Look, maybe this will make me come off as someone who can't take a joke or is taking this too seriously, but people talking about Ben Esposito's writing in Neon White reminded me of this game so I'm just going to say my piece.

I find it absurd that Arcane Kids pride themselves in being this super transgressive, subversive, "fuck you and everyone else" type group, and yet what they come up with here are jokes that Newgrounds cartoons and gamer webcomics have been making since the 2000's. Like, this is the target that needs to finally be taken down a peg, Sonic fans? Why does Bubsy Visits the James Turrell Retrospective feel more understanding of what Bubsy is than this feels understanding of what Sonic is? To be fair, the game does add a layer of surreal-ness and intentional discomfort to these jokes through it's interactivity and presentation, and that does make it a notch above like, Arin Hanson yelling at Big the Cat or whatever. But these jokes are just so immediately tired in my opinion, it's like making a game centered around Chuck Norris. And also, this complaint may sound silly to some, but like I said earlier, I never feel any actual care towards the Sonic series in this game. Bubsy 3D certainly was mean-spirited in a way, but this game just feels spiteful the whole time, and again, not in ways that are all that original.

The Arcane Kids manifesto insists to some extent to not take anything they do that seriously, and their games do feel like they mock the idea of trying to do so. So in that sense, I might be totally in the wrong for making these complaints. Maybe I'm even the exact kind of sucker they're making fun of. But just because a work of art markets itself as transgressive doesn't mean it can't also just be bad. Those t-shirts of Sonic smoking weed and it says "Chronic the Hemphog" on it offer more incisive commentary than this.

Have you ever just completely lost patience with what you're doing while in the middle of doing it? Like, you realize suddenly that you would rather be doing anything else than what you're doing at that moment?

Origami King started off so promising. The presentation is wonderful, music is top-notch as it's always been for this series, writing is genuinely very funny and there's a lot of just contagious fun that the game is having with the Mario series. As someone who was burnt by Sticker Star, even when I knew this wasn't an RPG in the style of the first two games, I was still game to try what this game was doing. And I thought I would be able to tolerate the battle system.

But then something happened where in the middle of spinning that fucking ring for the 50th time I just kind of snapped. I straight-up hate the ring puzzle aspect of these battles, it always feels like busy work and for some reason my brain just can't solve them while having that timer breathe down my neck. Of course there's an option to pay for the game to solve it for you, or to pay to get more time, but it's when I realized I was paying EVERY time that maybe my time could be better served elsewhere. Even outside of the ring nonsense, these battles felt so weightless and nothing. It was all busy work and no variety, and maybe that's unfair to say when I only got about 5 hours into the game, but I can't be bothered to find out if it gets interesting at all.

At some point I have to ask why this series bothers with turn-based battles at all. It clearly resents ever being an RPG, so why not just go the Super Paper Mario route and have it all take place in the overworld? The overworld puzzle solving and adventuring was my favorite part of this game, I'm sure they could find a way to build the game entirely around that. Instead, every game since SPM has been like "here's our new nightmare battle system that you'll tolerate!" It's a sad state, honestly, especially now that the Mario and Luigi series is dead, this is the only thing close to a Mario RPG series now. Basically, either give up on the RPG dream entirely or become something different altogether, because I can't stand this middle-of-the-road compromise nonsense anymore.

E3 2004. Possibly one of the most famous moments in E3 history occurs when the audience at Nintendo’s conference gets their first look at the next Zelda game following The Wind Waker, something completely different. Darker colors, a more “realistic” looking world, the words “Blades Will Bleed” show up on the screen, and everyone cheers because there’s BLOOD in a ZELDA game. There’s a strong focus on combat, and some text about light and darkness that hints at the story of the game, which currently has no title besides just being the new Zelda game. If there’s something gamers love to do, it's scream at a giant screen showing a new game, and this is considered to be one of the best moments of this tradition, but I could never really get into the excitement and joy of this video, mostly because of what had to precede it for this reveal to get this reaction.

E3 2002. The new Zelda is revealed and it's completely outside of what anyone would predict. About a year or so before this trailer, Nintendo showed a Zelda tech demo featuring Link and Ganondorf, modeled after their Ocarina of Time appearances, sword fighting. The demo was said to show off the power of the upcoming Gamecube, and people had it in their heads that THIS was the next step for Zelda. So when Wind Waker shows up completely unexpectedly, there’s a strong reaction. Kiddy, immature, a step back from the direction the N64 Zelda entries were headed, why does everything look like that, these are NOT next-gen graphics. The term “Celda” starts to get thrown around, which I guess is supposed to be an insult for the game since it uses cel-shaded graphics, which is bad, according to the insult. I don’t know, as someone who was like 4 when this all happened and didn’t actually play the game until around 2010, the whole backlash seemed absolutely insane to me, how are people mad about just the IDEA of cel-shaded graphics. But as I got older and looked more into it, I got a better picture of how this all happened. Not only was the Spaceworld demo on everyone’s mind, but there was also this idea, one that I honestly still come across to this day, that things from our childhood should grow up with their audience. Zelda should have more cussing and blood because IM AN ADULT NOW, Pokemon should get fucked up, Mario should have a gun. I understand why this attitude happens, but it’s honestly ridiculous to expect every single piece of media you interact with to have a “cool adult version” so you don’t feel insecure about being a fan of a children’s series. But to be fair, this trailer comes as we’re entering the era of edge, where everyone needs to get a little more brooding, start saying “damn” a little more, and those guitars need to start fucking chugging. Nintendo releasing Wind Waker to this audience at this time, well no shit it went the way it did.

Now, just because I understand why Wind Waker got the initial reception it did, doesn’t mean I think the people that reacted this way were right, in fact, they were very wrong and also stupid. And this is why the E3 2004 reveal video doesn’t sit right with me, because now these people are being rewarded. It’s Nintendo giving in to the angry mob by giving them the Gritty Violence Zelda they were crying over losing to Wind Waker. “Look, this one has cool sword fights, the horse is back, it’s adult Link, it’s basically Ocarina of Time 2, that’s what you pigs want, right?” And that was my impression of Twilight Princess for a very long time, a crowd of insecure people getting a dumb edgy Zelda where Link turns into a Wolf and says fuck, with Wind Waker having been rejected for actually being a good game. That’s why whenever someone said TP was their favorite, I reacted negatively. I had this idea in my head about the kind of person who says that. You know, the kind of person who gets really mad at someone giving their favorite game getting an 8.8.

Now, this is all some pretty heavy baggage to bring into a game. But I went into it with an open mind. I put aside all my preconceived notions of Twilight Princess and its fans, and all of my feelings about how good Wind Waker is, and just let myself experience this game. And I have to be honest, I was wrong about what this game is. First of all, describing this game as the “edgy” Zelda is somewhat foolish. It’s not really going for Hot Topic Tim Burton, which is what I thought it was, as much as it is going for, to borrow a phrase coined by PansyDragoonSaga, “cozy pastoral pseudo France/Holland Ghibli steampunk fantasy carnival vibe”. In this game about light and dark colliding, this aesthetic represents the light side while the dark side uses an angular, ancient alien technology type aesthetic, also with its own healthy dose of Ghibli-isms. It’s not really edgy, it’s just fucking weird, and I love it. The NPCs look as odd as the N64 NPCs but now made semi-realistically. I genuinely admire Nintendo for being willing to make people this weird-looking, and to make a world as alien and strange as the Twilight Realm, while never condemning it as a purely evil place. As for the color, while it is more muted than previous entries, it’s not necessarily another case of “7th gen brown game”. The game is going for “fantastical world with realistic touches”, so the color is more restrained. In terms of environments, I don’t find it to be all that interesting outside of a few of the dungeons, but it’s a valid choice. So like I said, while this game can have serious, genuinely unsettling moments, and do them well, it also has some of the goofiest and out-there shit I’ve seen in a Zelda game, to the point where calling this “the dark Zelda” is like, only kind of true. I’m just thinking about everything involving Malo, this weird baby with a cynical personality who all of a sudden starts running a business and eventually takes over the most expensive store in Hyrule Castle Town and turns it into a store where everyone inside is constantly dancing and begging to have something sold to them. This game is delightful in how strange and alien it’s willing to be, especially impressive considering how often it recalls parts of Ocarina of Time.

This is another part of the game I thought I wouldn’t enjoy, the number of different references and similarities to Ocarina of Time. Several sections of the world share names with famous OOT locations, some of them even geographically in similar places, horse riding is back in the game, it takes place in Hyrule Field again, Gorons and Zoras play a big role as they did in OOT, it intentionally parallels OOT a lot. This is a pretty big difference from Wind Waker’s approach to referencing OOT, which was to drown the whole world of that game and build on top of it. WW felt like a big leap into something completely different, centuries removed from the events of previous games to the point where most of these events are considered old myths, and the traditions inspired by them have become so old no one bothers asking why they’re traditions. Twilight Princess’s approach to OOT is different but just as interesting. There are a lot of similarities, but it doesn’t line up completely. Locations are very different in appearance and structure from their equivalents in OOT, and while it has similarities in world-building like the three goddesses and Ganondorf, the events around them aren’t close enough to OOT to make this a direct sequel. The village that Impa built for the Sheikah tribe is shown, and it could be inferred that it's the same one from OOT, but it’s just off enough that you can’t be completely sure. I think this is ideal for a Zelda game, where it can carry the weight of the series' history and iconography while also not worrying about where exactly it fits in the timeline or in relation to any other game.
While I’m talking about story generally, the cast here is pretty decent, I don’t think any of the village kids outside of Malo are that strong, Ilia and most of your allies throughout the game are okay, but the big standout is Midna, who may be the best character to be in any Zelda game. I love this piece of shit creature who puts on an image of being above everything around her and seems to enjoy mocking other characters as weaklings, only to end up a big softy who obviously and deeply cares for everyone in her journey while carrying a shitton of baggage as someone from the Twilight Realm seeing the world that cast her people out. She’s so well animated and expressive, the made-up language she speaks in is cute, and she’s got a big fucking hat, I couldn’t get enough of her in this game. Also, unlike Navi, she often had some actual advice I could use when I asked her for it. I don’t think any companion in the series is going to surpass her.

One thing I want to touch on is this game’s combat. It’s heavily emphasized in that first trailer at E3, and there is more going on there than in previous entries. There are 7 sword skills to learn in the game on top of previous moves from Ocarina of Time. The parry attack from Wind Waker is absent, probably in favor of allowing the player to have more direct control. Obviously, this doesn’t turn combat into a character action game or anything, but there are more options than ever. However, I don’t think this choice pays off that much. Combat in previous games was definitely simple but was capable of generating great moments of quick thinking and reaction. Here, sometimes combat feels a little too much like “if this move doesn’t work, do this one, and if that doesn’t work, try this one, and so on”. Despite having more options, combat doesn’t feel more free form so much as just offering slightly different ways to kill what are still relatively simple enemies. Emphasizing combat also means that a lot of enemies feel like they take a bit longer to defeat. Having to use a finishing move on certain enemies to avoid them getting back up is cool, but significantly less so when there are multiple of them in one place because in those situations I can’t help but fall back on just using the basic swing, which means they’re all getting back up and taking several more hits. Sometimes it hits a sweet spot, but I never felt it surpassed what was going on in Wind Waker. WW also had additional things like the boomerang which could stun all enemies and not just certain ones, the grappling hook to rob enemies of spoils, and the ability to pick up other enemy weapons. There were more layers when it came to figuring out how to handle combat with multiple enemies, and those layers not being present made this game’s equivalent of the Savage Labyrinth from WW a lot more boring.

As a big Wind Waker fan, I don’t just want to sit here and say this game should be more like that one, but I do miss mechanics like picking up weapons and stealing spoils from enemies. The spoils bag was fun because each item became its own sidequest you could follow, and as I said earlier, spoils added a layer to fighting large waves of enemies. I guess when it comes to picking up weapons, they thought it would disrupt the combat system they set up, but I still miss it. Another thing about spoils in WW is that the items in it served as alternate rewards to just getting rupees, and I think this game needed something like that because nearly every treasure chest in the game is more rupees. The economy is in fucking shambles in this game, in no time you’ve overfilled your wallet and have to leave every chest with rupees in it behind. Getting the first upgrade isn’t bad at all, but getting the 1000 rupee wallet is easy to miss if you’re not paying complete attention to the collectible needed to get it. Say what you will about the Triforce shards section of Wind Waker, it was an effective way to not constantly be holding the max amount of rupees. It just kills me to have to leave treasure chests behind constantly, this game needed something else it could give players, which you think wouldn’t be as much of a problem given that hearts are now made up of 5 heart pieces.

Another criticism I have of the game, one that I think a lot of people share, is the way dungeon items are utilized in the game. Items are often at their most useful in the dungeon you find them, and very rarely find a use later on in the game. And the thing is that a lot of the new dungeon items rule in this game, and they make the dungeons in this game some of the best in the series. The spinner is fun as hell, but it deserves so much more utility in the game (and also should be faster when not on rails). The ball and chain is a fun weapon but also barely ever finds use outside of the dungeon it is found in. The dominion rod is basically a more fun version of the Command Melody from Wind Waker, and the dungeon for it is maybe the highlight for dungeons in the game, and this item definitely doesn’t completely disappear after you get it, but it deserves so much more time. In a way, it feels like the devs of this game really wanted to make unique items and scenarios for a Zelda dungeon, but ran into the problem of not being able to integrate them into the structure of a Zelda game. Thankfully, the double hookshot, up there in terms of the best all-time Zelda items, gets plenty of utility and never gets stale. I’m also not in love with Hyrule Field in this game. It’s got good music and horse riding is a good time, but I feel like it doesn’t have much in terms of out-of-the-way sections and pockets like Wind Waker. I understand why they sort of reign in the open world to be more reminiscent of Ocarina of Time, and to cut out the slow in-between travel that was a complaint from Wind Waker players, but the trade-off wasn’t worth it.

But I finished the game, with most of the side quests done. This game was a very pleasant surprise, I was very happy to be proven wrong in this instance. I forgive you, Twilight Princess fans, you are no longer cringe. In fact, I think it’s kind of baller to say this is your favorite Zelda. Skyward Sword is up next, gonna wait a bit before jumping into that one considering this game took me THIS long for some reason. Looking forward to seeing that, I never really understood why that game, in particular, has to bear the title of Worst Zelda Game, but I would love to find out whether that’s true or not.

I think the greatest sin of the NSMB games is that they've "flattened" people's perception of what the 2D Mario games were/can be. Believe it or not, games like SMB3 and SMW didn't limit themselves to just "grass world, desert world, ice world, water world", and even when they did use those tropes, they didn't depict them exactly the same way. Those games didn't just have an overworld map, SMB3 had essentially a board game with moving pieces that was catered perfectly to competitive playthroughs, and provided variety between levels. SMW's map was less varied, but told a story through the way you progressed through a detailed map with detours and distinct sections that all made sense in how they were all a part of one specific location. Even SMW has more than just one 1-up minigame. These games had distinct personalities, different aesthetics and inspirations, and the NSMB series serves to get everything in one perfect line. This is what Nintendo would have you believe Mario has Always Been and Always Will Be, which is why it seems projects like Super Nintendo World and the Illumination Mario Movie seem to borrow a lot from these games.

There are some actually good ideas for Mario levels here, some joy is to be had in terms of providing good, reliable 2D Mario platforming. Honestly, I wouldn't go all the way to say this is a bad game. But it seems to actively try to be unremarkable the whole time. The game's marketing revolves around "look at AAALLLL the COOOIIIIINS" but I'll be honest, there's a lot of them but not THAT many. Not enough to hang your entire game on. Also the raccoon leaf is here, P-meter and all, no real reason, it's just here because they need something here, god forbid they come up with an actual new power-up. Like I said, there's genuinely good levels and moments in this game, but it's not worth it.

One last thing: this game tries not to be too hard in terms of level design, which is fine, but it tries to make up for that by making some of the collectibles absurdly difficult to find, usually involving assumptions I would never make on my own. I guess that's also not a bad thing, just slightly exhausting. Glad I never got tricked into actually buying this game at any point. Did you know it's very easy to hack your 3DS?

The Sequel That Is About Being A Sequel is something I'm familiar with, but I didn't expect We Love Katamari to be one of these. The title itself is a statement that is certainly true for the fanbase, for many of the people who made it, and for anyone who made money off of it, but for creator Keita Takahashi, the title was more of a question that needed an answer. Do we love Katamari? Why? Do we want more Katamari? Do I want more Katamari?

The game opens by summarizing the events of the first game, declaring that Katamari Damacy was beloved by all, so of course there had to be a follow-up. But The King of All Cosmos, the flippant and prideful figure who caused the catalyst for the first game, doesn't really get it. He enjoys being beloved, and he'll gladly take any opportunity to boss the Prince and his cousins around, but when it comes down to it, he seems to want to do anything else besides play Katamari. He only does it for the sake of the humans who loved Katamari Damacy, or are curious about why people love it.

These humans, while at first expressing their love of Katamari, also are very demanding and petty. The player is used to being insulted by The King on their first try in any level, but sometimes the "fan" is even harsher, and even when you do pretty good, they still never fail to throw in something like "Yeah, you could do better, but I guess I'll settle for this." While I'm sure exceeding at every stage will get you more unqualified compliments, the average player will often disappoint these fans, or see would-be fans says something like "Is this was Katamari is? Doesn't seem that good to me." The game is constantly referencing the first game, as The Prince is working entirely in service of people who are only thinking of the first game. The cosmos are just fine, exactly as you left them at the end of the first game, The Prince and The King are only doing all this because they've been asked to, because they feel the need to prove themselves to any naysayers in the world.

The unbridled joy and fascination with the world that was present in Damacy is still here in the art, gameplay, design, and music, but We Love Katamari also has a surprising cynical streak that it never really relents from. In the end it kind of suggests that no sequel is entirely uncynical, that revisiting the well will never truly result in something just as good, but it also ends up being an extremely fucking solid sequel to Damacy that rivals it in quality. I love the gimmick levels in this game, like the one where you're moving super fast on a race track, or where you're trying to search for every paper crane in a level, there's so much creativity in the variety of level types. I don't think it ever surpasses the original like some people believe, but it's a strong as hell follow-up.

It ends up making We Love Katamari bittersweet, it's incredibly fun to play, but it's a game that believes being "as fun as the first" isn't enough, and therefore no sequel to Katamari Damacy will ever be worthwhile, even the one you're playing. It especially becomes a bummer when you check the Wikipedia page for the "Katamari Series" and see that there's been around 4 different mobile games since We Love Katamari, along with countless other entires with no involvement from Takahashi. We Love Katamari was his way of expressing gratitude to anyone who enjoyed Damacy, while also being his way of letting them know that it's OK to let Katamari go, and that he'll be the first to do so.

Something about platforming and exploring giant everyday locations as a small character is extremely appealing to me. I loved it in Chibi-Robo, and I love it here. I guess it's because I did so much worldbuilding about the little society of toys that lived in my house as a kid. The basement, the living room, my bedroom, every room I could get my toys into, each was its own country with its own population, leaders, and landmarks. You could say it was inspired by Toy Story 1 and 2, but I'd like to think my vision of toy society was more elaborate, and involved a lot more Mario and Sonic plushies.

Chibi-Robo is definitely the closest a game has gotten to realizing that vision, and a lot closer than Toy Story 2, but Toy Story 2 gets at another aspect of my childhood: being bored and imagining video game levels around me. I can't tell you the number of times I was in class and just imagined a little guy jumping from desk to desk, climbing up poles, wall jumping between cabinets. Pretty much every room I was in for more than 5 minutes I just started imagining Mario hopping around it, and I gotta say Toy Story 2 is pretty close to what that looked like. It's pretty admirable the way it never really breaks the rules of taking place in a believable space that someone could live in or walk through. Sure, sometimes there's just random toxic goo on the floor, and evil toys are shooting everywhere, but the way levels set up their platforming challenges always felt believable, because I imagined how it would work over and over again as a kid. Everything's obviously scaled for PS1, but like, there's a part of this game where you jump around the cabinets of a kitchen and I was just like "Yes, this is EXACTLY how it would work!"

This game has no right to be as solid as it is. Checked it out after Twinsanity, since while playing that I realized how much of an uneven library pre-Lego Traveler's Tales has. So many of their games seem to be "pretty good except for this one thing that makes it go down 2 points" or "really technically impressive but a nightmare to play". Thankfully this is just good. A lot easier and lighter than other 3D platformers at the time, but whatever, I'm not asking the Toy Story 2 game to have a huge amount of depth.

Kid A is an album that means a lot to me, so to have it and Amensiac be realized so beautifully here, legit got me teary-eyed at times. The entire sequence from How to Disappear Completely to You and Whose Army, holy shit, unreal. Kind of disappointed at the lack of an Optimistic exhibit, and maybe incorporating some of the b-sides from this era would've been neat, but these are very minor nitpicks from someone who has listened to this era of Radiohead since they were in middle school.

Side note, I really need someone to mod SM64-Mario into this game, I desperately need to do a long jump in this museum.

Having to be in a world with other people really is a horrifying thing. Sometimes things get so bad I wonder why we even bother trying to communicate with each other. It seems inevitable that we mess something up, say too much or too little, hurt people in ways we could never fathom. No amount of verbal or non-verbal communication could capture the ideas we truly believe in, it could never convey the nuances of our thoughts and perceptions, the principles we carry that guide our every decision. Wouldn't it be better if we all knew exactly what was going on in each other's minds? It sounds like a horrifying idea, but would it really cause more trouble than we already create? A network of people constantly connected, every detail of your life being taken in by anyone willing to join that network. Then you would see every version of yourself that exists in different people's minds. Wouldn't that be a relief? Or maybe it would drive you mad. Either way, why not give it a shot?

This game came out 2 months after the final episode of Serial Experiments Lain. Fans went into this expecting answers and got more than they would ever want to know.

It was the summer of '95. Batman Forever was in theaters, Cotton Eye Joe was on the radio, and uhh hold on let me google something...uhh The NATO bombing campaign against Bosnian Serb artillery positions begins in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It was a time of change, revelations, revolution, and at the forefront of all this was one man, nay, a creature. A green guy with a big game and an even BIGGER attitude. What he lacks in size, he makes up for in style, as well as his huge cock. The man, the myth, the legend, the thing on everyone's mind, a one-syllable name that could move mountains and catch lightning: Bug!

Ahh, The Summer of Bug. Of course I wasn't born at the time to experience it, but if I had a time machine, the first thing I would do is transport myself to August 1995, to be there amongst the people that Bug brought together. The comradery, the kinship, the warmth of men setting aside their difference for one day, to unite in the reverie brought on by Bug's release. But of course, I'm only recounting what has already been extensively documented, analyzed, and mythologized in the past decades since that day. Echoes of Bug's influence can be heard throughout our daily lives, in everything we see and do, Bug has its place. This is, as everyone knows, why every family in the world always leaves one seat at the table empty, for it is Bug's place to sit. The term "monogamy" is now obsolete, as any couple fully understands they are in a relationship with not just their partner, but with Bug as well.

(In the year 2072) My two horrible grandchildren who want me dead: "Shut up, grandpa! We hate this story and we hate Bug! We like our other grandpa better, he has a region-free Saturn with a 4MB RAM cartridge!"

Oh ho ho, you kids. Someday you'll understand. You'll understand that your other grandpa is going to hell, along with anyone else who covets the RAM cartridge. Ahhh, all this recounting is making me tired, let your old peepaw nap for just a minute.

Goes to sleep, never wakes up again

Around the end of the game, when you enter the alternate dimension that the antagonists of the game came from, Cortex remarks that there were supposed to be two dimensions, "but we ran out of time". Due to everything I had been through with this game while playing it, hearing this felt like when your friend makes a self-deprecating joke that's just a little too revealing and makes everyone uncomfortable.

I'm kind of baffled by how many people have given this game a pass when it comes to all its bugs, glitches, and general sloppiness. Don't get me wrong, this is a solid idea for a new Crash game, turning it into a more linear Jak and Daxter has its appeal and makes sense for when it came out. There are little moments where this new format works; when the platforming takes advantage of the more open levels and the crate mechanics of previous Crash games. But these moments don't last long and are replaced with mid-at-best gimmick sections. These gimmick sections start off kind of interesting, but nearly all of them immediately fall into the pitfall of the game's broken nature. Rolling around as a ball is neat until you have to make a precise jump and all of a sudden you launch thirty feet into the air. Rolling Cortex around in a barrel seems promising until one nudge rolls him off the stage immediately. Sliding stages require you to use a jump that only works half of the time, and the Nina Cortex level involves extremely brainless wall-jumping mechanics. Some stuff like Crash having to drag Cortex through levels and playing as Cortex aren't too bad, but man games in this era sure loved just giving as many different types of gameplay as possible, and considering Twinsanity is constantly falling apart, it does not do this game any favors.

But let's focus on just playing as Crash, going through levels with the usual jumping and spinning and whatnot. As I said, it sometimes works, but it often feels like they forced Crash-style platforming challenges into a 3D space and it doesn't feel great. I had several moments of falling into pits due to not being able to judge the distance of a jump, or not being able to see the jump at all, which rarely happened in previous Crash games. The worst part is anything involving platforming on steel crates, on which you can't see your shadow. This makes platforming on such sections a complete hassle, and I often ignored the gems that involved them due to how hard it was to find out how to land properly on them. In general, many of the crate bouncing challenges that are reminiscent of previous games are pretty bad here, and the game is at its best when it just acts like crates don't exist outside of TNT and nitro crates.

I have some other gripes, like how Aku Aku is basically useless since it seems every obstacle is instant death, how dogshit checkpointing can be sometimes (it really is inspired by Jak and Daxter), and the unskippable cutscenes, but really the main reason I can't recommend this game is how broken it is. I had three straight-up crashes/soft locks while playing, one of which sent me way too far back, one moment where I couldn't progress past a combat section because knocking an enemy into a pit didn't count as killing them, and a couple of moments of losing all the music for some time, and several other glitches. So many things just killed me without explanation that I went through most of the game scared for my life that a random seam on the floor would take my last life and send me back to the last autosave. Anyone else jump on that one boss's dead body, thinking it was safe, only to have it kill you and make you do the whole boss again? I could also talk about how the story feels like only half of it was told, the cutscenes that desperately need actual sound effects, and countless sloppy little things.

Obviously, no one sets out to make a game like this on purpose, it was the result of crunch, disputes between different parts of development and with the publisher, and having to scrape together different, unfinished versions of this game that went through multiple changes way too rapidly. There's a version of this game that fully realizes what Traveler's Tales set out to do, and it's sad we'll probably never see it considering the Crash series has both come back and died before it could get to giving this the full-on remake it needs. Some people can enjoy it for what it is, I personally had a rough as hell time and would not recommend this to anyone, especially since emulating it still seems to be an involved process. The music stands out as the only fully realized and wholly enjoyable part of this game. I need to stop trusting the taste of 3D platformer fans though, have you seen the way they talk about this game, it's like they played a different game I swear.