Reviews

I was expecting to have a bad time with this game, since my only other experience with a Game Gear: Sonic Drift wasn't that good, in the end, I wasn't mistaken but it was also a quite different experience.

This game's mechanics are fairly simple, you have a Fuel bar that is draining over time, or when you take hits from missiles or enemies, the objective is to get to the end of the level and beat the boss there. It's a simple premise, although one would think that a cute little game like this would have an easy playthrough, it turned out that it was more challenging than expected.

The challenge, however, comes more in technical issues than fair challenge or difficulty, the controls are in the stiff side and when you hit a wall or floor you'll lose a life, granted you have infinite continues (at least in the Gems Collection on which I played this game) but a lot of times you'll be dying from bad positioning or getting hit by stuff that seemed like background. To finish the stage you'll be doing a lot of trial and error since a lot of its traps are cheap and out of nowhere, if not for some checkpoints spaced through the level I wouldn't finish this thing off. Other big issues were the hitboxes or touchboxes in general, Tails is composed of two boxes, him and a big ring that he carries to throw it as a weapon and attach him to stuff like handles or poles, some items like points or lives at times responded by touching them with Tails and other times with the ring, or others times with neither, I didn't find out which was the sweet spot so you'll be dying a lot by this thing.

To be fair, the artwork is pretty like every Sonic game should be, the music tho' is pretty generic but serviceable, and for once the boss fights were somewhat fun and a little challenging in a fair way so not bad, they were even like a little puzzle, once you noticed how to deal with them the rest is just skill (and some luck).

Not everything is bad in this game, if not for all the technical issues I could say that it can also be OK, but the truth is far different. I don't know if anyone is interested in this kind of game in this day and age but maybe for a collector's of Sonic fan point of view it is worth to try it, I guess.

The first two hours were the best gaming experience of my life. Awesome vibes, everything goes perfectly fine and I think to myself ''alright, this is it, this is the peak of gaming industry''. Then it all goes to sh*t in one moment. Don't get me wrong, it's not like it's bad, but the whole story becomes so negative, anxious, depressing. The problem is that this doesn't change through the entire game and when it looks like it might get little bit happier, it all goes to sh*t again. Even the ending gives you such a wrong feeling, like there's something wrong and you can't even really tell why. There's literally not a single positive thing about the story. I guess it tries to show you the reality of post-apocalyptic world and I respect Naughty Dog for what they tried. It was risky shot and people are now hating on them.


Story aside, Naughty Dog as always raised the bar when it comes to graphics. Even on a 7 years old console the game looks just phenomenal.

Gameplay basically stayed the same, they just added few improvements, but if you are like me fan of stealth combined with action and exploring, there's nothing you can complain about.

Soundtrack is amazing.

The only thing I can really grumble about are these trailers. Why the hell would you bait us like that? This just wasn't fair and whoever came up with it should slap himself and step on a lego.

No game, movie or book ever had such a huge emotional impact on me. I feel like I bought an amazing game together with anxious and sadness. It's really well written and it has a strong message. I just don't feel like this is anyhow close to what I truly wanted or expected, but I take it as it is.

8.5/10

It started as a Sonic game, but as soon as I started to notice the music was a little iffy, things started to feel quite different.

I was looking forward to play Sonic CD, since is one of those games that have legendary status but the truth is, it was disappointing in several ways, not that I had a bad time, on the contrary I was having fun, but I just couldn't shake the feeling that a lot of stuff could be more polished. Starting with the stages layout, this time around the stages have some variability and openness that the past entries didn't have, they at times feel labyrinthic, which is a double edged sword since it spice things up but it also show how clumsy navigation can be, as always you have a lot of obstacles and unfair enemies that can hit you by just some frames after they appear on screen, and since the stages are designed with a lot of stuff and backgrounds, it was hard to tell apart which things were solid or not, again my issue with the past Sonic games was that they keep you from running and punish you hard for doing so, while a more passive and slow navigation is rewarded, but at least to me it feels wrong.

One thing that this game excels are the boss fights, they're simple but more creative and fun than the past games, a pretty neat feature and one of the highlights of this game, I loved the penultimate fight the most, although the last fight lacks the epicness of the other games, is still challenging and enjoyable.

Another key feature of this game is the "Time" mechanic, every stage has at least 4 versions of itself, present, past, good future and bad future, a neat feature in theory but in practice is messy and frankly confusing, I didn't understand till late in the game what was that about. This mechanic also alters the music from the stage and it also have 4 different versions, which takes us to one of my biggest issues, Sonic games always have had outstanding music, and it hit me hard when I wasn't digging any of the tunes of this game, they weren't bad but they didn't match neither the stage atmosphere or the Sonic musical style, to my surprise when I beat the game and did a little of research, it appears that SEGA US make an entire new soundtrack to "appeal" more its audience, it took me just 3 comparisons to feel like I was robbed from a great soundtrack, so if you can choose between the Japanese/European or US versions of this game, choose the JP/EU since it has the original superior soundtrack, although there's one track that I loved, and that one may be the boss fight theme, it's super dark and ominous, it feels also out of place but at least to one boss fight in particular fits perfectly.

I played the Gem's Collection for the Nintendo Gamecube version of this game, it seems that it has a continue feature that I ignore if the original had, I think is a good addition since you can pick up your game whenever you want, although, this game is rather easy compared to 1 and 2. As usual, you can have a "good ending" if you meet certain requirements, is harder to obtain it and to me it's not that worthy but if you like this kind of stuff from the past game, you'll feel right at home and because is fairly short (1:15 hours more or less) you can master the stages to try to get the good ending fast enough. I didn't hate this game but certainly didn't love it either, I can see how for someone that played it as its starting Sonic can overlook a lot of my issues, but being this the 3rd installment of this series a lot of tuning and refinement would benefit it a lot.

The moment you and Kat (the main character) awake in this world you know nothing about it, even you clumsily navigate it with your powers, but as the story progress, both you and Kat feel and know how to harness gravity like a fish in the sea, the problem is that both mechanics and narrative aren't on par with the gravity gimmick

 At first, I was fascinated and a little repelled to how the gravity mechanic worked in this game, it does feel kinda natural in a way but in the other, the learning curve felt stiff, I was failing over and over to land in the platforms that the tutorial offered me and more sooner than later I was blaming the "clumsy controls" turns out that as a new mechanic (at least to me) or one that has not explored that much in videogames, it had to be treated as a new skill, so from the moment one to the final moment of the game I was another person, expertly maneuvering through the stage, beating monsters like I was born in the sky, and that to me was one of the peaks of this game, not only Kat but you, learn how to handle gravity more or less at the same pace, and that gives it a lot of immersion to my experience, navigating without the bounds of gravity felt extremely good and it was a sentiment that never got old, at least in my 13-hour playthrough.

However,

The sentiment of liberty of flying around got buried underneath a lot of things, first of all: the gameplay, it turned out that the developers didn't seem to know how exactly merge the gravity mechanic with combat or things to do, and the combat system feels unpolished but serviceable at its best. Combat is separated in two forms, land combat and air combat, the land combat is simple, you hit the attack button from 1 to 5 times to have a combo, to damage your enemies you have to hit their weak spots (some red orbs, regular enemies are a weak spot on themselves), but when the game starts to throw enemies that have their spots on different places and you have to battle in air is when things get rough. When you're in air you have mostly one attack, an aereal kick, this kick sends Kat like a homming missile, the problem is that the targeting system is non existant and the monsters move in erratic ways that is easy to miss them, so more often than not you'll be flying around the stage trying to kick a low monster and failing again and again, these moments aren't fun at all and they will be gradually get more annoying since more weird enemies will keep appearing.

I liked the whimsical tone of the game, the characters are charming, not that interesting but they grew on you, the story however is pretty generic and dull despite its tight presentation in comic form which I think looks pretty good, it wants to get more serious and interesting towards the final act but for that moment is way too late to care that much, it adds salt to the wound that the lore is presented in the most boring way with some NPC sparce through the city giving info about their lives. Side-quests are non-existant, aside from 3 or 4 that originally were DLC, that feel more like separate stories than a compliment for the main story. Aside from the main quests and limited side quests, the game throws you "challenges" that reward you 'precious crystals', the game's currency for unlocking and enhance skills, this challenges are basically: slide races (you use gravity to slide in the floor like you're skating), time attack arenas and normal races (on which you use all your skills to get from point A to point B as fast as possible), this challenges are repeated through every stage and aren't that ground breaking or fun, the problem is that the main campaign doesn't give you a lot of crystals neither enemies drop them, so more likely you'll be doing this repetitive challenges to enhance your skills, granted the game is not that difficult and I assume you can beat it without enhancing Kat but that's not the point.

As for the art direction the game holds up quite well, this world looks amazing, a little limited but is expected since it wasn't a big team, the aesthetic looks inspired by steam punk and Paris and because of its themes of, thievery, revolution, etc, I think it fits well. I loved also the character design, they look pretty original and every character says you a lot just by its looks. Music wise, the game has a solid soundtrack and it has a lot of personality, it sounds at times jazzy and upbeat at parts, but never dull and always pleasant, I find myself expectantly waiting for the next area's tune to kick in.

I believe that Gravity Rush have a lot of great ideas but in the end it failed to achieve a good balance between them or even truly polish any of them, however as much as it have a lot of issues there's no denial that this game have a lot of potential and at times charm, I hope that it's sequel get things done and gives us a polished taste of what they really wanted this game to be.

Rockstar really outdid themselves with this one. When I picked up this game, I was expecting business as usual. But was I wrong! Red Dead Redemption 2 is a technical, visual, and narrative accomplishment. As I have written in past reviews, the testament of a good sequel, is that it somehow furthers the things that were established in the first game. Gameplay, story and characters, and visuals are all major elements that a good sequel manages to push and make better. The game is a prequel to 2010's Red Dead Redemption. Set in 1899, the age of outlaws is coming to an end. The Van der Line gang struggles to survive as they against nature, government forces and outlaws. The character you play as is Arthur Morgan. Initial footage of this character bothered me because I found his voice to be far too exaggerated. But for whatever reason my mind was changed. Arthur is similar to John Marston in Red Dead Redemption. Both of these characters can be cruel and violent men, but the narrative pushes the player player give the character some redeeming qualities or some sort of arc that goes from bad/apathetic to good. Other familiar faces from Red Dead Redemption are prominently featured in this game. The gameplay has dramatically improved. The gunplay and action isn't as rudimentary and choppy as it was in Red Dead Redemption. The survival aspects of the game have taken front and center and prove to be quite vital in your survival and the survival of the gang. The alarming and hilarious amount of detail this game has both visually and technically is quite impressive. The open world is much bigger than Red Dead Redemption with various diverse regions to travel through and a plethora of random encounters that border on the frightening to the hilarious. This is probably one of the best games ever made. I maintain that God of War (2018) deserved its award for Game of the Year. But that does not diminish this game by any means. It is truly a remarkable game that has hopefully changed things forever. If there is one game that everyone should play, it is this game.

 Rating- 5/5 A Masterpiece