Isaac Enea

My favorite Sonic game ever made, along with Sonic Unleashed. Colors is a great example of taking what worked from the last game and sprucing it up with it's own unique style. Colors gives boost Sonic some of the best controls he has, with the double jump making platforming a lot more dynamic and fun, not to mention the air dash/air boost giving him good horizontal distance. The stages are very unique and so well detailed, it's incredible what Sega managed to pull off a well optimized and unbuggy game that looks like a Wii U game, for the original Wii itself! The gameplay is endlessly replay able, with stages that allow you boost forward with engaging mechanics, or you could slow down and explore to find goodies, faster routes, and just more worth of a stage in general. The Wisps do get a lot of flack for being overused and not very fun, but in Colors they are definitely used to their full protentional, with level design that fully complements them and enhances the gameplay for the best,. Laser wisp being by far the best for having great usage in both 2D in 3D with cool trickshots you can pull off. (Though cube wisp isn't very good, haha). The scoring system is also really good, giving you points for many actions, like quickstepping, using wisps, collecting 1-ups and red rings, etc. However, getting S ranks are a bit too easy, it would've been better if S ranks had a stricter requirement to make it so you don't always just cheese the ranks by spamming wisps without actually exploring the stage layout more. On top of the gameplay being great for both speedrunners and those that like to explore, the animations in this game are great, with Sonic's animations being very polished and as good as unleashed, even if the models are scaled back a bit. Not to mention the Music is top tier, with excellent variations of the music for act 1, 2 and 3. The main issue is the act structure forcing you to play short gimmick acts that were originally optional side missions, but once you unlock all the wisps, then you can play through the main acts over and over again, and ignore the blocky platforming missions, like Unleashed where you replay the Day Stages over and over again. The writing definitely has gotten worse with age, but at the time, Sonic needed to scale back the gimmicks, story, and tone to appeal to fans and critics at the time, ultimately being the best decision as Color was very well received. In the end, Colors holds up great with it's endlessly replayable main acts, great music, excellent use of it's Wisp gimmick, and overall, is just a very laid back, fun time whenever I decide to play it again.

One of the best sequels to any video game ever. Personally, I think Galaxy 1 is slightly better with it's story and atmosphere, but MAN galaxy 2 is awesome. The level design is a refinement of the previous game, and it shows with awesome power ups such as the rock mushroom and cloud flower, not to mention, YOSHI. If you enjoyed Galaxy 1, DEFINITELY play the sequel, as you will probably like it more. The fact we even got a sequel proves just how good the galaxy formula is.

Mario Party Superstars, in my opinion, COMPLETELY blows every game from Mario Party 9 to Super Mario Party out of the water. The gameplay is at its most refined in this game, with turns going by quickly and flowing well. The boards, while only have 5 from the previous N64 installments are great, well designed all around. While a few minigames in the selection suck, most of them are great picks from the previous mainline Mario Party games. You may think that not having any allies or character specific dice blocks lower the game's quality, but really if they were added back it would completely break the board game design that was meant to have 1-10 dice blocks only. While I do wish for a bit more game modes like in Super, they were only there to serve as additional side content that gave 10-60 minutes of additional game time. The only issue this game really has is a lack of boards, as this game would GREATLY benefit from more characters, minigames, and boards especially. However, what we have now is awesome, and I'm glad ND Cube is finally going back to the true formula of Mario Party. In the end, pick up this game, as it's the BEST Mario Party in a long time.

Mario party 10... easily the worst console mario party out there. Everything that made mario party fun is just gone or stripped down to be stupidly boring or simple. 1. Mario Party Its the same thing from mp9, but simpler and worse. 2. Bowser Party As much fun as I had with this mode with my friends, it is super flawed. Bowser is op, but it would be fine if team mario still had a fighting chance, but they don't. There is not enough heart distrubition for the amount of hearts you lose throughout the game. Also, there should be a penalty for rerolling, but there isn't, which makes the game pretty mind numbing. There also needs to be a lot more minigames and boards to make it worth it. In the end bowser party can be fun with friends but overall its flawed and gets stale over time. 3. Amiibo Party The fact you have to PAY money for an extra main mode is just stupid. Even if it was free it still is awful, as its classic mario party, but the board is a SQUARE. And even still the board mechanics aren't even that interesting. If I had to give it a positive the toy like appearance is pretty cute, but still the mode sucks. 4. Side Modes This time the side modes are super lacking. They are too basic or not that engaging to be fun. 5. Misc Content Basically a photo studio and thats really it. And also a sound test but overall misc content is lacking in this game. 6. Minigames The minigames are still just as good as ever. Pretty much the only real positive about this game. 7. The Real Issue The biggest issue with this game is that it took everything from mario party 9, and threw all the good stuff from mp9. The sountrack from mp9 was great, and is now forgettable in mp10. The details and looks are simplier and just boring in mp10, the side modes in mp9 were great, and all of that is gone in mp10. The overall feel of mario party was still there in mp9, but here in mp10? Its just gone. In the end mp10 sucks. Don't play it, unless you have a big group of people and want to play bowser party.

Oh god, this game, this game is just... bad. Sonic and The Secret Rings is just plain trash. The main reason are the controls. Oh my god, these controls are soooo bad. The main issue with the controls is the forced motion controls, basically 3rd party early Wii game motion controls. This causes the game to become near unplayable and absolutely frustrating as your hands get tired trying to control sonic in a clunky move set. The second issue with these controls is the fact that sonic is always facing forward, so when you move back it completely breaks the pacing and the movement feels off and bad. The third issue with these controls is the jumping mechanics. First off, to air dash and homing attack, you gotta thrust the Wii remote forward, making these vital moves repetitive and frustrating, as well as making your hands get tired after doing these movements a lot. Then there is actual jumping itself. The fact they actually messed up something as basic as JUMPING bothers my mind. To short hop, you press 2 (finally no more motion control nonsense right? well there's another issue). However, to do a power jump (basically a normal jump), you have to hold 2 and release, and to do that you gotta stop your momentum and brake a bit, completely screwing up the flow and movement of the game. Why am I ranting about the controls so much? It's because in a 3D platformer, controls are everything. If your controls suck, then the game sucks, simple as that. (Unless your game is built off limited controls, like Getting Over It) Long answer: Controls help make the game feel more immersive and fun to play. One of the big reasons why 3D platforms are great is because of the freedom of movement you have with your character. When you mess this part up, the game quality dips very harshly. This is the case with Sonic and the Secret Rings. Its clear the game was absolutely NO way built for the awkward motion controls, leaving players more frustrated than satisfied. There are more issues than the controls, such as the mission based level game play. The problem is that a lot of the time you are just going through the same level over and over again (this is required to progress through the story), with the only thing that changes are maybe a few of the obstacles, and just some task required to do. This makes playing through the game repetitive and boring (in sonic generations you did have to do a few of the missions, but they weren't required and were mostly creative and unique, and changed up the environment and obstacles a bit). Then we get to party mode! Basically, it's just a bad mario party mode made by people other that Sonic Team, yay. But seriously, I kinda enjoyed this mode; overall its just okay, and might be the best thing about this game. Despite these flaws, I did like the storybook kind of way to show the cutscenes, the music is overall pretty good, and the graphics and visuals were good for an early Wii game. The skill system was creative and decent, and the environments of where these games take place is not so bad either, being somewhat creative. But overall, the flaws greatly overshadow the positives, making this game not very worthwhile.

Remember when Paper Mario was about the story, the unique and amazing cast of characters, charming worlds, and a very fun battle system? Well say goodbye to that, as Paper Mario: Sticker Star is just a game where you run around, collecting stickers and things (yes, they are called things), and having a lackluster battle system, mixed in with bland characters and a bland story. First off, the battle system isn't good. Stickers are what you have now, and they are your only form of attacking. Also, you can only attack the front-most enemy, giving battles an unnecessary in-depth thinking. When you use a sticker, it's gone forever, and when you run out of stickers? Run. And when you win a battle? You just get coins, no exp at all, and you can find coins plentifully around the map, meaning that there is absolutely no point to battle. To get stickers, you just run around the map to find stickers, and you better save them, as bosses are the only use they have for, otherwise you're dunzo. Also, there are things (real world items) you need to find to progress, which tie in to puzzles, which the puzzles are very cryptic, forcing you to refer to a guide very often, whereas the previous installments, you only needed a guide for certain secrets, not fullblown progress to finish the game. By the way, I played Paper Mario: Color Splash (the next installment in the series that followed the same forumla as this game) and I had to refer to a guide multiple times to progress through the game my first time through, and that's even with hints the game gives you, so I can't imagine how bad the puzzles are in this game. And then, the way to beat the bosses that are tough? Just use an OP thing sticker and win, or finish them off with one or two stickers, giving absolutely no strategy whatsoever, coming off as lame. Second: The levels themselves aren't that great either. They are just bland, featuring a grassland, desert, toxic forest, snowy mountain, etc. The levels don't feature something that makes them unique or memorable, except the boo mansion level, that was lit. Third: No unique characters. It's just basic Mario enemies and toads, except now featured in color! Also, Kersti is quite annoying as well. And the main villian? It's Bowser! And what does he do? Kidnap Peach in this boring character plot and design! Fourth: The story sucks. It's just Bowser kidnapping Peach, no character development whatsoever. And lastly, the thing that gives this game a 1 star? The fact it ruined Paper Mario as a whole in terms of the fans and the game series. We now have one side saying the latest 3 games sucks, and the original trilogy is amazing, while the other side say that all games are pretty much equal in their own right, giving us a pretty toxic fanbase. And yes, this game caused the next two games, Color Splash and Origami King, to follow in this games footsteps, and instead improve upon and not going back to the amazing original formula. So if someone says, "This game doesn't deserve the hate it gets." or "This game is overhated.", Paper Mario Sticker Star does deserve the hate it gets, as it caused a massive mess in the Paper Mario series and fandom, and is a mediocre game at it's finest.

I personally did enjoy this game, but here are the facts about this entire controversial mess: The pros: Characters can be pretty interesting at times, some memorable locations and dialogue. Levels are designed pretty nicely. Good music and visuals. The cons: Same awful battle system as before, but now it takes longer to select what you want and paint it. At the very least you do get hammer scraps only found after winning a battle, and a good amount of coins and paint. Puzzles are incredibly cryptic, forcing you to refer to a guide multiple times throughout the game, even with hints here and there. The colorless spots where you use your paint hammer can get very tedious if you want to 100% the game. If I did enjoy it, why did I give this game 1 star? It's the fact that it was so obvious that everyone hated sticker star (or thought sticker star wasn't as good as the previous installments), and wanted to go back to the amazing original formulas. Sticker star took away what Paper Mario was, a fun RPG game with a diverse set of characters, memorable locations, immersive story telling, interesting battle mechanics that aren't dull or tedious. Sticker star also added really unneeded mechanics like cryptic puzzles and a really poor 1 time use sticker mechanic (basically stickers are your form of attacking, and if you run out of them then you are forced to run or die). And you know what Nintendo did for their next installment after sticker star? They kept all the same dumb and bad mechanics from Sticker star, and didn't listen to their fans at all. Yeah sometimes you can make things work despite people telling you, but at this point it was best for them to scrap this really flawed formula all together, and yet they thought it was best to just spam toads and basic enemies throughout the game. I know you could enjoy this game, and people have had a very fun time with this game (including me), but just think about it, what if this game didn't have a one time use paint card battle system? What if the plot was unique and not bowser kidnapping peach? What if this game didn't have super cryptic puzzles that didn't hinder your progress? See what I mean, these are such dumb mechanics that really drag the game down that could've been avoided all together if all they did was take advice from their massive giving community. At the end of the day, it can be okay to make mistakes, as everyone does them. What is not okay is how Nintendo knew their fans really disliked sticker star, yet they decided to make the same mistake AGAIN by having all the same mechanics that were designed to fail. This game just proves how out of touch Nintendo really is with society, and is just a big slap in the face to Paper Mario's entire fanbase.