nigga tht shit was scary as fuck oh my god who's adam though??? and why was his plane ticket in that shit.. and was jumbo josh tryin to help? I wonder if the playable guy in GoB2 is the same guy or if its a different guy... that bird was makin me shit myself bitch ughghghjbhkgnrkbjn im so glad there was only one monster walkin around :(

mr. shitty drone, youre the realest ik
uhh i liked the game,,,.., though..,,,,,
so,,, yeah. ill be playing the second one....

It is both refreshing and damning that the game had to relinquish most of its control in favour of the player in order for a pokemon game to have good pacing

On replay a few months down the line from release, with an all bug team for added challenge, I am kind of astonished just how much this game works for me in ways that the other entries in the series (which I have been playing since I was 10 years old) kinda dont. Part of it is the novelty certainly, I have replayed Fire Red, Platinum and Emerald far too much to enjoy them without some insane challenge run condition.

I am almost hesitant to admit how much I credit the enjoyment of this game to its transition to an open world format when this very trend has become fairly tiresome in contemporary videogames, ruining the appeal of previously strictly linear and tightly designed games in favour of a miopic "bigger = better" attitude.

But it really is the case here! And on replay I think I have realised why in ways that are quite damning to the franchise. First and foremost : praise be to whomever decided to make trainer battles optional. I hadnt realized just how much of my playthroughs of these games are slowly sapped of energy by the insistence of forcing you to fight boring, slow, uninteresting battles in sequence. There is nothing to them! Admittedly I think most fan games go too far in the opposite direction, making even early game teams be squads of 6 perfect IV mons with all sitrus berries to make everything even more drawn out. They do however at least recognize that there is a problem in need of fixing! And yes, I do know that pokemon is a childrens franchise but this isnt even a matter of difficulty really.

Another thing that the open world rid of random encounters in favour of overworld ones is just how much it enhances the core appeal of inhabiting a sort of monster safari, the interactions between pokemon and humans are admittedly underexplored but they make up for it in a sort of documentary naturalism that was lost in the originals for me. Its hard to explain why. But the inherent abstraction and separation of battle and gameworld in the previous games (I havent played gen 6 or much of 7) made it harder for that to really sink in, especially cause the way the games were built made me view the pokemon in wild areas as mostly purely mechanical i.e exp, items etc. This carries over a bit especially with the autobattle mechanics and associated grinding of pokemon loot drops for TMs (lets not even get in to the implications).

I'll give an example : in gen 5 there is a sewer the game forces you to go into for story progression, in it there are random encounters with zubats, grimers etc. What did I think about this when I played this section? Nothing, I was there for a checklist, grind exp, defeat a rocket grunt, maybe catch a good pokemon if it randomly appeared (this was not likely as stronger and rarer pokemon had low odds of appearing) and thats it, leave and never come back. Hell, I might buy some repels to minimize how many encounters I got.

Compare this to an experience I had in pokemon Violet when I was exploring at night after a team star raid and spotted bright spotlights in the distance, reminiscent of the lucky 38 in New Vegas. I traveled near it, catching pokemon along the way and battling 0 trainers. As I got near to the bright and bustling metropolis I spotted some items near the coastal outskirts of the city, which is seemingly partly built on a platform above the water level. There were a whole bunch of grimer everywhere! "Hmm, wow I guess the sheer amount of energy this city needs creates a bunch of pollution huh?" I thought. Thats the experience that pokemon SHOULD be all about, but imo has never been able to fully deliver.

The soundtrack is excellent and now seemingly the most glaring technical flaws have been ironed out (the game didnt crash, huzzah). On a second playthrough the story is a bit less interesting and still only good by pokemon's abysmal standards but other than the clunky team star storyline the rest of the game is convincing in this aspect. A note on rivals in pokemon : theyre all bad except for Nemona, I will not be accepting questions at this stage. Well, the first rival is okay in what he was meant to do, and N was a... good effort attempt? At what that story was trying to do but honestly I think Hugh is more compelling.

Anyways, see yall when the DLC drops, maybe.

[idiot guy standing up meme] "I think people are much too harsh on Team Chaotix Story (but genuinely)"

Its finally
Done
I've done it.. I did it, I completed the whole game and you know what? I LOVE this game, I love the little differences between team members such as Amy getting a glide and her tornado carrying instead of being stationary
or Espio's invisibility and ninja shuriken shit and staying on the wall infinitely

Or how slippery shadow is to the point where imo he feels like hes so unstable but hits top speed faster than the rest in a way that makes u want to master riding a bull

And sonic's circle dash(forgot the name of this ability oop!) being the best and controlling the most CONSISTENT i feel.

And many more ill assess later down the line but this game is fucking awesome & i am Not writing this review blindfolded or held hostage. Seaside Hill and Ocean Palace from a level design perspective are some of my favorite levels in the whole franchise and in video games as a whole
really ALL the zones have something interesting in them even if a couple are more annoying than others like railway canyon being kind of a bitch sometimes with the grind rail controls or the casino zone with making you get through the pinball stuff.. but biiiiiiiiiiiiiiitch i much rather prefer the rail grinding in this game compared to autorail shit in future installments and the hologram rails are SOOOOOO COOOOOOL and the music is so good(as per usual ikk ikk its a sonic game duh)
And the casino shit is ingrained in my fucking brain, the menu theme especially is the second time a sonic game's menu theme earwormed so hard into me its so SATISFYING TO HEARRRRRRRR AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

I'll get my composure together tho, lets get the obvious shit out of the way
this game is absolutely rushed and has some glitches that you wouldnt even see in either Sonic Adventure games even if you were TRYING to break the game
The fact that Team Rose has less content and even a baby tutorial at the start that detracts from how good Ocean Palace and Seaside Hill are

And the special stages, oh my fucking god the special stages when youre not playing as team rose

not only is it bad enough that if you get hit O N C E you lose the key to even see them in the first place, but every collission issue possible is on full display in those shits so much so that its honestly really funny they thought having mandatory team switch goalposts WITHIN those as if you wouldnt want to just do it with your speed character the whole time that you'd Expect to be good.
Though this is annoying as all fuck im only really addressing it as a general issue that could happen to people, *i just got all of the emeralds in team rose and didnt worry about it in other stories. Sometimes id go to the special stages just for fun though to see if i could wrestle it to my liking, pft.

And that's really a lot of this game as a whole at it's worst, sometimes youre genuinely dicking around with the controls trying to just enjoy your life and then some unforseen thing fucks you over
maybe you get stunlocked, maybe your momentum is gone from a jump you misconstrued, maybe the homing attack just decided to magnetize to a badnik instead of to the FuCKING... PULLEY YOU WERE TRYING TO HIT OR THE DUMB FATHERR FUCKING FLOWER THAT YOU WERE M A A AA Y B E TRYING TO LAND ON GOD FORBI-

See one thing Sonic Heroes achieves rlly well is trying to lay its cards down in the same manner as both adventure titles even if theyre shy of the same sort of pacing and emotional beats those games Can have or try to have, like this kind of premise works perfectly here with fighting eggman forces as oppose to sonic forces where you just blitz through majority of enemy encounters constantly
The energy orb system is so sick, destroying the egg fleets and all the special little new robots they made specifically just for this game is so gnarly
You could really tell they had a vision for this and yet!! It got fucked!!
I even think the game looks nice, really! I know a lot of people dont like these models compared to their predecessors and successors alike but I think its fun how everybody looks a bit more plasticlike
I love the differences in playthroughs but still having the same acts too because the changes are minute enough to still have me looking forward to seeing how they shake things up!! as i completed more n more stories i was able to deal with certain enemy types way better that annoyed me in other stories purely bc i was trying to rush and didnt really get them in specific :0 I think that Team Chaotix is also way easier than I thought originally, I dont know Why i was such a sourpuss several months ago when i first touched and shelved this shit, it rocks and they have Arguably the most interesting story of this selection in the first place because of how clear cut it is.
My play path was:
Rose -> Dark -> Chaotix -> Sonic
and believe it or not my rankings for enjoyment are Sonic, Chaotix, Dark and Rose
sometimes i feel like Chaotix and Dark are interchangeable though because i fucking LOVE team dark, three of my favorite characters in the whole series working together is so gnarly but Shadow's whole identity thing is tapered off even in the TRUE ENDING of the game.. even Omega's goal doesnt even get close to being acknowledged lmfao so its kind of like they had decently strong stakes that get sidelined
Atleast Shadow would eventually get his closure in Shadow The Hedgehog and even Sonic Battle puttin a neat little bow on it with a kiss, but?? Idkkk
Dark story's abundance with enemies also def made it harder but sometimes it was just "Can we GET THE FUCK ON WITH IT?" particularly with the bosses thatre just badnik gauntlets, definitely the most Fillery segments of the game id say

And they especially blow elephant asslard because of how if you fuckin die from the game hiccuping on you, or you get stunlocked or any other millionth thing, you gotta start it ALL FUCKIN OVER AGAINN HYAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY WOOOOOOOOOOO YEAYYYYEAYEAYYEAYAEYAEYY YIPPEEEE WOOOOO!!! like maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan fuck

Does this review seem like it's jerkin around and leaping and lunging from point to point a lot from any number of things within this game?? Well, YES! Does it seem like i could shit a brick house over this game??? Well, Y E S!!!!! But I still love it?
YES!!!!!!!!!!!!! I DO!!!

Im just very aware of it's issues in spite of how much I adore whats here, triple action platformer shit like this genuinely hasnt been done in such a specific way.. EEEEVERRRR??? like i dont know any indie game or anyone thats attempted something like this and refining shit or nothin. This has some of the best set pieces, songs and even levels in the entire series
it just also has some of the STRANGEST and most damning lows.. but it edges out above being mid to me because it blends everything together in a way that I still was able to have So Much Fucking Fun
i love the lightspeed dash and triangle jump and the cannons and ALL OF THESE CHARACTERS JUST B E I N G HERE AND GETTING TO INTERACT AND JUNK ITS CUTE!!
I love the twist leading up to who the final boss is too and how you can see fragments of that throughout the game

final thoughts: thundershoot is fucking busted i adore it, charmy solo's that egg fraudperor
i think amys writing in this and Battle r my least favorites in the series
did anyone else notice in the team chaotix level tht the capsules you destroy are.. eerily similar to the shadow android pods from shadow the hedgehog which would imply that team chaotix pretty much stopped even More from existing which couldve taken over and destroyed the world because eggman made them immune to things like homing attacks and other things.. (allegedly)
egg magician existing implies tht eggman isnt above the fact tht magic exists in his world unlike other stick-in-the-ass loser scientists in other forms of media with fantastical media powers and instead capitalizes on it and enhances his genius with it..
AND i used to be sour on this rouge design which is weird because it was my first introduction to the character, this whole game was my first introduction to the series on the PS2 back when I was 8 for fucks sake
But you cant call me nostalgia blind writin' dis shit because I never beat a single story, it was much too hard, hell even team dark i dont think i couldve ever beaten until now in my adult life
But against all odds, i did it all, i closed a chapter on my childhood and as an actual FAN of this series now with a lotta games under my belt
this is one of the best sonic games in the series to me, i love almost everything about this shit
I love* you sonic heroes
Even if after all this...i Think this game hates me