VIDEO GAME: Sonic Frontiers (2022)

by benmweilertNo Comments
Sonic FrontiersYear: 2022Rating: E10+Time Played: 19.62 hours One of the big transformational shifts in video games lately has been the adaptation of longstanding franchises to make “open-world” versions of their IPs. While Breath of the Wild started this transition, it has been somewhat hit-or-miss for certain franchises. Super Mario Odyssey handled it well, but Pokémon Violet suffered from graphical limitations. Then there’s Sonic Frontiers, which did relatively well with making Sonic’s speed feel fun, but struggled with larger issues that crop up from moving to an open-world format. At the very least, the plot and cutscenes were well-written enough to drive the story forward. Just like when games shifted from 2D platforming to 3D space, there are a lot of different things to consider that might be overlooked because it’s a fundamental change to the core gameplay. Most Sonic games, even the 3D ones, have been fairly linear in their gameplay, so moving to open world needed lots of areas to give...
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MOVIE: Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (2024)

by benmweilertNo Comments
Sonic the Hedgehog 3Year: 2024Rating: PGLength: 110 minutes / 1.83 hours One thing that initially struck me about the live-action Sonic the Hedgehog movies was how much lore could be extracted from the video games (especially the 16-bit ones). With Sonic the Hedgehog (2020) being a bit of an origin story movie for Sonic (Ben Schwartz) and Robotnik (Jim Carrey), Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (2022) easily added two iconic characters from the second and third games in the series. Then there’s Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (2024). The lore is at its deepest in this chapter and was a logical next step in Sonic’s story. When Sonic made the jump from 2-D platformer to 3-D space, there was a bit of a learning curve for the series. While I’ll probably have to write another review of Sonic Adventure 2, that this movie made a mostly clean adaptation of this game’s plot is a big positive. With the introduction of Shadow (Keanu Reeves)—the series’...
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VIDEO GAME: Sonic Dash (2013)

by benmweilertNo Comments
Sonic DashYear: 2013Rating: ETime Played: 50+ hours It's interesting how most video game franchises that started on consoles have trouble breaking into the mobile gaming sphere. Sonic Dash is probably the most successful because it capitalizes on one cornerstone of mobile gaming: the endless runner. Who better to star in an endless runner game than a character known specifically for running? The problem is that , while the game is fun for a while, it becomes repetitive and stale the further you get into it. I first started playing this game as Sonic Dash+ on Apple Arcade. This version has no ads, which is perhaps its greatest selling point, as it feels that half my time on the free-to-play version is spent watching ads to get free consumables (rings, red rings, character cards, etc.). And mobile game ads have gotten no better as time goes by. Still, the amount of regular updates the game receives is just frequent enough to keep me...
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MOVIE: Sonic the Hedgehog (2020)

by benmweilert2 Comments
Sonic the Hedgehog Year: 2020 Rating: PG Length: 99 minutes / 1.65 hours As someone who grew up with the original Sonic video games, I was highly skeptical of this film adaptation. There's not much plot behind a game that's basically: move right as fast as possible and defeat a robot-making madman. Granted, Sonic has developed a little more depth to its lore over the years...but not much. The appeal of the character in the '90s was his attitude, and I have to admit that his movie does capture that attitude quite well. For a video game adaptation, Sonic the Hedgehog (2020) isn't terrible, which is saying something. I can only imagine the nightmare-inducing original design for Sonic, though. However, it's still not the greatest movie ever for the genre of video game adaptations. I did appreciate the little "slow-motion" moments, as well as the practical use of the rings as teleportation devices. Jim Carrey's Dr. Robotnik was passable, if not a little too goofy/sinister...
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