Recent reviews by TAP2Rapid

Sega does what Nintendon't. Definitely worth the price! So addictive that in just one or two days, I've already beaten all the Grand Prixes, completed half the time trials, unlocked a ton of stuff, and found my favorite kart setup for online, which in itself is a simple, insanely fun and solid experience!

And don't even get me started on how loaded the game's soundtrack is with tunes old, new, and remixed. Characters and their interactions are amazing and well varied, and each course in the game from start to finish is gorgeous to look at and race through. My favorite part, though, is being able to race at Super Sonic Speed, which I think is a far more balanced version of *ahem* that OTHER kart racing game's 200cc setting. The tracks can accommodate and despite you being advised to brake on that setting, you don't really need to if you've gotten the hang of the game's drift mechanics.

The only "complaints" I have so far is that some of the incentives for collecting Donpa tickets are a TAD pricey and you'll have to grind your hands to the bone (literally) to get things like kart auras, horns, and friendship perks for each character. That, and the fact that there are no voices or special interactions for the Werehog or any of the guest characters.

Don't miss out, though! This game is happenin'!

It's no secret that anyone buying this game will do so for the sake of playing Shadow Generations over Sonic Generations. That's probably for the best, as the Shadow campaign is much more lore-heavy and provides a breadth of new experiences that Sonic fans (and especially fans of the red-and-black renegade) will love. However, this game collection suffers from a number of issues that may end up limiting your enjoyment of the product as a whole. Still worth buying for sure because of how much content is in it, but you may have your hopes dashed a bit with what you're expecting.

Positives:
-Shadow Generations campaign is all-new, action-packed, and plays quite a bit like Sonic Frontiers with more refined controls.
-Sonic Generations is pretty much intact... for better and for worse.
-Fans of lore will enjoy the extra bits of backstory given to Shadow.
-As expected, both games are loaded with content between artwork, music, and character biographies that stimulate the imagination.
-You can tell by the voice acting, cinematic cutscenes, and the loads of content that a lot of love went into Shadow Generations and the developers' efforts to expand Shadow's backstory. It also feels like a breath of fresh air to play a Sonic game where Sonic himself is NOT the main character for the first time in years.
-Nostalgia mixed with nuance on Shadow's end makes the game a welcome addition to your library.
-Gerald's Journal was a thrill to read through for that extra bit of context into the Space Colony ARK and the events leading up to Shadow's origin story.

All that being said, we also need to take a look at what this collection is lacking, and how it may impact people's decisions to buy the game at its current price tag of 50 USD. Be prepared, because there's a lot of missed opportunities here.

Negatives (Sonic Generations):
-Sonic Generations has the same clunky, godawful controls as it did in its original release. For both Sonics. Many unfair deaths or restarts were made because of how bad this game's controls are. Classic Sonic's physics and spin dash are still the worst. Modern Sonic's boost tends to be unreliable because of how differently it works here than in Frontiers. This does NOT transfer well to Shadow Generations.
-In fact, they changed nothing of importance about Sonic Generations at all. Except for the unnecessary changes to the characters' dialogue, which ends up ruining a couple of interactions entirely.
-No more Extra Life system, which diminishes the challenge factor by a mile. Also, they left in a particular Skill in Sonic Generations that is now useless and doesn't even need to be bought to get the Mad Skillz achievement.
-There is ZERO reference or tie-in to Shadow Generations from the Sonic side of things. For a game that had a major selling point of the stories intertwining with each other, they offered nothing on this side of the collection. Again, Sonic Generations here is almost the exact same as the original release... which is now no longer available to buy in the Steam Store. So, this now HAS to be your experience with Sonic Generations if you didn't get the original version before.
-They added the Sonic Mania Drop Dash, but didn't add any Sonic Mania music. They didn't add ANYTHING else new worth note to the game when they very well could've. Also, in my experience, the Drop Dash sucks. For both Sonics.
-One thing they DID add... that turned out to be totally useless, was the 'Find all the Chao' gimmick, where they just hid a bunch of Chao in EVERY act of EVERY stage, three at a time. And you get NOTHING for finding them all. Not even a lousy achievement. Yeah, it's nice to see the Chao make a return, but you can't do anything with them but watch them float around once you're done searching for them.

Negatives (Shadow Generations):
-Shadow Generations' campaign is too short and relies heavily on playing through challenge stages and looking around an honestly bland, tiny, and lifeless hubworld for collectibles to pad for extra play time.
-The "tie-in" to Sonic's side of things from Shadow's perspective is only a couple of cutscenes and Rouge of all characters being the only other character to appear in both games. So, no Sonic boss fight in which you play as Shadow.
-The collectibles. A bunch of them DON'T APPEAR ON THE MAP, which makes looking for them a massive chore if you're going to 100% the game. Speaking of which...
-The map. You can't interact with it to mark points of interest or even scroll around to get a decent look at anything.
-Oftentimes, the game does not give you a full explanation of how Shadow's Doom powers work, forcing you to suffer occasional cheap deaths as you learn about them.
-Doom Powers can be pretty gimmicky and end up only serving one or two purposes before being rendered useless because the stages don't do enough to incorporate them.
-Shadow feels sluggish most times and his boost does not always give a meaningful speed increase. This is a problem shared by Sonic Frontiers. Given that this game runs on the Frontiers engine, it's all but expected.
-Not a SINGLE stage you play through in this game is from Shadow the Hedgehog (2005), yet they have nearly every song from that game in here. As well as that game's main villain. Make it make sense.
-There are only six stages in total. Without spoiling too much... TWO are from Sonic Adventure 2, One is from Sonic Heroes, One is from Sonic 06, One is from Sonic Forces, and one is bafflingly from Sonic Frontiers. Two of these six stages are from games that took place lorewise AFTER Sonic Generations, and the game barely gives an explanation as to why this is. And don't expect it to mean anything that the Frontiers and Forces stages are here.
-The usual Modern Sonic-era problem of the main stages being way too linear with little room for exploration or ingenuity is still here.
-Bosses are formulaic and far too easy, even on Hard mode. You just play through a bunch of quick-time events while occasionally being able to damage the boss between those events. Matter of fact, the Challenge stages you're forced to play through just to progress the game aren't that much of a challenge either. They're too quick and any enjoyment you get from the creative stage alterations is hampered when you find the goal ring in less than 30 seconds.
-There is a singular hubworld side quest that doesn't involve challenge stages... and it's a MASSIVE waste of time. All for a joke that ends up not being funny. It's optional, thank goodness, but why is it even here?
-Ending (NO SPOILERS) can be a bit of a tearjerker, but it's also... underwhelming at the same time.

All in all, this is a decent collection and another solid addition to any Sonic fan's collection. Especially because of all the music and artwork jammed into both games. If you're NOT a Sonic fan going into this, however... Ya MAY want to ask for this game as a holiday gift instead of spending the money upfront. Perhaps this game could get better with DLC for Shadow Generations other than the movie tie-in level, but that will remain to be seen as of this review. I recommend buying this game collection, yes, but I do so with much trepidation because of how little substance the collection actually has once you get past the flash.

Great gameplay, stunning graphics, oozing with charm for both veterans and newcomers alike.

Riding in on the coattails of the original Legacy Collection, Mega Man Legacy Collection 2 delivers much of the same enthralling, pulse-pounding challenges that the first compilation did. Most of what you'd see in Mega Man 1-6, you're going to see (and then some) in Mega Man 7-10. In case you're not aware, 7 and 8 offer two totally different experiences that I won't spoil here, but 9 and 10 (which were released MUCH later than the rest of the original series with 9 coming out in 2008 and 10 coming out in 2010) return the series to its roots while still adding a few new things here and there.

Between the four games included in this collection, each game offers crisp, responsive controls and a ton of fun new ways to navigate through each area you blast and dash your way through, even when the games themselves all follow the same pattern of you fighting eight robot masters, followed by four Wily stages, culminated in rematches with each of the eight robot masters followed by a multi-phase final boss battle. Lather, rinse repeat. At the very least, these games are self-aware in some ways. What ways? Beat the games to find out! And, in case one is curious, the challenges are back and more creative than before. I'm also a fan of the fact that Mega Man 9 and 10 offer the ability to play characters other than Mega Man himself, but for anyone willing to play as the other character(s), just be prepared for what you've signed up for. Other than that, each game plays incredibly smoothly with hardly a hitch.

That said, my issues with this collection are pretty glaring. For one thing, the rewind function present in the first collection is absent in this one. And as far as save states go? Well, let's just say they're nowhere near as generous as they were before. As in, instead of you starting right where you last saved, the games will instead just record your most recent checkpoint and spawn you back there as though you'd just lost a life. At the very least, there IS an autosave feature that will record each checkpoint in the event you forget to do it on your own. My other concern is that there are only four games as compared to the original collection's six, but unless you get this game on a deal, it costs pretty much the same price as the first collection.

In short, I'd still recommend Mega Man Legacy Collection 2 if you're looking for a complete experience of Mega Man in his glory days. These games offer plenty of interesting things old and new, and as long as you've grown familiar with Mega Man's typical play-each-level-in-any-order-you-want design, you'll certainly not find yourself bored. And if the gameplay isn't what gets you, I'll certainly say it's the music that'll have you bobbing your head as you try your hardest to save the planet from Dr. Wily's repetitively diabolical schemes.

If you're an old-school fan of old-school challenges, then there's no better place to look for that nostalgic thrill than the original Mega Man series. If you're new to the Mega Man series and you're looking to start somewhere fresh, then you'd be doing yourself a disservice if you didn't go all the way back to where it all began.

The Mega Man series has always been known for its excellent music, its difficult platforming, and, for casual players, its seemingly impossible bosses. Barring the first game in the series, Mega Man generally treats players harshly, but mostly fairly. Of course, there's no avoiding the fact that constantly respawning enemies, bosses with predictable, yet challenging attack patterns, and platforming that sometimes comes across as frustrating due to its favoritism of trial and error gameplay. Classic old-school for ya. This collection, however, offers less experienced players a huge advantage in the form of its rewind and save-state functions to help people get through the games if they find them too difficult or if they're looking to learn the ins and outs of each game. Of course, the password systems in each game are left intact, in case you really wanna take it back. It also certainly is nice that they include an extensive collection of concept art and descriptions of the characters depicted in each game that'll have you hooked on finding out more about the world of Mega Man. It... also admittedly kinda helps that you can read the boss descriptions in each game and discover what weapon every robot master in each game is weak to. N-not that I looked there to make the games easier to beat! Heh...

Anyway, this collection also offers plenty of replay value in the form of a very intuitive and engaging challenge mode, where you run through various trials that'll put your platforming skills to the test. Very much worth a try.

My only real gripe, however, is that, minus a couple of glitches being removed (*cough cough* Yellow Devil Pause Glitch *cough cough*), the games run exactly as they did way back then. Expect there to be plenty of frame lag in the first two or three games (especially the first one) when the screen gets too hectic. My other gripe is more of a fair warning that sometimes, the games themselves can be very unforgiving, but as I mentioned earlier, that's what the save state and rewind functions are there for.

All in all, Mega Man Legacy Collection is a fantastic compilation of the Blue Bomber's earliest adventures and I'd dare say that if you really consider yourself an avid veteran gamer, you'd do yourself a favor and pick this up today. Six games for the price of one ain't a bad deal, after all.

Very simple, yet fast-paced, fun, unique, and harder than brass knuckles to get through since you only get one life to finish four or five worlds. Smooth, quick level transitions, awesome music, plenty of power-ups, and the added challenge of there being randomly-generated levels and different sets of enemies to conquer as you try your damndest to get to the end without dying. Another bonus is that the game is cheap, so if you want a quick fix of hardcore action, then Downwell is for you.

Maaaan (or womaaaan), listen... This game will seriously make you question how you spend your free time on Steam. Forget about those obscure, fanservice-laden humpfest Visual Novels or HuniePop... This game will make you feel like you're on that weird part of Youtube and enjoying it. This game will constantly remind you of your debilitating inadequacy as a gamer. The amount of time you'll spend on this game if you're dedicated enough will have you wondering exactly what you've been doing with your life. Lemme tell you: You will see some s**t. You will see s**t that tears you apart from the inside out. You will experience primal, ravenous emotions that you never knew you had. You will feel an adrenaline rush more intense than skydiving out of a burning plane with a wet, hungry dog for a parachute. You will suddenly find yourself stronger than the Incredible Hulk after a trip to the DMV after his car was towed when you realize how hard you can throw your controller after failing that one level for the 1,536th time (this game counts deaths, by the way, just to taunt you for your inevitable failures).

It starts off charming enough, passively teaching you the controls and the VERY basic plot of the game (Just think Super Mario Bros., but with a cube of meat as Mario, a cube of Bandages as Peach, and a sentient fetus in a jar wearing a tuxedo and tophat as Bowser). But once the tutorial levels are over, the difficulty ramps up faster than The Flash after a week-long caffiene and cocaine binge fueled by existential frustration.

Also, this game is REALLY hard, but REALLY fun. Oh, and if you're also a frequenter of Newgrounds, were a fan of platformers from the 80's, and/or have played other Indie platformers, you're in for a real treat because this game is LOADED with references and secrets. Play it and see!

Following in the footsteps of its predecessor, Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number capitalizes on the strongest aspects of the original game and welcomes new mechanics, new characters, new weapons, and a deeper story that aims to directly teach the player a cryptic lesson about morality, consequences, and the concept of Cause & Effect through its characters' interactions. Hotline 2 is more of the same with explosive (sometimes literally!), fast-paced, incredibly-challenging gameplay mixed with blood & guts galore. As a bonus, the game received an online-friendly level editor that encourages players to keep playing long after they've run through both the game's story mode difficulties (Oh yes, there is now a Hard Mode for people who found the game's normal mode "Too easy").

There are few drawbacks to this game, but said drawbacks are noticeable. Sometimes, the player may encounter a spawning glitch at any point of any given level that either traps them in an inescapable loop of deaths and respawns, prevents them from obtaining something they need to progress, or causes an enemy to run far outside the level's boundary lines, rendering the level impossible to complete. Additionally, players may find themselves hindered by the game's way of handling weapon pick-ups when there are multiple weapons lying in close proximity. For example, if you kill two enemies (one holding a bat or pipe and the other holding a shotgun) and the weapons are next to each other, then depending on the enemy you killed first, you will ALWAYS pick up that enemy's weapon. So in essence, if you killed the guy with the bat first, then the shotgun guy and you want the shotgun, you're forced to pick up the bat and throw it away to get the shotgun. This is often the case in levels with a lot of enemies and consequently, the result of many player deaths. This issue was prevalent in the previous game as well and evidently, did not receive an alternative.

To conclude, Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number is an excellent addition to the Hotline series and offers a lot in replay value, challenge, and investment that will have players coming back for more... if they haven't been discouraged by the amount of times the "You're Dead, Press A to Restart" has graced their vision.

Without saying too much, Undertale is a must-have for gamers from all walks of the digital world. It brings a stunning uniqueness to the RPG genre and makes it so that a lot of the choices you make throughout your playthrough matter in the long run. It is a game that is better experienced in its entirety than read about or watched. NO SPOILERS! Play it without any prior knowledge for the best of experiences. Even if you do know at least a little bit about the game, give it a try and be amazed no matter what you do. Nyeh heh heh heh!

Skullgirls is a game that is rich in character and level design, graphical appeal, music, and methods of introducing novice fighting gamers to the deeper, more intricate aspects of fighting games. The overall theme in its presentation is simple, yet attention-grabbing in that the characters are memorable, the voice-acting is colorful and lively, and the action is consistently fast-paced. There is also a story mode wherein each character is introduced and has their own route to follow, as per the standard for most modern fighting games.

The fighting system in place is reminiscent of the Marvel Vs. Capcom series, with many of the mechanics such as team-based combat and long, elaborate combos being the most prevalent features. The control scheme is almost identical to Street Fighter III in its 6-button layout. What Skullgirls offers over both of these games, however, is that its combo system offers players better options in how to learn any specific character; not to mention that there is a tutorial mode that covers most of the important aspects of how to play. Another minor plus is that the game's charm is a mix of original content and references to other popular media.

While the game's presentation is flashy and its fighting system intricate and an original spin on the 2D-Fighter category, it is not without its faults. For one, the tutorial mode does not cover each aspect of the game's mechanics in great detail, to the point where some mechanics such as Absolute Guard are completely ignored by it, rendering them "hidden" until they are witnessed during regular gameplay. Additionally, the online mode is where the game really suffers, with constant lag that hampers the online experience.

In addition, the online modes are not friendly to newer players at all. More often than not, players will encounter others who play at much higher skill levels, thus discouraging them from playing further. With no filter or algorithm to determine how to match players based on skill, lower-level players are forced to either become experts or stick to the offline modes, which do not offer much unless the Encore Upgrade is downloaded.

From a personal standpoint, the game's fighting system is overly offense-focused, with the first player to land a hit that starts a combo immediately having the potential (and options) to drain the life from their opponent in a sequence of combo strings should they know how to work around and manipulate an opponent's defensive options, which are limited to blocking, push-block cancels, and Infinite-Prevention Bursts that can leave a player vulnerable in more ways than it can assist.

Overall, Skullgirls is a fun, fast-paced, and substance-rich game that is well worth the investment. It is even more amazing when one considers that this game was built from scratch by a small development team with the assistance of a wildy-successful crowdfunding project that allowed it opportunities to grow above and beyond the expectations of most.