July Media Post

 
Featuring Conbunn Cardboard, Twilight's Eden, Sonic Jam (Saturn), and Sonic Jam (GameCom)
 
 

Conbunn Cardboard


This game's a cute, chill time. For such a laid back game, you actually move around pretty fast which feels nice. I was skeptical at first of how well the platforming would work since depth perception seemed tough to gauge with the singular camera angle and flat characters, but the game's never demanding enough for it to really be an issue. The camera does make exploration a little awkward at times though, since you can't see much in-between Cobunn and the camera.
 
It feels a little weird that the game is about collecting CD's, but there aren't actual songs tied to them (with the exception of the Conbunn Cardboard soundtrack which I guess would just be the music you're already listening too in-game), but I didn't really expect there to be considering since 40 collectable songs would be a lot for a game that's otherwise so small. In practice, the CD's actually contain 2D artwork to look at, and the artwork is pretty cool.


Twilight's Eden

 
I'm not usually into dark fanfictions, but this one caught my eye because I think the artwork is really pretty. The artist/creator, Halo12, has a couple other videos in the same vein, so if you like Twilight's Eden, I'd suggest checking out their other stuff as well. In particular I actually got into their channel through their That's Not My Little Pony video.
 
I wasn't planning on even mentioning this series in any of my general media posts, but a game tie-in was released, simply called Ponyville, and I like to note game's that I've played. I would say it's such a simple, straightforward point and click that you might as well just watch the official YouTube video playthrough, but because Halo12's video often feature fake games, my monkey brain was allured by the idea of getting to play one that's real (if you don't know, I love media based around presenting fake video games). Admittedly it wasn't riveting gameplay when I decided to try and talk to Applejack before Rarity, only to waste like half a minute walking back and forth across the entire map because Applejack's actually the last one you're allowed to talk to. My biggest issue with the game happens to take place when you're actually supposed to walk from Rarity to Applejack though. Along the way, a spooky image flashes across the screen, and a shadowy figure sneaks behind a tree, both of which feel a little out of place since otherwise all the tension throughout the game comes from Twilight. I get that it ties into part of Twilight's Guessing Game, and is possibly building up to something in the future, but for now it feels like the game doesn't stand as well on its own as it possibly could. Plus the shadow sneaking behind the tree looked kinda silly.

Despite in part enjoying this series's dark themes, I'm still at odds with them. Sometimes I'll wonder if I should have ever watched it in the first place, 'cause oh man does it creep me out an uncomfortable level sometimes. I'm in a "this is creepy in a cool way" type of mood as I'm typing this though. When I'm in a creeped out mood, thankfully there's an abundance of actually wholesome MLP fanart for me to look at instead.
 
 

Sonic Jam (Saturn)

 
This is the type of game I saw like 13 years ago, and always stuck in the back of my mind as something I wanted. In particular, the Sonic World gamemode struck me as something I might really enjoy.
 
Having now played it, I see why people barely talk about it. It's a very small world, smaller than a single standard level in Mario 64. There's not much to do in it as well, just 8 missions of touching objects within a time limit.
 
My main issue though is with the controls. Sonic steers slower than your able to change his direction, and he accelerates very quickly which makes it difficult to control him precisely. The camera controls are more poor though, you can switch between 2 states, an overhead camera which doesn't rotate, or an up close camera which only rotates when you move left, right or diagonally. Unfortunately I didn't realize until after I completed all the missions that this game was compatible with the control stick. Playing with the d-pad instead made the camera rotation issues far more prevalent.
 
Sonic World is very charming though. It's very decorated with trees, Flickys, a couple set pieces, among other things. I love thos era of 3D Sonic graphics, despite harsh technical limitations, things are still detailed enough to be distinct, and I think the jagged 3D models are incredibly stylish.
 

The digital museum stuff is quite a charming trip as well. As a big Sonic fan I've already seen nearly all of it in YouTube video b-roll footage, but just sitting down and looking at just taking things in one at a time was still a unique experience. While I've known about a lot of Sonic's mingling with 3D in the mid-90's, it was actually kinda surprising to see just how prevalent 3D animation was throughout the brand.
 
Random commercials like this simply had 3D animation.

My favorite thing to see was this animated short:
 

I had actually planned on playing through the ports of Sonic 1, 2, 3, and Knuckles in this collection, curious about the additional difficulty options, but it turns out there are only 2 additional difficulty options for each game, and fron what I can tell they're both easier. As someone who's played the original Sonic trilogy plenty of times, I don't think I'd get much out of playing them on an Easy mode at this point, plus the emulator I was using didn't run them well anyways, so I decided to just not bother.
 
 

Sonic Jam (GameCom)

Why does this use Sonic R artwork?
 
I played this, very much expecting it to be bad, and was not surprised. If you don't know, the Game Com was a 90's handheld device, and definitely not suitable to port a collection of Genesis Sonic games to. Sonic World, all the pictures and videos, and Sonic 1 were cut in their entireties, while Sonic 2, 3, and Knuckles were recreated poorly, and all majorly stripped down. Each game only features a single Zone each (although with 4 Acts each).
 
The gameplay isn't very good, it's very slow, and a ton of the physics are lacking to your detriment (for example you can't stop and charge a Spindash along slopes), and some of the platforming (particularly in Sonic 3) is weirdly demanding unless you play as Tails (he's the only one with his special ability intact by the way). The most brutal part though is the time limit (which the Saturn version actually lets you turn off), because for some reason it ticks up way faster than real life seconds (perhaps it was an emulation issue, although the idea of the game running even slower frightens me). The level design isn't carried over from the original games also, it's less interesting, and exemplifies the game's shortcomings in physics.
 
The one thing I think this version did well was porting over the graphics, although that adds to just how bizarre the game feels. At a glance it really does look like a proper translation of the Genesis games.
 
I was a silly sap who never realized this boss was a lumberjack until seeing them in this version.

At the end of the day though, like I said at the start, I went in expecting this to be bad. I wasn't looking to be entertained, I was just curious for a frame of reference on what may be the worst Sonic game. My Sonic experience isn't expansive enough for me to be sure on that, but I can at least say it's the worst Sonic game I've played, and I've played all the main ones people say are the worst (Sonic '06, Sonic Blast, Sonic Labyrinth, Sonic Boom Rise Of Lyric). By my standards though, this game is still a couple steps above being atrocious, the graphics are solid, even if it has less of them it still has the fun characters and settings of the Sonic series, and the momentum based platforming is still at least a little foundationally interesting. I also don't really have disrespect towards the devs, because I don't imagine this was an easy game to slap together. Unless it was crazy cheap, this was probably an awful retail product though.
 

Batman Ninja Vs Yakuza League

(Added on the 24th of July, 2025)
 
 
There's been a lot of DC stuff I've been wanting to get around to, but as with a lot of things, I just haven't bothered. I then got shown a bit of, and recommended this movie, and it seemed pretty fun so I decided to just watch it.
 
Despite having watched the previous Batman Ninja, that was 7 years ago, and I only ever watched it once so I don't remember much of it. Thankfully I know enough about Batman and DC in general to have not really been lost on anything.
 
This movie was a blast. It takes the idea of the Yakuza League, and really runs withs the absurdity of the concept. It was as fun as I anticipated, with a whole lotta action, lots of silly banter, and plenty of memorable moments.
 
I loved these character introductions.
 
The visuals are maybe the best part of this movie. The artstyle really pops to me, and the character designs feel like they had a ton of care put into them.
 
This is my favorite Green Lantern design.
 

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