Recent reviews by Scrimblo Bimblo

Easily the best written Sonic game ever since Shiro Maekawa's Sonic Adventure 2

A confusing game at first, and then more confusing at second. Some sense is made out of it eventually and, in that little window of sense you find, there's some fun to be had.

How the modes work individually was not very intuitive, and I found myself randomly clicking away through turns before we realized which player should do what.

The short unchanging music loop throughout the entire experience was also not the most pleasant thing to sit through. Whether you're on the menu, in-game, setting a game up or anything, the 5-second beat just marches on. Gladly there's a button to disable the music (which I did not activate in fear of missing out).

In short, it was a hoot.

Eu acredito no baralho do meu avô

About an hour-long exhibit of Dimps completely misunderstanding what Sonic is, a cringeworthy attempt at "nostalgia" by rehashing classic level themes with a poor plastic-like 3D art that is an eyesore, music made out of melodies that are too short but loop in the most annoying way and arranged with the worst dying-cat synthetizers Jun Senoue could find, non-existent "physics" that make absolutely no creative use of the level design and whatever little speed you can get renders you no momentum at all, bosses are just old bosses from the classic trilogy making a reappearance...

The special stages are lifted straight from the first game, that is to say, the least interesting special stage in the history of the franchise, and honestly, you'd think that a game that tries so hard to cash in the longings of classic Sonic fans would NOT feature this insanely ugly stretched-out dark blue Sonic sauntering away.

If you must play this to see for yourself how truly awful this trainwreck is, get it in a discount bundle.

A 2001 Sonic game, that as of 2021 is still the best Sonic story to be ever featured in official capacity.

If only it had the same level of care to build up on what Sonic Adventure did right, and not what it did wrong...

Mechs with much more limited movement, slower speeds, physics that seem to be unaffected by player input, a worsened radar that will only detect items in a particular order...
Uglier levels than ever with less and less colourful inlines except for later space levels (like the stunning Final Rush) and a much blander soundtrack where, for the most part, Jun Senoue seems to rely more on generic guitar riffs for the hedgehog levels, with the Mech level themes being some of the most well worked on, Rouge's level themes being the casual brothel music, and Knuckles' level themes being written and sung by a literal sex offender.

Boss themes are absolute bangers, tho.

A very weird transition to 3D for a franchise to have, with a very desnecessary redesign for the main character (courtesy of Yuji Uekawa) done out of a sheer lack of confidence SEGA had on the original Sonic design. But a great game nonetheless.

It gets a lot of criticism for dictating the basis for so many bad decisions the franchise has taken ever since this first came out, but if you coldly take Sonic Adventure for what Sonic Adventure is (and not what it "enabled" for the Hedgehog's future), there's a pretty solid platformer. Mechanics are a tad janky and not as perfected as the previous standard with Yuji Naka on the classic games, but the gameplay is still pretty juicy with how you can exploit terrain for speed and altitude.

Soundtrack is one of the best in the franchise, and levels are as memorable as ever despite the now more uninspired and too-realistic-for-Sonic artstyle (with few exceptions like Twinkle Park, Casinopolis and Final Egg). And a very funny and compressed voice acting that causes a terrible impression, particularly when played alongside musical tracks of such crisp quality.

Overall a great game that is brought down by an uncharacteristic volume of flaws. Some of which can be credited to the poor DX port, by the way, so do check out some patches that will make the game more similar to the Dreamcast version.

An once unpolished gem from the Sega CD, now an updated classic that tackles every problem the original had and turns it into an S-tier experience, covering all grounds where the previous version felt unfinished.

16:9 resolution, fresh framerate, improved mechanics now more consistent to the classic Sonic trilogy, but without changing what makes Sonic CD the Sonic CD I enjoyed so much from the 90's: The same vibrant and beautiful background pixel art and character sprites that defined a now long-lost unique aesthetic to Sonic games, and a more exploration-driven approach to level design, making you actually earn your speed and therefore making the action all the more satisfactory for it.

One of the first endeavours of Christan Whitehead (the "Taxman") in the Sonic series, a lad who would go on to lead the development of the sheer perfection of Sonic Mania, and that is soon (as of the time of writing this) making Sonic history once more with Sonic Origins, porting the original trilogy.

The arc that explains the major issue with the "Onikakushi" chapter and also a tale about trust.
...
Honestly, if you've read as far as the first five Higurashi chapters, you don't need much convincing to read the sixth one. Just buy the damn thing already.
...
And don't forget to apply the patch that adds the PS3 backgrounds, sprites and voice-acting.

The first step into the Answer Arcs, in the shoes of Shion Sonozaki. In this arc, everything is pretty much the same as Watanagashi, except you're seeing it from another angle. It is actually quite surprising the things you can learn from seeing one single story two times with the eyes of two separate characters.

A little detour serving as a bridge from the "Question Arcs" in Higurashi to the "Answer Arcs". In this, you will know a little more about Rika and her role in the story.

Do not skip it. It is a short side-story but it is, after all, the fourth Higurashi chapter. And what you learn here will be important in the Minagoroshi chapter.