This was... fine? The voice acting and cutscenes are a huge downgrade from MGS1. Mechanics from 2 are added very sloppily, like the random noisy spots on the floors and nearly useless lockers in odd corners. The controls map kinda strangely to the GameCube controller imo, the Z button sucks for aiming and I would accidentally equip and unequip weapons/items a lot while adjusting my aim in first person. I appreciate that they cut down on the backtracking but I'd MUCH rather play the original compared to this, even with the improvements it brings.

For the historical context this game was released in, I'd lean more towards a 3.5 star rating. But playing this game today is a test of patience. I've done it with both the original PS1 gamepad and the neGcon now, and while the analog input helps in the advanced part of the race course, the traction mechanics still feel like a crapshoot compared to anything even remotely more contemporary.

There's only one track in this game! Well, two variations of one track. And the ability to play them backwards with a different starting location after completing everything available. I'll give them credit in that it's generally quite the well designed course. The "advanced" segment is quite difficult to navigate for beginners, though the sporadic "on-off" nature of drifting makes it very difficult even for series veterans coming back to this one to have a sense of control over the cars.

Should you play this one? Only if you're still interested after reading all that. Should you buy it for a collection? Meh. Only if you're going for a full series, Playstation big box, full Playsation set, et cetera. It's more interesting to read about, watch, or research than it is to play unfortunately.

I have a very long and personal history with Sonic Adventure. It's the first game I ever beat as a kid (with help from my older sister) and has remained one of my favorites to revisit for much of my life. For this replay, I played the original Japanese release on Dreamcast for the first time. I'd seen the Dreamcast visuals and played the PC version with PkR's wonderful Dreamcast Conversion and ItsEasyActually's SA1_Chars, but to see the real thing in action was a treat despite the lower framerate and occasional slowdown. I also want to go out of my way to commend the Japanese voice acting for this game, it's genuinely great stuff and I'm very glad that same cast has voiced the characters ever since.

Sonic Adventure's general gameplay is an admission that classic Sonic's physics-playground design was not properly translated to 3D. However I do think it's a solid first try at a Sonic Team 3D platformer and in some ways still holds up well against its most popular contemporary, Super Mario 64. General movement for most characters tends towards tight and snappy, levels are VERY big and complex for 1998, and the camera does an okay job of not being a hassle. The quality of gameplay itself can vary between the playable characters, but a full playthrough isn't too demanding when it comes to repeating content or doing tedious objectives like many later 3D Sonic games would be.

The game is structured around individual character stories, which itself comes with some inherent benefits and problems. You begin the game with Sonic and gradually gain access to the other characters as you run into them in whatever story you are playing. You can play a story from start to finish, or hop between them to vary your play sessions. Though, Sonic's story is by far the longest at around 2-3 hours, and most other characters can be completed in under 2. The stories will overlap as characters meet each other, though perspective and memory come into play as each character gets unique dialogue for repeated scenes in the English version (this is not true in Japanese afaik and there is MUCH speculation as to why this is the case).

Sonic's story is a typical adventure for the hero, who runs into a powerful being called Chaos who he learns Eggman is using with the chaos emeralds to wreak havoc as usual. The plot is downright goofy at times and I love it for it, though the real focus of this part is the fun levels. There's a great variety of platforming, enemies, setpieces, and the environmental detail was above and beyond compared to even the best 3D platformers of the time. Though, with Sonic's speed, the whole thing is over by the time you will likely be craving more, and the rest of the game isn't quite the same.

Tails is the closest character to Sonic both in control and story content, as most of his time is spent racing Sonic in segments of his levels Tails follows in. The focus here is in using his flight (which last much shorter than in 3&K) to go through shortcut rings, which is decent fun but definitely not as interesting as Sonic's more organic level flow. The two get separated, and Tails begins a character arc or learning to believe in himself (heh) by saving Station Square from Eggman's backup plan of "well I guess I'll just nuke em".

Knuckles' gameplay is the most unique of the classic lot, dubbed "treasure hunting" by the fans for its freeform goal of collecting hidden master emerald shards instead of traversing to a goal of some kind. He's usually confined to a portion of a level Sonic went to, though in the new context these levels become more like interesting puzzle rooms. My only real complaint about this mode is that it's over so fast, and on repeat playthroughs you can often complete levels in under a minute or two. This game has by far my favorite portrayal of Knuckles as a character, this lone wolf who is tasked with preserving the last remaining treasure of his long lost people. He's noble and thoughtful, though very easily fooled as he has little experience with others and society.

Amy is the last of the returning characters and the one who got her playable debut here. This one I'm pretty conflicted on, the main issue being her acceleration curve (the startup is even slower than Sonic 1), though once she's up to speed and can hammer jump she's fun to use. Her story, like Tails', is about independence and self-reliance, though with more of a "girlboss" angle that I appreciate despite the surface-level nature of it all. Quite possibly the first feminist platformer character, what a true icon. She's actually got an original level that Sonic doesn't visit, along with a few unique places in his levels too.

Big the Cat is a new character for this game whose main purpose is to go fishing for his best friend Froggy who is very strenuously related to the Chaos plot. The fishing is in pools of water along the Sonic path of larger levels, and it's... not very good. Once you learn that you have to flick the analog stick down to "yank" the line, it's just a matter of spamming that to do everything. While many people dread this part, I sort of just grit my teeth and rush through it. I do kinda appreciate Big and Froggy as characters, it's just not fun to play this part.

The last character, and secretly the best, is newcomer E-102 Gamma. Gamma is one of Eggman's new line of E-series sentient robots to replace the Egg Robo as all-purpose hitmen and general service bots. Though, Gamma quickly realizes all of his "brothers" are only seen as useless tools to Eggman, and his creator would toss him aside and experiment on him the same if he were ever to fail at a task like they do. Through a chance meeting with Amy and the bird she protected, he resolves to free the captive animals powering his brothers by killing them. His gameplay introduces shooting, and has a time-bonus combo system that's decent fun to get good with. This story was surprisingly touching and emotional for a Sonic game, and stands out as a series highlight. Honestly if you've never played this game, it's worth it just for this.

That leads pretty well into music, which this game absolutely nails. The soundtrack is incredibly varied, with hints of rock, jazz, electronic, and funk spread through a huge amount of unique tracks. There's a kick ass song for literally every little thing you could think of getting its own song in this game, it's wild. And this game began the absolutely legendary trend of a lyrical rock song over the Super Sonic vs. final boss battle, featuring the newly formed band of Crush 40 who would then go on to be one of the biggest names in video game music period.

Over the course of the rest of the characters' stories, you will slowly learn about Tikal, the origins of Chaos, and more about the history of the echidna tribe Knuckles comes from. This overarching history is a defining feature of this game and frankly is the secret sauce that ties classic and modern Sonic neatly into one continuity in my eyes. And the way it all leads into the final Super Sonic story is very well written, especially for a game trying all these ideas out for the first time.

This game is the absolute definition of "overhated", it's pretty standard stuff for a platformer of the time. People compare it a lot to games like Mario Sunshine, Jak & Daxter, and Sly Cooper when in reality it came out closer to stuff like Spyro the Dragon, Crash 3, and Gex. There are certainly issues and stumbling points, but I'd say it was a decently faithful Sonic game, and feels appropriate as the first 3D game as well as the one to succeed Sonic & Knuckles.

One of the most difficult and action-packed games in the Metroid series, Prime 2 focuses more on the moment-to-moment challenge than its predecessor. The game starts strong with an incredibly well directed "post-disaster" scene that is much more engaging than the equivalent in Prime 1. This strength in directing holds for all the cinematics and location reveals in the game, with my favorite portrayal of Samus as a character through animations.

The light/dark world spin this game has on the Metroid formula is interesting, though it detracts from the exploration aspect a bit. The game asks you to retread similar but changed level layouts, with toxic air and stronger enemies doubling the already high danger of the light world counterparts. It means you do less "discovery" than most Metroid games, but instead use your memory of recent layouts in a sort of challenge mode. All in all I think it's not a bad idea, and only in late game item retrieval did I find annoyance in how sparse portals often make you travel long distances to get many places.

Combat in this game in general is decent, but the bosses here are an absolute treat. There are straightforward shooting matches with Dark Samus, enemies that use your own abilities against you, and the major area bosses that are long battles that often make use of multiple abilities at once. The variety and creativity is stellar, and the combat is enhanced a bit with the beam ammo system imo. You can't just choose your strongest beam, you have to balance enemy weaknesses with your current ammo count and try to get ammo with kills of the opposite beam. It's easy to get scared and just use the power beam all the time, but if you get the ammo upgrades and try to use the beams more often you may find some fun in the system.

Thankfully this game has many area shortcuts to get around easily during the end game macguffin search, though the light/dark world portal placement can often lead to tedium in retreading areas at times. However, the finale is the best in the Prime series by a long shot. Overall I think this game is almost as good as Prime 1 but rougher around the edges.

This is an excellent remaster of a classic Gamecube title that I think improved on the experience enough I'd recommend it over the original. The new lighting engine and material-based rendering really transforms the game's environment and enemy design and brings everything much closer to the concept art. There are a handful of small details the Gamecube/Wii version sell a little better but overall the visuals are noticeably better. If you are playing officially, I'd say this has replaced the Wii version as my recommendation for new players of this game.

The new control schemes really sell this version above all the others. I have yet to try with a Pro Controller (I'm interested in how it handles the motion aim) but with a USB controller and joycons, I found dual stick was transformative in how much better the combat feels when you challenge yourself not to lock on. Plus a free camera means you can jump more confidently, and the general feel is much better, helping the endless backtracking of this game feel a bit more varied. Playing the game like this, I was more easily able to see the influence of the PC first person shooters and immersive sims this game took influence from as well. This first game was so fascinatingly varied in its influences!

I noticed the difficulty was a bit re-balanced compared to the Gamecube version, but also different from the changes already made to the Trilogy updated Wii version. No spoilers on where, but at the end of the game they introduced difficult enemies originally only in one or two rooms in a few more places after some major bosses have died. More scan opportunities thankfully, but there are still scans you can miss. And unfortunately, we're back to the "square somewhere on the thing" style of targets? Metroid Prime 2's "highlight the whole object" targets were sort of already in Prime 1 thanks to Trilogy's backport, though I can imagine they probably didn't use that version as the base of this project.

My biggest complaint about Metroid Prime is that it's a huge game with slow movement that asks you to repeatedly go to the same places over and over. But if you get to the end and you don't know which missile containers you are missing, you have to waste hours of your life checking every single possible spot of 50 to figure out which ones you've missed. I've played this game over a dozen times, but the only times I ever complete it 100% is when I write my own item tracker. Metroid Prime 3 had a solution for this! At the very end of the campaign, if you choose to backtrack for item cleanup, there are dots wherever there are any pickups you've missed. They served not as direct answers to where to go, but clues of where to look in the room to find the path or puzzle to them. A great inclusion, but sorely missing in this game considering the problem is worse here than Prime 2 or 3.

At this point I'm nitpicking pretty hard I understand, so take this all as a frustrated fan. This is definitely the best way to play this game, and I'm amazed at the work of the new Retro Studios. I even actually have hope that Prime 4 might possibly be a good game maybe? Not so sure still.

This game is everything I hoped Ridge Racer 1 would be in terms of handling, tracks, visuals, and sound. It was a bit of a golden goose in my series collection, I'm guessing it sold quite poorly considering how uncommon these have been in retro stores or even online listings. Kind of like a "forgotten entry", relegated to series retrospectives from youtubers who aren't interested or wiki fodder for those interested in how Type 4 got it's name considering the it's often the 5th or 6th game listed. If you are looking for a really old Ridge Racer to play for fun, this is what you're looking for.

Firstly, the style here is just top notch. I'm not much of a fan of series mainstay songs like Rare Hero and Rotterdam Nation, but tracks from this game like Drive U 2 Dancing, Over The Highway, and especially Lords of Techno are absolute bangers. They channel the raw intensity and dance energy of Experience-era Prodigy fantastically, and I feel this is one of the most overlooked soundtracks in the series along with Rave Racer. The visuals also capture the early Playstation look just like the first game but much better emulate effects like the darkness of night and changing time of day.

This game also features the "one track that changes" feature of Ridge Racer OG, but the execution here is much cleaner and more interesting. Each of the three difficulties now has its own segments of track exclusive to it, and each one both challenges the driver in increasing intensity but also balances the readability much better than the advanced section of the original city course.

The real draw of this version of Ridge Racer is the handling model, and I'm bold enough to say this is when the series proper came into form gameplay-wise. The controls are much more precise and predictable than the first entry. Collisions are a bit more forgiving, with some side-swipes not causing the same speed-death as previously. This in combination with the easier-to-read track design makes for a much cleaner and more fun experience.

I didn't really expect to have this much to say about such a short and feature-trim game. But if you're able to play this one it's much more worthwhile than the first Ridge Racer. It's even got multiplayer apparently! Haven't tried it yet. It's also how I learned the PS1 has a console link cable.

I had a good time revisiting this one. Most of the time I felt it was better than I remembered, though there were numerous points that were annoying enough where I was sure I had to keep my rating the same. If you're interested in Sonic this is definitely worth playing at least once, I'd recommend playing it through Sonic 1 Forever if you can.

This game's greatest strength and weakness is the level design. Green Hill and Star Light are a joy to play and even hold up to the later Genesis titles in the series, though Labyrinth is nightmarishly bad and Scrap Brain Act 3 basically acting as Labyrinth Act 4 is really a kick to the teeth at the end of the game. Marble and Spring Yard are hit or miss even within the same acts, and Scrap Brain is an appreciated challenge that unfortunately doesn't play well with Sonic's controls.

The game would be a 3.5 nonetheless if it weren't for the sluggish physics in this game. Sonic takes a ridiculous amount of momentum to start moving at a reasonable speed, and most of the game is designed around start-and-stop rhythms that highlight the worst parts of the game feel. And the special stages are certainly a contender for the worst in the series.

The latter half of Sonic the Hedgehog 3, chopped off into its own cartridge with special features. Sonic & Knuckles is one of the strongest in the classic series, with Sonic's fantastic physics and moveset in top shape just like in 3. And just like that game, this one features six two-act zones that are both huge and incredibly dense with platforming challenges and occasional physics playgrounds. That said, a few nitpicks I've got with the levels and enemies in this one have me feeling a just a little less enthusiastic about this game compared to 3.

I'll start at an odd place and honestly the game's greatest strength: the story. Much like Super Metroid, this game is one that effortlessly tells an engaging character drama without any dialogue. Unlike the basic Eggman bases of other games (aside from the original Death Egg in Sonic 2), Sonic & Knuckles' third act is full of surprises and fun character interactions. The smaller details here also contributed a lot to the eventual lore of Sonic Adventure and the whole Echidna tribe story in the official games. That, and the general pacing of the levels is very strong and it feels more complete in the end than Sonic 3 when played alone.

The cartridge itself has a cartridge slot on top to "lock-on" other games, specifically designed to allow Sonic 3 & Knuckles, a hybrid game that skips 3's final boss and puts Sonic straight into Mushroom Hill, and a playable Knuckles in Sonic the Hedgehog 2. Other games don't unlock new features, but they do provide a game specific seed to the random Blue Spheres level generator built into the error screen. Praise be to Blue Spheres, the greatest special stage of all time.

My first major gripe is that this game has quite a few annoying level gimmicks. Sandopolis Zone has slow block pushing in its first act and the ghost timeout system in the second which is pretty tedious at times. Though, it's the one bad apple and the rest of the levels are very solid. Flying Battery and Death Egg stuck out as some of the best in my opinion. The real issue in my eyes is the game starts to lean into annoying enemies sort of like the ones in Sonic 2. With the different approach to level design and the insta-shield, it's not quite as bad. But still, both of these elements are downgrades from Sonic 3's remarkably consistent quality.

All of that said, I think this game was a great capstone to the Genesis/Mega Drive era of Sonic. It's a great platformer by pretty much all standards, with killer music and excellent visuals. The physics in this series is unlike anything else, and this entry does lean more into that than 3 in many cases. So I've got a lot of respect for it, even if it's not quite my favorite of the classics.

In my opinion, this is the underrated gem of the classic Sonic era. This game, more than its peers, focuses on large explore-able levels, with time travel bringing you between different variations of the same places. Each level starts with a "bad future" in which Eggman has taken over and the environment is destroyed, and to prevent this you have to travel to the past and destroy the badnik generator. To get the good ending, you must either do this in every possible level (all boss stages take place in the future with no time travel) or get all seven time stones from the special stages.

The physics in this game aren't exactly as snappy as Sonic 2 but they hold up just as well and handle platforming and exploration much better than Sonic 1's. Visuals are very appealing, and this game has an absolutely GODLY soundtrack. I much prefer the Japanese version of it, though the American soundtrack isn't bad, just a downgrade. The vibes are immaculate and help a lot to keep you engaged as you spend a lot of time looking around the levels for time travel posts or the badnik generator.

As for gripes, some of the levels are a bit too large or convoluted, particularly Wacky Workbench and Metallic Madness. This game suffers from the standard "running into something you couldn't see" problem most 2D Sonic games have as well, and given how crucial rings are to unlocking special stage attempts it can be very annoying. Despite this, I think this game holds up very well and I revisit this a lot compared to the other classic Sonic titles, Sonic 3 notwithstanding.

If you're looking for Ridge Racer for 4 players, you're in luck! Otherwise 64 is probably the weakest entry in the series unless you value more content over historic context. This acts as a compilation game of sorts for tracks from the original PS1 pair of Ridge Racer and RR Revolution, along with a couple new tracks that are alright but noticeably worse.

My biggest annoyance with this one is "progressive collisions", where crashes aren't supposed to sap speed instantly like traditional RR. Oftentimes this means you'll crash into a wall without knowing how to steer given what direction it'll give you traction again isn't clear at all. Other times, cars hitting you from behind can literally phase through you, making you hit them and slow down in the process. Thankfully you can change collisions to work like in Revolution, making the game a lot more playable imo.

For a racing game with 8 tracks, the campaign structure will make or break the game. This one is really monotonous, with a long checklist of races that unlocks cars and new tracks as you fill it out. Once you get to the end, it asks you to repeat the whole thing at the highest speed class for who knows what. I got the devil car and can get the angel if I feel like it, I'll call that done enough and probably not think much on this one again.

This game has me feeling the most hopeful for the series I have in a long time, but it's also "five steps forward, three steps back" for Sonic as a whole. The story was nice but much too focused on the past of the series, as if they were afraid to be too bold and defanged some intended darker elements or further character drama. I liked Sage's character but not that much, it was a very formulaic story that I think didn't differentiate itself enough from Shadow's original SA2 arc.

The open zone was the best part of the game by far, with lots of different small objectives and bosses giving a nice sense of exploration and a good sandbox for the movement. The freeform nature of it allowed for a lot of fun objective skipping and experimentation, though the physics were certainly wonky and restrictive a lot of the time as well. Given more time iterating, this style of gameplay could very well put Sonic back into the forefront of experimental and interesting platforming games.

The cyberspace levels were a nice concept, with some fantastic music and a good objective system. However, I feel the S rank times were too easy to achieve, a problem it shares with the many boost-era Sonic games it shares this design with. There also should have been a sort of special achievement for getting all the objectives in the same run to increase replay value. The level design was quite the disappointment as well, often reusing unedited chunks levels from Generations, Unleashed, and strangely enough Adventure 2.

Given the framework that this game set, I can see a true classic Sonic game coming out of Sonic Team again, which is something I haven't felt in a very long time. They just need to spend more time working out the kinks in the design, create more original content for the cyberspace stand-in, and write a bolder story with less talking and more actions from the characters.

Absolute garbage PC port that will go down in history as a modding community win. To be fair FromSoft did not have the resources and Bandai Namco did not have the brainpower to make this port what it needed to be. The resolution was fixed around 720p. The framerate was capped at 30. What ever could we have done?

But then, hours after the disaster, a beacon of hope arrived. The fabled dsfix, spoken of only in legends today, arrived with the simple goal of getting the render resolution to match the output resolution. The resulting fixes that got attached to this project were instrumental to the game's success in the eyes of an entire generation of PC gamers who would never have touched such a laggy Xbox 360 game.

Imagine a world where this never happened. Would Dark Souls 2 ever get the PC attention (and publisher insanity) that it did? Would Dark Souls 3 have ever come to PC? Would Souls at 60 FPS ever really have happened without dsfix?

tl;dr I often still play using this version instead of the Remaster.