''Staring into the flames... I feel something. It's a mixture of dread and hope.. Maybe everything will be okay. Or maybe it won't.''

This game came out on my birthday (May 9!!) and my goodness, what a gift this was. One of those games that ever since I played the demo it felt like something that was tailor made for me.

I did like 3 playthroughs of this since the weekend as I honestly fell in love with it, I just wanted to experience everything there was of it. This game perfectly captures the PS1 horror experience, calling back to things like Resident Evil 1 (specifically the original) and Silent Hill 1. A mixture of eerieness, moody atmosphere, body horror and it all clashes quite interestingly with the cute cylindrical character designs.

The gameplay and map design are pretty top tier, too. There is backtracking but it's well done and rewarding, it helps that the map is just small enough so it never feels like a waste of time to go back to areas you've been before.

While the controls are quite nice and somewhat ''modern'' compared to some of it's comtemporaries, I would still highly recommend playing this with a gamepad. It's playable with keyboard but it is somewhat awkward (there's no mouse support). It can be quite dynamic since you can avoid combat entirely 75% of time and save a ton of resources by causing enviromental damage towards the enemies or just baiting them into traps. Made me think of Resident Evil 3 in this regard, which I really appreciate.

The story is surprisingly nice, too! The characters are all very charming and I really liked reading all the lore behind the theme park. There are some pretty dark implications about the origin of the virus later in the game, which makes me wonder if there is any potential for a sequel of sorts someday.

If there are any flaws in it... Honestly? I can't think of much. I heard people say it was a bit easy compared to other survival horror games out there but I don't consider that an issue tbh, it feels perfectly designed as it is. And if that is a problem for you then you can just start the game on the hard difficulty (Murder of Crows). My third playthrough was on that difficulty and it is very tough indeed, more in line with what you expect from older games of this genre.

I honestly could go on and on about how much I loved this game but I think i'll leave it at that for now. I wholeheartdly recommend this to anyone from fans of old-school survival horror fans to even potential newcomers. 💜

A cult game, for sure.

The gameplay is extremely flawed in many ways, but the charm, overall quality of the 2D graphics + hand drawn animation and well written (and very gay) story elevates it to something pretty special.

I hope Square Enix keeps publishing games like this.

BORN TO DIE
WONDERWORLD IS A FUCK
中裕司 Insider Trade 'Em All 2023
I am balan man
171,000,000¥ IN FINES

I can't remember the last time I fell asleep while playing a game. I'm not even trying to be funny, it happened. One second I was climbing the webs on World 3, the next second I woke up to a "The UE4-Happiness game has crashed - Fatal Error!" message on my screen, probably thanks to my face resting on top of the keyboard and screwing something up from so many inputs. (Gotta say, "Happiness Game" is a REALLY funny code name)

So, I decided to check this out as a little intermission in my Sonic marathon before moving on to Sonic Frontiers. I played NiGHTS for the marathon as well, so, y'know, I figured that Balan would have some of its DNA considering the pedigree behind it.
This game has so many things going for it. I ADORE the art direction, and the CG quality is absurd. Legit, it has one of the prettiest intro cutscenes I've ever seen, that hair tech is INSANE. The soundtrack is very bouncy and fun, exactly what I expect out of a collectathon platformer, shoutouts to Corn for Days, and the story is very interesting in concept. An adventure where you go through the mind palaces of people who are disillusioned or down on their luck and beat the shit out of their inner demons to help them get through it? It's a cool idea, and it's represented very well through its visuals. The scenery bends and twists in unexpected ways, objects and platforms float and move about, it's all very dreamlike.

But god damn, this was a BORE to play through. Yes, the art direction is very strong and the setup was intriguing, but that's where it ends bro. There is NOTHING here, 5 worlds in and I had to pass. Any other platformer can do what this game does, and much better at that.
For starters: One button for every action in the game. One fucking button. Why is this a thing? Why would you come up with a system that limits your ability to jump depending on the costume you're using, in a 3D PLATFORMING game? And it's not like it makes for any interesting decisions, there are no scenarios where the limitation is justified. You can just swap to a different costume that is able to jump whenever the situation calls for it, so why bother? Why not make it a 2-button game if you're going for simplicity? One button for jumping, a mechanic that should be universal for a game like this, and another button for costume-specific actions. That's it, job done.
But even then, why the fuck would you go for such a limited control scheme? Some of the coolest things about collectathon platformers(at least from an outside perspective, given that I haven't played many of them) are the ways you go about collecting things, the movement options you have to get to your objectives, the kind of obstacle courses the game throws at you and the freedom you have to ignore said obstacles with the aforementioned movement options. There's a reason why Super Mario 64 is still played extensively to this day especially in speedruns: That game feels amazing to control, and it gives you a ton of different ways of interacting with your environment. Mario has like, 5 different kinds of jumps depending on when and how you jump.
Balan has some differences in the way you jump, but they're not universal. Each mechanic is locked to a specific costume, and you can only carry 3 of them with you. Get hit once and you lose your costume, btw.
Going back to Mario, imagine if you could only long jump when using a specific cap. And even then, once you pick that cap up, you can ONLY long jump, nothing else.

I was going to give the game some credit for the levels, seeing as how you can jump on nearly everything and explore that way. Very few invisible walls, which made me think there would be a TON of secrets hidden around the place. There aren't.
There's this part where you're jumping towards a clock tower, and you can just barely see that the side of the tower has a spot you can stand on. Once you're there, the game teases you again by showing that you can keep going around the tower.
In ANY OTHER platformer, hell, in Sonic Unleashed, the back of that tower would have SOMETHING. ANYTHING. A 1-up, a coin, a nut. Balan gave me nothing.

And that about sums it up tbh. Great production values and a promising premise, but it gave me nothing to play.

Hexagons are my favorite shape, so this gets brownie points on that alone.

But wow, yall need to play more bad games. This is pretty alright! After three boost-style games back to back, I actually welcome Lost World's slower pace. I mean, having a Run button in a Sonic game is funny as all hell, but I dunno... I didn't find it that intrusive? I think the game was designed well enough around it. This is easily one of the most platform heavy games in the series, if not the actual number one. It was a cool change of pace, and there were a number of high speed sections here and there to reminds us that "Hey, it's still Sonic".

Also, uh. Best rail grinding controls so far? That took me by surprise. Instead of awkwardly snapping from one rail to another like SA2/Heroes, or automatically switching to a different one like Colors/Generations, you instead jump between rails and it feels REALLY accurate. There are two levels dedicated entirely to rail grinding(accompanied by my favorite track in the game. One of my favorite tracks in the series? Like wow. The violins at 0:49, good lord), and they felt super fair.

In fact, I'd say the entire game is very fair when it comes to its difficulty. There was never a moment that made me go "that's bullshit"; the slower pace really puts emphasis on accuracy over stylish automated setpieces, though there are still instances of automation. This is a post SA1 Sonic game, after all.

Stellar soundtrack, as usual. Tomoya Ohtani, my man, I think I love you. The aforementioned Sea Bottom Segue, Dragon Dance, Silent Forest Act 1, fucking hell THE FINAL BOSS THEME! This guy quickly became one of my favorite composers, he just gets it.

I do agree that the story is dumb as all hell. What tone were they going for here? Stupid silly fun like Colors(Baldy McNosehair), or serious(Tails getting captured and experimented on, Amy and Knuckles freezing to "death")? From the halfway point onwards, it constantly zigzags between the two but never really commits. This means the comedy hardly ever hits any notes, and the drama does not stick in the slightest.
Also, you wanna talk about forgettable villains, you start with these 6 fuckos. Why does Zavok hate Sonic again??? I thought Eggman was the one who enslaved him and Sonic literally kicked the doc's mind control device away. Oh, he's evil and wants to suck away the Earth I guess. Cool...?
Also yay fatphobia yay

I don't know man, I've played much worse. Aside from the shitty story(which isn't even a huge detriment considering this series' previous narrative trainwrecks), this is a perfectly fine game. Maybe a bit too simple, but it clicked for me.

You guys weren't fucking lying with this one. Where do I begin? Some positives, I guess?

The game looks good, models for characters and environments are all pretty nice, and this is some of the best lighting/shaders we've had in the series so far. When it comes to graphics, there's a lot of good stuff here. Let's see, what else, uhh... Oh, Amy talks a lot. That's a plus in my book lmao, I love Amy and I love that Sonic isn't an immediate dick to her for no reason this time around. Everything else... Holy shit.

I fuck with the game conceptually. A story where Eggman managed to win and we have to get things back in order?(Unleashed sort of dabbles in that territory tbh) Sonic is gone so it's up to everyone else to get the job done? We can make our own character, something EVERY Sonic fan cooked up at some point? And we can play as them? These are all sound ideas that open up a ton of gameplay and character interaction possibilities. But then, 20 minutes into the game, Sonic is back.
... Hooray? Also what the fuck is Classic Sonic doing here?

This series' writing isn't consistent or competent enough to pull off a setup like this. We know next to nothing about the world Eggman took over, your OC & Co. just blaze through stages back to back until the credits start rolling 4 hours later. What happened? Unleashed did a pretty good job on that department, you actually spent time with people all over the world. Sure, it wasn't very deep, but I can remember some of their names, some of their stories. Hell, when I saw the country flags flying around Rooftop Run back in Generations, I was giddy as all hell. Here? Who cares if Eggman is wrecking shit up? Aside from our OC, we never get to interact with any non-core-cast characters. There are 0 stakes, especially considering that the one personal crisis at hand-- Sonic being imprisoned and """""""""tortured""""""""""-- is resolved in a matter of minutes.

WHAT IS SILVER DOING HERE???? I guess he's kinda like Trunks in this universe, but it's never even acknowledged. It's never brought up! He's just hanging out! And if he managed to time travel back to the past, why not time travel far enough to stop Eggman from razing shit to begin with? WHERE'S BLAZE? "Oh, she gone gone" SHUT UPPPPPPPPPP

Forces has some of the worst instances of cutscene incompetence I've seen in a game yet. You're wiping the floor with Infinite, then the very next cutscene acts as if he's had the upper hand the whole time and Sonic proceeds to kiss the floor for some reason. Tails shits his pants on multiple occasions even though he should be able to handle some basic ass Egg robots by himself.

God, don't even get me started on the villains. They tease returning villains as soon as the game starts, and then THAT'S FUCKING IT. They show up once and immediately fuck off. You don't even get to fight them all! Ruby Shadow gets kicked in a cutscene and farts out, and Chaos is spindashed to death by Classic Sonic. "They're replicas, but just as strong as the real ones" BRO WHERE???????
WHY DOES METAL SONIC NEED A RUBY CLONE? HE'S A ROBOT?????????

But honestly, who cares about the story. At this point, Sonic games having good narratives is the exception, not the rule. If only the game felt good to play.

This is easily the most automated game in the series. Sonic games have been accused of feeling like rollercoasters before, and Forces is a game that was made solely to legitimize those accusations. You barely have to do anything here, you press the Boost/Blast Wispon button, move forward and watch the score counter fly up, that's fucking it. In my Sonic Unleashed review, I mentioned that modern Sonic feels more like a driving game than a platforming one. The enjoyment comes from trying to clear these stages as fast as possible using your knowledge of the level and Sonic's movement options. To me, good modern Sonic games are very replayable and arcade-y.
Forces still gives you access to the stomp, slide and wall jump, but it hardly ever asks that you use any of them. I don't think you're required to slide at any point in the game at all, and the wall jump is used in one stage close to the end of the game.
"What about drifting?" What about it? Forces has no drift. Whenever there's a curve, the game will either swerve Sonic for you, or automatically drift for you when playing as the avatar. There is no drift.

I guess it's a good thing that most of these stages are short as hell! You barely get to do anything on them, I was wrapping things up in 2 to 3 minutes, sometimes not even that much. Mortar Canyon has to be one of the most worthless stages in Sonic history, it's like a Sonic Chaos stage in 3D. I swear I held down Boost and jumped like, twice, at most, and it was fucking over.

Why are there rings in this game. They serve no purpose. There are no lives, they don't refill the boost gauge, they don't serve as fuel for your Wispon, they don't serve as currency for the OC customization options, there are no special stages. Why the fuck are they here? There was one stage where I racked up 500 rings and I don't even know where they came from.

I guess their inclusion is just as puzzling as Classic Sonic's. This guy serves 0 purpose. His relevance in the story is limited to "Sonic is gone, what are we gonna do :( Omigosh Other Sonic, hi! Can you help us?", which is a moot point anyway since again, Modern Sonic comes back mere minutes after that. And good god, what did they do to his controls?
They felt pretty good back in Generations, why couldn't they simply make it a 1:1 copy here? Playing as Classic Sonic here feels like hot garbage. And his stages aren't any longer! They also end in 2 to 3 minutes what the hellllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll
I will say though, I laughed out loud like a maniac when I picked up a sneaker item, and it lasted for like 4 seconds tops. I had to get up and hug my wife.

Just. Wow, dude. They had some gigantic balls releasing a game like this after Sonic Mania, I'll give them that. Full honesty, I think Iizuka may have a humiliation kink, cause there's no way in hell you put something like this out hoping it'll do good. The lack of self awareness here is almost as baffling as Shadow '05. Thank god I didn't start getting back into the franchise before this came out, cause if so... This game would've forced me to abandon this blue fucker again.

Man... This really is That Game huh.

This isn't my first time playing Sonic Mania, I did play it for a little bit when it first came out. Back then, I was still in my "meh, I'm not into Sonic anymore" phase, so I didn't appreciate it nearly as much as I do now.

The perfect* 2D Sonic game, hands down. The presentation alone mops the floor with any possible competition; fan game or official, it doesn't matter, none of them come close to matching the attention to detail here. The spritework is SO. GOOD. And the low poly models! Ahhhhhh!
I won't even get into the music, the entire fucking soundtrack is top notch. I can't pick any favorites, ALL tracks are beyond stellar.

I LOVE the special stages, they're my new favorites. And it's clear that the team had a real soft spot for Sonic CD, which immediately earns some brownie points from me. Time traveling again after completing Stardust Speedway Act 1 had my cheeks hurting from smiling so much.

BUUUUUUUUUUUT... There was no need to bring so many classic zones back. Granted, they all have some spice added in on Act 2 that makes them unique in their own way(the smog in Oil Ocean was very anxiety inducing), but still, my eyes were glued to the screen whenever a brand new zone showed up, they were the real highlights.

Elemental shields, movement options that you can unlock through Blue Sphere, tons of playable characters, classic setpieces with new spins, a very active modding community, great visuals, great soundtrack... What else can I say?

By the mania, for the mania, indeed.

My favorite modern Sonic game, bar none. It just hits all the right notes for me, especially now that I've gone through some of the hedgehog's less than stellar showings.

The art direction, my god, I LOVE how this game looks. There's so much variety to the locales you visit, thanks to its "World Adventure" setup. From the serene coastal waves of Apotos to the cozy snow covered huts of Holoska, every location is a treat to the eyes. And the townspeople! Their designs no longer clash with Sonic & co.'s models! All of them have this Pixar-esque quality to them, with plenty of distinct proportions. I'd rather not have non-Eggman humans in this series at all, but if they have to be in there, this is how you do it. This is the first time a Sonic game in 3D gave us this much visual cohesion, and it's so satisfying.
Not to mention how fresh it all feels; no Green Hills or Chemical Plants, all of the areas here are fully original and it makes for one of the most unique set of stages in the series.

Elevating that uniqueness is Unleashed's soundtrack. While it's kind of redundant to harp on too much over the music in Sonic games, this one deserves ALL possible praise. It's the best soundtrack in the series, one of my favorites of all time, if not my actual number one. Right on the first stage, you're hit with Windmill Isle, a theme that blends energetic beats with relaxing violin strings. The Night variation is no slouch either, perfectly selling that feeling of skulking around at night while everyone else is hiding from monsters roaming the streets.
Town themes, stage themes, the temples! God, I love the Gaia Temples. They could've just created basic ass palette swaps for each of them based on the Emerald's colors, but no! They went above and beyond and added tons of personality based on each country's features. It's a simple thing but I yearn for details like that.

The story is back to a more laid back tone, and I couldn't be happier about it. I mean, the world is shattered and an ancient demon of destruction is slowly rising to end it all, but the way it's presented is much more whimsical than the "Let's show a recording of Eggman's grandfather about to be fucking executed talking about how he's lost faith in mankind lmao" approach of SA2. It also helps that it's not tied to any previous games, and most of the main cast is new, except for Tails/Amy. It's a simple, yet entertaining enough plot that serves as an excuse to have Sonic traveling the world with a friend. Although, I will say, I kind of wish we could spend more time with Sonic's "core" friends. Yes, Tails is implied to be tagging along for the whole journey since he's the one flying us back and forth between continents, but he doesn't show up a whole lot during cutscenes; it's mostly a Sonic & Chip show.

The gameplay is aces, there's a reason why this style became the blueprint for future Sonic games for quite a while. None of that on rails bullshit from Secret Rings and Black Knight, Sonic now has one mission objective: break the sound barrier, and Unleashed perfectly conveys that energy with flying colors. In all honesty, it feels more like a driving game than a """"proper"""" Sonic game, but as someone who enjoys those kind of games, I find it very exhilarating and a perfect fit for the character.
But of course, the Daytime stages are only one half of the adventure. The other half consists of beat 'em up sections with the Werehog, where you take things slow and proceed to stomp the shit out of monsters. And honestly? I really like the Werehog! I think it's a simple yet satisfying setup, and a perfect way to introduce younger players to action games. It also lets you appreciate the environment a lot more, I even started a thread of some of my favorite areas over at my bsky profile.
Exploration is very rewarding. There's ton of hidden items off the beaten path, and there's many instances where the game rewards you for thinking "Ok, what if I try making this jump/going this way?"

To be fair, I can understand why some would frown at the Werehog. After Heroes, the quality of Sonic's console titles took a steep nosedive, with time and budget spent on distractions like the Riders games, half-hearted gimmick selling ventures like the storybook games, or... the entirety of 06. Fans were desperate for Sonic to hit a home run again, and Unleashed's box art and premise probably gave them the wrong idea, as if it was going to be another flaccid timewaster like Secret Rings. I imagine that if the Werehog was replaced by Knuckles or something, people wouldn't have judged it so harshly from the get go.

Oh, it's worth mentioning that this all goes for the Wii/PS2 version of the game. I never played the HD version, so I hope that I can enjoy it as much as this one once I get to it, although I already know that the medals are handled in a far worse fashion there.

This game feels like Sonic Team finally committed to breathing new life into the series, with actual heart and soul this time around. It's not ridden with glitches, actual consideration was put into the art direction so that everything looks like it fits in its world, the story doesn't try to punch above its weight while leaving a minefield of plot inconsistencies behind and it set a new foundation for future games. It won't work for everyone, but it sure as hell worked for me.

This is the last Sonic game I played back when I was little. After this, someone introduced me to Persona 4 and I went "Heh. Sonic is for BABIES, I'm a grown up now. fuck sonic", and wouldn't play another game in the series until this marathon. I do know some things about future games, but I never played them myself, including the HD version of Unleashed. I'm excited to finally check them out!

Really cool mod, but a couple of things irked me enough to reconsider my decision to revisit Riders through this instead of the original release. (Which was a dumb idea to begin with considering this is a mod aimed at improving multiplayer. I'm stupid ok leave me alone,)

First, everything is unlocked from the start. I understand why this was done: to ensure everyone online is playing under the exact same conditions, but still. It would be cool if you could create a secondary save in order to play single player mode with the new additions, or a separate version of the mod for offline play, but even a fresh file will have everything added in.

Second, the soundtrack. Look, I love UNIB's character select theme too, but it's really not what I expected to hear in the main menu when booting this mod up. I realize how ironic this is, considering I really like the song selection in Robotnik's Ring Racers, but idk; Ring Racers/SRB2Kart is an original idea, I think it's fine when it yoinks songs from other games. This is a mod for an existing game, so it was just kind of jarring to hear Bayonetta music in there, considering I wanted to replay Riders through this version. (Again, I'm stupid)

I'll probably pick this up again once my priority isn't to marathon these games back to back.

Pretty fun! Just a bit repetitive. I used to play this all the god damn time when I was little, spamming the Grand Prix over and over again since I didn't understand enough English to do well on mission mode lmao

I'd rather have Sonic and Co. racing against each other on foot, it just makes more sense to me, but if you gotta add a vehicle in there, I'm glad they went with hoverboards. When I first played Phantasy Star Universe and saw Ethan riding around on one of those, I immediately fell in love with the concept.

The story is nothing worth noting, but props to Wave's voice actress for being the only one actually giving a shit. Legit, her performance was really good.

Also props to the art style! I love the intro cutscene and the character select portraits, it's striking and instantly recognizable. Can't exactly say the same for the soundtrack sadly, but it's not bad; it has a couple of catchy tracks.

Racing felt good, too. It takes a while to really "get" the systems at play here, but once it clicks, you'll be boosting, high jumping and tricking all the way to first place. If only it had more tracks, or a better mission mode, this would be a great single player racing game. Sadly, mission objectives felt kind of repetitive. Normally, I wouldn't let that discourage me, but the requirements for Gold emblems can be REALLY stingy. My patience ran thin on Sonic's Egg Factory mission; I was constantly missing the Gold emblem by like, a millisecond.

Fun little game to revisit. Maybe I'll go for 100% someday.

I don't think i had any fun during the total of 27 hours I played of this. Kept forcing myself to play it thinking it would get better due to how much I ended up loving the first game, but It just never happened.

The beginning felt extremely rough and limited on what I could do with my build, i had multiple crashes that made me lose progress one too many times and worst of all: I got softlocked in 2 different quests. One before I installed the unofficial patch and the other after.

While questing I exploded an outhouse which ended up covering the entire place with shit, and I think that sums up the whole experience for me. Shocks me that some people consider this one the best with how dire the overall gameplay experience is, even more so than the (vanilla) bethesda stuff.

I found myself enjoying the storyline so maybe i'll give it another chance someday but right now I don't even wanna look at it.

Dimps HQ.

"Hey boss, people don't seem to like bottomless pits all that much. Should we do something about it in this new game we're working on? Maybe we could stop putting them all over the place?"
"Hmm... Shower the player with rings and extra lives. They won't complain about dying if they don't get a game over."
"Of course sir! How didn't I think of that before? It's genius!"

All snark aside, holy shit what a palate cleanser after Shadow the Hedgehog. No guns, no bleak environments, no unnecessarily """"complex"""" narrative, none of that insecure, tryhard edgy bullshit. We're back to Sonic being cool again, possibly the coolest he's ever been up to this point if I'm being honest.

Cute low poly models, level aesthetics that feel familiar yet fresh enough thanks to unique set pieces in each zone, a satisfying trick system, perfect pacing/length, one of the best soundtracks in the series and a stylish new character all come together to make one of my favorite 2D Sonics, next to CD. Yes, even considering all the bottomless pits.

Sometimes, all a game needs to do to win me over is Possess The Vibe, and by god, Sonic Rush has it in spades.(conversely, having the wrong vibe can sink a game even if everything else is technically ok)
Even in a zone called "DEAD LINE", the beats don't stop, the tricks keep rolling and the energy stays at the fucking ceiling.

Of course, vibes by themselves aren't enough to excuse all the downsides. Random bottomless pits are annoying in any situation, and the boss fights here go on for too long, the upgraded attack patterns at low health don't really make them any better. But man, it doesn't matter, this game is so good everywhere else. Even the special stages! The Dimps Special Stage Curse is gone! They're easy to access, fair and fun to play, and you can retry them pretty much instantly if you fail.

Hideki Naganuma's style was MADE for modern Sonic. Why is this the only game in the series he's ever composed for? Energetic funky beats are so much better at enhancing the high speed nature of these games.
(Wrapped in Black and Bomber Barbara are absurdly good boss themes.)
This was a blast to play through, from beginning to end. One of the most goated games in the series for sure, and the best iteration of modern Sonic when it comes to presentation. This game fucks.

Into the Abyss I'll fall, the Eye of Horus. Into the eyes of the night, watching me go.

PowerSlave: Exhumed fucking rules. Always nice to try out a game with not a whole lot of expectations and end up finding something pretty special.

Just a good ol' retro First Person Shooter at first glance, but beyond the surface you'll find one of the most challenging and tightly designed metroidvania-style adventure games out there. I find it pretty awesome how this game came out a good two years before Turok 2 and it puts that game to shame in every way possible.

The story is basically non-existent, but it serves as a good excuse to bring out some really unique ancient egypt-themed visuals, alongside an excellent and memorable soundtrack.

It ALMOST got 5 stars out of me, but I have to admit that there are some annoyances in the level design that hold the game back slightly (the randomly exploding vases, for example) and the final boss fight is admittely underwhelming compared to the previous ones. But it honestly? I wouldn't be shocked if I end up raising the rating at some point in the future.

Night Dive are honestly heroes for remastering gems like this for the PC. Go check it out! It's pretty cheap on steam.

The past week has been extremely difficult for me. Rescuing a kitten that was stuck inside a sewer hole, then trying to nurse him back to health, only to find he had way more problems that we needed to solve as soon as possible. Many vet visits and a (ongoing) fundraiser later, little Lio is almost back home with us. But with all the ups and downs and literal near death experiences he went through, I've been more stressed than ever, which is why my Sonic marathon was put on hold until he's doing better.

Needless to say, I needed to find something to distract myself with so I wouldn't go insane while waiting for vet updates. Something simple, familiar; almost automatic. That's when I remembered a Pokémon Gen 1 romhack that a friend recommended to me a while back.

I have a weird relationship with Pokémon. I LOVE Gen 1, it's one of my absolute comfort games, but I have very little interest in playing anything else in the series. It's not even a genwunner thing like "POKEMON USED TO BE BETTER BACK THEN!!!" because by the time I was old enough to even play anything, Gen 3 was already out. I didn't grow up with Red/Blue/Yellow. But for some reason, this little game really feels like home to me, and this romhack? One of my favorites.

Just an insane amount of quality of life updates all over the place, including having all 151 Pokémon available to catch without trades. I know the social aspect of Pokémon is what makes it special to a lot of people, but I never really cared about it. It was always more of a hindrance than anything, and I'm glad that PureBlue(or Green, in my case) takes that away in favor of a more "basic" experience.

Comfort food made even more comfortable by fans. This helped me a lot in the last few days. Please consider checking it out if you also have a soft spot for Gen 1.

Did Naka or Iizuka lose a bet or something? Did someone point a gun at them(hah), forcing them to convince everyone else at SEGA that this was a good idea? What happened here?

This game helped me in realizing just how much I fucking despise this setting for Sonic. The plastic-y models for Sonic & co. return from Heroes, but now we have the dumbass humans back in the story, which leads to some ridiculous whiplash every time cutscenes with Shadow and the President/GUN Commander play back to back, shit's almost as bad as the Pirates of the Caribbean world in KH2.
Some stages look nice, like Digital Circuit, but most of them are so drab and boring when compared to Heroes. I mean, I get why, they were trying to make this one gritty and all that other bullshit, but it just falls flat in its face.

It's almost adorable how much it fails at being cool, actually. They go SO FAR(but not far enough, more on that later) in trying to ramp up the edge that it loops around and turns into some lame ass shlock instead. Shadow, you don't need a fucking glock to be cool. You were already cool in Adventure 2. That first shot in the opening FMV where he cocks a gun is as imposing as a Disney World costume character holding a super soaker.

Not that using the guns is bad by itself, mind you. In fact, actually playing Shadow the Hedgehog wasn't the worst thing in the world. The controls are not as tight as Sonic Heroes; I guess they noticed Shadow had those Air Shoes and thought "Hey, he should like. float a bit, right?", meaning you slip and slide a lot easier now. But the homing attack works just fine, the spindash is back(even though you can't use it while running), and the guns' lock on works well enough. Mission structure is a bit repetitious though, even for someone who loved Mission mode/Trials in SA1 and Team Chaotix in Heroes. Sure, Chaotix had you looking for 60 candles in Mystic Mansion, but that's like 10 stages into the game. Shadow the Hedgehog asks that you kill 45 Aliens in the very first mission, and looking for them with slippery controls like these isn't as fun.

Speaking of missions: Branching paths. What kind of herb were they partaking of when they cooked this shit up.
Like, the idea of having hero/neutral/dark routes isn't bad, but what's the with overabundance of paths? Three hundred and twenty fucking six different paths are available for the ultimate gamer to make Shadow the perfectly balanced life form. Oh yeah, I love taking the hero path all the way to the end, only to heel-turn at the very last second just to screw Sonic over like some bipolar fuckhead. Why not just have 3 routes to follow determined by what objective you complete in Westopolis?
Kill all Aliens = You're on the hero route where you help Sonic and friends defeat the Black Arms. Head straight for the goal = Neutral route where you don't really give a shit about either faction and end up using the emeralds to find the truth by yourself. Kill all cops = You side with Black Doom to help him take over the world in exchange for your memories(kind of a disproportionate trade if you ask me). That's all they had to do.
Instead, you can choose to/accidentally complete a mission from a different alignment, but because you're so far in a specific route, the next cutscene will act as if you're still a good/bad guy.

I finished 3 runs for my playthrough: Full hero, full neutral, and full dark, meaning there were some stages and story bits I missed, but I looked them up.

This story fucking blows. You're telling me the Commander watched Maria getting a bullet through her back thanks to a GUN soldier, an event which traumatized him, only to join them years later? And apparently he hates Shadow too. If that's the case, why the fuck does the military go after Sonic in Adventure 2? If this mike pence looking piece of shit really had his asshole in a knot because of Shadow and was also a part of GUN, you'd think he'd let everyone else in the organization know. Also Gerald actually had good intentions and we should honor his legacy, I guess?
Not only that, but this is the same Shadow from Heroes(and by extension SA2 since he's the original), right? If so, he already made a bond with the rest of the cast back when fighting Metal Overlord. Why does he think that Black Doom is his only alternative to finding answers about his past when Sonic and the rest of the gang, including Rouge who spent enough time with Shadow and snooped around Eggman's PC/Shadow's containment room in Heroes, are right there? Sure, they don't have all the answers to his past, but what makes him think Black Doom does? Wasn't the moon fucking blown in half when Eggman pissed on it back in SA2? This IS the same continuity, right? "Blah blah, it's a game for kids and things are just supposed to look cool", well if you're gonna give me 326 possible routes and ask that I complete 10 endings to play the actual final stage, AT LEAST pretend to give a shit.

I already disliked the story in Adventure 2. I think it tries to do too much for a series that really has no excuse to fall into plot holes or inconsistencies given how simple Sonic is in concept. The story there was dogshit, this is even worse somehow.

A half-hearted, cowardly attempt at turning this series into something it isn't, and more than that, something it never wanted to be. Why can't I see Sonic's brain fucking oozing out from his bazooka-blasted hedgehole after I kill him? One of the endings implies Shadow kills himself. Why won't they show me the body? Where's the pool of blood next to Maria's cold ass corpse in that flashback? (Granted, all of these things would make this game even worse to me lmao)
The answer? They didn't actually want to take any of this seriously. They didn't want to commit. It's still Sonic, like you've always known, but now we have gunshot SFXs in the menus, the saturation is turned down on most stages(which hilariously clashes with the McDonalds ass character models for the main cast), and Shadow says damn here and there. This game has all the cool-factor of a kid grabbing a gun from his father's closet and waving it around to show how crazy and messed up he is, but he can't pull the trigger. It's not even loaded. It's not even a real gun. Fuck this game.

POST PUBLISH EDIT: Back in my Adventure 1 review, I mentioned that despite its many flaws, that game still managed to win me over thanks to it wearing its heart on its sleeve. Shadow the Hedgehog is the complete opposite of that, as I alluded to previously by calling the game "cowardly"; it feels like this game doesn't want to be here. It doesn't want to do what it's doing, but someone else is pulling the strings so it dances to the tune anyway. It's not honest or confident in itself the same way Adventure 1 was.

Not only that, but it feels like a lot of the people who do fuck with the presentation here kind of enjoy it "ironically"? Like "Haha look at how weird this shit is" or "well, it really is stupid, but try to enjoy the stupid!"(Nothing wrong with that, mind you)
Speaking for myself, I don't really like laughing at something, I'd much rather laugh with it, which is why RE4 is one of my favorite games ever. THAT game knows how bullshit bonkers everything is and it shows that off like a badge of honor. But because this game lacks any self awareness, and also seems embarrassed of itself at points, it really feels like the only approach you can take with it is the former: laughing at it.

(It has some great music though, I can't take that away from it. Shoutout to the GUN Fortress theme, which I had on loop when writing this. If the game went for this kind of energy instead of trying to be more like "All of Me", maybe it would've been better.)