An admirable but nevertheless inferior alternative to playing Mahjong in-person.

Being told by the game when you can steal stuff or when you're in tenpai makes it so you don't have to think as much, I've kept made hands I probably wouldn't have thought of making in regular mahjong, and it feels less engaging when the game holds my hand in those cases. Its also got usual netplay design issues, like instances where you get disconnected, your timer gets shorter and you end up unwillingly throwing tiles you want, or losing the aspect of being able to interact with/observe your fellow players instead of it being completely anonymous. Also the gacha is unnecessary and gross.

Either way, it's a good way to spend time when you're really bored.

i'm a bit confused about why so many people seem so unhappy with this game, since its personally shaping up to be one of my most enjoyed 2D sonics.

the level design is pretty fantastic, each stage feature unique sets of mechanics that set them apart from previous stages in the series and compliments the level design rather than feeling like setpieces that just slow you down. some have the usual quirk of feeling really long until you find the quick speedrun path, but like, thats pretty much every 2D sonic game. my personal highlights were lagoon city, sand sanctuary, press factory and frozen base.

the bosses have one kinda iffy quirk of having lots of i-frames and being very pattern based, but I think they did it in a kinda smart way. they all have a faster way to defeat them that you just kinda need to figure out and execute to cut down on time. there's no boss where you just jump on its head a few times to win, and i think i'll take more engaging bosses as a tradeoff for slightly longer stage clear times (they aren't there in time attack either way)

if there's one bad thing i can say it's that the post game "hard mode" story isn't all that fun, it places too many enemies around places that weren't designed to include them and in general just feels kinda redundant when you're also just able to pick the unlockable character in the normal mode.

but like, real talk, if you went into this game with low expectations, paying the full 60$ price tag, put on your bad time hat and decide it's not good because thats what everyone else is saying, you can't really blame the game for that. you could have spent that money on mario wonder or something, and instead you're acting like a huge baby over nothing.

big arzest W