A game by absolute freaks, for absolute freaks. If you don't lab kart racers everyday like they're fighting games and try your hardest to complete EVERYTHING in those games, this game is NOT for you.
Almost avant-garde in how little it cares for the casual kart racer audience, forcing you to complete an excruciating tutorial that can take between 30 minutes and 1 hour. To complete one grand prix before you can unlock multiplayer (or use a cheat code). To complete FIVE grand prixes before you can unlock the ability to use old SRB2kart MODS! (or use a cheat code). To stay with one color for your character unless you collect the others, and collect all 82 to unlock time trials. Never has there been a game so obsessed with making players master its mechanics before letting them play with others, as if they were preparing you for real-life war or something.

The game even opens slowly walking you through every option, unlocking each thing in the menu, everything contextualized with Tails and Eggman speaking to you, as Metal Sonic. Clearly, the devs tried to defeat Sonic Robo Blast 2's unnecessarily long intro cutscene, and in their quest for Genesis nostalgiawanking, they made the awful choice of only having the button prompts of the Genesis controller in menus and tutorials, not a huge issue in controller, it is on keyboard, especially because this game just has way too many mechanics and when you finally have to use an obscure one, you gotta press every key or go to the menu to check what key you assigned as the Y Genesis button.

Back to the tutorial, what did they think they were making here, Final Fantasy XVII?? It doesn't even explain things that clearly and there's so much dialogue, no option to reread, just once and trial and error.
It'd be one thing to make a kart racer with a lot of complex mechanics if they all feel cohesive and the races really push you to your limits, like Sonic Riders or even Bomberman Fantasy Race, but I don't think this is it when the mechanics are like 8 different types of boosts, one for each hazard, a charged melee attack? A parry? Two different types of roulettes that by default you have to stop manually???
A lot of this doesn't even come up in the races, it's for the single-player challenges, if it is in the race, you can also probably brute force it and use boost mechanic #54 instead of boost mechanic #301 as originally intended.

There's potential here, but it doesn't feel as good as SRB2kart to be honest. I gave up at the drift section in the tutorial cuz I just couldn't get it to work and the only drift you HAVE to do to proceed is the ultra charged one that gives you max boost #302! If the kart stops moving while you try to drift you instead initiate, you guessed it, another boost mechanic, one that has its own separate dedicated button so why make the drift worse by putting it on that button as well?

I usually don't rank games if I know that they're just not for me or if I played that little, but I don't see how the things I complain about would really do any good to any game in any genre, and even if all players use a save file with everything unlocked, I'll have to stand my ground unless they rework everything.

They tried to make a kart racer with more complex mechanics than Sonic Riders, and thought they had to have THE MOST mechanics to do that. They saw that some Riders players missed mechanics because of the lack of a tutorial and thought they had to overtutorialize EVERYTHING and demanded they mastered the game before even letting them race.
Don't think this will ever catch on and most will probably continue to just play SRB2kart.

I never enjoy giving a well-regarded game a lukewarm review, and I promise I'm not doing it to be contrarian, but... have you ever experienced that "oh, crap" moment playing a strategy game like Civilization when you move your club-wielding cavemen to attack another player only to find yourself faced with tanks and fighter jets? That's kind of like how Jazz Jackrabbit 2 feels like.

It's a much more competently-made game than the original, free of its most egregious flaws (less slippery momentum, less screen crunch, enemy placement that is tricky but has less instances of "gotcha!"). It has plenty of the same virtues - nice visual design with a good variety of level aesthetics, nonlinear-ish level layouts with a good amount of secrets to discover, and a great soundtrack. The selection of guns are probably the gameplay's strongest suit - from the pitifully short-range flamethrower which is effective against erratically-flying enemies because the flames linger in the air slightly longer, to the motion-controlled bombs which are great against bosses because they allow you to damage a boss while you're safely on the other side of the screen, every weapon has at least a fringe use.

...it was also released in 1998. (for reference Klonoa came out in '97!)

I'm not saying that every game needs to break new ground, but if a game is treading familiar territory then I'd at least hope for it to be polished. Jazz Jackrabbit 2 has plenty of rough edges - its visual design is confusing, and it's hard to tell which platforms can be landed on and which are part of the background. The final level has the most egregious example of this - a floor that appears to be made of flowing lava but can be walked on like a normal floor! The controls are inconsistent, particularly in the execution of Jazz's ear propeller and Spaz's double jump. There's a pretty sizable catalogue of bugs - I softlocked myself multiple times, mostly by clipping into walls, but I also (twice) used the motion-sensor bomb and blew a boss clear out of the screen, with no choice but to reload an earlier save!

I do see that this game filled a very specific niche when it came out; in an era where developers were throwing out plenty of bathwater (and some babies) in their rush to cash in on the 3D craze, a functional old-school mascot platformer from a niche franchise scratches a very specific itch. But as someone without an emotional connection to this game, it comes across as an anachronism - archaic by 1998 standards, but not refined enough to count as homage.

"Whew," the enamored g@me play0r sighs out in reverence as the boss clearly designed by someone who thought they were on a job for a mediocre Platinum title did three SICKASS ANIMEY slow-mo front flips, each dealing 70% max health damage to the player with around 8 quintillion HP (which was only reasonable to invest a few points into after getting some from the eleventh Piss-And-Shit-Smeared Tree Spirit overworld boss fight that also netted a BAD. ASS. spirit ash to help you circumvent said bosses in the future except it's objectively worse than half the ones you already have) which they got to by trekking across seven hills, seven lands, seven seas and seven hells, each populated by more barren stretches of land than the last with s p o o k y copy-pasted caves and catacombs breaking up the monotony of running into small platoons of disinterested enemies you can't even be assed to to swing a sword on horseback at on your way to the next 𝓛𝓮𝓰𝓪𝓬𝔂 𝓓𝓾𝓷𝓰𝓮𝓸𝓷 (VERY important areas they put all their ACTUAL level design into! which is why half of them are directionless slogs where everything looks the same and with enemy placement done by the one only Mr Miyazaki'ˢ ⁸⁻ʸᵉᵃʳ⁻ᵒˡᵈ ˢᵒⁿ who really liked the funny jump battan) so that they can find an NPC which mysteriously vanished one Saturday night a few weeks into the playthrough but is crucial for the conditions of one of the many different-colored endings outlined by the Purposely Vague and not frequently Irritatingly Nebulous lore (which is totally okay because that's how they always did quests dude :P it's NOT comically archaic in contrast to the world design xP) but at least there's some World Essence and Snail Drippings to pick up on the way in case you ever find a cookbook that teaches you how to MacGuyver the two into a portable ICBM and then not land the shot because the Lands Between Olympic Champion you're chucking it at read your input had superior reflexes, "From the Software has done it again!"


I gotta be honest man I think this formula has the studio stuck spinning their wheels and given ER's astronomical success they're probably not gonna try reinventing it anytime soon. The game isn't bad. I'll still play the DLC. But seeing it heralded as the zenith of the genre let alone Fromsoft's masterwork gives me a fucking migraine.

I was really excited for this game, but The Thaumaturge ended up not clicking for me. A big part of it was the gameplay, which I tried to push through to try and enjoy the incredibly interesting setting. A game set in early 20th-century Poland during the 1905 revolution is not something you come by everyday. The mythological-God collecting aspect really peaked my interest as a fan of SMT, too. I also like to read about East European history, so I got excited with this idea of the game being like this historically-accurate Polish SMT.

It did kinda live up to that. The "demons" that you gather help you fight, not unlike an SMT game. They're also super awesome looking. I took a lot of pics lol. Running around in this real setting was cool too, especially for someone who likes Eastern European/Polish history. A video game around that kinda mix was super exciting to me, I thought it would be a gimme. An instant 5/5.

There was a lot I was excited about, so I really tried to push through the parts I didn't like, which was almost entirely the gameplay. It got to the point that I was dreading turning the game back on and playing through, so I ended up dropping it. The fight sequences are awful, I don't know if I was doing it wrong, but they're painfully slow and very tedious. You never get a move that lets you attack everyone at once, instead forcing you to attack one-by-one. There's never an attack you can do that one shots people either. I dunno... I really started to dread getting into fights, a pretty key part of the whole game.

The other part of the gameplay I was fine with, but fine is as far as I would go. The other gameplay aspect is finding clues to continue your story. You simply right click to see what's around you to investigate, and then move to the next part in the map to continue doing the same until eventually you reach the group you need to fight. Just go from point A to point B to point C until you reach a boss fight. Rinse and repeat. The involvement of the Polish Revolution is super interesting, but another part that did bother me enough to put it in this review is when you go to do the "Urban Events", which are these very short side adventures where you experience exciting things happening in 1905 (Russian Partition) Poland. These were things like telescope viewing, cola tasting, even visiting a gentleman's club! They don't show you the area, they just draw you a picture of the event. Don't get me wrong, it's a small complaint, but it bothered me, I think because I was so excited about the general-life aspect of the game a lot and really wanted it to go into more depth. There are missions that do focus on these aspects in more depth (you even go to an actual brothel), but being in more depth = more fight sequences, and you know how I feel about those!! Nitpicking, but funny enough for me to point out; they also start adding in modern gaming references such as saying "I gotta catch them all!" into the dialogue - it was super awkward, I really didn't like it.

I would say you should check out this game if you're interested in the history, but I can imagine you might just get more from reading a history book at a certain point. The gameplay just hit all my pet-peeves and then some, even with these gorgeous demons by my side. I unfortunately couldn't bring myself to finish it because of that, but maybe you might enjoy it differently.

2/5

Look, this game came out in 1984 so the chances of it being a deep and realistic racing simulation are exactly nil. But it still manages to deliver a cool experience!

There's a deceptive amount of skill to be put to the test here, from leaning backwards to avoid tumbling over speedbumps, to tilting your bike in the air to maintain speed when you land, and multitasking to make sure your engine doesn't overheat. And while the game's rudimentary physics aren't the most satisfying, it still manages to be a very compelling "chaos simulator" thanks to the sheer amount of stuff happening onscreen at once, with the wack collision physics meaning that at least one racer is taking a spill at any given time. The difference between winning and losing spectacularly is often mercurial and seemingly down to blind luck, yet losing is... still kinda fun actually!

The game's structure embraces this emphasis on fun - you can select any track to race on at any time, with no content walled behind any arbitrary skill checks! And you can design your own tracks, as seriously or as terribly as you want!

If you play this game trying to win it you'll probably end up frustrated (I could never finish the 5th level myself). But if you treat it as a fun little playground, it's pretty good!

The existence of this game is infinitely fucking funny to me. Like, imagine being a Sega fan back in September of 1996. You have owned a Saturn for over 2 years now (i know this is a review for the genesis version, but bear with me here for a sec). The Genesis hasn't let you down, so you have faith that Sega will deliver a breakout hit for their 3D console anyday now. A new Sonic game that will make that 399$ price tag and 2 years of waiting totally worth it. Meanwhile, your friends at school are talking about Super Mario 64, Crash Bandicoot, and how cool as hell those games are, and oh my gosh, the 3D!!! It's so amazing!!! But all you have is your Saturn. And unless you dipped your hands into Panzer Dragoon, or Nights into Dreams, neither of which proved to put the console on the map... you don't really have anything you can boast about. All you can do is wait, while listening to your friends talking about how they made all the right life choices.

But, November rolls around, and you finally get your Mario 64 competitor. And this is it. This is the representation of your revolutionary new console. Sonic 3D Blast. This utter fucking marketing lie of a title, is all you're getting for the foreseeable future. Sega simply couldn't deliver a 3D Sonic title in time to compete against everyone else, so they figured if they would just slap the word "3D" into their isometric pre-rendered platformer, it'd be enough to fool the dumb children who were unfortunate enough to put their faith in a game publisher. I mean, I guess at this point you have something you can talk about to your school friends. But are you really going to?

Within historical context, I consider 3D Blast to be a disaster of comedic proportions. This one game single-handedly disqualified Sonic as Mario's rival for the rest of eternity, even if people may have not felt this at the time. From here on out, there was no more consistency to be found in a Sonic game, no gurantees made, all expectations belonged to the fools, fools such as me. Whereas Mario was an experimental playground with consistent rules, Sonic began to no longer care about rules, cohesion, or its audience as a whole. We have now entered an era where Sonic just kinda does whatever the fuck it wants. Sometimes, this leads to some great things, other times it doesn't. Next to Knuckles Chaotix, Sonic 3D Blast is one of the first examples of where it really doesn't.

Taking out all historical context however, it's not like 3D Blast is the spawn of satan, or anything... by itself, this is just a very okay game. Probably the biggest mistake it commits is citing one of its inspirations as Sonic Labyrinth, which I cannot imagine anyone in their right mind doing today. But, as a whole, it's functional, beatable, and even a casual player could see its true ending. We were only just exiting out of the age of insanely difficult games mind you, so having something like this back then was pretty nice. That is, if you cared less about challenge, and more about just having an experience that doesn't frustrate you.

Perhaps this is my just my fondness for collect-a-thons coming out, but I do enjoy the loop of exploring a level to find the 5 flickies required to progress onward. Labyrinth influences aside, it's pretty difficult to get lost in here, everything is very contained and exploration segments are segregated into digestible chunks. It's doable, and that's good. The bad, is that once you've cleared one level, you've basically seen them all. The only thing that sets them apart from there on is visual variety, but the gameplay loop fails to introduce new elements at a consistent enough rate to not make every level feel like you're doing the same thing. Perhaps introducing more inventive ways of catching flickies would've helped, alongside new types of flickies that behave in different manners. But the game shows all its cards in just one stage. From there on, you catch them in the exact same way, every single time.

I think it also goes without saying that a game like this absolutely does not lend itself to the style of gameplay that Sonic is known for. Being originally created for the Genesis, means that the isometric field of view can't be too large, and the field of view being like this means that you can't make Sonic go too fast, lest you'll be running into obstacles all the time. So, out goes the speed that Sonic is primarily known for, in favor of a leisurely jog. Which in hindsight, makes me realize that this game could've probably made a lot more sense if they didn't use Sonic for it at all. But, that'd of course means less copies sold, so here he is. In name only.

I've never been a big fan of the previous special stages that accompanied the classic Sonic games, and the ones found here aren't all that better either, buuut... they are pretty easy. This leads back into me saying how even a casual player could see the game's true ending, as it honestly takes very little effort to access the special stages in this game. And the special stages themselves are shockingly banal, a literal short-width bridge you run straight across, with some spikes you occasionally jump over. Missing the rings here is near-impossible, they all last less than 20 seconds, and there is barely any difficulty ramp-up to speak of. As long as you explore the stages a tiny bit, you'll get the 7 chaos emeralds in no time.

Interestingly, the Saturn version completely redid the way its special stages work. While the rest of the game was created by Traveller's Tales, I hear that Sonic Team stepped in for the Saturn special stages. And get this: They're the best part of the game, and a huge reason to play that version of the game over this Genesis counterpart. They're like the Sonic 2 special stages, but done right. They're in actual proper 3D, ensuring smooth scrolling and movement, Sonic himself feels pretty good to control in them, and they're just better designed, maintaining a good flow throughout. If the entire game was just an endless runner version of these stages, I'd hop into it more often. Unfortunately as it is, they're just one small good part of an ultimately mediocre package.

But wait! There is something else I can praise about this, and - you guessed it - it's the soundtrack! I have absolutely no idea what caused Jun Senoue to score Sonic Superstars the way he did, because if you go back all the way here... he did the entire soundtrack for the Genesis version of 3D Blast, and it's great! This is what I'm talking about! It feels like an extension of the music found in Sonic 3. Same style, same general instrumentation, but more strong melodies, and a unique song for every single act. The CD Audio soundtrack composed by Richard Jacques for the Saturn port is no slouch either. It's a very different style compared to the type of Sonic music we're generally used to, but it's very bright, cheery, and nostalgically welcoming. Completely unlike Richard, when he finds out people make covers of his songs!

Well, in any case, a good soundtrack and a series of excellent special stages for a specific port of the game is not quite enough to save the whole thing. It's only enough to elevate 3D Blast into a totally passable experience. It sure as heck functions, but it couldn't have been possibly made in a worse time and place. Accompanied by a true follow-up to Sonic 3 & Knuckles, 3D Blast could've been remembered as a neat distraction for when you're bored. In the present reality however, 3D Blast IS the Sonic 3 & Knuckles follow-up, whether that was its intention or not. The circumstances made it that way. Now, that's all I'll remember it for. And the memory will make me giggle.

I had no sword at all for two and a half hours.

I eventually found Biggoron's Sword on sale for 15 Rupees in the Goron City shop as Adult Link. However, as an incredibly frustrated young Alex learned in 1999, you cannot defeat Ganon in Ocarina of Time with the Biggoron Sword. In order to finish the game, the final blow must come from the Master Sword.

During my first playthrough of this (or any) randomizer, the Master Sword was the very last item that I found. This is what it took for me to find it:

• Both the Master Sword and the Kokiri Sword were in the Fire Temple in optional chests, with the Master Sword's chest requiring the Scarecrow Song to reach it. But I couldn't get to either of those without access to the Megaton Hammer, as the room to the left where you encounter Darunia had no keys in it. (The key to the door on the right side of the entry hall turned out to be in the Boss Key chest)

• The Hammer was in the Gerudo Training Grounds, so I was ultimately gated by my lack of Hover Boots.

• The Hover Boots were in Jabu-Jabu's belly, in place of the Zora's Sapphire. But I couldn't complete that section without the Boomerang.

• The Boomerang was in the moat in place of the Ocarina of Time, but I needed the 3 Spiritual Stones before Zelda would chuck it in there.

• The Kokiri Emerald was in one of the Gibdo coffins in the Bottom of the Well, so I needed the Lens of Truth to discover that.

• And the Lens of Truth was sold by a Business Scrub in Dodongo's Cavern. I got a good deal though, it was only 10 rupees.

Obviously, I had no idea where the Master Sword would be, so this wasn't a plan or a list of instructions I followed, it's just how things shook out. And I had a great time! I used Ship of Harkinian's randomizer, and there are some fantastic options that made the constant back-and-forth scouring of Hyrule more feasible. The most useful ones were unbreakable Deku Sticks (absolutely critical since I didn't find a sword for a while), changing Link's age with the Song of Time, Bunny Hood increasing speed like in Majora's Mask, and ageless items (allowing Young Link to use the Hookshot, for example). I was incredibly impressed with Ship of Harkinian though, and will definitely put more playthroughs into that, randomized or not.

Very much like the Edgeworth duology, the Great Ace Attorney games culminate with an extremely solid, even-handed finale that fully satisfies and stands among the best examples of Shu Takumi's work, but certain elements from earlier in the sub-series continue to linger in ways that just barely prevent the overall package from reaching the stratospheric heights that it would otherwise be capable of achieving.

As with AAI2, there are no cases in GAA2 that I would describe as "bad." One of them relies too much on overly familiar locations and characters for my tastes, but the greatest strength of both AAI2 and GAA2 is consistency.

At least one element of that consistency however, leaves me with an axe to grind. "Great Deductions" still suck. They are bloated, cumbersome, childish hidden object content that continuously butchers its own pace. At their best, they are thrilling, exciting, and kinetic sequences, propelled by infectious momentum, almost like a musical number. There is great potential in this system, if only they could be more liberal with their formula, give other characters a chance to shine, and stop buzzkilling every other sentence dead in its tracks. Toward the end of the game some of this potential finally begins to actualize, but it's too little, too late. These serve as the climax of every investigation segment. It's not a trivial matter.

It's easy for me to forgive this though when the presentation is so lovingly done. As much as I think this is an overused and unhelpfully simplistic argument in a game's favor, the locations of GAA are unarguably "cozy." Any 3D awkwardness from when Dual Destinies first made the jump has been eradicated, and I can even say that I now prefer this style over the spritework of the original trilogy. I enjoyed my entire time with the GAA duology immensely. It is a well crafted, expertly realized, lovely experience... but nothing ever gets me as high anymore as Bridge to the Turnabout did.

I am reviewing the Nintendo Switch version of this game specifically. It is serviceable, but MAN the lag in this one is just atrocious.

Particularly in the title screen, any menu and loading screen outside of the actual game will take just too long to properly load or respond. Sometimes it's quick, but most of the time trying to do anything outside of just playing the game will take long enough for it to be noticeable.

The only other downside to this one, is that once your world gets large and/or packed enough, the game starts to struggle to load in the chunks. So sometimes you are going to be walking anywhere far enough and all of the sudden the world reaches its limit and there is a bottomless void in front of you for like a solid 5 to 8 seconds.

It doesn't happen too much I guess, but enough times for it to be something worth pointing out. I don't know if I necessarily recommend this version of the game...It works and at the end of the day, it's still Minecraft...It just has to be one of the worst versions of Bedrock out there.

If you have played Ocarina of Time a half dozen times like me, then you can get a hundred more out of the Randomizer. Many interesting interactions come from finding items out of order.

By default, the Randomizer has a bit of a pacing problem. By the nature of randomizing items you end up needing to check 100% of the locations, and OoT is a BIG game with proportionally few actually important items. There are also many required items that have very few uses, such that the search for Light Arrows might stall a run for an hour after it would otherwise be finished.

The above issues are resolved by the extensive customization offered. Personally, I have settled on a preset that restricts all required items to dungeons, so I can spend 90% of my gameplay inside dungeons instead of wandering the overworld and doing minigames. You can also add hints, bountiful items, skip checks, start with items...

Overall Randomizer has a lot to offer, but it may require a few runs before you land on a way of playing that suits you, especially if you're not super knowledgeable about vanilla.