Expi Feliton's Corner

Growing up I was kind of one of those people who were always a generation late with every new console release. I remember my brother having an Xbox 360 during the late 2000’s through the early 2010’s, but outside of that, my family wasn’t too well off in the 2000’s up to the early 2010’s or so and therefore it wasn’t usual for me to have the latest consoles as they released. I had a GameBoy Advance SP through the DS era, I didn’t get the Wii until a year before the Wii U released, and that isn’t to mention the retro consoles I got during the early 2010’s. Hell this hasn’t even necessarily gone away - I actually just got an Xbox One X this year right as the Series S and X plus the PlayStation 5 are about to release. And the DS wasn’t an exception. I had my GameBoy Advance growing up and I was happy with it, but as I started growing more interest in more Nintendo games and whatnot in 2011, I kind of figured now was the time to finally upgrade - I mean, the 3DS had come out in March and t...

 NOTE: This review is part of a retrospective of the Sonic franchise. Feel free to read the other Sonic reviews I’ve done here - https://expithecat.blogspot.com/search/label/sonic%20retrospective Well, now with all those spin-off titles out of the way, time to go back to the main series and look at Sonic Adventure 2. In June, I reviewed the first Sonic Adventure game and my conclusion was that it was a solid first 3D entry for the series. Not perfect by any means - the game does lack a bit of polish and stuff like Big’s stages did come off to me as just… filler, and honestly it’s not a game I have that much desire to replay after playing through the main story, but I still think it’s a fun game and a solid Sonic game. But that begs the question. If Sonic Adventure is so great, why isn’t there Sonic Adventure 2? Wait, I made that joke already? Background and History Following the release of Sonic Adventure in the US, Sonic Team USA almost immediately went on to start development on ...

 So, over the past couple years I’ve been looking over all of Nintendo’s major systems. But with the Nintendo 64, GameCube and NES out of the way, I’ve pretty much run out of major Nintendo home consoles to really talk about. I will say that my review on the Switch has dated a bit now that I’ve owned the console for over a year and have gotten a chance to really get into it, but at the same time I don’t really plan to re-review the system entirely at the moment. But it’s a good thing that Nintendo doesn’t only make home consoles. In fact, if there’s anything that Nintendo has pretty much always been the leader in, it’s definitely handheld gaming. Even as far back as the Game and Watch Nintendo’s handhelds have pretty much always been popular. And well, I have had the desire to talk about them because, frankly, I grew up with some of Nintendo’s handhelds and I really feel like they make up a lot of my early gaming memories. So, I figured now was a good chance to talk about them. I d...

NOTE: This review is part 11 in a retrospective of the Sonic franchise. Feel free to read the other Sonic reviews I’ve done here - https://expithecat.blogspot.com/search/label/sonic%20retrospective Well, I completed my reviews of a few side/spinoff games from the classic era. But before I move on to Adventure 2, there’s one more I have to play and cover. History and Background In 1998, SNK released their first handheld system - the Neo Geo Pocket. It never saw an American release, only in Japan and Europe, and the system was pretty quickly discontinued due to low sales. It was succeeded a year later by the Neo Geo Pocket Color - a very similar handheld but now with a color screen, and this time, was also released in the United States. The NGP Color was backwards compatible with all Neo Geo Pocket games, and in addition, the Neo Geo Pocket was forwards compatible with most of the Neo Geo Pocket Color’s titles, albeit could only play them in monochrome. Kind of a similar situation with t...