@acutebrooke YOOOOOO THE BROOKE BACKLOGGD DEBUT... so happy you liked this, especially considering you're probably the only person I know who knows this game even better than I do! completely agree about Ryan Drummond too; his Sonic in this game in particular is the one and only time that Sonic feels like a proper character to me rather than a caricature or mascot (including in the 'better written' games like Frontiers) and so much of that, to me, is indebted to Drummond's performance.

it's sad that you make that point about Sonic growing and changing because I feel like from every game onward starting with Heroes the series really lost its identity and began relying on pre-conceived notions of what Sonic was in the past, especially by regressing back into the more cartoony aesthetics reminiscent of the Genesis games and the more scrimblo bimblo-ass storytelling... it's at a point where I don't even know if Sonic can really reforge an identity anew like it did here, especially since we're 20 years on since the games ever felt confident and convicted in what it's doing

@lastkeymusic @gruel thank y'all so much! i'm glad people are picking up what i'm putting down haha

@deadlydonut lovely points, tying perfectly into what i said about the simplicity of sonic's character being his strongest suit in this game specifically - goodness, sincerity, and always aspiring to be better might be viewed as boring or one-dimensional, but they're also traits that everybody should always aspire to embody

@chandler oh i love the treasure hunting stages don't get me wrong, i just definitely feel like they drag their feet a little bit compared to the high skill ceiling of the other two modes - the element of RNG and reliance on memorizing the stages is cool in and of itself but it feels like an odd one out, having more in common with the racing stages more than anything

and yes absolutely lol. the toolkit sonic and shadow have in this game is crazy. i've watched so many videos of people completing a ton of non-sonic/shadow stages just by getting creative with the movement options

i haven't played DLC so it was for sure a main game thing. me and my best friend (who was my roommate at the time) played through it together and were sitting there losing our minds about joshua and dion being queerbait even after dion was in an actual gay romance