"sonic had a rough transition into 3d"

cool, weird-ass game that proudly wears its status as sega flexing its shit on the previous gen right upon its sleeve. the monolithic status this game has in the fandom and the historical context of sonic as an entity is pretty interesting to me considering there really isn't that much to it - ten solid sonic levels and then little fragments that more or less exist to flaunt the possibilities of the dreamcast and what all sega was capable of at that point. i'm really endeared by games of this era that were chock full of weird side content and minigames just to show what the fresh hardware was capable of (final fantasy x also comes to mind), and sonic adventure is maybe nothing BUT that. combine that with its weird atmosphere and bizarre, campy writing and it fits right up there with the pantheon of Weird PSX JRPGs of '99.

speaking of writing - i was surprised on a playthrough how this game basically doesn't have a story so much as it has a bunch of isolated events that happen in proximity to one another in an arbitrary and sort of staggered fashion. sonic's story may be the main draw here in terms of gameplay (and clearly the star of the show in general; he's the only one of the stories you can't knock out in an hour tops) but it's also the story where pretty much nothing of note happens. honestly as cute as tails and amy's little mini-character-arcs are the only story worth writing home about here is gamma's, which i still find really poignant and thought-provoking even as an adult... something fatalistic and genuinely dark about this power-hour of pathos, even in comparison to the really dire places that sonic adventure 2's writings and greater themes go. honestly gamma's just the best part of the game in general, between his story, his variant of hot shelter easily being the best level in the game, and the boss fight against beta being one of the game's very best. kinda wish i cared for drakengard 3 at all because i would KILL for a version of his general plot pitch that's not written for children

can't help but feel like some of these little stories deserved a bit more time in the oven; gamma's shooting gameplay and knuckles' hunting were both eventually expanded upon in SA2 but i really like the "puzzle platformer where the female protagonist has to avoid a creepy stalker" idea with amy's gameplay and how tails' levels take sonic's ethos of playing as little of the level as possible to their natural extreme... such a shame their stories take about 11 minutes apiece to complete.

definitely not as polished, focused, effortless or full of finesse as sonic adventure 2, but honestly i don't think being less Good in one linear direction makes it Bad in the opposite linear direction either. sonic adventure is a strange, curious, funky little game, and it's lovely for it.

"oh but the speed stages are too easy and badly designed and control poorly"

"oh but the shooting stages are slower than in sonic adventure 1"

"the treasure hunting stages are lackluster and underdeveloped in comparison to the other two kinds of missions at best, and overly convoluted and artificially difficult at worst"

you know, in my quest to 100% this game for the first time in my 22-year sonic adventure 2 career, i was worried i'd ruined the magic of the game for myself. mastering this game is grueling, man. it's one of the most tedious, difficult, and demanding collect-a-thons ever made, and after a certain point the cracks in the foundation of the basic game design begins to show as sonic adventure 2 begins to burst under the weight of its own ambition. there are only so many times you can handle playing the same set of missions over the same set of levels clearly not designed around them before you start to feel a little wearied, you feel me?

but i think my saving grace was the fact that i opted to gather all of the mission emblems before i actually completed the main story. after getting every A-rank from city escape all the way to final chase, i strapped right back in to the last story and let it enfold me. it's kind of funny how a lot of the things i cherished heavily at one point due to nostalgia vision and their impact on me lose their luster when i revisit them - sonic adventure 1 itself isn't immune to this, nor are other contemporary classics like half-life 2 or the original bioshock that were equally impactful on me - but nope, sonic adventure 2 still makes me feel like i'm standing on the fucking ceiling every time i strap in and let the main campaign take me. i mean, sure, the game is strongest as a 5-hour tour de force where it can showcase the strengths of its perfected gameplay loops without having to stretch them thin over a bevy of tasks not suited to them, and a few of the levels actively work against what the game's mission statement is... but what does any of that matter in the long run when sonic adventure 2 is simply the coolest game ever made?

by june 2001, the writing wasn't even on the wall anymore - the wall had actively been blown the fuck down by a monolithic black juggernaut sent by sony to wipe the floor with any and all competitors. the dreamcast had already been discontinued in march after a less-than-three-year lifespan, and with sega's transition into exclusively third-party software development the future of the company and its individual identity was cast into utmost obfuscation. it would be all too easy to just bow your head and duck out quietly here, but sonic team didn't seem content to just sit there and take it. if they were gonna sink, they must have planned on going down with the ship, because sonic adventure 2 is a masterclass in confidence - narratively and mechanically this is the best game that they ever made, and it knows it.

i think i could make an easy case for sonic adventure 2's complexity and depth if i compared it to devil may cry 3 (a game which has a lot of story and stylistic parallels to sonic adventure 2 as well... hmmmm): it's easy to waffle your way through each level and just keep going after you stumble, keeping a skill ceiling just low enough that you don't drown in the insane amount of shit going on... but part of the reason why sonic adventure 2 has such a reputation for its insane 100% status is because playing sonic adventure 2 well takes a lot of skill, practice, and willingness to learn. between the points system actively rewarding stylish gameplay and optimizing the living hell out of every second of your run, the fact that even one mess-up can potentially mean a restart, be it due to failing to maximize your point accumilation or (even worse) dying and starting with 0 points from whatever checkpoint you'd hit before that point. granted, many of the missions actively work against this design philosophy (especially since the same set of 5 missions is copy-and-pasted onto probably 95% of the stages, regardless of genre or level design), but when it hits? you get what you put into it. i've been eking away at sonic frontiers for the past sixth months or so, and it's perpetually perplexing to me that they apparently still don't know how to make sonic control well when they got it right twenty-three years ago. i'm starting to think we'll never get platforming levels like metal harbor or final chase ever again, or even the utterly deranged examples set by cosmic wall and mad space...

all right. sit the fuck down with your jututsu kaisens and your chainsaw mans and your my hero academias. bleach? one piece? dragon ball z? hell, fucking full metal alchemist (the indisputable GOAT in my opinion)? you all take notes too. this is the real shit, motherfuckers. REAL SHOUNEN. all killer, no filler. a series of picture-perfect Moments flawlessly interwoven together with just enough internal rhyme and reason to convince you to Go With It and not think about it too hard, all while having enough genuine substance and things to say for its children-and-teens audience to chew on. there's a reason that you hear people recite basically every cutscene in this game word for word during GDQ runs: everything from the iconic jungle clash between sonic and shadow to the mundane little moments like amy, knuckles and tails chilling on the side of the road just ooze style and personality, even when the story at hand is so boneheaded and numbskulled that you can't really get much out of it besides the raw adrenaline pumping through your veins. i even think the weird mo-cap on the anthro actors gives everything a lot of personality and charm, if only because this is the only time that sonic and co have felt like real people and genuine action heroes to me: it's little things like sonic assuming a cool guy fighting pose when he's about to square up with eggman, or the sheer cuntiness in rouge dangling above the eclipse cannon when introducing herself to eggman and shadow. sonic has always sort of had this reputation as being a silly scrimblo bimblo cartoon series, and it is that, but for one brilliant moment of clarity it commits to the bit and makes sonic actually as cool as he purports to be... and he's got enough swag that it actively rubs off on everyone and anything around him.

of course, this is maybe sonic the hedgehog's most controversial foray into genuine pathos... but i think everybody hams up the perceived "edginess" at the heart of the game without considering whether or not it's all in service of what the game ultimately has to say. sega knew that this would likely be their swan song, and the introspection and reflection littered throughout the script and reflection reflect that perfectly: sega was going out with a whimper after exploding onto the game scene with a bang, and the sort of questions the story poses reflects that perfectly. what happens when you're not who you thought you were, or when the people you define yourself by aren't who they thought you to be? the consistent anti-authoritarian throughline (sonic adventure 2 is an explicitly anti-police and anti-military game, and i'm not exaggerating even a little) reflects a willingness to distrust that which is portrayed as the unambiguous and untouchable good within our society. eggman's idolization of his grandfather is broken when he beholds dr. gerald's descent into wickedness, perhaps coming to understand his own lust for power and control as something less than the true tragic evil that now lives on through the blood in his veins. rouge's loyalty eventually yields not to her government benefactors or to her own selfish desires, but to her endearment to knuckles - an act which seems to even surprise herself by the end. hell, tails actually manages to make good on his "being independent from sonic" character arc from the previous game, considering that he breaks free from the mold of being a simple sidekick and is probably the single largest driving factor in the hero storyline from the moment sonic gets arrested for a second time.

last but most CERTAINLY not least, shadow the hedgehog's obfuscated memories and trauma-laden motivations all act to obscure and suppress the genuine kind heart and noble intentions he was born with and made for, perhaps being the embodiment of the game's study of and statements against the very concept of dualism. you would think that sonic's comparative lack of depth would make him stick out like a sore thumb here, but if anything i think this is the one and only example of that one-note characterization working to his favor: sonic simply is who he is, and his acceptance of his simple nature allows him to be who he is effortlessly without any kind of cognitive dissonance or baggage keeping him burdened to the past or anchored to laments about his present. he holds himself to no particular moral standard or self-image save for doing what he simply feels is appropriate at any given moment, his need for self-indulgence and going with his heart mercifully counter-balanced by the inherent purity of his character. shadow yields the title of "ultimate life form" to sonic not out of a recognition of his physical power or infalliability as a person, but because sonic's ideology is simply the way to be: unapologetically, violently, proudly yourself, unfettered to the artificial molds arbitrated your society, your past, or even your own everyday insecurities.

when i say sonic adventure 2 is one of the all-time top game narratives, i don't mean that it reaches the ideological potence of something like disco elysium or the inscrutable complexity of chrono cross, my personal favorite game narrative... i just mean that for the kind of thing it sets out to accomplish there's simply nothing better than it. crucially, to understand this the same logic applied to the main cast must be applied to sonic adventure 2 itself. yes, sonic the hedgehog is a silly series for silly children about silly cartoon animals... but if you look past that exterior and let go of all the pre-conceived notions you might have forged about what sonic apparently is, something special awaits you: the reality that sonic adventure 2, top to bottom, is one of the greatest games ever made.

Memento mori -- remember, you will not have enough time to complete all your Social Links if you focus on the old couple and their stupid persimmon tree the second you start the game. Do any of these kids even go to school!?

Apologies to FES devotees, but the "Persona 5-fication" of Persona 3 has, in my eyes, been nothing but a net gain. Sure, it's upsetting that the only other legally accessible version of Persona 3 is a ho-hum port of a compromised portable release, but I'm no stranger to the base game, and when stacking it up side-by-side with Reload, it's hard to not internalize the remake as being the superior way to play the game.

Pretty much every facet of the original is improved or otherwise preserved, and nothing has been downscaled or infringed upon in a manner I would view as harmful. That extends to giving the player direct control over their party, a choice that was originally made to suit Persona 3's themes of communication and bonding by treating each member of SEES as their own individual with their own will. You could largely avoid Mitsuru's habitual casting of Marin Karin by engaging with command presets, my issue is not with the AI. I just think having input over 25% of my team in battle makes the game a little too passive and boring. Well, not anymore. Now I have total control, me, and I'm using my newfound agency to... habitually cast Marin Karin-- wait what the hell

An expanded list of spells and abilities adds a lot more variety to combat, and having more input over how your Personas are built permits more strategic planning over the original's randomized inheritance. All quality-of-life changes that are more or less standard parts of the modern SMT experience, effectively bringing Persona 3 on par with Persona 5 and Shin Megami Tensei V. It is likewise as easy as those games, but being accessible to new audiences isn't necessarily a bad thing. I opted to play through Reload on hard and found the difficulty curve to be more enjoyable this way, though by the time you reach the end game you'll still likely be overpowered. Armageddon is basically the "bully The Reaper" button, and I feel a little bad about it, but that's free EXP so what're you gonna do?

Even the individual blocks of Tartarus, Persona 3's massive procedurally generated labyrinth, are fleshed out in a way that makes navigating less rote and tiresome... though it doesn't completely alleviate some of the tedium. This is perhaps one area where Reload is a bit too slavish to the original game. Enemy designs are turned over and recycled constantly, and the limited number of blocks ensures that even though the geometry is more varied, you'll still probably get sick of exploring before reaching a border floor.

Though I've seen people upset that Reload recasts everyone (except Tara Platt, who apparently had the one unassailable performance), I do think the new cast is excellent, and emotional beats that I found affecting when I played the original game were even more impactful despite anticipating them thanks in large part to better voice direction, more emotive character models, and more dynamic cinematography. I've seen mixed opinions on the soundtrack and changes to Persona 3's aesthetic, but I'm way into all of it. These are my favorite versions of familiar songs, I think the character portraits are a clear step up and I adore the hard lines segmenting areas of shading, I am 1,000% down with the water theming in the menus, and I think the new SEES uniforms are great and actually make the party feel like a well-backed force.

I also have nothing but praise for the new Not S. Links Reload adds, which provides the male members of SEES additional screentime for their individual stories to develop. I think this helps bond the player with each member of the core party even more than the original did, something that Persona 3's two sequels got right by giving each member their own dedicated Social Links. Strega and their ideology are also given a greater amount of time to develop, which helps build them as a credible threat and enhances their presence in the story. However, I must dock points for not being able to date Takaya, I can fix him

Reload might be me at my most defensive of remakes, and at my most insistent that changing material is not inherently bad. The few ways in which Reload does lack is still a noted step up from the original, and the content which is outright excluded is material I didn't care about anyway (I think The Answer is the closest any expanded content has come to essentially being an IGN "ending explained!" article, and unfathomably boring besides.) That said, I think it's possible to feel this way about Reload and still lament the fact that the original game is only accessible through piracy or by overpaying on the aftermarket, and that even more Persona 3 media is outright lost to time.

echo-commentary, cyberpunk platformer. really good, even if odd designed - very labyrinthine levels that may seem strange if you play this after 2 and "worse" when thinking about it on 3. turns out, though, that it is way better replaying it than playing for the first time - some levels that may seem gigantic, after recognition, you can finish them pretty quickly. the future/past mechanics are very well implemented, because it not only sustains the environmentalist message but also the levels has big linear spaces and loops for you to use or creates challenge where losing your momentum is losing the time-travel. love the bosses!! they are fast and smartly designed. the music rocks too!! really a sonic masterpiece and after replaying, thinking if it could be my new favorite . . .