CustardPuff

This game conflicts me for several reasons, as a fan of Sonic for as long as I can remember. For one, the music is great, as per usual, and the storytelling is definitely a step up from recent entries in the series, but the gameplay has so much jank and inconvenience, the envrionments do not feel much like a Sonic game, the combat is basic (covered by its flashy animations), the pace feels unnaturally slow sometimes and it feels like Sonic Team were throwing in random ideas to see what would stick in the final 25% of the game. While it can be pretty damn fun at times, it is still quite rough around the edges.

People say that Mario games are at their best when they surprise you and I think Galaxy might be the exact reason why that view is shared by so many people. Never would anyone have expected a cinematic, orchestral epic featuring our favourite mustachioed plumber, but it is just as thrilling and enjoyable as the presentation suggests.

One of the biggest surprises of the entire year so far, Pizza Tower is a magnificently frantic indie game that takes Wario Land 4's gameplay and runs at mach speed with it. The music is fantastic, the visuals definitely grow on you and the gameplay is some of the most thrilling that I have ever seen in a platformer.

An incredibly polished and enjoyable take on the typical Sonic formula with some killer music, Sonic Rush is easily the best Sonic game not developed in-house by Sonic Team besides Sonic Mania.

While the werehog stages can be incredibly frustrating at times, the exhillarating daytime stages, the decent story, the fantastic art/sound design and polish all partially make up for it.

It is honestly fascinating how Ubisoft managed to pull off one of the most polished and well-crafted 3D platformers of all time on just their 2nd attempt, after the insanity that was Tonic Trouble a year or two prior. This game has some of the best visuals ever seen on the Nintendo 64, a consistently great soundtrack that really gets you into the world you're platforming through, the surprisingly fair difficulty progression throughout the game, the tight and responsive controls, the oozing charm throughout, everything about this game is rock solid. Dare I say that Rayman 2 might be the best platformer ever made that was not released by Nintendo.

Although the one island per console restriction can, understandably, be annoying for families and people sharing a Switch, I believe that the game is still a wonderful package for any Animal Crossing fan.