pretty easily the most bafflingly received 3d sonic i've played. i find it unfathomable this is the one that's so polarizing - even to the point of frequently being compared to its successor for some inane reason

sure, the slipperiness takes getting used to and there's some occasionally janky hit detection... but what else?

i suppose there's something to be said about the more impersonal and back-to-basics narrative. it's a far cry from the sheer ambition sa2 put on display just two years prior, but i don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. heroes instead opts for being a straightforward, fun, gamey-ass video game

what's presented here is what most sa1/2 detractors claim to wish those games were - almost nonstop, high class speed stages. seaside hill? grand metropolis? frog forest? egg fleet? these are some of the best zones in the series - and casino park is EASILY the coolest take on that running theme without question. what, you gonna tell me you prefer casinopolis? are you stupid?

i'm not gonna deny there are stinkers in the mission count - the chaotix variant of mystic mansion is fucking abysmal, team dark's enemy rush segments are especially tedious and racing for chaos emeralds frankly feels like complete dog shit no matter who you're controlling - but these sections all amount to a footnote in contrast to what heroes does right - everything else

sick final boss as per usual too. neo metal is so fucking cool and "what i'm made of" is easily a top 5 crush 40 track

...speaking of top tier crush 40 tracks

feels like i played this alongside my six year old self. we did it lil' buddy, we finally beat the one game we had no chance in hell of finishing without a gamecube memory card

as with sa1, there's really no point in arguing about this series since the detractors have long made up their shitty minds. sa2's an interesting beast though because it manages to excel just as much as its predecessor... in very different ways!

the speed stages are great, albeit nothing like sa1's. maybe you prefer these more linearly driven, setpiece-focused levels, but i might be partial to having a spindash that can blaze me across entire courses in a matter of seconds. i like going places i shouldn't and being rewarded for it. there's some of that here, but it's not nearly the same. that said, there's no city escape or final rush in sa1 so we'll call it a draw

treasure hunting is improved tenfold. i definitely prefer the newly limited radar system (it makes finding shards early super satisfying) and the overall increased difficulty. especially after knuckles' previous story was an absolute cakewalk. rouge is basically knuckles on hard mode and i generally prefer her side more for that. love her music too, though i wish it was more lyrically driven to better contrast knuckles

shooting's a more mixed bag. tails reps one of the best stages but also most of the worst. eggman on the other hand for the most part lives up to gamma's gameplay well enough - especially once he gets his booster. there's def a sense of flow to these that i feel a solid chunk of people don't give deserved credit because they just wanna go fast and grind rails

...which is a sentiment i don't completely identify with because i feel sa2 is more than the sum of its parts. the narrative is genuinely great and actively shifts moods and gameplay styles accordingly. you're always listening to a banger, you're never on the same sort of stage for more than a few minutes at a time - and you're always pushing closer to one of the greatest fuckin' finales you'll ever find in video games. the quality of direction really skyrocketed here. the last episode's preview alone completely solos every single scene in sa1

one strange oddity though: there's a surprising lack of shadow gameplay here. maybe the devs weren't so confident in him as a newcomer and didn't expect him to be such a hit?

if they knew what was good for them, sonic team would've just made a whole ass game where you play as shadow the hedgehog...

EDIT: after careful deliberation (replaying the shit out of everything) i've decided that i have 0 significant issues with this game. i'm not even standing by what i said about the speed stages before. they're all fuckin' fantastic and i think i might actually prefer these to sa1's (granted i need to spend some more time with that game too for confirmation)

on top of all of what i've said - i've still barely scratched the surface of the chao world content and that on its own is pretty impressive for being in an already tightly-packed game to begin with. how the fuck did this get made in two years?

i also learned last night via the extra video that city escape was inspired by sonic team constantly receiving parking tickets while living in san francisco. that's worthy of some merit on its own

and maybe this is cheating to mention since it's largely battle rerelease content, but i don't care: the multiplayer is some of the most fun i've ever had with a 2-player game

you know what - fuck it, 10/10

EDIT 2: got all 180 emblems. basically a perfect game

In terms of jrpgs, atlus has one of the largest and oldest franchises in catalogues. I have yet to scratch the surface of everything they have to offer but I have played a handful of them. Within the handful I’ve played I’d consider some of them my favorite games of all time. Soul Hackers, Digital Devil Saga 1, Persona 3 Fes, and Shin Megami Tensei II are the megaten titles to instantly come to mind for me. I didn’t get to experience nearly as much time with fes as I wished I had, I was a Nintendo baby. Most of the ps2 library for me has been experience somewhat recently. When I played fes tho, I was absolutely blown away in terms of the standard for a jrpg and the potential atlus had. Persona 3 fes felt like the borderline between the modern take of the spin-off series and the mainline put together. Extremely dark themes, challenging gameplay, and most importantly; an environment with themes that feels so immersive you have an understanding for the insanely written characters that are more humanize than real people you come across. Everything down to the gameplay, story, themes and characters felt true to the narrative.. it was pieces to a puzzle that you’d slowly put together as the calendar went further in. When you watch the movies you get a better understanding of what the character makoto was supposed to portray. To me he felt way more than a self insert even though he was a “players choice silent protag.” It’s hard to describe but, i myself, could easily tell the type of vibe they were going for, for him. Reload is an interesting remake, in terms of the time it was released and how they went about it. I’m gonna be honest, when I seen the initial first leak of it I prayed it wasn’t real. Mainline SMT, megami tensei, and so many others(including the first and second[duology] of persona) deserved and needed a remake far more than legit one of the most accessible games in Atlus’s catalog. We just had an anniversary port of all 3 of the “modern” games(portable which was handled the worst way possible was the version that was ported to represent p3.. imo it’s the worst way imaginable to experience one of the greatest megaten games made.. but to each their own). Despite that, I love persona 3.. everything about my first initial playthrough of fes was magical. I’m also an atlus paypig, whatever they release I will buy and play; I’m just being honest. Reload is insanely faithful to the original game but with a p5 coat. Many, including myself, were kinda tilted with this “atlus can’t make anything but p5” mindset. But honestly after playing it imo aesthetically it only shares some comparisons with p5. Yeah weapon fusion was swapped with level up items within personas.. yeah makoto can only use one weapon.. fatigue is gone.. tactics are dogshit.. those are my main complaints. Everything aside from those are just peak. Shift(in p5 it’s referred to as baton pass) is not overly broken due to no way of boosting it aside from using a slot for a passive skill. You’re limited to really one bonus for the hangouts which are there to offer more time with characters while also awarding you with some ability similar to how you gained a bunch of them doing party s links in p5. You can upgrade it once but it’s just a stronger version of the initial thing you unlocked. Link episodes are introduced for party members that didn’t have their own s links before (aside from in p3p) s which are, imo, are waaaay better for writing and deepening the narrative than they’ve ever done for s links. Without spoiling, persona 3 in general is a very story focused game. Some complain the pacing takes way too long to take off. I disagree entirely but I understand where they’re coming from. If you didn’t enjoy the other versions of p3, chances are reload isn’t going to drastically change ur mind unless your gripe was solely gameplay oriented (not including Tartarus). I’m gonna be honest, most of the “issues” people claim to have with p3 are clearly not something they focused on. Yeah Tartarus is a lot more diverse in terms of things that can happen, floor bonus’s that can often occur, and design feels a lot more fluid. Overall tho it’s still a randomly generated dungeon that has around 200+ floors. Even with the variety, if you hated Tartarus before, chances are you’re not gonna feel like a huge upgrade has happened if you played the original into reload. I never had a problem with Tartarus, but I did feel it was lackluster in terms of its aesethic and ‘gimmicks.’ If ur only problem was the option of no official party control with a 3D environment, having cutscenes, and needed some more qol then yeah you’ll love reload. Overall this remake absolutely went above my expectations but I still find myself disappointed with some of the exclusions and oversights that lessened its identity. I would still put reload very high for Atlus’s catalog but I don’t think it’s a full on replacement for FES, I’ll probably still be going back there.

I have to confess that I enjoy Luigi's Mansion even more than I enjoy a typical Mario game, and that is mainly because of the atmosphere and general concept of Luigi's Mansion. The idea of capturing ghosts in a haunted mansion is so charming when combined with the fun and innocent presentation of a Mario-franchised game that I honestly cannot get enough of it. Luigi's nervous disposition and humming adds to the environment, and the mood is set for the exact type of spooky which I enjoy the most. One particularly noteworthy aspect to this game would be the portrait ghosts, which is a concept I wish they had continued with in the subsequent titles.

That being said, the game is not without its faults. The controls are not the greatest and sometimes flashing ghosts or sucking up items to launch at them can be cumbersome. At the end of the day though, this is really my only criticism of the game, and it is worth playing just for the endless charm it provides.

Final Fantasy 13 is probably considered the most controversial addition of the mainline entries, marking a turning point for the series for many fans. Whilst being lauded for its beautiful graphics and artstyle basically everything else has been lambasted by the majority of the fanbase. Criticisms of the linearity and auto battle system are the typical culprits for the complete dismissal of the game entirely. While the majority of complaints have a modicum of truth to them the hate is mostly undeserving and there is so much FF13 does right. Over time and upon re-examination many fans,(including me), are coming to a different conclusion to this flawed but brilliant game.

For starters, the combat is amazing and is easily one of the best battle systems in the entire series. The variety that the paradign system provides coupled with the frantic pacing to fights feels fantastic and only gets better as it opens up throughout. The story and setting is just as good, boasting an extremely detailed world and concepts. Sadly despite having excellent combat mechanics the gameplay is one dimensional, being that combat is the only thing on offer. Coupling the simplistic gameplay loop and linearity stalls the experience late game despite its exceptional pacing. Overall, FF13 is an extremely polished and concise adventure that has become a sadly overlooked and overly criticized gem.

12 years ago I experienced what I’d consider one of the highest points of gaming for me. I opened my Christmas present under the tree and it was Cave Story 3D. My auntie has been more like an older sister to me. The gifts she’s given to me felt like some of the most major events in my life. That may seem like a stretch, but one of the many gifts before and after this was the gameboy advance SP, which was the first system I, myself, owned that was truly mine and mine alone. It’s been so long that I don’t even know if I asked for it, I have no idea how she knew but she knew to find the game I never knew would be one of the greatest immersive experiences for me. The disconnect between generations is a huge gap within a lot of variables so it’s hard to truly understand what the other is feeling. I never really felt this with her because no matter what, she understood. Gaming and music has been a huge part of my identity. This is a gaming site, so obviously I’m not here to talk about music. Playing Donkey Kong jr on a strange controller that was essentially a compact emulator with 200+ games is the second most vivid memory I have as a child, so nobody can tell me different on what the first game I truly played was. I was young, but I remember it like it was yesterday. My first playthrough of cave story will never be erased from my mind. I was so engrossed with it I felt true passion for the first time. I’m not into too many things, the typical “nerd” shit that people used to consider a couple years ago. Gaming, anime, manga, comics, reading, listening to any and every genre, etc. Thats who I am, and that’s who I’ll always be. Cave story hit a deep spot for me. The music, the aesthetic, the story, the characters, the art style, the gameplay.. everything was what I ever could’ve asked for and then some. Undeniably it’s one of, if not the biggest, milestones for indie games. It set a precedent for everything that followed it. A solo dev that did pretty much everything on its own. Nowadays Toby fox, the creator of undertale, is what the general public of gaming know that as.. but no pixel did it first and he will always be a legend to me and many others that cave story has reached. I’m not here to talk about the game or the story or the characters. I usually do that but I have no intentions or desires to. If you read up until this point I want you to experience it for yourself. It may not hit you nearly as hard as it hit me but I hope you at least enjoy it. To me it’s fun, immersive, and completely sets itself apart from any other game. Not because it really did anything creatively first in a breakthrough type of way.. but because it clearly has its own identity. It’s something to me, that you’ll never forget, and it sets itself apart from any other game ever made. Something that is meant to be played blind multiple times. You will discover things you never seen before if you do things differently, and if you play the newest version of it? You’ll be greeted with so many bells and whistles compared to the original freeware release. I can go on and on and on about the history of this game, but maybe you already know that. What you don’t know is that me and a bunch of other people have felt what I’d like to think is the vision pixel wanted players to see. I hope you give this game a chance and have fun with it, I’ll keep playing forever until I’m 6 feet under, and I hope I can get more to enjoy it even a fraction as much as I have.