Es divertido sin duda, pero también bastante tosco de manejar, sobre todo con algunas transformaciones. Me sorprende que niños en su día pudieran pasárselo, la verdad. A pesar de que los paquetes de salud abunden, las vidas se consiguen en zonas secretas, algunas bastante bien escondidas. Si mueres simplemente vuelves al inicio del nivel, pero no es poca cosa en según que niveles. Por el final incluso hay secciones con una carretilla que exigen lo suyo, sobre todo si eres un niño.

Con respecto al resto de apartados, la música está bien aunque repetitiva, y gráficamente aguanta sin ningún tipo de problema, aunque se vea viejito. Algo frustrante, pero divertido aun así.

For those who don't know (all of you), whenever someone says it's their birthday in Discord I throw a link to this at them without typing anything else. In hindsight it might come off a bit rude, but it's a personal bit I've committed to harder than most games I've started this year, and believe me there's legitimate love put into that blind video tossing whether it's a stranger in a public server or someone I've known online since goddamn GameFAQs. It's kind of coincidental actually that my own birthday was a few days ago, so I guess this is my belated birthday wish to myself. I swear, I was just looking at my shelf of PS1 games and I guess the sun that was my eyes hit that shelf just right that it sang "hey, play Emperor's New Groove ya schmuck." Yes ma'am.

I'm sorry to say, but it's one of those scrimbly bimbly bumblos or whatever people call 3D platforming collectathons these days. I'm pretty sure I butchered it's spelling and actual meaning, because I'm not hip. I heard this game compared to Spyro a bunch, and for a while I thought everyone making that claim was just talking about them both being quadrupeds who charged at people. However there's this little shithead on a toy bike (Not in the movie, verified by yours truly who watched it 999 times) that constantly challenges you to chase them down or race them, basically being the stand-in for the egg thieves from the first Spyro. There it is, now I get it. I miss when games ripped off the good stuff....

It's kind of a foregone conclusion that they weren't gonna be able to pay David Spade or John Goodman enough money to go into the recording booth for new lines, so we have sound-alikes instead. The one for Kuzco actually does pretty well and is a delicious asshole for most of the game, but Pacha's was definitely only paid in M&Ms or something 'cause they really didn't care. They did manage to get Eartha Kitt and Brock Samson though, so that's pretty cool at least even if they understandably didn't put as much oomph into their performances. The fact they showed up is enough for theoretical ten-year old me in 2000 to appreciate it.

There's however a ton of fourth wall breaking like in the film. One particular instance prior to a terrible button-mashing session with jaguars chasing me began with Kuzco mentioning something about a video game in the 80s. This absolutely stumps the shit out of me for many reasons. So we have Kuzco from the fictional Disney multiverse talking about a video game that would've been made many centuries later, which I'm going to assume is Track and Field on NES. So Disney multiverse is.....real? God, I hope not. I'd strangle the shit out of that mouse if I saw him walking down the street.

Either way, it's alright....except for those roller coaster sections near the end. If I hear anyone talk shit about the trolley in Spyro 2 again I'm bonking them real good after that nonsense. This is one of those "games you played at your cousin's house" type of vibe games. Even if it's probably something I just staple to the face of every Disney game, thanks to that terrible Lion King game on SNES or that.....Beauty and the Beast board game thing on Game Boy Color. Yeah, that existed. I wasn't really sure if this was either gonna be my last game of 2022 or my first one of 2023, but I got engrossed enough to finish it tonight. Rest easy I guess that some stupid shit like Congo on Saturn could be my big initiation for the new year.

Kuzco is my favorite Disney princess. If that happy birthday video ever gets removed, there's gonna be some serious fuckin' hell to pay.

Joguei isso na infância no PC, acabei encontrando a versão de PS1 dublada e então joguei novamente.

A história é bem simples, é só o Kuzco tentando voltar a ser humano, é bem divertida as interações dele com os outros personagens, ele é bem desagradável de certa forma, o que é o humor do jogo.

A jogabilidade é bem legal, um pouco estranha as vezes, mas aceitável, ele muda de espécie em certas partes do jogo, virando um coelho que "voa", uma tartaruga que desliza com o casco e um sapo que aumenta a distância de pulo a cada pulo seguido.

É um jogo maravilhoso, divertido, bonito e com trilha sonora agradável.

PS1 platformers own because the developers did not quite yet figure out how to do precise platforming in 3D, while also could not do large, expansive levels on the hardware. There's also no well-defined movesets yet either, meaning you get a ton of different interpretations of a jump, a dash or an attack move.

As such, games like Emperor's New Groove rely on the variety of objectives in shorter levels, making for a lot of memorable little fun scenarios. Kuzco is such an asshole here, and a lot of objectives rely on that. Steal a baloon from a squirrel, knock a deranged guy who thinks he is a bird into a wall, destroy some dude's statues, knock a kid off his bike, then proceed to spit at a kid to throw him off his bike, THEN make him SMASH INTO ROCKS to throw him off his bike. Many of these activities repeat, but also evolve over time.

The level design is very memorable, and has plenty of simple secrets scattered around, like a crack in a wall or an arrow on the ground pointing towards a hidden passage. Each level has a certain amount of coins, and if you collect all you get a piece of concept art for the game and the movie. There are also hidden plushies, the Wampys, which reward you with a unique animation of the demonic PS1 llama model hugging the shit out of it.

The levels get progressively larger and more complex. You start off with very straightforward paths but eventually levels expand and you'll have to choose between multiple paths, all of which ultimately award you with a key to the end door. The keys, of course, are Kuzco's faces. The game absolutely triples down on making him an asshole egomaniac.

There's also a lot of gimmicky, on-rail levels, but even there they spice it up each time. There is an entire section of Kuzco and Pacha drifting through a river on the log they wound up on after leaving the jungle. There's your introductory level, there's a level where you race the bike kid in his llama-shaped inflatable boat, and you even get a sort of a boss battle at the end. The variety is just super impressive.

The least varied type of gameplay is the rollercoaster, but it is so fun. Quite tough on the last stage, but the fact that the game manages to somehow implement this adrenaline-pumping stage in the middle of everything else it does is so surprising.

On top of all that, there are also multiple transformations throughout the game, three to be exact. You get to play as a turtle, frog and a bunny. While the frog plays mostly as you'd expect, the turtle actually always results in a racing section, and the bunny is about achieving vertical height by jumping super high and gliding with his ears like Rayman does with his hair.

There's a lot of other ways in which this game spices up its gameplay, exploration and level design, but it's worth experiencing for yourself because this is genuinely one of PS1's most interesting platformers. It will take a while to get used to, just like all other titles on the damn thing, but that's what you should be here for too in some ways.

Even as a kid I found myself revisiting specific stages just to sort of get a feel for an idea or a vibe in a given stage. I'd replay the underground a lot because it was so creepy, or the turtle racing stages because they controlled like butter but had so much of the racetrack built around these softer turns.

This is perhaps the strongest aspect of level-based games: being able to jump into a whole new world in 5 minutes after launching a game, and then a whole other vibe 5 minutes later when choosing a stage from a different set. There's obviously way more to it, and I genuinely miss it. So many games require so much effort to get back to a specific point you yourself may enjoy. Why can't I just fight this boss right now, or do this section right now unless I finagle with saving or mods? Figure this shit out developers! Emperor's New Groove for the PS1 has you beat!