Speedy
2020
It’s cute! Definitely a mobile game worth a play that’s not too trigger heavy with any of the things that the genre is known for, it’s got great dialogue and a fun artstyle. The last world is pretty frustrating and the bosses aren’t anything to write home about but on the whole a fun experience
Mario & Sonic: Wonderstars: Part 2: What a Wonderful Super Mario World
Super Mario Bros Wonder is a great game, no need to tell you that. But from my reaction to the game at first I wouldn’t have expected that let me tell you. When the game was first announced I had the exact same apathetic reaction I had with Sonic stinkerstars. Meaning that I did not care for the game at all, thinking it was just another 2D Mario game, the art style wasn’t my thing and nothing it really showed me while looked cool wasn’t anything that was gonna change my mind.
Then the direct hit.
The direct basically sold me on Wonder despite having a few gripes from what I was seeing. Nintendo had let the game cook and simmer for as long as it needed and we’re proud with what they made both from interviews and the game itself. Of course being proud of a game doesn’t mean anything if it isn’t any good but the fact they had no deadline and could do whatever they want with the game with anything showed me incredible promise.
And they did deliver.
I’m gonna structure this review slightly differently from the rest, I can easily say that “GOODS, THEN BADS” which would sell my thoughts on the game sure but I feel I want to go the extra mile and talk about the initial gripes I had with the game first then detail if they still exist or not. So without further ado, Let’sa go!
Wonder Problem 1: The Gentrification of Mario
It’s no secret why everyone went crazy over Wonder both post release and especially pre release was that it was breaking the New Super Mario Bros shackles of the same exact world theming, backgrounds actually looked detailed, they’re using advantage of the artstyle and all that jazz. For some reason when it was first revealed I didn’t like it, I found the artstyle was doubling down on the platiscally look the NSMB games coined essentially and the environments looked kinda the same but the bare minimum. Can I give myself a slap on the head from the past?
Super Mario Wonder feels fresh. It sorta does the same thing as Odyssey where each world theme isn’t super out of the ordinary for Mario, but it is enhanced both in terms of theming and the context of the world, which you can even see in the story. It’s nothing too out of the ordinary again but they went a lot further then I expected. Gone is the plot to rescue Peach or anyone for that fact, we’ve gone back to the Super Mario Land 2 era where we need to save stolen property. Each world has a contextual problem you need to solve after Bowser plans his “Big Wonder” after he turns into a castle. It’s not much but the extra unneeded touch makes Wonder more complete that it had any right it needed to be. It’s not as muc as Odyssey nor is it a game that actively tries to be a comedic story but it was charming, especially with the talking flowers.
That’s how I’d describe the game’s presentation, charming. Things that were just so straightforward in previous games such as going into pipes, doors, enemies hitting you etc now have so much life injected to them. The game’s environments and artstyle, while not my ideal and in terms of environments that could have gone further into the weird, are incredible. Gone are the boring samey backgrounds and now nearly everything single stage has a unique background and environment. In terms of music while I wouldn’t it’s the best of 2D Mario but it is still great, it definitely gets slightly repetitive with the Wonder flower theme playing almost nearly everytime and the athletic theme being used even more than the main defining theme, but I think even just the sound design which is completely different from other games and is excellent shows how this is, for better or worse, a big overcorrection of the New Super Mario Bros series, and that can be perfectly seen in my next pre Wonder problem
Wonder Problem 2: Variety Variety Variety!
One initial problem I had seeing the trailer was the Wonder flower, this gimmick to me seemed like variety for the sake of it instead of crafting actual good challenging platforming you can have some weird mini game intrusively tuning the flow of the game, like for instance later Yoshi games and how they’d abused the transformation gimmick, and even when the direct hit of me having a slightly more optimistic look on the game I couldn’t help but feel that variety was favoured of good level design and challenge especially with the new badge system , and I was kinda right but also insanely wrong.
First things first, the Badge system, You see, Mario Wonder only had 6 Power Ups, the 3 you’ve come familiar with like the Mushroom, Fire Flower and Star, with the new ones being the Elephant Apple which turns you into an Elephant which I’m sure is gonna spark an sexual awakening with a few people basically being a great melee weapon and can hold water, The Bubble Flower which is the Ice Flower but with Bubbles (Personally prefer the Ice Flower) and the Drill Mushroom which drills into the ground. I don’t think the Item game is particularly strong in this game or bad but it’s clear that the Badge system takes precedence.
You can equip one badge from three categories. Action Badges which basically add an additional movement option or enhance an ability, Boost Badges which basically make the game easier with more power-ups, a way to find hidden items and even a rhythm badge where you jump to the beat, which gets my Hi-fi Rush part of my brain go happy. Finally, you have the Expert Badges where there’s only four in the entire game but make the game harder, my preferred ones being the spring jump and Jet run. I think the Badge System is really only a cool idea that needs refining, I don’t think having say, two more Badge slots would hurt and maybe having more interesting badges wouldn’t hurt, I would rather have more Power-ups since there’s a lot more you can with that in terms of level design that’s not locked in with specific Badge challenges, but they’re cool.
But anyway, the gimmick of the Wonder Flower is at its core what I theorised, giving some variety and changes to a normal experience, the way they handle it is quite inconsistent, for one in some stages they give it and leave it in the open while others have you try and find it, all of which end by giving you a Wonder seed, the main collectible of the game. I’m happy to report that the Wonder effects never really angered me in my playthrough, not all of them were great but in a game like this where it is so easy to screw up these gimmicks it’s incredible there wasn’t a single one where I could say they sucked which again, surprises me. A lot of these gimmicks include transforming into creatures you’d see in the stage you’re playing akin to Super Mario Odyssey, or a status effect like Metal, P-Balloon, stretching ect. Oddly enough or “normally” my favourite and possibly the laziest one is making the core stage harder by reinforcing the gimmicks in that stage.
At this point, the Nintendo formula of 2D or even just linear stages used in verbatim especially in the New Super Mario Bros series, where a stage introduces a gimmick and that gimmick gradually gets harder and more difficult /involved, especially when extra items/goodies are here in the case of this game with Wonder Flowers, Purple Coins and secret exits. I don’t think this formula is bad per say it’s great when put to use see in the Retro Donkey Kong games and outside of the Nintendo sphere and Ubiart Rayman games but I feel this sorta creeps in the issue with the Wonder flower.
Some stages in this game, are innanely short without the gimmick and even with them they don’t feel, not undercooked but missing something? Like I feel this problem comes apparent in the later two worlds discounting Bowser’s Castle, it feels like this game wanted to do a lot more in terms of it level design which as it is is really good but take a game like 3D World, Tropical Freeze and especially Galaxy 2 for instance, those games feel like with each level they really wanted to fully challenge the player with its gimmicks and level design they both worked hand in hand with each other and it’s not like Wonder doesn’t have that in fact there’s a good attempt here with the Break Time stages which are short challenge stages and especially the Badge challenges, but usually the gimmicks have presendance over the level design in some cases, it’s not enough to make it a major problem but it’s just enough where becomes odd, maybe it’s because the game is quite new but there’s just a good chunk of levels even with the Wonder flower that I completely forget and I don’t care for, which again may be because it’s new but then again, a game like Odyssey, Galaxy 2 or hell even Mario Maker 2’s story mode with limited with spectacle it is for instance I can still remember almost every moment of the first magical of those games but with Winder while moments of those shine, it in cases more than not feels like the New Super Mario Bros games where the levels are of good and but inconsistent quality.
Despite this however, I do think the Wonder flower is a welcome addition to the game, it helps break the pacing of platforming in unique despite a few missteps in making the base level a bit lacking, hell you can even skip most of the Wonder flowers though I probably think that the seed limit maybe damper that tangible goal.
Wonder Problem 3: I Ordered challenge in my Mario Game!
Sadly, while a lot of my initial worries of how the Game’s variety was handled were elevated somewhat, my issues with how the difficulty was handled, was sadly kinda proven right. My worry was that the game wouldn’t be that challenging. HOWEVER, that’s not really a big issue since the game is already interesting enough to keep my attention, but I think being a slight bit harder would have elevated the game a lot, it’s like a spice to me. The food doesn’t need it but it can help a lot by elevating the whole experience.
This is possible due to how the game is structured, the game has a large interconnected world like Mario World but every once and again you return to the Petal Isles, which is a cool idea as a recurring beach location. Hell one of my favourite backgrounds had Bowser just floating there, menacingly. I feel where issues arise are the last two worlds discounting the castle since you can choose what world you want to play, and It kinda just feels like the same level of difficulty throughout the game kinda. Wonder really didn’t have a big rise in terms of challenge unless we’re counting the obvious Special World akin to Mario World, and even that had the super difficult ending level that every Mario game has coined being the first 2D Mario game to have it, but again despite this issue with the challenge, the game does remain fun and interesting throughout, Especially with the break time and Badge levels, then the bosses come in.
Good lord, It felt like apart from the first and last world, every world in this game felt off to end on, like something was missing. We’ve returned back to the Super Mario Bros 1 days of one character being the only boss throughout the entire game, this being Bowser Jr. His bosses are fine but like, feel like Tower bosses which are absent in this game. And I know the criticism of “But the bosses in 2D Mario weren’t ever interesting” comes to light but, that’s not an excuse. Wonder does a lot to fix issues relating to the core 2D Mario formula, why couldn’t bosses be a part of that? Interesting enough the game basically had “We’ll release when we feel it’s ready” approach which is incredibly based but I’m starting to the doubt that notion with the bosses and certain more minor details. Like are you seriously telling me that they couldn’t have figured out any boss ideas for this game when there’s supposedly a trilogy worth of things on the cutting board, even the final boss has the trademark “Nintendo floating head and hands” thing that’s basically become somewhat infamous, it’s a good fight and eaisly the best in the game, but I’m sorry to say that nearly every single New Super Mario Bros final boss apart from DS has it beat out.
In summary, while too me this is sorta Wonder’s biggest issue, it’s and issue that doesn’t really fully effect that whole experience, like I said, it’s the spice of a game and more specifically a platformer to me. Add too much without moderation or a care and it feels trusting or unenjoyable, add too little and it feels noticeably lacking
Wonder Problem 4: Friends with Benefits
The final Pre-Wonder problem I was sensing was multiplayer, both in terms of how it was implemented and how it would effect the wider ecosystem of the game. Each New Super Mario Bros game felt like it had a different effect to the multiplayer, DS didn’t have it and opposed for the awesome Mario Vs Luigi star battle mode, Wii was the first Mario to have 4 Player co-op which sadly while I like Wii hindered it’s potential as a game in both ways, there wasn’t enough precautions to make the multiplayer as chaotic as it was and in terms of a single player campaign, the level design while enjoyable had a ton of empty and large space in a lot of its levels, made Yoshi into a stage only gimmick, bosses being dumbed down to fit all 4 Players. I could go on. 2 focused on 2 players with a camera system that doesn’t make all too much sense since both people have their own screens and discounting that the level design of 2 didn’t feel intended for Co-op do it does feel a tad bit unnatural and U despite being so derivative might have struck an excellent balanace between providing great single player action and multiplayer mayhem which can be extended to 3D World.
Wonder isn’t anything new, the multiple item boxes and crown from 3D World is brought back and now acts as a camera and the bubble system has been replaced with the ghost where players now have to actively save the person. I feel the biggest issue with the slightly revamped system is the lack of collision between players.
You see, if you live in a big family like me where half the people don’t even know what a Mario is and your parents force you to play with them, it’s bound to put you in a bad mood, so you wanna get it done quickly. With every single game discounting the handheld ones (?), Collision was big factor working together or against your perrs. And I really miss it here. A lot of the times in games where a little kid was playing carrying basically allowed you to have a good enough experience while having fun and that being good feels off? Like I’m really wondering if this did influence the design of the levels and game that radically for it to be removed. But other than that, I guess it’s fun, Mario multiplayer wasn’t always a super big deal for me it was more of an neat little add-on.
This would be where this ends if it wasn’t for the fact that Wonder has online! The online led to some cute interactions but was fine overall. Unlike Maio Maker 2 where the multiplayer is fun as hell but is a Russian roulette if it works or not, the online is pretty consistent but definitely not game changing, I think a few more modes and such would have made this at least more worth it to me.
Whoa Mario, That was really Super Mario Bros Wonder
Despite my few gripes with the game, Super Mario Wonder is a damn good game that too me, is similar to Odyssey. It’s a game that gets a lot right and at its core is good, but with a few touch ups and a slight challenge increase could be one of the greats, but both games along with Bowser’s Fury show a promising future ahead for mainline Mario, a genre that was already unnaturally consistent but somewhat lacking, but for what it is, Super Mario Wonder despite not being my favourite 2D Platformer, is an impeccably well made and fun time.
Super Mario Bros Wonder is a great game, no need to tell you that. But from my reaction to the game at first I wouldn’t have expected that let me tell you. When the game was first announced I had the exact same apathetic reaction I had with Sonic stinkerstars. Meaning that I did not care for the game at all, thinking it was just another 2D Mario game, the art style wasn’t my thing and nothing it really showed me while looked cool wasn’t anything that was gonna change my mind.
Then the direct hit.
The direct basically sold me on Wonder despite having a few gripes from what I was seeing. Nintendo had let the game cook and simmer for as long as it needed and we’re proud with what they made both from interviews and the game itself. Of course being proud of a game doesn’t mean anything if it isn’t any good but the fact they had no deadline and could do whatever they want with the game with anything showed me incredible promise.
And they did deliver.
I’m gonna structure this review slightly differently from the rest, I can easily say that “GOODS, THEN BADS” which would sell my thoughts on the game sure but I feel I want to go the extra mile and talk about the initial gripes I had with the game first then detail if they still exist or not. So without further ado, Let’sa go!
Wonder Problem 1: The Gentrification of Mario
It’s no secret why everyone went crazy over Wonder both post release and especially pre release was that it was breaking the New Super Mario Bros shackles of the same exact world theming, backgrounds actually looked detailed, they’re using advantage of the artstyle and all that jazz. For some reason when it was first revealed I didn’t like it, I found the artstyle was doubling down on the platiscally look the NSMB games coined essentially and the environments looked kinda the same but the bare minimum. Can I give myself a slap on the head from the past?
Super Mario Wonder feels fresh. It sorta does the same thing as Odyssey where each world theme isn’t super out of the ordinary for Mario, but it is enhanced both in terms of theming and the context of the world, which you can even see in the story. It’s nothing too out of the ordinary again but they went a lot further then I expected. Gone is the plot to rescue Peach or anyone for that fact, we’ve gone back to the Super Mario Land 2 era where we need to save stolen property. Each world has a contextual problem you need to solve after Bowser plans his “Big Wonder” after he turns into a castle. It’s not much but the extra unneeded touch makes Wonder more complete that it had any right it needed to be. It’s not as muc as Odyssey nor is it a game that actively tries to be a comedic story but it was charming, especially with the talking flowers.
That’s how I’d describe the game’s presentation, charming. Things that were just so straightforward in previous games such as going into pipes, doors, enemies hitting you etc now have so much life injected to them. The game’s environments and artstyle, while not my ideal and in terms of environments that could have gone further into the weird, are incredible. Gone are the boring samey backgrounds and now nearly everything single stage has a unique background and environment. In terms of music while I wouldn’t it’s the best of 2D Mario but it is still great, it definitely gets slightly repetitive with the Wonder flower theme playing almost nearly everytime and the athletic theme being used even more than the main defining theme, but I think even just the sound design which is completely different from other games and is excellent shows how this is, for better or worse, a big overcorrection of the New Super Mario Bros series, and that can be perfectly seen in my next pre Wonder problem
Wonder Problem 2: Variety Variety Variety!
One initial problem I had seeing the trailer was the Wonder flower, this gimmick to me seemed like variety for the sake of it instead of crafting actual good challenging platforming you can have some weird mini game intrusively tuning the flow of the game, like for instance later Yoshi games and how they’d abused the transformation gimmick, and even when the direct hit of me having a slightly more optimistic look on the game I couldn’t help but feel that variety was favoured of good level design and challenge especially with the new badge system , and I was kinda right but also insanely wrong.
First things first, the Badge system, You see, Mario Wonder only had 6 Power Ups, the 3 you’ve come familiar with like the Mushroom, Fire Flower and Star, with the new ones being the Elephant Apple which turns you into an Elephant which I’m sure is gonna spark an sexual awakening with a few people basically being a great melee weapon and can hold water, The Bubble Flower which is the Ice Flower but with Bubbles (Personally prefer the Ice Flower) and the Drill Mushroom which drills into the ground. I don’t think the Item game is particularly strong in this game or bad but it’s clear that the Badge system takes precedence.
You can equip one badge from three categories. Action Badges which basically add an additional movement option or enhance an ability, Boost Badges which basically make the game easier with more power-ups, a way to find hidden items and even a rhythm badge where you jump to the beat, which gets my Hi-fi Rush part of my brain go happy. Finally, you have the Expert Badges where there’s only four in the entire game but make the game harder, my preferred ones being the spring jump and Jet run. I think the Badge System is really only a cool idea that needs refining, I don’t think having say, two more Badge slots would hurt and maybe having more interesting badges wouldn’t hurt, I would rather have more Power-ups since there’s a lot more you can with that in terms of level design that’s not locked in with specific Badge challenges, but they’re cool.
But anyway, the gimmick of the Wonder Flower is at its core what I theorised, giving some variety and changes to a normal experience, the way they handle it is quite inconsistent, for one in some stages they give it and leave it in the open while others have you try and find it, all of which end by giving you a Wonder seed, the main collectible of the game. I’m happy to report that the Wonder effects never really angered me in my playthrough, not all of them were great but in a game like this where it is so easy to screw up these gimmicks it’s incredible there wasn’t a single one where I could say they sucked which again, surprises me. A lot of these gimmicks include transforming into creatures you’d see in the stage you’re playing akin to Super Mario Odyssey, or a status effect like Metal, P-Balloon, stretching ect. Oddly enough or “normally” my favourite and possibly the laziest one is making the core stage harder by reinforcing the gimmicks in that stage.
At this point, the Nintendo formula of 2D or even just linear stages used in verbatim especially in the New Super Mario Bros series, where a stage introduces a gimmick and that gimmick gradually gets harder and more difficult /involved, especially when extra items/goodies are here in the case of this game with Wonder Flowers, Purple Coins and secret exits. I don’t think this formula is bad per say it’s great when put to use see in the Retro Donkey Kong games and outside of the Nintendo sphere and Ubiart Rayman games but I feel this sorta creeps in the issue with the Wonder flower.
Some stages in this game, are innanely short without the gimmick and even with them they don’t feel, not undercooked but missing something? Like I feel this problem comes apparent in the later two worlds discounting Bowser’s Castle, it feels like this game wanted to do a lot more in terms of it level design which as it is is really good but take a game like 3D World, Tropical Freeze and especially Galaxy 2 for instance, those games feel like with each level they really wanted to fully challenge the player with its gimmicks and level design they both worked hand in hand with each other and it’s not like Wonder doesn’t have that in fact there’s a good attempt here with the Break Time stages which are short challenge stages and especially the Badge challenges, but usually the gimmicks have presendance over the level design in some cases, it’s not enough to make it a major problem but it’s just enough where becomes odd, maybe it’s because the game is quite new but there’s just a good chunk of levels even with the Wonder flower that I completely forget and I don’t care for, which again may be because it’s new but then again, a game like Odyssey, Galaxy 2 or hell even Mario Maker 2’s story mode with limited with spectacle it is for instance I can still remember almost every moment of the first magical of those games but with Winder while moments of those shine, it in cases more than not feels like the New Super Mario Bros games where the levels are of good and but inconsistent quality.
Despite this however, I do think the Wonder flower is a welcome addition to the game, it helps break the pacing of platforming in unique despite a few missteps in making the base level a bit lacking, hell you can even skip most of the Wonder flowers though I probably think that the seed limit maybe damper that tangible goal.
Wonder Problem 3: I Ordered challenge in my Mario Game!
Sadly, while a lot of my initial worries of how the Game’s variety was handled were elevated somewhat, my issues with how the difficulty was handled, was sadly kinda proven right. My worry was that the game wouldn’t be that challenging. HOWEVER, that’s not really a big issue since the game is already interesting enough to keep my attention, but I think being a slight bit harder would have elevated the game a lot, it’s like a spice to me. The food doesn’t need it but it can help a lot by elevating the whole experience.
This is possible due to how the game is structured, the game has a large interconnected world like Mario World but every once and again you return to the Petal Isles, which is a cool idea as a recurring beach location. Hell one of my favourite backgrounds had Bowser just floating there, menacingly. I feel where issues arise are the last two worlds discounting the castle since you can choose what world you want to play, and It kinda just feels like the same level of difficulty throughout the game kinda. Wonder really didn’t have a big rise in terms of challenge unless we’re counting the obvious Special World akin to Mario World, and even that had the super difficult ending level that every Mario game has coined being the first 2D Mario game to have it, but again despite this issue with the challenge, the game does remain fun and interesting throughout, Especially with the break time and Badge levels, then the bosses come in.
Good lord, It felt like apart from the first and last world, every world in this game felt off to end on, like something was missing. We’ve returned back to the Super Mario Bros 1 days of one character being the only boss throughout the entire game, this being Bowser Jr. His bosses are fine but like, feel like Tower bosses which are absent in this game. And I know the criticism of “But the bosses in 2D Mario weren’t ever interesting” comes to light but, that’s not an excuse. Wonder does a lot to fix issues relating to the core 2D Mario formula, why couldn’t bosses be a part of that? Interesting enough the game basically had “We’ll release when we feel it’s ready” approach which is incredibly based but I’m starting to the doubt that notion with the bosses and certain more minor details. Like are you seriously telling me that they couldn’t have figured out any boss ideas for this game when there’s supposedly a trilogy worth of things on the cutting board, even the final boss has the trademark “Nintendo floating head and hands” thing that’s basically become somewhat infamous, it’s a good fight and eaisly the best in the game, but I’m sorry to say that nearly every single New Super Mario Bros final boss apart from DS has it beat out.
In summary, while too me this is sorta Wonder’s biggest issue, it’s and issue that doesn’t really fully effect that whole experience, like I said, it’s the spice of a game and more specifically a platformer to me. Add too much without moderation or a care and it feels trusting or unenjoyable, add too little and it feels noticeably lacking
Wonder Problem 4: Friends with Benefits
The final Pre-Wonder problem I was sensing was multiplayer, both in terms of how it was implemented and how it would effect the wider ecosystem of the game. Each New Super Mario Bros game felt like it had a different effect to the multiplayer, DS didn’t have it and opposed for the awesome Mario Vs Luigi star battle mode, Wii was the first Mario to have 4 Player co-op which sadly while I like Wii hindered it’s potential as a game in both ways, there wasn’t enough precautions to make the multiplayer as chaotic as it was and in terms of a single player campaign, the level design while enjoyable had a ton of empty and large space in a lot of its levels, made Yoshi into a stage only gimmick, bosses being dumbed down to fit all 4 Players. I could go on. 2 focused on 2 players with a camera system that doesn’t make all too much sense since both people have their own screens and discounting that the level design of 2 didn’t feel intended for Co-op do it does feel a tad bit unnatural and U despite being so derivative might have struck an excellent balanace between providing great single player action and multiplayer mayhem which can be extended to 3D World.
Wonder isn’t anything new, the multiple item boxes and crown from 3D World is brought back and now acts as a camera and the bubble system has been replaced with the ghost where players now have to actively save the person. I feel the biggest issue with the slightly revamped system is the lack of collision between players.
You see, if you live in a big family like me where half the people don’t even know what a Mario is and your parents force you to play with them, it’s bound to put you in a bad mood, so you wanna get it done quickly. With every single game discounting the handheld ones (?), Collision was big factor working together or against your perrs. And I really miss it here. A lot of the times in games where a little kid was playing carrying basically allowed you to have a good enough experience while having fun and that being good feels off? Like I’m really wondering if this did influence the design of the levels and game that radically for it to be removed. But other than that, I guess it’s fun, Mario multiplayer wasn’t always a super big deal for me it was more of an neat little add-on.
This would be where this ends if it wasn’t for the fact that Wonder has online! The online led to some cute interactions but was fine overall. Unlike Maio Maker 2 where the multiplayer is fun as hell but is a Russian roulette if it works or not, the online is pretty consistent but definitely not game changing, I think a few more modes and such would have made this at least more worth it to me.
Whoa Mario, That was really Super Mario Bros Wonder
Despite my few gripes with the game, Super Mario Wonder is a damn good game that too me, is similar to Odyssey. It’s a game that gets a lot right and at its core is good, but with a few touch ups and a slight challenge increase could be one of the greats, but both games along with Bowser’s Fury show a promising future ahead for mainline Mario, a genre that was already unnaturally consistent but somewhat lacking, but for what it is, Super Mario Wonder despite not being my favourite 2D Platformer, is an impeccably well made and fun time.
2023
Mario and Sonic: Wonderstars: Part 1 A Mid Miracle
Finally, after a decade, Sega releases a new Episode in the Sonic 4 saga! Easily the best episode in the game!
Sonic Superstars is a game that exists, it is a game that I played and consumed. But honestly? I am kinda disappointed. From my last review I was tired of the franchise as a whole, I wanted to take a long sleep/break from new content of the franchise and blissfully reminisce about the better past. If was tired then I have insomnia now.
I am sorry people, as a person who has reviewed all the major Classic Sonic games on my account and as a Sonic fan, this game was mid sadly. This is the bare minimum, we are in was is possibly one of the most packed months in gaming with the Plumber launching his new wonderful game in a few days and Insomiac dropping the first PS5 game meanwhile Sonic is just, slacking. I knew it wasn’t gonna match up to those but I at least expected something as least as good as Mania, and I got the most game of all time.
I wasn’t really hyped for Superstars when it was announced, Naota Oshima being back was a nice surprise I suppose but the company (Arzest) wasn’t making me impressed at all with any of the new things they cooked in this game, it all felt like slob to me. Nothing I can say is PEAK nor I can i see is bad which is what most sonic is blah blah blah we get the point I’m old and out of touch and Sonic bad we get it, but in truth, Superstars isn’t bad, it’s not good either.
When the game leaked and people started playing it myself including, I was completely baffled by both sides of the debate, the mindless Twitter drones yelling “PEAK PEAK” and getting pissed at 7/10’s, fine scores for this game, meanwhile the other crowd calling the game one of the worst Sonic games. And yet at the same time, I sorta understood, it was weird but Superstars to me, is what Sonic 4 Episode 2 is. A game that I played and exists.
I don’t want to do a Super in depth look like I did with previous games where I go through all the zones and shit for reasons I’ll get into, but Superstars is exactly what you expect when “New 2.5D Classic Sonic game” comes into you’re head, maybe in 2013 that would be somewhat cool, but we are in 2023. We’ve seen this done so many times and a lot better, it’s not far off from Mega Man 11 but 11 is one of the best entires in the series with tight design despite the double gear system being similar to what this game introduces, but Superstars doesn’t really do anything more worthy both good and bad, it’s kinda just meh.
I really don’t know what to start with this game, there’s no real strong positives or things that really stick out for me as genuinely awful. Superstars is competent but doesn’t aspire to be anything more.
The story is fine, but they drop everything it sets up so abruptly it’s kinda funny. The level design, is fine but then it nose dives into quality so hard. There were no levels that made go “FUCK YEAH THIS SHIT WAS FIRE 🔥 🔥🔥” or “HOLY SHIT THIS WAS GARBAGE 💩💩💩” the themes are fine, they are not great by any means but they look colourful and vibrant enough, it’s enough to be new but not enough to be great. And the gimmicks range from fine to midly annoying and aren’t as fun as anything from the original games. Stages don’t have a clear philosophy or goal like other games and feel cobbled together, especially with how secrets are handled especially since there’s no Elemental shields. A lot of them are just, out in the open, there’s no challenge to find the special stage rings. Speaking of, the Special Stages in this game are fine, they feel kinda weird, in a game where the physics are on point but here they feel stilted and awkward, they’re all the same level of challenge, kinda annoying.
The music is both PEAK and MID, they’re really inconsistent, as they use different sound fonts. The steller Mania and the poundshop Sonia 4 sound font are both used, the compositions are not bad and there are some bangers, but there are just some tracks that do not sound good at all.
The characters, play fantastic, Sonic, Tails, Knuckles all play like they did in Mania and feels so fun to play and Amy while they’re still having trouble to finding her footing as the 4th member of Team Sonic is fun in this game, and Trip (I’m not even gonna bother spoiling this review it’s not worth it) is a worthwhile wild card addition to the game.
The Emerald Powers are awful, they feel either overpowered or superfluous and don’t add much to the game, which is bad because this is the big thing about the game, the big selling point and it’s just kinda meh. This isn’t like the Wisps, Wonder flower or the Double Gear system where it fundamentally changes the game and how you approach it thus enhancing it, it’s kinda just there but thank god some of them are insanely over powered because good lord the bosses.
This is the one of the only things that does Superstars poorly. the bosses are so abysmally bad and boring that it’s insulting, too much waiting, stop and go and don’t feel satisfying to fight or even cheese with the Emerald Powers, the final few bosses especially pissed me the fuck off.
As I near to this ramble ass review about an old 17 year old boy ranting about a blue hedgehog game I really wonder to myself, Sonic Superstars has nothing apart from supposedly mediocre Co-op and is laughably priced as much as Tears if the Kingdom here (£70!). Everything it attempts has been done better by other better games, a retro revival with new fun twists? Mania has you covered, A game with fun Co-op? the Rivals games and the new SA1 Online mod , 2.5D Graphics? Generations runs literal circles around it with how it’s uses it and aesthetically. A game that has a new twist and enhances the experience? Advance 3. All of these games aren’t perfect to varying degrees, but all of them have something, Superstars doesn’t. It’s a game hindered by it’s gimmicks such as with multiplayer that it leads to a worse experience. But in spite it all, it’s game that I don’t really hate? I had some fun with it but it’s really not a game that I want to go back to, the only 2D games that is worse than this in my opinion is Chaotix, Sonic 4 Episode 1 and Advance 2.
Say what you want about the series, but the series 2D offerings are some of the best in the business, right up there with Mario and Mega Man. They are consistent, fun, exciting, thrilling, exhilarating and always offer something new, to the point where the surpass Mario and Mega Man in some cases due to their series stagnation at points, each 2D game evolved the formula in a natural and compelling way, even games I don’t love as much like CD, Mania and Colours DS at least have that special sauce that made those games, special! CD has its incredible aesthetics, Mania had that nostalgia and twist factor and DS has the Wisps and such. Superstars only aspires to be an unambitious 2D Sonic game, the same games that Mario and Mega Man ran into and have over come and I hope Sonic does to, unless, safe to say my fail safe for the widely inconsistent franchise, will cease. Anyway, I am still tired, I desperately want to go to sleep, but my insomnia is still present, a shame…
Finally, after a decade, Sega releases a new Episode in the Sonic 4 saga! Easily the best episode in the game!
Sonic Superstars is a game that exists, it is a game that I played and consumed. But honestly? I am kinda disappointed. From my last review I was tired of the franchise as a whole, I wanted to take a long sleep/break from new content of the franchise and blissfully reminisce about the better past. If was tired then I have insomnia now.
I am sorry people, as a person who has reviewed all the major Classic Sonic games on my account and as a Sonic fan, this game was mid sadly. This is the bare minimum, we are in was is possibly one of the most packed months in gaming with the Plumber launching his new wonderful game in a few days and Insomiac dropping the first PS5 game meanwhile Sonic is just, slacking. I knew it wasn’t gonna match up to those but I at least expected something as least as good as Mania, and I got the most game of all time.
I wasn’t really hyped for Superstars when it was announced, Naota Oshima being back was a nice surprise I suppose but the company (Arzest) wasn’t making me impressed at all with any of the new things they cooked in this game, it all felt like slob to me. Nothing I can say is PEAK nor I can i see is bad which is what most sonic is blah blah blah we get the point I’m old and out of touch and Sonic bad we get it, but in truth, Superstars isn’t bad, it’s not good either.
When the game leaked and people started playing it myself including, I was completely baffled by both sides of the debate, the mindless Twitter drones yelling “PEAK PEAK” and getting pissed at 7/10’s, fine scores for this game, meanwhile the other crowd calling the game one of the worst Sonic games. And yet at the same time, I sorta understood, it was weird but Superstars to me, is what Sonic 4 Episode 2 is. A game that I played and exists.
I don’t want to do a Super in depth look like I did with previous games where I go through all the zones and shit for reasons I’ll get into, but Superstars is exactly what you expect when “New 2.5D Classic Sonic game” comes into you’re head, maybe in 2013 that would be somewhat cool, but we are in 2023. We’ve seen this done so many times and a lot better, it’s not far off from Mega Man 11 but 11 is one of the best entires in the series with tight design despite the double gear system being similar to what this game introduces, but Superstars doesn’t really do anything more worthy both good and bad, it’s kinda just meh.
I really don’t know what to start with this game, there’s no real strong positives or things that really stick out for me as genuinely awful. Superstars is competent but doesn’t aspire to be anything more.
The story is fine, but they drop everything it sets up so abruptly it’s kinda funny. The level design, is fine but then it nose dives into quality so hard. There were no levels that made go “FUCK YEAH THIS SHIT WAS FIRE 🔥 🔥🔥” or “HOLY SHIT THIS WAS GARBAGE 💩💩💩” the themes are fine, they are not great by any means but they look colourful and vibrant enough, it’s enough to be new but not enough to be great. And the gimmicks range from fine to midly annoying and aren’t as fun as anything from the original games. Stages don’t have a clear philosophy or goal like other games and feel cobbled together, especially with how secrets are handled especially since there’s no Elemental shields. A lot of them are just, out in the open, there’s no challenge to find the special stage rings. Speaking of, the Special Stages in this game are fine, they feel kinda weird, in a game where the physics are on point but here they feel stilted and awkward, they’re all the same level of challenge, kinda annoying.
The music is both PEAK and MID, they’re really inconsistent, as they use different sound fonts. The steller Mania and the poundshop Sonia 4 sound font are both used, the compositions are not bad and there are some bangers, but there are just some tracks that do not sound good at all.
The characters, play fantastic, Sonic, Tails, Knuckles all play like they did in Mania and feels so fun to play and Amy while they’re still having trouble to finding her footing as the 4th member of Team Sonic is fun in this game, and Trip (I’m not even gonna bother spoiling this review it’s not worth it) is a worthwhile wild card addition to the game.
The Emerald Powers are awful, they feel either overpowered or superfluous and don’t add much to the game, which is bad because this is the big thing about the game, the big selling point and it’s just kinda meh. This isn’t like the Wisps, Wonder flower or the Double Gear system where it fundamentally changes the game and how you approach it thus enhancing it, it’s kinda just there but thank god some of them are insanely over powered because good lord the bosses.
This is the one of the only things that does Superstars poorly. the bosses are so abysmally bad and boring that it’s insulting, too much waiting, stop and go and don’t feel satisfying to fight or even cheese with the Emerald Powers, the final few bosses especially pissed me the fuck off.
As I near to this ramble ass review about an old 17 year old boy ranting about a blue hedgehog game I really wonder to myself, Sonic Superstars has nothing apart from supposedly mediocre Co-op and is laughably priced as much as Tears if the Kingdom here (£70!). Everything it attempts has been done better by other better games, a retro revival with new fun twists? Mania has you covered, A game with fun Co-op? the Rivals games and the new SA1 Online mod , 2.5D Graphics? Generations runs literal circles around it with how it’s uses it and aesthetically. A game that has a new twist and enhances the experience? Advance 3. All of these games aren’t perfect to varying degrees, but all of them have something, Superstars doesn’t. It’s a game hindered by it’s gimmicks such as with multiplayer that it leads to a worse experience. But in spite it all, it’s game that I don’t really hate? I had some fun with it but it’s really not a game that I want to go back to, the only 2D games that is worse than this in my opinion is Chaotix, Sonic 4 Episode 1 and Advance 2.
Say what you want about the series, but the series 2D offerings are some of the best in the business, right up there with Mario and Mega Man. They are consistent, fun, exciting, thrilling, exhilarating and always offer something new, to the point where the surpass Mario and Mega Man in some cases due to their series stagnation at points, each 2D game evolved the formula in a natural and compelling way, even games I don’t love as much like CD, Mania and Colours DS at least have that special sauce that made those games, special! CD has its incredible aesthetics, Mania had that nostalgia and twist factor and DS has the Wisps and such. Superstars only aspires to be an unambitious 2D Sonic game, the same games that Mario and Mega Man ran into and have over come and I hope Sonic does to, unless, safe to say my fail safe for the widely inconsistent franchise, will cease. Anyway, I am still tired, I desperately want to go to sleep, but my insomnia is still present, a shame…
2022
Alright let’s do this one more time.
Sonic Frontiers is a game that I have played and spoken about as a total of 3 times on here as of now, 4 if you count the preview I played in London, and it’s a game that I have no strong opinions on one way or the other. I don’t really hate Sonic Frontiers, but I am not really a fan of it either? It’s a very weird game that for some reason is called the pinnacle of Sonic even at release. It baffles me, I won’t judge but I’m confused at this games reception, even more so than now with this latest updates. I was originally planning on doing a re-review of the entire game alongside talking about the new updates, but I feel there’s first of all no need, second I think it could make a good video and lastly, I don’t have the energy to re review a game that I don’t have much of a stance on. Anyway, why am I talking about these updates?
Sonic Frontiers is the first sonic game to feature free content updates, 3 major updates to be exact, adding new features, modes, options and for the last update, an entire new story. Even as someone who didn’t really care about Frontiers, this intrigued me, I don’t know if i thought if it would fix the game but at least I could maybe, maybe see what all the hype was about. The answer is more complicated then I could imagine, but unfortunately, I’m leaning towards a negative side. This is gonna be a long, negative ass review of Frontiers after launch, I’m tired.
Update 1: Sights, Sound, and Speedymcfly!!!
Update 1 is what Is the update in my opinion, that put stuff that was probably supposed to be in the game at launch into it, and it does it job, fine. This right here is a fine update. The features in this update are quite cool but needed a bit more time in the oven, something we will see later on especially. First, there’s a new jukebox mode that contains songs from across the series, I like this, as someone who doesn’t really care about Frontiers music, it’s nice to get songs that I actually like and can listen to while running around at the literal speed of sound, getting them is fun as you need to think out of the box to get some of the better song choices, usually vocal songs, while others are easy to find. You also have a photo mode, which isn’t very good in my opinion, it’s feels so limited since you can’t even use it in cyberspace, it only has a limited pool of filters and, nothing else. No pose’s, stickers, other unique filters or anything else, it’s just serviceable.
The other two modes are the ones that add, like, actual replay value to Frontiers. In the base game, there was nothing of the sort other than Arcade Mode where you can replay Cyberspace, which was nice if you wanted a higher rank but in terms of going back to the game, that was it. There was nothing to really go back on and improve on, there was no ranking system in combat, no super sonic to mess with, no post game side objectives or anything. So adding these where a welcome addition, it’s fine. Again I have to stress this is a fine update, but it’s nothing that really boosted my enjoyment on the game as much as I wanted it, we got a boss rush and egg shuttle which is nice. Sorry for the short and scattershot thoughts but there’s not really much to say on this update, it adds more meat to Frontiers which is a good thing but other than that, nothing really outstanding or that great honestly.
(There’s also extreme mode which I haven’t unlocked but from I heard it’s quite bad despite the few neat additions it adds)
Update 2: Sonic’s birthday bash (He died when he turned 15! F in the chat 😔)
Update 2 was the update that I kinda brushed over, something that I didn’t really know what to expect, and it surprised me and how good it was, there’s even some moments of where I thought, okay, I kinda get it now. Not to the point where I would call it my favourite sonic game, but instead of me not really coming back to it unless I get the PC Version and mod it, it’s a game that I could come back to if I’m feeling up for it.
Update 2 shakes up a lot of things, the birthday stuff is quite superfluous, it’s nothing then a cosmetic thing which I don’t really care about. But everything in this update doesn’t miss, I’m serious, nearly aspect while could have done with some work, enhances the game. First, a very small but incredibly helpful thing is that you can keep your speed while jumping, this is such a small but wonderful fix as it keeps the flow of the game instead being kinda awkward. What this update adds are new action chain challenges, and these are really great, essentially you need to go around the map collecting chains, which you can do my homing attacking on stuff, rail grinding etc, all while collecting orbs to multiple your score. This is fun because it’s using Frontiers whack ass world design to its benefit whole providing a fun challenge, it’s like, actual side content. And what you get for the reward is so great, the spin dash. Around this time Khisimoto was taking in feedback from the community, and for better or worse, this is one of the things added. The Spin dash here isn’t really a Spin dash per say more like a Spin Boost, but as someone who enjoyed using the drop dash, this is sorta a game changer to Frontiers movement and how I’d approach it.
There’s also some fun new challenging Koco stuff that increase your boost meter and a new game plus mode, while it sadly doesn’t increase the difficulty, but I wouldn’t say it’s knock on adding this since most new game plus games doesn’t even do this, but it’s something that could have made it gone the extra mile. So on the whole, update 2 boosts my enjoyment of Frontiers considerable, let’s hope update 3 can stick the landing.
Update 3: The Final Animal Crossing Horizon
What the hell
Update 3, kinda broke me, it’s everything that i love and hate about Frontiers combined into a mess. A mess that I can’t for the life of me still understand the reception of. Update 3 was the big one, the first time multiple playable character were in a 3D Sonic game since Sonic Forces! But more seriously since 06 and maybe even Black Knight if you’re insane like me. This a big deal, along with promising to fix Frontiers polarising ending.
See, I didn’t mention this in my review due to being spoiler free, but Frontiers final boss is both baffling and underwhelming, providing no satisfying challenge either being easy with a QTE, or just pure nightmare fuel with the shooter thing, along with the big fucking purple moon named THE END spouting complete and utter nonsense that was not built up in a satisfying and compelling way in a story that’s too subtle. The final horizon aims to fix this ending both narratively and mechanically. I say aim because they completely missed the fucking target.
Good lord, this was both innanely frustrating, boring and depressing. I can imagine due to Kishimoto trying to listen to all the feedback he’s gotten on Twitter, he tried his damn best to please everyone in such a limited time lot of 2 months and has only divided people on this far even further on this game.
How this works and is integrated into the game feels quite disconnected, instead of outright replacing it, it’s a new alternate timeline/“What if” where Sonic uses his cyber corruption to defeat the End, all while his amigos collect the Chaos Emeralds.
In terms of story, uh this was quite bad! There’s a lot of great moments, mostly in the final boss and ending but everything else is just what I hate about Frontiers plot, it’s so boring! Like, the dialogue has had a complete nose dive in quality in my opinion. A lot of the moment to moment dialogue just doesn’t feel natural, the voice acting is just not there for most of the characters except for Roger, the rest of the characters sound bored out of their mind. The dialogue is the worse of Ian Flynn in my opinion, while I like his work in some cases, here I couldn’t vibe with it. There’s a ton of references that don’t gel with the general tone and atmosphere at hand along with making a lot of unnecessary retcons to the game and lore, some are good, most of them… Yikes. They reiterate the character arcs in the game and retcon a ton of things. So now Big is a hallucination of Sonic (Even though he showed up in the Prologue) and Sonic uses the power of cyberspace to create all the whack ass shit in the Starfall Islands, what now? Can Cyberspace pretend to be a bar of soap and give them all the slip? It’s just silly. But the revised slow story is the least of my problems.
Okay, let’s talk about what I like. Cyberspace is pretty cool! It still sorta reuses stages but it’s fun! The final boss while not without its flaws, it’s good! Has a ton of hype moments as well especially with that new shiny form we get a split second of. Very nice! What’s not nice however is the new actual form we play is just Super Sonic, but with blue eyes! Very not nice! The new songs are pretty good! And uh… I like how the trial areas look!
I’m gonna be honest guys, this update made be tired of a lot things both in the update and just on the whole, the only thing keeping me sane was booting up a couple rounds of F-Zero 99, because my god. This broke me.
The two fatal flaws of the update are first, the new characters. They are bad! The issue with them is that at their core they’re fine, but they just have these little quirks that annoy you.
-Amy is arguably the best character here, her moveset is completely comprised of cards, not her actually weapon she uses. It’s completely silly given how she’s smacking people with cards, riding a motorcycle with cards and gliding with cards and the Hammer gets, is a parry. I don’t know who to blame for this, but this feels like such a baffling decision. Despite this, I feel Amy is semi fun to play as, which can be said for all the characters, she’s the only one that doesn’t adversely have anything wrong with her
-What did they do to my boy Knuckles. Knuckles is one of my favourite sonic characters both to play as and narratively and in both sides they did him so dirty, they kinda reverted him back to a meathead now which is disappointing. But what they did do to him in terms of gameplay??? It’s not terrible, but his glide has this weird delay that still keeps your speed, not only does this not make sense as Amy has her glide completely none delay. Because of this and i shit you not, you get a reboot of the infinite jump glitch from Rise of Lyric. Aside from this, his climbing doesn’t feel natural or fun to use, and is too finicky.
-Tails is in the middle of this, to me he was the least fun character to use. His flying power is only increases your height vertically for a limited time and then you can move around for a limited time. This is understandable to limit how broken flying can be. But I don’t know, it’s not really fun to use, and it’s still kinda broken, 06 at least had the right idea of capping it vertically at a certain point, in Frontiers it feels more like an glorified mid air jump rather than flying, I’m harping on this because Tails isn’t much of a very interesting character to play as, he can throw wrench’s like a Hammer Bro, he’s packing heat like Shadow, and that’s about it!
The biggest issue with all these characters is that they start you off at square one, you’ve got level 1 speed, defence and absolute no stats, not even the cyloop. You essentially have to do a whole game’s worth of upgrading on one Island. I do like the idea of finding experience points through the Koco but it’s just not fun to do this, especially given how in the night sections while there’s a comet storm, the game showers you with Koco and such, so it’s pointless. What all 3 characters also suck at is combat, they are not built for combat, Tails especially given how he doesn’t even have the homing attack. They can’t go combo mad on the enemies and only have a dinky 3 hit combo along with maybe an additional attack in you’re lucky. I don’t know if this was an intentional but you have to just, waddle away when you see an enemy. It’s overall overwhelming disappointing that the thing that the update was advertised on is bad, but is the other stuff go-
No, not at all.
How this update is structured is like a whole new island, it reminds me of Cannons Core or End of the world but instead of being a perfectly lengthy, challenging final level putting what you’ve learned throughout the game to the ultimate test. It’s drawn out to all hell. Of course, I can’t bring up this update without the challenge increase, I played on Normal and have heard horror stories of what it is on Hard and Extreme, and to me, it’s not designed very interestingly.
I love me a hard experience, especially for a platformer, but you have to understand the mechanics of the game and making that challenge satisfying around it, hell we’ve seen it done well in this game with the new Koco and Action chain challenges So what happened here? I’ll give props for less automation and such but whenever there’s fair and hard platforming challenge, there’s just double the amount of dull, Kazio little Timmy ass level. It feels like getting it over Sonic edition, especially with those towers, which unlike Rhea (my favourite part of the game) don’t have any pick me ups, if you mess up, it’s back to the beginning! And like, for some games like the 3D Mario games, you signed up for that shit since it’s the end of the game, you know that’s you’re getting into a tough as nails challenge that’s kinda unfair. But with this, I don’t get why it’s like this, again it’s not that I find it being hard is a bad thing, far from it! Especially as someone who thought Frontiers was piss easy. But here, Frontiers has no difficultly curve, so it’s 0 to 100 so quickly.
Imagine in Sonic Heroes, you played through Team Rose, and then for the final stage you had super hard mode thrown onto you, that’s what the final horizon is. It’s not even like the Adventure Packs from Unleashed, since there it’s at least linear stuff that you can quickly rebound from when you fail through checkpoints, the incentive for all of these are rankings, which Frontiers in the Open Zone, does not have. So you’re left with an unsatisfactory challenge that isn’t fun.
It also just has that artificial difficulty pumped to it, whenever you do the trials, your back to square one in terms of boss fights, instead of making the boss rush harder, they just make you have none of the stuff you’ve worked hard on. In the final boss, parrying actually have timing now, which the game was not built for a perfect parry like this and they just, throw it on you.
Let be clear, when the final
Horizon is good, it’s some of the best stuff in Frontiers (Which is Generations at its worst but whatever) but you have to trudge through just a lot of things that I don’t care for in this update. I’ll give props for being so ambitious with so many new assets and such, but like, my biggest thing with this account and whole review is how sometimes, ambition is the cause of downfall.
I would have much preferred just having the character playable in their own, self contained campaigns (Like you can’t even play as them outside of the DLC area, which was disappointing at first but seeing how they play I’m kinda glad lol), covering the events we only hear of in the main story, then, pull the end of the world stuff when Sonic gets corrupted at the end of Rhea, maybe use the Tower design or the new Cyberspace stages or something and then keep Ouranous structurally the same from the base game, then finally using the new final boss. That would have easily just make Frontiers slightly edge out (Maybe along with distinct themes for the last two islands as well but I can be too greedy), because as the Final Horizon, it’s mid… Not awful, but not peak either
Conclusion, Bros, I am tired
So, Sonic Frontiers is finally in complete open beta! It finally did it! But in all seriousness, this solidified my thoughts on Frontiers and new Sonic stuff as a whole, there’s a lot of great ideas here and concepts, but there’s always a catch and in this case, there’s too many to list . Every damn thing, this game, Sonic Origins, Sonic Prime, the movies, the comics nearly everything post Generations has this rule and it’s disappointing to see Sonic fall into the same things and fans kinda just, eat it up.
Let me clear, I don’t wanna be the fun police like a lot of Sonic detractors are who aren’t even fans of the franchise yet still check it out knowing they’ll dislike like it. I do not want to ridicule the franchise, I want to see it improve, but to do that, we need to acknowledge its flaws, it’s shortcomings yet celebrate when it’s gets something right. You can love something so much, if you think Frontiers is the peakest of fiction, then do! I am not stopping you to think that as someone whose opinions has flunacted in this game more than the UK’s economy. But understand that some of this is flawed in my and many others eyes and can do better, and critique has improved this game! Look at Update 2 and parts of Update 3! Without fan feedback, we wouldn’t have gotten the Spin Dash or New Game Plus! When a new game comes out, I will bet that the issues I have with this entire game, will hopefully be fixed and can be something that genuinely stand as one of my favourite Sonic games.
But as it is, I am tired. Maybe Superstars will bring me out of being tired, but I’m kinda tired of the series new stuff while semi satisfying me still falling to the same pitfalls killing the franchise, only this time people are less outspoken towards it. I will always cherish everything in the past, but as for the future, it looks bright, and it’s gonna be great for most, but I need to rest damnit.
Sonic Frontiers is a game that I have played and spoken about as a total of 3 times on here as of now, 4 if you count the preview I played in London, and it’s a game that I have no strong opinions on one way or the other. I don’t really hate Sonic Frontiers, but I am not really a fan of it either? It’s a very weird game that for some reason is called the pinnacle of Sonic even at release. It baffles me, I won’t judge but I’m confused at this games reception, even more so than now with this latest updates. I was originally planning on doing a re-review of the entire game alongside talking about the new updates, but I feel there’s first of all no need, second I think it could make a good video and lastly, I don’t have the energy to re review a game that I don’t have much of a stance on. Anyway, why am I talking about these updates?
Sonic Frontiers is the first sonic game to feature free content updates, 3 major updates to be exact, adding new features, modes, options and for the last update, an entire new story. Even as someone who didn’t really care about Frontiers, this intrigued me, I don’t know if i thought if it would fix the game but at least I could maybe, maybe see what all the hype was about. The answer is more complicated then I could imagine, but unfortunately, I’m leaning towards a negative side. This is gonna be a long, negative ass review of Frontiers after launch, I’m tired.
Update 1: Sights, Sound, and Speedymcfly!!!
Update 1 is what Is the update in my opinion, that put stuff that was probably supposed to be in the game at launch into it, and it does it job, fine. This right here is a fine update. The features in this update are quite cool but needed a bit more time in the oven, something we will see later on especially. First, there’s a new jukebox mode that contains songs from across the series, I like this, as someone who doesn’t really care about Frontiers music, it’s nice to get songs that I actually like and can listen to while running around at the literal speed of sound, getting them is fun as you need to think out of the box to get some of the better song choices, usually vocal songs, while others are easy to find. You also have a photo mode, which isn’t very good in my opinion, it’s feels so limited since you can’t even use it in cyberspace, it only has a limited pool of filters and, nothing else. No pose’s, stickers, other unique filters or anything else, it’s just serviceable.
The other two modes are the ones that add, like, actual replay value to Frontiers. In the base game, there was nothing of the sort other than Arcade Mode where you can replay Cyberspace, which was nice if you wanted a higher rank but in terms of going back to the game, that was it. There was nothing to really go back on and improve on, there was no ranking system in combat, no super sonic to mess with, no post game side objectives or anything. So adding these where a welcome addition, it’s fine. Again I have to stress this is a fine update, but it’s nothing that really boosted my enjoyment on the game as much as I wanted it, we got a boss rush and egg shuttle which is nice. Sorry for the short and scattershot thoughts but there’s not really much to say on this update, it adds more meat to Frontiers which is a good thing but other than that, nothing really outstanding or that great honestly.
(There’s also extreme mode which I haven’t unlocked but from I heard it’s quite bad despite the few neat additions it adds)
Update 2: Sonic’s birthday bash (He died when he turned 15! F in the chat 😔)
Update 2 was the update that I kinda brushed over, something that I didn’t really know what to expect, and it surprised me and how good it was, there’s even some moments of where I thought, okay, I kinda get it now. Not to the point where I would call it my favourite sonic game, but instead of me not really coming back to it unless I get the PC Version and mod it, it’s a game that I could come back to if I’m feeling up for it.
Update 2 shakes up a lot of things, the birthday stuff is quite superfluous, it’s nothing then a cosmetic thing which I don’t really care about. But everything in this update doesn’t miss, I’m serious, nearly aspect while could have done with some work, enhances the game. First, a very small but incredibly helpful thing is that you can keep your speed while jumping, this is such a small but wonderful fix as it keeps the flow of the game instead being kinda awkward. What this update adds are new action chain challenges, and these are really great, essentially you need to go around the map collecting chains, which you can do my homing attacking on stuff, rail grinding etc, all while collecting orbs to multiple your score. This is fun because it’s using Frontiers whack ass world design to its benefit whole providing a fun challenge, it’s like, actual side content. And what you get for the reward is so great, the spin dash. Around this time Khisimoto was taking in feedback from the community, and for better or worse, this is one of the things added. The Spin dash here isn’t really a Spin dash per say more like a Spin Boost, but as someone who enjoyed using the drop dash, this is sorta a game changer to Frontiers movement and how I’d approach it.
There’s also some fun new challenging Koco stuff that increase your boost meter and a new game plus mode, while it sadly doesn’t increase the difficulty, but I wouldn’t say it’s knock on adding this since most new game plus games doesn’t even do this, but it’s something that could have made it gone the extra mile. So on the whole, update 2 boosts my enjoyment of Frontiers considerable, let’s hope update 3 can stick the landing.
Update 3: The Final Animal Crossing Horizon
What the hell
Update 3, kinda broke me, it’s everything that i love and hate about Frontiers combined into a mess. A mess that I can’t for the life of me still understand the reception of. Update 3 was the big one, the first time multiple playable character were in a 3D Sonic game since Sonic Forces! But more seriously since 06 and maybe even Black Knight if you’re insane like me. This a big deal, along with promising to fix Frontiers polarising ending.
See, I didn’t mention this in my review due to being spoiler free, but Frontiers final boss is both baffling and underwhelming, providing no satisfying challenge either being easy with a QTE, or just pure nightmare fuel with the shooter thing, along with the big fucking purple moon named THE END spouting complete and utter nonsense that was not built up in a satisfying and compelling way in a story that’s too subtle. The final horizon aims to fix this ending both narratively and mechanically. I say aim because they completely missed the fucking target.
Good lord, this was both innanely frustrating, boring and depressing. I can imagine due to Kishimoto trying to listen to all the feedback he’s gotten on Twitter, he tried his damn best to please everyone in such a limited time lot of 2 months and has only divided people on this far even further on this game.
How this works and is integrated into the game feels quite disconnected, instead of outright replacing it, it’s a new alternate timeline/“What if” where Sonic uses his cyber corruption to defeat the End, all while his amigos collect the Chaos Emeralds.
In terms of story, uh this was quite bad! There’s a lot of great moments, mostly in the final boss and ending but everything else is just what I hate about Frontiers plot, it’s so boring! Like, the dialogue has had a complete nose dive in quality in my opinion. A lot of the moment to moment dialogue just doesn’t feel natural, the voice acting is just not there for most of the characters except for Roger, the rest of the characters sound bored out of their mind. The dialogue is the worse of Ian Flynn in my opinion, while I like his work in some cases, here I couldn’t vibe with it. There’s a ton of references that don’t gel with the general tone and atmosphere at hand along with making a lot of unnecessary retcons to the game and lore, some are good, most of them… Yikes. They reiterate the character arcs in the game and retcon a ton of things. So now Big is a hallucination of Sonic (Even though he showed up in the Prologue) and Sonic uses the power of cyberspace to create all the whack ass shit in the Starfall Islands, what now? Can Cyberspace pretend to be a bar of soap and give them all the slip? It’s just silly. But the revised slow story is the least of my problems.
Okay, let’s talk about what I like. Cyberspace is pretty cool! It still sorta reuses stages but it’s fun! The final boss while not without its flaws, it’s good! Has a ton of hype moments as well especially with that new shiny form we get a split second of. Very nice! What’s not nice however is the new actual form we play is just Super Sonic, but with blue eyes! Very not nice! The new songs are pretty good! And uh… I like how the trial areas look!
I’m gonna be honest guys, this update made be tired of a lot things both in the update and just on the whole, the only thing keeping me sane was booting up a couple rounds of F-Zero 99, because my god. This broke me.
The two fatal flaws of the update are first, the new characters. They are bad! The issue with them is that at their core they’re fine, but they just have these little quirks that annoy you.
-Amy is arguably the best character here, her moveset is completely comprised of cards, not her actually weapon she uses. It’s completely silly given how she’s smacking people with cards, riding a motorcycle with cards and gliding with cards and the Hammer gets, is a parry. I don’t know who to blame for this, but this feels like such a baffling decision. Despite this, I feel Amy is semi fun to play as, which can be said for all the characters, she’s the only one that doesn’t adversely have anything wrong with her
-What did they do to my boy Knuckles. Knuckles is one of my favourite sonic characters both to play as and narratively and in both sides they did him so dirty, they kinda reverted him back to a meathead now which is disappointing. But what they did do to him in terms of gameplay??? It’s not terrible, but his glide has this weird delay that still keeps your speed, not only does this not make sense as Amy has her glide completely none delay. Because of this and i shit you not, you get a reboot of the infinite jump glitch from Rise of Lyric. Aside from this, his climbing doesn’t feel natural or fun to use, and is too finicky.
-Tails is in the middle of this, to me he was the least fun character to use. His flying power is only increases your height vertically for a limited time and then you can move around for a limited time. This is understandable to limit how broken flying can be. But I don’t know, it’s not really fun to use, and it’s still kinda broken, 06 at least had the right idea of capping it vertically at a certain point, in Frontiers it feels more like an glorified mid air jump rather than flying, I’m harping on this because Tails isn’t much of a very interesting character to play as, he can throw wrench’s like a Hammer Bro, he’s packing heat like Shadow, and that’s about it!
The biggest issue with all these characters is that they start you off at square one, you’ve got level 1 speed, defence and absolute no stats, not even the cyloop. You essentially have to do a whole game’s worth of upgrading on one Island. I do like the idea of finding experience points through the Koco but it’s just not fun to do this, especially given how in the night sections while there’s a comet storm, the game showers you with Koco and such, so it’s pointless. What all 3 characters also suck at is combat, they are not built for combat, Tails especially given how he doesn’t even have the homing attack. They can’t go combo mad on the enemies and only have a dinky 3 hit combo along with maybe an additional attack in you’re lucky. I don’t know if this was an intentional but you have to just, waddle away when you see an enemy. It’s overall overwhelming disappointing that the thing that the update was advertised on is bad, but is the other stuff go-
No, not at all.
How this update is structured is like a whole new island, it reminds me of Cannons Core or End of the world but instead of being a perfectly lengthy, challenging final level putting what you’ve learned throughout the game to the ultimate test. It’s drawn out to all hell. Of course, I can’t bring up this update without the challenge increase, I played on Normal and have heard horror stories of what it is on Hard and Extreme, and to me, it’s not designed very interestingly.
I love me a hard experience, especially for a platformer, but you have to understand the mechanics of the game and making that challenge satisfying around it, hell we’ve seen it done well in this game with the new Koco and Action chain challenges So what happened here? I’ll give props for less automation and such but whenever there’s fair and hard platforming challenge, there’s just double the amount of dull, Kazio little Timmy ass level. It feels like getting it over Sonic edition, especially with those towers, which unlike Rhea (my favourite part of the game) don’t have any pick me ups, if you mess up, it’s back to the beginning! And like, for some games like the 3D Mario games, you signed up for that shit since it’s the end of the game, you know that’s you’re getting into a tough as nails challenge that’s kinda unfair. But with this, I don’t get why it’s like this, again it’s not that I find it being hard is a bad thing, far from it! Especially as someone who thought Frontiers was piss easy. But here, Frontiers has no difficultly curve, so it’s 0 to 100 so quickly.
Imagine in Sonic Heroes, you played through Team Rose, and then for the final stage you had super hard mode thrown onto you, that’s what the final horizon is. It’s not even like the Adventure Packs from Unleashed, since there it’s at least linear stuff that you can quickly rebound from when you fail through checkpoints, the incentive for all of these are rankings, which Frontiers in the Open Zone, does not have. So you’re left with an unsatisfactory challenge that isn’t fun.
It also just has that artificial difficulty pumped to it, whenever you do the trials, your back to square one in terms of boss fights, instead of making the boss rush harder, they just make you have none of the stuff you’ve worked hard on. In the final boss, parrying actually have timing now, which the game was not built for a perfect parry like this and they just, throw it on you.
Let be clear, when the final
Horizon is good, it’s some of the best stuff in Frontiers (Which is Generations at its worst but whatever) but you have to trudge through just a lot of things that I don’t care for in this update. I’ll give props for being so ambitious with so many new assets and such, but like, my biggest thing with this account and whole review is how sometimes, ambition is the cause of downfall.
I would have much preferred just having the character playable in their own, self contained campaigns (Like you can’t even play as them outside of the DLC area, which was disappointing at first but seeing how they play I’m kinda glad lol), covering the events we only hear of in the main story, then, pull the end of the world stuff when Sonic gets corrupted at the end of Rhea, maybe use the Tower design or the new Cyberspace stages or something and then keep Ouranous structurally the same from the base game, then finally using the new final boss. That would have easily just make Frontiers slightly edge out (Maybe along with distinct themes for the last two islands as well but I can be too greedy), because as the Final Horizon, it’s mid… Not awful, but not peak either
Conclusion, Bros, I am tired
So, Sonic Frontiers is finally in complete open beta! It finally did it! But in all seriousness, this solidified my thoughts on Frontiers and new Sonic stuff as a whole, there’s a lot of great ideas here and concepts, but there’s always a catch and in this case, there’s too many to list . Every damn thing, this game, Sonic Origins, Sonic Prime, the movies, the comics nearly everything post Generations has this rule and it’s disappointing to see Sonic fall into the same things and fans kinda just, eat it up.
Let me clear, I don’t wanna be the fun police like a lot of Sonic detractors are who aren’t even fans of the franchise yet still check it out knowing they’ll dislike like it. I do not want to ridicule the franchise, I want to see it improve, but to do that, we need to acknowledge its flaws, it’s shortcomings yet celebrate when it’s gets something right. You can love something so much, if you think Frontiers is the peakest of fiction, then do! I am not stopping you to think that as someone whose opinions has flunacted in this game more than the UK’s economy. But understand that some of this is flawed in my and many others eyes and can do better, and critique has improved this game! Look at Update 2 and parts of Update 3! Without fan feedback, we wouldn’t have gotten the Spin Dash or New Game Plus! When a new game comes out, I will bet that the issues I have with this entire game, will hopefully be fixed and can be something that genuinely stand as one of my favourite Sonic games.
But as it is, I am tired. Maybe Superstars will bring me out of being tired, but I’m kinda tired of the series new stuff while semi satisfying me still falling to the same pitfalls killing the franchise, only this time people are less outspoken towards it. I will always cherish everything in the past, but as for the future, it looks bright, and it’s gonna be great for most, but I need to rest damnit.
2023
Can I be honest with you guys? I don’t care about F-Zero. Like at all.
The one game that I arguably had played and liked was GX, which seemed to be the common consensus, otherwise I have no string opinions one way or the other across the entire series despite the cool world and characters, it was a series that never really interested me.
So why do I find myself damn near addicted to this game?
F Zero 99 is fun, not without it faults most possibly due to the business model the game adheres to but it’s a fun, addicting, challenging and exhilarating ride.
F Zero 99 was a game that received some flack when it was revealed nearly 3 weeks ago, a direct that while fine had nothing Super note worthy other than that Paper Mario Remake. Of course as a Cing stan I lost my mind over the Another Code remake collection which obviously means Kyle Hyde will return, but too any sane person this was one of the only newer announcements. Reactions were not very good, it was elevated by it being leaked beforehand but the blow still hurt for most fans, and again I did not care. But alongside a thing I was semi excited for and got disappointed I downloaded this on my Switch and to my surprise, I had way too much fun.
This game manages to be incredibly accessible to newcomers while having a ton of depth and nuance to it. The battle royale structure fits F Zero the best out of all these 99 games since there’s a level of feedback there that’s not in any of these other games, it gets a bit chaotic sometimes but on the whole it’s a super fun time trying to survive as a person who usually isn’t a fan of these games, the elimination gimmick isn’t as prevalent as all the other games but there’s a frantic energy and euphoria climbing up the ranks and going fast, feels like an extreme version of bumper cars and I love it.
There are a few issues, due the free to play model, the stage and vehicle selection is quite limited right now, the rotation stuff for Grand Prix and such I don’t really like and is just artificial scarcity for the sake of it, and given it’s a gloried remake of the first game, the graphics aren’t anything to right home about.
But literally my main complaints are just wishing there was more of it, it’s really hard to put into word what makes this game so fun other than it’s fun to go fast, but it’s just fun to go fast. Maybe it’s because of what I played alongside it, but i had a ton of fun with F Zero 99, gonna try and get 1st and maybe even try GX again!
The one game that I arguably had played and liked was GX, which seemed to be the common consensus, otherwise I have no string opinions one way or the other across the entire series despite the cool world and characters, it was a series that never really interested me.
So why do I find myself damn near addicted to this game?
F Zero 99 is fun, not without it faults most possibly due to the business model the game adheres to but it’s a fun, addicting, challenging and exhilarating ride.
F Zero 99 was a game that received some flack when it was revealed nearly 3 weeks ago, a direct that while fine had nothing Super note worthy other than that Paper Mario Remake. Of course as a Cing stan I lost my mind over the Another Code remake collection which obviously means Kyle Hyde will return, but too any sane person this was one of the only newer announcements. Reactions were not very good, it was elevated by it being leaked beforehand but the blow still hurt for most fans, and again I did not care. But alongside a thing I was semi excited for and got disappointed I downloaded this on my Switch and to my surprise, I had way too much fun.
This game manages to be incredibly accessible to newcomers while having a ton of depth and nuance to it. The battle royale structure fits F Zero the best out of all these 99 games since there’s a level of feedback there that’s not in any of these other games, it gets a bit chaotic sometimes but on the whole it’s a super fun time trying to survive as a person who usually isn’t a fan of these games, the elimination gimmick isn’t as prevalent as all the other games but there’s a frantic energy and euphoria climbing up the ranks and going fast, feels like an extreme version of bumper cars and I love it.
There are a few issues, due the free to play model, the stage and vehicle selection is quite limited right now, the rotation stuff for Grand Prix and such I don’t really like and is just artificial scarcity for the sake of it, and given it’s a gloried remake of the first game, the graphics aren’t anything to right home about.
But literally my main complaints are just wishing there was more of it, it’s really hard to put into word what makes this game so fun other than it’s fun to go fast, but it’s just fun to go fast. Maybe it’s because of what I played alongside it, but i had a ton of fun with F Zero 99, gonna try and get 1st and maybe even try GX again!
😬
Listen i love Avatar as much as the next guy but please, make an actual good game with them because good lord this was not it
2023
You see the rating and status for the game and I think it’s expected but in reality, to me I’m kinda disappointed at how I had to give this rating, let me explain
I usually don’t like giving games the “Abandoned” status, It’s usually for rereleases or for special cases for game that I can get roughly the same experience with, that semi regins true here, I really wanted to say this game proved mine and everyone’s expectations of this game that we saw pop up every now and again wrong, but no, It was even worse than I and many others expected.
Everyone knows it’s so easy to compare this to Cuphead and it wouldn’t even hold a flicker of a candle, It’s so easy to do and I will try not to do that, but as you see so with this brief review as to why this is hard to do.
Enchanted Portals has been enrolled in controversy every since it was revealed back in 2019 for being a Cuphead clone, and then some controversy about Native Americans and then it vanished. Everyone who even thought about this game after the controversy thought it’d disappear like a lot of indie projects, but like the other half, it sure did release. 3 Months ago it got a new teaser trailer and then recently got its final trailer, revealing it was releasing soon. All of this leading to overwhelming negatively reviews, what are my thoughts?
This is probably one of the most miserable games I’ve played in my life.
Sorry for my scattershot texts here but there’s so much to dissect in why and how this game fails in basic simple game design, when the default Unreal engine icon was used for the game, I knew I was in for a treat. I don’t think I can even do my simple stick, It’s just that messy, so instead I’m just gonna bullet point stuff because there’s no other way to get my thoughts as cohesively as possible without doing this, so here we go!
-The Story wasn’t interesting, I knew I wasn’t gonna get a good story here but this arguably has more story than Cuphead because there’s full motion cutscenes rather than the static ones, not at all a dig to Cuphead they are rewarded with those especially with that animation, but here everything goes so quickly without and rime or reason to what you’re doing. I think you’re chasing a book or something? And you’re wizards? I don’t know. You feel dropped in without any good context
-The game looks awful, in terms of the sprites and backgrounds they look great! But in terms of movement, It’s stiff and feels cheap. I didn’t need Cuphead level animation but something passable at least. The Title screen looks like one of those porn animated ads, there’s just this dirty vibe to it where it just feels off, where you can’t discernible put your finger on it but no there is just something off about it. There’s some good ideas at play such as changing the art style mid fight, but in terms of transitions it feels empty and doesn’t feel satisfying both going into a new phase and defeating the boss because the animation quality isn’t there, if they were gonna do a game like this, then they needed to have a quality that matches it.
-The Music is fine, but the sound design is awful because it just doesn’t exist! And when sounds do happen they either just, to loud, too quiet, low quality or stock sounding
-The main focus of the game isn’t the bosses like Cuphead but rather Run and Gun stages, I actually like the Run and Gun stages in Cuphead and I wish there were more but in this game, yikes 😬
-Characters feel way too floaty, they don’t have enough weight to them and overall don’t feel fun to control especially when dashing, the shooting mechanics which are sightly different while functional, doesn’t have that punch, power or impact as it should have. Jumping as well feels unresponsive and the controls have this weird delay to them, which in a game about quick thinking isn’t very ideal
-Apart from the tutorial, levels are randomly generated, every stage has a different obstacle, length and difficulty depending on when you restart, which includes getting a Game Over. I like random generator games if they’re done right and can give a fair and fun experience, but for a game like this it doesn’t work, this game is inherently about trial and error and learning to get better at the game by replaying it over and over again, and that reigns true for the bosses but here making it randomly generated doesn’t give that satisfying gameplay loop that made the Run n gun levels and Mega Man so fun
-Enemies (At least on Normal) take way too many hits to kill, especially big enemies (which by the way are just lower res upscale versions of smaller enemies). Additionally, you can be bombarded with enemies all at once if you don’t take them out in time, which for a normal game that might be fine but here since they take too many hits, I just rather brute forced my way through these rather than play by the games rules since it was so monotonous
-Levels don’t feel dynamic at all possibly due to the aforementioned randomly generated aspect, A lot of them are straight lines to the finish that overstay their welcome to the point where Super Mario Bros on the NES is more involved and dynamic, You’d think the 50% marker the game taunts would be a checkpoint but nope, once you die you gotta start over again!
-Bosses are easily the “best” part of the game and even these are heavily flawed, they have good designs and even some good patterns but unfortunately, they feel just cobbled together with tape and glue, boss transitions as I mentioned aren’t fluid, cohesive or so unsubtle. A lot of them either feel like bullet sponges or glass structures, there’s no in between, which reflects the whole entire game I guess but it’s still not very fun or memorable.
Enchanted Portals is overall a mess, figures when you try and copy a game that was made for so an elongated amount of time and was brewed to perfection and then try to make it as fast as possible, it come out like this. This game was just absolutely miserable to play, it’s not even funny bad, just play Cuphead steer fair way from this.
I usually don’t like giving games the “Abandoned” status, It’s usually for rereleases or for special cases for game that I can get roughly the same experience with, that semi regins true here, I really wanted to say this game proved mine and everyone’s expectations of this game that we saw pop up every now and again wrong, but no, It was even worse than I and many others expected.
Everyone knows it’s so easy to compare this to Cuphead and it wouldn’t even hold a flicker of a candle, It’s so easy to do and I will try not to do that, but as you see so with this brief review as to why this is hard to do.
Enchanted Portals has been enrolled in controversy every since it was revealed back in 2019 for being a Cuphead clone, and then some controversy about Native Americans and then it vanished. Everyone who even thought about this game after the controversy thought it’d disappear like a lot of indie projects, but like the other half, it sure did release. 3 Months ago it got a new teaser trailer and then recently got its final trailer, revealing it was releasing soon. All of this leading to overwhelming negatively reviews, what are my thoughts?
This is probably one of the most miserable games I’ve played in my life.
Sorry for my scattershot texts here but there’s so much to dissect in why and how this game fails in basic simple game design, when the default Unreal engine icon was used for the game, I knew I was in for a treat. I don’t think I can even do my simple stick, It’s just that messy, so instead I’m just gonna bullet point stuff because there’s no other way to get my thoughts as cohesively as possible without doing this, so here we go!
-The Story wasn’t interesting, I knew I wasn’t gonna get a good story here but this arguably has more story than Cuphead because there’s full motion cutscenes rather than the static ones, not at all a dig to Cuphead they are rewarded with those especially with that animation, but here everything goes so quickly without and rime or reason to what you’re doing. I think you’re chasing a book or something? And you’re wizards? I don’t know. You feel dropped in without any good context
-The game looks awful, in terms of the sprites and backgrounds they look great! But in terms of movement, It’s stiff and feels cheap. I didn’t need Cuphead level animation but something passable at least. The Title screen looks like one of those porn animated ads, there’s just this dirty vibe to it where it just feels off, where you can’t discernible put your finger on it but no there is just something off about it. There’s some good ideas at play such as changing the art style mid fight, but in terms of transitions it feels empty and doesn’t feel satisfying both going into a new phase and defeating the boss because the animation quality isn’t there, if they were gonna do a game like this, then they needed to have a quality that matches it.
-The Music is fine, but the sound design is awful because it just doesn’t exist! And when sounds do happen they either just, to loud, too quiet, low quality or stock sounding
-The main focus of the game isn’t the bosses like Cuphead but rather Run and Gun stages, I actually like the Run and Gun stages in Cuphead and I wish there were more but in this game, yikes 😬
-Characters feel way too floaty, they don’t have enough weight to them and overall don’t feel fun to control especially when dashing, the shooting mechanics which are sightly different while functional, doesn’t have that punch, power or impact as it should have. Jumping as well feels unresponsive and the controls have this weird delay to them, which in a game about quick thinking isn’t very ideal
-Apart from the tutorial, levels are randomly generated, every stage has a different obstacle, length and difficulty depending on when you restart, which includes getting a Game Over. I like random generator games if they’re done right and can give a fair and fun experience, but for a game like this it doesn’t work, this game is inherently about trial and error and learning to get better at the game by replaying it over and over again, and that reigns true for the bosses but here making it randomly generated doesn’t give that satisfying gameplay loop that made the Run n gun levels and Mega Man so fun
-Enemies (At least on Normal) take way too many hits to kill, especially big enemies (which by the way are just lower res upscale versions of smaller enemies). Additionally, you can be bombarded with enemies all at once if you don’t take them out in time, which for a normal game that might be fine but here since they take too many hits, I just rather brute forced my way through these rather than play by the games rules since it was so monotonous
-Levels don’t feel dynamic at all possibly due to the aforementioned randomly generated aspect, A lot of them are straight lines to the finish that overstay their welcome to the point where Super Mario Bros on the NES is more involved and dynamic, You’d think the 50% marker the game taunts would be a checkpoint but nope, once you die you gotta start over again!
-Bosses are easily the “best” part of the game and even these are heavily flawed, they have good designs and even some good patterns but unfortunately, they feel just cobbled together with tape and glue, boss transitions as I mentioned aren’t fluid, cohesive or so unsubtle. A lot of them either feel like bullet sponges or glass structures, there’s no in between, which reflects the whole entire game I guess but it’s still not very fun or memorable.
Enchanted Portals is overall a mess, figures when you try and copy a game that was made for so an elongated amount of time and was brewed to perfection and then try to make it as fast as possible, it come out like this. This game was just absolutely miserable to play, it’s not even funny bad, just play Cuphead steer fair way from this.
2022
Original review
Definitely wanna do a longer review of the game since I feel I missed out a lot on what I said due to the emulated port, There’s a lot of things that’s great positive and negative I’ve noted throughout this new play through and the new content updates while definitely intended at launch are welcome and add a ton of replay value to the original game which felt it lacked content but as it is, I feel this game while badly/poorly designed and way too easy still is kinda fun, can’t wait to do an longer at look on this soon.
Definitely wanna do a longer review of the game since I feel I missed out a lot on what I said due to the emulated port, There’s a lot of things that’s great positive and negative I’ve noted throughout this new play through and the new content updates while definitely intended at launch are welcome and add a ton of replay value to the original game which felt it lacked content but as it is, I feel this game while badly/poorly designed and way too easy still is kinda fun, can’t wait to do an longer at look on this soon.
2005
I was gonna play Kiwami, but after hearing the dub and seeing the off the balls intro, this is the only way the game is mean't played, I don't care if I'm wrong
This review contains spoilers
What does it mean to do the things you love in life? What does it mean to have a legacy, friends and family, what does it mean to love them? Are you willing to do anything to protect them? Even if it means to stop the things you love in life? Can you leave the past and legacy behind, to grow as a person and lead a new, possibly better life? All of these answers are answered in a game where a Giant Pink Hippo drinks a bunch of lemonade, a half naked Koala takes control of sharks, a Turtle in a Wheelchair having a opera contest with an Old Lion and a line about women so ballsy that it’s probably not okay in 2023.
The big 62nd Review, Sly Cooper 3: Honour Among Thieves. I’d say this game is just as good as Sly Cooper 2, though could have easily been better than Sly 2 if there were a few design choices changed or altered and maybe due to how this game is slightly overstuffed, but this game manages to be just as good as Sly 2 due to the amount of charm that’s present, plus due to the more heavy reliance on platforming that I’ll get into later. Plus, just like Sly 2, it contains a rich, deep and insanely enjoyable story that while isn’t as subversive as Sly 2, is one of the most satisfying conclusions to a trilogy/series ever crafted. Once again, Spoilers ahead!
Part 1: Now What?
So, Now what? Sly 2 was established as a critical and commercial success, making Sly a worthy but still somewhat slightly niche competitor to Ratchet and Jak, with both completing their trilogies in 2004. There’s no worry of the “mature wars” as I like to call it now that Sly was established as a more mature but still somewhat childlike franchise that most people could play and enjoy. Sly 2 was Sucker Punch’s ”All or nothing” game where they needed to go all out and hoped it would succeed.
It did
So, we circle ourselves to this question once again, Now What? With the impending doom of the next gen consoles propping up, they needed to make a sequel to Sly 2 as quickly as possibly. While I’m still on the review Backlog on Ratchet 3 and far, far of with Jak 3, plenty of these series had the exact same tropes of a first game that’s solid and sets the foundation though is slightly dated at the time it was released, the sequel which both improves on the previous game while being unique in its own right and the 3rd game which tries to further distance itself from its roots and fully continue with it’s second game formula, but the issue is that these developers don’t want to work on these funny furry jump games for the rest of their days and there’s the impending doom of Next Generation Consoles, so they need to get these games as quickly as possibly, these games include, Ratchet & Clank 3, Jak 3, Tak: The Great Juju Challenge, Pac Man World 3 and Ty 3: Night of the Quaken, all of which I have ranked to best from worse (Telling you Ty 3 is one of the worst experiences i’ve had in gaming)
So, What makes Sly 3 different? There’s only 10 Months of development with no time to lose, well in all honesty, I don’t know. Somehow, apart from a few gameplay emissions, plot holes/issues and some jankiness, Sly 3 is the best of these rushed 3rd games in a series.
The sentiment of “Now What” is echoed in the Prologue Sequence, When you start the game, Sly infiltrates an Mysterious place called Kaine Island with a few of his new friends which are blacked out, once we reach the vault, a mysterious Mandrill confronts Sly with a Giant Mutant, Sly flashbacks to the point of what has brought him here. This whole sequence is pretty good, not as good as Sly 1 or even Sly 2’s but it gets the job down. But I feel like they could have kept the surprise of everything here a lot better, but I’ll get into that when it’s time for the story. For now, it’s solid.
Part 2 (Not) Advancing and Reinventing Platforming Gameplay
Sly 3 is mostly the same gameplay set in Sly 2, It’s an Open World Stealth Platformer set in 6 distinct locations around the world with a bunch of missions you need to complete. If It ain’t broke don’t fix it. In all honesty, I feel Sly 3 is the game that I was tuned out the most in terms of the core gameplay, which isn’t a bad thing. It’s just a really solid gameplay formula, Sly is just as agile as the previous game, he can still pick-pocket, sprint which allows him to go faster but at costs causes noise and buy a wide array of gadgets using your coins, The Guards & The health system is virtually the same from Sly 2 though there’s a few aspects they have changed or altered for the worse.
I don’t know if it was the devs looking at God of War and thought for their funny cartoon Racoon platformer “Yeah we need to do that” but there’s an bigger reliance on Combat but there’s much more Combat sequences in the game which is weird trope in these 3rd game entries , I don’t mind this in this game since it’s so simple, it’s not trying to be a complex hack n slash using kiddy characters like Pac Man World 3 or Ty 3 but it’s goofy combat with a Racoon using a cane for a weapons, despite this, Sucker Punch added a bunch of new combat moves to the Thief Net which are upgradable, I don’t know these are pretty useless, I went through the entire game without buying a single combat upgrade, and apart from some combat sections in Dead Men Tell no Tales, i felt like base Sly was good enough to experience in this game.
Conversely, Sly 3 has much more Platforming than Sly 2, which is always a treat. The Platforming of this game feels good, it's fun, challenging and provides a wealth of variety in terms of missions. The missions for one are much longer and more varied due to using more characters/minigames so having more platforming helps both make Sly 3 stand on its own two legs from Sly 2 while harkening back to Sly 1’s more simple roots, especially in the final mission of the game.
I feel the game is mostly the same structurally, there’s just a few issues with this game that hold it back from being even better than Sly 2’s Core Gameplay, leaving it to be just as good. For one, the Ecnomy in this game is more fucked than the UK’s at the moment, I don’t know if it’s a me thing but pickpocketing coins feels like it yields less coins at a time, and in terms of gadgets themselves, they’re more expensive and more of them at a time, i feels a bit overwhelming at points. What also doesn’t help is the odd removal of Clue Bottles and Treasures, Treasures in Sly 2 where collectibles that were sorta speedrun through a stage to try and get back to the safehouse as fast as possible, they were plentiful in Sly 2 and gave you a ton of money, Clue Bottles were just nice secondary collectibles that go you a nice optional power up, Both of these were integral to help make the Open world feel more complete while rewarding those who wanted to explore the stages. Sly 3 doesn’t have that for some reason, either because cuts needed to happen due to the development time/having other priorities in the game. Either way it hinders this game, It sorta does make these incredibly well designed stages a bit pointless to explore now, the only thing you can do now is fiddling with Bobby Traps and fucking around with Guards i guess, which again, makes these stages kinda pointless to explore now.
But like in terms of core gameplay, this is again probably the most tuned out i’ve been with the series, is this a bad game? No! Far from it, I can’t stress enough how solid this game is, the core gameplay of this series is incredibly strong, but in games like this is where they’ve already peaked with their main gameplay style in the previous entry, so Now What? After just running with its Main Gameplay style into the ground, what do you do now? Well you do what all 3rd Game entries do and that is…
Part 3: Mum! The 3rd Game Entry is having a bunch of minigames to make up for its mediocre gameplay!
So 3rd Game entries with the exception of Ratchet 3 try to add a bunch of new spices to the core gameplay to make it even better, or worse. Normally these games can either be the best or worse entry in the series, and in terms of this generation. No. But Sly 3, as I mentioned before, is the best of these games and in all honesty, it’s where the best and worst of Sly 3 in terms of gameplay is brought up.
Let’s start with the biggest and most ambitious addition to the game, Sly and his Honour Among Thieves, there are now 7 additional playable characters with a truck load of minigames. Bentely and Murray return but are now much more on par with Sly in terms of agility while still making them distinct/unique. Murray is mostly unchanged but has atlas strength already acquired, has a new bounce ability, can grab enemies to shake them giving them coins/treasures and feels much more faster as a whole with beating enemies and movement, and Bentley has just had a complete makeover, him being in a Wheelchair makes him faster, allows for multiple jumps later on and genuinely feels he’s gained more confidence from Sly 2 and is now a badass Turtle that you shouldn’t mess with due to his wide arsenal of gadgets that all explode (and he can also pickpocket). So, that’s 3 out of the 7 playable characters, what other characters could possibly use? Well due to the setup of the story, The Multiple Playable character ratio is always increasing with 3 characters from previous games but I feel this leads to some inequality happening.
First, there’s the Guru, a half naked Koala with a magic staff that he can use to control enemies, which Super Mario Odyssey would shamelessly steal years later. Due to story and character reasons, The Guru does not have any combat abilities, he can only disguise himself and capture enemies, which he then proceed to run with and ram into a wall (Yeah a bit hypocritical), He’s probably the best and most fully fledged character in the game aside from the 3 main characters, though as you'll see, that’s not much of an accomplishment. Then, there’s Penelope, who technically isn’t a playable character, her job is taking Bentely’s RC Gameplay from Sly 2 and expanding it in many ways with Her RC chopper having a grappling hook that can latch onto enemies, obstacles, and other objects, There’s also her RC car that also has a turret attached to it, while i was mixed on these in Sly 2, I feel Sly 3 makes the RC gameplay just a lot faster and more efficient, there’s just a lot more going on when in the RC.
Then there’s the Panda King, a returning antagonist from Sly 1, using Flame-Fu and Fireworks, he sucks, which is a shame because he was probably the most full fledged villain from Sly 1 with the obvious exception of Clockwerk, while his character is very on point in terms of characterisation,his gameplay mostly revolves around holding one button and waiting for things to go boom. Unlike his villain brethren, Dmitri is pretty fun to play as in spite of his sparse appearances and some whiplash in terms of how to play as him, his gameplay is essentially an underwater FPS using his spear gun, he can move in 4 directions and can boost by a power stroke which uses a stamina bar. Finally Carmelita, who’s a budget Ratchet & Clank character, her sections are cool but they run into the issue of being spectacle over substance, she has a strafe, a mega jump performed by a stand still and a few melee actions but it feels more like a benign repetition throughout, fun but disappointing given how Caremelita is such a important character in this game and the series at large.
Oh but we are not done yet, Sly 3’s Variety doesn’t stop there, there’s now master thief challenges for example which are needed for 100% and feature missions like time trials, starting the player with less health, harder enemy ai, collecting items and stuff like that. There’s now Telltale esque Dialogue moments where you need to choose the right choices to advance in the game, these leads to the funniest parts of the entire game, Sly can use disguises, to evade the attention of the Guards in Chapter’s 1, 4 and 5 but moves slower, doesn’t have any abilities and every time he gets on the spotlight of a guard he is questioned and needs to do a short button press minigame, he can safe crack which acts as a timing minigame where you need to move the stick as fast as possible when it vibrates and finally. Bentely can decipher Paintings which are ways to find codes to safes and crack them. There’s also then now a ton of vehicle sections in the game, Murray Rowing Boats very slowly with cannons, Pirate ships with cannons that move very slowly that also somehow a full fledged side game in the latter half of the chapter it’s introduced in, Biplane sections, crane sections controlled by Murray, Tower defence esque moments where you have to employ traps to stop enemies from killing like a bootleg FNAF games and of course, Turret sections!!!! It’s a lot in one game and somehow, it remains enjoyable, but when you have one that really, really stinks like the Pirate or Tower defence stuff, it hampers the game’s quality because they’re banking on all of these being enjoyable. However, Third Entries that do this don’t have a good balance in terms both improving the core gameplay while providing a fuck ton of variety, and I feel Sly 3 doesn’t really do it all to well especially since apiary from the 3 main Trio, the characters can’t be used outside of missions. But when the variety is actually kinda fun unlike most of these games, then I feel it can be somewhat excused. So I circle back to this question: Now what? As established, the gameplay of this game is good as always but it feels like it’s going through the motions, not a bad thing but this sentiment is echoed throughout the game’s plot, one thing that’s echoed it’s the Presentation!
Part 4: LOOK HERE!, LOOK, LISTEN!
Sly 3 looks beautiful and breathtaking for a 2005 Game, yes i am playing the PS3 Version which has its issues but one thing for sure is that it makes this game look even better than it did. The Toonshading style from Sly 2 is back in full force but is made more prevalent possibly due to the more varied locations in Sly 3 compared to Sly 2. This at a cost, comes at the frames per second being wildly inconsistent at points, specifically in Chapter 2’s Cave sections and Chapter 5’s ship sections which, while ambitious, have some severe frame drops which may be in part of the Playstation 3 Port. Speaking of the trilogy this game got the worst out of all of them in my opinion.
The Menus are completely fucked without the use of the overscan mode, worse fps and some music glitches here and there that can’t be fixed but this is in unknown favor of the removed excess motion blur, inconsistent 30fps for now a inconsistent 60fps, a higher resolution and Sly’s more cutscene accurate colours in gameplay.
Easily one of the greater aspects in this game’s presentation is the music and sound design are top tier and fairly the best and most unique in the series. The sound effects are as cartoony, crunchy and satisfying as ever especially in combat and the Voice Acting, The Voice Acting is incredible in spite of some obvious 2000’s issues of vocal direction not being the greatest. You can feel the emotion in each dramatic scene or the fun that the actors had, even Carmelita isn’t so bad here as she is in Sly 2.
A lot of the new characters i found had the best Voice-Acting, while the old characters do a greater job then they did in previous games especially Kevin Miller as Sly, but the new guys really make the characters they play sound, especially the late and great Rick May as Dr M, the guys who voice Don Ocotovio and General Tsao also do a great job selling these characters both comedically and dramatically in their more sinister moments. Unlike everything in the game compared to it's brethren Sly 3's presentation is monumental step up, which is also reflected in it's story (somewhat)
Part 5: Ending a Franchise
Ending a franchise in my opinion is a hard task to think about. How do you think a series like Mario or Sonic will end? When will it end? Maybe in another lifetime or ours. Gaming and Media hasn't existed long enough to answer that question legitimately. But those are the big dogs, and with their mediocre movie instalments they'll probably continue to run for as long as they please. But what about the small dogs? Well Sly 3 answers this question. Seeing a franchise end is hard, seeing a cast of characters you once knew and love leave, never to get another game again, It’s hard. This is likely not by their own will but Sly 3, is a very different case. The Sly series comparing it to its contemporaries, Ratchet & Jak, managed to get consistently good sales despite being substantially lower than both of them. So, why give it up? Through the course of the game’s story, the reason seems a lot more clear.
Before we get into the story, like Sly 2 there’s a prequel comic, The Adventure of Sly Cooper. Here things are a lot more crucial to the plot of the actual game, such as how Sly meets Mcsweeny, the drama with Murray leaving the team and Carmelita knowing how to hunt Sly at the start of the game. This, in my opinion, especially the Mcsweeny stuff kinda makes a lot of Sly 3’s intro feel a bit abrupt? Like to me, I would preferred that the prologue focused on Sly infiltrating the prison to meet with Mcsweeny, especially since in the game, seeing one of Sly’s dad/Conner’s Partners should be more important that it is, and it’s brushed over so quickly in the intro and is barely brought up again. I don’t think the game benefits from having a flashback especially the way the final Chapter goes down, so having the game start here would have been much better in my opinion, especially since it could tie into the ideas and themes of this game.
But anyway, In Sly 3, Instead of collecting treasures as a main motif/goal. Sly is assembling his own band of thieves. Each chapter apart from the final chapter is essentially the same formula. We meet a character, we want them in their crew but there’s a twist! We need to help them, but Oh No! There’s a big bad! We gotta stop them! Of course, It’s not exactly the same in each chapter, but the game uses this structure to a fault. The Game also doesn’t have a gang of villains you need to defeat like previous games, but have their own unique villains throughout the game. This leads to mixed results in my opinion, This leads to some of the best villains in the series both in terms of comedy and threat such as Octovio, General Tsao and Lefwee, the latter two balancing great vocal performances that sell the comedic moments, and genuine parts where they actually step up as villains such as Tsao storming the Cooper safehouse and fucking up their plans or Lefwee trying to fuck up their plans, again. On the other side, A Sentient mask that probably awakened fetishes in 2005 when it goes onto someone and the Black Baron who feels like the twist of being the person we were getting along with was the villain was the only thing going for them.
I feel the nature of the game being an elaborate flashback sorta hinders the villain of the game Dr M, I feel they really should have had at least some recurring antagonist throughout the game to build the threat of Dr M, but unlike previous games which did sorta drop the ball on the antagonists, especially Sly 2, Dr M is a great villain and showcases the games main themes and ideas while perfectly contrasting to Sly as a character.
Before going on that though, I need to get something off my chest. This game is really fucking funny, and not like unintentionally either but like it’s actually written to be funny. There were funny moments in previous games especially 2 but 3 had it in spades. Which I think is funny because a lot of these later entries were edgy as fuck meanwhile this game has a lemonade contest, an opera singing contest, Dmitris entire character, the costume interactions and so much more. Sly 3 isn’t afraid to just have fun with its characters knowing it’s their last hurrah while still balancing satisfyingly sending off these characters.
A heads up is that Sly 3 isn’t nearly as dark or as intricately made as Sly 2, you can tell from some events in the story like the opening that some aspects feel rushed or just kinda lacklustre, but this is still such a great plot for a rushed platform et made in less than a year, and the fact that there’s nothing like Ty 3’s or Jak 3’s way to tie up endings and feels satisfying is a huge testament to how strong suckerpunch is as team. I’d say because of those character moments it’s as strong as Sly 2 in terms of narrative.
Whereas Sly 1 was a story about finding the place in your life and the strengths of family both blood and found, and Sly 2 was a story about building confidence and overcoming failure, Sly 3 is all about the legacy it you’ll leave behind and the future ahead and even the idea of leaving behind everything to live a better life. A lot of the characters in this game are obsessed with their legacy and past, wanting to fill out a goal that they could have, always wondering about how things could have, should have gone differently. Characters such as Murray and the Panda King are always thinking about their actions and legacy, how they could have done something different and feel like a Dishonour to their legacy. Dr M is obsessed with opening the Cooper Vault, being his entire goal he has devoted himself to for god knows how long, obsessing over the riches that he feels so entitled too, but at a point, you’ve gotta let it go for both you and for other people's sake, and that’s what makes Sly such a great character both in this game and the wider context of the series, throughout the series, Sly and Band of thieves have gone on many adventures and are always risking death or incarceration, and we’re dangerously close to this in Sly 2’s ending all thanks to unfortunately, Sly’s actions. It isn’t malicious or anything but is the exact thing he comes to realise in both games, while yes grand theft robbery is fun and all, It comes at a hefty cost both to him and his friends or even family at this point, which is why he makes the hefty and abrupt decision, To leave it all behind and forge a new path. Need I remind you this is the same game with a raccoon flying a biplane and mercenary apes that are voiced by Mr Crabs.
If it wasn’t clear, Sly 3 is a somewhat subtle yet unsubtle message of the entire series and Suckerpunch’s reason to leave it all behind. While yes it’s probably fun and rewarding to make these games, the idea of making new experiences is more tantalising and sustainable that the funny raccoon thief game, these more heavy and deep story elements can be taken far more seriously in games like inFamous or Ghost of Tsushima, while obviously I feel games like this should feel emotionally potent stories if they have the guts to but I feel also more mature stories can lead to more mature ideas, themes messages, aesthetics etc which is why I’m completely for the idea of this being the last Sly game.
Not every series is made equally, I’m semi okay with Ratchet having more games than Sly even though the 4 endings this series has are all great on it’s own, I don’t care about Jak enough and plus that already had two satisfying conclusions and I will commit mass genocide to get another de Blob or Kyle Hyde or to stop Call of Duty from having another game again. Point is, they ended Sly on their own terms leading to a great story about this subject, some series are just more sustainable than others and that’s okay, the point is to look at these past experiences with fond memories while looking ahead to big and maybe possibly even better things.
The story portrays this through Sly’s want of Carmalita, which is a on and off again thing once again and I think this is where some cracks start to show in the story, Carmalita is as good as always but doesn’t get enough screen time in my opinion to really make that final decision of Sly starting a life with her as satisfying as it could be and her just blasting the Cooper Vault feels like such a weird slap in the face to what the game has been building up with Dr M and his whole entire plan. But anyway
In terms of character arcs and the characters themselves, it’s surprising how all the members of the Cooper gang get a moment to shine both in gameplay and story. From the incredible Cooper Vault section both in terms of lore of the franchise and gameplay with its tight tough platforming being the best gameplay in the series, to the brawler moment where Murray helps Bentley resolve his confidence issues he’s had throughout, the Panda King putting his past experiences with Sly behind to fucking Dmitri wanting to honour his grandfather while diving in waters, Sly 3 does it for nearly every character. I’ve already mentioned how Murray and the Panda King having to put their past mistakes behind and better themselves as people through the use of mediation, Dmitri is there funny as always and has a neat little arc of wanting to move away from the criminal lifestyle. Penelope and the Guru don’t really have character moments or arcs of their own and instead help the other characters (namely Bentley and Murray) grow, Penelope is a charming albeit slightly boring character while the Guru, doesn’t have any character, It’s one of those tropes I don’t care about where the character speaks in gibberish and we don’t understand but the characters do, so the Guru doesn’t really have much of a character besides monk, which is fine I guess. Finally the most interesting character to talk about is Bentley. Since in the last game he got crippled, they decided to go with an interesting direction with his character that is… being a retread of Sly 2’s arc of building his confidence, except unlike the other game here it feels genuinely both earned, interesting and compelling. The whole game up until the penultimate chapter and even like the final 20 minutes Bentley feels inadequate to Sly, portrayed through his use of a wheelchair and especially with Penelope’s reveal as the black baron where she now gravitates towards Sly due for her to the fact that both catfished each other, don’t know I find that quite funny. Bentleys dilemma never elivates, despite getting an encouraging pep talk from Penelope and an outward confirm that feelings for both of them are reciprocated but he still has that feeling of inadequacy, and to me I wish the game went slightly further with this, I don’t need a fight since that would bloat the game but maybe more scenes throughout where he contemplates maybe turning on Sly or something like that, and I very much wish the game would give us more clarity on what happens with Sly’s father gang as it’s a bit to ambiguous as to what actually happened even with the help of the comics, like if it genuinely was a feeling of inadequacy or something else but the point is, this leads to a scene of where Murray reminds Bentley that they aren’t just friends, they’re a family, they’ll do anything for each other despite it being called the Cooper Gang, hell this is even proven in Sly 2 where he gave himself up to the police at the end of the game for both of them.
All of this comes to an end as we circle back to the question that I opened up the review with, Now What? The question of Now What pops up with all of the characters after Sly decides to make the decision to leave all of it behind and start a life with Carmelita, leaving the whole Cooper fortune to everyone else. Everyone decided to start new lives using the money, Murray decides to complete his training and decides to become a derby racer, Dimtri became a professional swimmer and a fucking playboy, The Guru teaches a group of rock stars and Bentley and Penelope plan build a time machine using the money, which the game uses a tease for something that didn’t happen, nope no game with the Sly Cooper branding ever happened and nothing with the name of Sly 4 ever did happen, this is the last Sly game that was released.
So, now what? The game has ended, it’s clear apart from 2 things the game very loosely teases that there’s nothing more to tell about Sly’s story, It’s done and so is this review.
Conclusion
Sly 3 sold a modest million copies and was reviewed well though not as well as Sly 2, The series didn’t continue after this apart from Sly having non canon roles in PlayStation Allstars and Move Heroes, and to me I don’t mind. Sly being dormant doesn’t matter to me because there’s bigger and better franchises out there that’s more worth our time, however that doesn’t mean that Sly won’t hold a special place in my and others hearts, due to always going the extra mile, the series has helped me through good times, bad times and all the in between, and all 3 games I’ve reviewed show an evolution of this very little Backloggd account, from little humble beginnings with Sly 1, to 50 followers with Sly 2, to 100 in Sly 3 and I just wanna say, why do you follow this trash I barely post. But seriously, thank you, I’d never thought I would get this far, I have a lot more planned soon and I should start reviewing soon again, so for now, I guess we’re done.
WAIT THERE’S A SLY 4?????
The big 62nd Review, Sly Cooper 3: Honour Among Thieves. I’d say this game is just as good as Sly Cooper 2, though could have easily been better than Sly 2 if there were a few design choices changed or altered and maybe due to how this game is slightly overstuffed, but this game manages to be just as good as Sly 2 due to the amount of charm that’s present, plus due to the more heavy reliance on platforming that I’ll get into later. Plus, just like Sly 2, it contains a rich, deep and insanely enjoyable story that while isn’t as subversive as Sly 2, is one of the most satisfying conclusions to a trilogy/series ever crafted. Once again, Spoilers ahead!
Part 1: Now What?
So, Now what? Sly 2 was established as a critical and commercial success, making Sly a worthy but still somewhat slightly niche competitor to Ratchet and Jak, with both completing their trilogies in 2004. There’s no worry of the “mature wars” as I like to call it now that Sly was established as a more mature but still somewhat childlike franchise that most people could play and enjoy. Sly 2 was Sucker Punch’s ”All or nothing” game where they needed to go all out and hoped it would succeed.
It did
So, we circle ourselves to this question once again, Now What? With the impending doom of the next gen consoles propping up, they needed to make a sequel to Sly 2 as quickly as possibly. While I’m still on the review Backlog on Ratchet 3 and far, far of with Jak 3, plenty of these series had the exact same tropes of a first game that’s solid and sets the foundation though is slightly dated at the time it was released, the sequel which both improves on the previous game while being unique in its own right and the 3rd game which tries to further distance itself from its roots and fully continue with it’s second game formula, but the issue is that these developers don’t want to work on these funny furry jump games for the rest of their days and there’s the impending doom of Next Generation Consoles, so they need to get these games as quickly as possibly, these games include, Ratchet & Clank 3, Jak 3, Tak: The Great Juju Challenge, Pac Man World 3 and Ty 3: Night of the Quaken, all of which I have ranked to best from worse (Telling you Ty 3 is one of the worst experiences i’ve had in gaming)
So, What makes Sly 3 different? There’s only 10 Months of development with no time to lose, well in all honesty, I don’t know. Somehow, apart from a few gameplay emissions, plot holes/issues and some jankiness, Sly 3 is the best of these rushed 3rd games in a series.
The sentiment of “Now What” is echoed in the Prologue Sequence, When you start the game, Sly infiltrates an Mysterious place called Kaine Island with a few of his new friends which are blacked out, once we reach the vault, a mysterious Mandrill confronts Sly with a Giant Mutant, Sly flashbacks to the point of what has brought him here. This whole sequence is pretty good, not as good as Sly 1 or even Sly 2’s but it gets the job down. But I feel like they could have kept the surprise of everything here a lot better, but I’ll get into that when it’s time for the story. For now, it’s solid.
Part 2 (Not) Advancing and Reinventing Platforming Gameplay
Sly 3 is mostly the same gameplay set in Sly 2, It’s an Open World Stealth Platformer set in 6 distinct locations around the world with a bunch of missions you need to complete. If It ain’t broke don’t fix it. In all honesty, I feel Sly 3 is the game that I was tuned out the most in terms of the core gameplay, which isn’t a bad thing. It’s just a really solid gameplay formula, Sly is just as agile as the previous game, he can still pick-pocket, sprint which allows him to go faster but at costs causes noise and buy a wide array of gadgets using your coins, The Guards & The health system is virtually the same from Sly 2 though there’s a few aspects they have changed or altered for the worse.
I don’t know if it was the devs looking at God of War and thought for their funny cartoon Racoon platformer “Yeah we need to do that” but there’s an bigger reliance on Combat but there’s much more Combat sequences in the game which is weird trope in these 3rd game entries , I don’t mind this in this game since it’s so simple, it’s not trying to be a complex hack n slash using kiddy characters like Pac Man World 3 or Ty 3 but it’s goofy combat with a Racoon using a cane for a weapons, despite this, Sucker Punch added a bunch of new combat moves to the Thief Net which are upgradable, I don’t know these are pretty useless, I went through the entire game without buying a single combat upgrade, and apart from some combat sections in Dead Men Tell no Tales, i felt like base Sly was good enough to experience in this game.
Conversely, Sly 3 has much more Platforming than Sly 2, which is always a treat. The Platforming of this game feels good, it's fun, challenging and provides a wealth of variety in terms of missions. The missions for one are much longer and more varied due to using more characters/minigames so having more platforming helps both make Sly 3 stand on its own two legs from Sly 2 while harkening back to Sly 1’s more simple roots, especially in the final mission of the game.
I feel the game is mostly the same structurally, there’s just a few issues with this game that hold it back from being even better than Sly 2’s Core Gameplay, leaving it to be just as good. For one, the Ecnomy in this game is more fucked than the UK’s at the moment, I don’t know if it’s a me thing but pickpocketing coins feels like it yields less coins at a time, and in terms of gadgets themselves, they’re more expensive and more of them at a time, i feels a bit overwhelming at points. What also doesn’t help is the odd removal of Clue Bottles and Treasures, Treasures in Sly 2 where collectibles that were sorta speedrun through a stage to try and get back to the safehouse as fast as possible, they were plentiful in Sly 2 and gave you a ton of money, Clue Bottles were just nice secondary collectibles that go you a nice optional power up, Both of these were integral to help make the Open world feel more complete while rewarding those who wanted to explore the stages. Sly 3 doesn’t have that for some reason, either because cuts needed to happen due to the development time/having other priorities in the game. Either way it hinders this game, It sorta does make these incredibly well designed stages a bit pointless to explore now, the only thing you can do now is fiddling with Bobby Traps and fucking around with Guards i guess, which again, makes these stages kinda pointless to explore now.
But like in terms of core gameplay, this is again probably the most tuned out i’ve been with the series, is this a bad game? No! Far from it, I can’t stress enough how solid this game is, the core gameplay of this series is incredibly strong, but in games like this is where they’ve already peaked with their main gameplay style in the previous entry, so Now What? After just running with its Main Gameplay style into the ground, what do you do now? Well you do what all 3rd Game entries do and that is…
Part 3: Mum! The 3rd Game Entry is having a bunch of minigames to make up for its mediocre gameplay!
So 3rd Game entries with the exception of Ratchet 3 try to add a bunch of new spices to the core gameplay to make it even better, or worse. Normally these games can either be the best or worse entry in the series, and in terms of this generation. No. But Sly 3, as I mentioned before, is the best of these games and in all honesty, it’s where the best and worst of Sly 3 in terms of gameplay is brought up.
Let’s start with the biggest and most ambitious addition to the game, Sly and his Honour Among Thieves, there are now 7 additional playable characters with a truck load of minigames. Bentely and Murray return but are now much more on par with Sly in terms of agility while still making them distinct/unique. Murray is mostly unchanged but has atlas strength already acquired, has a new bounce ability, can grab enemies to shake them giving them coins/treasures and feels much more faster as a whole with beating enemies and movement, and Bentley has just had a complete makeover, him being in a Wheelchair makes him faster, allows for multiple jumps later on and genuinely feels he’s gained more confidence from Sly 2 and is now a badass Turtle that you shouldn’t mess with due to his wide arsenal of gadgets that all explode (and he can also pickpocket). So, that’s 3 out of the 7 playable characters, what other characters could possibly use? Well due to the setup of the story, The Multiple Playable character ratio is always increasing with 3 characters from previous games but I feel this leads to some inequality happening.
First, there’s the Guru, a half naked Koala with a magic staff that he can use to control enemies, which Super Mario Odyssey would shamelessly steal years later. Due to story and character reasons, The Guru does not have any combat abilities, he can only disguise himself and capture enemies, which he then proceed to run with and ram into a wall (Yeah a bit hypocritical), He’s probably the best and most fully fledged character in the game aside from the 3 main characters, though as you'll see, that’s not much of an accomplishment. Then, there’s Penelope, who technically isn’t a playable character, her job is taking Bentely’s RC Gameplay from Sly 2 and expanding it in many ways with Her RC chopper having a grappling hook that can latch onto enemies, obstacles, and other objects, There’s also her RC car that also has a turret attached to it, while i was mixed on these in Sly 2, I feel Sly 3 makes the RC gameplay just a lot faster and more efficient, there’s just a lot more going on when in the RC.
Then there’s the Panda King, a returning antagonist from Sly 1, using Flame-Fu and Fireworks, he sucks, which is a shame because he was probably the most full fledged villain from Sly 1 with the obvious exception of Clockwerk, while his character is very on point in terms of characterisation,his gameplay mostly revolves around holding one button and waiting for things to go boom. Unlike his villain brethren, Dmitri is pretty fun to play as in spite of his sparse appearances and some whiplash in terms of how to play as him, his gameplay is essentially an underwater FPS using his spear gun, he can move in 4 directions and can boost by a power stroke which uses a stamina bar. Finally Carmelita, who’s a budget Ratchet & Clank character, her sections are cool but they run into the issue of being spectacle over substance, she has a strafe, a mega jump performed by a stand still and a few melee actions but it feels more like a benign repetition throughout, fun but disappointing given how Caremelita is such a important character in this game and the series at large.
Oh but we are not done yet, Sly 3’s Variety doesn’t stop there, there’s now master thief challenges for example which are needed for 100% and feature missions like time trials, starting the player with less health, harder enemy ai, collecting items and stuff like that. There’s now Telltale esque Dialogue moments where you need to choose the right choices to advance in the game, these leads to the funniest parts of the entire game, Sly can use disguises, to evade the attention of the Guards in Chapter’s 1, 4 and 5 but moves slower, doesn’t have any abilities and every time he gets on the spotlight of a guard he is questioned and needs to do a short button press minigame, he can safe crack which acts as a timing minigame where you need to move the stick as fast as possible when it vibrates and finally. Bentely can decipher Paintings which are ways to find codes to safes and crack them. There’s also then now a ton of vehicle sections in the game, Murray Rowing Boats very slowly with cannons, Pirate ships with cannons that move very slowly that also somehow a full fledged side game in the latter half of the chapter it’s introduced in, Biplane sections, crane sections controlled by Murray, Tower defence esque moments where you have to employ traps to stop enemies from killing like a bootleg FNAF games and of course, Turret sections!!!! It’s a lot in one game and somehow, it remains enjoyable, but when you have one that really, really stinks like the Pirate or Tower defence stuff, it hampers the game’s quality because they’re banking on all of these being enjoyable. However, Third Entries that do this don’t have a good balance in terms both improving the core gameplay while providing a fuck ton of variety, and I feel Sly 3 doesn’t really do it all to well especially since apiary from the 3 main Trio, the characters can’t be used outside of missions. But when the variety is actually kinda fun unlike most of these games, then I feel it can be somewhat excused. So I circle back to this question: Now what? As established, the gameplay of this game is good as always but it feels like it’s going through the motions, not a bad thing but this sentiment is echoed throughout the game’s plot, one thing that’s echoed it’s the Presentation!
Part 4: LOOK HERE!, LOOK, LISTEN!
Sly 3 looks beautiful and breathtaking for a 2005 Game, yes i am playing the PS3 Version which has its issues but one thing for sure is that it makes this game look even better than it did. The Toonshading style from Sly 2 is back in full force but is made more prevalent possibly due to the more varied locations in Sly 3 compared to Sly 2. This at a cost, comes at the frames per second being wildly inconsistent at points, specifically in Chapter 2’s Cave sections and Chapter 5’s ship sections which, while ambitious, have some severe frame drops which may be in part of the Playstation 3 Port. Speaking of the trilogy this game got the worst out of all of them in my opinion.
The Menus are completely fucked without the use of the overscan mode, worse fps and some music glitches here and there that can’t be fixed but this is in unknown favor of the removed excess motion blur, inconsistent 30fps for now a inconsistent 60fps, a higher resolution and Sly’s more cutscene accurate colours in gameplay.
Easily one of the greater aspects in this game’s presentation is the music and sound design are top tier and fairly the best and most unique in the series. The sound effects are as cartoony, crunchy and satisfying as ever especially in combat and the Voice Acting, The Voice Acting is incredible in spite of some obvious 2000’s issues of vocal direction not being the greatest. You can feel the emotion in each dramatic scene or the fun that the actors had, even Carmelita isn’t so bad here as she is in Sly 2.
A lot of the new characters i found had the best Voice-Acting, while the old characters do a greater job then they did in previous games especially Kevin Miller as Sly, but the new guys really make the characters they play sound, especially the late and great Rick May as Dr M, the guys who voice Don Ocotovio and General Tsao also do a great job selling these characters both comedically and dramatically in their more sinister moments. Unlike everything in the game compared to it's brethren Sly 3's presentation is monumental step up, which is also reflected in it's story (somewhat)
Part 5: Ending a Franchise
Ending a franchise in my opinion is a hard task to think about. How do you think a series like Mario or Sonic will end? When will it end? Maybe in another lifetime or ours. Gaming and Media hasn't existed long enough to answer that question legitimately. But those are the big dogs, and with their mediocre movie instalments they'll probably continue to run for as long as they please. But what about the small dogs? Well Sly 3 answers this question. Seeing a franchise end is hard, seeing a cast of characters you once knew and love leave, never to get another game again, It’s hard. This is likely not by their own will but Sly 3, is a very different case. The Sly series comparing it to its contemporaries, Ratchet & Jak, managed to get consistently good sales despite being substantially lower than both of them. So, why give it up? Through the course of the game’s story, the reason seems a lot more clear.
Before we get into the story, like Sly 2 there’s a prequel comic, The Adventure of Sly Cooper. Here things are a lot more crucial to the plot of the actual game, such as how Sly meets Mcsweeny, the drama with Murray leaving the team and Carmelita knowing how to hunt Sly at the start of the game. This, in my opinion, especially the Mcsweeny stuff kinda makes a lot of Sly 3’s intro feel a bit abrupt? Like to me, I would preferred that the prologue focused on Sly infiltrating the prison to meet with Mcsweeny, especially since in the game, seeing one of Sly’s dad/Conner’s Partners should be more important that it is, and it’s brushed over so quickly in the intro and is barely brought up again. I don’t think the game benefits from having a flashback especially the way the final Chapter goes down, so having the game start here would have been much better in my opinion, especially since it could tie into the ideas and themes of this game.
But anyway, In Sly 3, Instead of collecting treasures as a main motif/goal. Sly is assembling his own band of thieves. Each chapter apart from the final chapter is essentially the same formula. We meet a character, we want them in their crew but there’s a twist! We need to help them, but Oh No! There’s a big bad! We gotta stop them! Of course, It’s not exactly the same in each chapter, but the game uses this structure to a fault. The Game also doesn’t have a gang of villains you need to defeat like previous games, but have their own unique villains throughout the game. This leads to mixed results in my opinion, This leads to some of the best villains in the series both in terms of comedy and threat such as Octovio, General Tsao and Lefwee, the latter two balancing great vocal performances that sell the comedic moments, and genuine parts where they actually step up as villains such as Tsao storming the Cooper safehouse and fucking up their plans or Lefwee trying to fuck up their plans, again. On the other side, A Sentient mask that probably awakened fetishes in 2005 when it goes onto someone and the Black Baron who feels like the twist of being the person we were getting along with was the villain was the only thing going for them.
I feel the nature of the game being an elaborate flashback sorta hinders the villain of the game Dr M, I feel they really should have had at least some recurring antagonist throughout the game to build the threat of Dr M, but unlike previous games which did sorta drop the ball on the antagonists, especially Sly 2, Dr M is a great villain and showcases the games main themes and ideas while perfectly contrasting to Sly as a character.
Before going on that though, I need to get something off my chest. This game is really fucking funny, and not like unintentionally either but like it’s actually written to be funny. There were funny moments in previous games especially 2 but 3 had it in spades. Which I think is funny because a lot of these later entries were edgy as fuck meanwhile this game has a lemonade contest, an opera singing contest, Dmitris entire character, the costume interactions and so much more. Sly 3 isn’t afraid to just have fun with its characters knowing it’s their last hurrah while still balancing satisfyingly sending off these characters.
A heads up is that Sly 3 isn’t nearly as dark or as intricately made as Sly 2, you can tell from some events in the story like the opening that some aspects feel rushed or just kinda lacklustre, but this is still such a great plot for a rushed platform et made in less than a year, and the fact that there’s nothing like Ty 3’s or Jak 3’s way to tie up endings and feels satisfying is a huge testament to how strong suckerpunch is as team. I’d say because of those character moments it’s as strong as Sly 2 in terms of narrative.
Whereas Sly 1 was a story about finding the place in your life and the strengths of family both blood and found, and Sly 2 was a story about building confidence and overcoming failure, Sly 3 is all about the legacy it you’ll leave behind and the future ahead and even the idea of leaving behind everything to live a better life. A lot of the characters in this game are obsessed with their legacy and past, wanting to fill out a goal that they could have, always wondering about how things could have, should have gone differently. Characters such as Murray and the Panda King are always thinking about their actions and legacy, how they could have done something different and feel like a Dishonour to their legacy. Dr M is obsessed with opening the Cooper Vault, being his entire goal he has devoted himself to for god knows how long, obsessing over the riches that he feels so entitled too, but at a point, you’ve gotta let it go for both you and for other people's sake, and that’s what makes Sly such a great character both in this game and the wider context of the series, throughout the series, Sly and Band of thieves have gone on many adventures and are always risking death or incarceration, and we’re dangerously close to this in Sly 2’s ending all thanks to unfortunately, Sly’s actions. It isn’t malicious or anything but is the exact thing he comes to realise in both games, while yes grand theft robbery is fun and all, It comes at a hefty cost both to him and his friends or even family at this point, which is why he makes the hefty and abrupt decision, To leave it all behind and forge a new path. Need I remind you this is the same game with a raccoon flying a biplane and mercenary apes that are voiced by Mr Crabs.
If it wasn’t clear, Sly 3 is a somewhat subtle yet unsubtle message of the entire series and Suckerpunch’s reason to leave it all behind. While yes it’s probably fun and rewarding to make these games, the idea of making new experiences is more tantalising and sustainable that the funny raccoon thief game, these more heavy and deep story elements can be taken far more seriously in games like inFamous or Ghost of Tsushima, while obviously I feel games like this should feel emotionally potent stories if they have the guts to but I feel also more mature stories can lead to more mature ideas, themes messages, aesthetics etc which is why I’m completely for the idea of this being the last Sly game.
Not every series is made equally, I’m semi okay with Ratchet having more games than Sly even though the 4 endings this series has are all great on it’s own, I don’t care about Jak enough and plus that already had two satisfying conclusions and I will commit mass genocide to get another de Blob or Kyle Hyde or to stop Call of Duty from having another game again. Point is, they ended Sly on their own terms leading to a great story about this subject, some series are just more sustainable than others and that’s okay, the point is to look at these past experiences with fond memories while looking ahead to big and maybe possibly even better things.
The story portrays this through Sly’s want of Carmalita, which is a on and off again thing once again and I think this is where some cracks start to show in the story, Carmalita is as good as always but doesn’t get enough screen time in my opinion to really make that final decision of Sly starting a life with her as satisfying as it could be and her just blasting the Cooper Vault feels like such a weird slap in the face to what the game has been building up with Dr M and his whole entire plan. But anyway
In terms of character arcs and the characters themselves, it’s surprising how all the members of the Cooper gang get a moment to shine both in gameplay and story. From the incredible Cooper Vault section both in terms of lore of the franchise and gameplay with its tight tough platforming being the best gameplay in the series, to the brawler moment where Murray helps Bentley resolve his confidence issues he’s had throughout, the Panda King putting his past experiences with Sly behind to fucking Dmitri wanting to honour his grandfather while diving in waters, Sly 3 does it for nearly every character. I’ve already mentioned how Murray and the Panda King having to put their past mistakes behind and better themselves as people through the use of mediation, Dmitri is there funny as always and has a neat little arc of wanting to move away from the criminal lifestyle. Penelope and the Guru don’t really have character moments or arcs of their own and instead help the other characters (namely Bentley and Murray) grow, Penelope is a charming albeit slightly boring character while the Guru, doesn’t have any character, It’s one of those tropes I don’t care about where the character speaks in gibberish and we don’t understand but the characters do, so the Guru doesn’t really have much of a character besides monk, which is fine I guess. Finally the most interesting character to talk about is Bentley. Since in the last game he got crippled, they decided to go with an interesting direction with his character that is… being a retread of Sly 2’s arc of building his confidence, except unlike the other game here it feels genuinely both earned, interesting and compelling. The whole game up until the penultimate chapter and even like the final 20 minutes Bentley feels inadequate to Sly, portrayed through his use of a wheelchair and especially with Penelope’s reveal as the black baron where she now gravitates towards Sly due for her to the fact that both catfished each other, don’t know I find that quite funny. Bentleys dilemma never elivates, despite getting an encouraging pep talk from Penelope and an outward confirm that feelings for both of them are reciprocated but he still has that feeling of inadequacy, and to me I wish the game went slightly further with this, I don’t need a fight since that would bloat the game but maybe more scenes throughout where he contemplates maybe turning on Sly or something like that, and I very much wish the game would give us more clarity on what happens with Sly’s father gang as it’s a bit to ambiguous as to what actually happened even with the help of the comics, like if it genuinely was a feeling of inadequacy or something else but the point is, this leads to a scene of where Murray reminds Bentley that they aren’t just friends, they’re a family, they’ll do anything for each other despite it being called the Cooper Gang, hell this is even proven in Sly 2 where he gave himself up to the police at the end of the game for both of them.
All of this comes to an end as we circle back to the question that I opened up the review with, Now What? The question of Now What pops up with all of the characters after Sly decides to make the decision to leave all of it behind and start a life with Carmelita, leaving the whole Cooper fortune to everyone else. Everyone decided to start new lives using the money, Murray decides to complete his training and decides to become a derby racer, Dimtri became a professional swimmer and a fucking playboy, The Guru teaches a group of rock stars and Bentley and Penelope plan build a time machine using the money, which the game uses a tease for something that didn’t happen, nope no game with the Sly Cooper branding ever happened and nothing with the name of Sly 4 ever did happen, this is the last Sly game that was released.
So, now what? The game has ended, it’s clear apart from 2 things the game very loosely teases that there’s nothing more to tell about Sly’s story, It’s done and so is this review.
Conclusion
Sly 3 sold a modest million copies and was reviewed well though not as well as Sly 2, The series didn’t continue after this apart from Sly having non canon roles in PlayStation Allstars and Move Heroes, and to me I don’t mind. Sly being dormant doesn’t matter to me because there’s bigger and better franchises out there that’s more worth our time, however that doesn’t mean that Sly won’t hold a special place in my and others hearts, due to always going the extra mile, the series has helped me through good times, bad times and all the in between, and all 3 games I’ve reviewed show an evolution of this very little Backloggd account, from little humble beginnings with Sly 1, to 50 followers with Sly 2, to 100 in Sly 3 and I just wanna say, why do you follow this trash I barely post. But seriously, thank you, I’d never thought I would get this far, I have a lot more planned soon and I should start reviewing soon again, so for now, I guess we’re done.
WAIT THERE’S A SLY 4?????
2023
Seeing everyone play and love this game knowing you'll probably adore it after you got it on your Birthday for sale, You'd think you finally gonna play it. Then you realise you're playing it on your shitty Laptop, it doesn't load/has bad audio issues and crashes like this feels so heart-breaking you don't know this immense pain i have
Yeah I rated this higher than Sonic Frontiers and Unleashed what of it
Anyway, while not the best Visual Novel experience out there for it essentially being free 2-3 Hour experience, this game is a charming little romp, I was surprised how well written the characters and murder mystery actually, and the dialogue was genuinely witty and fun. I really also like the graphics and music, while not the best 2D Artwork or soundtrack in the series, fit’s this game well.
Anyway, overall a fun time! Now leave me alone for 2 Weeks, I have a Racoon to attend to
Anyway, while not the best Visual Novel experience out there for it essentially being free 2-3 Hour experience, this game is a charming little romp, I was surprised how well written the characters and murder mystery actually, and the dialogue was genuinely witty and fun. I really also like the graphics and music, while not the best 2D Artwork or soundtrack in the series, fit’s this game well.
Anyway, overall a fun time! Now leave me alone for 2 Weeks, I have a Racoon to attend to
I feel the Cosmic Shake is the type of game that either makes you absolutely happy beyond belief or think is aggressively average, and judging by my rating, I think you can figure out my feelings. I wouldn’t call Cosmic Shake a bad game, but it’s the type of game where i go, “Yeah, i played it”
Which is a shame, because the concept of this game has never been better, I love the idea of multiversal stories, especially ones of pre established properties, taking characters we know and love and putting them into weird and wonderful worlds due to the nature of the dimensions, I love it when Sonic did it (though has a lot of missed potential), I loved it when Ratchet & Clank does it, I loved it when Crash 4 did it and had some of the craziest level ideas/tropes ever in a platformer so, along with Purple Lamp’s experience of remaking BFBB and understanding it’s mechanics, this should have been a slam dunk for me,
This ain’t fully it
While not bad per say, The Cosmic shake is the definition of missed potential, the idea of this game is fresh and could lead itself to so many crazy ideas in terms of gameplay, story and its world and sad to say it feels like that they indeed had ideas and, they had ideas! The story is marginal fine, Spongebob and Patty Star fuck shit up thanks to a Hot Mermiad (who’s the Twist Viallin by the way), dimensions (Or Wish Worlds) galore! I feel like in terms of the comedy, it was marginally forgettable in my opinion, not as quotable or as funny as BFBB or even the Modern Episodes. This is mainly due to the over reliance on references. I'm not gonna go over it here since there’s actually too many, but the references either feel well intended neat little nods or (most of the time) aggressively reminding you of the good ol days instead of standing on its own two legs.
But i will say in terms of graphical fidelity (barring the performance issues and slightly long load times i had on the Switch Version) is really strong, the artstyle feels a lot more refined than Rehydrated, it feels bright and colourful and in terms of the Voice Acting, barring the caveat that these actors are well past their prime/Golden Age due to getting older, do a fantastic job, though i feel the issue of reused voice lines prop up even more than the original game.
In terms of core gameplay and mechanics, The Cosmic Shake is just like BFBB, the game controls a lot better than Rehydrated, the turning feels a lot smoother and acceleration feels more natural but in terms of mechanical improvements, that’s it. The Cosmic shake doesn’t add any new characters, or even has any playable characters, Spongebob is a lone wolf in this adventure with the exception of a Balloon Patrick who is pretty useless essentially.
I’m split on this, on one hand, expanding Spongebob’s Moveset, giving him abilities such as Gliding in the air and additional Bubble Abilities/Combat manoeuvres but on the other hand, a lot of the abilities here are just from Sandy and Patrick from BFBB and the Playable characters were such an integral part of BFBB’s identity in terms of being a great game, it allowed for additional ways to approach a level and were great ways to add variety to the game, I would have loved to see the other playable characters and even maybe 2 news ones (probably Squidward and Mr Krabs i had to choose) have the treatment that Spongebob has had in this game, hell even the Movie game did this with Patrick.
Speaking of the characters, With the Multiverse premise, it should have led to some of the craziest, wildest and most out of the box worlds and characters ever put in a licensed game, it sorta did! There’s only 7 Levels here which is a bit small, but the quality is what matters (which i mean it doesn't but i’ll get into that in a bit), half the levels are literal settings straight from BFBB (such as Jellyfish Fields, Goo Lagoon, Downtown Bikini Bottom, Kelp Forest and Rock Bottom) with 2 new stage ideas, Sulfur Fields and finally, Glove World, which was previously cut in BFBB.
Again, I’m split on this, on one hand, the whole idea of “Because Multiverse” works well here since they’re using the tried and true tropes of Pirates, Wild West, Medieval and Caveman times along with just fresh ideas in general such as a Movie set or… Halloween? In all seriousness the Multiverse setting allows for some slightly out of the box character interactions and ideas. Despite this however, I don't feel like it feels like a reuse of assets or stages because they do actually feel fresh in terms of Level Design (though it isn’t very good but more on that later). On the other hand, they really couldn’t have thought of some unique ideas for stages that use the multiverse setting as well? Why not adapt newer areas introduced in the series or stuff from the movies? Using a lot of the same worlds makes this feels more like an Encore Mode of BFBB and rather than a sequel.
Still, in terms of level designs and core mechanics, I feel this is where The Cosmic Shake breaks. The level design just isn't very good, It feels inherently more linear and restricting than BFBB’s level design but also wants to be a big collectathon game like BFBB so it’s this weird mishmash of level ideas, so it doesn’t feel like you’re overcoming a tough linear obstacle course or exploring a giant world and raiding it of all it’s collectibles.
The mechanics themselves just don’t feel baked, which also goes for the gimmicks in this game, such as the various vehicle/minigame sections with Mystery and the Unicycle, they just don’t have the flow or momentum like the slide sections from the original game, despite the control fixes done to Spongebob, the vehicles still feel like they’re lacking flow.
They’ve also decided to have more Combat here than Base BFBB, I stress “Base” because the over reliance on Combat isn’t too far off from the multiplayer mode added to Rehydrated. Cutting it short, the combat with bosses and especially the enemies is not fun. BFBB also had combat but this game has so many areas that force combat onto the player, the enemies and bosses themselves despite having some great designs are not fun to fight in the slightest, they feel like (ironically) karate sponge enemies to defeat yet it feels so inherently simple.
The biggest issue however is that exploration doesn’t feel rewarding, Unlike BFBB where the collectibles were like the Stars in Super Mario 64 unlocking stages, The Cosmic shake has a linear structure where there’s main missions that progress the story while the collectibles (like Cosmic Jelly, Specific Collectibles or Golden Doubloons) are completely optional. Now this might be fine if it wasn’t for the fact that this feels like a collectathon still, it also doesn’t help that only 2 of these Collectibles give you something, which are just Costumes that don’t have any special attributes. I really feel like this game would have really benefited from having the same structure as BFBB since it would really make these stages worth exploring which, despite the linear structure, are still bigger than say your average Crash 4 or 3D World/Galaxy stages.
To tell you how backwards this is, this like if Super Mario Odyssey still had Moons to collect but all the main moons with the longer fanfare weren’t moons instead and were just Mission Markers. The Moons and Purple Coins were still in the game, but instead of the Moons unlocking new stages, They also unlocked Costumes but they unlocked the costumes themselves and the purple coins were still used to buy the costumes.
It’s such a shame that I feel so lukewarm about the Cosmic Shake, I hesitate to call it a bad game, far from it! When you get down to it, It’s still slightly fun jumping around and playing it but the core mechanics feel undercooked and backwards. Of course without saying, BFBB is the far superior experience, but even The Movie Game, Truth or Square Console or DS, Atlantis Squarepantis DS or even Creature from the Krusty Krab (Purely for the weird factor) will give you your more fulfilled Spongebob Platforming fix.
Which is a shame, because the concept of this game has never been better, I love the idea of multiversal stories, especially ones of pre established properties, taking characters we know and love and putting them into weird and wonderful worlds due to the nature of the dimensions, I love it when Sonic did it (though has a lot of missed potential), I loved it when Ratchet & Clank does it, I loved it when Crash 4 did it and had some of the craziest level ideas/tropes ever in a platformer so, along with Purple Lamp’s experience of remaking BFBB and understanding it’s mechanics, this should have been a slam dunk for me,
This ain’t fully it
While not bad per say, The Cosmic shake is the definition of missed potential, the idea of this game is fresh and could lead itself to so many crazy ideas in terms of gameplay, story and its world and sad to say it feels like that they indeed had ideas and, they had ideas! The story is marginal fine, Spongebob and Patty Star fuck shit up thanks to a Hot Mermiad (who’s the Twist Viallin by the way), dimensions (Or Wish Worlds) galore! I feel like in terms of the comedy, it was marginally forgettable in my opinion, not as quotable or as funny as BFBB or even the Modern Episodes. This is mainly due to the over reliance on references. I'm not gonna go over it here since there’s actually too many, but the references either feel well intended neat little nods or (most of the time) aggressively reminding you of the good ol days instead of standing on its own two legs.
But i will say in terms of graphical fidelity (barring the performance issues and slightly long load times i had on the Switch Version) is really strong, the artstyle feels a lot more refined than Rehydrated, it feels bright and colourful and in terms of the Voice Acting, barring the caveat that these actors are well past their prime/Golden Age due to getting older, do a fantastic job, though i feel the issue of reused voice lines prop up even more than the original game.
In terms of core gameplay and mechanics, The Cosmic Shake is just like BFBB, the game controls a lot better than Rehydrated, the turning feels a lot smoother and acceleration feels more natural but in terms of mechanical improvements, that’s it. The Cosmic shake doesn’t add any new characters, or even has any playable characters, Spongebob is a lone wolf in this adventure with the exception of a Balloon Patrick who is pretty useless essentially.
I’m split on this, on one hand, expanding Spongebob’s Moveset, giving him abilities such as Gliding in the air and additional Bubble Abilities/Combat manoeuvres but on the other hand, a lot of the abilities here are just from Sandy and Patrick from BFBB and the Playable characters were such an integral part of BFBB’s identity in terms of being a great game, it allowed for additional ways to approach a level and were great ways to add variety to the game, I would have loved to see the other playable characters and even maybe 2 news ones (probably Squidward and Mr Krabs i had to choose) have the treatment that Spongebob has had in this game, hell even the Movie game did this with Patrick.
Speaking of the characters, With the Multiverse premise, it should have led to some of the craziest, wildest and most out of the box worlds and characters ever put in a licensed game, it sorta did! There’s only 7 Levels here which is a bit small, but the quality is what matters (which i mean it doesn't but i’ll get into that in a bit), half the levels are literal settings straight from BFBB (such as Jellyfish Fields, Goo Lagoon, Downtown Bikini Bottom, Kelp Forest and Rock Bottom) with 2 new stage ideas, Sulfur Fields and finally, Glove World, which was previously cut in BFBB.
Again, I’m split on this, on one hand, the whole idea of “Because Multiverse” works well here since they’re using the tried and true tropes of Pirates, Wild West, Medieval and Caveman times along with just fresh ideas in general such as a Movie set or… Halloween? In all seriousness the Multiverse setting allows for some slightly out of the box character interactions and ideas. Despite this however, I don't feel like it feels like a reuse of assets or stages because they do actually feel fresh in terms of Level Design (though it isn’t very good but more on that later). On the other hand, they really couldn’t have thought of some unique ideas for stages that use the multiverse setting as well? Why not adapt newer areas introduced in the series or stuff from the movies? Using a lot of the same worlds makes this feels more like an Encore Mode of BFBB and rather than a sequel.
Still, in terms of level designs and core mechanics, I feel this is where The Cosmic Shake breaks. The level design just isn't very good, It feels inherently more linear and restricting than BFBB’s level design but also wants to be a big collectathon game like BFBB so it’s this weird mishmash of level ideas, so it doesn’t feel like you’re overcoming a tough linear obstacle course or exploring a giant world and raiding it of all it’s collectibles.
The mechanics themselves just don’t feel baked, which also goes for the gimmicks in this game, such as the various vehicle/minigame sections with Mystery and the Unicycle, they just don’t have the flow or momentum like the slide sections from the original game, despite the control fixes done to Spongebob, the vehicles still feel like they’re lacking flow.
They’ve also decided to have more Combat here than Base BFBB, I stress “Base” because the over reliance on Combat isn’t too far off from the multiplayer mode added to Rehydrated. Cutting it short, the combat with bosses and especially the enemies is not fun. BFBB also had combat but this game has so many areas that force combat onto the player, the enemies and bosses themselves despite having some great designs are not fun to fight in the slightest, they feel like (ironically) karate sponge enemies to defeat yet it feels so inherently simple.
The biggest issue however is that exploration doesn’t feel rewarding, Unlike BFBB where the collectibles were like the Stars in Super Mario 64 unlocking stages, The Cosmic shake has a linear structure where there’s main missions that progress the story while the collectibles (like Cosmic Jelly, Specific Collectibles or Golden Doubloons) are completely optional. Now this might be fine if it wasn’t for the fact that this feels like a collectathon still, it also doesn’t help that only 2 of these Collectibles give you something, which are just Costumes that don’t have any special attributes. I really feel like this game would have really benefited from having the same structure as BFBB since it would really make these stages worth exploring which, despite the linear structure, are still bigger than say your average Crash 4 or 3D World/Galaxy stages.
To tell you how backwards this is, this like if Super Mario Odyssey still had Moons to collect but all the main moons with the longer fanfare weren’t moons instead and were just Mission Markers. The Moons and Purple Coins were still in the game, but instead of the Moons unlocking new stages, They also unlocked Costumes but they unlocked the costumes themselves and the purple coins were still used to buy the costumes.
It’s such a shame that I feel so lukewarm about the Cosmic Shake, I hesitate to call it a bad game, far from it! When you get down to it, It’s still slightly fun jumping around and playing it but the core mechanics feel undercooked and backwards. Of course without saying, BFBB is the far superior experience, but even The Movie Game, Truth or Square Console or DS, Atlantis Squarepantis DS or even Creature from the Krusty Krab (Purely for the weird factor) will give you your more fulfilled Spongebob Platforming fix.
1983
Donkey Kong 3… what the meh?
First of the title, where the hell is Donkey Kong 2??? Donkey Kong 3 feels unnatural, like I feel violated just reading the title of Donkey Kong 3, it feels weird.
That’s how I can describe this game, it’s just weird man. New Protagonist named Stanley, he’s fucking boring glad he’s never seen the light of day again, so Donkey Kong has broken into a Greenhouse and it’s our job to stop him, It’s so weird, at this point Mario was stopping Koopas in the sewers but like, could they not have used Mario? What was the constraints here.
Anyway, uh this game is fucking boring, despite the decent graphics and Music. You spray Donkey Kong in the ass and a few insects with an power up and Bonus Flowers that give you extra points, I will admit, there’s a bigger arsenal of enemies than ever before in these games but the gameplay itself is monotonous, at the very least the other 2 Arcade games had some variety but you’ll experience the entire game in 5 Minutes.
Well, that’s all the Arcade games done, finally we can get to the good stuff, now we wonder where did the Mario Bros go after they stomped the hell out of the Koopas?
First of the title, where the hell is Donkey Kong 2??? Donkey Kong 3 feels unnatural, like I feel violated just reading the title of Donkey Kong 3, it feels weird.
That’s how I can describe this game, it’s just weird man. New Protagonist named Stanley, he’s fucking boring glad he’s never seen the light of day again, so Donkey Kong has broken into a Greenhouse and it’s our job to stop him, It’s so weird, at this point Mario was stopping Koopas in the sewers but like, could they not have used Mario? What was the constraints here.
Anyway, uh this game is fucking boring, despite the decent graphics and Music. You spray Donkey Kong in the ass and a few insects with an power up and Bonus Flowers that give you extra points, I will admit, there’s a bigger arsenal of enemies than ever before in these games but the gameplay itself is monotonous, at the very least the other 2 Arcade games had some variety but you’ll experience the entire game in 5 Minutes.
Well, that’s all the Arcade games done, finally we can get to the good stuff, now we wonder where did the Mario Bros go after they stomped the hell out of the Koopas?