A man stares longingly into the mirror, shadows cast along his face, hiding his intentions not only from us, but from himself...

"Mary... Could you really be in this town?

A woman's reply, a message delivered from the past beckons the man to a mysterious and desolate ruin.

"In my restless dreams, I see that town."

He slowly walks through a fog laden path, unusual sounds echoing as he gets ever closer to his destination.

"Silent Hill."

He arrives at a graveyard on the edge of the lakeside town, a forgotten hallow ground.

"You promised to take me there again someday. But you never did."

The letter guiding him is past tense, the voice deceased. And yet that voice says,

"Well, I'm alone there now... in our 'special place'... Waiting for you..."

Where the horror for Silent Hill 1 came mostly from the visceral and graphic visuals, an intensely industrial soundtrack, and the occult themes, Silent Hill 2's comes from a much darker, more personal place.

Silent Hill 2 at the start gives you a very familiar setup. You are a lone man, entering the town looking for someone, child and wife respectively.

You are, or at least seem to be, a typical everyman. Both Harry and James are very standard American names, with only five letters. Both have a very similar designs, here's Harry's and James'. In fact James looked even more similar in his original design.

Both men had sickly wives who died before the events of the game, both are very awkward in their mannerisms and how they speak, and both are drawn into circumstances they cannot initially fathom.

This is fully intentional.

James Sunderland is specifically designed to make the player think that they will have a similar experience to Silent Hill 1, making the player feel comfortable and safe.

However, as the game progresses, we begin to see how wrong we are.

When we start, James seems like the voice of reason. When he encounters the other lost souls within Silent Hill, he always tries to rationalize their actions, or explain why their way of thinking is wrong. Like when he tries to convince the traumatized and abused Angela Orosco to not commit suicide, or the eeriely creepy murder denying Eddie Dombrowski that he shouldn't kill people just for saying rude things.

Of course, this façade of rationality immediately breaks the moment these characters insinuate that he is no different from them, causing him to get strangely defensive and angry. His tone of voice becoming way more icy, showing a side of James we didn't know was there.

And it's that side of James that makes us realize... this man is hiding something.

His lack of sanity.

This is something you'll start picking up on when you first go through the Woodside Apartments near the start of the game. As you go through, things begin to appear that... don't make realistic sense. Such as the favorite clothes of Mary appearing in front of a spotlight in an empty room. James himself even comments on this, finding it extremely disconcerting.

However, it's once we enter the Otherworld that the clues become more evident. The locales we enter are covered in a gloomy green and blue cloth, different from the harsh orange and red rusty metals from the first game. The cloth stitches together feeling much like that of a solitary confinement cell or a straightjacket.

Now of course in Silent Hill 1 we would simply attribute this to being a part of the dreams of Alessa and her powers distorting the town... but in Silent Hill 2, there is no Alessa.

These dreams belong to James. From the various monsters encountered, to the rain and water drowning out the world, to even an entire character made from his subconscious to try and please him, all of this springs from James' mind.

The most terrifying of all being, of course, Pyramid Head. This thing is terror incarnate. Regardless of the fact that it is slow, and doesn't follow you that frequently through the game compared to contemporaries like Mr. X or Nemesis, it is both thematically and visually much more horrifying.

Every time it appears, things go wrong. It hunts James down like a dog, carrying its gigantic butcher knife or spear. Killing and what appears to be fornicating with the other monsters seen throughout this horrific mental landscape.

There's a point around just halfway through the game, where you get chased by it through a dark narrow hall, and... man I don't want to spoil it but it just... it just fucks me up so bad.

On that same note, you do get a companion character early on and while I initially thought that this would take away some of the isolation that I felt in the first game... man it paid off heavily in the end.

I don't want to go further into what the plot is like, but to summarize, Silent Hill 2's horror is James Sunderland. The darkness that lies within us all, the scary parts of ourselves we hide not just from the world, but from ourselves

This game makes me wonder what my Silent Hill would be like and... man, I'm so glad this shit is fiction.

…You may all want to sit down for this one.

I wouldn’t say it’s a rare occurrence for me to bail on a Sonic game. I wasn’t into Frontiers so I clocked out from that, same goes for Unleashed. However neither of them left me too frustrated to ever pick them up again. You wanna know which game did though? Sonic Superstars. Something that some of the Game Gear titles achieved as well. I genuinely wanted to like this game, but playing through it only highlighted the incompetence of Sonic Team for me even more and I can only see it as a product designed and created to cash in on classic Sonic instead of creating a meaningful experience. And while I don’t think it’s worse than the Game Gear games (though that shouldn’t be a standard for mainline classic Sonic) I honestly hate this game more. Allow me to explain why.

I think the bare minimum that everyone expected for this game to be considered remotely good is tight controls, and yes compared to Forces the physics and controls are a remarkable step up. Momentum flows much better due to more appropriate character weight and the level design also works well for the controls… well conceptually. However, before I get into that I should go over the technical aspects of the game; that is to say that on this front Superstars is atrocious on Switch. The general art style is very bland and the animation is way more stiff than the other classic games. On top of that I’ve had more technical issues than both Mania and even Origins. Sometimes you hit invisible bridges or phase through platforms when you jump while they’re rising (most present during the final boss), the frame rate DIPS to 30 fps or lower when using the super forms minus Trip’s, and at one point my game actually crashed just by going through a special ring. This is a game that has been out for 6 months now, has had multiple patches and came out the same week as Super Mario Bros. Wonder. Absolutely inexcusable.

The last technical aspect I can bring up is the music, and while it’s not entirely bad pretty much every music piece using genesis instruments is fucking horrible and drags it down to being one of the worst Sonic OSTs. Admittedly, when there are songs that aren’t Jun Senoue clashing his Genesis strings together there are actual bangers! Speed Jungle Act 1, Sand Sanctuary and the Egg Fortress boss theme all come to mind. But my statement still stands and some tracks make certain levels even worse, which brings me to… sigh. The gameplay.

Sonic Superstars plays like every other classic game on paper. Run through the various levels that you’re in, fight a boss at the end and collect any rings, medals and emeralds you find. However, Superstars has some new mechanics up its sleeve and literally ALL OF THEM serve to make the game worse. First, every character minus Sonic has been neutered in some way. Tails can’t jump out of flying anymore, Knuckles’ glide is way slower and Amy’s hammer rush as far as I’m aware is gone, though her double jump is nice. Unfortunately after the main campaign, she is entirely outclassed by Trip who can also double jump and now cling to walls. But no matter which character you play as, there is always something in each and every stage that serves to slow the pace down. Behold, bonus and special stages.

The bonus stages at every checkpoint see you playing Sonic 1’s special stages for more medals, only now there are some more complex mechanics and you have to complete 3 OF THESE IN A ROW to get a total of 3 medals. It’s slow as hell, not very fun to play through and I almost always dodge these. Then you have the special stages which see you swinging from orb to orb making a mad dash for the emerald. These are some of the easiest special stages in the franchise and yet some of the most confusing because there’s not an ounce of skill involved in these. The stupid thing goes around in a circle and you have to let the game choose which orbs you can launch off from so you can fling yourself and get closer. Outside of the Genesis version of 2’s special stages these are by far my least favorite special stages in the mainline games. And to make it even worse, you can only get one emerald per zone which ruins the pace even MORE. If you miss a giant ring in any of those stages, you have to drag your ass back and get it before moving forward. Yes, they’re not required to beat the main campaign but they are required for playing the true final boss which you don’t even have access to until you beat Trip’s campaign. Side tangent, imagine only being allowed to do the Doomsday zone in 3 and Knuckles after beating Knuckles’ campaign. That being said, I imagine the chaos emeralds are locked off like this to regulate the use of the new emerald powers… all of which being incredibly situational and are only useful for reaching higher ground, breaking very specific walls, making bosses less tedious and making the final level somewhat tolerable. Even still, there are segments and whole levels that lock you out of these abilities and I have to ask… why? Speaking of which, that finally brings me to level design and boss fights.

The main campaign of Sonic Superstars peaks with the first two levels. Bridge Island and Speed Jungle are fast, tricky and honestly pretty fun minus the boss fights. Every other stage minus Pinball Carnival (which is admittedly solid) ranges from super average to straight up terrible. Sand Sanctuary is a 1 act level (why do optional levels that drag out zones when it cuts down others???) and it’s not terrible but nothing too memorable either. Sky Temple, Lagoon City and Frozen Base are mostly pretty mediocre with some truly awful bits, whether it’s Sky Temple’s bottomless pits or the optional acts of Lagoon City and Frozen Base. And then everything else is fucking terrible! Cyber Station has different forms for your character, all of which control like total ass and as a result the stage drags. Golden Capitol looks like shit and has awful autoscrolling segments, an underutilized gravity gimmick, a whole stage where you can’t use your emerald powers and some of the worst enemy placement in the whole series. Egg Fortress is one of the worst final levels as the first act is a drag and the second act is cheap as fuck because it’s LITERALLY THE FIRST ACT BUT REVERSED. And Press Factory… is the single worst stage in all of mainline classic Sonic. Worse than Labyrinth, worse than CD’s Metallic Madness, worse than Metropolis and even worse than Egg Fortress. Act 1 has a giant piston that launches you up into the air every 10 seconds just for basic platform progression or to launch you up into enemies. It’s just a more constant version of Wacky Workbench, just with 0 exploration encouraged and the second worst piece of music in the classic games. And Act 2 is even WORSE because if you don’t hit the buttons in time, you automatically die and progress is locked behind electric spheres you have to launch off from which are SO SLOWWWWWWWWWWWW. Pick Tails or suffer true agony.

Fuck I didn’t even get into the main reason why all of these stages are inherently not very fun to play: screen crunch. DEAR GOD the screen crunch in Superstars is horrible. For a PLATFORMER RELEASED IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD AND SAVIOR TWENTY TWENTY FUCKING THREE. I cannot tell you how many pits, spikes, enemies, hazards, what have you, I have ran into all because the game is so zoomed in on your character that it is impossible to see what’s up ahead. That’s another thing, almost every stage is littered with spikes, bottomless pits and crushing blocks so exploration and going fast is even LESS encouraged. This is a problem I only find with certain Sonic games. THE GAME GEAR TITLES. And some of the bosses zoom out so you can see the whole arena properly! And the battle mode does this too! WHY CAN’T YOU DO THIS SHIT FOR BASIC LEVELS YOU HAVE TO PROGRESS THROUGH?! All of this… and I haven’t even gotten to the bosses yet.

Sonic Superstars has the worst boss line up in the entire Sonic franchise, I don’t think this is up for debate. Even the better ones go against the core principles of most of the other classic bosses. I remember when I was watching videos on YouTube when I was younger of the dumbest classic Eggman fights, but playing the games in the future I realize just how effective they are at easing the player in with a cool puzzle or set up in a way where you can rush through them with skill. The worst normal Robotnik bosses were the ones that actively dragged out the fight, such as the Labyrinth or Lava Reef fights. Superstars actively spits in the face of that by making every boss last an eternity by going the turn-based route, so bosses can attack for seconds on end without being hurt while you still keep getting slapped around. The Sky Temple fight is the perfect example of this as you get slapped with saw blades before you can hit the boss, and every time you get hit it’s gonna be a pain to get your rings back. And this is the 3rd boss. That being said, the fights against Fang, the custom robo and the Egg Fortress boss ESPECIALLY (seriously fuck that fight so hard, died multiple times because the game decided to cast me into the pit when I jump while the platforms are shooting up) are the worst in the game and have taken me 10 minutes, 30 minutes and 2 hours to be respectively.

And then there’s Trip’s story. I bailed on it when I got to the Sky Temple boss for multiple reasons.

1. This mode’s definition of a hard difficulty is littering every stage with spikes and egg robos.
2. Acts that were originally optional in the main campaign are now mandatory in Trip’s, and I hate all of those acts.
3. If you get the chaos emeralds in the main campaign that transitions over to Trip’s. I’m glad you don’t have to get the emeralds again but it negates any and all reason to explore levels as Trip.
4. Worst of all, bosses take 9 hits now. The invincibility frames remain the same, and as such bosses drag on even longer and it makes Sky Temple’s boss utterly atrocious as there’s zero room for error there. I bailed there and I don’t intend to pick it up ever again.

I’ve been sitting all day figuring out what I think really makes this game bad aside from its cheap difficulty, and I think I have it. Sonic Superstars lacks something that so many good games have, and that’s freedom. Levels are limited at best and far too punishing at worst, bosses are a complete chore and any choices you can make only make the game more tolerable rather than fun. And that’s not even getting into the pitiful presentation. I was REALLY hoping for this game to be good, I really was. 3 and Knuckles and Mania are 2 of my favorite games of all time and I adore Sonic 1, 2 and CD in spite of their flaws. This was the next big classic Sonic game we were gonna get after I wasn’t satisfied with Frontiers. In the end, it only dropped the ball and proved how low the bar is for this franchise if people are actually calling this shit good. Don’t spend $60 on this, don’t even pick it up at all. Fuck this game.