Played on Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection.

Thank goodness for save states, this game is hard. There were some sections that harkened back to Sonic 2 with unreactable hazards. It was weird having a battery save in Sonic 3, just for Sonic and Knuckles to decide that they didn't want to have that anymore.

With Sonic and Knuckles completed, I'm done with my foray into 2D Sonic. It has reaffirmed what I always knew in my heart: I do not like 2D Sonic. It had neat ideas, but I just prefer more linear levels that are easier to digest.

Beat this game for the first time today, so that feels pretty good. Honestly, the only thing that really stands out is that it's a Mario game and it doesn't really look, sound, or feel like a Mario game. I like the music and the devs did a good job avoiding a problem I have with other handheld platformers where you don't see enough of the screen. It doesn't really do anything wrong per se, but I find I didn't really enjoy it enough to recommend this game to other people in 2024, outside of Mario fans that are curious.

This game is okay. Everything is functional, but I never really felt like I was having fun. Combat is whatever, exploration is tedious, and I wasn't big on the story or characters. This game embodies the worst part of Metroidvanias. The majority of upgrades felt like I was arbitrarily locked out of accessing certain areas instead of making me excited to see what I would unlock and changing the way I played the game. Still planning on playing Shadow of the Tomb Raider and I hope I enjoy that one more.

I have no idea what it is about this game, but I couldn't put it down. I've played other Picross games before and I wasn't as engaged with them as I was with this one for some reason. There were only a handful of puzzles that I really struggled with and I don't really consider myself a great Picross player. That along with the great tools this game has to help players solve puzzles makes this a really accessible game. The almanac is pretty neat, I'm hoping that it will help me with my Story of Seasons games after I look through them. I think my biggest gripes with the game is the actual pixel art. A lot of the puzzles were very symmetrical, which kind of brought the satisfaction of solving the puzzle down a bit. Also, the art itself looked atrocious. Even after seeing the color filled in and the label identifying what I was looking at, there were times where I was scratching my head in confusion because the pictures were almost unidentifiable. I feel the need to point this out because I haven't had that problem with other Picross games. Overall, I think this is still an easy recommendation for people that like Picross.

Played this on Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection on PS3 with save states.

Pros: I like the level variety. One of my big complaints about the first game is that a lot of the levels didn't feel distinct, but this game avoids that by having less acts, but more zones so there's more diverse aesthetics. I like the addition of tails and multiplayer, it's nice to be able to be able to select your character and play with a friend. The spin dash is great addition, no more struggling to build up speed. Sonic felt slow and clunky in the first game, but he really does feel fast in this game. I think one of the best changes is that getting all of the Chaos emeralds gets you an awesome reward. Playing as Super Sonic kind of lets you bypass playing the actual game, which is pretty funny.

Cons: The level design feels cheap sometimes. The increased movement speed comes with the side effect of not being able to properly react to anything. This game loves throwing hazards, pits, and enemies in your way that you can't react to, so it basically necessitates memorizing the levels to go fast. This applies to both the standard and bonus levels. The bonus levels are cruel in this game because they are way harder and a lot easier to miss. I guess the trade off is the potential to access them multiple times in the level and actually being able to understand how to control Sonic. Another issue I had with the game is that enemies do a poor job of telegraphing their attacks, which is a big issue when there are more enemies that fire projectiles in this game. Also, I love the addition of Tails, but he's the embodiment of little brother mode. Playing as Tails in co-op is hard because the camera focuses on Sonic, and playing as Tails solo is like playing as a slow version of Sonic that can't go Super. On the brightside, Tails is so slow it negates the other issue I had with not being able to react to the stage. It just doesn't feel great to feel like you're walking through the levels.

Overall, I like Sonic 2 more than its predecessor mainly because moving faster just feels good. I found myself getting stuck less often since I was able to build up speed and actually progress through obstacles. The trade off is the occasional cheapness, but I think the pros outweighs the cons in this case. Next up will be Sonic CD. I won't be using save states with that one, so I hope I'm able to get through it okay. Thankfully, going forward I'm pretty sure all of the games have in-game saving.

I was expecting a game inspired by Gameboy Zelda, but this is definitely not that. It's actually a puzzle game that shares a similar aesthetic. I was a bit disappointed, but still had a ton of fun. My main critiques are that (1) screen transitions are awkward. The character seems to shift between screen instead of feeling like they are going along the same path you entered from. (2) Hit and hurt boxes feel wonky. They seem to be based on tiles rather than sprites, so I found myself taking damage from attacks and stage hazards when I did not expect to. (3) The game is very short. There's about 12 levels total, but for the $5 I paid for it I still enjoyed my time. One other thing I should note is that I ended up beating this game 2.5 times because it seems like one of the achievements is bugged or it has a misleading description.