Freedom Planet
Score
✰90%✰
Pros
~Bright, vivid visuals
~Worthy soundtrack
~Genius level design
~Consistently fun throughout
Cons
~Uneven difficulty balance
~Mixed bag plot/voice acting
Freedom Planet came about as the result of a Sonic the Hedgehog fan game coming to the realisation that it could probably be sold for actual money if it dropped references to Sega’s intellectual property and threw in some “original” characters instead.
And by “original,” I mean original in the Sonic the Hedgehog original character sense.
– Real player with 62.9 hrs in game
Read More: Best Platformer Indie Games.
With the release of Sonic Mania, i feel that it is time to talk about this wonderful game.
“What is Freedom Planet?” you may be asking. Freedom Planet was a game that originally was a Sonic The Hedgehog ROM Hack, but after the creators deciding that they could make a unique game out of it, they built a new engine from scratch, removing all the likenesses of sonic, and after they did that, they went to kickstarter to fund the game. After some overwhelming success, they went on to produce and publish the game today, known as Freedom Planet.
– Real player with 39.0 hrs in game
Sonic Generations Collection
How do you define a good Sonic game?
The series was struggling with the right answer for this question. The Sonic Generations attempt was one of the last possible calls for SEGA to do things right and… they succeeded! This game single-handedly revived the franchise for me and gave me the kick to check out the old classics for the first time (I’m the Dreamcast Kid). This game is really this good!
Imagine that the famous band tries to set up “The Best of…” album. They take one song from each previous album. Some of those releases were horrible and you think: “Remaking this track is a bad idea! This was a dark age for this band!”. You are relieved when you notice that the “that one” dreaded song sounds so new and fresh! Even more… you notice that every song has one version for the original vocalist and second for the new one that came into band recently. This is Sonic Generations in nutshell. They took a level from every single game in the main series and remade them to fit for both: the old and cute Classic Sonic with 2D gameplay and the Modern Sonic with the boost mechanic. Fear Sonic ‘06 no more! Crisis City in this game better than ever! And you can cure your PTSD from the Silver boss fight here! Don’t like him? IT’S NO USE! He will suffer and you will be satisfied!
– Real player with 117.3 hrs in game
Read More: Best Platformer 3D Platformer Games.
This game is short and story is cheesy, but has a lot of replayability due to multiple routes each zone has to provide a unique experience for the player. This invites them to explore new routes and experiment on which route is the shortest and best to present a satisfying experience of “Going fast.”
You play as Classic Sonic, which represents Sonic’s origins as a 2D game, and play as Modern Sonic, which represents Sonic when he transitioned into a 3D game.
Classic Sonic incorporates all of Sonic’s moveset from Sonic 2 and Sonic 3 & Knuckles and plays like how he is back in the Genesis era, but with modern controls. Classic Sonic’s zones are played in 2D setting, but the environment has a 3D look.
– Real player with 52.7 hrs in game
Electronic Super Joy
Electronic Super Joy. A 2-Dimensional partially-difficult platformer with fitting electronic soundtrack (courtesy of EnV) and simple yet vivid colors.
Majority of the game is a basic story. The Wanderer (You) runs off in search of the Evil Wizard, who so happens to have his (your) butt. He shall seek VENGEANCE for his booty!
The objective of the game is to journey throughout a puzzling world, from one portal to another. As you progress in the game, various enemies and obstacles await your way, doing whatever they can to stop you. Your character’s powers vary on the particular stages that you enter, but (as far as I know) he is able to stomp, double jump, and fly. If you keep watch of the stages, you’ll see white stars; when all are collected, they unlock one last world that’s separate from the main three. Legitimately, there are three bosses, two are a part of the adventure and one that’s included in the fourth world.
– Real player with 92.9 hrs in game
Read More: Best Platformer Indie Games.
Electronic Super Joy
Visuals:
The game’s visuals are dynamic and wonderful to experience. It is apparent that every visual style done between levels has been manipulated to make every level dissimilar from each other. Therefore, traveling from level to level is never tedious and is instead always a pleasant surprise. Although the foreground is black, it is ripe with detail while backgrounds are bright and a great contrast to the monochrome foreground. Small things like the moving pieces in the background are a faultless addition and sync perfectly with the music. It’s not photorealistic, but for a game like this, it has no need to be.
– Real player with 22.3 hrs in game
Ori and the Blind Forest
Beautiful game and the graphics are amazing. However, if you plan to use a controller, be aware that some of the controls could be switched with keyboard at any time and might mess up a charge jump or an ability. Hopefully they fix this, but other than that, recommended!
– Real player with 85.6 hrs in game
One of the best games of its genre, no doubt. Beautiful graphics, amazing music, even the lore is great. Level design and movement are very good with very satisfying feel to it. The only flaws are combat, which is lacking and too simple. There is no difficulity option in this version, and that might be a problem for more casual gamers. And lastly some achievements are bugged, which is a bit annoying for completionists. I would probably suggest playing the dafinitive edition, as it is a little bit more polished, but the game for itself is just amazing.
– Real player with 14.4 hrs in game
Sonic Adventure DX
What a game! As of this evening, I have unlocked every single Sonic Adventure Steam Achievement and had a blast along the way. Through my almost two years of playing SA1, it got me through the lesser parts of 2020, got me back into retro games, got me into collecting for the Dreamcast, became one of my favorite games and made me realize just how much I love the Sonic franchise and how awesome a franchise it is at that. Most importantly, its energy and willingness to try a lot of different things made me view games the way I did as a kid: they don’t always have to super artsy or mature, they can also be a sincere attempt to take you on a wild, fun-filled adventure.
– Real player with 132.9 hrs in game
Literally the best Sonic game, hands down. Download some mods to make it look better, but the game slaps just like it always will.
– Real player with 94.8 hrs in game
Sonic Mania
The last good sonic game.
– Real player with 87.3 hrs in game
one of the most best games if ya wanna be taken back in time. 1000/10 would recommend.
– Real player with 37.0 hrs in game
Sonic 3 & Knuckles
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlJwEF7hsbU
Enter The Echinada
One of the better Sonic games out there, as many would consider perhaps the best (of the retro era). Compared to previous two sonic games on steam this one has much more playability since it has more stages than first two games that can be completed in 3-5h easily, this one has pretty good stage design while maybe not best OST out of the three first sonic games.
– Real player with 1.5 hrs in game
According to the official story, Sonic 3 was meant to include the “& Knuckles” content from the beginning, but it was cut due to time constraints. Sonic 3 was pushed out as the “vanilla” package, with the “& Knuckles” expansion pack (lock-on cartridge) coming out eight months later. I personally think the “& Knuckles” content ends up detracting from the core Sonic 3 experience, and would have been fine if it never saw the light of day. “& Knuckles” added the Mushroom Hill zones onwards, this is where the game starts to drag the most and see quality loss in level design in my opinion. If they really needed to have the “& Knuckles” content added to complete the package, it would have been a better experience start-to-finish if they had removed the Sandolopis zone, which is the lowest quality zone of the “& Knuckles” campaign.
– Real player with 0.4 hrs in game
Sonic CD
It all started when I was 7 years old. My parents gave me a Sega Genesis and a copy of Sonic the Hedgehog for christmas. I fell in love with it the moment I booted up the game. The graphics, the music, the speed! It overwhelmed my young mind. I played it for hours on end, memorizing each level, the location of every powerup, every enemy, every single ring. It was the only thing I did, I stopped going outside and playing with my friends, for Sonic was the only friend I needed. Eventually I became unsatisfied, I needed a new Sonic the Hedgehog game to fuel my addiction. My prayers were answered with the release of Sonic the Hedgehog 2. My parents refused to buy it for me. They believed I was too obsessed with the first one and knew that buying the second one would only make my obsession worse. This devestated me. I NEEDED that game, I felt like an alcoholic going through withdrawl. I lost all of my spirit, I had trouble sleeping at night, and sometimes I would experience hallucinations where Sonic was in the room with me. I begged my parents every day, but they wouldn’t budge. I felt I had lost the will to live. Thankfully, I got the game. I aquired it the same way every kid got something that they wanted but their parents wouldn’t buy for them, Grandma. I was overjoyed, finally I could experience the masterpiece that is known as Sonic The Hedgehog 2. This time he was accompanied by Tails! I was delighted. I played this game, and mastered it like I had the original. By now I had lost contact with society, I didn’t talk to anybody at school, I had no friends, and I never left the house. This didn’t bother me though, in fact I preferred it that way. Just as I started to get bored of that game, Sonic 3 came out. My obsession had hit an all-time high, I was amazed at the quality of that game. We now had Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles. They were my friends, or “The Gang” as I called them. My parents were scared of me now. If they tried to take the game away from me, I would throw a tantrum and break things until they gave it back. No amount of reasoning, counseling, or Native American rituals could change me, because by now Sonic had was not just an obsession, but a lifestyle. I lived and breathed Sonic. But then came the dark days, no sonic games were coming out. Sega had stopped supporting the Genesis, and had launched the Saturn. I didn’t have one, but that didn’t matter. No new Sonic games were coming out. There were rumors, but the only one that ever turned out to be true was Sonic R. I saw it as an abomination, how could Sega do that to Sonic? After several years I had just about given up. I would often times cry myself to sleep, believing that Sega had given up on the blue hedgehog that I had come to adore. I wrote my own stories about Sonic, but they weren’t enough. But then it happened. I was at the grocery store with my mother, when I saw it: A magazine with a picture of the Sega Dreamcast plastered right on the cover. I begged my mom to buy it for me, and she did, relieved that I wanted something that wasn’t Sonic related, or so she thought. I read the articles about the upcoming system, and then I saw what I have been wanting to see for years, a new Sonic game was in the works, and it was 3D too! My life had a purpose again. When the day finally came, I was there. I was the first in line, I had convinced poor old Grandma to buy it for me, and I made sure I got a copy of Sonic Adventure. If the games on the Genesis amazed me, Sonic Adventure left me speechless. The worlds were so detailed, the graphics so realistic, the music blew me away. This was the way Sonic was meant to be. It rekindled the fire that had laid dormant in me that is Sonic. I wrote more fanfiction, I made my own fancharacters and I even shipped them. Then I realized something, Sonic wasn’t just a blue hedgehog on TV, He was a part of me. I became one with Sonic. If you want to be like me and know what truly matters in life, I fully recommend this game to you. Sonic is more than just a game, Sonic is a way of life.Go see the sonic movie, speeding to a theater near you February 14th, 2020.
– Real player with 42.0 hrs in game
Sonic CD is a pretty good game that took advantage of some great ideas, but after multiple playthroughs, I felt that it was marred by noticeable flaws which dragged down what would otherwise have been a solid game.
Time travel enhances the exploration factor to Sonic’s already multi-tiered level design by creating secondary objectives that require seeking out specific objects, in addition to changing the terrain for each time zone. This gameplay element is reinforced thematically; if you don’t find the badnik spawners, the zone enters a Bad Future where Eggman has soiled the landscape… but if you do destroy them, things look even better than in the Present, and as a bonus all of the enemies are destroyed. I always feel a certain sense of satisfaction from going to the Past, destroying the spawner, and then going into the Future of that same level to enjoy the scenery and rack up rings and 1ups (“I did this, and now I’m reaping the rewards”). You can also create a good future by collecting all of the time stones (which also gives you the “good” ending, as miniscule a difference as it is).
– Real player with 28.1 hrs in game
Cave Story+
I had played the original Cave Story back in 2010, when I read an article about it on ‘Hak5’. I liked it 10 minutes into the game, and loved it by the end; when I had had experienced two different endings. “Multiple endings! Wow!”, I thought; and when I read more about it, I found out that there was one another “best” ending, and some more hidden secrets that I was yet to discover. So I went back to the game, and I did. That was awesome, discovering something new about something that you are already in awe of.
– Real player with 72.9 hrs in game
I have no hesitation in saying Cave Story is my favourite video game of all time.
The gameplay is basically rather simple platforming/run’n’gun stuff with some weapons that feel very nice, and get stronger as you gather XP for them from enemies, levelling them up a total of three levels maximum(Though a couple of the secret weapons break this setup in some rather interesting ways), however this can be somewhat fleeting, as you lose XP from your current weapon whenever you take damage.
The story, world, music, art, and characterisation are all very charming. The interesting thing about the story of this game is that you kind of walk into the middle of it in the game, and figure out what’s going on as it’s already well underway. Without spoiling anything, essentially an evil scientist is kidnapping people from a village of peaceful Mimigas(Cute little bunny people) with the help of an evil witch Mimiga, and a large box man, presumably for the purposes of some evil scheme.
– Real player with 62.1 hrs in game
Dustforce DX
I should have written a review long ago. After all, I’ve played this game for 1,000+ hours and idle’d in its level editor for a few hundred more.
Dustforce DX is the deepest and most technically demanding 2D platformer ever made. It has a momentum based engine where all actions have real weight and consequence, attacks have start-up frames, things are jump and dash-cancellable, and there are tricks measured in how many frames they save. Every level has leaderboards both for score and for raw time, and the community is fiercly competitive and still very active. More importantly, every run on the leaderboards also has a replay embedded. Being able to watch your run (or anyone else’s) is not just fun, it’s a fantastic learning tool. If that sounds like something you’d enjoy, then keep reading.
– Real player with 1670.6 hrs in game
TL:DR, My absolute favorite platformer ever, please buy this game, its fantastic.
Below is my history with the game and how I came to know it as my personal favorite platformer of all time and a contender for being my favorite game ever.
At first, I didn’t really like Dustforce. I found a lot of the gameplay to be a little too difficult, even in the early levels of the game. It felt like the game didn’t want me to play, like it wanted to keep me out. But me being who I am, was stubborn, and wanted at least the 100% completion on Steam. So I grinded and grinded and grinded. Through all of the levels that technically meant almost nothing to the only achievement in the game. The S+ Achievement, which is given to you on completion of a SS run of Giga Difficult, one of the levels in the game that is so far in, that it keeps anyone who doesn’t have the true mentality to push, to improve, to keep playing, from ever reaching it.
– Real player with 153.3 hrs in game