What a disappointment for a game I was hoping could at least be passable. I should have expected this, and I partially did, but wow.

Cosmic Shake claims to be the sequel to Battle For Bikini Bottom, but it's not the sequel to that beloved classic from our childhood, no it's for the overly saturated slow and clunky remake we got a few years ago. 3 years later and we not only have the same bugs and glitches but completely new ones to this game. You're not supposed to go backwards like that! It honestly just reeks of a strained budget and a team who doesn't know what they are doing at this point, which seems to be a thing with most modern Nickelodeon games.

Gameplay is...there? Yeah you platform across big levels, but there is just this emptiness that exists in each area. What made BFBB so much of a joy is that while there was a main objective to each area, there were still side objectives and goodies to find that were mandatory to beat the game, incentivizing exploration. Here it's just jellies and doubloons which are only used for an optional costume shop. Without the incentive of primary (golden spatulas, goober tokens) or secondary (socks, extras) collectables and all we have are the tertiary ones, there just feels like there is no point to going around looking for secrets or doing anything but the main objective. So you are just left in large linear areas with the most forgettable music of all time and nothing to do besides barebones platforming and combat that was nerfed from BFBB. Yeah let's get into the combat...

There are now set action scenes that require you to fight enemies to progress. Sure that's fine, but the issue lies when the enemies in this game are not fun to fight. They're all loosely based off robots from BFBB, but they just feel worst to fight. The duplicatotron expy has 3 hit points and between each hit has an aoe unblockable stun attack, or the giant beefcakes who can't be damaged until they just conveniently do that one attack that makes them able to take damage, who also have 3 hp. It makes combat a slog when it was very snappy in other Spongebob games, not just BFBB or Movie but like Creature as well. Sure, you unlock new abilities in each level, but they all feel clunky to use like nearly everything else in this game.

This show also has that modern Spongebob folly to never stand on its own two feet and must rely on stuff from the show to keep going. While I understand it's cool to have references in a license game, I loved when BFBB did that, it is just so ham fisted that nearly everything in this game was "LOOK AT THE THING! ITS THE THING FROM THE SHOW/BFBB!!!!!" and it feels like this game barely has an identity to stand on. I think the trailers mainly using Band Geeks music as well as showing off all the costumes from other episodes really shows how little creativity went into this game. It hopes you cling onto your nostalgia the entire time without any substance.

Oh yeah speaking of those costumes, fun fact. This game came with a day 1 DLC for all the costumes you would most likely want that were shown in trailers mind you. Kind of fucked to see that you can play as spongegar in the trailers and then realize hes locked behind a $10 paywall. I know it's not important but this kind of backhanded marketing kind of fucked me up. Like there is already an in game costume shop but w/e.

I was originally going to give this game a 5/10 / 2.5/5, and in my mind it still is that. That is basically the dead zone of games for me, those that do absolutely nothing and while are technically functional give me nothing to enjoy or even really hate besides a massive blah. That swamp of mediocrity where games are forgotten, the worst fate any media could have. The only reason I gave this game a lower score was mainly because of how much it pisses me off, how the bugs are even more apparent, how there's DLC that isn't needed, how this is supposed to be a sequel to one of my favorite games of all time without knowing what made that game great. It all just breaks my heart and I wish I had bought Pizza Tower or fucking hell even Fire Emblem Engage over this, at least that game would've been funny bad with good gameplay as I've heard.

Do yourself a favor and just play BFBB. The original, the one that's actually good. Or even the movie game, which is a lot better of a sequel despite its flaws.

We owe that IGN guy an apology.

(My Steam Review)

TL;DR: Play River City Girls 1 before this. It's the better game. If you really enjoy part 1, maybe part 2 is something for you. It's just the same.

I love RCG 1. I speedrun it for quite a while and was super excited about the second installment of the series. I'm not completely disappointed in what we got, but this games has some serious quality issues and lacks some attention to details.

But the good things first:
- This game is what most people want, the same as part 1, but more.
- I enjoyed returning to River City, the overall reinterpretation of the city is nice.
- The soundtrack is very good again (I love the basketball theme)
- New characters, new move sets, fine-tuned fighting system. Everything perfect.
- New enemies are ok.
- Some minigames are fun.
- Online Multiplayer (although not tested yet) is a nice addition.
- Even more Crossover references to Double Dragon made me lough so hard.
- I played on PC and Steamdeck and everything just works.

--

Here are the issues I have with the game. (Let's not talk about the FPS thing, because this will be fixed in the future):

- The story started well, but fell flat at the end. I couldn't care less for the story and the ending at some point in the game.

- Most of the side quest are just boring. Collect some 22 fluffy whatever here, collect 22 whatever there. Make some selfies.

- All Boss Fights (except maybe the first one) are boring as hell (In really enjoyed the boss fights in RCG 1, as they are more creative and challenging) as in RCG 2). Here the fights aren't balanced at all, the enemies are missing funny or surprising attacks or any nice details. Except for "more bullets and faster" there isn't any real difference in the different phases during the fights. What also bothers me: The "opening VERSUS screens" are just a cheap quick and dirty work and missing the attention to detail which we got in part 1. This makes me just sad.

- The lack of attention to detail in present all over the game. Of course, we get a hell lot of reused sprites in this game. I'm fine with it. But man, I really don't enjoy some of the super stupid color pallets some enemies have.

- Revisiting the city is nice, but some changes to the city layout are strange. While exiting the Aquarium in Part 1 results in entering the hotel, now you end up on the beach at the weightlifting area? Why? Again, just some details got wrong.

- Hell: The credits and the credit sequence are a complete mess. Ugly as hell, what even is the art style here? What are those fonts, why is everything so fast. You should celebrate yourself at this point.

- I hate some of the new voices of existing characters. I'm too used to the original voices of part 1. (Sorry to you folks, still love you)

- White subtitles during a black-and-white comic sequence are not readable! ;-)

- Please fix those loading times. A game like this shouldn't have so many loading zones. This has to be improved. And man... these loading screen this the super huge text are just ugly. Please fix this (although I enjoy the loading-fighting-sprite thing)

- The German localization is all over the place. At some places, the text just runs off the screen.

In the end, for me, this game fells rushed for a release. Just one or two more rounds of QA and this game would be so much better. Most of my issues are solvable, but at this point I strongly recommend new player to start playing RCG1, if they have never played the game. Part 2 is just more of it, but in questionable quality.

To those who love Part 1, enjoy part 2.

2022's Sonic Frontiers is a game worth playing, it's no masterpiece, but it's definitely one of, if not Sonic's best outing into 3D. Sonic Frontiers is ambitious, though it falls on some of those ideas, you can tell that they cared about this game.

Ian Flynn's writing is really good, he fixes characters, making them feel like they genuinely progressed past Sonic Adventure 2, instead of reverting into one-note characters with simplified personalities. Sonic, while continuing to be his funny, smart mouthed character is able to understand when a situation calls for seriousness and sincerity. Knuckles, instead of being the quick to anger brawler shows aspects of his personality we haven't seen in a long time, showing he cares for his island and that though he isn't the brightest, he has a sincere heart and is willing to fight and take care of what he loves most. Tails, instead of being the coward that he was in Sonic Forces, continues off of his previous development, continuing to grow up and be strong in the face of adversity. I could go on about it, but I believe you should play the game and experience the story for yourself.

The game play in the overworld of Sonic Frontiers, though janky, is incredibly fun, speeding through the game's islands just feels great. My biggest issues were when you would accidentally end up in a 2d section, unable to leave them immediately. It would be annoying and frustrating to speed through the world and end up on a railing.

The overworld, unfortunately, is visibly empty. Mostly due in part by the games horrendous pop in, sometimes platforms and areas would not show up unless I was directly in front of them or in some cases about to land on them. The game's combat is quite fun, though it is noticeably underdeveloped, there are not many ways to create combos and the skill tree and moves you do get are not as large as other games, though I do understand that the combat is not as important as it is in games like DMC or Bayonetta. The combat, even being small, does show lots of promise with what they could potentially do in a future game.

Cyberspace is not good, though a few stand out levels, notably my friend's favorite being 1-2, I found myself more so frustrated going through them, not actually enjoying them. They are reused level designs from previous games, such as Sonic Adventure 2, Generations and Unleashed. This, to me, was upsetting, I would've loved to see new concepts built around the new speed and combat created for this game, though I do understand that it may be complicated and time consuming to create new levels and I preferred that they focused on the overworld instead.

That being said, Sonic Frontiers is clearly a game with flaws, though still a fun experience thats worthwhile and fun overall. You won't come away from it saying that it's the greatest game of 2022, but you will come away from the game feeling fulfilled and glad that Sonic was able to shine once more in his games following the dark storm that preceded it.

As far as content is concerned this is absolutely how you do a collection, nothing was left off. I was actually pleasantly surprised to see that they didn't disregard Hyperstone Heist and assume people only wanted to play Turtles in Time despite them being different games.

That being said I'm not crazy about the "we'll implement online, but only for games we assume people want to play" mentality. I know not everyone wants to play the broken ass Genesis version of Tournament Fighters with me, but Manhattan Project and the SNES port of TiT absolutely deserve the luxury of online play.

Still buying two copies though regardless, just felt like bitching for a moment.

The next big step for Crash Bandicoot that never was. It breaks my heart that this is really only a fraction of the full game we would've gotten. It honestly plays out more like a beta than a full game. Despite that, I still find this to be a really good game for how short and incomplete it is. Sure, the story feels like it's rushing itself and coming up with things on the fly, but I don't care. This still holds some of Crash's best moments period. And I patiently await the day where this game will get a second chance to become the fully realized vision it was always meant to be.

Ar tonelico’s world is one of the most creative ones in a JRPG, the concept of the towers and the whole HYMMNOS language, created by series director Akira Tsuchiya, only helps in making this one of the most fleshed out worlds I’ve seen.

Even tough I just praised the worldbuilding on the previous paragraph, the story is quite simple and the characters are pretty uninspired. Lyner is your typical shounen lead and the heroines are pretty monotone as well with the exception of Misha, but that’s just personal bias. The side characters as well don’t serve much purpose on the narrative.

Gameplay-wise I found this game to be pretty unique on the JRPG mechanics, building up song magic while increasing the harmonics gauge is a lot of fun, unfortunately the game is pretty easy so the full potential of this combat system doesn’t get explored that much.

Overall, I still think this game is a gem even with all the characters being archetypes, the worldbuilding was enough to make me invested trough the end and the soundtrack in this game is spectacular, if you like the game’s opening, utau oka, then you certainly will love this game.