WE MAKING IT OUT THE POND WITH THIS ONE 🔥🔥🔥🔥 🗣🗣

Most of Sega's catalogue is completely alien to me, I do know of the funny Yakuza men dancing and the monkey ballin, but I've never really actually played any of their franchises, aside the games of a certain fast blue mammal, of course. So I think it's about time that I expanded my horizons, picked a rod, a hat with questionable quotes, and basked on the glory of the act of bassing. And mean, even the game told me to ''enjoy the fishing'', and it was no simple request or kind-spirited wish... it was a demand.

Sega Bass Fishing is a very special case, because in one hand it's just is what it is: a bass fishing simulator with a very ''arcadie'' style and design. And in the other hand, is a game with borderline manic energy; it injects every action this kind of irreplaceable style, and makes you excited over even getting new types of get (Worm bait my beloved). The visuals are actually extremely pleasant and good-looking and the music just goes fucking nuts; one moment you are peacefully fishing in a calmed dock, the other you are in a seemingly haunted palace with the scariest bass you'll meet in your fucking life. I may sound surprised, like I was just expecting a mediocre fishing simulator or just shovelwhare, and I really wasn't, is just that this game goes bananas over everything that it can possibly do and I love it.

The gameplay also surprised me; while not exactly my cup of tea and it does feel a bit unresponsive and repetitive, it does spice things to make the act of reeling actually pretty involved, and hey, putting to use my Big the Cat story skills was nice. Fish AND frogs fear me.

I know that having the fishing controller for this would make the best thing humanity has ever conceived and the absolute GOTY of eternity and beyond, but as of now, Sega Bass Fishing is definitively a rad game; it LOVES being what it is, either a small tourney run to be the very best fisher in the world, a small arcade adventure that ends with you catching the biggest fish possible, or just a peaceful, relaxing little distraction. It's more than just a meme, it's fucking Sega Bass Fishing, baby.

Oh, and this site has officially become the High Rank Bass Fishing Club (patent pending), so I would like to ask those who aren't rank one on the arcade mode to leave as soon as possible, thank you very much and have a nice fishing.

-''I'm a bit nervous''

-''Me too!''

They say as their killer smiles aren't even fazed. That's the kind of attitude I aspire to have when setting off dangerous explosives.

Frog Detective 1 is the perfect example of that breed of videogames I like to refer as ''candy games''; shorter and more laid-back experiences more focused on the adventure of meeting people, doing silly stuff and the interactions that come from it. Or in other, simpler words, lil' goofy treats.

This right here is that entire base idea made into a game. It’s basically just a stroll across this not-so-spooky islands and the interacting with the scientists to solve the most daunting case to ever be, and it’s cute! There are some pretty charming interactions here and there, some funnier than others for sure — Larry and Martin had the best moments by far—, tho overall they felt a bit repetitive at times and at worst some bits felt a bit awkward in a non-intentional way. The style of comedy it goes for isn’t anything new but at its best it really knows how to pull some novel or really funny bits, I just wish some others landed better.

And that’s about it, honestly!!! Aside from dialogue, the other thing you can do is to explore the island and use your magnifying glass for the fun of it, and as much as I love using a fish-eye lens in some of these Muppet looking motherfuckers, it also gets old fast. It’s an idea for more possible visual gags that aren’t explored further, which is how I feel about many other moments in this short mystery. The mouse doesn’t even get to break-dance at the end! What a ripoff!

It's hard for me to get even a bit grumpy about it, and if I started saying that I wished it was more ‘in-depth’ would be straight up silly. It’s a tale about a frog detective, plain and simple, and the enjoyment you’ll get out of it will entirely depend on how much you get charmed by it.

It doesn’t last long, it isn’t much, but it is sweet… just like a piece of candy!

Halfway through this I realized how much Mr. Coo reminded me of the Little Ceasars guy and now I can't unsee it; I've been cursed with this realization, and now everyone else shall be too.

In the multiple reviews I’ve written, in only a few of them I’ve tackled how the conditions or outside factors affected directly to the development of the game in question; I’ve always loved talking about the design processes and ideas that take place within the minds of developers during the making of a work and how this impacted the game or in some cases the whole industry as a whole, but when it comes to talking about what actually happened behind the curtain, the only times I’ve really done that were in my Journey, Sticker Star and Sonic Adventure reviews. And it's not that these kinds of tales are uncommon, I don’t think I have to tell you how sadly this pattern of difficult conditions is something that is as common as the sunset, time and time again it happens and time and time again it fucking sucks, and the only reason I haven’t talked about it as much it’s either because it luckily didn’t happen in many of the games I’ve written about or I didn’t see fit to mention it (or in some other it may be the case that developers haven’t even spoken about it). Games are still a form of art and they will always be that, and it just happens that in the way I review art I try to focus on the final product and the impact it has or may have had, and the reason I’m saying all of this it’s because for me to talk about The Many Pieces of Mr.Coo in any meaningful way, it’s imperative that I mention everything that happened before and after its release, ‘cause it’s one of those cases were both the game itself.

When looking at Mr. Coo’s little adventure purely on its own, without knowing anything else, talking about is pretty straightforward: It’s a visual delight in every single way possible; the work put to create the animations that give life to the characters and backgrounds that make up the scenery of this funny and dark surrealist world is beyond commendable. I’m kinda liking this accidental tradition of playing one surrealist adventure game per year, because the result is always so special; The Many Pieces of Mr.Coo has charm and creativity oozing from every possible angle, it’s a nonstop barrage of absurdism that works incredibly well, and not only it does serve to produce jaw-dropping visuals and a blend of styles that doesn’t feel jarring in the slightest, it also creates an amazing collection of puzzles that are as crazy as the game itself. Some of this are perhaps a little too weird and fall in that same Same & Max paradox in which it becomes sometimes impossible to really figure out what you need to do next, tho in this case the hint system helps a ton, and it incentivizes trying to think of the solution before using it, and sometimes some hints still require some stuff to figure out that are much more manageable. During two thirds of the total chapters, it’s a joy to play, a little fun adventure that’s displays some insanely good visuals and fun challenges…. But then the last batch of sections happens. It’s not that it gets worse, as in these final moments we still see some really cool ideas in both visuals and puzzling, rather, it’s like witnessing a plane crashing down as it tries to land in the airport because suddenly every machine possible decided to break down.

Even almost three months after its initial release, these final sections are plagued with bugs and glitches that completely break the game. This is no simple minor issue which I’d usually ignore, this are glaring problems that either break your immersion (like Coo’s legs just casually walking below the background or the click register sometimes being completely broken) or straight-up break the entire game, forcing you to quit and restart from the beginning of the section, and keep in mind that we have that luxury only now, when it first released there was no saving system, so if it the game made it impossible to progress because it decided to.. have fun starting from the very beginning! These problems come together in the final challenge, one that on paper was very interesting and fun, but in practice feels sloppy, unfairly hard and has the risk or completely breaking in a certain point, all culminating in that ending… oh god the ending… One thing is to have such an cliffhanger after a finale that was seemingly crumbling down, and another thing is to tell you to replay the game to get 100 sloppily put and hard to get collectables to get a secret ending that amounts to nothing, it really takes some cojones to make people feel like they completely lost their time. And the worst part about all of this, the single part about the whole game and the whole third act, it’s that it wasn’t gonna be this way, but it was forced to be released broken beyond repair.

Creative director Nacho Rodríguez hasn’t been shy about the sheer incompetence and unprofessionalism of Gammera Nest, studio that was helping both developing ang publishing the game. They were pretty much rushing the game out the door, fully knowing just how unfinished it was, and Nacho as well as well as the rest of team of animators tried by all means to communicate with Gammera Nest to try to give the game more time to polish, but it’s not that the company shut down those request, they didn’t even bother to acknowledge them. The game was basically kidnapped into stores, forced to released even tho it need more time, more work, more polish, and Gammera knew this, Nacho knew this and tried everything to make it right, but in the end it happened, and now we have a game that could have been so much more from the get go and a legal battle that it’s creator never wanted. And the saddest part about this is that it shouldn’t surprise us: Gammera Nest has a long history of poor communication, complete and insulting unprofessionalism and even intimidation; they are the team behing Spain’s PlayStation Talents, a complete joke and embarrassment of an initiative that treated indie developers like an used tissue and that made many scared to speak up about what was happening in there, and many others to outright leave the industry as a whole. It’s CEO, Daniel Sánchez, has made clear multiple times that he doesn’t see art in this industry, he sees an opportunity to make some bucks at the cost of others, and he has made sure to build the company based around the idea and as well as to spit out some completely meaningless and dumb things over the years. They had struck gold like so many times before, but refused to see anything beyond the many they could make out of this ‘’product’’, and that’s what makes me sad, what makes me mad, what makes me lament Mr. Coo’s fate…

And yet, despite this, despite the finale to this story, despite releasing broken, what Nacho and the rest of the team pulled off despite it all is worth standing up and clapping. They built the most visually crazy and interesting game I’ve seen the entire year with some really cool puzzles and made this shine despite the conditions and despite its unfair fate. They deserve all the possible respect and appreciation for their work they can receive, there really is something special under the bugs and glitches, something that shines at full force and made me both smile and laugh. The Many Pices of Mr. Coo didn’t deserve to go through all this, none in the team did, but even in the worst circumstances, is worth appreciating the good, and in this surrealist, colorful little world, there’s a ton to love.

Once again keeping the ‘’trying to get everything in a Metroid game but then leaving two or three missile tanks behind because I can’t be bothered’’ tradition going, even in a game so different such as Metroid II, it’s heartwarming to see that some things never change, like extremely hidden collectables!

The original Metroid is, even to this day, a pretty big deal, not only because it spawned a series that in spite of admittedly quite noticeable lows —looking at the general direction of a certain Wii game whose name shall not accurse this review— has given some of the most beloved and impactful games of… well, of the entire history of the medium, but it also catapulted its entire world design style to genre-defining status, so much so that half of its name its derived from this series. Metroid may not have been the first one to pull it off, not by a long-shot, but it was the first game to pull off the ‘’Platform-Adventure’’ idea in such a well-designed, fun, and awe-inspiring way; Metroid crafted an entire world in a console that could barely run bigger than normal sprites, let alone to allow the luxury of having backgrounds, and year the planet of Zebes and its pirate infested caverns, even on its first iteration, feel alive, distinct and brimming with secrets and upgrades, by all accounts it’s a marvel, both technically and progression wise.

Metroid 2: Return of Samus not only had to follow up in what the original had done, but also do it in a console with even weaker overall hardware with a screen that couldn’t allow more than a few shades of green, and it what other conditions could this team produce anything but such a incredibly interesting and, in a ton of ways, unique game.

Metroid 2’s own nature revolves around the system is on, yes, but at the same time I think its fitting that such a different adventure is presented in such a different way; whereas Zebes felt mechanized, deeply corrupted by the pirate influence, each room calculated in such a binary way for the sake of stopping intruders and with the last bastions of nature being few and far between, the caves and passages of SR388 feel the complete opposite; no empire nor company has set afoot in these lands for a very long time, this is a land only taken by wildlife and nature, and even in a black and white world, it feels exactly like that. Not every single being in this game is out to kill you, in fact most enemies don’t have direct attacks, with the more aggressive fiends (aside of the Metroids) being the old abandoned machines, which I don’t know if there was any intent behind that, but it seems like a genius purposeful move. The landscapes of SR388 feel wild, untamed, each not existing not as an alien-made space, but as a true bastion of wildlife; rock passage-ways that reach the depths of the planter inhabited by fish that walk on land and strange mole creatures, acid lakes that get emptied by the quakes of a furious Metroid Queen after the killing of their spawns, strange bubble towers that fill the rooms and the most forgotten mast of the planet, and ancient abandoned structures overrun by what the Chozo left behind and animals seeking shelter; this is all on a fucking Game Boy ant it feels natural, it feels like a real world that was left behind, one that doesn’t follow the conventions of the pirate bases of old.

There are still some missile doors here and there, but most of the obstacles you face are not left on purpose, they are a byproduct of the decay in structure and bloom in life that the planet has seen, and so doors stop being that common of a way to stop your progress and turn into a signal of were a new upgrade is located, and now the powerups you’ll use the most to proceed will be things like the morph ball jump, the spiderball and the super jump. But even with these systems still at play, I’d be hard-pressed to call this a ‘’Metroidvania’’, Return of Samus reminds me much more of a divided by areas open world, since your advancement is only delimited by if you have killed the current set of Metroid or not, a change that serves a design and even narrative purpose; Samus’ objective isn’t to stop a big final menace, she’s here to exterminate every single one of the remaining bio-weapons that put the galaxy at jeopardy in the first game, and there’s a long list to go through.

Samus starts the game much more armed than in the first iteration, with the morph ball already on toe and with some missiles right out the gate, and the game overall seems to be far more centered on combat than it ever was; every single ability, even the previously mentioned ones, serve a ton in the fighting and evading process, even the beams are now just a change a change of weapon rather than actual tools, and with the game’s field of vision being much more closer to the character and the sprites being far more detailed than ever, there’s clearly a deliberate attempt to encourage fighting even when there’s no real moment in which you are trapped with a enemy; with every Metroid, even the final boss, there’s always the option to run, which not only helps if you ever get overwhelmed (which is pretty easy considering how aggressive your main enemies are), there’s always the opportunity to retreat and revaluate your options; you are fighting against terrible weapons after all… even tho now they feel more than that.

The Metroid go for just really scary bio-arms to actually terrifying animals, we get to see their evolution, their grow process, how they change and adapt, evolving from their known forms and reaching the enormous sizes of the Omega variant. They are threatening beings, not only because they can only be damaged by your most powerful tools, but also because the way they presented; the little animation that plays on some of them as you witness their evolution, the music changing to their theme as they charge against you, how memorable some of them, like your first encounter with an Alpha Metroid or battling a Gamma Metroid in a sand tunnel. This encounters don’t feel epic or grand, they are grounded and tense, this is not a space epic anymore, it’s a hunt that only ends after your list marks the number 0 and the Metroid Queen falls, and only then, after the adventure is over, no countdown for the explosion starts, it’s just a last stroll, accompanied by the baby, and you cannot get the thought out of you head that maybe what you were hunting were actual animals and no simple killing machines, you didn’t really save the galaxy, you just turned a massacre into routine.

Metroid 2 is unlike any other Metroid game, and not only because of the way it plays or its presented, but also because of how it incredibly handles its world, how it’s done in such a perfect way that traversing it stops being an act of adventuring and more of a slow voyage and contemplation, which is something I can’t say expected to feel about Metroid but on Game Boy. However, this attempt at bringing what can be done on this console to new heights and shattering its own conventions comes at pretty clear prices; even if I can’t stop gushing about how the planet is designed, the way SR388 is designed clearly suffers from WhereTheFuckDoIGo-itis, not only you don’t have a map, the new paths that open are all over the place and aren’t clear at all at first, meaning that unless you really know where to go, prepare to go around in circles for a while until you find something you believe wasn’t there in the first place, which it isn’t helped about the small little problem that is copy-pasted rooms: this was excusable in the original, but in a game with no color and filled with the same rocks and pebbles it turns into a huge problem for finding out where you exactly are.

The save points are also a huge hiccup; if you are going to do a game with few places to save, fine, but one thing is to that and other to make them feel like they are placed unevenly, with huge chucks without any place to save and others with two extremely close to each other, and on that note, while the health and missile refills are incredible additions, I wished they were more common, there are far less infinite enemy respawning tubes this time around so I wish a way to gain health back was given after every major encounter or at least most of them.

The Metroid battle themselves are extremely simple yet overbearing in the worst way and I think there’s an overabundance of Alpha and Gamma variants which get old real quick, the beams are handled in a way that even if it’s the best thing they could have done I just wish they where done differently and didn’t act as direct replacements of each other, the music for the most part isn’t that memorable (even if the Queen Metroid theme and Surface of SR388 are incredible), going back to some places only to return to you where before can be brutal… It has its moments and upgrading and certain battles was still enjoyable, but Metroid II is a case of a game I love everything about except for actually playing it, but when some of its problems come because of its own conditions and even the positives, I cannot be mad for too long.

Metroid II was the return of Samus in a brand new way, a return that allowed for experimentation, that brought back a spirit of wonder and ingenious I didn’t think possible considering the circumstances; I could say many more things about Metroid II that irk me the wrong way, but I don’t think it’s fair to focus on that when it managed to do something so impossibly difficult. This isn’t my favorite Game Boy game, not by a long shot, but it’s the most fascinating and daring, and if that itself doesn’t have value, I don’t know what does.

''Never forget...''

I technically never really grew up with Explorers of Sky but rather with the original dual release version, Explorers of Time/Darkness , tho funnily enough, I can't really recall which one of the two it was exactly; what I do recall without even an ounce of effort, is the things I felt while playing it all those years back. It was one of the first times my younger self cared to pay attention to the dialogue of a game, one of the first times I was enthralled by the music and visuals of... well, anything ever; and the excitement I felt over new story beats and at the gameplay reached absurd points. However, I couldn't explain why the game had such an effect on me, plus I never got to beat it (got stuck at one of the boss fights... still have traumas over that) so it's not like I ever got a definitive conclusion to the story, nor a resolution to the feelings I had with the game.

And so, I left behind the game, and the only thing left were the good memories of it without really being able to explain why I liked it. Many years later, I was able to get a copy of Explorers of Sky for cheap (or at least, cheap compared to what it normally goes for), and not so long ago I finally beatBlue Rescue Team and delved in how, despite being a fun Dungeon Crawler RPG and having a brand new interesting take on the franchise, it was a deeply flawed one, with hiccups in the gameplay front, but especially in the narrative department, and that affected the enjoyment the moment to moment rescuing and exploring.

Many moons have passed, experienced has been gained and my views on games and the media as a whole have matured since I picked that DS for the first time (or at least I like to think that they have, if only a little bit), so now, the most expected thing is that I’d know to pin-point what did I exactly like so much about this game, or even that my opinions on it would sour a bit after coming back to it and reaching the end…

… but this one has a Croagunk with a big-ass cauldron, so that automatically makes it the best game in the entire franchise.

’’A future worth fighting for’’

It’s almost scary how good Explorers of the Sky builds on top of what was already established while also creating its own whole identity, and it’s doubly impressive when taking into account how much it borrows from the previous installment: the dungeon-traversing gameplay has seen little to none changes; everything that can be found in Treasure Town, from the shops to the dojo, are lifted straight up from the original Rescue Team games, with the only thing changes being some of the Pokémon at the front of these stores as well as one or two new shacks for two new mechanics, the eggs and the chests; the game retains the same chapter by chapter structure of its predecessor, and practically all of the bulletin board missions types are ones brought from the past entry. This is much more than taking just base or general the idea of a past game, most of Explorers is pretty much a direct follow up of every concept that the franchise stablished in its inception, and that should mean that it should carry the problems Blue/Red Rescue Team had that I previously described, or at the very least it should feel derivative, but I think it’s pretty clear where I’m going with this.

Thanks to a lot of systems being stream-lined or more options being given, mainly the whole territory buying to get new team members being COMPLETELY removed and the introduction of the Spinda Café to make the CI leveling process a lot more easier as well as to introduce a way to recycle items, the pacing of the game is made WAYYYY faster both in and out of dungeons, while also incrementing the amount of strategizing needed; while I’ve lost way less times than in Rescue Team and I’ve even won some battles that the game doesn’t expect you to normally beat, main battles in those previous games felt extremely repetitive. You don’t really come up with new ideas on the flying or plan ahead for what’s coming next; your response to the boss encounters doesn’t really differ from one another, and you are not rewarded from exploring outside of the box using different items; you just go headfirst into danger, throw some sleeping items and prey to god it works. The boss battles in Explorers work completely different, not only there’s more variety in the Pokémon you fight and even in the way they are organized, but the amount of seeds at your disposal as well as the new move-sets make strategy building on the fly some of the most fun I’ve had in the entire series. This even applies, at least to a certain extent, to the normal floor battles; even if most of the encounters are usually pretty easy and the difficulty comes mainly from your own resource management, half-way though the game some dungeons start to REALLY ramp up in difficulty, and even some of the normal enemy Pokémon start becoming a problem. You even need to take into account the weather present in some cases and considering changing it, and while I don’t have a exact way to confirm this, I’m pretty sure that the possibility of encountering monster houses has been raised considerably, and I actually like this! It gives spheres even more reasons to be used and show that sometimes a direct confrontation doesn’t really have to be the way forward, teaching indirectly even more ways to strategize and introducing a risk reward aspect into the game, since they usually have a ton of good items in them … But no yeah Monster Houses are still dumb. The fact the ladder or even you can spawn in one of them only creates artificial difficulty, and it’s alongside the randomness of the traps and the impossibility of using spheres in boss battles the only things I REALLY don’t like about the game (tho I understand why the latter is the way it is, even if I believe it would make sense to be able all the tools at your disposal in the major battles, specially the ones with multiple enemies). I also wanted to mention how the introduction of Wigglytuff’s guild is just… so fucking good. Having a main hub area related to the main story, our characters arc and that expands the story behind certain Pokémon and the rescue teams is one fantastic thing, but also be it one that makes so much sense with the setting, simplifies a ton of the mission systems, and also introduces a whole new minigame it’s just pure gold… tho I could have gone the rest of life without knowing the shape of Nidoking’s feet, that wasn’t really necessary…

Make no mistake, if the gameplay is so good in this game, it’s only because it was good in the first place; these changes aren’t revolutionary, but they do improve and strengthen a system that was already fantastic in the first place, making it more rewarding than it ever was. Explorers is a sequel after all, one that seeks to enhance everything that could have been enhanced, and that includes a certain something that, not in a million years, could I ever had seen coming.

Not in this way. Not like this.

’’A story that had to be told’’

Explorers of Sky is a culmination. No, I’m not talking about a culmination of Time/Darkness, which it is, but that’s not what I’m referring to. Back when I beat Blue Rescue Team, I left with this deeply sour taste in my mouth, I had enjoyed what I played, yes, and there were some stellar moments, but a ton of it’s potential was squandered for the shake of telling a flashier, less intricated plot. And hey, looking back maybe I was a bit too mean, maybe that was exactly the story they wanted to tell; a story that touched on some interesting themes but ultimately was just an excuse to live a couple of fun adventures and battle some cool looking Pokémon, maybe I just had my expectations misplaced and was just too overly critical to a story that didn’t deserve even if it did affect the gameplay… or maybe I knew a glimpse of what would come next.

If I already praised Blue Rescue Team for its fantastic visuals and music, then I don’t know what I’d need to do to express how Explorers goes above all and beyond everything I thought was good about the original game; I think I’m exaggerating when I say this is probably the best original pixel-art in any DS RPG along side the one in Bowser’s Inside Story. Every single scenery on here is worth putting on a portrait, hell, singular stones have more detail than entire games in the franchise. The beautiful close-ups and scenes that happen and certain moments, like watching a myriad of bug Pokémon flying around a tower of water, or contemplating the sunset on top of a cliff with an impossible shape, plus the fantastic use of the dual screens not to enhance gameplay, but to improve certain moments and cutscenes are such fantastic details that I cannot do nothing but smile when simply thinking about it. Add on top of that an amazing minimalistic sound design and probably the best OST in the entire franchise and DS catalogue along with the fifth-generation games… and I don’t really know what more to tell you, man.

This moments, no, everything I’ve said about the game, it’s pretty good on their own right, and they are impressive by any game standard, but what makes me absolutely adore them, what makes me gush and appreciate them even more, it’s how every single occurrence, behind every single event, a story is taking place. Blue Rescue Team took the story as more of a excuse to present harder challenges than normal and introduce certain concepts, and as such a lot of the duration of the game was taken by missions that didn’t really amount to anything in the great scheme of things. Explorers has, let’s just say, a different philosophy on this. The world is no mere back-drop for cool things to happen, every single location has a place, every single event, every step we take amounts to something; the few moments things stop for a minute feel genuine and add the sensation that time needs to pass for certain characters to do their thing, but it’s never too long before everything’s back in action. The world is filled with fantastic characters and I adore them all, even the stinky ones that I’m supposed to hate, I love every single one of them. They all have their moment to shine, their own unique aspirations, even their own fears and weaknesses, and even when you expect certain plot-points to happen, there’s far more depth behind the curtain. The episodic format does nothing but wonders for this, not only because it allows to have an overarching plot while introducing sub-stories in a cohesive way, but it gives more room for every single critter to breath and have their own moment, couple that with the extra episodes in Explorers of Sky that dig deep into certain characters past and even future, and we have an experience that only gets stronger as it goes on.

I felt genuine emotion for the events that happened, specially the ones close to the end: the wrath, the sadness and the happiness are contagious because of how well everything is laid down and accompanied by the fantastic music, and whereas, in the first game, I felt like the companion or the main betraying bad guy were just a shadow of they could have been, these are it, these are what they seemed to want to be since the beginning. I understand why so many people adore Grovyle, I adore Wigglytuf’s comedic relief, I loved every single mon at the Guild (yes, even you, Chatot, you deserve a hug), and I’m fascinated by the main character’s arc, I didn’t think that I could care about my Piplup self and my Vulpix companion this much, but I do, I really do, and it saddened me struggle and made me happy to see them overcome the challenges. And these characters being put in this setting, a setting that I didn’t think could be even done this exceptionally by a Pokémon game, a story that touches on overcoming personal flaws and anxieties, and culminates on the inevitability on saying goodbyes to your loved ones, even if it hurts.. and it does fucking hurt, and I love that it does.

''I’ll never forget you’’

Explorers of Sky wasn’t made by another team wanting to make a different take on this idea, it was the same team at Chunsoft that worked in the original games, even the writers, Shin-ichiro Tomie and Emiko Tanaka, to the artist and composers, are the same for both entries; and it’s in that moment you realize that all these people cared beyond belief, cared to tell a fantastic, cohesive narrative, a beautiful story about fate and fear, darkness and time, love and courage, of despair and hope.

Like a perfect dance, everything flows magically, and the experience it’s only that even to this day it’s hard to describe. It’s not flawless, mind you, but it’s absolutely fantatic, and it’s hard to find just the right words to define such an experience, an experience that feels so right and hits all the right notes in both gameplay and narrative. An experience that truly broke the bounds of the series and changed the minds of millions on what these little silly animals could tell though a story and its themes, and that transcended and became not only a good Pokémon spin-off game, but a fantastic game by its own and a highlight of entire franchise. An experience that, like all dances, sadly ends, even if there’s more adventures to be had, and I’ll surely have, but for now, and at the risk of repeating myself, I really recommend Explorers of the Sky; I’ve tried really hard to not spoil concrete plot-beats and only talk about the themes and strengths of the game, ‘cause I believe this a game worth playing blind, a experience worth discovering… worth exploring.

’’…farewell…’’

To be completely honest, I don't really have much to say about this one, so screw it, let's make it interesting. I ONLY HAVE 60 SECONDS TO WRITE THE REVIEW. TIME STARTS... NOW:

Minit takes an incredible unique concept and goes nuts with it; what it's admittedly a pretty simple Zelda-like with ‘’Metroidvania’’ elements it’s made especial by its time-loop premise, and while it does has a lot of downs, like some level and enemy designs aspects or getting lost very frequently due to how samey is the world visually, it's commendable for what it tries and I ended up liking it despite how lacking it can be.

TIME'S UP.

Oh wow, the result was actually not that horrible... I will never do it again tho that was very stressful holy shi-

Even to this day, Sonic CD stands out from its Genesis companions, but where once that difference came from how elusive it was—only having a few scattered ports and being included in some random collections— and how few actually managed to even play it when compared to the rest, as it became more easily available during the seventh generation, now it’s because the mythos surrounding it seems to be a space more about disputes than agreements, a far cry from the rest of the original series. I’m not saying that there’s a set of absolute truths surrounding the other games, in fact I myself find hard to love Sonic 2 as much as so many, many others do, but there’s a certain consensus regarding all of those 3 games (& Knuckles) that seems to be lacking over at Sega CD Land.

There seem to be as many enjoyers of the game as there are detractors, and this division of opinions is very much visible to outsiders of the series, and that’s exactly why for the longest time I was both very interested… and weary of Sonic CD. Even so many years later, with its past that once was present behind and now facing the futures, the game is still surrounded by a mysterious aura, or at least it was to me: enveloped in uncertainty, a game so seemingly strange and unique, surrounded by positives and negatives from both sides…


… and yet, the one that ended up captivating my heart.

Despite my best wishes and attempts, I found it incredibly hard to actively enjoy both Sonic 1 and 2, I still wouldn’t call them terrible games under no circumstances, but their low points and my gripes seemed to made it game that I consistently liked, with only some net positives being completely clear… With Sonic CD, I’d end quicker by saying what I didn’t like, in fact yeah, let’s get that out of the way!:

Even tho it has some incredibly interesting ideas and the laser mechanic, Metallic Madness is easily the lowest point of the game, it’s where the game gets closer to the lowest point of some of the past games’ zones, and where much of what I liked from the rest of the experience seems to be missing a bit; it also shares the same problem with Sonic 1 on how actually 100 precenting it doesn’t grant much of an active reward aside of getting the true ending (sort of, we’ll get to that) and…. Uh… I guess some acts share similar design and I wished there was more of a difference in some temporal variations?... Yeah I don’t know I got nothing else… and I could have never seen that coming.

My Sonic Genesis experience has been filled with buts and wishes to be able to love it more, but now I arrive at Sonic CD and from start to finish the only thing I could find myself feeling was… joy, the way I could just gleefully smile while traversing Whacky Workbench, being completely fascinated at the sights and sounds in Palmtree Panic, the feeling of peace and realization at getting my first good future in Collision Chaos; from a first glance Sonic CD doesn’t seem that distinct when compared to the likes of 2 — or even 1 for that matter—, but it’s when playing that the differences shine.

Sonic games always incentivized replays and getting to know the pathing and mastery of its controls, but CD rewards knowledge even beyond that: levels feel MASSIVE, so expansive and open ended that no matter the way you go, you’re most likely going the right way, and it always feels like that. Every single zone is always so damn fun to explore, so many interesting to surprises to discover that it never feels as if you are going around circles or that you are somewhere you shouldn’t be and it’s this exploration that gets tested in the Past version of the stages since you’ll need to find Robotnik’s machine somewhere. What awes me the most it’s how, for a game with so many moving parts (both literally and figuratively), it never slows down, it’s here where I’ve reached the highest speeds more-so than in any other game, dodging and dashing, making use both of the spin dash and the super peel out in different scenarios and situations, and even when the game slows you down, it never feels as it stops you in your tracks and actively makes you wait or do precision platforming for which Sonic isn’t designed for (maybe aside of Metallic Madness), Sonic CD knows what it is and what it wants to do, and does so while looking beautiful.

All zones look incredible, they share a borderline abstract look that gets amplified in the future versions, the good going always for a softer more celebratory look while the bad futures create this overtly and violently mechanical feeling, one that can be seeing again in almost all of the Act 3s; it translates the ideas of the Robotnik’s conquest of this small planet to a tea, and seeing the much more natural, organic look of the past versions and seeing far more free animal where once robots stood it’s not only the perfect way to push players to get the good futures without saying any words, it outright looks incredible. The sprites and sights are a marvel to behold, and they really feel like actual, interesting places, places with history that have been subject to change and thanks to you can improve and hold a much brighter future… and I haven’t even talked about the music! I’ve been utterly lovestruck by the original JP/EU soundtrack, no matter what song, so matter what jingle, it never misses, a perfect dance of techno mixed with the most perfect of ideas to evoke feelings on the player, details like how the themes from the past feel a liiiiittle bit more compressed or how the power-up music ends just as the power-up finishes taking effect are so obvious yet wonderful I can’t stop loving them, easily one of my favorite OST I’ve had the pleasure to listen in a long time. Compliments to the original soundtrack used to be accompanied by a jab to the American OST, but honestly… I also like that too! Nost as much as the Japanese and European one, that’s for sure, but the American goes for a much more atmospheric feeling that it’s appropriate and works super well, the fact this game basically created to amazing soundtracks in one is the funniest yet fitting showcase of how this is a experience that goes the extra mile in every conceivable way, even when it’s not necessary…

A complaint that I’ve seen being predicated by some people over on discussions and even video-analysis is how you don’t really need to engage with the time travel in any capacity to beat the game or complete it to get the true ending, and that is true, but now I cannot scratch the felling that, maybe… that was the point. For how much I’ve talked about it, the past and futures of each of the two first acts of every Zone aren’t required in any way, they aren’t mandatory, and you can ignore them if you choose too, but I found it extremely hard to simply because of how compelling they are: getting to a stop sign and managing to find a way to achieve high enough speeds to time travel its fun on its own, but even beyond that, getting to see how a Zone was before Robotnik completely destroyed it, managing to impact it and actively foil its plans to achieve a better future, or to just witness the bad future or jump across space and time is such a creatively strong decision, it incentivizes speed, it incentivizes exploration, it generates wonder, and the fact that all of that it’s options isn’t a reason to complain, but instead to be marveled at the sheer amount of work at display and the open ended nature of Sonic CD, and it works, it works so incredibly well that I played it yet again after beating it just to try out different paths and time travels, something I had never done with a Sonic game so soon, but with this one I just couldn’t resists, helped in great part by the short nature of the game itself.

CD clicks in a way very few games of this series manage to do with me, a game which even its special stages manage to be a fun time worth mentioning (and far more 3D than 3D Blast honestly!); trying different, challenging ideas to a base formula doesn’t always work, but Sonic CD uses them to expand a world and create a beyond unique adventure, one that starts and ends with beautiful animations, and that across its many levels it just kept me wishing for it to keep going a little bit more, not attempt more unique albeit easy boss battles, to see more of Metal and Amy; Sonic CD is more than an experiment, it’s this world and character taken to it’s most open-ended and crazy potential, and seeing be a reality alone it’s worth admiring, but for it to be so good and inspiring while doing it is on a whole other level.

Sonic CD is easy to love for some, but also easy to dislike for others, it’s a strange game with a ton of ideas that don’t click for some, but honestly, I think it’s quite fitting, a game that attempts so many interesting concepts that gambles between a good future and a bad one, and it ended up getting a mix of some considering how people looks at it in so many different ways. And yet, it keeps on going, and I’m happy to say that at least for me, it creates a future worth fighting for.

Also, I know I’ve been complaining about Metal Madness quite a lot, but it’s all forgiven honestly, why you ask? Because it has this! Not other zone has peak character design! Look at it! LOOK AT IT! THE PUREST OF BOIS! LONG MAY LIVE MINI-SONIC!

I gotta admit, making an entire DLC to have more of Snatcher and include funny adorable seals is the single best motivator I have ever seen… too bad they forgot to include them in an actually interesting package.

Despite the mixed to negative opinions I had heard, I really wanted to enjoy Seal the Deal, and specially everything that has to do with the newly introduced chapter. Cruises as an idea don’t get explored much in games for how fun they can actually be as a setting; call me a sucker for big-ass boats but what can I say, I do really like the idea of playing through big pools, giant malls, dining rooms and decks all in one place, that and some holiday vibes and you hit jackpot!

Through purely visual lenses, ‘’Artic Cruise’’ does succeed in that department; the vibes here are INMACULATE, nailing what a cruise should be and making it feel actually interconnected and pretty natural all things considered, and of course it’s really fun to see new faces and old friends and foes all together somewhere that isn’t the finale, and there are some funny as all hell interactions, especially with the Conductor and the Alpine Peaks inhabitants, and don’t even get me started with the seals that give the DLC half of its name. They can get a bit annoyingly cute at times, but they have some pretty nice and cute jokes to offer and bounce off Walrus Captain hilariously, I honestly wish he had a more dialogue through coms or at least more presence, ‘cause chatting with that grumpy seadog and seeing him react to his crew’s mess what a highlight of the entire thing.

Part of me wonders if that should have been the main focus of the main chapter, a big open level like Alpine Peaks, more focused on light exploration with some challenges limited to each of the cruise’s areas, or on the contrary, a more linear experience like Chapter 2 where you traverse the ship little by little; I’m not saying those ideas are the only ones that could have been done ore are ‘’definitive’’… but are certainly more focused than whatever we ended up getting.

What we have here are two different versions or what are basically fetch quests, and the other basically a mix of that with the last mission in Chapter 4… I do not like the last mission in chapter 4, and here they even re-used the same music and everything! I don’t think going around doing busy work or picking up stuff three different times was a particularly great idea in the first place, but it’s not like they did anything interesting with it: you just go around, picking up plates, broken shards or seals and bringing them to another place, and the only enjoyment that comes of from is the fun that comes from exploring the ship, one that rapidly fades when you noticed just how annoying it is to go through certain section different times or how the camera can get even more terrible than it did in the standalone game. The last mission is probably the most interesting since it changes things up the most layout wise, but it still doesn’t save it from being a backtracking fest or just simply uninteresting, and it just feels like an sped up finale for what it’s the shortest chapter in the game.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with having a chapter with only three missions (five if you count the other two extra time rift challenges, which are the most difficult in the game so far but still a bit underwhelming), but when in the base game you have 6 act chapters where you do something different in each, here having only three where you repeat the same dance in all of them feels… weird, not even lazy or dumb, just… really weird, and despite its brevity, it gets stale REAL quick.

When it comes to the Snatcher side of things, things get marginally better; it’s effectively remixed versions of past acts, and there are A TON of them, and they offer some cool rewards here and there, but it’s still pre-existing content with not that much changed, and unless you are a die hard fun of the game, I can’ imagine most people will get much out of it. Not a bad mode at all, it uses Snatcher in interesting ways and some of the extra challenges I got to play were really fun, but it’s still highly dependent on content that as already there and was already pretty good, but I needed to get a bit crazier or original to be something incredibly remarkable… new songs and the N64 costume are amazing tho.

Seal the Deal feels more like the cut content that didn’t make it into the full release being put out as it was left, which pains me to say ‘cause I don’t wanna ignore the effort that clearly went into it and the fun that can be found in some of its parts, but overall, I just get the sense of a huge missed opportunity, one that can’t get carried by contract making devils or funny lil’ sea mammals…

This was the equivalent of seeing a tweet from 2013 from your favorite celebrity.

I'm only exaggerating of course, Hungry Knight isn't as disgusting as a famous person's twitter feed, but it was still pretty painful if you ask me.

But don't be mistaken, the games does have certain value, especially when seen as a historical piece of sorts. It's kinda cute and even cool to play a kind of ''preview'' of what would eventually be one of the most popular indie games and even Metroidvanias of the past decade, and it a lot of ways there already showings of mechanics that we would see on the final product: both the base attack and dash, a round shape meter that fills when you kill enemies, the 2D animation style, the enemy design and the bug-like features, even the three Dreamers masks!.. seeing all these elements in a flash game with music that at this point has been ingrained into my memory after playing so many flash games is kinda surreal.

It's also really funny to me that the Knight, later to be a stoic and void of emotion protagonist, is just really fucking hungry on this one, and in retrospect it makes me wonder if when he encounters food in Hollow Knight he's just thinking this.

Aaaaaaaaand... that's where the good stuff and the funny pretty much end. The premise is kind of cool, having to defeat three big enemies while making sure you hunger bar doesn't deplete, but this task is performed in a barren wasteland with only three types of enemies, with a really unresponsive dash that seems to let you decide if you can attack or not at random and with hitboxes that seem to be different depending the way you look at.

But I mean, of course is not that good, it's just a quick, simple flash game that was made for a game jam and wasn't given that much thought or polish, by all accounts it should only be a mediocre game with not much to tell and show...


...BUT THEN THERE'S STARVATION MODE.

It's amazing how such a simple change, reducing the amount of time you have before the hunger bar depletes from 10 seconds to 5, can make the problems even more prominent, showing just how barren the stage is, how clunky the hitboxes and collission are and how the big enemy spawn being random is just so ANNOYING. This mode does make the experience harder, but only artificially, and it just results its flaws being left open for everyone to see. I really do mus hate myself for subjecting myself at these 20 minutes of pure nothingess, I have no clue why this was added, but it only helps at making the whole thing even worse... at least I can say I mastered.

The fact this is just as boring and bland as it is makes what would come later even more interesting all things considered; now, would I recommend it?... no, not unless you are really curious or LOVE Hollow Knight as much as I do, and you want to see from where it came. As I said, it has interesting stuff on its bones, and the meat and skin would come later, 'cause this... this is only a skeleton...

Speaking of that the final game should have had skeleton bugs, that's the only aspect where this one shines over its successor .

embark

chit chat

My experience with Dating Sims of the joke or parody variety is as extensive as my knowledge of social interaction, which it's to say none at all safe from one or two random facts; in fact I'd go as far as to say that I have never even seen a ''real'' Dating-Sim to begin with.

''Oh wow''

But even then, I've just been looking from afar, not really interested on the act of actually playing any of them, the closes I've ever gotten to touching any of them being that random section in Later, Alligator. I honestly couldn't tell you why, I don't really have anything against them, especially those that as I mentioned before took a more comedic approach, it just... never really called to me.

''You talk a lot''

The Ratchelor was seemingly yet another perfect example of what I said before, a funny looking game that I would only interact with through random reviews on the site and an appearance on a video I saw a while back, but with it being completely free and being super short, it seemed like fine enough really short pastime to clear my head during the last week of uni and have a seemingly funny time, and you know, it's not every day you'd get the chance to date a VeryRealRat so I didn't want to pass the chance,

''Yikes''

It's an absurdly simplistic little game where you get to choose some rodents to date and have three possible answers in each interaction (in that way it kinda reminded me of My Dinner with André funnily enough) and it's pretty much just that, and it's all it ever needed to be. Maybe it's my tired-ass brain speaking in auto-pilot mode and I'm simply delusional but I... enjoyed this a ton! Each rat is charming as all hell despite you having only 5 maximum interactions with each, I adored all the little goobers so much so I played enough times to interact at least once with each of them. Your limited answers prompts a different reaction for each of the contestants, and in a way it's kind of deceptive with its seemingly squalid presentation; there's a quite a ton of work put into this, this is no simple joke game, it's an actual competent and funny one!

''Don't look at me like that''

In the span of like ten minutes I smiled at each and every line, it's just so well-spirited and enjoyable to the point of being super surprising. I actually was playing a joke Dating-Sim AND having a great time with it?

''I can't imagine what that's like''

I'm not head over heels with it nor would I call it a ''super fantastic hidden gem'', but it is... nice, like a small unexpected gift. In theory it's nothing more than a little novelty, but in practice is a wonderful distraction that left me wishing for more absurd and funny lines of dialogue. This hasn't convinced me to play more of the genre necessarily, but it's a damn good first playable impression I think. This was just sweet.

Also EggSalad and Hiberdean are the best characters in this and that's simply a FACT.

''Yuck''

You know… I’ve passed on the opportunity to play the Game of the Week basically every time for no apparent reason, despite the ones selected usually being exceptional games and sometimes very easily obtainable freeware, and instead of any of those, I play Lizard Lady vs the Cats… and this is one of the reasons I sometimes look at the mirror wondering why I make the decisions I decide to do.

An overall score of 1.1 over here is one hell of a prospect, one which I don’t usually tend to gravity towards; I like to think I value my time, and I’m not that keen on spending it on absolutely despair inducing games, and so, I wasn’t planning on even nearing the general location of this game. But then something happened, a couple of people left actual positive scores and reviews talking about this one, and I couldn’t believe it, mainly because… I mean… look at it-BUT STILL, that did spark my attention. Maybe once again I judged a book by its cover too early, maybe there’s actually something to enjoy here, perhaps it’s a hidden gem! And so, yeah, who am I to say no to a work? After all, they always have something to say, and this looking like it could actually hold more value than I thought of at first, why not at least give it a try? Worst case scenario, it sucks but at least get an interesting experience out of it, so yeah! Let’s go! I did it! I played it! I beat it! I beat *Lizard Lady vs the Cats! And What did I get out of it?!







…nothing. Absolutely nothing. The silence of the void deafens my ears. The abyss beckons and looks back upon me its laughs echoing through nothingness. I keep staring at it in search of an answer. I get nothing in return.

It’s not that terrible of a game, nor is it a particularly competent one. It works and functions well enough, and there aren’t any specially jarring design decisions that make this an absolute horrendous experience, but that’s not because it does something good in return, it because it doesn’t do… nothing in general. That isn’t to say that it doesn’t screw up badly: it doesn’t really have an art-style as much as filter applied over all the models and scenarios, one that doesn’t take into account shadows and doesn’t seem that interested in being visible, which isn’t even that excessive or heinous to even be funny. The shooting and combat feel like if someone that never even touched and FPS in their lives tried to make one in all the worst ways; the camera is ASS and the enemies hitboxes are small as a toothpick, you do get seemingly infinite range in return, but it doesn’t do much when aiming is so incredibly painful and the level design is a bunch of corridors and mazes with zero thought that I’ve already forgot about as I wrote this. Honestly, I would complain about this more, but it’s not like the game is difficult or frustrating enough for me to even care, it’s just…nothing. It doesn’t even work as a joke game, ‘cause it isn’t neither funny nor does it commit in being utterly awful, but it also doesn’t work as a more serious one since the most ‘’interesting’’ (and I’m using that word very loosely) part of its story is represented through a infinite-score mode of a game which’s gameplay puts me to sleep. I genuinely don’t know which of the two this game was trying to be, because it fails at being either of the two, and it also doesn’t feel like it does enough to do a commentary on the little it has or is.

Do I sound mad or angry? Because I’m really not, but maybe I’m sounding too… condescending may be the right word, and I apologize if that’s the case, it’s just… what more can I say? I can’t even make a joke like ‘’this looks like it was made in Dreams’’ because that would be a huge disrespect to the amazing games made in there, and again, not because this is horrible, it’s because is… NOTHING!

The last game I talked about made some things choppy or clunky for the sake of its vision and I really appreciated, and maybe I would appreciate this game in a similar way if I managed to see what the hell was its vision in the first place. This is dumb, but not the type of dumb that knows it and makes some kind of statement or commentary about it, it just… exist, floating forever in the void, and I could have used the 25 minutes I spent on beating it on watching paint dry and nothing of value would have been lost, aside of the opportunity of writing a review which is always fun. So yeah, congratulations, Lady Lizard vs the Cats, playing you gave me the opportunity to write about how empty of an experience you were.

Maybe there’s something I’m losing here, maybe I’, just thinking too much about it and I shouldn’t be talking about it this much; maybe I was filtered, maybe I do not get something, maybe this is truly awful and I’m being soft, I don’t know about all that, ‘cause I didn’t get enough out of this to even come close to getting any of those conclusion.

Anyway 10/10 only because of the way the melee enemies were animated, that was the only part of the game that actually made me smirk in some capacity.

So this is the Disco Elysium I've heard so much about!

I remember when I discovered these two fellas via clips from the animated series, and in that moment, a new obsession began to form... and by obsession I mean just watching more clips. It took me a while to even play one of their games, and I've finally did it, and man, they sure hit the road, I didn't think they had it in them.

I've said in various occasions when I talk about certain games that they ''oozes'' charm or that they are funny or something like that, but I might have to re-check my standards, 'cause holy mother of yeti this has to be one of the games with more personality I've ever even touched. Sam and Max are some of the most charismatic protagonists I've come across, and I don't really know if they are the only cops I would trust, or the ones I'd trust the least. The whole game game has this feeling of comical indifference and absurdity, but these two represent it the most; their interactions are pure gold, each hilarious and they roll of each other incredibly, combine that with the visual gags, most coming from Max suffering the wrath of the universe but not giving a shit, and the crisp animations and we have a pair that I wish they got a movie or something, the possibilities are endless.

While everyone's favorite sociopaths are the most bizarre beings in all of the game, the rest of the cast and locations doesn't lack in weirdness and charm either. The premise of solving a case while traversing different tourist traps and trip stops is executed fantastically, each being a hilarious parody of roadside attractions, and the originality and hilarity seems endless. All the secondary characters are funny, all the puzzles go absolutely bonkers, and even if the story never takes itself too seriously, you still are compelled to solve the mystery of the sasquatches and defeat the little turd that is the villain. I swear, I loved that country singer punk, I just wished he got more screen time, but hey, at least he even gets its own villain song! Now that's quality. It's also filled with references, that where actually pretty cool and funny, even the game does them correctly instead of being jarring or unfunny!

The originality sips into all the aspects of the game, and that includes the puzzles themselves, which while sometimes is amazing, sadly, more often than not, I found it problematic. I admit, I'm terrible at graphic adventure games, maybe I'm just dumb or maybe I haven't played enough of them, but even if I'm terrible at them and sometimes I have to looks up the solutions, I'm able to recognize when a puzzle is well done and the solution is smart and makes sense, and that's the problem, even if there are a lot of parts in this game that are really well made and communicated, others just... don't. The game feels too obtuse at places, it doesn't make it clear when you have to go and what to do, and things that you think would make sense end up being the totally opposite solution; it's a game that really suffers from the ''needs a guide'' syndrome. Combine that with the average problem of this genre of games of the 90's, like hunting for pixels or having to go back time and time again to already seen places more than six times, and you have the elements for making this game not feel as good as it could have been, all capping off in a cryptic scavenger hunt that feels more like padding than an actual important plot-beat.

But, at the end of the day, being incredibly confusing is part of the charm. I really didn't expect to laugh this hard at these monotone voiced characters and the insane world they live in... that would being the USA of course. I can't bring myself to considering it something else than good, it's just so damn creative and unique, and I'm so excited to see what other misadventures the freelance police had over the years.

So yeah, they hit the road, they sure proved me wrong, but... ain't no way they save the world, right??

5 minutes with a dino game, 5 minutes well spent...

A game with very light platforming and fantastic humor and delivery, the inventory and the map changing gags specially were really inspired and I found myself with a big ol' smile while playing. While I myself don't have ADHD and that's definitively a barrier for just really knowing how good of a representation of it seems, folks seem to be pleased with how it's shown and represented, and it's a very sincere and fun representation and that. Plus, it's done with dinos. I mean... c'mon, that makes it even better.

So yeah, not much else to say , actually, it's a funny little game that comes from a sincere place while also managing to be effectively comical. It is what it is, and what it is a very sweet and interesting time.

Yeah, that's right, I played this on the Sega Genesis Classics emulator on steam, I nabbed it when they gave it away for free some years ago. Sega thought it was being clever when it removed the Sonic games so we would buy Origins, well, who is laughing now, SEGA?!... Now please let me buy Rocket Knight Adventure pleasepleasepleaseplease pretty please.

Ah, Sonic, the one and only! I really liked him when I was younger, and I mean, look at the guy: it's blue, has legs, what's there not to love? I remember being really fixated over this guy for a while, even more than Mario... and then I played the games. I honestly couldn't even tell you if they were even bad, mainly 'cause I never got far 'cause man do I SUCK at those games. No matter if it's 3D or 2D, then or now, I'm extremely bad at them and I really couldn't tell you why, guess it's one of my two curses, the other one being bad grammar. To this day the only Sonic games I've played till the end are Generations and Mania, but even tho I really liked the latter it didn't really made me better at them at all; after beating it I tried time and time again getting into the classic ones, but I just kept dropping them 'cause, again, I just felt I wasn't good enough, that something wasn't clicking. Finally beating Sonic 2 so long after my first attempt was an eye-opener, 'cause while I still consider myself really bad at this games, I also noticed the core design issues that make this experience sometimes a chore to go through.

And it's a shame, because Sonic the Hedgehog 2 has so many good elements that the first impression it leaves is always good! The game is beautiful from start to finish, everything looks incredibly well and far more interesting and stylized than many other 16-bit games. The colors pop out, the enemy and zone design are extremely creative and iconic, and the music... is a bit mixed actually, there are some themes here and there that are noticeable worse than others and don't sound that good, but believe me, when Sonic 2's music is good, IT'S FUCKING FANTASTIC. When it comes to presentation, the game doesn't shy away from going all out, even if that does mean that sometimes there can be a bit of slow-down when you have a lot of rings a get hit, but aside from that, and some graphical glitches that I don't know if they are a problem with the emulator or the game itself, in what respects looks, Sonic 2 absolutely shines.

And at a first contact, it looks like it shines in the gameplay department too! The first zone, Emerald Hill is amazing, it teaches you everything you need to know about the game's dependance on momentum and going as fast as possible, the multiple secrets and ways you can traverse the level, introducing some basic enemies from which future ones will expand upon and be more aggressive, etc. And all of this is... fun! It's really fun! I found myself really enjoying both of the acts of the first zone, and when arriving at Chemical Plant Zone, the first act was even more fun, introducing brand new elements that made the level far more interesting and most importantly: helped you go fast and overcome challenges in a far more agile and interesting way... and then Act 2 happened.


I... what the hell happened here? Don't get me wrong, it's far from being horrible, but many of the design decisions I simply don't understand that the game will carry onwards are present here: It simply won't let you go fast ... WHICH IS THE MECHANICN THE ENTIRE GAME IS SUPOSSED TO BE BASED AROUND. From here onwards, there are a ton of sections where the games into a precision-oriented platformer and... it just doesn't work. Sonic feels slippery, as it should! The idea is that he is supposed to go fast, and what slipperiness and imprecision when it goes slow, becomes a crucial key when it achieves incredible speed. So, when the game start to ask to take things more calmly and jump in a more precise way I say: ''OK! No problem, I get it, you got to break up the fast-paced levels with some down time. At least you will compensate the fact that Sonic wasn't designed for this kind of platforming with not so punishing level design, right?... right...?''

The game not only loves to keep slowing you down, but it also FUCKING ADORES to throw random shit at your direction that you just cannot react or recover from. Endless pits, random enemies or spikes, water from which you have no idea where to get out of, you name it! And this makes me specially mad because the game does have some extremely cool ideas and mechanics, and it’s not like it becomes unbearable from this point onwards, zones like the casino , Hill Top or Mystic Cave do have some fun moments and ideas throwed into them, but it just keeps tripping time and time again, not letting you do what's actually fun and unique about thus game and it seems hellbent on it. I don't want to see the final three zones of this game in my life, Metropolis Zone was boring and repetitive and drown out, Wing Fortress Zone was atrocious, and Death Egg Zone are just two bosses that aren’t that fun, and they don't give you any rings...You have to beat both battles without getting hit... YOU CAN'T EVEN USE SUPER SONIC IF YOU GET ALL THE EMERALDS IN THE FUCKING FINAL BOSS UNLESS YOU USE THE DEBUG MODE!

...ok... things got a bit heated there...

Listen, this game, as a sequel, is incredible: it's a huge upgrade in most regards, it introduces Tails and multiplayer, it introduced an incredible reward for getting the emeralds (tho getting them is absolute hell), it had actual little cinematics and it was all and all far more original and creative. And again, I did have fun, even if doesn't seem like it, but really, this game has some really good meat over its bones... but it's also full of rot. I cannot bring myself to really dislike it 'cause it isn't ''bad'' by any means, but I also didn't find myself actively enjoying it.

If you love or like this one, I'm so, so fucking happy for you and I'm so sorry I couldn't see what makes this game so special. I might be bad at Sonic, but sometimes Sonic is bad at design, and I can't look past that...

Tho I'll say I still really want to play Sonic 3, I might take a little break from Sonic before trying it, but I'll get there...

I'll get that hedgehog!

When my high-school math teachers said that when I grew up I would use what I learnt in their classes daily, I laughed, and now... I still laugh 'cause this are the simplest multiplications ever, yet another day without using the quadratic equations babyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!

The spare time between uni classes has really gotten me into a little bit of web browser puzzle craze, it all started simple, with me thinking ''Hey, what's a better way to kill time than to boot up short games of Tetris?'', and it begun as only that, but my destiny was already sealed, and it didn't take long before I started to browse and try more and more games; I was deep down the rabbit hole, and it was only a matter of time before me and 2048 crossed paths, and let me tell ya, this game didn't kill my time, it annihilated it, to an even greater degree than Suika Game which is embarrassing to say considering that, as a game, it really just gives only a bit more of fun than messing around with a calculator.

It's funny how in a way this one has the total opposite problems compared to the aforementioned watermelon hellscape; whereas that game was highly RNG dependent and it didn't feel like strategy could really make a difference, 2048 feels like it can only be played one way and one way only, and even if it may take a while to achieve that solution, once you figure it out, you'll be getting high scores and even winning consistently. It's not just that luck doesn't factor here, it's that it feels as if every different run is the exact same thing, even before realizing the ''correct'' way of playing it. The 2s and 4s meld together and sure, it’s not a game that you can play without paying any attention, but I’d say that should be the bare minimum. You can fuck up, and you can recover from those fuck ups, but there isn’t much excitement in any of this, there isn’t an ‘’Aha!’’ moment that makes you feel that smart, since the solution that you’ll come up with to beat it has been already thought of by basically everyone that has played it.

It's not terrible, in fact it’s pretty competent at what it is: it’s just a time killer that really grabs you until you beat it, and it’s not a bad time at all, I just don’t think it really gave me anything memorable of value aside of that You Win! screen. It’s, and I say this both seriously and with the pun very much intended, extremely by the numbers; there are far more competent little puzzle games that feel far more re-playable and compelling to go back, but you don’t really lose anything by playing it, and it can be entertaining to at least beat its mean objective

Me? I’ve done it, and so I break free of the shackles that bind me and move on to the next challenge… that being more Tetris, of course…