I beat Sonic Adventure 2 on the Sega DreamCast this evening!

I picked up the original Sonic Adventure when I bought my first load of DreamCast games. I remember seeing the game on my friend's 80" Projector and almost feeling sick at the speeds and movement of the first level. I then played the game months later and got to experience it for myself. It was the first and only video game I ever called, "It's so bad, it's good." If you looked at the details, then the game is bad, but as a whole, I actually kind of liked it. With some deep hesitation, I picked up Sonic Adventure 2 a few years ago at a local store. Apparently, I was dragging my feet too much on the game as the Fortune Cookie decided that I should play Sonic Adventure 2.

You know how I just called Sonic Adventure, "It's so bad, it's good"?? Well, Sonic Adventure 2 is so bad that it is bad. The game is split up into fast action stages with Sonic, shooter stages with Tails and exploring levels with Knuckles. Much like the first game, the camera and controls are utterly terrible. The camera switches constantly and it makes hard to see where you are going some of the times. You miss jumps on Sonic levels and you can't look around in Knuckles levels. The controls also jump around as you go break neck speeds right into enemies or bounce around falling off ledges. The Sonic levels are mostly fine until the end when the game throws too much at you and you have to do some precise platforming. Tails' levels are mostly fine, but every time you shoot or lock onto enemies you hear this loud buzzing noise. You hear that throughout the entire level. Knuckles' stages are the worst. You have to find three pieces of the Chaos Emeralds in incredibly precise locations on a giant map. It's like finding a needle in a haystack. And your guide only helps you on one at a time. Several of Knuckles' stages took me over 45 minutes to complete. And their locations are all random, so there is no help that way either.

Overall, I really began to dislike my time with Sonic Adventure 2. At first, I could put up with the game's faults on smaller and more contained stages. But, once annoying boss fights, large stages and constant death pits everywhere started showing up, my patience for the game was done. I'm probably done with the Sonic series and I need the rest. The only people who would enjoy this game are diehard Sonic fans. Everybody else should just pass.

I Light Crusader (GEN) recently, amazing game and I highly recommend you check it out (Made by Treasure). I will say the puzzles are some times questionable and the camera angles will remind you of Landstalker, but in this game they are better. If you can find it for $20-$30 (I paid $12 for it many years ago) I say go for it.

The whole point of this comment is that I (stealth) deleted Vagrant Story from my BL...I gave it one more chance, and it was another chance that game didn't deserve. It's not good. What you said last night during the BL stream really cemented how I already felt about the game

My pleasure. Your backlog is so interesting and detailed one day I will make mine as organized as yours.

About River City Girls, I've been playing with my girlfriend and it's insanely fun! Definitely better than River City Ramson Underground. To be honest, I know very little about Kunio-kun series besides Renegate and River City Ransom Eventually I'll play these games again.

I completed X-Men 2: Clone Wars on the Sega Genesis this evening!

As a pre-teen, I used to love the X-Men. I would wake up every Saturday morning to watch the cartoon with my friends. We used to bike down to the Comic Book shop and buy X-Men Comics. We also used to play the two X-Men games on the Genesis as well. Eventually, I got my own copies as well. Even though my friendship with the two friends and my love of X-Men ended, I still had the two the Genesis games sitting on my Backlog. I thought they were much too hard until I played the first one several years ago. After many hours of annoyance, I was surprisingly able to beat the game. Still, I had the second game still left to play. In my mind, it was quite intimidating, but the Fortune Cookie decided that this was the year for me to slay this game.

The game starts with a literal cold open. For one, it takes place in Siberia. Also, you just plop down and start playing. No title screen or anything. I don't think I've ever seen that in a video game, which is kind of neat. After a few levels, you get your team for the rest of the game: Beast, Cyclops, Gambit, Nightcrawler, Psylocke, Wolverine and Magneto. Each has their strengths and weaknesses with Wolverine being overpowered because of course. You choose which character to play and then play through the action stages, sometimes ending in a boss fight. Each character controls differently and its one of the first games where that actually felt true. The stages are interesting and the controls are great. After all these years, it is still fun to play.

Also, after all these years, the game is still hard as hell. You are constantly fighting swarms of enemies that take too many hits. It is a constant onslaught as Wolverine's healing ability is the only saving grace in the game. Besides difficulty, the game's music is also another low point. Most of it does not even sound like music as it does that Genesis industrial sound throughout many of the stages. It also is a bit much.

Overall, I still enjoyed X-Men 2: Clone Wars. I have a large soft spot for this game as I used to play the first few levels with different characters all of the time. But, once you dig into the game, it can be a bit unfair and grating to listen to. But, the core game play and feel of each character make it rise above the initial expectations. If you like the X-Men or challenging Genesis Action games, this is worth a shot.

Yeah, I almost enjoyed the sim elements more than the action stages, too. The movement was pretty awkward at times, but I liked how useful the spells were, if you saved them up for the bosses. It felt a lot like Castlevania, and I liked that a lot. I bet the sequel really expands on the control, since they did away with the sim elements, so I've heard. I've owned Dark Cloud on PS2 for a long time, and I still have to play it haha. My sister used to borrow it off me all the time back in the early '10s, so I know she's a fan of it.

My now playing's also been a mess. Hoping to improve on that this year, but I also want to set aside some time to replay some old favorites. It's been a while since I did that. That's interesting to hear Secret of Mana 2 will be a challenge. I've been playing the first one (FF Adventure) and that game's quite challenging and overlooked, I think.

I beat Midtown Madness 3 on the Microsoft XBOX this evening!

Before, I used to go to a Pinball Arcade with a friend every other Saturday night. I would play Pinball, but I would also play on the Arcade Machines and emulators they had. I discovered many arcade games and console games I had never played before. One of the emulators was built out of an old Cruis'N style Racing Machine and would play several different racing games. The controls weren't the greatest, but I was able to try out many games I had never played before. One of them was Midtown Madness 3. It seemed like an interesting game. So, while at a convention, I found the game for incredibly cheap and so the Fortune Cookie decided I needed to play it this year.

The best way to describe Midtown Madness 3 is if you took all of the Racing Missions in the Grand Theft Auto games and made them into a video game. You chose between Washington D.C. or Paris and you take on the role of several odd jobs. You are delivering pizzas or packages, or are a Cop, Limo Driver, Taxi Driver or are crashing cars or doing races. Eventually, you beat one city and move onto the next one. My favorite aspect in the game is the variety of cars you get to drive. You drive a Viper, a limo, a 1950's Cadillac, a Hummer, a 1960's Mustang, an armored truck and so many other cars that it adds a nice variety to the game. The mission variety isn't all that extensive, especially if you play the game for a long period of time, but the cars add a nice mixture to the game. Also, the game controls and feels like a GTA game. You are plowing through cars, destroying property and driving at break neck speeds as the arcade feel to the game is perfect.

The worst part of the game is the Map. You are driving in ACTUAL Washington D.C. and Paris, so the roads are horrendous. The only map you have is the mini-map in the corner. You can never pause the game to consult a giant map. You have to split second decisions or just do the missions over and over again until you get it right.

Overall, I enjoyed my time with Midtown Madness 3. It never really reaches the height of a great game, but it is a perfectly suitable good game. The car variety and being able to drive reckless in a downtown city is always enjoyable. It adds enough flavor and uniqueness to separate it from the other racing games. If you like the Grand Theft Auto driving missions, then this is a perfect game for you.

Loving your new Wind Waker theme! My playthrough isn't going too well. I'm not used to having to pause every few minutes to take notes, but I'm really adamant about writing that essay/review thing. Doesn't make me excited to actually play the game though. Usually, I'll finish the whole game over the course of 2 or 3 days.

If I added every game I own to Backloggery, my percent would probably be less than 10%! These days, I only add games I've actually started playing or am about to play. I just realized there's a wishlist function on here, so maybe I'll use that to catalogue the rest of my collection without my stats being affected by games I don't plan on playing in the foreseeable future.

I've gotta say it again: The bosses in SoA are BRUTAL. I just spent 2 hours straight fighting Piastol/Deathhound and Rupee/Barta back-to-back and, even with a guide, I got multiple Game Overs. I once spent 7 turns casting Risan to bring a dead party member back to life before it finally worked, even though it's supposed to have a 50/50 chance of working. Luckily you can just restart the battle when you lose! Rants aside, it's fun and I appreciate a game with some difficult bosses. The last truly difficult RPG I played was Final Fantasy X a few years ago. Only that game wasn't nice enough to let me retry battles after losing... Oh man, here come the unskippable cutscene flashbacks...

Also, I started using a Discovery map and I immediately found like 15 Discoveries I missed. I realize now that an FAQ is practically mandatory for this game.

Yeah, going through the Fire Emblem series in order might be the way to go. Though I won't blame you if you start feeling drained after Radiant Dawn. Shadow Dragon was not very good and the games after that are... of debatable quality, let's just say.

The closest thing to a dating sim I've played is Persona, but I have lots of visual novel and adventure game experience thanks to all the Steins;Gate and Ace Attorney I've played. I should feel right at home playing Sakura Wars! And it's nice to see you put it so high on your list of games you played in 2020! You plan on playing the new Sakura Wars reboot?

Ah, I see you're gonna play Mega Man 7! Is this your first time? I just played it for the first time a couple years ago and really loved it. So far, it's my favorite Mega Man game. I think I may even like it more than Mega Man X!