Knuckles' Chaotix

The aesthetics of this game are amazing! The music, the environments, the character designs - it's all superb! I love how crazy and colorful it all is. Unfortunately, the gameplay is just not good. There's not much positive I can say about it other than that it functions well and isn't glitchy.

The rubber-band mechanic of characters being held together with rings attached by a string of energy is an interesting one, but this is a great example of a mechanic that is interesting but bad. Yes, it can be used to make characters go at crazy speeds, and that is fun and satisfying, and I guess it can be fun to play with in general at times, but for the most part it feels like a burden more than anything. It just makes the game more tedious to play and the meager positives are far from worth it.

Possibly an even bigger hurdle to my enjoyment of the game is the level design. When you hear "bad level design", there's a good chance you think of something with really cheap difficulty, but this game doesn't have that problem at all. In fact, it has hardly any difficulty in general. The only challenge is occasionally getting lost because of how directionless the levels feel. The levels are just plain bland. It just feels like there's nothing going on.

I don't remember much about most of the bosses, honestly, but one thing I do remember is that the final boss, despite looking badass, is actually quite easy, which was a bit of a letdown.

One aspect of the game I don't feel I've played enough to give an opinion on is the Special Stages, though I can at least say they're a cool concept and actually provide some challenge, unlike the rest of the game. Interestingly, they go all the way back to the Sonic 1 method of entering a Special Stage, which I don't mind. There are also Bonus Stages, which are accessed via Giant Rings like in Sonic 3&K (though you also need 20 rings). Unfortunately, while the gameplay of the Bonus Stages is fine, they are garbage when it comes to actually being useful - they constantly drain your rings almost like a super form and the rewards they give out are lame, so chances are you will leave the stage with less than you came in.

Overall, this game MAY be worth experiencing for the aesthetics, but for most people it would be better to just watch a playthrough. Maybe consider it if you're a diehard Sonic fan or 90s 2D platformer fan, but don't expect much.