Category: Retrospective Review

Thoughts on a studio closure – Zachtronics and their legacy

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I’m Kinglink.  Let’s take a break. My channel for the last year has been Game Pass reviews, and Humble Choice reviews, and I’m not planning a major change, but something happened.  About a month ago I saw an article that shook me.  I’m not going to drag it out, it’s probably in the title and on screen, Zachtronics is shutting down. 

Zachtronics is probably not well known as a studio, but it’s a game studio I love, perhaps more than any other, and that includes RGG, who makes the Yakuza games.  Zachtronics is the studio that makes me feel seen, it’s a studio that makes games specifically for me, and while there are other games that I might be in the minority opinion on like Lawn Mowing Simulator, Zachtronics is just different. 

So with their closing, I figured I would try to eulogize them, similar to Kongregate, which is still running so eulogies are a relative term, but I’m not sure I can.  I could make this a long dive into who they are, but instead, I’d rather spend the time telling you about Zachtronics and getting you to check out their games.  

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Sonic 2 Retrospective Review – When Sonic becomes American

Kinglink
The following is a script for the youtube video below.  Feel free to read or watch the video as you prefer.

Hello, I’m Kinglink and it’s finally time to talk about Sonic 2. This game was made by Sonic Team and published by Sega, but that’s not the whole story. We are going to get there though.

So with the original Sonic the Hedgehog game out of the way, I wanted to immediately talk about Sonic 2 for a few reasons. I think in a lot of ways this is THE game in the franchise that defined what Sonic was. There are no massive changes here, but there are quite a few important changes for the series, such as the addition of the spin dash, but we get there as well.

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Sonic The Hedgehog Retrospective Review

Kinglink

Hello, today we begin a new journey. Welcome to my first episode of Retrospective Review, and our first subject is Sonic The Hedgehog, developed by Sonic Team, and published by Sega.

We’re starting with Sonic the Hedgehog, and going back to where it all began. This was Sega’s big response to Nintendo and Mario. A 16-bit mascot who would lead Sega in the war against Nintendo and did for a while. But we’ll get there. Let’s focus on the first game, the introduction of Sonic the Hedgehog.

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