I played this for the first time this year, and it's a hard game to judge without playing it back then. I can tell that the animations and visuals must have been great, it's still impressive to watch some of the cutscenes, and there are some massive scenes with hundreds of NPCs on screen, something we rarely see even today.

But these things won't carry the game in 2023. The controls are not as responsive as I would like, and the PS3 controller is not as good as modern controllers, the game can feel like walking underwater.

The game wants you to counter a lot with its 3-style combat system. But the slightly sluggish controls made me abandon that and I ended up button-mashing my way through the game.

I found the campaign to be too obsessed with large encounters, I wish I could run around and bump into one or two enemies, practicing my countering and combat styles, but it's structured in a way where you walk into an area and get swarmed most of the time.

There is also a good deal of motion sensor gimmick fights, where you tilt your controller trying to guide projectiles around. I'm not sure how people like these parts, but I actually liked these sections a lot.

And lastly, the characters in this game are so odd, Nariko the main protagonist is fine, even if she looks like a supermodel from another world compared to the other characters, but the enemies are so weird it's hard to describe it. They remind me of a Monthy Python sketch or a rude and crude version of Benny Hill. You really have to see it to believe it.

It's a rough but fascinating early PS3 game.