Oh, Sonic Adventure 2...

At first, the shift from hub worlds to linear storytelling was a change I had to get used to - the pace of doing levels back to back feels way different from walking around Station Square aimlessly to get to the next stage and I didn't like how it felt here. However, my stance changed about halfway through the HERO story (which I played first), and I began to appreciate the storytelling of the sequel over SA1, because you get the story (on your side atleast) told in chronological order without having to puzzle it together and you constantly switch characters, so it doesn't get boring. So on the HERO side you're already getting a full story about Sonic and his friends alone, but the villains are contextualized in the DARK story. Personally, I preferred the DARK story, it just felt like the more complete package overall and the cast is more interesting.

As for the gameplay, Adventure 2 brought some noticeable changes to the Treasure Hunt stages, put an extended focus on mech levels (which play similar to Gamma from SA1) and also changes the physics and controls a bit from the first game - nothing worse than no longer being able to overly rely on Sonic's spindash, as it's not overpowered anymore. You get used to it fast, but that was a death sentence in the first hours of playing! Concerning the Treasure Hunt stages... I'm not a fan of what they did to the radar, the beeping noise is even more obnoxious (and louder) than before and only having the shards show up in a set order is frustrating. However, sometime during Knuckles' final level it came to me that I've developed stockholm syndrome towards the Treasure Hunt gameplay and after reflecting and replaying the Knuckles stages again, I had a lot more fun with them than before. They're an acquired taste, a guilty pleasure.

You know what else is guilty of being TOO LOUD? The mech levels - just hold down the lock-on button and you'll get a free trial of tinnitus, all while you've got a full Michael Bay movie with thirteen different kinds of explosions going down in the background. Weapons Bed might actually be one of the loudest levels I have ever played in ANY game. It's not like the audio mixing was good to begin with, the volume of sound effects during regular gameplay is so comically overtuned and you might as well believe the conversations in cutscenes were recorded during a rave by how often the voices get drowned out by the music. But generally, the soundtrack of Adventure 2 really delivers. Favorite songs are Escape from the City, Live & Learn and E.G.G.M.A.N.

Not much more to say, except that I missed out on the Chao Garden in this playthrough entirely, just because I had no clue how to hatch the eggs. A shame, cause that's apparently a big aspect of the game - so I'll be sure to check it out sometime. What else, Shadow and Rogue are awesome and this game is a blast to play despite the issues. I'm considering bumping it up to five stars if the Chao part of the game turns out to be good. It's just chaotic and fun.

In which other game can you experience Tails using his special move of crashing the game twice after telling Eggman how powerful he is? I can't think of one.

As I stated in my Kazooie review, I replayed the game two times back in September of 2023. With Kazooie, that doesn't seem too crazy because it's about half the length of Tooie. However, I also replayed this game twice as well. And with it being twice as long, or maybe even longer for some people, as Kazooie? Seems a bit nuts right? Well, I really went Banjo crazy that month because after beating both games once, I couldn't stop thinking about them which led to me replaying them again right away. The thing is, that whole time I couldn't stop thinking about playing them again...I was thinking about Tooie pretty much. I don't know what happened to me because I went from thinking this game was just decent and definitely worse than Kazooie, to thinking it was amazing and super addicting and better than Kazooie overall. After replaying both games yet again, do I still think this? Probably, tho it's a bit complicated.

If you played Kazooie prior, the first thing you'll notice with Tooie is just how much Banjo and Kazooie's moveset has improved. The roll attack lasts longer, is more mobile and has a nice visual of Kazooie shielding Banjo. The normal attack you perform by standing still, which before was a simple claw move by Banjo, is now replaced by a more effective stationary rat-a-tat rap. The swimming is now WAY better naturally and doesn't require you to hold the R button for it to be good. In fact I don't think the R button does anything when swimming lol. You can now flip-flap directly out of a talon trot. When you do a beak buster, you can now move forward while you're doing rather than staying in place. This change can actually lead to some exploits you can perform too which is rad. These along with some non move-set changes like how whenever you speed up the text it makes the characters talk faster and doesn't pitch up their voices (which was an issue I had forgot to mention in Kazooie), the camera is slower but smoother to use and is overall an improvement, Banjo's backpack animates now when he walks and something about it is incredibly satisfying to me idk why, and the biggest thing is now notes don't get reset when you die (for a reason I'll get into later). All of these improvements drastically enhance the basic gameplay and I honestly miss a ton of these whenever I go back to Kazooie.

That's all fine and dandy, but how about new moves? Well, Tooie's got you covered because it's got like double the amount of moves in Kazooie. The biggest addition is the split-up mechanic. Now you can play as Banjo and Kazooie separately which makes for some clever puzzles. Each singular character gets their own specific moves and while Kazooie's are generally really fun, Banjo's are mostly situational. Kazooie's consist of moves that aren't as context-specific like the ability to glide on her own, her own backflip that's better than the normal one, and the ability to hatch eggs which gets used quite a bit. Banjo's however, besides the first one that lets him pick up and move objects which can lead to some fun puzzles, aren't used that much. He has an ability that let's him recover HP which is nice but only gets used a couple times overall and isn't as helpful as you think because lives aren't an issue anymore. I actually forgot to say they don't exist anymore and it's actually better to die sometimes because it respawns you at the last split-ip bad/beginning of the world which can work in your favor. But anyways, his other two abilities which let him go in dangerous liquids and the other let's him go in his backpack like a burlap sack to cross dangerous obstacles, just aren't used much and are incredibly situational. They all feel pretty samey too unlike Kazooie's, so overall I'd say Kazooie had the better new moves overall. This isn't even getting into all the new moves they both got together. There's 4 new egg types: Fire, Grenade, Ice and Clockwork. All have various uses and are fun additions. There are two new shoes, the claw clamber boots and the springy step shoes. The springy step shoes feel a little derivative because of the jump pads but they're still cool. The claw clamber boots however let you walk on designated parts of walls and it's awesome. There's the bill drill which is also kind of situational but is super satisfying to use. You can now fire eggs in first-person, which can be a little tricky at first with the N64 joystick but is also fun. Because of this, the game also added egg shooting in the air and water when going in first-person mode. The first-person shooting also leads into this FPS mode where you use Kazooie as a gun, certainly riding on the success of Goldeneye, and they can be super fun as well. All of these additions, plus the split-up stuff just really add to their whole move set and makes traversing through worlds a ton of fun.

Speaking of the worlds in this game, they're overall a lot bigger than Kazooie's. The first couple are kinda comparable in size to the first game's but by the time you get to Terrydactyland, they become just massive in size. You'd think this would be super annoying compared to Kazooie, but the game added warp pads that can warp you all over the level. These are the reason I never found the game tedious, if the game didn't have them or if they were awful like DK 64's warps, then the game would be way worse than it is. Anyways, the world's are much bigger in size and there's a lot more things you can do in each world. Though, overall there are less collectables because notes are now in bundles of 5 and 20. So overall the game has less of a focus on tons of collectables like the notes and more of a focus on the jiggys themselves. Jiggy's require way more steps than they did in Kazooie and this turns a lot of people off of the game. A bit understandable but the game is clearly trying to be more of a slower paced adventure platformer rather than Kazooie's brisk pace. I like both approaches but when it comes to Tooie's unique world themes like a run-down amusement park, a dinosaur world and a combined fire and ice world, I definitely prefer just how creative Tooie gets.

I mentioned how Jiggy's take longer to get because more steps are involved, and that's partly because of Mumbo Jumbo and Humba Wumba. In this game, Humba is the one that transforms you and Mumbo is actually a playable character. It greatly depends on the world but overall, I think this is a fun change. Mumbo has a very basic moveset compared to BK but his whole deal is using his magic on specific Mumbo pads. This is incredibly situational ofc and depending on the world it can be a bit tedious, but it can also lead to some interesting puzzles where you have to switch back and forth between BK and Mumbo. Same thing with Humba, sometimes you actually have to switch between Mumbo and then the Humba transformation. Mostly in the later levels do they make these portions kinda puzzling. In terms of everything new they added, this is probably the weakest addition just because it can lead to some tedium, I'll admit that, however I personally never had much of an issue with it tho I also have the whole game memorized at this point so take that as you will.

Besides all that, one of my absolute favorite additions was the fact a lot of the world's are interconnected. Early on, you'll help this mayan cat character out in recovering this idol. Well, you obtain it from this caveman in a weird looking cave and bring it back to him. That's strange though, you're in a world called Mayahem Temple and you just saw a caveman. What gives? Well it turns out, you just entered Terrydactyland when you did that, the aformentioned dinosaur world. This happens a lot in this game where you'll briefly cross over from one world into another or even unlock paths to directly travel between each one. The most memorable one is where you have to feed a different tribe of (good) cavemen this time, and to do so, you unlock a shortcut between Terrydactyland and WitchyWorld. You pick up some burgers from this one character, use the claw clamber boots you get from Grunty Industries and walk along the wall to feed them. All these working parts and interconnectivity just make the world feel alive and I love it.

I mentioned how you had to get the claw clamber boots from Grunty Industries, which is world 6, and use them for a jiggy in Terrydactyland which is world 5. Banjo Kazooie did this exact same thing only once, where you had to backtrack with an ability from another world. Tooie does this way more often and because of that and the interconnectivity of the world, it kind of feels like a 3D metroidvania at points which is awesome. Anyways, people seem to have an issue with backtracking in this game and I don't get it. The more complex jiggy's I understand, but the backtracking is not required as there's enough jiggy's in the game for you to beat the final boss. And even then, there really aren't that many backtracking jiggy's in general. Maybe like 12 or 13 of the 90 jiggy's require backtracking I think? Either way I think that complaint is majorly overblown and is not an issue at all to me, again the Mumbo and Humba stuff I can understand but backtracking to old levels with future abilities? Never even crossed my mind as an issue.

Something else this game added was a boss for every world and they're all really fun. Some are better than others, Lord Woo Fak Fak for example is probably the worst, but I really like how almost every single one of them are large in scope. They really feel menacing even if some of them are pathetically easy.

The game is also way funnier and a lot more cynical in general which I dig. Kazooie was both of these things as well but Tooie cranks it up to the max. The game literally starts off with Bottles dying and Kazooie going "well, he wasnt the most popular character anyways". The game is just full of this tongue-in cheese cynicism. The cast of side characters is not only WAY larger, they're more distinct and memorable just because the dialogue is so much better. There's literally an immigration joke when BK have to help some actual aliens, it's amazing. I think this, plus the interconnected worlds and more unique world themes, are THE main things I like over Kazooie. That plus the improved move set ofc.
The OST is again wondeful just like the first game, but instead of being upbeat, catchy tunes..Grant went for a more atmospheric darker ost this time around. Because worlds are much larger and take more time to beat, I think this change is for the better since the music track won't get old at all. Some of my favorite songs were Grunty Industries, Weldar's Theme and Mr Patch's Theme.

Yes I know two of those are from Grunty Industries. I honestly don't get the hate at all for that world. Something like Terrydactyland I can get, even if I still like it, because it's a massive world with empty space in a lot of it. However, Grunty Industries is a complex, zelda dungeon-like world and it's amazingly designed. I guess if you went into Tooie expecting it to just be like Kazooie, you'd hate it however it's very fun to explore and again super well-designed. It's not even that easy to get lost imo, it's a multi-layered world with distinct set-pieces rather than a super large open world. Sorry for the rant, I just don't get Grunty Industries hate lol. Something I did end up feeling a tiny bit sour on this time around was Hailfire Peaks. I still really like that world, and think the theming is awesome. However the fire side is a little too big for its bridges I will admit and the lag gets really bad sometimes there. The game can get laggy throughout portions of the game, which is only a thing on the N64 version, but there especially it's pretty bad.

One more thing before I mention the endgame and close out the review, is Canary Mary. Canary Mary has methods that make her very doable but she's still easily the worst part of the game and the only part I straight up dislike and dread doing. Her first button mashing races in Glittergulch Mine are perfectly fine. Her races in Cloud CuckooLand tho are insane. If you aren't doing the pause trick, idk how it's humenaly possible to win without using a turbo controller or something. The 2nd race isn't as bad because you can stay near her until the very end and then button mash to hell to pass her right before she can catch up. These races are easily doable with the right methods but the fact you have to do them this way, it just stinks man. But luckily this is only for 100% and only a tiny portion of the actual game so it's not the worst thing in the world.

I talked about a lot of improvements this game has over Kazooie. If there's one thing Kazooie destroys Tooie on however, it's the quiz section and final boss. Gone is the charming board game aesthetic of Kazooie, now you have a typical game show-esque quiz game where you have to answer enough questions to beat Grunty's sisters. It's not bad but it pales in comparison to Kazooie's version as it's less charming and even has less question types. Yeah, I won't miss the Gruntilda specific questions but no sound/music quizzes? That's kinda lame. Again, it's not bad and is only disappointing when compared to Kazooie. The final boss is also not nearly as good as Kazooie's. Is the Hag 1 harder? Most definitely but it's not as memorable as the Gruntilda fight from Kazooie and isn't as fun. It's a solid fight overall but compared to Kazooie's, just a bit lackluster.

So do I like Tooie more than Kazooie? In many ways, hell yes. It improves on many things like the duo's moveset, the writing is way funnier and the interconnectivity between worlds felt like a logical step to take after Kazooie. It may have the weaker end boss and quiz show, it's definitely and easier game to replay/100% and the Canary Mary rematch race is the worst thing between both games, however I'm still feeling like I may like this just slightly more than Kazooie just because of how ambitious and fun it is. It's kinda like Mario Galaxy 1 and 2 where each game has is own strengths over the other and it's just hard to choose what's better. Either way, it's still a 10/10 like the first game and one of my favorite games ever now. Easily in my top 3 N64 games, alongside the first game and Majora's Mask of course. Either way, if you see people saying you shouldn't play this game after you've beaten Kazooie. Don't listen to them, give this a try and you might fall become infatuated with it like I have.

This Banjo double feature was fun but I reckon it's time to play some Kirby again. Stay tuned for a Dreamland 2 review coming soon!

Back in September of 2023, I decided to replay both Banjo games to see how much I still liked them. It had been around 10 years since I had played Kazooie since then, and 4 years since I'd last played Tooie, so I was excited to dive into both games. Well, as it turns out, I loved replaying both so much I decided to replay them directly after. I very rarely do that, so I just knew I had to bump both games to a 10. Well, after my whole review purge, I decided to replay these once again and rereview them all over again. Only 7 months later after playing them both twice before, I'm a madman I know (haha you won't get this reference because those reviews are now deleted). Anyways, just like before...I had a blast replaying Kazooie and consider it one of the best N64 games ever.

The first thing I'll get into are the controls and Banjo-Kazooie's moveset in general. I honestly think this game controls masterfully, Banjo and Kazooie have such a varied move set that flows well with each of the levels. The talon trot is a must in every level as it let's you go through each area that much faster. With the c buttons, it's also really easy to remember how to perform it too. In fact, I haven't played the game on anything but the N64 itself, but idk how I'd feel about playing it on another controller just cuz I find the N64 controller fits it perfectly lol. Besides the talon trot, you also have a roll attack, rat-a-tat rap which is an aerial move, golden feathers which you can use to turn invincible as long as you have them, red feathers which you can use to fly (and the flight in this game is more satisfying than Mario 64), the beak bomb which is an attack you can use while flying and more. All of this you unlock gradually while playing and is all used plenty through-out the game. You also have two power-ups that let you either traverse unsafe ground (wading boots) and the speedy shoes which, as the name implies, let's you go fast. Even the swimming in this game is pretty nice once you know how to use it. I've seen some people say it's awful because it's so clunky. Which, if you're not holding the R button then yeah totally, but if you are it's very nice and smooth as you have a breast-stroke and a paddle you can perform depending on what you need.

The game itself is incredibly charming, both aesthetically and comically. The world's all look lovely and is just full of that N64 Rare ware charm. When playing through a world, you would be hard pressed to not see a pair of googily eyes on an enemy or even the items (when the item explanation first pops up) and for how lighthearted this game is, it very much fits. That's not to say the dialogue is all light-hearted. It's not as dark as Tooie obviously but they still put in a couple of dirty jokes hear and there. The dialogue itself, while not nearly as funny as Tooie imo, its witty enough especially Gruntilda's dialogue.

Going into Gruntilda and her lair in general, both are fantastic. The lair is a tightly designed hub world that is super memorable, not just because of it being compact in size and easy to traverse, but because the whole way through Grunty insults you and eggs you on. Kazooie has way less dialogue than Tooie, and Grunty herself I find more menacing in that game, but when it comes to her insulting rhymes...they're easily the most memorable pieces of dialogue in the game. Even on this most recent playthrough, I was still hearing rhymes I've never heard before. Really makes me wonder just how many there are in total lol.

When it comes to the worlds themselves, they are excellent tightly designed levels just like Grunty's lair was. Mumbo's Mountain is the worst one imo, and that's just because of how small it is...which makes a ton of sense because it's the first world. All the rest are very enjoyable, with some of my favorites being Freezezey Peak, Clanker's Cavern and Click Clock Wood. Now you might be saying to yourselves, Clankers Cavern? Yeah, idk why but it might've been my favorite world this time around. I honestly don't have an issue with the swimming portions, I love the track that plays in it and the dank grimey atmosphere I find wonderful (which makes sense because I love Tooie and it has a lot of that). It feels like one of the more unique world settings next to Rusty Bucket Bay. Speaking of Rusty Bucket Bay, it has the infamous engine room area and yeah that's still my least favorite part pf the game. It's not TOO bad if you do that part right away, but I still died like 5 times this playthrough. I also died to Click Clock Wood very stupidly, those two levels even now can still get me as they're easily the two hardest in the game. Going back to the engine room tho, the reason it's so hated is because it's the only world with an instant death pit. In the N64 version, instant death means you lose all your notes as the game tracks a total note score in this version rather than keeping your notes when you die like in the Xbox version. This is also a small gripe I have, but only in these last two levels because I pretty much never die in any of the earlier ones.

The music in this game was done by Grant Kirkhope and he's absolutely legendary. He has a very distinct bouncy style to his music and it absolutely fits here with how goofy this game is. My favorite tracks in the game would have to be Rusty Bucket Bay, Spiral Mountain, Clanker's Cavern, and The Final Battle. The entire soundtrack is wonderfully though, and I especially love Grant's use of dynamic music. His work on Banjo Kazooie and Tooie, and DK64 show he's a big fan of it and it's perfect in these types of games.

Once you beat every single world, and have obtained enough notes and jiggies to progress, you enter Grunty's Furnace Fun. This is basically a giant quiz show that puts your knowledge to the test. It's very goofy and fitting for the type of game Banjo Kazooie is. The questions consist of listening to the voice of a character or song of a level and guessing who/what it is, random trivia, playing a mini-game from the main levels or a Grunty question. The grunty questions consist of trivia about Grunty herself that you must know to answer. To find these out in-game, you must hunt down her sister Brentilda, who is hidden in specific areas of the lair. You might think, meh I'll just look the answers to these online. But they're randomized per playthrough so you simply cannot do that. Luckily, with the joker card which let's you skip 2 spaces on the board, you can bypass these if you weren't able to find Brentilda. Same with the instant death skull spaces which are usually just a basic trivia question, but still are very nerve-wracking. After you get to the end of the board, you get a hilarious joke where Grunty makes her escape by forcing credits on you. After that though, it's actually time to fight her.

Before you fight Grunty, depending on how many collectables you have gotten, you can unlock consumable refills and even double health. Once you've gotten what you need, it's time fight Gruntilda herself. The final battle may honestly be in my top 20 fights ever, it's super good. It tests you on many of your moves you've learned through out the game and it has a killer boss theme to boot (as you know with my favorite songs portion). The end of it is super satisfying too, with the Jinjonator being summoned to defeat her. If there's any one thing I love more than Tooie, it's this final boss and cutscene. The Hag-1 is a fine enough final boss for that game, but it pales in comparison to Kazooie's final fight.

All in all, I'm glad I replayed this once again as it's still amazing and still one of my favorite games ever. Back in September, I stated I might love Tooie even more for the things it improved on and its expanded worlds, and yeah I probably do in the end. However, Kazooie has its own strengths , some even over Tooie's and it's still a must play as an N64 fan. Next up though is Tooie, and I simply cannot wait to replay it so look forward to that review coming soon!!

Finished playing super metroid.
Another amazing game finished in 2024. Super metroid along with Castlevania symphony of the night are the most influential games for the metroidvania genre. So far this is my favourite metroid game and it definitely lives up to the hype.You play as Samus and you explore the planet zebes to find the stolen metroid creature. The progression and world design are without a doubt excellent, as you explore zebes you will find various power ups such as the gravity suit and the morph ball which will give you access to areas that weren't accessible before. The combat is simple but still very enjoyable and the graphics and soundtrack are awesome. Not knowing where to go and the backtracking are usually expected in a metroidvania but an issue i had with the game is that all boss fights are kinda meh, their not the worst boss fights ever but their really nothing special, they are ok at best. By the way am i the only person who had 0 issues with the controls? Anyways i would give super metroid a strong 9/10

The NieR of Sonic games...? What?

I never played a Sonic game before, but after reading Phantasm's review and having heard Wheatie advocate for this game for quite some while now, I decided to finally check out the series with Sonic Adventure - and I'm glad I did!

To make sense of the weird opening one-liner, Sonic Adventure is a game told through the eyes of six different characters - which means you need to play through the story six different times to fully understand what's going on. Each character comes with an unique gimmick and win condition, ranging from collecting Emerald Shards as Knuckles to catching a pet frog as Big the Cat. The narrative itself is nothing groundbreaking, it's fairly standard fare with Eggman trying to use an ancient evil named Chaos to destroy the local Station Square and rebuild it under his management. Chaos is an interesting villain though, since he functions basically the same as Resident Evil's Nemesis and you fight him several times with different characters in different power levels, as he grows in power each time he consumes a Chaos Emerald (you see, the name is as straightforward as it gets). As for the individual character stories themselves, you're free to approach them in any order you'd like, as long as you met the character in Sonic's story and the game will notify you when a new story is available. Only after completing all six story modes, you'll gain access to an epilogue and be able to fight the true final boss.

The levels themselves have some interesting mechanics, and they especially get to shine in Sonic's levels (as he's not a gimmicky character), I'll take the Lost World level as an example. While Knuckles can just crawl up the walls here with his moveset, Sonic has to rely on switches that allow him to walk on certain anti-gravity tiles on the wall or use mirrors to shine light on mirrors to illuminate a dark path. But it doesn't always have to be so complex, sometimes snowboarding down a giant mountain with an avalanche in the background is all you need. Even if I had a fun time with most of the levels, one of my biggest complaints is still the rebellious auto camera, which especially hates Sonic zooming through the zones at lightning speed and then jumps to some nonsensical angles, causing you to have no clue what's going on and miss your inputs. I'm not particularly mad at those camera shenanigans (would be lying if I told you it wasn't funny), but there are times where the jank goes from charming to annoying territory. Another thing I'd like to address is the strange progression sometimes outside of levels in the hub worlds. Thankfully there are red hint orbs in the game telling you where to go when you're feeling lost, but even then, sometimes the hints are so vague that I still found myself resorting to GameFAQs guides in order to locate where to head next. This would hardly be an issue on replays, but I couldn't find the raft for the life of me the first time I had to use it.

Sonic Adventure is a very ambitious game for the time it released and it's not only reflected in the level design, but also in the soundtrack, which covers a variety of musical genres and also uses higher quality instruments as opposed to a MIDI soundfont, which was possible thanks to the Dreamcast's advanced audio hardware. My favorite song is Amy's theme, My Sweet Passion, but I'm also particularly fond of Tikal's Theme and Mechanical Resonance. The Egg Carrier Theme needs a shoutout for itself, just for how catchy it is.

In the end, Sonic Adventure was a nice little departure from all the JRPGs I've played recently and I'm now eager to try the acclaimed Adventure 2 and other Sonic games in general - this includes the Steam version of Sonic Adventure DX, where I'm hoping to go for 100% when I get to it :D