A masterpiece that only came to exist as distinctive and disturbing as it is due to the brutal conditions and specific time of gaming history it was made in. To this day Aonuma feels ashamed of it and doesn't understand the love, and it really shows in the 3DS version. MM remains the best example of efficient asset reuse ever. Despite sharing so much with its predecessor it couldn't feel more different, pushing the hardware much further running every event on a real time schedule, and also challenging the player more. You just have to do all the side content to get the full experience and fully appreciate how detailed, varied and interconnected Termina and its characters are. My appreciation for the game has grown more and more over the years to the point I don't care about its shortcomings anymore. Unquestionably in the upper echelon of the Zelda series and Nintendo games in general.

Miserable attention-starved losers on the internet:
"WHAAAHHT?!?!?! NERNTERNDO HAS GONE WOOOOKE?!?!?! 😡😡😡😡 AARRRGHHHH!!! HOW COULD THEY?!?! THE OLD NINTENDO WOULD NEVER DO THIS!!!! 😤😤😤

Nintendo in 1988:
"Oh yeah, Birdo is transgender btw."

My theory for this game is they wanted to continue the hub gameplay of Sonic 06, but were scared of negative feedback of “human characters” and “glitches” so they made everything like a Saturday morning cartoon and copied the gameplay of Sonic and the Secret Rings which was much better received than Sonic 06. Since Secret Rings gameplay was on rails, it would also be easier to reduce the impact of glitches and players would not have the ability to play as the much maligned “friends”.

However after a few months they realized making a game like Secret Rings in HD was actually kind of hard and needed to find a way to pad the game out. Luckily God of War II just came out to critical acclaim so they basically just stole that. Mario Galaxy just released as well and was being called one of the greatest platformers of all time so Sega figured they might as well borrow from the tone of that game as well.

The end result is a game that is definitely more polished than 06 but lacks a strong identity. The environments are gorgeous but you barely ever get to see them. Towns are more streamlined than 06 but the generic humans have been replaced with twisted abominations. The daylight gameplay is smooth and flashy but might as well be playing itself. The night segments offer decent functional action but God of War does the same thing much better. Sega refocused the game on Sonic to address complaints of “annoying friends” but announced the worst character to ever disgrace the franchise in Chip— a squeaky voiced twerp who hogs cutscene time to do a shitty Vaudeville routine.

I personally think this game is a step down from 06 both in concept and execution, but at the end of the day you have to admit “Sonic the Werehog” is funny.