Recent reviews by Skel

For such a sprawling, nonsensical and varied adventure to flow so smoothly and feel so natural takes a truly impressive degree of talent and understanding of the player experience from the sole first-time developer.
Definitely one of the most underrated games I have ever come across. Fantastic atmosphere and satisfying moment-to-moment gameplay across the entire experience.
The sheer sense of scale reminded me of some of the best parts of both Half Life games, and there were plenty of memorable moments here in that same vein.
I'll be thinking about this game for a while. I really hope we see more from this dev!

It's alright, if you don't spend any of time outside of your room.
Suspension of disbelief was not a factor in the writing here, nobody in any culture at any time in history acts, or would react like the characters in this story.
Everything that happens in this fragile experience relies on an ever-rising house of cards, built on crazy plot convenience after convenience.
Those cards toppled multiple times for me whilst playing, the obvious effect being that I did not care what was happening by the end.
It's not awful, I finished it, but sometimes playing something awful leaves you with more than I got from this.

THAT BEING SAID, it has some pretty good art, if VN is your favourite type of game, you'll probably like this.

I'm a strong believer in first impressions.

The default keybind for crouch was set to TAB(!) and you cannot crouch jump in this Source game despite noclip being allowed by default with a dedicated keybind that shows up in the key config, confidence inspiring stuff. At least the keybind for noclip is set to "V" which is what a sane human would pick.

The intro is extremely slow and boring, doing absolutely nothing to hook you. The dev should be reminded that this game will not launch without ownership of Portal 2, we do not need the awful tutorial.

Despite both overtly and implicitly signalling for you to disobey given instructions (especially given the post Portal/Stanley Parable world we find ourselves in - and this game models itself on) you are punished multiple times for disobeying. Whether that be through letting you wander off for ages and then forcing you to slowly trudge back to the intended path (no option to sprint), or - no joke - the game popping a message on the screen that said "Wrong choice - wait here for 30 seconds".

No thanks. I think I've spent longer writing this review than I felt the need to play, truly this is a masterclass in how not to open your game.

BANGER physics-based friendslop, well worth!

Overall fun + worth the low asking price but definitely not for everyone:
The RNG is EXTREMELY harsh, and never pulls punches.
Getting a run going takes many attempts (hours) and you can always be wiped out in just a minute of poor RNG.
The general lack of a skill expression phase by limiting most of the roguelite elements to the prep phase means that more than any other game like this, the illusion that this is anything more than a "watch the RNG unfold" experience is a frail one, aided mainly by the great aesthetic and UI flow + readability.
There are no attacks to dodge, no clutch moments, no way to save yourself. You will just watch unfavourable rolls kill your fledgling run on repeat.
I definitely got more than my money's worth, it's just a mild let-down that this particular formula does not lend itself to long-term replayability as in something like Balatro.

Game of the year for me personally, a ridiculously good deal at full price and even beyond.
Not much more to be said than that this surpasses the original in every single way which is no small feat.
Well worth the wait.
Very much looking forward to whatever these guys do next!

Transcendental. Words do not do it justice. This will be the best RPG of all time when the rest of the parts are out.

An absolute blast for the entire runtime, with tons of replay value. Genuinely funny and heartfelt. Great stuff! Play it on hard!

I can't believe I hadn't played this until now.
Consistent hypnotic perfection, packaged in some of the most tight and functional UI, visuals and soundtrack I've ever experienced in a VN.
Sickening and incredible.
I will be thinking about this for a long time.

An awful and completely baffling experience for my entire playtime. I had some level of hope about this game due to the level of praise it receives. If you think this game is worthy of praise, you are wrong, just like with every other 3D Sonic game after Adventure 2.

20 years later, and Sonic Team STILL clearly lack the understanding and technical ability to produce anything of quality, and STILL need to be replaced root and stem.

The game feels absolutely disgusting to play, the fact that Sonic's movement has multiple toggles and sliders included is a massive red flag/self report that you are going to be having a bad time no matter what. Just make him control well from the start. Spark the Electric Jester 3 simply does not have this issue. No matter your level of experience with this game, you WILL fight with the controls frequently and without exception. The most egregious mechanic is turn speed, which completely prevents you from moving how you want to, and WILL kill you multiple times. When you are on a timer this is beyond maddening.

The boring open world was clearly some sort of test asset bundle deal from Quixel Megascans™. It has no place in a Sonic game and makes the entire ordeal feel like a near default Unity project with Sonic pasted in. The myriad haphazardly placed boosters, springs and rails WILL shoot you the wrong way and lock you into a 5-10 second inescapable nightmarish rollercoaster scenario where you are forced to watch Sonic moving away from your intended location over and over, screaming internally.

The cyberspace stages range from just passable to extremely bad, some elements within are completely broken and will force you to restart. You will also be forced to repeat these tedious stages until you achieve enough of the objectives (i.e. the thing that makes Sonic Rush Adventure terrible.)

The combat simply should not be in the game, but what they have decided to include is the perfect combination of elements to make it the least fun it can possibly be. Every single enemy that does not die in one hit is a huge chore, there is no point, no spectacle and no stakes to any of the fights. Some also drag from what I would say is about 5 times as long as they need to be. The "big" end of zone fights are just embarrassing, they all focus on "parrying" as Super Sonic, and the parry input can be held indefinitely. Why leave the mechanic in the game gutted? JUST REMOVE IT.

The tone and atmosphere is confused, for the most part a poor man's Breath of the Wild that I honestly can't muster the effort to type about. It borders on parody in it's cynicism and shamelessness.

Ian Flynn's supposedly awesome "writing" is nothing more than glancing over Sonic fan wikis and regurgitating facts or key events about character's pasts, providing only tangentially-related, ham fisted and gross fan-service which rings completely hollow.

The character's voices for the most part are horrid and just sound wrong, Amy sounds like Rugrats' Chucky.

Not to mention the laundry list of miscellaneous issues with the game:
End lag on abilities, lightspeed dash etc. / Being locked in animations, menus, repetitive cutscenes, loading screens / The audio for character dialogue seemingly coming from a different Windows process(?) so that it doesn't come across when streaming the game (though this is pretty funny I must admit) / many many more.

The only praise I can give is that SEGA Sound Team once again did a fine job with the mess of a brief they must have been given.

Overall what you are left with is a cynical mess, clearly cobbled together from multiple (failed) Sonic projects and gameplay experiments.

Give up. Leave the franchise to the fans, they are clearly far more passionate and skilled.