This was fun. Ridley is a dumb boss fight and the Mother Brain section is acid, and it still suffers from cryptic area progression too but overall it still is a really good game.

Also someone at Nintendo thought that last section should be completely unique and made it god tier for no reason at all

EDIT: I replayed this and I think this is really one of the best 2d platformers out there. Metroid's oppressive atmosphere and triumph is untapped by any game I have ever played. So clear of Amazon Prime.

An alright experience that has underhanded game design. It definitely did resonate with me from its atmosphere, Phendrana Drifts and Wrecked Frigate Orpheon are amazing with how they establish new context as the game progresses, but most of it just left me with a dry feeling because of the overworlds being mostly desolate, musty and abandoned environments. I went out of my way to make sense of the lore but it ultimately leads into straightforward exposition about a meteor corrupting a thriving land and entrusting the chosen one with a sacred power.

The controls are sluggish and tedious, I felt like I had to turn my chair trying to get the right angle for a lot of moments and the platforming is awkward without any indication where you're going to land. Most of the combat depth is either going to be monkey see enemy color monkey shoot with the right weapon, or using your upgrade to decimate them. Sometimes it decides to raid you with a lot of new enemies or do a mini boss with a group of enemies for no reason at all than make a difficulty curb ball. Backtracking is pedantic specially when entering or revisiting rooms spawns enemies and the process to get one rocket extension in the far side of the map is awful.

I think this is the only time DMC wanted me to drop a game because of how it genuinely disinteresting it is. It has the worst puzzles and mission design in the series, with convoluted segments cycling over and over.

The early game is fun but as soon as you enter Fortuna castle it's the worst. It has really boring visuals with color drained and plain looking textures, though the corridors in Fortuna look great.

In its core it has really good gameplay, I can say it has a really hammy combat system more than 5's even, though 5's is more refined. Nero is really satisfying to use, accesible learning curve with a combination of aggressive and precise play styles. Dante is fun as hell, when you master this character you'll look like fly buzzing in and out of the screen but he's still so cool in this game. Most of his reintroduced weapons are boring and the only unique one gets introduced late game with only one upgrade. Out of the reintroduced weapons I just prefer Pandora over Mary's rocket launcher because of how many options it has. The enemies here are much more bearable than 3's because you just have to counter them instead of just shattering their defense or revealing them. Vergil was really great to learn despite everything which made me replay bloody palace a bit more, and his perfect judgement cuts are so infinitely raw. Nonetheless I'm not interested in going through the game again with Trish and Lady since that just means I have to go through recycled stages again consecutively.

The story is mediocre. It has so little stakes that the only ones you see struggling is Nero not being able to save Kyrie and seeing Credo die, or demons raiding the town and killing people. Dante is pretty lighthearted in this game which can come across as an issue because he literally just waits for Nero outside the statue to finish his fight with the priest, and gets an unceremonious ending later. It parallels 1 in some ways through Nero which I appreciate. I would've loved to see what was the full planned storyline for this game.

Overall an underwhelming decent game, which is what I've heard most people say about it. This game was rushed in (and even took from us the greatest Vergil theme in DMC) and it just left a shell of 3's character action game formula. It didn't have that much potential for me personally because a lot of its fundamental aspects are not good enough to improve.

It kind of feels insulting to say this because I can give it credit for what the developers did, but to me this game didn't feel like a core classic Sonic experience and more of a heavy handed passion driven fan project that gained traction. It just is too underdeveloped to both create new ideas or an identity to separate it as a standalone classic game. It does a solid job at significantly revamping level structure and elements but it doesn't introduce a perspective into old and new levels worthwhile enough to push the formula further. It just is a new experience. It recreates classic Sonic gameplay successfully but it does nothing with it. The drop dash is what I was expecting more to shake the experience and as well flow naturally with its design but that's the only defining trait for this game. I like some of the new special stages and level elements though. I could try out Tails and Knuckles sometime, and I admit by not playing those I'm missing a chunk of perspective that goes into levels, but I was already bored by Sonic's campaign. I downloaded this from the epic games anniversary deal and have left it in mint condition ever since.

I see this often paired up with Generations as an introduction to the Sonic franchise and I couldn't disagree more. They're easy to get into and understand, but you'll get more fulfillment out of the series if you play it naturally by the classic trilogy to the Adventure games. There's also some misinterpreted tropes and aspects of the franchise in them so it's better to discover it from the start.

I played this three years ago, and honestly, even when I watched footage of the gameplay, it's still not interesting for me to pick it back up. It really exacerbated from a lot of the spectacle oriented gameplay Unleashed spawned a lot worse. A lot of the platforming is designed in order to suit the high acceleration of the boost gameplay, and in general, most its choices trying to cover the blind spots of the formula are pretty miserable. This can also be a problem in Unleashed, but Unleashed had a solid design philosophy that managed to bounce this off pretty well by reliably shifting constantly between 2d and 3d platforming, with more routes to have those styles flow consistently. The 3d sections are almost completely linear and the only incentive they give you to engage you while not interfering with the spectacle is just doing turns, going to a slightly higher route or quick step between pathways. In development, the levels in this game were supposedly be one combined experience but we're split off to round up game time. Even with most of the constant repetition and campy style of gameplay in the level design, I don't think that's a perspective worth checking out.

The wisps are the only thing that give this bland experience an identity (besides the art direction, it looks fantastic mostly) and they are purely filler in a level. Some are even completely scripted so it really doesn't help push the game's mechanics further aside from taking advantage of them for the rank system, and they are NOT optional because you won't get a higher rank if you just play the level normally. If they were designed to work in conjunction with Sonic's gameplay style instead of contriving a new one it would've worked specially with how narrow this game can get.

Coming back to the visuals to be positive about something here; it's some of the best in the series. There's a theme of the harmony between the environment and the resort sides of the worlds with an underlying corrupt nature that I think makes it really stand out. Aquarium Park is beautiful, it's really animated without losing detail.

The story here I don't think is that bad in retrospect, I mald at this game's story to this day but it's just not as noticably offensive as the games after. It just tries to do a sitcom with Sonic characters slapped to it, it's still obnoxious to watch though. It painfully is the result of the decadence of the Sonic games trying to forcibly be what people outside the franchise looked in their own eyes, and decided that it should only be. The only part of it that didn't leave me with untouched wry emotion for 3 hours was not in fact in the story itself, but the lines Eggman says when you idle in a level and hear what he says. They're pretty funny.

I'm don't think it was the worst Sonic game out there for sure but it sure was not fun to play.

It's now socially acceptable to like this game nowadays, so I don't have to tell you that this is great without being watched when I sleep. I love this game to bits honestly, I think is over praised in some areas but when I look more into the game the more I respect how much dedication it was put into it. I wish my disc for this game wasn't scratched so that I could've truly 100% it and go more deeper into its ideas and design. So many fond memories of just messing around in the hub and finally S ranking the harder challenges...

My favorite Riders game. It removes core elements of the original Riders to allow an easier gameplay style (instead of just making a proper tutorial that teaches all the niche gameplay aspects of Riders that you won't encounter while playing it normally), it is a very easy game, I know this a lot because I beat both of the gran prix with just holding the Wii remote in one hand. You can blaze through all of the stages doing that. I'll say though when I poured more than 50 hours into the game, I started trying out how to push the gravity mechanics into chains of dives or steering a gravity burst into a different route. It's really a basic game but if you start trying to get creative with how you play I discovered new ways to test and speedrun stages. The light board, rail linker, reserve tank and mag board all are great boards to use if you can master gravity dive to during curves. Even if I do think it has its depth, it isn't as intricate and stylish as the original Riders. It's still fun to play just to unwind.

Also the aesthetic in this game is one of my favorite in the franchise, it has it's own thematic set pieces in the environment like having a utopia that branches between nature and technology and that philosophy carries between tracks. Aquatic Capital is a futuristic metropolis that has districts full of waterways and fountains, Botanical Kingdom is overflowing with nature and a segway that facilitates untamed plant life, and so on. It's kind of disappointing that the story focused on Babylon lore than focus on things like this that have huge potential to establish world building (G.U.N references and Knuckles being a treasure hunter are nice details, and the story is pretty good too though). On top of having plenty of resort, sci-fi and synthwave aesthetics too.

I played this game as a kid with just getting into half of two campaigns and loved it. I bought this game again almost a decade later, fresh out of any memory of it I played back then just to re-experience it, and... I loved it, despite discovering the backlash towards the game. Bear with me here for a while. Over time though, I just grew to like it now because I glossed over how some parts of the game affected me and my enjoyment mellowed down. This is a game that I have to verify that I really like because of all the people saying it's fundamentally broken and I have to be contrarian to convince myself that this is something that I can sit down and enjoy. It is definitely an objectively flawed game through technical flaws no matter what, but I can say its quality was only determined by experience. The only glitches or bugs I found in 2 of my playthroughs were minor and kind of easy to get around, the only time they ever major were 2 times, which were in Shadow's Crisis City where I did a Chaos Snap and it directed me to the pits of the level. I played this on the Platinum Family Hits Xbox version so it didn't have as many glitches as the Playstation 3 version.

I don't enjoy much the character gameplay but for the level design. It has really fluid and rewarding set pieces even with the stiff character controls and movements. I like the sense of rhythm and satisfaction of targeting unique paths of obstacles, platforms and enemies to get the S rank. I find a lot of replay value and with some of the original level elements such as Elise's magic to traverse through sand and water, the air railings in Kingdom Valley and the magnetic tubes in Aquatic Base, it's fun revisting stages. The flaw I think that's present with all the level design is that exploration can be just summed up as going into set pathways that lead into linear sections or automated sequences, so going to a different part of a level doesn't make any difference going through any other one, and it isn't open ended like in the Adventure games.

There's a lot of things I don't like how they implemented here. The momentum and trajectory is completely gone and a lot of sections that involve a downward slope don't work at all. The score system is kind of broken since it heavily relies on ring points and broken object points to get a higher rank, in Silver's case sometimes you have to grab more rings and break level props to get an S rank so it's really pace breaking and leads into hoarding rings and shattering every object you see rather than doing good in a run. The campaigns are awful to go through blind, and make the pacing worse or inconsistent. Each one does a half effort of blending action levels and the hub world in the most unengaging way possible. The completion run is the worst part of the game, you have no rewards besides the achievements and the hub world missions are obnoxious.

Onto the story, it's actually good in my eyes. It has its awkward moments for sure because I can't
pretend Amy's cutscene with Elise isn't awful every time I watch it. Sonic's is good for what it is, it's pretty absent on characters involved in the main story which works in regards to Mephiles' plan awakening Iblis, but it makes Sonic's story shallow compared to the other 2. Elise is a pretty underwhelming character for this game, even if I don't hate her as vehemently as this community does. Elise getting kidnapped as a plot device gets pretty annoying and repetitive, but it makes sense in Eggman acting underhandedly for her or Sonic to react. It's no different from Eggman taking all the emeralds away in Adventure. Her romance with Sonic is pretty one sided (from her end) so it really doesn't bother me. Her character as a concept is honestly pretty sound in a Sonic game. She has an arc that works well with Sonic's philosophy and character. She has a strict way of life and she oppressively conforms herself to suit here role as royalty. Which you can kind of see this with Blaze's character. It's is pretty rushed and has contrivances in the end. Tails and Knuckles are given the end of the stick here too, because they aren't nearly as important as how Blaze is to Silver, or Omega and Rouge are to Shadow's story. They don't support the themes of the story or actively take part of it as much as the others do because they are here to simply tag along levels and the story.

Silver's Story follows up nicely out of Sonic's because of the context you get from his point of view and you slowly get to see more of Mephiles and how he pushed Silver into a false sense of agency and getting Sonic killed. Silver is a great optimistic character that moralizes conflict but has his own flaws and leaps in logic. But the fact is his dynamic with Blaze, or Blaze in this game in general, is underdeveloped and her existence can get convoluted. Blaze is almost invisible this game because she really doesn't interact with the other characters besides just Silver. Her dynamic with him works with his naïve nature, she's a mentor figure and close friend to Silver. Though we don't get to see how Blaze connected to Silver delved outside of that which is missed potential.

Shadow's story is by far the best one here. It's such a incredible send off for both Shadow as a character and also Rouge and Omega, on top of having great interactions all around with characters. We see here the themes and character dynamics Sonic Heroes established with Team Dark. Sonic Heroes has Rouge and Omega helping Shadow learn to confide in them and realize his own identity instead of trying to chase off his memories to find out who he is. "Even if I'm not real, I'm still the ultimate life form, Shadow the Hedgehog". This dynamic comes back in this game in full force. Shadow embraces his role as a paragon of virtue with an uncompromising sense of justice, and keepsakes his promise to protect humanity, knowing that Rouge and Omega will be there for him no matter what the happens in the future. Mephiles here is a great antagonist that pressures Shadow's reality, all of his conversations toward him have him saying that people will eventually betray him despite what he has done to them, which ties to SA2's themes incredibly well.

The last story is disappointing. It is the culmination of Mephiles' plan of manipulating the entire cast into summoning Iblis so it did a decent job re-contextualizing the story at this point. Why I really dislike it that there is no way for the cast to react to Sonic dying, when I'm pretty sure Amy wouldn't be the only one to cry to that and Tails would be destroyed seeing him like that. The kiss was awkward, but it's not something I'm offended seeing, it's stupid but I don't care much about it. The last story at least showed that Silver being the one that never gave in to the end of the world, that was a nice detail. The atmosphere is the only part I think is good here because of the music motifs, it progresses between a very void and empty tune but it eventually starts adding all the instruments and synths together into the music and it becomes a more powerful melody.

Overall all of the stories combined give a nice overarching thematic of loyalty to the world through past, present and future (Shadow overcoming the ties of his origin, Elise learning to take initiative and action, Silver valuing the cost of salvation). The mocap was unbearable here and the voice acting is terrible in some dialogue, but the important scenes hit when they need to, at least they did to me.

I'm going to stop here because I don't want this to be as drawn out for as long as possible, more than it is, so yeah that's it. I think it's good!! Also don't buy the DLC's because they glitch the cutscenes and the only ones worth buying are Shadow's Very Hard Mode and the Amigo's DLC.

One of my favorite racing games. Like most other reviews the biggest flaw I had playing this game is all of the hidden mechanics the game doesn't even talk about in the tutorial or any part of the game. I was stuck in Storm's mission 2 for a year all because I didn't know that you could get to the higher route by pulling down the control stick while doing a jump. Though it has Sonic's fundamental gameplay down incredibly well by dividing exploration without it feeling like an obstacle course.

It's pretty hard to replay for a long while instead of just completing the story mode and the missions, because once you figured out your own style of playing the tracks it's not going to change outside of testing out different gears. What I think it makes me not want to replay tracks back to back is that each gear alignment practically just grants you free scripted segments that, most of the time, will lead you to the higher part of the track and get a really easy advantage. I use the Gambler to cap myself and get a better time competing with CPU's because it doesn't have alignments and shreds your air.

The story is neat. Jet is a really good rival that flips Sonic's freedom with rebellion. I like the animation style and the lighthearted presentation.