I really want to hate this game. Like, you have no idea how much I wish I could say that I absolutely despised it, and to some extent, I did...but I didn't.

First things first though, lets start with the poopy caca garbage parts of this game. The tornado stages are absolutely abysmal, they control like shit, targeting the enemies is shit, it's unclear what you need to do in certain sections without looking it up, it's just a complete and utter shit show. It took me 20 minutes to beat the first Tornado stage, 30 to beat the second one, and over 30 to beat the last. That's approximately 1/6th of my playtime being wasted on a garbage attempt at a varying gameplay style that I have zero interest in revisiting of my own accord.

Next there's, stop me if you've heard this one before, the story. It's definitely ambitious in a lot of senses, and some individual moments are pretty cool when removed from the larger narrative it's trying to tell, because that larger narrative is a fucking disaster. I'll give it this, it's exactly the type of stupid story I'd expect out of a 2000's Sonic game, but that's not saying much because the plot itself SUCKS. However the voice acting, while pretty funny, isn't as much of an issue as I think people make it out to be, at least for me. Latino Shadow is the funniest shit ever to the point where I can't be mad at it, Eggman's rusty accent is weird yet oddly fitting, and the rest of the major characters do at least decent jobs. The one voice I actively don't vibe with is Sonic's, I understand his actor is trying to do a Jason Griffith impression and he doesn't outright do a terrible job at it, but like, IDK man it just feels wrong.

Now, this is as far as I'd heard the worst aspects of Omens, and they did not dissapoint, but the thing I'd heard the least about was the actual game behind it all, and when I played it, it was the most insane whiplash I've had in a long, long time. Even if I never outright performed excellently in any of the stages, something about the way they were designed, Sonic and Shadow's movesets or some other third thing clicked with me. I wanted to actively punch myself in the face in utter disbelief I was like "No this can't possibly be why the fuck am I having so much fun this is meant to be the bad Sonic fan game everyone bashes on and yet I'm having a blast what the fuck dude".

Worst part is, the praise doesn't end there, because the bosses, by some fucking miracle, are just as good as the levels. They're challenging and require an understanding of their patterns and your moveset, but they're never outright unfair, and that final conforntation with the Exiled is absolutely phenomenal as a Super Sonic final boss spectacle wise.

The art direction, while somewhat disjointed, looks great throughout the whole game and feels exactly like something you'd see in a sequel to Sonic Unleashed aiming for a more cartoony tone and yet managing to mantain the more real style of other Sonic games, and the music is stellar all throughout. Sure two of the songs are taken from other games and the fact a Cars 2 the game song is used in Area 99 will never not be funny, but every other track, both for cutscenes and in the actual game is fucking stellar, with the main theme Weight of the World becoming a new favorite of mine.

And I need you to understand, I absolutely hate myself for typing these words, like I am in complete and utter shock at myself for even thinking this, but it's simply how I feel, and I've learned to let my opinions not be fully influenced by whatever people say about a game. So as much as I hate it, and for as tight of a knot as I'll feel in my stomach after posting this...

I love Sonic Omens. I really, really do.

4/5 - Very Good
This is a review of Sonic CD as a game, with the "Sonic CD & Knuckles" mod applied, but not of the remake as a mod on their own.

Sonic CD is a game I once disliked, but it took me a while to truly get. It takes the fundementals Sonic The Hedgehog set (despite releasing after Sonic 2, it was made around the same time and is mostly based off of Sonic 1) in a wild new direction. It still maintains the incredibly dynamic physics that made the series special, the open and split level design that made it so replayable, the beautiful graphics and the amazing music. But it's also very different.

The levels in this game are incredibly bizzare. The locations themselves went from hard places to more abstract concepts, often bringing downright psychedelic visuals. They're enhanced by the entrancing CD quality songs, full of far more depth than what standard cartridge based Genesis games could ever produce, and it's absolutely wonderful. But within those levels, you might find yourself confused. The layouts are often weird, nonsensical, and bizzare. They bounce you around, fling you across weird setpieces, don't quite flow. And then you end up beating them so fast that you can't not go "that's it?" So what makes this game so good?

What truly made me open my eyes was the game's true ending. It can be obtained in 2 ways - one way is the special stages, reached in the same frustrating way as the first game, and while the stages themselves more fun, this just makes playing the levels themseleves even worse to me. But the other way is the roboticizers - one to find in every stage, that can also only be broken in the past - which you must reach by time traveling. This means you must explore: find a past post, go fast by using the level design for enough to travel to the past, then look for a roboticizer, in every act.

I found that as soon as I tried this, the game started to make sense. This level design never quite flowed when going forward, but it's arrangement of hazards, gimmicks, enemies and geometry blend well when you're playing it a little more chill, exploring around, building complicated combo set ups to hit a time warp, and checking every nook and cranny for a roboticizer. It's a unique cycle that feels very good. Levels like Palmtree Panic, Collision Chaos, Quartz Quadrant, Stardust Speedway, and more are full of fun contraptions to mess around with and places to freely explore. It's just really fun, it makes the design feel more functional and allows the game to truly soar.

It is important to mention that my experience doing this improved further by using the Sonic CD & Knuckles mod. This mod does much more than add Knuckles (a welcome addition on top of 2011's Tails to enhance replayability), as it also reprograms time travel to create a system that flows and works even better than before, making the whole experience very satisfying - and this is added to by the addition of the Drop Dash move, which adds to any Classic Sonic game, enhancing the speed and physics based platforming tenfold.

After all that, Sonic CD & Knuckles is a very good game, but it isn't great. It's biggest detractors are it's truly terrible bosses that are either a joke or just annoying and unfun, as well as some of its weaker zones. It's at it's worst during the annoying but tolerable Wacky Workbench but especially in the confusing, frustrating, terribly designed nightmare that is Metallic Madness. Every inch of this level is etched into my mind because of how much I keep seeing them as I get lost, die in unfair ways, and fail to have any fun in this slog of a level. Very poor way to end the game. But I still really like Sonic CD. It's weird, but in a good way.

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