I just wanna ask: Did Naka or Iizuka lose a bet or something? Did someone point a gun at them(hah), forcing them to convince everyone else at SEGA that this was a good idea? What happened here?

This game helped me in realizing just how much I fucking despise this setting for Sonic. The plastic-y models for Sonic & co. return from Heroes, but now we have the dumbass humans back in the story, which leads to some ridiculous whiplash every time there's cutscenes with Shadow and the President/GUN Commander back to back, shit's almost as bad as the Pirates of the Caribbean world in KH2.
Some stages look nice, like Digital Circuit, but most of them are so drab and boring when compared to Heroes. I mean, I get why, they were trying to make this one gritty and all that other bullshit, but it just falls flat in its face.

It's almost adorable how much it fails at being cool, actually. They go SO FAR(but not far enough, more on that later) in trying to ramp up the edge that it loops around and turns into some lame ass shlock instead. Shadow, you don't need a fucking glock to be cool. You were already cool in Adventure 2. That first shot in the opening FMV where he cocks a gun is as imposing as a Disney World costume character holding a super soaker.

Not that using the guns is bad by itself, mind you. In fact, actually playing Shadow the Hedgehog wasn't the worst thing in the world. The controls are not as tight as Sonic Heroes; I guess they noticed Shadow had those Air Shoes and thought "Hey, he should like. float a bit, right?", meaning you slip and slide a lot easier now. But the homing attack works just fine, the spindash is back(even though you can't use it while running), and the guns' lock on works well enough. Mission structure is a bit repetitious though, even for someone who loved Mission mode/Trials in SA1 and Team Chaotix in Heroes. Sure, Chaotix had you looking for 60 candles in Mystic Mansion, but that's like 10 stages into the game. Shadow the Hedgehog asks that you kill 45 Aliens in the very first mission, and looking for them with slippery controls like these isn't as fun.

Speaking of missions: Branching paths. What kind of herb were they partaking of when they cooked this shit up.
Like, the idea of having hero/neutral/dark routes isn't bad, but what's the with overabundance of paths? Three hundred and twenty fucking six different paths are available for the ultimate gamer to make Shadow the perfectly balanced life form. Oh yeah, I love taking the hero path all the way to the end, only to heel-turn at the very last second just to screw Sonic over like some bipolar fuckhead. Why not just have 3 routes to follow determined by what objective you complete in Westopolis?
Kill all Aliens = You're on the hero route where you help Sonic and friends defeat the Black Arms. Head straight for the goal = Neutral route where you don't really give a shit about either faction and end up using the emeralds to find the truth by yourself. Kill all cops = You side with Black Doom to help him take over the world in exchange for your memories(kind of a disproportionate trade if you ask me). That's all they had to do.
Instead, you can choose to/accidentally complete a mission from a different alignment, but because you're so far in a specific route, the next cutscene will act as if you're still a good/bad guy.

I finished 3 runs for my playthrough: Full hero, full neutral, and full dark, meaning there were some stages and story bits I missed, but I looked them up.

This story fucking blows. You're telling me the Commander watched Maria getting a bullet through her back thanks to a GUN soldier, an event which traumatized him, only to join them years later? And apparently he hates Shadow too. If that's the case, why the fuck does the military go after Sonic in Adventure 2? If this mike pence looking piece of shit really had his asshole in a knot because of Shadow and was also a part of GUN, you'd think he'd let everyone else in the organization know. Also Gerald actually had good intentions and we should honor his legacy, I guess?
Not only that, but this is the same Shadow from Heroes(and by extension SA2 since he's the original), right? If so, he already made a bond with the rest of the cast back when fighting Metal Overlord. Why does he think that Black Doom is his only alternative to finding answers about his past when Sonic and the rest of the gang, including Rouge who spent enough time with Shadow and snooped around Eggman's PC/Shadow's containment room in Heroes, are right there? Sure, they don't have all the answers to his past, but what makes him think Black Doom does? Wasn't the moon fucking blown in half when Eggman pissed on it back in SA2? This IS the same continuity, right? "Blah blah, it's a game for kids and things are just supposed to look cool", well if you're gonna give me 326 possible routes and ask that I complete 10 endings to play the actual final stage, AT LEAST pretend to give a shit.

I already disliked the story in Adventure 2. I think it tries to do too much for a series that really has no excuse to fall into plot holes or inconsistencies given how simple Sonic is in concept. The story there was dogshit, this is even worse somehow.

A half-hearted, cowardly attempt at turning this series into something it isn't, and more than that, something it never wanted to be. Why can't I see Sonic's brain fucking oozing out from his bazooka-blasted hedgehole after I kill him? One of the endings implies Shadow kills himself. Why won't they show me the body? Where's the pool of blood next to Maria's cold ass corpse in that flashback? (Granted, all of these things would make this game even worse to me lmao)
The answer? They didn't actually want to take any of this seriously. They didn't want to commit. It's still Sonic, like you've always known, but now we have gunshot SFXs in the menus, the saturation is turned down on most stages(which hilariously clashes with the McDonalds ass character models for the main cast), and Shadow says damn here and there. This game has all the cool-factor of a kid grabbing a gun from his father's closet and waving it around to show how crazy and messed up he is, but he can't pull the trigger. It's not even loaded. It's not even a real gun. Fuck this game.

POST PUBLISH EDIT: Back in my Adventure 1 review, I mentioned that despite its many flaws, that game still managed to win me over thanks to it wearing its heart on its sleeve. Shadow the Hedgehog is the complete opposite of that, as I alluded to previously by calling the game "cowardly"; it feels like this game doesn't want to be here. It doesn't want to do what it's doing, but someone else is pulling the strings so it dances to the tune anyway. It's not honest or confident in itself the same way Adventure 1 was.

Not only that, but it feels like a lot of the people who do fuck with the presentation here kind of enjoy it "ironically"? Like "Haha look at how weird this shit is" or "well, it really is stupid, but try to enjoy the stupid!"(Nothing wrong with that, mind you)
Speaking for myself, I don't really like laughing at something, I'd much rather laugh with it, which is why RE4 is one of my favorite games ever. THAT game knows how bullshit bonkers everything is and it shows that off like a badge of honor. But because this game lacks any self awareness, and also seems embarrassed of itself at points, it really feels like the only approach you can take with it is the former: laughing at it.

(It has some great music though, I can't take that away from it. Shoutout to the GUN Fortress theme, which I had on loop when writing this. If the game went for this kind of energy instead of trying to be more like "All of Me", maybe it would've been better.)

Talk about a wasted opportunity. A fighting game with Sonic characters is such easy money, but this ain't it.

First impressions were all over the place. The art is out-fucking-standing, this is SUCH a good look for the gang, but I swear I felt my ears bleeding a little bit with that Mode Select BGM. Whoever decided to use that guitar sample for multiple tracks in the game, you have a special place in hell set aside for you. The soundtrack as a whole is pretty weak, with a couple exceptions (Holy Summit is so good, no wonder they brought it back for Advance 3.)

The writing is cheeky and fun, and the story itself was entertaining enough but good lord the progression here is absolute dogshit. How do you like fighting the same character twice(or more!) in a row, with more rounds each time? How about selecting a random building just for shits and giggles since it's your first time playing, only to be assaulted by Emerl clones because you dared to explore a little bit?
The moment I realized I could win most battles by either spamming normal attacks or special R attacks, you bet your ass that turbo button was on and the frameskip was rolling. While the combat system is interesting on the surface, it's just not very satisfying. Even when customizing Emerl with new skills, every fight feels like a slapfest, with everyone waving those foam spaghetti things in the air.

Uh, what else... Oh, it looks really good. Sonic's GBA entries always had beautiful sprites, and Battle brought so many great animations to the whole cast. I also love the 3D environments, always cool to see that on the GBA, even though I wished it was a normal 2D fighting game instead.

That really just sums it up. I wish this was a regular ass 2D fighter on the PS2 or some shit. Instead, we have a weird arena fighter with some interesting ideas that ultimately aren't very satisfying. The story isn't good enough to warrant playing this all the way to completion, I feel. Cute character moments don't make up for all the "fight Gamma again for the millionth time" you have to sit through.

Heroes was my first 3D Sonic, and I never played it again since then. Revisiting the series now, I was afraid that it wouldn't be as good as I remembered. Man, what a relief. It's better!

For starters, my console growing up was the PS2, and that version is fucked up. Going with the GameCube version now, the solid 60fps alone was enough to make me smile. But shit, there's so much more that I appreciate here now.

I LOVE the music. It immediately takes me back to my childhood bedroom, blasting through Ocean Palace at 2 o'clock after school. Character models are a bit too plastic-y but environments are super charming, especially the flat-ass skyboxes. Every "zone" is very distinct from one another, tons of visual variety all around.

Actually playing the game was great too, like slipping back into a comfy pair of socks. There was some occasional jank of course, like dropping momentum at the loop corners or falling off platforms with a Power character mid-combo, but let's not pretend like that's not the case for every 3D Sonic game up to this point and beyond lmao
Speaking of Power characters! The combat here is so one-note that, in a weird way, it kinda works? Blasting enemies away with Knuckles, Omega and Vector was great, I took every opportunity to stop and clear the room when I could.
And speaking of Vector! Team Chaotix is just Adventure 1's mission mode, which I GREATLY appreciate.

Also! The Special Stages! They don't ask you to pixel hunt around every single fucking corner for 10 Chao or SP Rings! Just hold on to the Special Key(which there are multiple of per-stage) until the end and you're golden. THIS is how you do it. The stages themselves are fine, great music, but god damn do you end up in the ceiling way more than you should.

The story is very simple, but that's always my favorite approach when it comes to Sonic. It plants some seeds for future events like the stuff that happens with Shadow, but it never made me roll my eyes as was the case with Adventure 2.

All that said, I never finished the game when I was little. I kept playing through Team Sonic and Team Shadow's routes ad nauseum, so needless to say I was really excited to finish the last story segment this time after listening to What I'm Made Of so many times. It was... Disappointing. In terms of gameplay, that is; the presentation for the final battle is raw as all hell, thanks in large part to the aforementioned theme. But man, only being able to damage Metal Sonic with a Team Blast? A Team Blast that interrupts AND SKIPS the background music, at that? Nah, this could've been much better. (Also, what's with Tails and Knuckles not getting anything special for their Super forms? Like, I get that Sonic is the one transforming, but come on... They're a team. Give Tails his flickies and Knuckles some ancient Echidna markings on his body, fucking ANYTHING but a glowing ball)

This was super fun. Few games are able to turn back the clock for me, but this one takes me back to simpler days very easily.

Ok, let me see if I got this right. In order to access a special stage, you need to collect 10 chao in a zone, 3 per act, 1 in the hub world, then find a special key, then use ketchup to fake your death and lure the guard in, then examine the bottom of the wine bottle, then collect all of Dracula's remains in the inverted castle, then find all the crests to get the Magnum, then draw all of Exodia's pieces with Royal Magical Library, then start World War III to awaken Azazel and then kill it, then dodge 200 lightning bolts in a row, then lure all the sheep to you using lettuce, then FADC into super, and then FINALLY find the special stage spring in the hub world and jump on it.

Sonic Advance 2, I owe you an apology. When reviewing you, I said you had the worst emerald hunt in the series up to that point. You are now relieved of that title. Go home to your wife and kids, and rest. You've earned it.

Thankfully, you can simply ignore the chaos emeralds and play the game like a sane individual and then look up the true ending online, which is what I decided to do after grabbing the first emerald in Route 99. From that perspective, Advance 3 is fun! I love the partner mechanic and how each combination can alter your playstyle in interesting ways. Props to all the extra spritework too, Tails flying with a hammer when paired with Amy is super cute.

Extra points for being the first GBA game to break my hatred for the system's sound. In my Sonic Advance 1 review, I mentioned that I REALLY dislike the way games sound on the GBA, 0 exceptions. Now, let's make that one exception: Advance 3's OST is some crazy good shit. Best rendition of Green Hill Zone, Twinkle Snow, Cyber Track and god damn motherfuckin CHAOS ANGEL ACT 3. (Don't get used to it, GBA.)

Pretty fun game when playing normally, insanely boring if going for completion. Please stop, Dimps. Just make it 50 rings at the end of the stage, I'm BEGGING you.

Sad to say, I'm not too crazy about this one! After playing Advance 1 and finding it to be one of my favorite 2D Sonics so far, I had high hopes for Advance 2.

It's not awful; the visuals are even better now, my favorite addition being the "act start" animations for the characters, it controls a lot better and there are new movement options when jumping off springs or rails. Speeding around here feels good! ... Until you fall down a bottomless pit.

Also, uh. Possibly the worst emerald hunt in the series so far? The SP Rings SUCK.
Look, I don't mind a larger emphasis on exploration. Sonic CD is still my favorite 2D game in the series, but the difference between that game and Advance 2 is that CD was built with that exploration in mind. Not only that, but CD only had you finding 2 thingamabobs in each past version of the acts. Here, you have to find 7 of these fucking special rings before you can enter a special stage. Got 6? Tough shit, you're not going in. SP Rings don't carry between acts either, even though you can only nab one emerald per zone. Oh, and emeralds aren't shared between characters. Just dickheaded decisions all around.

Pretty disappointed ngl. Here's hoping Advance 3 wraps the trilogy up nicely.

Sonic and friends never looked this good in 2D until now. Advance is probably my favorite GBA game in terms of visuals, everything here looks so crisp, colorful and well animated. Sure, I'm probably biased since I used to make little sprite comics with the Advance sprites all the time when I was little, but still! Ending stills and menu sprites are also expertly crafted, this is just a beautiful looking game in general.

Plays really well too! I had tons of fun, and replaying the game for the true ending didn't feel exhausting since each character brings something different to the table. I even enjoyed playing as Amy! She can't roll into a ball but her somersault actually allowed me to get some crazy air time and complete certain zones faster than usual.

That said, god damn, every time I play a game on the GBA my ears feel like dying a little. I HATE the way every single game in this console sounds, 0 exceptions. Thank god for fan arrangements, because Sonic Advance has some really well composed tracks.

All in all, a great time. Even the special stages weren't that aggravating tbh.

I remember watching a review where someone said the Game Gear Sonic games were good enough to warrant a playthrough, and I couldn't agree. 8bit Sonic 1 and 2 were pretty forgettable to me, despite some original levels and gimmicks. They just didn't feel very good to play at all.
But Pocket Adventure? That's a different story.

Sure, the NGPC is a 16bit handheld, but you could fool me into thinking this is actually a well made 8bit Sonic game. It looks great, really. Sounds great too, although the music choices for certain zones were kind of weird. (Hydrocity playing in Chemical plant...?)

But actually controlling Sonic is what makes this game the only "early handheld" game in the series that's really worth checking out. Great sense of speed, tons of air time by spindashing+jumping off a slope, it all just feels right.

Oh, and no Oil Ocean Zone, so this is the definitive way to play Sonic 2. /s

"... Huh."

That was my first thought after finishing the last story segment. I've been away from the Sonic series since 2013, but I've always had fond memories of Adventure 2. Fun stages, cute graphics, and one hell of a soundtrack. When starting this recent marathon, I was really excited to revisit it and get all achievements for the first time. Oddly enough, the end result this time was the complete opposite of my experience with SA1. Going for 100% actually brought the game down a bit for me.

Before that though, I'll just get this out there: This story is awful. Yeah, Sonic games aren't particularly known for their deep narrative or anything like that, but the very premise of people mixing up Sonic and Shadow(including characters like Amy and Eggman, who would NEVER make that mistake in a million years) is INSANELY stupid. It boggles my mind to think that the story team genuinely took that approach here. But even if we push that aside, there are a lot of little things that drag down the story when put together. Why is the Master Emerald so tiny now? Can Knuckles stash it away and take it out when needed? If Rouge works for the president, why does she need to sneak into the Security Hall at all? Wouldn't she have clearance to snoop around? Eggman is fine with firing the Eclipse Cannon, but the ARK falling is an issue? The Cannon was Gerald's creation, not his. There's no way Eggman knew the Cannon wouldn't just split the earth in half without researching it first.

... Sure, it's a game for kids, but if they wanted to bring more attention to the story, they could at least give an actual shit about what's going on and be consistent. Otherwise, just stick to the Sonic vs Eggman dynamic.

The game's called Sonic Adventure 2, but the "Adventure" part is conveyed only through the aforementioned story. Compared to its predecessor, SA2 is very straightforward in terms of gameplay. Stage-to-stage, no frills, no bullshit. I used to think this was an improvement back in 2012, but revisiting it after 100%'ing SA1 for the first time recently, I'm actually disappointed? It would've been really cool to see the exploration bits fleshed out, with new places to move around in. Maybe even revisit some areas from the first game, who knows. Would've made the Missions a lot better, because man...

The journey to 100% was very exhausting here. In SA1, you had Trials and Missions. Trials were re-runs of the Action Stages from the story mode with new objectives, and each character had unique challenges thanks to the differences in their gameplay styles. On the other hand, Missions took full advantage of the exploration areas, leading you to really check out every nook and cranny in the 3 hubs.
SA2 obviously doesn't have hub worlds, so the really cool and varied Mission mode from SA1 is gone, meaning we only have Trials here. And they're not as good.
Each stage has 5 objectives: Clearing it to progress in the story, collecting 100 rings, finding a lost chao, clearing it under a time limit, and clearing a hard version of the stage. This is repeated for every single stage in the game, for every character, regardless of their abilities.

Why not spread the objectives around? Instead of doing the same 5 Missions with all characters, give the time limit Missions to Sonic and Shadow, the 100 rings Missions to Knuckles and Rouge, and the Hard stage Missions to Tails and Eggman, while keeping the lost chao Missions available for everyone. This keeps things fresh, unique and consistent. Sadly, that's not the route they took, meaning a LOT of bloat when digging through the emblem list. And speaking of chao...

Good lord, did they really have to add SO many races here???? Nothing changes! Once your chao is leveled enough, it's all the same shit! I fed my chao after every Mission with every character, so once I had all stage emblems, my boy was pretty damn buff. After spending a little bit of extra time getting his stats up there, every single race went the same, no variety, no input from me, nada. Maybe the pet simulator stuff just isn't for me. (I still love you アホ☆ヤロウ, don't worry.)

With all that said, the soundtrack is just as good as I remember, era-defining stuff all around. The weakest tracks are definitely on Tails and Eggman's stages, but there are a ton of gems in Sonic and Shadow's levels. God, I don't think there's a single bad track in Knuckles and Rouge's stages, they're all great.

It's not a bad game at all, it's really fun. But if I ever come back to it... I'll do a story playthrough and leave it at that. The 100% journey just isn't worth it, not for this one.

Bigger game, bigger review. My recent ones have been pretty short and to the point, which is fitting considering the complexity and length of the games. But oh boy, this is it. The big one. From the moment I started this marathon, this is the game I was most excited to play for the "first time".

This and SA2 were games I couldn't wait to play one day when I was really young. Growing up, my only console was a PS2, so all I could do(until I learned about emulation anyway) was drool over videos and screenshots of them on the internet. Years later I picked up the Steam version, played Sonic's portion of the story, and... Never picked it back up again. Probably because I dropped out of Sonic around that time.

When I completed the story mode in this latest playthrough, I was ready to give the game a fat ol' 3/5 all thanks to Big the goddamn Cat. At first I thought everyone was exaggerating; it can't be that bad. It's worse. This motherfucking cat makes me want to start an organization dedicated to eradicating games that feature fishing in any capacity. It's such an unfathomable and irrelevant pacebreaker, I genuinely can't process what the fuck they were thinking. His cutscene with Tikal and the Chaos Emeralds has to be the funniest thing ever, why the fuck is he being shown any of this?
The lack of plot relevance would be fine if at least the fishing mechanics worked. The number of times I lost a fish that was right next to me is out of this world.
"Well then how do you explain this 20 minute speedrun of Big's campaign huh?" Shut up.

Of course, Big's story wasn't my only grievance with the game. SA1 has one of the worst cameras I've ever had to deal with; I can't count how many times I fucked up a really cool shortcut because the camera decided to shift/not shift or get stuck somewhere. Aside from that, the cutscenes all have this really awkward feel to them, a mix of poor animations and stilted voice acting(except for Eggman, loved the guy.)

The soundtrack is hit-or-miss. There are some really good tracks here, but the quality isn't nearly as consistent as the 16bit games. For one, most of the vocal tracks are pretty meh; Open your Heart and Unknown from M.E. are obvious exceptions, while Tails' theme literally forced me to mute my TV. We're ways off from the apex of Sonic Unleashed's OST, that's for sure.

But before writing my review, I decided to check out the Trials/Missions, and man, am I glad I did. Missions mode is HELLA fun! I can't believe people don't talk about it more often! Tons of variety, funny little easter eags, and it got me to explore absolutely everything in the game. If I stopped after the main story, my thoughts on SA1 wouldn't be nearly as high as they are right now.

After all, at the end of the day, this is a videogame with a captial J. Sure, they wanted to try some story stuff, they might have gone too far with the variety(Big the Cat) and the camera can shit in your mouth on occasion, but actually playing it was so much fun, especially completing Trials and Missions. I couldn't put the controller down.

All in all, I still had fun, despite my problems with the game's presentation and some of the gameplay quirks. It's hard to be mad at a game that has this much heart, this eagerness to impress and inspire, even if it stumbles; traits that are shared with the very character that is Sonic the Hedgehog.

If one game should bear the title "Sonic Colors", it should be this one, damn is it colorful. Or Knuckles Colors, whatever.
What a pretty game! I love the spritework and animations here, everything is VERY bright and full of personality. The stage intro screen in particular is emblematic of the 90s, it genuinely looks sick as hell.

The game itself is a bit stale, tbh. The pair mechanic doesn't really add much to anything? There's nothing here that you couldn't do in a different game by just playing as Knuckles, if we're talking verticality. Sure, there's the odd switch or boss weakness that you have to hit by tossing your partner, but that's about the extent of it. Though, to be fair, you can get some insane speeds thanks to it.

Zones don't have much of a theme going on, they all felt veeeeeeeeeery samey, save like... The clock gimmick in Amazing Arena? Also, they're 5 Acts long. Why.

What really caught me by surprise was the music. I never heard anyone talking about it, and it's SO good. Marina Madness and Botanic Base are pure bliss, some of my favorite tracks in the series now.

Not a bad game, just a very "flat" one in terms of gameplay. It do be pretty tho

REVENGE OF DR. ROBOTONIC

The ACTUAL best 3D Sonic game in terms of visuals, I'm not even kidding around here. All would be right with the world and SEGA would be ruling supreme over all game companies if we got an action-adventure Sonic game with these graphics. Nintendo would have fallen, Sony would have begged to join SEGA in its quest for world domination, Microsoft would've stayed far away from the console business, trembling in fear and shame when stepping under the shadow of Sonic's gargantuan hold over the gaming industry.

... Okay, hyperbole aside, I just love the way this game looks. The 3D models, the super stretchy animations, the designs for characters like Bark, Bean and Honey; it's timeless in its charm and appeal.

Of course it's not a very polished fighting game, but it's a decent enough slapfest. I even tried to apply some of my Tekken knowledge for some mixed results.
Sounds great too, both in terms of music and sound effects. I could FEEL the pain behind some of these punches and stomps.