Diverting, but virtually zero actual nutritional value. As per usual the music is great, the gameplay is completely fine too - but there's just not a lot going on here. Obviously bringing Classic Sonic back was a based move, and the customization stuff is fun without being more than it needs to be - though it always feels akin to a Sonic Generations-lite at its core, the level design + themes really aren't as interesting here. That medal system or whatever that was feels kind of arbitrary. And of course the story is bullshit but what did you expect? I'd 100% play this again in a flash, but also can't pretend like it didn't become kind of an empty chore my first time around. Not a whole lot different at all from Sonic Colors or honestly many of the other modern Sonic games, sporadic turn-off-your brain fun.

I think this sometimes feels too much like an extended QTE segment - where you just watch things happen for a bit and uninvolvingly press the A button a few times. Though where with weaker games I would write that off as 100% a bad thing, with this imo it can be at least partially excused due to it being used as a window into this game's wonderful energy - a sight-and-sound display of some phenomenal art direction in a series already chock full of it. Aquarium Park and Planet Wisp have some of the best music in SEGA's entire already stacked catalogue, and there isn't a single world here that doesn't look simply dazzling. The wisps I feel are also rather unjustly maligned, as not only are they visually creative but if there's any series that could benefit from even a couple more possibilities in its formula it's modern Sonic - so I'm all for being able to whip across the level as a spike ball or drill underground, shoot back up, then dive back into the ground again. Laser still kind of sucks though. On the one hand I think this gets a little too much praise (for me, putting this above Sonic Generations seems like actual insanity) but on the other, it is a damn fine experience that shows the texture this franchise is capable of when it actually tries.

Butt-ugly colors, the PS Vita's miserable .png cutscenes, a spectacularly bad open world, and dumb elevator music loop soundtrack (which starts to grate hard early on) cripple really inventive gameplay. I still don't really think this deserves its title as unsung hero of its original system, because even as much as I'll praise the entire concept it just does not always work - it doesn't. As many times as I've air-kicked an enemy directly on target and slid right off for no reason is infuriating. But when it does work, this is a tight yet content-heavy experience I find to be mildly enjoyable - I actually even find much of the menial tasks in the DLC missions (and even the base game) to be kind of cool simply because this is a damn good gimmick sadly trapped within the confines of a system that its creators didn't even believe in. As it stands, it's fine but heavily flawed.

A delectable sensorial flex that wows in the moment but is forgotten almost as soon as you're done with it. Now granted, this is a notably beautiful game - but it's not unlike the lot of these Journey knockoffs which were popular around this time: vibrant graphics peddle intentionally weird controls, basic gameplay, and esoteric + pointless collectibles for a runtime that feels way too short for what you paid for. It doesn't really help either that it starts right off with the best looking stuff and loses interest gradually afterwards - but I have a soft spot for these types of things, so this was okay enough for me. I liked all the funny looking fish.

Games I Dislike That Everybody Else Likes

Sure, let's just take one of the greatest 3D Platformer Collectathons ever created and make it play objectively worse than it did nearly 20 years and two console generations ago with one of the clunkiest, spazziest, glitchiest, least intuitive game engines in recent memory. And hey, let's also make the art style look like Halloween candy barf and promise a ton of cut content we didn't deliver on (save for a thoroughly shitty, puny multiplayer mode that barely qualifies as anything)! Gotta love how Nickelodeon rushed this game to come out alongside The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run and then when the movie got delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic this still had to come out at the previous date well over HALF A YEAR before the movie was even released (with a quiet whimper, by the way) so the rush was somehow, against all odds even more pointless than it would have been before. This is all not to mention them making the difficulty for - what I can only assume to be - actual babies. Fundamentally shit, but the only reason it isn't rated any lower is because the bones of that original experience are still here somewhere - under bugs and terrible mechanics and stupid meme callbacks it's at least able to be recognized a little. The God-tier music of its predecessor is present mostly untouched, the humorous writing and voice acting still stands (including the hilariously scuffed Krabs that I've grown to love), and the classic mission design is kept intact. It fails at everything it set out to achieve, granted - but hey there are worse things to be than a reminder to go out and play the original instead.

Pretty much have the exact same feelings about this as I do with Resident Evil 4, I don't love it - rather - I just think it's sturdy enough at what it does. Though if you asked me which one I prefer, I'd say this one without much doubt - not just because it isn't affected with a primitive control scheme and obviously looks a whole lot better too, but imo RE horror > RE action. And while this still doesn't have quite as much of the former as I'd prefer, it still takes the edge on that front. Maybe it's those forebodingly lit hallways, or those fucking Lickers and their lunge attack - but realistically it's because of Mr. X, who just steals this entire game right from under everything else. When you hear his boots slam closer and closer out of the darkness and the music spikes up before he just starts rushing right at you... oh man, it is scary. I'm usually not a fan of unkillable enemies but he's a premier ripper. The side segments with Ada and Sherri are fine, the story is okay, the side content kind of sucks, a lot of it is conventional and just kind of okay imo but after something like Resident Evil 5 'okay' is an improvement. Far from one of the best remakes but it's decent as hell.

Acceptable iPod fodder that is pretty much chiefly reserved for waiting rooms or when you have like 2 or 3 minutes before you have to go do something but don't have anything else of substance to really kill time with so you put it on for a few drops then proceed to forget about it for another three or four months. I dumped countless hours into this in middle school, easily 100/200+ - playing it now I couldn't bring myself to go more than five minutes max before getting bored lol. But it ain't bad, it's just been replaced with something better. Close to being obsolete but not quite there yet.

I mean... at least it's better than the movie? Surprisingly, never actually terrible - just super timid. Reskinned mission on top of reskinned mission on top of reskinned mission on top of... yeah. Actually has some pretty okay space-shooter sections though. Plus I have to appreciate a game that goes from basic platformer section to flying to (honestly pretty sick) playable dodgeball match to crappy chase sequence to baseball rhythm game to driving to 'shmup to alien mech fighter to slide level to truly abysmal cannon shooter to more platforming. The minigames are fun to laugh at with friends.

Top 50 Favorites: #44 (Enhanced Edition)

Careful, confident horror about the incomprehensible and the lengths your mind will go to fill in the gaps. Far from perfect, even at its strongest still feels like a low-carb Silent Hill 2 - but I just can't help but admire how bold horror games were around this time. Stuff like this, Cry of Fear, Slender: The Arrival, hell even the first Five Nights at Freddy's were majorly innovating for a good solid 3 or 4 years straight - it's easy to laugh at now but there's something to be said about the effective simplicity of creating a horror video game for practically the express purpose of holding a place in the collective conscience simply for scaring your favorite YouTuber. I was never that into "Let's Plays" but there's an almost warm comfortability of a horror game that takes itself seriously but not too seriously (unlike, say, The Last of Us); one that is interested in crafting a good, tight, accessible lore without wanting to spin it into a disparate web of pointlessly convoluted bullshit for the sake of seeming deep on internet comment sections (Hello Neighbor and most of the FNaF sequels); and one that sets out to create good scares and a memorable atmosphere over being a cynical flash-in-the-pan meme to sell merch (Poppy's Playtime, Baldi's Basics). It's crazy to look back on how this era really future-proofed itself by doing what everyone at the time swore would make them dated - wills itself to life by going back to basics and asking how they can be done really, really well. Is way more concerned with leaving its own self-assured stamp instead of worrying about sterilizing itself so it won't have a single blemish and it's all the better for it. Filled with character.

Strong candidate for the most hideous-looking video game ever created. Gameplay isn't even worth discussing, bears less of a resemblance towards flash games or early 2010s iPod Touch shovelware as it does with one of those bad bootleg Genesis cartridges like CrazyBus. Yes instantly having its terrible music blare in your face loudly upon simply opening it up without the immediate option to fix it sucks but the level design is downright illegible - next to impossible to distinguish what is and isn't interactive. Plus it's just ass ugly, I particularly loathe the characters who all look like some sort of virus boil - along with the addition of arguable random casual racism in the unlockable sticker section... k then.