October opus: Sonic Mania Plus...

Sonic the Hedgehog is 28 years old this year but has lived more than half his life in shitty games. Our blue friend had a home in 5 great speedy platform games in the early 90s. Then, some bigger changes in technology and some really terrible direction lead SEGA to produce poop for the next 20-odd years. Nintendo has always taken new tech in stride and implemented it in the titles quite well. Think of each system's new Mario or Zelda game and how well it uses its console's gimmick: Mario's movement in Super Mario 64, Z-targeting in Ocarina of Time, Link's Master Sword moving 1:1 in Skyward Sword via the Wiimote Accelerometer, and more recently, using the Wii U's touchpad to sketch blocks in New Super Mario Bros - nTh iteration.

And still better with the 2d D-pad.

Sonic...hasn't received the same treatment. The SEGA Saturn title used an isometric view and analog controller for Sonic 3d Blast to go with the new CD-quality audio. The music worked; the rest was awkward. Then while Mario was messing around on Sunshine Island (Gamecube), SEGA decided Sonic needed vocals and we were treated to unskippable, poorly-acted, awkwardly paced and stupidly long cutscenes in a game with only a good first level. This trend of underwhelming Sonic games with only good first levels repeated for years. But even with the music, there's been a prominence of guitar-heavy rock music with lyrics in most of the titles since Sonic Adventure that were hit and miss.

THEN, a few years ago, a fan updated/remade a few Genesis-era Sonic games. This all culminated into Sonic Mania, a return to roots with a blend of the only 5 Sonic games that matter: Sonic 1-3, & Knuckles, and Sonic CD. Sonic Mania blends these so thoroughly into a great shiny package and hits on almost everything great about the series. For example, two desert levels Oil Ocean (S2) and Sandopolis (S3) have been conceptually blended. In the original Sandopolis, you were inside of a pyramid that consistently got darker until you activated light switches throughout the level. In Sonic Mania, you're running through an oil extraction site that gets hazy until you activate fans to blog away the smog. The blends manifest themselves in the music, aesthetics and functions like the haze mechanic I mentioned. There are so many stages that Eggman Dr. Robotnik has gone the way of Bowser and recruited the Hard-boiled Heavies to harangue the heroes in different boss forms.

The devs balanced speed and running really really well. The levels are loaded with springs and sequences that don't screw up momentum with obstacles. There are even those parts in the game where you're running so fast that Sonic almost moves out of the frame, and they're used sparingly enough for you to really appreciate them. Past titles have suffered from poor camera controls, camera tracking, or the simple fact that touching the controls during the speed sequences could kill Sonic. A lot of the titles may have only had one of these sins, but Sonic Mania doesn't commit any.

Sonic Mania is the most fun I've had in a while. The game is gorgeously colorful, the remixed soundtrack is amazing, and I'm considering buying it for the appeal of a playable soundtrack. Have any of you played a game again for its soundtrack?

Hang on, Geddy! Ohh wait-shoot em!

I actually started the month with a title called Owlboy, which is heavily inspired by Kid Icarus from the original NES. The game has a neat aesthetic and in true sci-fi nature takes its world of sentient owls, stick bugs, penguins and spiders as established; there's no irony there. The story has to deal with capture and pirates and stuff...and I was just playing the game to experience vertical platforming. I really liked the music and artwork. Even towards the end of my 14-hour journey to the platinum, I forgot controls occasionally since they were just a bit awkward.

Ohh my! Yes, yes. Quite riveting!

After Owlboy, I was waiting for Sonic Mania to arrive in the mail and discovered just how awesome one of the previous free PS+ games was. The game is called Foul Play, and the title card is a theatre curtain. I figured it would be some murder mystery or otherwise dialogue-heavy slow-paced game. It turns out that this is a beat-em-up game where you play actors in a series of Vaudeville plays, beating the snot out of baddies for the audience's enjoyment. Get combos, dodge, pop the fist-fodder into the air, whack, sock, evade and chuck enemies into stage objects to applause and a great soundtrack. One fact is that October has seen three fast and fun titles with great music and unique aesthetics.

Katamari Forever: a profile

I am one of those people that uses the word perfect subjectively. I think something is perfect if it does what it's intended to do and nails all the details along the way. I abhor smoking but can tell you cigarettes are a perfect product. The addictive factor has been refined through decades of testing despite the obvious signs of damage to health. Cigarettes are so good that skipping 5-10 minutes of work every hour or two is socially acceptable, as long as you're harming your health. Try that shit with a 5-10 minute break to read a book or blend some smoothies in the break room and report back to me. Anyhoo, cigarettes are a perfect product to me, and the Katamari Damacy series is also perfect.

This guy is hilarious, annoying, the most important entity
in the Katamari universe...and that bulge is amazing!

If you haven't heard of Katamari Damacy [~Clump Soul], the story goes that your father, The King of Cosmos, [got drunk one night and] accidentally destroyed the planets, and it's your job to roll up enough items to form new ones. This story is told through surreal 10-second animations which were just as random in original Japanese. Also, to reach back to the title, it doesn't make sense in Japanese either, and the creator said it randomly popped into his head. This is a relief to me, as there are some really stupid anime titles that had to have been conceived similarly. Bubblegum Crisis and Cowboy Bebop come to mind, but I digress. Anyway, the bizarre opening sets the tone for the whole experience.

The game has a bright, cartoony palette and features everyday objects that the Prince of the Cosmos collects into a ball as he rolls through living rooms, backyards, train stations, and eventually the Solar System. This can be explained with a picture. What can't be explained is how the game sounds.

Each game features a peppy, poppy and eclectic soundtrack that stands well on its own. The music is good and the composer knows it. The PS3 title that I'm currently playing, Katamari Forever, is a blend of the first and second title, with a story to link all the chaos. The entire soundtrack is a remix of these two games as well. From the Katamari Wiki: "Miyake employed the help of over 20 other Japanese artists and remixers to help the soundtrack, which was designed to act as part of a "musical trilogy" with the soundtrack to Katamari Damacy and We Love Katamari. This was accomplished by choosing tracks from those games that were either fan or staff favorites and having them remixed by both Japanese and non-Japanese artists, though Miyake notes that the majority of the artists were Japanese as he did not know many non-Japanese musicians, the same problem that kept non-Japanese artists out of the first two soundtracks of the "trilogy".

I'd argue the most popular song of the series is not the main theme, but Lonely Rolling Star. The first gets its own version in each game, and the second gets a dubstep remix in the PSP title. One of my favorite tracks from the first game, Cherry Blossom Color Season, is a very poignant track about a summer memory with school kids doing vocals while a boy takes the lead. In Katamari Forever, it's done by a peppy 80s soft rock female vocalist. Both versions nail the sense of nostalgia, even without knowing what the lyrics mean. The remix that most blew me away in the same game was the second game's J-POPpiest song Everlasting Love being both mashed up with You Are Smart and translated to English (Everlasting Love + You).

For sound effects, objects are picked up with a plop or plunk that gets deeper with larger things. You start out picking up thumbtacks and batteries and once you get to animals and people, they let out screams and other strange noises.

The aesthetic, sounds and music combine to create an amazing experience, and the controls fit perfectly. Your rolling is controlled by both thumbsticks and little vibrations tell you when you pick stuff up. Although titles in the series are on other platforms, the controls make the most sense on the Dualshock controllers, as the sticks are side by side. The latest titles are on Android and iOS which makes me wonder what they did to the controls. There's a remake of the first Katamari Damacy coming to the Switch at the end of the year, which fits the theme of the Switch being a GREATEST PORTS platform with almost no original titles. Either way, the Katamari Damacy series is highly recommended and you should give it a roll!