2016 - Year of Sonic - Year in review

Usual caveats and ranking and caveats to ranking apply. All of this is subjective, these are my reviews, if you think as I do you'll agree. But you don't, so here's how the system generally breaks down;

A - A game I would recommend to people who don't like a genre, something good enough for people generally against it to try. These are the games I think you should definitely look into. This isn't a ranking like "10/10" or "four and a half stars, delivered pizza to my house, performed sexual favors and then changed the oil on my car", this is evaluating games subjectively, from my perspective, who I'd recommend them to. Which is the point of reviewing, to me, anyway.

And these are the games where I'd say "More than the usual". Mind you, I don't mean you should move hard outside you genre just to force yourself to try them. If you hate shooters, it's unlikely an A-rank game is going to redefine how you look at them. Look for them on sale and the like. These are games in X genre that appeal to people who don't usually like X genre.

B - Being games are excellent examples of their genre, but don't stand outside their genre. You have to be interested, at least a little, in playing this sort of game. They have to be your jam.  That's not to say a B rank game is necessarily more or less fun than an A rank game, as frankly, I had the most fun with a B rank game this year. This is more that it tends to be a little more bogged down in genre conventions and you need to be keen on how it works.

C - Games that you need to want to play the genre to want to play. Essentially, if B rank games are games where if you like ARPGs you'll like them, C rank games are ones where you need to be in the mood for the genre to like them. If you're not feeling it, well, you probably won't feel it.

D - Games I feel personally won't appeal to most people even within those that like the genre. That's not to say D rank games are all unplayable, or even that they're all garbage. Just that I'm not sure even if you were in the mood you'd be up for these.

E - Games I never finish reviewing, so they don't go on this list. There's about 10-20 games a year that fall into this category.

Also, this is a listing of games I reviewed this year, very few of which are ever actually from a given year. This is a guide to going through Steam sales and picking out stuff you might have missed at a low price, not a guide to the latest and greatest. I'm not even suggesting you buy these games this year.

I generally tend to lean toward lowering the ranking of games that are more difficult. As I said, this is about recommending games, and "difficult" is something of a subgenre. I've never met a "tuned to be difficult game" I would actually say I would recommend to anyone to pick up and try. There's lots of good ones, but the harder you tune a game, the less people who can play it and enjoy it.

The Gap: There's a four month gap in my reviews this year, which often happens around March, but went kinda wild this time. Basically, I played Serious Sam 3 - which I hated - Arkelash Legacy - which was disappointing - and spent like fifty hours dicking around with Skyrim but never actually finished it. Also Phantasy Star 2, which I think I eventually reviewed but who cares.

Retro reviews: Phantasy Star II

Phantasy Star 2 was released in the odd period between the NES and SNES, where it felt like developers really weren't tapping the power of the Genesis at all. The original Final Fantasy is its immediate FF neighbor in the West, and while Phantasy Star 2 is visually more enticing than that, it is so much worse looking than FFIV. It's funny how these games are divided by years, but as a teenager, it never really connected how big the gaps in development were. Graphical quality was increasing in huge jumps, as both the technical development improved and the sprite art improved as well.

Actually it's kinda funny how people in the modern day have zero concept of the gaps between game releases. I read some complaint about how Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle (which is bad, don't get me wrong) made a guy "thankful" he had a SNES as a child. Alex Kidd predates the SNES by like, a year or something. You weren't playing Alex Kidd when the SNES was available, unless you rented it, at which point you were renting an old goofy Genesis game.

In spite of the fact I owned a Sega Genesis - a generation 1 model, in fact, bought almost on the day of release in North America- I never finished PS2. The game was rather unpleasant in terms of difficulty curve, as it never really became super obvious as a small child that 90% of RPG difficulty
could be mitigated with grinding and just drawing maps. The game is already far enough back that my only memory is getting the first new party member, and how awesome the box art is. It also seems to have nothing to do with anything, but hey, whatever. That art owns.

I really miss the era of non-anime box art for western releases of Japanese games. It went away sooner than later, but that is some trippy shit instead of the cool but kinda plain Japanese release art. Stuff like this dying out reminds me why I hate weebs.

RPGs on the SNES and Genesis were more expensive than their less memory equipped cartridge compatriots, owing to the necessity of adding additional physical media within their plastic prisons - the so-called 'battery backup' that actually really was. (I've read some games, however, had flash memory instead) As such, PS2 - and many of its ilk - weren't games my friends and I bought when I was young enough that this game was new, but rented. It's such a weird thing, remember how you'd basically "borrow" these games from a store and you'd often be praying weekend to weekend - or weeks apart - that someone didn't send your saved game off to oblivion.

Top Seven Zones I'd like to see remixed in Sonic Mania

I just can't stop talking about Sonic these days. I recently watched a video that presented the youtuber's personal picks for the top seven they'd like to see. It's a good video, feel free to watch it before I go over my picks.

And now, I use the break function, because reasons

Sonic Mania May 31st CE

Argh my wallet blargh get hype LOOK AT THAT GORGEOUS BOX got hype

why couldn't I stop myself from buying this

IT NEVER ENDS

Summer of Sonic: Wrap-Up

Tables of Contents for the Summer of Sonic;

Sonic the Hedgehog

Sonic 2

Sonic 3 & Knuckles

Sonic CD

Sonic 4 E1

Sonic Heroes

Sonic Adventure 2

Sonic ATS

Sonic Lost World

Sonic 4 E2

Sonic Generations

Unleashed + Dolphin Colors

After the break are a couple closing statements and thoughts on the series, good and bad, as well as my favorite Sonic game and so forth. And yes that table of images looks even worse on my end. I have no idea why blogger hates me so. Sorry. It also won't let me set them up in chronological order.

Summer of Sonic (9): Sonic Lost World

I kinda wish the title of the game was Sonic's Lost World, and not the usual colon that poops all over like every game title forever. I guess they didn't, but it doesn't read like it doesn't, you know?

Anyway, big preface, big warning, big point: I haven't played Super Mario Galaxy. I'm told Sonic Lost World, hereby SLW, is either a giant rip-off or a homage or takes 'some ideas' or who knows what from SMG. I haven't played it, I don't know, I can't make much of a comparison. I think that's pretty important, but I'm bogged in a backlog, especially after doing so many extra Sonic games this "summer" (he writes as he publishes this in September, but hey, it's still routinely thirty degrees out) and I guess you'll forgive the lack of research.

So this is a review of SLW as an ending to playing through 20+ years of Sonic games, not as whatever game it is replicating or referencing or whatever else. This is the most recent full Sonic game produced by Sonic team; until next year's holiday "Sonic 2017 project not yet named" or whatever we're supposed to call it.

a golden shower of fun

I never understand why branding is so lazy with video games. The name of a game should always be catchy, right from the get-go. First bit of copy should have a name, a logo, and shit for people to get hype about. Sonic Mania is catchy, go with something like that. People are hyped for Sonic Mania. I am buying a Sonic Mania t-shirt as we speak! (why?) Instead the upcoming project just doesn't have a real name? Sonic Lost World is catchy, on that note.

A bit more catchy than the game itself is...

This is the final review in the Summer of Sonic! The previous review is here, and the wrap-up is here.

Summer of Sonic (8): Sonic 4 Episode 2

I didn't really follow Sonic news, as I implied in the Generations review, for most of my and Sonic's lifetime. I've always had a soft spot for Sonic, and I've always admired Sega for staying vaguely relevant in the face of adversity. Sonic has had lots of average or below average games, and some truly legendary stinkers, but Sega just keeps coming back. And sometimes completely awesome happens, like Generations.

Writing about Sonic 4 starts to shift from being a target worthy of ire to feeling like you're bagging on someone who is just trying to keep their head up. I wonder about its development, who the team was, what kind of budget they were given. Sonic 2006 is legendary for being a hot pressed bad game sandwich, but the story of its development tells you exactly what they were making. Cutting a team for a AAA release after making grandiose claims and shortening its deadline. It's amazing the game is functional on a basic level, let alone the scope it is. It's a mansion of content, except they gave the builders half the time and half the team to do it. I doubt a house under those circumstances would even stand, let alone something you could walk around in, albeit at the price of being hurled off a cliff every couple minutes.

Tails has my expression

Rather than bagging on Sonic 4 Episode 2 with the same zest and zeal as I did the previous review, let's take a step back and discuss the other onus of Sonic frustration, outside of mixed resource development issues. Let's talk a little about Goes Fast and how Sonic as a franchise is perpetually stuck on a spectrum of problems.

Previous review in the Summer of Sonic is here. Next review, is here.

Summer of Sonic (7.5): Sonic Generations Unleashed mod + Dolphin style Sonic Colours

Modding and emulation have been facets of the computer gaming world going back as far as I can recall. I can remember emulating the original Pokemon and playing modded levels of Doom at least two decades past, and I'm sure they existed long before that. But with the advent of the internet, also like two decades past, they crystallized into something even more pervasive. Through the wonders of these tools, it is possible to play Sonic Colours on PC, and through the 3D levels of Sonic Unleashed modded into Sonic Generations, so also on PC.

I'm going to preface this with the statement that in both cases - the GMI driven Unleashed mod and running Sonic Colours through Dolphin - I have both an uneasy feeling about blatant if benign piracy and a lack of willingness to really tinker under the hood to optimize the experience. Playing both of these games, or rather a mod and a game, has much less to do with coming to a fair evaluation of the individual game and more to sort of acknowledge the Sonic cycle.

I had to talk about the Sonic Cycle somewhere in here, and I feel like we're at the point where we can address it, given we just passed by what is subjectively - and maybe objectively, I don't know - the best Sonic game in recent years until mania strikes next year. I also sort of hoped to do it away from the depressing horror show that is Sonic 4 Episode 2, which is coming up next, unfortunately.

This is review 7.5 of 9 reviews in The Summer of Sonic! We're almost done. The previous review is here and the next review is here.

Summer of Sonic (7): Sonic Generations

If you're going to launch a title that hopes to cash in on legacy and nostalgia, Sega has essentially built a road map to do it, and how not to do it. But we've yelled about Sonic 4 Episode 1 enough, at least until Sonic 4 Episode 2 comes up and it is coming up fast. No, bae, it's Generations time.

And it's about time. Also, it's about time.

Sonic Generations has a lot of unique elements for me, first and foremost I don't think I played a non-early era Sonic game for the entire period between the release of S3&K and Generations. I watched someone play Sonic Adventure and thought that isn't for me and wrote the entire franchise off. Took it outside and buried it in the sidelot. I might have played Rush, but that's not a main console release.

Except I played Sonic 4, Episode 1, back then. And I thought - I'm not kidding here - that I'd downloaded some sort of knock off game.

I had no experience with Sonic in 3D up until I fired up Sonic Generations, and I glumly fired it up, resigning myself to being forced to play Sonic in 3D, which I'd heard so many horror stories about. I mean, I've seen the Sonic R video Jontron did. I'd read about Sonic 2006, a game so bad it still stands the test of time as bad. Sonic in 3D was a place I didn't want to go, but the promise of Sonic in 2D made to the old timey standard instead of whatever nightmare alternate reality had...

Look, I promise, no more Sonic 4. That's back here, and after this review, we have a bonus review here and the next review will be here. The next review is more Sonic 4.

Summer of Sonic (6): Sonic 4 Episode 1

To go back to a point I started to make in the previous review and then stopped, let's talk about how I'm dividing up the eras of Sonic games. I'm of the general belief that paradigms shift in a gradual way that does not become obvious when looking for extreme granularity. Sonic, in my mind has three eras, but trying to define the when and where of those eras is tricky. To put in very evident signposts, very clearly: Sonic 1 is early era, Sonic Adventure is middle era, Sonic Unleashed is modern era.

Actually defining where the early era ends is the most difficult: Simply put, the pixel based Genesis/Mega Drive, Game Gear, SMS games are all very evidently early era. But Sonic gradually went into weird places, and while the Dreamcast is the middle era, the exact points around it I don't know.

The modern era, as I said elsewhere, lies with Sonic Unleashed. Everything I've read has stated that Unleashed is where they nailed down the 3d and got it working in a way used in Colours and Generations, and that's where I imagine it is going to stay. At least for the games Sonic Team's repulsive inability to stick to a working model doesn't rear its head.

It's very true, however, having played Sonic Adventure 2 (and hating it, yes) that Sonic's 3D begins all the way back there in some capacity. You can feel the outlines of the new ideas taking shape, but it's not there yet, and that's why I'm defining it like that. The middle era is when Sonic didn't "get" 3D, but it's still Sonic, I guess. Sonic Heroes was better about this, but it's still not quite Generations.

Meanwhile, Sonic actually has quite a few 2D games. Rush, Advance, so on and so forth. Many of these were developed by DIMPS, and while I don't personally like the DIMPS games, they went to them for the atavistic throwback that is Sonic 4 Episode 1, a modern era game desperately trying to be an early era game.

The results are... Interesting...

Sonic 4 Episode 1 is the sixth of nine games in the Summer of Sonic! The previous main entry is here, while the next bonus entry is here while the next main entry is here. Those two won't be up open initial posting, but that's just how this works.

Summer of Sonic (5.5): Sonic Heroes

Super Bunnyhop also did a video on "the first levels" of Sonic games, and one of the ones he said he quite liked was the opening to Sonic Heroes. After a bit of digging, I realized this game had a PC port, but for whatever odd reason was never ported to Steam. I assumed that it wouldn't work out of the box, wouldn't install, and if nothing else wouldn't work with Windows 10. That would explain why it wasn't on Steam.

I was wrong.

Well, I was sort of wrong.

Out of the box it did in fact install and does in fact work with Windows 10. It starts up, the game loads - albeit sluggishly initially - and then I began the tutorial. At first I thought "this looks at a little better than SA2, but the camera is bad" and then I thought "uh the camera is really bad, what is going on" and then I realized: the camera spins incessantly and builds speed until it begins shearing through the earth.

I want to point out that the SA2 camera is so bad it took me a while playing the next game to realize the camera was bugging out. That's not to say that Sonic Heroes camera is a dramatic improvement, just that SA2 soured me so much I was surprised at something working improperly.

Luckily, the apparent fix is to plug in an Xbox 360 controller - which took me a day to dig out, but whatever - and replace the Xbox One controller with it. I've got to admit I'm not exactly pleased to be using the 360 controller, given it just feels worse, but it's a great deal more functional than the camera spinning incessantly. I assumed if the game was a complete dumpster fire I'd just put it right down.

I mean I also assumed it was going to be a complete dumpster fire. Middle era Sonic! Dumpster fire! Right into the trash with you, hedgehog!

This is review five and a half out of nine (But how many halves!?) of the Summer of Sonic review set. Review five is here while review six, which will be up sooner than later, is here.

Summer of Sonic (5): Sonic Adventure 2

I'm unwilling to spend too much time in the middle era of Sonic da Hedgehog, but there's not that many middle era games in the bundle anyway. For my purposes, I'm labeling "middle era" as everything after the Genesis/CD/32x games but before Sonic Unleashed, though there's probably some mobile games or something that don't sort evenly. The division here is that, from what I've read, Sonic Unleashed is where they actually "got" 3D even though it also has a werehog for some blighted reason.

Think of the middle age as the awkward teenage years of Sonic and you'll probably be able to visualize where it begins and ends. I would actually not mind giving Sonic Heroes a try, since it sounds bizarre, but that game isn't on Steam even though it apparently had a PC release? And no, I am not going to pay money to buy a physical media of a PC port of Sonic Heroes. Especially since I'm out of devices that I can install CDs or DVDs onto.

You ever looked at the number of Dreamcasts sold? It is pretty grim. I mean, it sold a little less than where the Xbox One is at now. Less than the Xbox One! Funny thing is a friend of mine owned a Dreamcast, but I never wanted to play a Sonic on it. Early console 3D just made me sick. That early console 3D game people gush over? Yeah? I hate it.

I don't care which. I probably hated it. On the other hand, the Dreamcast is always well remembered by those who played it. Excellent arcade ports, Crazy Taxi and Power-stone and probably some other stuff I'm forgetting. It's interesting how a well-liked console managed to barely sell.

Anyway, Sonic Adventure 2 was more interesting than 1 to play because it introduces Shadow. Also, it introduces Rouge the Bat, who is like... Knuckles frenemy love interest? Or something? Both of these characters are beautifully terrible. Shadow is the ultimate edgelord, while Rouge is like campy 60s sex appeal except they put a bat head on her. I could totally see her facing off as an Adam West era Batman villain, if she wasn't a bat. If they didn't put a bat head on her. Yeesh.

It's just batty. This is Summer of Sonic review number five of nine; the previous review (which is early era) is here while the next (bonus) review for the middle era Sonic is here and the next review into the modern era will be here.

Summer of Sonic (4): Sonic 3 and Knuckles

Welcome back to the Summer of Sonic, which has now reached what many will join me in calling the apex of the series, and likely the most pointless review of anything I will ever write in my life. Were I to review a loaf of bread, it would likely carry more meaning, since at least I could say something more than one of the few examples of fanboy squealing in my life.

Just kidding. There's a lot of interesting stuff to talk about, just not in the concept of a review.

Sonic 3 (and Knuckles!) is the name given to combining Sonic the Hedgehog 3 with Sonic and Knuckles. In their original incarnations, Sonic and Knuckles was capable of accepting another game on top of it. They referred to this as 'lock on' technology, which they then ... Never used again to my knowledge, typical Sega. You could play Knuckles in Sonic 2, and practice the special stages with other games even. Other games locked on would do this for whatever reason, it would pick a random special stage and you could get some practice with the mechanics.

Sonic 3 inversely featured the ability to save your game, which doesn't sound impressive now, but was completely unusual for a Sonic game at the time. S&K itself can't save, but it's very short, in fact Sonic 3 is pretty short as well. Combined together, though, as a kid the save thing was really helpful.

I'm going to address the game as a unified title and not individually; they're both completely playable, but the game was split in development and re-combined later, so I think this is the game "as intended" and we'll just go with that. (Although yes, as intended is up for debate, since development cut Sonic 3 in half, so who knows what they'd really have done?)

This is review four of nine in the Summer of Sonic; the preview review is here and the next one will be here whenever I get it up.

Summer of Sonic (3): Sonic CD

For a long time in my childhood and even into my adulthood, I completely did not realize Sonic CD was really a thing. I imagine I had at some point seen or heard about it, but my affection for the Genesis was never so great as to spend that kind of money on a wasted peripheral. So I just put it into the back of my mind and never considered it. Sonic to me, like many franchises, was swallowed up in the 3D era and forgotten about. Which is to say I pretty uniformly hated each and every transitional game of 2D into 3D. Yes, even that one, or that other one you're excited about. Yes, Sonic CD is 2D and gorgeous 2D at that, but by the time I had the funds to pursue a Sega CD, I certainly wasn't interested in doing so.

I believe the game was ported to be PC a long time ago, but I never saw that either. I hadn't realized I could be playing the game until it was ported to Steam, and even then, I think I pirated it and played it briefly before forgetting about it.

Sonic CD has, to my understanding, an interesting history. It is a marquee title for a system that sold very few copies. It is basically like headlining the titanic. It is also the product of splitting the Sonic team in half and producing two Sonic games at once, with rapidly divergent design perspectives. I feel that itching in the back of my teeth when I read about it, that sensation that the whole story isn't being properly presented to me, so I'll let readers do their own digging. It's certainly an interesting way to continue a franchise.

Sonic CD on Steam is, to my understanding, the Taxman / Christian Whitehead port in all its glory, and it does run well. There's a story about that guy in the first half of this Superbunny Hop video here, which deals with Sonic Mania, the announcement of which feels oddly coincidental. I didn't know, but realizing I picked up the anniversary bundle and this is the 25th anniversary announcement, it actually isn't much of a coincidence.

This is Sonic game #3 (done in chronological order) of Summer of Sonic. The previous game is here, and the next game will be here, once I actually get that written up.

Summer of Sonic (2): Sonic the Hedgehog 2

So the Summer of Sonic, brought to you by spending $10 at humble bundle on the Sonic anniversary special, continues spinning on. You can check out  the previous entry here and the next entry, when it goes up, here.

Sonic 2 is more interesting to talk about than Sonic 1, for several reasons. It is a big step forward from the original game, on essentially every single level. That isn't especially interesting, but I guess we'll get into that. What is sort of interesting is that Sonic 2 was produced at the same time as Sonic CD, which leads you to see some interesting changes in design and ideas, but also it feels like something is missing from Sonic 1. Did it go to Sonic CD? I'm not really sure, but Sonic CD (which I've only played a little of, for now) certainly feels and looks more like the original than 2 does.

The other interesting thing is the fact Sonic the Hedgehog 2 introduces the first of what will eventually become an avalanche of side-characters of all shapes and sizes. What is interesting in this is it begins a certain weird facet of Sonic and how Sonic is evaluated.

Everything Sonic does wrong - other than the blatantly obvious, like shipping an unfinished beta as a product - is generally along a spectrum. People complain there are too many characters, and that's true, but Tails, Amy and Knuckles were all well received at the time. It's all in the transition, a moment of 'knowing when you see it' (usually when Shadow shows up) but each individual doesn't seem so bad back in the day.

Even Shadow is pretty damn hilarious at the moment, mind you...

Like, right at the beginning, with nearly the best game in the series, you can already see it starting to fall apart. Corporate mismanagement aside, it's already there, waiting in the weeds.

Summer of Sonic (1): Sonic the Hedgehog

I had been thinking about picking up Sonic: Lost World whenever I next saw it on sale when humble bundle dropped the Sonic 25th anniversary bundle. I was going to buy it, when I realized it had tiered keys, which I rather hate. Then the latest Steam sale began and... Ugh... So I just cashed the $10 tier.

This steam sale was terrible! None of my friends really bought much of anything. Oh, it was also the highest grossing steam sale. Hurray for average consumers! You've gone mainstream, Valve, extract money from da dopes. Whatever. I bought a bundle.

And then decided I should review a chunk of Sonic games, to go with said anniversary. I'm technically a Sega and Sonic kid; my parents bought me a revision 1 Genesis and it is probably the console I've played the most in my life. I'm not going to review every Sonic game (good lord) or even every Sonic game in the bundle, rather spend the next eight weeks going through a selection of them depending on how much I enjoy myself.

Sonic the Hedgehog, the first, has a copyright of 1991 on the title screen. I can actually remember getting this game as a rental even, right after it came out. I remember because I was so upset I couldn't get Sonic to move when I first tried to play it. Turns out the controller was half-plugged in and the d-pad wouldn't work. That moment always stood out to me as memorable, mostly because he would jump up and down but he could not go fast. Since I didn't own it, I never actually beat Sonic the first as a kid, doing it much later in maybe 2010 or so.

Free from the rpggggs : Sonic and All-Stars Racing Transformed

I did not realize how much I missed cart racing until I picked up a cart racer and went wow I missed cart racing. Apparently there was a gaping, oozing wound in my heart where cart racing is supposed to be slotted in and damn suddenly I am once again a whole man, a sum of totality in actuality. Hallelujah, praise the lord that be Shadow the Hedgehog, for he has driven my heart whole, amen.

Obvious comedy aside, shit this game is good and damn does it look good. You would not imagine that a kart racer has thus far been above and away the prettiest thing I've run through this monitor, but I'm sorry Witcher 2, you sir are dethroned. The screenshots really can't do it justice.

The title of the game has this key little word that defines why it's so amazing to look at: Transformed. What does transformed mean here? It means, as the track goes, the vehicle you're driving in or the track beneath you can transform. It's way cooler than it sounds, usually - there's a little bug in the land/air to water transformation that crops up very rarely - but basically you go from driving, to hitting the water as a boat, to launching into the air as a jet or hovercraft or weird looking steam punk thing. The tracks change over the course of the race, either pushing you into different sections or entire sections explode, so you take off into the air.

On paper that sounds rather horrible, but on the most part the transitions are flawless. The game has an excellent sense of flow, blasting you past molten rivers, through dragon skeletons, over sinking aircraft carriers, through shinobi temples at autumn and just everything else you can think of. It is both a stunning homage to Sega games (though of course I wish they could have gotten rights to stuff like Herzog Zwei or used tracks from Phantasy Star) and wonderful to look at. This is probably the first game I can bring to mind where water not only looks good, but has its own feeling as a terrain that isn't just "go slow".

Why do they put water in mmorpgs anyway? That's all it ever is - go slow. Great. Here, water is fun, though obviously the way a boat handles is pretty eager to fishtail. But then again, it's a boat. Boats do that. I am not good at driving a boat because I am not literally boat people. I've spent less time in a boat than I have in a plane in the real life.