Sonic Adventure 1 Review

I recently went on a nostalgia trip by experiencing the original version of Sonic Adventure for the first time, after only having played the DX version on the GameCube. Once I finished it, I decided to continue that nostalgia trip by going ahead and playing through the Dreamcast version of its sequel as well. I was quite fond of both games as a kid, but at some point, I got the idea in my head that the first Adventure was better than the second. After coming back to both games, I no longer believe that to be true. Both games have problems, but Sonic Adventure 2 is a far more consistent and polished experience. It definitely has some low points, but it’s still a solid improvement over its predecessor that trims a lot of its fat.

After Dr. Eggman looks into his family history, he discovers a top secret project that was worked on by his grandfather, Dr. Gerald Robotnik. He infiltrates a military base where this project was being stored and uncovers Shadow the Hedgehog: The Ultimate Lifeform. Shadow promises Eggman a wish and brings Eggman to the Space Colony ARK, where he shows off the Eclipse Canon, a weapon of mass destruction powered by the seven Chaos Emeralds. Meanwhile, the military mistakes Sonic for Shadow, and their forces set out to capture him, all the while completely unaware they’re chasing after the wrong hedgehog. Sonic, Tails and Knuckles once again band together to take down Eggman, Shadow, and the mysterious Rouge the Bat and clear Sonic’s name before Eggman and his allies manage to obtain all of the Chaos Emeralds and power up the Eclipse Canon.

Instead of each playable character having their own unique campaign to play through, the main story of Sonic Adventure 2 is told through two campaigns that each star three characters. There’s Hero, which stars the classic trio of Sonic, Tails and Knuckles, and Dark, which stars Dr. Eggman and newcomers Shadow the Hedgehog and Rouge the Bat. One character from each campaign share a different style of gameplay that comes from the first Adventure. This time around each character has their own unique stages, unlike in the previous game, where you generally played through chopped up versions of Sonic’s stages. For the most part, each character having their own unique stage is to Sonic Adventure 2’s benefit, and while some stages do have flaws that I’ll be getting into, at the very least this keeps the game from feeling as repetitive as Sonic Adventure did with its stages.

Sonic and Shadow’s stages feature the same speed focused platforming gameplay as Sonic’s stages from Adventure. They’re no longer composed of multiple sections, but the stages themselves are still comparable in length to the ones from the previous game. These stages are all fantastic, and once again, easily the best part of the game in general. They’re all laser focused on bringing out the best of these characters’ gameplay. I also had significantly less issues with the camera this time around, which was one of my biggest hang ups with the first Adventure. There were definitely still times where the camera would freak out or not cooperate, but not nearly as much as in the previous game.

Tails and Eggman’s gameplay is a more refined version of E-102 Gamma’s gameplay from the previous game. Tails and Eggman each pilot a small mech, and they run and gun throughout their stages with the same auto-homing shots as Gamma. This is where each character having their own unique stage really shines, as Tails and Eggman’s stages offer unique platforming challenges built around their moveset. Their stages are a lot longer compared to Gamma’s as well, giving a chance for their gameplay to actually breathe. My biggest complaint with Gamma’s gameplay and stages was that they all felt rather braindead. Since your projectiles automatically homed in on whatever you target, there wasn’t really anything stopping you from just targeting everything without any second thought. Tails and Eggman’s gameplay isn’t quite as trivial as Gamma’s was. While it’s still rather easy for the most part, there are actually a few enemies that require you to time your shots, as well as a couple of stages that will actually punish you for mindlessly targeting and shooting everything with environmental hazards that can cause you to take damage or die if you end up shooting them, which is a great way to force you to pay attention to what you’re shooting.

Finally, Knuckles and Rouge share Knuckles’ exploration-based gameplay from Adventure , where you search through stages for pieces of the Master Emerald. Unfortunately, despite also being given unique stages, Knuckles and Rouge’s gameplay isn’t a direct upgrade from Adventure, and it’s during their stages where a lot of my problems with the game stem from. For starters, the Emerald Radar, which is a tool that would beep at increasingly faster speeds the closer you get to an Emerald piece, was changed so that it only detects one Emerald piece at a time, whereas in Adventure, it could detect all three pieces at once. I have a theory about why this was done: Knuckles stages in Adventure tended to be rather small in terms of scale, and having the radar being able to detect all three Emerald pieces at once made it easy to find them rather quickly. In Adventure 2 however, all of Knuckles’ (and Rogue’s) stages are a lot larger compared to Knuckles’ stages in the previous game, so it makes hunting down the Emerald pieces one at a time take a lot longer. This problem gets worse with each subsequent stage, as they get larger and larger, coming to a head with the stages Meteor Herd and Mad Space, the final stages for Knuckles and Rouge respectively. These stages are so large that it can take up to 15 minutes to beat them if you’re unlucky with where the Emerald pieces are placed. Also, the one key difference between the Dreamcast version and the GameCube version of Sonic Adventure 2 that would make me recommend the latter over the former is that if Knuckles or Rouge walk or climb over a surface where an Emerald piece is buried, an exclamation point will appear above their head, letting you know that the piece is buried in that specific spot. This exclamation point doesn’t appear in the Dreamcast version, which made trying to find buried Emerald pieces a much bigger headache.

One aspect of Sonic Adventure that I completely forgot to talk about in my review for it was its various hub worlds that you need to travel through in-between stages. The main reason why I forgot to mention them was because of how little they really added to the game. They felt like they were just there for the sake of being there. They were rather small, they weren’t very interesting to explore, and there wasn’t much you could do in them besides just going into one of the characters’ levels or the Chao Garden. You could find some optional power ups for characters, which admittedly were kind of useful, but also weren’t necessary to finish the game and didn’t really enrich the experience that much further. As such, it’s no surprise that they were cut from Sonic Adventure 2, which was truly for the best. Instead, each campaign simply has one character’s stage follow another, and you can travel to the Chao Garden by finding a Chao Key item in a stage.

The story is a bit more straightforward and less ambitious than Sonic Adventure’s, but I think that was for the best, as it flows a lot better. It’s a Sonic game, so the writing isn’t some airtight masterwork of fiction, but it’s a decent enough story with some high stakes and thrilling moments. There are some aspects to the story that, even as a kid, I thought were questionable. In particular, the fact that anyone could confuse Sonic for Shadow and vice versa when they look nothing alike always confused me, even back then. Also Amy Rose appears as a non-playable character in the story, and her presence in general really confuses me. She frequently just… appears in locations with little to no explanation. It feels like she was meant to have a larger role in the game that got cut down heavily. The voice acting sounds a lot better this time around. Some characters do still sound a bit stiff like Tails and Rouge, but everyone else sounds like they have a lot more energy and are actually trying with their performances. Though Deem Bristow’s Eggman once again steals the show, I really gotta say, I feel like Ryan Drummond’s Sonic in particular has significantly improved. He sounds way more lively than before, and he does a better job capturing Sonic’s wit and attitude.

The music continues the Sonic series’ tradition of being fantastic. Something that I noticed during this playthrough is that each character has a specific type of music that plays during their stages. Sonic’s stages have fast paced punk rock tracks, Tails has upbeat rock that occasionally features some synthesizers, Knuckles has old school hip hop, Shadow features very bass heavy techno with distorted vocals, Eggman has heavy rock tracks that feature a lot of synthesizers, and Rouge has upbeat jazz tracks very reminiscent of spy films like the 007 movies, but with a lot of sensual sounding female background vocals. It’s a really excellent touch, and I very much dig how each stage’s song feels like it was tailored not just for the stage, but for the characters themselves. Some of my favorite tracks include Green Forest, Pumpkin Hill, White Jungle, and Cosmic Wall. (Yes I like City Escape too, I just thought claiming it as a favorite would be disingenuous and boring).

One of the game’s most notable issues is how truly awful its audio mixing and sound design is. Sound effects are deafeningly loud, in particular Tails and Eggman’s targeting laser as well as the Emerald Radar in Knuckles and Rouge’s stages. They both beep obnoxiously loudly. In stages where the Military are pursuing you like in Metal Harbor, Weapons Bed, or Mission Street, there will be this airplane engine sound effect that is also just so ridiculously loud it drowns out all of the other sounds and music that plays on the stage. Meanwhile the dialogue is too quiet, and characters frequently talk over each other. This can lead to some funny exchanges, such as during the cutscene where Sonic and Shadow battle one another on Prison Island, which for whatever reason has always tickled my funny bone even when I was little. The sound design doesn’t make the game unplayable by any means, but it’s very noticeable, jarring and annoying.

I was surprised to find that I still dig Sonic Adventure 2, at least more than I expected to after revisiting Sonic Adventure just before. There was a clear effort to improve upon Sonic Adventure, and I really respect that. I do think they did a rather decent job doing so for the most part. The Knuckles and Rouge stages are definitely a drag, the audio mixing is rather horrendous, and there are aspects of the story that can be a bit questionable, but the game as a whole still manages to be a pretty good time despite that, thanks to the excellent gameplay and level design of the other characters’ stages. At its best, Sonic Adventure 2 still manages to be hype even after all these years, and that’s not just the nostalgia talking.

I never know how to write shit about Mario Party cause like you generally know what the fuck you're getting into with these games. Like there's just not all that much to talk about with it. I do think this one has more than enough content to work towards that is more interesting in actual replayability, the star bank and being able to unlock a map, some more minigames and characters is nice, it's mainly why this was like my childhood MP.

I think the games are absolutely who ya play them with and the little moments ya share with them. So like before I played this with two of my besties (Appreciations and Weatherby) and had pretty great times.

Ya got shit like Bowser Jr hitting a like 3080 on the snowboarding minigame like the cheating little shit he is, us all clowning on Bowser Jr constantly, me losing at that one dogshit bumper car bump-o-rama battle minigame cause the controls are so so so ass, buying cheap wine and just laughing about stupid bullshit happening in game.

Mario Party ain't about Mario Party, it's about chilling with people and slamming back some cheap ass wine while the game itself fucks you over in the dumbest ways possible or clearly sets you up to just lose the entire game. Even if I never play this again I will always keep these memories pretty close to my heart as very special cherished times.

My continued vendetta against Bowser Jr grows stronger with each passing day. One day I'll get him back for stealing 5 of my stars that son of a bitch.

I'm REALLY not a fan of Pokemon games. Even the ones that people say are really good, I rarely think are all that great. When I started this game I was really not expecting to enjoy it. This is easily one of the most disliked Pokemon games for being kind of the start of Pokemon's downfall so I was really worried because I'm already not super into these games, however to my surprise I thought it was pretty good.

The usual issues with these games that I find are still present. The battle system is basic and it's upsetting that it hasn't changed much in the main series besides Legends Arkoos and that's easily the biggest problem to me. These games are very boring especially at the start and they really esculate all that much until the endgame. This game just might be the worst case of it. I already knew about how easy this game would be so I decided to do a blind nuzlocke instead and the difficulty was still an issue. Most fights just boil down to swapping to whichever Pokemon had the effective move then executing it. I played the game in very small bursts over the course of a few weeks so it never got stale but if I had been any faster it easily would have been an issue.

Another common complaint is the story. Normally I don't think it's fair to call a Pokemon game's plot bad since they're all basically the exact same, however I can see where these complaints come from. The story had a lot of potential. I think Lysandre was actually a really cool villain but he's bogged down by being related to Team Flare who is easily the lamest evil Pokemon team. AZ was also a character I thought could have been really interesting if they gave him more time but they don't until the very end of the game. The main complaint I hear about the plot is the 4 rivals being too friendly. That's not the issue. The issue is that they're underdeveloped.The genderswap rival had some characterization but nothing super interesting or compelling. The other 3 each representing a different element of Pokemon games from filling out the Pokedex or just appreciating the Pokemon themselves. I think if fleshed out these could have been really cool characters but of course they aren't. Thankfully I think the future gens fix this even if they don't focus on more important aspects (such as making the games good.) To put it plainly, Gen 6 had A LOT of potential in its story that they just didn't go through with.

My favorite thing about this game besides the new Pokemon added has the be the region itself. At first I wasn't really enjoying it. Standard grass route and the first forest is copy paste Viridian forest from Gen 1. I was willing to ignore this though because at the time I assumed it was just them riding off the fact that the game was 3D so making the routes look super unique wouldn't be a priority. I was SO wrong. Kalos just might be the prettiest region in a Pokemon game. The early routes start off generic but they soon turned into sights that I was genuinely left me in awe. (My favorite is definitely the Pokemon League because its just this fucking massive castle where the camera starts to pan out as you approach it.)

The Pokemon designs are really good here. Gen 6 definitely went for a quality over quantity and it definitely shows. Greninja, Pangoro, Malamar, Tyrantrum, Sylveon, Hawlucha, Goodra, and Noivern are my favorites. I also love the Mega designs. My opinion of Sceptile who is my favorite Pokemon would be much lower if not for his Mega.

I no longer have high expectations for Pokemon and I don't see myself playing any of the future games, however Pokemon X and Y nail the aspects of Pokemon that I care about. The Pokemon, region and music are amazing and while I do agree that it has its flaws I don't think its fair to act like this game is the only Pokemon game that has them. This game is cozy. That's why I like it. Not my favorite Pokemon game but they definitely had way worse ones.

The last time I had played Battle for Bikini Bottom (the original at least) was in 2019. According to my PS2 memory card, I had played this in 2010 prior to 2019. Back then, I never did 100% the game but I did beat it. 2019 though was the first time I 100%ed the game and I remember being so happy I finally did so since this was a game I liked a lot as a kid. I remember thinking it was great back then, but I wanted to see how I'd feel nowadays. While I don't think it's quite as good nowadays, it's still a really fun time overall.

I'd say the thing this game does best is replicating season 1-3 of SpongeBob. It doesn't always hit but when it does, this game is super funny and is basically just like those early seasons. There's a ton of callbacks to the show and references you'd only get if you've seen specific episodes. For a kid growing up on SpongeBob, this is basically like playing through a couple episodes of the show. Every voice actor from the show is here too, besides Mr. Krabs and Mermaid Man, and they don't half ass it. They bring their A game in every scene. However, going back to those two outliers, it's unfortunate they couldn't appear here. Mr. Krabs isn't too terrible, and the voice actor at least sounds like he's trying to replicate the character. Mermaid Man though is totally off and sounds pretty bad, I think. Even with those two being different tho, it's still super authentic to the show and a lot of fun seeing each scene be reminiscent of the show. The game also really replicates the world of SpongeBob well. The overworld of Bikini Bottom is done super well. You have all the main characters homes represented here. You have the Krusty Krab, the Chum Bucket. All the staple locations. The areas themselves also represent the show well. Rock Bottom, the Mermalair, Kelp Forest..even SpongeBob's Dream from that one season 1 episode appears. The characters, their dialogue and the world itself just perfectly represents the early seasons.

Getting into the gameplay itself, it's a collectathon and is basically mimicking a game like Mario 64 or Banjo Kazooie. While I don't think it's as good as either of those, for reasons I'll explain shortly, that type of game still works well in the SpongeBob universe. Instead of Stars or Jiggies, your main collectable in this game are golden spatulas. Thematically super fitting to the show, though I gotta say I never found them as satisfying to get as the aforementioned stars or jiggies. There's no jingle that plays, only a crowd cheering for the player (and SpongeBob's laugh if you're playing as him). It's just sort of a bummer since it never gave me a rush whenever I collected them like Mario 64 or Banjo did. Anyways, you collect these golden spatulas in each level alongside collecting any other assortment of collectables along the way. You have shiny objects which you get from tikis or the robots. These are used to spend on shiny object gates or to get golden spatulas from Mr. Krabs. Socks are a collectable that you can trade in to also get golden spatulas from Patrick. These are mostly easy to get but can be annoying in their placement depending on the stage. Some, mostly the first couple stage ones, require backtracking with abilities you get later on. This like barely happens at all though so if you're a Banjo Tooie hater, you might like this game. In fact, this game is maybe too linear for my liking. It's obviously no Tooie, but it's not even a Mario 64 or Kazooie in terms of its exploration. Very rarely will you travel off the beaten path to do a little side challenge but that's about it. I prefer the more open games I mentioned before for that reason, as it feels like you're being guided along a straight path most of the time. Still, what's here is mostly fun. The levels in general, besides being faithful to the show, are either pretty fun or harmless. The only two I didn't care for much were Mermalair and Kelp Forest. Both had songs that kinda got on my nerves and Kelp Forest is too dark a lot of the time and also has the worst slide in the game. My two favorite levels though, were Flying Dutchman's Graveyard and SpongeBob's Dream. I found neither annoying and they were both endgame levels so they were pretty fleshed out.

You can also play as both Patrick and Sandy, if you find a bus station in each level. They each have different abilities but basically, Patrick is strong and can throw heavy things while Sandy has a lasso she can glide with and can also swing from these lasso Texas things. Both characters change the gameplay up enough for it feel different and fun. Their move sets are simpler than SpongeBob's. His move set consists of a double jump, a bubble wand attack, a bubble butt stomp, a bubble helmet that shoots upwards, the bubble bowl which is a bowling ball you can throw to hit things and the cruise bubble which is this missile attack you can use to hit enemies or buttons from a far. Those last two abilities are ones you unlock as progress and I generally like the move set SpongeBob has. Only thing I wish he had was a movement ability. There's no long jump or talon trot here so he doesn't feel quite as fun to play as because of the lack of something like that.

Between each set of three levels, and also in some of the levels themselves, are the game's bosses. The bosses in the actual levels aren't that great imo but are fun references to the show at least. The main game's bosses you must defeat to proceed tho are actually pretty fun. They're more fleshed out and have cutscenes between phases. You also switch between characters between phases too, which again, changes up the gameplay somewhat. The final boss was definitely the best, it's a fun nod to SpongeBob's love for Karate and also to the anchor arm episode. But I also gotta give props to robot Patrick's fight. The atmosphere of the industrial park combined with the eerie music, always freaked me out a bit as a kid. Still does even now lol.

Speaking of the music, while I don't think it's that amazing overall, there are still some tracks I quite like. Jellyfish Fields is an upbeat classic, Industrial Park again is quite eerie but really good and the best track in the game is probably Flying Dutchman's Graveyard. That one just perfectly fits the level and also rocks on top of it. Like I said, there are some tracks I straight up don't like whether it's cuz the level annoyed me as a kid or I just don't like them in general, however the OST is still solid overall.

I will say, I never noticed how unpolished this game could be at times. Whether it's me clipping through a tiki that doesn't have hit detection, or the slide portions being really janky depending on how I jump, it's not as polished as thought it was back then. Still, this is super helpful to the speedrun community as the game has some well-known glitches and exploits that are actually super cool to see someone perform. I remember getting into these speedrun videos shortly before Rehydrated came out and being amazed I'm just now finding out about all them. Speaking of rehydrated, I'll just say one thing. Play this version, don't play Rehydrated for the love of god. It's so bad, the fucking warp boxes don't even animate.

One more thing I wanna mention before I end the review off, is the golden spatula warp feature. If you go into the menu, to the golden spatulas you've collected or have to collect still, you can take the taxi from the menu and warp to that location. Holy shit, this may be the best feature in this game. It's super convenient and frankly should be in more 3D Platformers lol.

This is a game I played as a kid and while I think it's not quite as good as once thought, and is not as good as Mario 64 (and definitely not as good as Banjo), it's still a fun time. It's not too long either so it's a game you can easily replay. Maybe I'd think lower of this game if I wasn't a SpongeBob fan or grew up with this, as it's just kind of an average 3D platformer, but it's still one of the best licensed games I've played because it represents the world of SpongeBob so well. Glad it holds up even to this day.

Just when you think "it can't get more complicated", this story will find a way to get more complicated.

Then Wake to Weep is a satisfying story finale for Penacony with some stunning setpieces - Dreamflux Reef is particularly pretty. It's about twice as long as the previous patch, but that's also because of the increasingly verbose explanations for everything related to the dream world, so if you're interested in all the additional worldbuilding, the storytelling of 2.2 might be right up your alley.

I wish Boothill would have gotten more screentime and relevance, considering the devs teased him playing a big role, but he's mostly a comic relief character here. Maybe he'll get his time to shine in the upcoming epilogue, since that should tie up some loose ends as well. With that out of the way, I still had a great time with the overall narrative and the twists and turns present in Then Wake to Weep, especially since a bunch of characters with overall less screentime in the previous two chapters got their spotlight here. The boss fight at the end was also a great way to wrap everything up and I loved the song that played during the final phase.

Despite some missed potential, it's a fitting end to Penacony with an interesting villain, and lured me in well enough to finish it within just a single day - but I can't say it sticks with me more than Aventurine's story in the previous patch, that one felt special.

Sonic 2 without the 2?

This one is quite a mixed bag. Definitely a One Step Forward Three Steps Back kinda deal when you compare it to the games that came out before.

Can’t believe they had the balls to put Tails on the Title Screen even though he is effectively nowhere to be seen. You even made these cute little pictures of the two buddies together before every zone and you don’t even get to play as him at all! I did get all the chaos emeralds and I was just met with the most awkward stare down from both of the characters at the end. Talk about unsatisfying, although at least the end credits were kinda nice.

Unfortunately the overworld map is gone so we don’t see how we get from place to place. To be honest the zone structure feels really off in general. Green Hills Zone (yes, Hills, not Hill) is the fourth level for some reason?? It is by far the easiest level so I don’t know why. The first level is underground with lava pits and some very cheery music. I’ve got no problem with trying to go against platformer tropes but this just doesn’t feel like an adventure; some very stock feeling level themes just kinda slapped together.

Speaking of the music, not only do I not really care for any of the tracks (Green Hills being the exception), but they mostly feel like they could be swapped around between each zone and no one would bat an eye. Tracks don’t convey any sense of the environment you’re in (unless the environment is you sitting down staring at an 8-bit game), and hence again, remove any feeling of adventure. This might sound like a harsh criticism but I can’t really forgive it since the previous entry actually did this very well.

Playing the Game Gear version immediately allows you a free pass to use save states wherever you please because when one of the chaos emeralds is quite literally off of the screen it becomes very clear that very little testing was done for this version. And you will be punished for it, because compared to 8-Bit Sonic 1, the challenge has definitely increased. Some of the levels feel a bit more open now with multiple routes. Unfortunately the quality just isn’t quite there…

To go into detail on some of the levels, as I said, mixed bag.
Green Hills has some nice fast sections, but act 3 has horrible blind spring jumps that took me way too many tries than was fun.
Gimmick Mountain (AWFUL NAME) actually uses those spinny things from 16-Bit Scrap Brain and implements them into the level pretty well! It has some challenging platforming sections with conveyors as well. This would probably be the best zone if the Game Gear screen wasn’t cucking me every single jump.
Turns out Aqua Lake (I instinctively typed Labyrinth for a second) was actually the first Zone to introduce putting Sonic inside a bubble and moving him around in a water based stage. I think this is a fun gimmick! Unfortunately the rest of the stage is hot garbage, and I like Labyrinth Zone, both 16-bit and 8-bit. Oh no I don’t like it in Sonic 4 who tf do you think I am you sicko. Anyway it’s a very boring water level outside of the bubbles, and it also looks really ugly.
Scrambled Egg Zone has to be my new least favourite Classic Sonic Zone, it’s just pick a path. Fuck you.
Crystal Egg Zone has to be my SECOND least favourite Classic Sonic Zone! It’s not difficult or bullshit but it’s horrendously ugly and completely nonsensical gameplay wise. This is what I grabbed the emeralds for?
Other gimmicks like the minecarts and hang gliders were alright. Couldn’t figure out the hang gliders really and they seemed pointless. The minecarts were fun to try and jump out at the right time, but this was only done like, two or three times.

Bosses! Again! Mixed. Bag. A couple fun ones and a couple really god awful shit ones! Silver Sonic was by far the best and Eggman was AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA WTF who tf why why why it's so bad. Starts off a little confusing and potentially challenging, but once you figure out how it works it just becomes a boring as heck waiting game. It’s also the only boss you’re likely to hear the smoke alarm segment of the boss theme. (I know this probably wasn’t made with headphones in mind but my goodness was that unpleasant to hear.)

To conclude, it’ssssss okay.. leaning towards bad really. Some good gimmicks, some underwhelming. Some good level design, some horrible. Some pretty levels, some ugly. Some fun bosses, some stupid bosses!
A mediocre time but it has its highlights... kinda.

Sonic the Hedgehog, 8-bit. I like it!

It’s not got much to it really. It’s by far inferior to it’s 16-bit counterpart, has almost no regard for designing sections around speed, and the Game Gear version has horrible slowdowns when more than a single entity is on the screen. Despite this it still feels like good classic Sonic to me somehow and is just a simple fun platformer with some cool level themes and a very charming soundtrack. (Who knew Yuzo Koshiro composed a Sonic game?)

One of the most charming things is the overworld map. A real effort was made to provide the player in-game some continuity between each zone and how the overall journey pans out across South Island. Something the 16-bit versions of Sonic 1 and 2 mostly didn’t try. You can actually see how we go from Jungle, to Labyrinth, to Scrap Brain, don’t just gotta take their word for it anymore.

Just like Dreamland 2, the first time I fully beat this game was in 2022, directly after Dreamland 2 actually. I first played this years ago when I got an SNES classic, and thought it was cool. But I'll come out and say it, I never really digged the whole multiple bite-sized campaigns in one shtick. I had a greater appreciation for this game, when I played it in 2022, due to some of the series staples it added. But even then, it wasn't one of my favorite Kirby games. How do I feel about the game now though? Basically, the same tbh. Though, when compared to every Kirby game that released prior to this, I'd say it's the clear best.

The biggest improvement, and this would be a Kirby staple once Return to Dreamland released, is the expanded move set. No longer do you only have a single move per copy ability. Now, depending on your directional inputs on the d-pad, you can use several different moves per copy ability. This is a fantastic addition, and probably my favorite aspect about this game, as it makes beating each level more fun. Both of the fire abilities that were in Adventure, are now in one and the one that would turn you into a fireball is your dash attack. Spark, which was a staple in Adventure and Dreamland 2, isn't even in this game and was basically replaced by Plasma (which is all around better because of the electric shield you can get). The copy abilities in general, are really good in this game. You have your series staples like sword, hammer and all that. But then you have new ones like Bomb, Mirror and Yo-Yo which are all really awesome. Compared to prior games, the amount of copy abilities in this game is massive and I think it even rivals some of the modern games. You can also, at anytime, turn whatever copy ability you have into a little NPC helper. This was a fun addition and let's you play the game with two players? I actually never tried it out myself, but I assume you can do that and not have the multiplier be regulated to the minigames.

I am a Dreamland 3 fan, and while I prefer how that game looks visually, Superstar still looks really good for an SNES game. The game is full of that Kirby personality, whether it's with Kirby himself or the enemies he faces. The animations on some of the enemies in this game are just really expressive, and that includes the bosses as well. They're all very charming, especially the computer virus boss, that one is very witty. Some bosses are better than others (I really hate fatty whale) but most of them are pretty fun..especially with the expanded move set.

Now for the meat and potatoes of this game, the game modes. This is the part of the game I'm not much of a fan of. The game consists of 9 modes in all. 4 of them are normal Kirby campaigns, 3 of them are short minigames, 1 is a weird campaign that is more akin to a Metroid game and the last is a boss rush basically. They're all mostly fun in their own right, I just much prefer a more focused, full sized campaign since even with the longer modes here, they just don't stick in my mind as much. I'll delve into each mode though and explain my feelings on every one of them.

Megaton Punch is a short, button timing mini-game where you must see who creates the biggest crack on Popstar. It's very short and humorous to watch, but there's not much to it. Samurai Kirby is basically a remake of the one western minigame from Kirby's Adventure, and it's even more simple to play. You just press the A button faster than your opponent but I swear I just can't do it, even on the easiest difficulty. I always lose to Meta-Knight at the end. It's alright but I prefer Megaton Punch. The last mini-game is Gourmet Race. I won't get into the staple song just yet, but know it's my favorite of the three minigames because of its music and because its fun to race Dedede (and to see his reactions to you winning).

As for the normal campaigns, the first one is Spring Breeze. Not much to say here, it's the shortest of the four and is basically just a remake of Dreamland 1. It's actually even shorter than that game since it lacks the reused portions of levels before Dedede. Dedede is also super easy in this version compared to Dreamland 1. Dynablade is a little longer than Spring Breeze, but not by much. Also don't really have much to say here either, it's a pretty uneventful set of Kirby levels. Revenge of the Meta Knight is a lot longer than the previous two campaigns, or at least it felt like it was. It has Kirby trying to stop Meta Knight and his crew. The level takes place, mostly, in his ship as you destroy it. It also has the most dialogue in the game, because of his crew members, and it's very charming because of them. This felt like the most unique of the normal campaigns and it was definitely my favorite next to the final one. The final one, Milky Way Wishes, has Kirby trying to stop the sun and moon from fighting, which Kirby must make a wish using Nova (this cat face clock thing) because this fella Marx told him to. In the end of the adventure though, Marx dupes you and takes the wish for himself and you have to fight him. This one probably has the most stakes out of any campaign and Marx has a really cool design. I also really liked the space theme and I really really liked the copy ability mechanic. Basically, you can only get copy abilities from these pedestals hidden throughout the world, but once you do you keep the ability forever and can freely switch between any you've gathered at anytime. Thinking about it then, this is probably my favorite mode in the game..it would've been really cool to see this one fleshed out even more though since it still isn't very long.

As for the other two modes, The Great Cave Offensive is different from the other modes. It acts as sort of a metroidvania, where the goal is to explore each section of the game for treasure. You can backtrack freely which is unusual for a Kirby game and is why this one feels different from the other 4 campaigns. It's fun but getting every treasure can be a pain, and pretty much all of the bosses (which you would first see here) get reused in the later campaigns. The last mode, which you unlock from beating every other one, is the arena. This is the boss rush I mentioned earlier, and it's a staple in like all of the modern Kirby mainline games. I actually didn't beat it this time, I gave it like 10 go's, but I did beat it back in 2022. The copy ability you want to use is definitely hammer as it does the most damage. The arena is usually the hardest part of the modern Kirby games and that's no different here, as you have to defeat every boss in the game with only 5 Maxim tomatoes for all of them. It's not totally my thing but it's a decent inclusion nonetheless.

The OST is good, as most Kirby games are, and the standout of course is Gourmet Race. It's one of the most well known Kirby songs for a reason (besides becoming big because of Smash) and yeah it's pretty awesome. The rest of the OST is good too, but this was my favorite new song, as this game continues the trend of remixing a lot of older Kirby songs.

I'm not crazy about this game like some other Kirby fans are, due to the multiple campaigns, but I can't deny it added some great series staples like the expanded move sets and the arena. While not in my personal top 5, at this point in the series this is definitely the best Kirby game thus far. Fun time overall!