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game was alright

Having already played these games, I guess I'll just give my thoughts on this "second trilogy" as a whole.

I really do think I have a higher opinion of Dual Destinies and Spirit of Justice than a lot of longtime fans do. Don't get me wrong, there's stuff about those games that I didn't like and wish had been done better, but I'm of the opinion that even the worst Ace Attorney game is still really good. I will say, AA4 is easily the strongest here, followed by 6 and then 5. Without giving much away though, 6 may have the strongest ending in the entire series, so it's worth playing through just for that. I hope this collection is successful and we get more new AA games soon.

Got all 121 main stars with my friends in one night with SM64EX Co-op. What an experience. As a casual who's only beaten 64 once this difficulty is really something else, it put all my Mario 64 movement knowledge to the test with some of the craziest platforming challenges I've ever seen. Would never have been able to 100% without my friends there, the later levels get extremely demanding with constant difficult platforming. While nowhere near kaizo requirements you definitely need to be prepared for a challenge greater than the original 64.

Really disappointed with this 2011 Sonic the Hedgehog ROM hack starring Metal Sonic and uhhh, Somari. I guess buying ROM hacks on cart was bound to blow up in my face at some point -- or in the case of Metal Sonic Hyperdrive, send me flying straight towards the ceiling where I will surely get brained.

The opening two levels, Robotic Isle and Botanic Lake, are pretty solid. Platforming feels great, the sense of speed is satisfying, and these levels do a good job at providing multiple routes through with enough secrets strewn about to encourage exploration. I could do without the Master System/Game Gear Sonic the Hedgehog style emerald collecting, but once you have the route down to each emerald, they're not too hard to grab. So far so good.

However, about three levels in and it becomes apparent that developer Lone Devil could use a lot of work with enemy and hazard placement. They might know how to craft a set piece, but spike pits litter every zone and punish poor reflexes. Enemies are precisely placed to be as annoying as possible, and the amount of crushing traps is insane. You'll frequently need to use raising platforms to progress, but 90% of these are designed to crush you if you don't jump off a split second before they reach the top. For some reason, this stops being the case around the final level, but by this point I had gone through such intense Pavlovian conditioning that I was panic jumping off platforms and needing to backtrack to respawn them. Better safe than sorry, I guess.

I'm good at Sonic games, this is one of the few things I can confidently claim about myself, because instead of trying to form meaningful social bonds or invest time into finding a worthwhile career, I decided to play Sonic the Hedgehog 2 fifteen-hundred million times, but I actually did manage to get a couple game overs in Metal Sonic Hyperdrive, albeit fairly late in the game (arguably more irritating.) Eventually, I decided to look up a level select code, except the folks over at Sonic Retro wanted to pull some real cutesy shit and give the hint that it's "the North American release date for Sonic CD." Wow great, one problem, the sound select doesn't go to 93. I tried all kinds of combinations but it turns out you need to break apart each number, so for anyone searching for the cheat code to access level select in Metal Sonic Hyperdrive, I've got your back: 01 01 01 09 01 09 09 03

There's also a "Master Quest" mode which can be activated from the options menu. This remixes the game in some pretty substantive ways, and I honestly found the levels to flow a bit better in this mode despite it obviously being for players who have completed the main game. I think this is perhaps an indication that Lone Devil got better at designing levels over time, but they're still full of cheap crap. It does at least make me more hopeful for Metal Sonic Rebooted, which does appear more polished at a glance. In any case, making a ROM hack, remixing it, and then providing both in the same ROM is commendable, so those who do click with Hyperdrive have plenty of game to chew on.

By the end of the day, you don't need to pay anything to play a ROM hack, unless you're some kind of weirdo actively collecting these things on cart to fill the physical space around him to the extent that he'll one day be found dead under a pile of bootlegs. It's easy to go "yeah this is unnecessarily difficult, doesn't flow well" and just shut it off, so it might be worth checking out to see if you gel with it more than I do. I, meanwhile, will put it back on my shelf, pour myself a nice cold NOS, and seriously ask myself what the hell I'm doing with my life.

Addendum: I am awarding .5 stars for using a 16-bit remix of Smile Bomb as the title theme. If you put Smile Bomb in your game I am obligated to give you at least .5 stars more than I ordinarily would.