Beaver [he/him]

The social technology to create slop music has been advancing by leaps and bounds for decades, so a lot of the mass-produced stuff is advanced level soulless and cynical. The worst stuff is where they try to artificially inject soul into the music. If the OP is just letting algorithms or radio passively deliver music to them, then they’re going to have a bad time; I gotta think that’s where they’re coming from.

Just starting some Zelda: A Link Between Worlds. Gives me some major nostalgia vibes for A Link to the Past… maybe I should replay that, it’s been thirty years since I beat it.

On Christmas Day of 1999, I was gifted a copy of Homeworld. A few days later I was treated to a very groovy credits track by Yes, a band I had never heard of… but now wanted to hear more of. So I decided to give this new thing called Napster a try, and my first search was Homeworld Yes. The rest is history - in a real sense, I discovered music that day.

One of my big takeaways is how good the sprites and graphics are in all of them. I rarely see Sonic brought up in discussions about the best looking 16 bit era games, but I think it’s in the top tier. The scrolling backgrounds in particular are a work of art. I’m fortunate enough to be playing these on a CRT TV using original hardware, and it looks so great on that. And not just the mythical “crt makes sprites look good”, but also just how smooth and ghosting-free all the scrolling looks. It makes it kind of annoying to go back to playing Sonic Mania on my regular LCD TV, because everything looks so smeared when going fast!

My opinions about each game don’t deviate too much from the conventional wisdom. Sonic 1 is definitely the weakest entry, with way too conservative level design. I don’t really fault the design team here, as I’m sure they were in the mindset that “this is a platformer, and so we need to follow the design paradigm of other platformers”. Sonic 2 is a way better overall game, embracing more crazy fast level design. I also thought it was a lot easier, I was able to get all the way to Metropolis Zone on my first playthrough (which surprised me, but I think Sonic 1 just really honed my skill). I’m currently playing Sonic 3 + Knuckles, and I’m using the Sonic 3 Complete rom to do that. Sonic 3 is a way more ambitious game, with a lot more crazy level gimmicks, and I love the variety in backgrounds and the miniboss transitions. It’s definitely my favorite so far, and the one I’m going slowest on to explore and find secrets. My romcart isn’t properly saving the game, so I’m just doing it old-skool and leaving my Genesis turned on for days at a time so I can pick up where I left off.

I’m also doing another play-through of Sonic Mania as Knuckles, and I’m appreciating it more than ever. It is the perfect modernization of the classic Sonic series.

(Also goofing around with Sonic CD on my phone. That one has a rad soundtrack, and I do actually like the very abstract and psychedelic artwork).

Working my way through Sonic 3

Hydrocity Zone Act 2’s music goes way harder than any water level has a right to.

I’m very late bloomer Sonic fan out there for whatever reason. My buddy had a Genesis, and some of my earliest memories were of goofing around in Green Hill Zone. I’m not sure why it took me another 33 years to actually try playing them in earnest, but I’m glad I did.

I’ve been really getting into classic Sonic games, and have gotten most of the way through Sonic 2, as well as finally putting some time into finishing Sonic Mania. I dropped Sonic 1 after finishing a few zones, as it became clear that the level design in that game is not up to par with later releases. Also poking around at the Master System Sonic games, which are totally different games than the mainline release, but have some interesting stuff in them (my original exposure to Sonic was looking over another kid’s shoulder while he played Sonic on Game Gear).

I’ve always been a Mario Enjoyer, and just never quite understood Sonic… the platforming aspect of Sonic always felt so clunky because of how much less air control you have. But I think I get it now, it’s all about figuring out the right paths through the levels to just go fucking apeshit turbo mode and blast through them as fast as possible. GOTTA GO FAST.

Also helps that I’ve got a nice CRT tv setup and am playing on original hardware. The super fast scrolling of Sonic works way better, it’s not a blur like it is on a crappy LCD screen.

I’m curious to try it multiplayer, so I’m down.

We love stompy robots. I think MW5 is kind of an objectively bad game, but it’s just exactly what I want out of a giant robot game. When I jump in co-op on my friend’s campaign, I feel like I’m actually role playing as an in-game merc friend who’s helping them out on an op.

I had an absolute blast playing Sonic Robo Blast 2 Kart with a bunch of buddies. We just plopped down on the kart with some shitty laptops, passed a flash drive around, and in a couple of minutes we were doing LAN races. This is my utopian vision of what video gaming can be: homebrew Sonic themed kart racing in the Doom engine.

Extremely funny if they cancel the third part of the trilogy

Anyone who’s main army are Ultramarines is sus.

That was what the final stretch of Zelda TotK was like for me. Defeating Ganon took a back seat to sleuthing and dungeon diving to finish out my outfit.

Socialism will never match this level of innovation

Defiantly doing a physical archetype

It’s crazy that they could run it on PS3.

You shouldn’t force it. It might just not be your cup of tea.

I’m playing Castlevania Symphony of the Night for the first time on my phone. I do connect my Bluetooth controller for boss fights, because the touchscreen controls are jank if I really need fine control. It’s crazy how much stuff is in this game, and the sprite work is unreal.

The only cool expansion faction, but a lame downside that IMO is quite harsh and not very thematic. They were too libbed up to do a real communist faction, instead only able to imagine a totalitarian police state (the hive) or the caricature of Big Dudes With Hardhats (the free drones)

Oh cool, I had no idea the 3do version had it’s own music.