3K, where you could have a second player control Tails, but they would be unable to go offscreen and explore by themselves. Certain mechanics also only work for one player, forcing the rest of the group to wait until they can move.
The single-player experience, meanwhile, is definitely affected by the necessity to comply with the limitations of co-op. Bubbles underwater (particularly in Lagoon City) spawn at a more frequent rate compared to most Sonic games, and are more sparsely available. This was clearly designed so a group of 4 players could easily prevent themselves from drowning, unfortunately, inhaling an air bubble also causes players to transition from a ball jump into a state of vulnerability, which leaves them open to hits. Combined with the sluggish water physics and the design of the platforming in Lagoon City Act 2 especially, may cause players to unintentionally grab an air bubble mid-sequence, become vulnerable to a hit, and then proceed to get hit.
The bosses, meanwhile, have already garnered infamy from the general public for being excessively long, with countless time spent invulnerable to attacks and counter attacks that are fairly easy to dodge with ease being regarded as time padding. This was clearly done because the developers knew that if they designed the fights in traditional Classic Sonic fashion, a group of 4 can easily tear down bosses to shreds within seconds, completely eliminating the challenge in the process. Single-player is made to suffer as a result, as players are stuck sitting and waiting for the boss to expose itself to an attack, with this flaw especially being exposed with Trip’s gameplay where the already tediously long bosses require more hits to defeat. More on the bosses later.
The Most Embarrassing Fucking Camera in Sonic History
One common complaint with 2D Sonic, as well as Sonic games in general, is the awful field of depth. The Genesis games, Game Gear games, and especially the Advance games collectively struggle to present important information regarding the level so the player is able to anticipate upcoming hazards or enemies and map out routes correctly due to the limitations of their respective hardware. Eventually, this problem was fixed primarily for the Genesis games with Origins and all the fan ports that allowed players to experience Sonic in glorious 16:9 widescreen. It didn’t completely fix the issue, but it certainly allowed for less frustrating moments where you get hit by something you couldn’t see on the screen.
With this in mind, Superstars having all the aforementioned issues while being developed in widescreen is fucking appaling. MANIA had a better field of depth, and that shit is even more of a nostalgic nod to the 16-bit era compared to Superstars! The camera zoom in Mania also had the advantage of allowing players to fucking see what’s ahead of them, and that is crucial when it comes to maintaining fluidity during the run of a level. Can’t have a bajillion alternate paths if I’m only ever able to SEE ONE AT A TIME! Did Arzest really have to commit to making the Superstars so realistically that they even decided to emulate the inability to fucking see??
Press Factory Act 2 and Egg Fortress Act 1 suffer the most from the atrocious camera zoom - in Press Factory’s case, an actually well-designed level revolving around a gimmick is tarnished for others because they couldn’t see a set of crushers directly ahead of them. Egg Fortress Act 1 is a bad level, but the lack of camera zoom to allow players to see the empty bottomless pit ahead of an isolated chamber MULTIPLE DIFFERENT TIMES. The effect of having platforms spawn only when a player enters the sub-room is acceptable, but not in a fast-paced platformer like Sonic where information has to be presented to the player quickly. To be fair, Spin Dashing into a bottomless pit because the camera or nothing about the game indicating there was a bottomless pit there to begin with is completely accurate to the Genesis games. /s
And you wanna know what adds salt to the wound? The fact that the FUCKING CO-OP CAMERA IS ACTUALLY PROPERLY ZOOMED OUT!!!! I CAN FUCKING SEE SHIT IN CO-OP THAT WOULD’VE MADE THE PLATFORMING A LOT MORE FAIR AND MY MISTAKES MUCH MORE APPARENT BECAUSE I CAN ACTUALLY ANTICIPATE SHIT THAT’S 1 FUCKING SECOND AWAY FROM ME-
-don’t even get me fucking started on the Cyber Station. Actually, no, fuck you, I will.
Gimmicks, Gimmicks Everywhere
Sonic games are no stranger to gimmicks - even going back as far as the classic games, Sonic 2 had a level centralised around pinball tables, Sonic 3K had Sandopolis Act 2, and CD is infamous for Wacky Workbench’s bouncy floor gimmick.
No Sonic game comes close to Superstars when it comes to the sheer amount of gimmicks implemented into the game. Unfortunately, this is a negative.
Naoto Ohshima was the director of CD, and that game had a similar arcade-style feel to it; stuffing generators and holograms throughout every level, which in turn incentivises the player to find all of them to achieve the good ending (or get better at collecting rings for the Time Stones). The difference here is CD always had a more abstract design philosophy that played to exploration of a terrain using Sonic’s skillset to complete a treasure hunt as quickly and efficiently as possible, and the whole bizarre atmosphere of Little Planet also helps ease the implementation of the level gimmicks somewhat.
With Ohshima returning as executive producer of Superstars, it isn’t surprising that this game tries an arcade-style approach as well. However, when your level design and gameplay philosophy is attempting to emulate Mania and 2 rather than CD, you have an inherent mismatch of ideals clashing against each other. The issue is aggravated even further because the arcade gimmicks of Superstars are significantly more overtuned to the point where they serve as pacebreakers or substanceless setpieces that interrupt the flow of the level design. Special stages are now distributed in spots easily spottable, and unlocking all 7 emeralds will still force you into the well that was a special stage alright special stage for the medals. Warp portals can appear in front of your face when you least expect it, and instead of transporting you to a much better route than what can be offered in a normal playthrough of a level, wastes seconds of time showering you with rings before thrusting you to who knows where in the level. Flow completely ruined.
This isn’t even to mention the level specific gimmicks, which honestly feels more like Arzest throwing a bunch of darts at random and seeing what sticks. Sometimes it works, like the aforementioned Press Factory Act 2’s progress urging button pressing and Frozen Base Act 1’s conveyor belts. But then you get stuff like Speed Jungle Act 2's glow in the dark set pieces, Sky Temple’s janky air fans, Egg Factory’s tediously long elevators crawls and anti-gravity chambers, and Cyber Station’s fucking rat maze, which wouldn’t even be that bad if the camera allowed you to see upcoming virus enemies. There are two fucking pinball-based levels out of 11, for fucks sake, as if it wasn’t already how obvious the arcade gimmick-feel of Superstars is. The less I say about the optional fruit levels, the better.
It’s not like there’s even value in exploration anyway, as the elemental shields have been replaced with a standard magnet aura (that doesn’t even shield you from attacks) and boring, boring blue shield. I’ve literally only found Speed Shoes on Bridge Island, and rings don’t fucking matter when there isn’t even a substantial score system here anyway. Oh yeah, the score system here is so pointless, they didn’t even bother to add it to the user interface unless you pause the game. It’s quite literally eye candy because in previous games, the score system would at least reward you with extra lives every 50,000 points, but now? Unlimited lives are the norm for modern AAA games, which means that you don’t even get to earn extra lives. Instead you get medals!!! Medals which can only be used for an online multiplayer mode I couldn’t give less of a shit about!!! And without extra lives to reward players for exploring away from the main path, what do they use to replace it? MORE FUCKING MEDALS!!!!!!!!!
I love losing my sanity
It’s Just So… Uninspiring.
You can honestly kinda tell when the developers decided “OK, we’re almost out of time and we gotta throw out this game soon, let’s just do a Dimps and shit the floor on the second half of the game”, and proceed to shit the floor on the second half of the game. The difference here is that Dimps never shit the floor in the audio-visual department, ever.
Tee Lopes’ presence departs from the game as soon as he pleasures us with ear orgasm #200 (also known as Lagoon City Act 2), and we’re left with a horrid mismatch of composers trying to do their best imitation of a Genesis synth… or a complete lack thereof, in some cases. Leading the charge is Jun Senoue, who once again looks fundamentally lost in the sauce (in a negative way) when it comes to synths. It becomes even more baffling that he insists on going for this when you realise that he still fucking kills the guitar shreds even today, with this incredible orchestral rendition of the Superstars opening theme. Even more baffling is the shockingly headless direction of the soundtrack in general, with the composers seemingly just unable to put together a coherent soundtrack that sounds consistent across the board, leading to one of the franchise’s worst soundtracks despite there being some bangers here and there by Lopes and Rintaro Soma. Say what you want about Advance 2, at least Egg Utopia and Techno Base both had fire music. They both looked visually cool as well.
The art, meanwhile, well… it’s definitely Classic Sonic, alright. Some of the environments do look pretty, but ultimately, they just feel like a hapless, lifeless slideshow crammed with colours and stuff to make it look Classic I guess. Pinball Carnival does have the minor niche of being more horror-themed (but even that visual aesthetic isn’t played with enough), but in terms of actual level themes, we’re left with…
…Not Green Hill 6, Stardust Speedway Past, Brown Sky Sanctuary, Casino Level 5, Beige Water Palace, Sandopolis 2, Boring Press Garden, Golden Capital (which unfortunately also has the poor distinction of being the worst level in the game), Bad Techno Base, Frozen Base and Not Death Egg 3. Absolutely inspiring assortment of levels. Also, remember earlier on in the game when you’d be able to catch a glimpse of the other characters doing stuff in the background? Yeah that shit’s gone in the second half of the game it’s not even consistent lmao. Not even the non-game graphics hold up, because while Superstars opening theme is serviceable, the animation, without Hesse on board (presumably) is choppy and incredibly inconsistent in terms of cinematography. The in-game animated cutscenes are error prone, and do not have the refined, high-quality feel of the animated prologue done by Hesse FOR Superstars!
2023, year of Amy, she’s the central focus of Murder, gets her own anniversary comic, is playable in both Origins and now Superstars, and is once again the heart of the story’s only real character moment! Metal Sonic? Who cares, give him a cameo at the end of Murder and make him the villain of the Amy comic STARRING Amy, we don’t even need for him to show up in Superstars! Even though the Cyber Station boss fight literally has Eggman piloting a bunch of Custom Robots to attack you which would’ve literally been the perfect chance for Metal to show up??? Man, I’m not even a huge Metal Sonic fanboy and even I feel terrible for Metal fans.
Golden Capital Zone Act 2 Boss Fight
Yes, that’s right, this entire section is a shoutout to a single fucking boss fight.
As mentioned earlier, the bosses in Superstars are horrid. Prolonged i-frame periods do not mesh well with the quick-natured flow of Sonic bosses, especially when the boss fight’s duration sometimes lasts longer than the actual fucking level itself. The autoscroller Fang fight in Golden Capital, in particular, perfectly encapsulates everything wrong with the design of Sonic Superstars. Ungodly tedious amounts of waiting for this fucking jerboa to open himself to a single hit while he fires off barrage after barrage of attacks that are comically braindead and easy to dodge. Multiple phases. A phase where you can’t hit him for AN ENTIRE FUCKING MINUTE while you dodge flamethrowers and lava dispensers THAT THE FUCKING CAMERA WON’T SHOW YOU UNTIL YOU’RE LITERALLY RIGHT ABOUT TO GET HIT BY IT. Instant-kill missiles IN PHASE 2. NOT A SINGLE CHECKPOINT. Even at your best pace, the boss fight takes at least FOUR FUCKING MINUTES. FOUR. And Fang’s not even the final fucking boss. He is certainly one of the worst boss fights in the history of the franchise, however, right up there with 06’ Iblis fight and Advance’s X-Zone.
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Despite all my complaints, I still insist on my verdict assigned earlier in this review: Sonic Superstars is a competent game. It's only claim to fame is being a successful emulation of the beloved Genesis physics and some of the level design aspects that made the classics fun to begin with. Imagine this scenario: You go into a fine dining restaurant and they serve you a great steak, much like those you’d expect from Michelin-grade restaurants. However, they also served literal shit as the sides to accompany the steak. Would you still be eager to drop that positive review?
Sonic fans seem pretty happy to do so, apparently.
This may make me sound like an outright hypocrite: I literally wrote this review of Advance 2 yesterday, despite Advance 2 being an incredibly flawed game outside of its core gameplay mechanics. Two things:
One, if Superstars’ level design and physics were a generic good steak, then Advance 2’s mechanical resonance is an exotic, exquisite steak that has a taste so distinctly flavourful, that you’ll literally never find it anywhere else in the world. Superstars’ steak, meanwhile, you can find in places like Sonic 1, Sonic 2, Sonic CD, Sonic Mania, Sonic 3 and Knuckles…
Two, I’m biased. I’m not ashamed to admit that Advance 2 is a guilty pleasure and a favourite child of mine. It’s not like Sonic fans don't have their biases either, with factions of Classic fans, Adventure fans and Boost fans gathered in legions to bitch and whine about how the other gameplay styles suck and how their gameplay style is vastly superior.
My journey throughout my backlog has given me experiences I’d never have learned from had I stayed in the Sonic vacuum. Klonoa 2 taught me how a platformer can still tell a thematically rich, emotionally felt story. Metroid Fusion taught me how atmospheric gameplay can also tell a narrative perfectly describing symbiotic relationships. Mega Man X (and indirectly, Advance 2) taught me how a classic, tried and true formula can be innovated in a way to make it radical and even more exhilarating than its predecessor. Chrono Trigger taught me how simplistic elements can merge to form a masterpiece when crafted under professional expertise.
Sonic Superstars taught me that by playing it safe, Sonic fans will shower you with praise and love for merely being competent.
Maybe I’m wrong and this game will probably warm up to me in future playthroughs - I’ve made it clear that a simple zoom-out of the camera in single player to match the camera zoom in co-op would substantially increase the potential enjoyment this game squirms out of me. Maybe I’d even attempt time attack runs of the levels. But for now, why would I pay $60 for a significant downgrade from Mania, which is 3 times cheaper? Heck, Triple Trouble 16-bit is a fully completed, cash-free fan game available right now, and I’d argue it's a truer representation of what made the Classic titles so great while having loads of content for Sonic enthusiasts to savour!
I’ve spent this entire review trying my damndest not to compare Superstars to literally any other game in the Classic formula except in a few specific scenarios, because I’m a firm believer of appraising games on their own individual merit. I’ve done this with almost all my reviews since 3D Blast, where I instead focused on one or more distinct aspects of a game that I found fascination in and wrote about that specifically. One of the few exceptions, ironically, is Klonoa 2: Dream Champ Tournament, which I also slammed for betraying the definition of a Klonoa game.
I’ll tell you this, if I were to actually compare Superstars to literally any other classic Sonic title, Superstars would come out of the battle significantly worse. I find it incredibly laughable how Sonic fans lazily wave off justifiable criticism and notable flaws within the game, passing it off as ‘another step in the right direction’. Right direction my ass, Mania came out 6 years ago and completely solos the fuck out of Superstars. Maybe I can see people giving this game an 8/10 at maximum. Maybe they like it more than Sonic 1 or CD, which, fair enough, I can see why people dislike those games. Maybe it's their favourite Classic Sonic game, sure! I can see why people love Superstars, even if I obviously don’t.
But to call Sonic Superstars the best Classic Sonic game ever made, simply because it nails physics that were already refined and optimised 29 fucking years ago, and has level design that is a shallow imitation of games that came before, is not only an insult to literally every Classic Sonic game, but to critical game design theory in general.
Am I setting my standards too high? Or is it true that the Sonic fanbase has been subjected to mediocre game after mediocre game and constant mockery from other fanbases, that they’d bow down to whatever semblance of competency comes their way? Am I even truly a Sonic fan for detesting this much of what people love about Superstars? Am I allowed to call myself a Sonic fan after writing this review? I honestly don't know.
I care about this franchise a lot. It was my first ever favourite video game franchise, and it is still my favourite, and the friends I’ve made in the fandom hold a special place in my heart. I don’t hold any ill will towards any of them who played Superstars and adored it to bits, though I will and always have argued back when someone claims it's one of the best classic Sonic games ever made. Maybe I just care too much about opinions. I don’t fucking know anymore, man.
Regardless, if this is the direction Sonic Team chooses to take with 2D Sonic, then maybe I should kiss my dreams of a boost mode game that harmonises both classic and modern qualities into one outstanding title farewell.
Final score: 5.5/10
Focus: The fatal flaws of Sonic Superstars
Theme: Disillusionment
Review 75.
Mario Bros Wonder is unfortunately an extremely lethargic game that feels like no one working on it was having any fun. It does the bare minimum and then leaves it at that, which for a series that has been bereft of creativity and fun for years does certainly seem like a breath of fresh air, but it needed to be so much more than that. I was genuinely shocked at how unfun this game is.
It sort of says a lot about your series when you feel the need to make up an excuse for you to be creative. Genuinely, a ton of my problems with how this game feels would be alleviated if the dumb flowers didn't exist. The entire point of the game is to be wacky and creative and fun but a lot of that is diminished when you section all of it off. How much more fun would it have been if for one level you're just suddenly controlling a goomba or turned into a ball instead of having to play through the same cookie-cutter levels this series has been churning out for decades before getting to have fun. A lot of spontaneity is lost through only letting the unique stuff happen as a consequence of touching the wonder flowers, and that sort of saps the fun out of it all. I want to be shocked and surprised by the strange ideas in this game but every time it's about to happen I get a big colorful warning.
And the wackiness itself is very underwhelming. The level designs are so often just more Mario Bros junk that it'll feel indistinguishable from playing any other game in this series like 70% of the time. It doesn't help that the abilities given to the player are insanely underwhelming. Your four power-ups are very poorly designed. I don't get what the point of the bubble flower is. There's like 15 badges that let you jump higher and farther more consistently and easily than the bubbles and their other function is killing enemies, which the fire flower already does. Speaking of, that thing has no right being in this game. it feels very vestigial, and doesn't serve much of a function in any level. It doesn't help how similar the bubble flower is to it, but also like, why have it at all? This game is meant to give us something fresh, but its afraid to buck the least consequential tradition? I guarantee you that if they left the fire flower out no one would have cared. The drill mushroom was fun and levels were actually designed around it, although not every level is, and some of them can be cheesed with it pretty easily. But yet again it doesn't really get much to do, you never have to use it in inventive ways and it isn't tactilely fun to use. The Elephant Form is ok I guess. It would be a very middling to forgettable power-up in a better game, but the fact it makes you large it unique enough to make it stand out in this game. But none of these power-ups are ever developed. They don't have a skill set you need to learn or are used creatively in puzzles, there's next to no point in them.
The same could easily be said about the badges. My god. There isn't a single badge that changes up your playstyle enough for it to matter. They're supposed to be picking up the slack of the power-ups but they themselves are so wholly uninteresting that nearly all of them are just straight copied from older Mario games. And worst of all, none of them are fun. I messed around with all of them and never found one that elevated my enjoyment of the levels. Partially because this game's levels are just so boring and aren't really built to accommodate them, but also because none of the badges are that fun to begin with. The rope one was promising but only being able to aim in front of you, especially when the right stick is right there, completely unused, was a real let down. You can play through every level with every badge equipped and your experience every time will be the exact same. Why even have them, honestly? They don't add anything to the experience. They aren't fun, and by god that final badge is so lame and not worth getting. There's just not enough to the badges.
There isn't much to this game as a whole, honestly. Which was pretty surprising for me when I realized it. It's pretty short and all its levels are short as well, which isn't a bad thing, and in fact I hope the Mario series going forward learns from Wonder and doesn't unnecessarily bloat itself with too many levels or collectables, which has been a problem for the series in the past. But, like, it's ending was weird, right? Like it's "final world" is only five mediocre levels without even another Bowser Jr. rematch. More importantly, by the halfway mark I began telling myself "I will still like this game if after I'm done collecting all the Royal Seeds Bowser still gets to make his giant wonder happen". It's threatened constantly and it was the only justifier I could thing of for why all the levels thus far have been pretty mundane and uninteresting. They were saving everything for the final world, or would do something even cooler with the idea of giving Bowser power over all of reality, like having to go through the worlds again but with everything crazy and insane, or having to go through wacky messed up levels to find wonder flowers that would make them normal again. My mind was going rampant, which mostly just goes to show how uninterested I was with the game at that point. What it amounted to, by the way, was a boring final level that used a bunch of the previously done wonder gimmicks and a boss fight that would be a fun world 3-8 boss but is very anticlimactic for a final boss. It just feels unfinished, like there's a bunch missing from the game and ESPECIALLY its ending.
Continuing from the lack of any big moment or gimmick for its climax, this game's roaster sucks. This series has eighty billion characters and you're telling me that the best they could do for playable characters is yellow toad? The prevalence of recolors when there's more than enough Mario characters to fill its roaster is just another sign to me that this game is either unfinished or nobody cared at all while making it. Poor Birdo doesn't get raised out of the Mario Kart void that Daisy's been suck in for decades, but red yoshi gets to be playable? You went to all the trouble to make like 20 badges that suck and nobody will ever use, but you didn't feel like making even someone like Toadsworth or Captain Toad playable? Like if they really were strapped for resources and time then they could have at least made each yoshi its own distinct character. Add a tuft of hair on one of them and call it the Yoshi from ttyd, it really wouldn't take that much effort. Also I refuse to let Nintendo pretend that yellow toad is a real character that people actually care about on the same level as Luigi or Daisy. Stop putting him in things.
I thought this game was going to be the shot in the arm Mario needed to be fun again, but all it really is is New Super Mario Bros but it looks pretty. And, make no mistake, this game's really nice to look at, although I must say that its soundtrack is really bad. Not a single song from this game is going on my phone's folder of mp3s that I use a 3rd party app to listen to. It's all super simple and boring. Like very uncomplex songs with not a lot going on, which for a series that spent the last decade solidifying grandpa jazz as its musically identity is pretty odd. Especially since I'd think they'd want to go really grand for this game since its supposed to be the next era of Mario. Although the hollow music does pair nicely with the empty game design.
Ultimately, Mario Wonder is lucky it exists in a franchise so lacking in creativity and fun that even the imitation of it is worth celebrating.
It sort of says a lot about your series when you feel the need to make up an excuse for you to be creative. Genuinely, a ton of my problems with how this game feels would be alleviated if the dumb flowers didn't exist. The entire point of the game is to be wacky and creative and fun but a lot of that is diminished when you section all of it off. How much more fun would it have been if for one level you're just suddenly controlling a goomba or turned into a ball instead of having to play through the same cookie-cutter levels this series has been churning out for decades before getting to have fun. A lot of spontaneity is lost through only letting the unique stuff happen as a consequence of touching the wonder flowers, and that sort of saps the fun out of it all. I want to be shocked and surprised by the strange ideas in this game but every time it's about to happen I get a big colorful warning.
And the wackiness itself is very underwhelming. The level designs are so often just more Mario Bros junk that it'll feel indistinguishable from playing any other game in this series like 70% of the time. It doesn't help that the abilities given to the player are insanely underwhelming. Your four power-ups are very poorly designed. I don't get what the point of the bubble flower is. There's like 15 badges that let you jump higher and farther more consistently and easily than the bubbles and their other function is killing enemies, which the fire flower already does. Speaking of, that thing has no right being in this game. it feels very vestigial, and doesn't serve much of a function in any level. It doesn't help how similar the bubble flower is to it, but also like, why have it at all? This game is meant to give us something fresh, but its afraid to buck the least consequential tradition? I guarantee you that if they left the fire flower out no one would have cared. The drill mushroom was fun and levels were actually designed around it, although not every level is, and some of them can be cheesed with it pretty easily. But yet again it doesn't really get much to do, you never have to use it in inventive ways and it isn't tactilely fun to use. The Elephant Form is ok I guess. It would be a very middling to forgettable power-up in a better game, but the fact it makes you large it unique enough to make it stand out in this game. But none of these power-ups are ever developed. They don't have a skill set you need to learn or are used creatively in puzzles, there's next to no point in them.
The same could easily be said about the badges. My god. There isn't a single badge that changes up your playstyle enough for it to matter. They're supposed to be picking up the slack of the power-ups but they themselves are so wholly uninteresting that nearly all of them are just straight copied from older Mario games. And worst of all, none of them are fun. I messed around with all of them and never found one that elevated my enjoyment of the levels. Partially because this game's levels are just so boring and aren't really built to accommodate them, but also because none of the badges are that fun to begin with. The rope one was promising but only being able to aim in front of you, especially when the right stick is right there, completely unused, was a real let down. You can play through every level with every badge equipped and your experience every time will be the exact same. Why even have them, honestly? They don't add anything to the experience. They aren't fun, and by god that final badge is so lame and not worth getting. There's just not enough to the badges.
There isn't much to this game as a whole, honestly. Which was pretty surprising for me when I realized it. It's pretty short and all its levels are short as well, which isn't a bad thing, and in fact I hope the Mario series going forward learns from Wonder and doesn't unnecessarily bloat itself with too many levels or collectables, which has been a problem for the series in the past. But, like, it's ending was weird, right? Like it's "final world" is only five mediocre levels without even another Bowser Jr. rematch. More importantly, by the halfway mark I began telling myself "I will still like this game if after I'm done collecting all the Royal Seeds Bowser still gets to make his giant wonder happen". It's threatened constantly and it was the only justifier I could thing of for why all the levels thus far have been pretty mundane and uninteresting. They were saving everything for the final world, or would do something even cooler with the idea of giving Bowser power over all of reality, like having to go through the worlds again but with everything crazy and insane, or having to go through wacky messed up levels to find wonder flowers that would make them normal again. My mind was going rampant, which mostly just goes to show how uninterested I was with the game at that point. What it amounted to, by the way, was a boring final level that used a bunch of the previously done wonder gimmicks and a boss fight that would be a fun world 3-8 boss but is very anticlimactic for a final boss. It just feels unfinished, like there's a bunch missing from the game and ESPECIALLY its ending.
Continuing from the lack of any big moment or gimmick for its climax, this game's roaster sucks. This series has eighty billion characters and you're telling me that the best they could do for playable characters is yellow toad? The prevalence of recolors when there's more than enough Mario characters to fill its roaster is just another sign to me that this game is either unfinished or nobody cared at all while making it. Poor Birdo doesn't get raised out of the Mario Kart void that Daisy's been suck in for decades, but red yoshi gets to be playable? You went to all the trouble to make like 20 badges that suck and nobody will ever use, but you didn't feel like making even someone like Toadsworth or Captain Toad playable? Like if they really were strapped for resources and time then they could have at least made each yoshi its own distinct character. Add a tuft of hair on one of them and call it the Yoshi from ttyd, it really wouldn't take that much effort. Also I refuse to let Nintendo pretend that yellow toad is a real character that people actually care about on the same level as Luigi or Daisy. Stop putting him in things.
I thought this game was going to be the shot in the arm Mario needed to be fun again, but all it really is is New Super Mario Bros but it looks pretty. And, make no mistake, this game's really nice to look at, although I must say that its soundtrack is really bad. Not a single song from this game is going on my phone's folder of mp3s that I use a 3rd party app to listen to. It's all super simple and boring. Like very uncomplex songs with not a lot going on, which for a series that spent the last decade solidifying grandpa jazz as its musically identity is pretty odd. Especially since I'd think they'd want to go really grand for this game since its supposed to be the next era of Mario. Although the hollow music does pair nicely with the empty game design.
Ultimately, Mario Wonder is lucky it exists in a franchise so lacking in creativity and fun that even the imitation of it is worth celebrating.
Sea of Stars
2023
Right out the gate: my boy Garl packs snacks and cracks backs. Respect on his name.
Here's the thing: we've all made Sea of Stars. We were younger, we loved something, we wanted to make something like it. The something we made was more derivative than not, less complete, less polished. But it was a labor of love, and there's a simple joy in stories that want to tell other stories.
Sea of Stars doesn't even attempt to hide its influences. It's a love letter to Chrono Trigger, filtered through modern game design that skews away from the ever increasing systems fetishism that currently haunts the JRPG space. It promises not to waste your time, to be streamlined, to not bloat stats or bog you down with endless random battles and to make those basic battles rise above the usual strategy of hitting the red thing with the blue spell and then following a formula to clear out the rest.
And for the most part? It succeeds. The game is brisk, breezy. Traversal areas, once cleared, have fewer encounters and plentiful shortcuts. Gear is fairly linear, almost always findable, buyable otherwise. Stats are kept well under control, the skills few but meaningful with none being strictly better. The world map is constrained, destinations easy to find. Traversal itself is fun, three-dimensional. Not revolutionary, but the verticality and the way it's used to hide secrets is a constant delight.
But this streamlined design isn't always for the best. The space provided by exploration and scale gives the narrative time to breathe, makes the world feel more alive. The swift pace makes active gameplay a nearly relentless onslaught. The story simply doesn't have the time it needs to rest, to give moments their due time.
Nonetheless: it has its moments, but those moments are fewer than they should be and tend to highlight the problem more than resolve it. But when things do slow down - the lovingly crafted town of Brisk, the emotional crux at the midpoint, Zale and Valere sitting on a bed and talking about their childhood - they tend to hit just right.
Speaking of the core duo: let's talk about those characters. They're a mixed bag, for sure. Pure high adventure, one being a tribute to the inspiring game, the main two being a bit too one note. One character, however, is the obvious emotional core, the true protagonist, and believe me when I say that they are pitch perfect. To talk about them is to spoil them, and getting to know them throughout the game was a highlight, so I'll leave it there. Beyond that: one character is essentially an internet meme. They go on to have a twist that makes them even more of one, and yet said twist is one of the best reveals in the game. Meanwhile, the tribute character became a quick personal favorite.
So what tips the scales? Art direction, for one. The music is stellar, the art direction irreproachable. Areas are lush, vibrant, engaging. Details are tucked into every corner, new environments are a delight. Virtually every song has multiple versions, and all are an absolute treat to listen to. The rapidfire progress is easier to take when it keeps serving up inventive enemies, varied biomes and new art.
And the combat. Remember that promise of basic combat that engages? Here the game truly shines. You have two gauges that feed into each other, timed hits that help but are far from necessary and a mana system that is split into short and long-term, with both encouraging you to balance your use of regular attacks and skills. There's no hoarding of resources between battles, no stockpiling items, and yet this is accomplished without the use of the usual full reset between fights (consider Chained Echoes or Final Fantasy XIII). The lock system forces tricky choices, rewarding careful players who think ahead, all while feeding back into those gauges.
So. A game with flaws. Too referential, too meta, too streamlined and far too reliant on its true ending, but with obvious love and the ability to hit the important notes just right. In the end your expectations will temper the experience. If you expect it to be your childhood classic or the second coming of JRPGs? You're going to walk away less than satisfied. But if you just want a bit of high adventure with lovely art direction, gorgeous music and consistently engaging gameplay? Then you're likely sitting on my side of the fence.
Here's the thing: we've all made Sea of Stars. We were younger, we loved something, we wanted to make something like it. The something we made was more derivative than not, less complete, less polished. But it was a labor of love, and there's a simple joy in stories that want to tell other stories.
Sea of Stars doesn't even attempt to hide its influences. It's a love letter to Chrono Trigger, filtered through modern game design that skews away from the ever increasing systems fetishism that currently haunts the JRPG space. It promises not to waste your time, to be streamlined, to not bloat stats or bog you down with endless random battles and to make those basic battles rise above the usual strategy of hitting the red thing with the blue spell and then following a formula to clear out the rest.
And for the most part? It succeeds. The game is brisk, breezy. Traversal areas, once cleared, have fewer encounters and plentiful shortcuts. Gear is fairly linear, almost always findable, buyable otherwise. Stats are kept well under control, the skills few but meaningful with none being strictly better. The world map is constrained, destinations easy to find. Traversal itself is fun, three-dimensional. Not revolutionary, but the verticality and the way it's used to hide secrets is a constant delight.
But this streamlined design isn't always for the best. The space provided by exploration and scale gives the narrative time to breathe, makes the world feel more alive. The swift pace makes active gameplay a nearly relentless onslaught. The story simply doesn't have the time it needs to rest, to give moments their due time.
Nonetheless: it has its moments, but those moments are fewer than they should be and tend to highlight the problem more than resolve it. But when things do slow down - the lovingly crafted town of Brisk, the emotional crux at the midpoint, Zale and Valere sitting on a bed and talking about their childhood - they tend to hit just right.
Speaking of the core duo: let's talk about those characters. They're a mixed bag, for sure. Pure high adventure, one being a tribute to the inspiring game, the main two being a bit too one note. One character, however, is the obvious emotional core, the true protagonist, and believe me when I say that they are pitch perfect. To talk about them is to spoil them, and getting to know them throughout the game was a highlight, so I'll leave it there. Beyond that: one character is essentially an internet meme. They go on to have a twist that makes them even more of one, and yet said twist is one of the best reveals in the game. Meanwhile, the tribute character became a quick personal favorite.
So what tips the scales? Art direction, for one. The music is stellar, the art direction irreproachable. Areas are lush, vibrant, engaging. Details are tucked into every corner, new environments are a delight. Virtually every song has multiple versions, and all are an absolute treat to listen to. The rapidfire progress is easier to take when it keeps serving up inventive enemies, varied biomes and new art.
And the combat. Remember that promise of basic combat that engages? Here the game truly shines. You have two gauges that feed into each other, timed hits that help but are far from necessary and a mana system that is split into short and long-term, with both encouraging you to balance your use of regular attacks and skills. There's no hoarding of resources between battles, no stockpiling items, and yet this is accomplished without the use of the usual full reset between fights (consider Chained Echoes or Final Fantasy XIII). The lock system forces tricky choices, rewarding careful players who think ahead, all while feeding back into those gauges.
So. A game with flaws. Too referential, too meta, too streamlined and far too reliant on its true ending, but with obvious love and the ability to hit the important notes just right. In the end your expectations will temper the experience. If you expect it to be your childhood classic or the second coming of JRPGs? You're going to walk away less than satisfied. But if you just want a bit of high adventure with lovely art direction, gorgeous music and consistently engaging gameplay? Then you're likely sitting on my side of the fence.
Track & Field
1983
Arcade Week: Day #5
Remember a while back when I said that paperboy was the biggest ‘dad game’ I ever played? Well now I retract that statement. I bamboozled you all. The actual biggest ‘dad game’ of all time is track & field. Konami’s forgotten money-making masterpiece.
So what do you do in track & field? I’m glad you asked. You have 2 buttons, run and action which helps you in 1 of 6 competitions: 100 meter dash (you alternate button presses to run as fast as you can), long jump (you run by pressing the button and then press jump at the right moment), javelin throw (similar to long jump but you throw a javelin), 110 meter hurdles (run by pressing the button and jumping at the correct time), hammer throw (you spin and then press the correct button at the right time), and the high jump (you run and then hold down the action button). In each even you have to get a qualifying time or or level so that player can get to the next competition. If you fail you lose a life, if you don’t have any lives left, you probably ain’t gonna be seeing another Olympics until you put in a few more quarters.
Overall, track & field is actually a pretty fun game all things considered. It has some pretty decent competitions and I find it really fun to get one of your friends to help you spam buttons whilst you focus on another. Sure, you both might be left with hurting hands but I’m sure it’ll all be worth it in the end.
Good selection of events, funny announcer, dad game, hurt my hand
Remember a while back when I said that paperboy was the biggest ‘dad game’ I ever played? Well now I retract that statement. I bamboozled you all. The actual biggest ‘dad game’ of all time is track & field. Konami’s forgotten money-making masterpiece.
So what do you do in track & field? I’m glad you asked. You have 2 buttons, run and action which helps you in 1 of 6 competitions: 100 meter dash (you alternate button presses to run as fast as you can), long jump (you run by pressing the button and then press jump at the right moment), javelin throw (similar to long jump but you throw a javelin), 110 meter hurdles (run by pressing the button and jumping at the correct time), hammer throw (you spin and then press the correct button at the right time), and the high jump (you run and then hold down the action button). In each even you have to get a qualifying time or or level so that player can get to the next competition. If you fail you lose a life, if you don’t have any lives left, you probably ain’t gonna be seeing another Olympics until you put in a few more quarters.
Overall, track & field is actually a pretty fun game all things considered. It has some pretty decent competitions and I find it really fun to get one of your friends to help you spam buttons whilst you focus on another. Sure, you both might be left with hurting hands but I’m sure it’ll all be worth it in the end.
Good selection of events, funny announcer, dad game, hurt my hand
Galaga
1981
Arcade Week: Day #4
Not trying to go gen z on everyone right now but does anyone else remember the glow up memes? What if was to tell you they did one all the way back in 1981, and what was the one game they decided to glow up? Why space invaders of course!
In Galaga you play as a small ship at the bottom of the screen which must shoot down these ships at the top of the screen. The difference? They come down and try to kamikaze or shoot you a little closer, aww. As you play along the enemies get tougher and tougher. You can even get extra ships which attach onto yours and act as a ‘get out of crying cause you lost all those meaningless points card’. And…that’s basically Galaga. Overall, it’s a really fun game which has definitely become a certified hood classic and it has slowly become one of the most respected arcade games of all time, when I find it to be alright I guess.
Pretty decent, solid gameplay, them boss enemies can piss off
Not trying to go gen z on everyone right now but does anyone else remember the glow up memes? What if was to tell you they did one all the way back in 1981, and what was the one game they decided to glow up? Why space invaders of course!
In Galaga you play as a small ship at the bottom of the screen which must shoot down these ships at the top of the screen. The difference? They come down and try to kamikaze or shoot you a little closer, aww. As you play along the enemies get tougher and tougher. You can even get extra ships which attach onto yours and act as a ‘get out of crying cause you lost all those meaningless points card’. And…that’s basically Galaga. Overall, it’s a really fun game which has definitely become a certified hood classic and it has slowly become one of the most respected arcade games of all time, when I find it to be alright I guess.
Pretty decent, solid gameplay, them boss enemies can piss off
Amy's Sonic Advance 1 moveset makes for a good fit in the original Sonic the Hedgehog, it may even fit better here than it does in Advance thanks to the more pedestrian level design of Sonic 1.
The lack of a roll and spin jump means it is necessary to change how to approach playing the game, and her hammer attacks and acrobatics work in a way that helps things feel familiar enough for casual play whilst allowing for shortcuts and different ways to deal with badniks and bosses to keep the attention of Sonic veterans.
The lack of a roll and spin jump means it is necessary to change how to approach playing the game, and her hammer attacks and acrobatics work in a way that helps things feel familiar enough for casual play whilst allowing for shortcuts and different ways to deal with badniks and bosses to keep the attention of Sonic veterans.
Super Metroid
1994
metroid is a girl?
Sonic Advance 2
2002
Sonic fans will always want a game that plays like what they expect from a Sonic game. Momentum physics, stunning set pieces, continuously flowing platforming, high speed action, you know the formula by now.
But has there ever been a game that plays like Sonic?
Super speed is undoubtedly a coveted superpower most people yearn for - but do they really understand the mastery it demands to make split-second decisions in the blink of an eye? Indeed, limitless speed is extremely useful, but it is simultaneously an untamed beast that can drive you headfirst into a barrier at mach speeds. This is how Sonic always views the world, as a disfigured blur of colourful masses where a split-second glimpse of a hazard may be the last image he ever witnesses.
Across every single game in the franchise, Sonic Advance 2 is consistently the best representation of how it feels to be Sonic.
Of course, the most accurate Sonic experience cannot be completed without suiting music and visuals to back up the gameplay. Thankfully, Advance 2 delivers on both aspects, with the sharpest, most striking 2D Sonic sprite to date, complete with cool-looking afterimages to express your dominance and control over the game’s pace. The environments themselves have a sharp edge to them, with contrasting color palettes littering the terrain and background to further push the cool vibes Advance 2 goes for. The visuals go well with the constant high-octane, high adrenaline music, which leaves its mark with a consistent and prominently featured rhythmic pulse beat that constantly urges the player to rush past everything around them.
It has been commonly theorised that the Dimps GBA trilogy is modeled from the mainline Adventure trilogy that was released around the same timeframe, and I personally agree with this standpoint. Advance 1 takes a more tamer, simplistic approach that introduces Modern elements into 2D Sonic, much as Adventure brought about the origins of the Modern classification in general. Later on, Advance 3 would also take inspiration from Heroes’ team-based gameplay mechanics with its Tag Action gimmick. This leaves Advance 2 as the 2D counterpart of Adventure 2, and if you observe the design of SA2’s speed stages, you’d notice similarities in how both games play. They both implement a trick system that incentivises players to storm through the level in style, and both have specialised attention to the speed and spectacle of their levels. Heck, SA2’s most iconic set piece has Sonic skateboarding on a constant downhill slope, just like literally every level in Advance 2! That being said, while I do disagree with Dimps’ approach to making every level share the exact same geographical structure, and acknowledge it as a flaw present within the game, the design intention is still apparent. A fast-paced, non-stop hurdle of an obstacle course that offers high rewards in exchange for high skill, filled to the brim with cool set pieces to make Sonic’s conquest of the area as cool as humanly possible.
What sets Advance 2 apart from SA2, however, as well as every other game in the franchise, is its insurmountable yet satisfying to achieve skill ceiling.
While SA2’s trick system focuses on the player’s skill to chain together attacks and usage of the B button, Advance 2’s trick system retains that feel of being Cool As Shit while also focusing on something far more important - movement. Each trick is designed to grant Sonic that extra push of aerial movement he needs to reach a distant platform, and allows him to keep momentum going as soon as he lands on his feet. Combined with the fact that you get much higher vertical jump height by pressing the jump button before a grind rail/ramp launch, aerial movement with the trick system is versatile and incredibly precise to master. The trick system also has the unspoken niche of giving Sonic the ability to interrupt his aerial trajectory, allowing him almost complete control over where he wishes to go without sacrificing boost mode in the process.
Oh yeah boost mode
Boost mode is, in my own personal opinion, the single most innovative addition to 2D Sonic as a formula. Unlike later iterations that made the Boost immediately available and invulnerable towards most enemies, Boost Mode is a reward for expert gameplay, demanding a high level of skill, smart memorisation of the level layout, quick decision-making and free-flowing platforming in order to earn it, while still being vulnerable to enemies to prevent complacency from the players’ end. And much like the later boost games, Advance 2’s obstacle course level design also constantly hurls itself at the player, challenging their ability to maintain this wildly uncontrollable form of speed against wave after wave of hazards and enemies. The ring system also gets some much-needed love beyond being a recognition of the player’s ability to not take damage (an incredibly easy feat if you go slow SMH), with higher ring counts making attainment of Boost Mode quicker. In a way, Boost Mode fully embraces the speedrunning nature of video games, requiring players to master their craft of the trick system, recognise the ideal route for optimum speed, be constantly aware of their surroundings and the hazards ahead, and discovering dash pads that allow them to maintain Boost Mode while weaving past the complexity of the level design.
All three mechanics come together to form an unprecedented sense of resonance and harmony with one another, forming a satisfying feedback loop that constantly intertwines within itself in a short timeframe. Get rings. Faster activation of boost mode. Utilise trick system to maintain boost mode. Up to this point I’ve yet to mention Sonic’s Air Dash, which, with its (admittedly flawed) difficult input, further raises the bar required to master the high speeds of Advance 2. When everything blends together, the end result is a thrilling adrenaline rush which pushes you to the absolute limit. A perfect middle line between Classic Sonic's focus on momentum, fluidity and earning speed, and Modern Sonic's focus on decision-making, adrenaline-fueling thrills and maintaining speed.
In Advance 2, every action and decision is a commitment from the player that can either see them passing with flying colours or crash and burn. With its notoriously high skill ceiling, the average players’ experience is extremely divisive. You either fail miserably, or you run like the coolest motherfucker on the planet. Just like Sonic. Just like those split-second decisions that often decide life or death.
To me, Sonic Advance 2 represents the pinnacle of Sonic as a control character. It simply feels like Sonic. Nothing else comes quite as close.
Never fear the fall.
Final score: 8.5/10
Focus: How Advance 2 represents the peak of Sonic as a playable character.
...but definitely fear the random monkey obscured by the tiny GBA screen.
But has there ever been a game that plays like Sonic?
Super speed is undoubtedly a coveted superpower most people yearn for - but do they really understand the mastery it demands to make split-second decisions in the blink of an eye? Indeed, limitless speed is extremely useful, but it is simultaneously an untamed beast that can drive you headfirst into a barrier at mach speeds. This is how Sonic always views the world, as a disfigured blur of colourful masses where a split-second glimpse of a hazard may be the last image he ever witnesses.
Across every single game in the franchise, Sonic Advance 2 is consistently the best representation of how it feels to be Sonic.
Of course, the most accurate Sonic experience cannot be completed without suiting music and visuals to back up the gameplay. Thankfully, Advance 2 delivers on both aspects, with the sharpest, most striking 2D Sonic sprite to date, complete with cool-looking afterimages to express your dominance and control over the game’s pace. The environments themselves have a sharp edge to them, with contrasting color palettes littering the terrain and background to further push the cool vibes Advance 2 goes for. The visuals go well with the constant high-octane, high adrenaline music, which leaves its mark with a consistent and prominently featured rhythmic pulse beat that constantly urges the player to rush past everything around them.
It has been commonly theorised that the Dimps GBA trilogy is modeled from the mainline Adventure trilogy that was released around the same timeframe, and I personally agree with this standpoint. Advance 1 takes a more tamer, simplistic approach that introduces Modern elements into 2D Sonic, much as Adventure brought about the origins of the Modern classification in general. Later on, Advance 3 would also take inspiration from Heroes’ team-based gameplay mechanics with its Tag Action gimmick. This leaves Advance 2 as the 2D counterpart of Adventure 2, and if you observe the design of SA2’s speed stages, you’d notice similarities in how both games play. They both implement a trick system that incentivises players to storm through the level in style, and both have specialised attention to the speed and spectacle of their levels. Heck, SA2’s most iconic set piece has Sonic skateboarding on a constant downhill slope, just like literally every level in Advance 2! That being said, while I do disagree with Dimps’ approach to making every level share the exact same geographical structure, and acknowledge it as a flaw present within the game, the design intention is still apparent. A fast-paced, non-stop hurdle of an obstacle course that offers high rewards in exchange for high skill, filled to the brim with cool set pieces to make Sonic’s conquest of the area as cool as humanly possible.
What sets Advance 2 apart from SA2, however, as well as every other game in the franchise, is its insurmountable yet satisfying to achieve skill ceiling.
While SA2’s trick system focuses on the player’s skill to chain together attacks and usage of the B button, Advance 2’s trick system retains that feel of being Cool As Shit while also focusing on something far more important - movement. Each trick is designed to grant Sonic that extra push of aerial movement he needs to reach a distant platform, and allows him to keep momentum going as soon as he lands on his feet. Combined with the fact that you get much higher vertical jump height by pressing the jump button before a grind rail/ramp launch, aerial movement with the trick system is versatile and incredibly precise to master. The trick system also has the unspoken niche of giving Sonic the ability to interrupt his aerial trajectory, allowing him almost complete control over where he wishes to go without sacrificing boost mode in the process.
Oh yeah boost mode
Boost mode is, in my own personal opinion, the single most innovative addition to 2D Sonic as a formula. Unlike later iterations that made the Boost immediately available and invulnerable towards most enemies, Boost Mode is a reward for expert gameplay, demanding a high level of skill, smart memorisation of the level layout, quick decision-making and free-flowing platforming in order to earn it, while still being vulnerable to enemies to prevent complacency from the players’ end. And much like the later boost games, Advance 2’s obstacle course level design also constantly hurls itself at the player, challenging their ability to maintain this wildly uncontrollable form of speed against wave after wave of hazards and enemies. The ring system also gets some much-needed love beyond being a recognition of the player’s ability to not take damage (an incredibly easy feat if you go slow SMH), with higher ring counts making attainment of Boost Mode quicker. In a way, Boost Mode fully embraces the speedrunning nature of video games, requiring players to master their craft of the trick system, recognise the ideal route for optimum speed, be constantly aware of their surroundings and the hazards ahead, and discovering dash pads that allow them to maintain Boost Mode while weaving past the complexity of the level design.
All three mechanics come together to form an unprecedented sense of resonance and harmony with one another, forming a satisfying feedback loop that constantly intertwines within itself in a short timeframe. Get rings. Faster activation of boost mode. Utilise trick system to maintain boost mode. Up to this point I’ve yet to mention Sonic’s Air Dash, which, with its (admittedly flawed) difficult input, further raises the bar required to master the high speeds of Advance 2. When everything blends together, the end result is a thrilling adrenaline rush which pushes you to the absolute limit. A perfect middle line between Classic Sonic's focus on momentum, fluidity and earning speed, and Modern Sonic's focus on decision-making, adrenaline-fueling thrills and maintaining speed.
In Advance 2, every action and decision is a commitment from the player that can either see them passing with flying colours or crash and burn. With its notoriously high skill ceiling, the average players’ experience is extremely divisive. You either fail miserably, or you run like the coolest motherfucker on the planet. Just like Sonic. Just like those split-second decisions that often decide life or death.
To me, Sonic Advance 2 represents the pinnacle of Sonic as a control character. It simply feels like Sonic. Nothing else comes quite as close.
Never fear the fall.
Final score: 8.5/10
Focus: How Advance 2 represents the peak of Sonic as a playable character.
...but definitely fear the random monkey obscured by the tiny GBA screen.
Pokémon: Fool's Gold
2020
Has some really great monster design, first of all; would adore to see the team behind this do their own game instead of expanding on this. Honestly was just really nice, as someone who almost never meshes well with Pokémon ROMhacks, this was perfect for me. It’s a scenario I know well, the Crystal Version’s story, so I can kind of not waste time figuring out what to do because I already know, so I just get to enjoy this artificial simulation of seeing a new Pokémon for the first time over and over :)
A lot of hacks try and mix old Pokémon with “Fakémon,” and sometimes the clashing design styles of official and fanmade creatures is stark. So, why not just remix all of the Pokémon? Take an original design’s general idea and stir it up! Porygon is a computer duck, so why not mix it up by making him Normal- and Water-type. Now he’s just a funky duck!!! And it’s the best shit ever! A really great vibe from this one, some of the spritework is really amazing. I always hate composing a team on the fly, though, and I have other games I want to prioritize, so I’ll come back to this one when I can take a look at the Pokédex and plan a team and zoom through.
A lot of hacks try and mix old Pokémon with “Fakémon,” and sometimes the clashing design styles of official and fanmade creatures is stark. So, why not just remix all of the Pokémon? Take an original design’s general idea and stir it up! Porygon is a computer duck, so why not mix it up by making him Normal- and Water-type. Now he’s just a funky duck!!! And it’s the best shit ever! A really great vibe from this one, some of the spritework is really amazing. I always hate composing a team on the fly, though, and I have other games I want to prioritize, so I’ll come back to this one when I can take a look at the Pokédex and plan a team and zoom through.
Pokedoku
2023
When asked to choose a Ground and Steel type Pokémon, many would choose mons like Excadrill or Steelix, while only a select few will think of Galarian Stunfisk. That is, my friends, what separates the brave from the cowards.
This is quite literally what says on the box and then some; a take on Sudoku in which you guess Pokémon, be it by their types, region, sub-category and more, and it can be a real head-scratcher with how specific it can get with certain combinations in which very few mons fit in. It couldn’t get simpler than this, and it manages to be pretty fun, not only really testing the memory of fans of the series like myself, but also it can get really tricky with having only 9 attempts, meaning you can only really ‘’win’’ by doing it perfectly first try, and the uniqueness stat which really invites you to try to think about mons many others would normally forget about. It just takes five minutes to do it each day and the novelty will eventually wear off like so many games of this style already have proven, but that’s more of an inescapable condition with the kind of game this is rather than a true flaw, hell, the only real gripe I could have with this would be how the original franchise catalogues some of its monsters, and that’s not even a fault of this game specifically.
So yeah, game good! It takes a simple idea and keeps that one while introducing enough to make it interesting and even sometimes funny, and discussing the ‘’doku’’ of the day with others after doing it can be pretty fun and get you to learn facts about the franchise otherwise pretty specific or obscure…
Having said that I have only one request, specifically to Game Freak… MAKE NECROZMA COUNT AS A ULTRA BEAST IN THE GAMES YOU GODDAM COWARDS, IT WOULD MAKE SO MUCH SENSE WHY THE HELL IT ISN’T PROGRAMMED AS ONE ALREA-
This is quite literally what says on the box and then some; a take on Sudoku in which you guess Pokémon, be it by their types, region, sub-category and more, and it can be a real head-scratcher with how specific it can get with certain combinations in which very few mons fit in. It couldn’t get simpler than this, and it manages to be pretty fun, not only really testing the memory of fans of the series like myself, but also it can get really tricky with having only 9 attempts, meaning you can only really ‘’win’’ by doing it perfectly first try, and the uniqueness stat which really invites you to try to think about mons many others would normally forget about. It just takes five minutes to do it each day and the novelty will eventually wear off like so many games of this style already have proven, but that’s more of an inescapable condition with the kind of game this is rather than a true flaw, hell, the only real gripe I could have with this would be how the original franchise catalogues some of its monsters, and that’s not even a fault of this game specifically.
So yeah, game good! It takes a simple idea and keeps that one while introducing enough to make it interesting and even sometimes funny, and discussing the ‘’doku’’ of the day with others after doing it can be pretty fun and get you to learn facts about the franchise otherwise pretty specific or obscure…
Having said that I have only one request, specifically to Game Freak… MAKE NECROZMA COUNT AS A ULTRA BEAST IN THE GAMES YOU GODDAM COWARDS, IT WOULD MAKE SO MUCH SENSE WHY THE HELL IT ISN’T PROGRAMMED AS ONE ALREA-
Gradius III
1989
Back when I started playing the Gradius games both out of interest and for this website, I originally dreaded each installment that I decided to take on. Given how ruthless each game in the series is, and given how much of a rude awakening I had when I decided to play through the original game, can you really blame me initially? But, now that I have reached this point, I actually find myself being extremely excited to jump back into this series once again. Especially in this case, considering that Gradius II was, undeniably, the best game in the series so far, providing the best arcade action that the series could muster at that point, along with just enough additions to make it that much more satisfying to conquer. So it was clear that, when it came to the main titles at least, the main focus was going to be on making a more tight and satisfying experience for each installment, while also making sure to ramp up the difficulty that much more, just to make sure you don’t forget what you are playing. That all could be clearly seen upon playing Gradius III.
Unlike with Gradius II, I decided to stick with the SNES version of the game for two specific reasons. One, it was the first version of the game that we ever got here in America, so I figured it would only be appropriate to play the game as we originally got it, and two, when this game was released originally in arcades in Japan, the game was apparently much harder then the previous games, to the point where Konami had to pull the game from the arcades shortly after. Think about that for a second. A Gradius game that KONAMI thought was too hard. That is honestly pretty scary considering how hard the previous games already were. So, I played through the SNES version of the game, and I am glad that I did, because this may just be the best game in the series so far. Yeah, I know I said that about Gradius II, but this game just feels like a much more tight, fun, and well put together experience, and with the features in this version, it is more accessible to players than ever before…….. while still making sure to kick your ass most of the time.
The graphics are… basically on par with the other arcade Gradius games like Gradius II, but it still looks pretty good, so I am completely ok with it, the music is quite possibly the best in the entire series so far, having plenty of incredible tracks that had me pumped up to take down any fucker that came my way, while also providing the exact quality I expect from SNES soundtracks from Konami, the control is as I hoped it would be, allowing you enough versatility with your basic movement that only gets better as you keep upgrading yourself, and it all feels great to control, and the gameplay does feel the best that it has ever been so far………. but it is also still exactly what you would expect from a Gradius game.
The game plays pretty much identically for the most part to Gradius II, or any other Gradius beforehand, where you take control of the Vic Viper, take on a set of ten extremely difficult stages, shoot down as many enemies as you can feasibly take on while making sure to avoid all of their fire as best as you can, gather plenty of powerups to upgrade yourself and take out many of the enemies on screen to give yourself an edge up on the threats that you will face, and take on plenty of difficult, yet exciting bosses throughout the game, challenging your skills to an immense degree. Anyone who has played any of the games in this series knows this song and dance, you live, you die, you feel that sense of agony wash over your entire body, and then you keep at it, but is there anything that new that makes this game much more unique then the previous title? Well… no, not too many new features have been added, but the features that are added do still make this a very enjoyable experience.
The biggest new feature to this game would be with the Edit Mode, which is added alongside the Type Select option. Now, instead of choosing one of five sets of upgrades that you could take with you into the stages, you are now able to create your own loadout of upgrades to venture forth with, and there is a lot of different options to choose from, allowing for many different ways of approaching the challenges ahead. There are also specific upgrades that can only be found within Edit Mode or outside of it, which does encourage you to try out many different layouts as you go through the game and inevitably die over and over again. In addition to all this, for the SNES version of the game, there is now a difficulty option screen, and honestly, THANK GOD FOR THAT. Look, I know Gradius is supposed to be extremely difficult through and through, but considering what I had to go through five and half previous games, I will gladly take any assistance I can.
That being said though, the amount of assistance you get from this game isn’t much. The game is still extremely difficult, and will require you to play at your best ability to even get close to beating it whatsoever, so if you are hoping that the difficulty is still retained for this installment, you better believe it is. Even when it came to Easy mode in the SNES version, it was still pretty hard at plenty of points, and it didn’t get any better whenever I jumped up to the other difficulties. And speaking of which, this game also does that bullshit thing Konami loves to do by placing the good ending behind the harder difficulties… and by that, I mean they place the actual ending behind the harder difficulties, whereas in Easy mode, the game just… ends. Then again, the ending is about what you would expect from a Gradius game, so nothing more needs to be said about it.
In terms of actual problems about the game itself, there isn’t really much I could say in relation to that. If you have played Gradius before, you know what to expect when it comes to difficulty, and the locked ending isn’t really that much of an issue this time around, so really, it doesn’t have too much dragging it down. Unless, of course, you are playing the SNES version, which has slowdown EVERYWHERE. Since there is usually a lot going on in this game, it chugs along every step of the way, and while the slowdown does help in plenty of instances, there are also times where it can also be a bit of a nuisance. Thankfully though, there is a hack of this game that exists only to completely fix the slowdown issues, so if you wanted to play through the SNES version without any of that, there ya go. Go nuts with it.
Overall, despite the slowdown issues and how not too much is changed with the formula in this installment, I still found myself having a blast with Gradius III, and out of all of the titles in this series that I have played so far, I guarantee that I will be coming back to this one the most out of them all. Sure, the other titles have their merits, but this one just managed to give me the most enjoyment and satisfaction out of all of them so far. I definitely recommend it for fans of the Gradius series, or even for those who wanna try to jump into it, because it is definitely one of the best places to do so. Aw man, I’m so pumped up after that review, it makes me wanna get to the next title in the series right now! So tell me, when does Gradius IV come out?.................... a whole TEN years later, huh? And before that, there are the Game Boy games that I have to go through, huh?...... ok, that’s… that’s fine. I’m definitely not sad at all…
Game #386
Unlike with Gradius II, I decided to stick with the SNES version of the game for two specific reasons. One, it was the first version of the game that we ever got here in America, so I figured it would only be appropriate to play the game as we originally got it, and two, when this game was released originally in arcades in Japan, the game was apparently much harder then the previous games, to the point where Konami had to pull the game from the arcades shortly after. Think about that for a second. A Gradius game that KONAMI thought was too hard. That is honestly pretty scary considering how hard the previous games already were. So, I played through the SNES version of the game, and I am glad that I did, because this may just be the best game in the series so far. Yeah, I know I said that about Gradius II, but this game just feels like a much more tight, fun, and well put together experience, and with the features in this version, it is more accessible to players than ever before…….. while still making sure to kick your ass most of the time.
The graphics are… basically on par with the other arcade Gradius games like Gradius II, but it still looks pretty good, so I am completely ok with it, the music is quite possibly the best in the entire series so far, having plenty of incredible tracks that had me pumped up to take down any fucker that came my way, while also providing the exact quality I expect from SNES soundtracks from Konami, the control is as I hoped it would be, allowing you enough versatility with your basic movement that only gets better as you keep upgrading yourself, and it all feels great to control, and the gameplay does feel the best that it has ever been so far………. but it is also still exactly what you would expect from a Gradius game.
The game plays pretty much identically for the most part to Gradius II, or any other Gradius beforehand, where you take control of the Vic Viper, take on a set of ten extremely difficult stages, shoot down as many enemies as you can feasibly take on while making sure to avoid all of their fire as best as you can, gather plenty of powerups to upgrade yourself and take out many of the enemies on screen to give yourself an edge up on the threats that you will face, and take on plenty of difficult, yet exciting bosses throughout the game, challenging your skills to an immense degree. Anyone who has played any of the games in this series knows this song and dance, you live, you die, you feel that sense of agony wash over your entire body, and then you keep at it, but is there anything that new that makes this game much more unique then the previous title? Well… no, not too many new features have been added, but the features that are added do still make this a very enjoyable experience.
The biggest new feature to this game would be with the Edit Mode, which is added alongside the Type Select option. Now, instead of choosing one of five sets of upgrades that you could take with you into the stages, you are now able to create your own loadout of upgrades to venture forth with, and there is a lot of different options to choose from, allowing for many different ways of approaching the challenges ahead. There are also specific upgrades that can only be found within Edit Mode or outside of it, which does encourage you to try out many different layouts as you go through the game and inevitably die over and over again. In addition to all this, for the SNES version of the game, there is now a difficulty option screen, and honestly, THANK GOD FOR THAT. Look, I know Gradius is supposed to be extremely difficult through and through, but considering what I had to go through five and half previous games, I will gladly take any assistance I can.
That being said though, the amount of assistance you get from this game isn’t much. The game is still extremely difficult, and will require you to play at your best ability to even get close to beating it whatsoever, so if you are hoping that the difficulty is still retained for this installment, you better believe it is. Even when it came to Easy mode in the SNES version, it was still pretty hard at plenty of points, and it didn’t get any better whenever I jumped up to the other difficulties. And speaking of which, this game also does that bullshit thing Konami loves to do by placing the good ending behind the harder difficulties… and by that, I mean they place the actual ending behind the harder difficulties, whereas in Easy mode, the game just… ends. Then again, the ending is about what you would expect from a Gradius game, so nothing more needs to be said about it.
In terms of actual problems about the game itself, there isn’t really much I could say in relation to that. If you have played Gradius before, you know what to expect when it comes to difficulty, and the locked ending isn’t really that much of an issue this time around, so really, it doesn’t have too much dragging it down. Unless, of course, you are playing the SNES version, which has slowdown EVERYWHERE. Since there is usually a lot going on in this game, it chugs along every step of the way, and while the slowdown does help in plenty of instances, there are also times where it can also be a bit of a nuisance. Thankfully though, there is a hack of this game that exists only to completely fix the slowdown issues, so if you wanted to play through the SNES version without any of that, there ya go. Go nuts with it.
Overall, despite the slowdown issues and how not too much is changed with the formula in this installment, I still found myself having a blast with Gradius III, and out of all of the titles in this series that I have played so far, I guarantee that I will be coming back to this one the most out of them all. Sure, the other titles have their merits, but this one just managed to give me the most enjoyment and satisfaction out of all of them so far. I definitely recommend it for fans of the Gradius series, or even for those who wanna try to jump into it, because it is definitely one of the best places to do so. Aw man, I’m so pumped up after that review, it makes me wanna get to the next title in the series right now! So tell me, when does Gradius IV come out?.................... a whole TEN years later, huh? And before that, there are the Game Boy games that I have to go through, huh?...... ok, that’s… that’s fine. I’m definitely not sad at all…
Game #386
Sonic Mania
2017
Hmmm.... this game is OK, but I think it would be a lot better with cheap looking 3D graphics and a shitty fake genesis soundfont for half the soundtrack
Pokedoku
2023
I like how if you dare to get even a single one wrong it shows you a sad as fuck Pikachu from that scene in the Mewtwo movie where he kills Ash, but if you get all of them right it just completely underplays your efforts by giving you meaningless percentages to your guesses like "Wow, congrats on not traumatizing Pikachu today by remembering Urshifu the 4th time this week, but you and others 54% also chose him, so try to be more unique next time sweetie💅💅💅💅💅"