GODDAMNIT!
I played this game when I was a kid, but only the first level because I found it hard and couldn't get past level 2.
About 15-16 years later, I gave this game another go thanks to a friend that is a massive fan of this game. He kept saying its pretty hard, and I didn't believe him, I thought it might be hard for someone below the age of 12, but not for me, and OH BOI he was right xD
This game is brutal man...

But before I complain about the difficulty of this game, let me talk about the game in general.
Captain Claw has a lot of charm, the game starts strongly with a kickass intro introducing our Protagonist: Captain Nathaniel J. Claw.
A badass cat that happens to be the Captain of a pirate ship. Claw and his cat comrades get ambushed by the Spaniard dogs (kinda crazy), so we get the classic war of Cats vs Dogs. Fortunately or unfortunately, Claw and his crew get defeated and our protagonist gets jailed in a dark dungeon where he finds a mysterious note that speaks of a certain legendary Amulet of Nine Lives, and a piece of a map. This is the leitmotif of the game, finding the other pieces of the map that direct to the 9 gems and the amulet itself.
I must say, the cutscenes are crazy good, featuring a cartoonish look that is very pleasant to the eyes. I would absolutely watch an animated series about Captain Claw. Its crazy how well animated this is, and they did it for a game that happens to be released in 1997, that’s passion coming from the developers, Monolith Productions! The studio that made Blood in the same year, about 5 months earlier to be more precise and the same studio that made games such as Aliens vs Predator 2, No One Lives Forever, Condemned, the first 2 F.E.A.R games and Middle-earth Shadow of Mordor and Shadow of War.
The voice acting is pretty good for that year, minus some exceptions like the dialogue LeRauxe has, he sounds as if he got crushed by a boulder, but at least he sounds funny so I can't really complain about it.
The artstyle is awesome, the game is gorgeous to look at, featuring beautiful backgrounds that really elevate the aesthetics of the game.

Lets talk about the gameplay now, the game has it all! Jumping from one platform to another, kicking enemies out of existence, collecting all types of treasures and all the kind of stuff any respectable platformer features. What makes CLAW special? The fact that its super polished, flawless really, featuring 0 bugs or glitches. There's also the straightforward nature of the game, you know from the get-go what you're supposed to do, it makes the game easy to pick up and play through.
The game consists of 14 levels, each level has an awesome theme song attached to it.
For real, the soundtrack is amazing and it sounds very nostalgic even though I never heard any song other than the first one for so many years. Each song makes their respective level feel more alive, more approachable and easier to traverse. Sound design is great, the sound effects are top notch. From the sound of picking up items to the sound of shooting with the pistol, everything sounds really good.
There's lots of secrets hidden across the 14 levels, some of them are really cool and well hidden, so well hidden that you would never find them on your own. This means you can always discover something by accident, meaning there's always a reason to return to the game to find out everything you missed.
One thing I love about the game are the gimmicky gameplay details, such as:
- Captain Claw can have a maximum of 9 lifes, because he is a cat, duh...
- There's no falling damage because cats are built like that and Captain Claw is no exception, he always lands on his feet, refusing to take falling damage
- When you remain idle, Captain Claw will break the 4th wall and he will start saying stuff like:
"Hello?!?"
"Im waiting..."
"The Gems won't find themselves!"
"Im growing impatient!"
"I don't have all day!"
"Don't waste my time!"
"Hello? Im in the middle of an adventure here!" 
"Excuse me, I have some place to go!"
"The amulet awaits!"
"Im not getting any younger!"
And my favorite,
"At least bring me something back from the kitchen!"
This one is funny because I actually left the room to go to the kitchen when I was idle xD
- The game warns you when there is a difficult section ahead or some item of importance nearby by having Captain Claw saying a unique line.
- The cool exchange of lines between Captain Claw and the enemies that he meets along his journey:
• Claw:
"Haha, take that!"
"Eat lead!"
"Scallywag!"
"Chew on this!"
"Chew on that!"
"Touche!"
• His enemies:
"Ahhh, I don't like you!"
"Prepare yourself pirate!"
"I expected more from you"
"Captain Claw???"
Oh and the sirens that say "Heyyy Big Boyyy"

The game has a very dedicated fanbase, and its lovely to see, this game is a hidden gem and it deserves the fans it has. Captain Claw is the type of gem that should never be forgotten, and with all these fans, it will never be forgotten.
There's this site that contains everything Captain Claw related: https://captainclaw.net
This is where I downloaded the game from, since there's no place you can buy it from anymore.
The version I downloaded was the 300Mbs one, it also includes over 500 custom levels! That's right, in over 27 years, 500+ custom levels were created so far by the fans. Now, I haven't played them all, but I played a few and they were really good. My favorites were State of Siege and XMAS with Claw, these 2 look different and they use new textures, giving the levels a fresh look.
That's the thing with this level creator mode, it offers new content everytime and it brings people together, having fans interacting with each other.
This game even featured or I should rather say, features a Multiplayer mode, what's really crazy about it its that originally it was supposed to be able to hold up to 256 players, which is insane that they wanted to do this with a 1997 game. They didn't do that in the end, but they still managed to get it to 64 players, which is impressive. I have not played this Multiplayer mode myself but I know its still possible to play it through some program, but I don't know many details about it. Anyway, if Im not mistaken, the multiplayer mode didn't feature any deathmatch mode, it was just a race, which is kinda lame.

Now lets talk about the big Devil, the difficulty of this cute lil cat game.
The first few levels, lets say even the first half of the game (first 7 levels) are absolutely manageable, from level 8 the difficulty starts to grow, and it only keeps growing from here.
At some point, the game becomes really REALLY difficult, actually no... it becomes BRUTAL, the difficulty spike is unforgiving and it will test your patience.
So just like I said earlier, this is a platformer like any other in terms of gameplay, meaning that you must fight your way through the level, you must traverse platforming sections and you must collect tons of treasures.
These pick-up treasures are actually good, there’s like 8 types of them, and each type gives you a different number of Score. This Score is not just for bragging rights, but also, at every 500K Score you gain 1 extra life, so its safe to say collecting these treasures isn't pointless.
Fighting the enemies is not that hard, some of them die with ease. Sure, there's some enemies that are more difficult to fight, but these are in the last level and you can trick their AI, so no biggie. You got your sword, your pistol, some dynamite and the MAGIC CLAW, with these 4 and a bunch of pickable power ups scattered across every level, anything is possible. The game has a good variety of enemies and what makes these enemies difficult sometimes is their placement, there's some sections where the enemies are placed just to torture you. I hate the Lizard foes in this game, these mfers always go invisible and they got a long reach and weird hitbox. In any case, the real difficulty is the platforming in this game, not because its awful, buggy or unresponsive, because its not. Just like I said earlier, the game is flawless, and the controls work just fine. The problem is that everything is exaggerated. You only get 2 fixed save points per level, and sometimes they are pretty distanced, meaning that if you fail, you must replay a good section of the level again and again and again. Half of the levels feature a boss fight, right at the end of the level. Some are nothing special, some are actually cool and some are not that pleasent to fight:(
The worst thing is, there is no save before the boss fight, if you die you must replay from the 2nd save point and some levels have awful awful runbacks. Seriously, people should never complain about Dark Souls runbacks, they're a joke (Except the Lud and Zallen runback, that shit is no joke) compared to the runback right before the final boss in CLAW. There's an absurd level of platforming before some bosses, and the chance of you failing over and over again is pretty high, so I found myself spending an hour just trying to reach the boss fight again, just to die... again...
I must admit, I am to blame here for playing this game the intended way. What does that mean? Basically just play the game without cheats, and play without starting a New game on each level, just press Load game, and you will continue with the same amount of lives you had before finishing the last level. It might not sound complicated but bear in mind that I almost always had 1 life remaining for my entire playthrough, so everytime I died I had to reload from the last save. I played this game with the DualSense, if I had to play from the keyboard, I would never have finished this game. Im not complaining, I really had lots of fun, it was satisfying and I felt good completing the game this way, but the last 4 levels really ruined it for me, I stopped getting enjoyment out of these 4 particular levels, the difficulty spike was to drastic and too noticeable. I know, I know, video games in the 90s used to be A PAIN IN THE ASS and they were meant to show no emotions and no sympathy to the player, but I just can't let this one slide, as much as I would like to.
Its a damn shame really, because this game would've easily gotten 5☆ from me, but the SATANISM that's happening in the last 4 levels ruined it for me.
Im pretty sure almost no one managed to finish this game back in 1997 as it was too hard. The 1.1 version was even harder, thankfully Monolith toned-down the difficulty in the 1.2 and 1.3 patches because of the complaints people had. I played the 1.3 version, and it was still hard af but truth be told, the differences are slim between the versions.
Nowadays, I know there's just a few folks that managed to get the 100% in the game, while speedrunning the game... Hats off to these people, I could never 100% not even a single level, let alone all the 14 levels, while speedrunning, its ridiculous.

I really wish they would remaster/remake this game, it didn't get the attention it deserved, and I think its about time people hear about Captain Claw!
In any case, I could not recommend this game more highly, definitely give it a try if you like platformers that are very charming and with a lot of personality, just don't endure the pain that I endured, don't play the game the intended way, use cheats, do not feel guilty:)

MY OVERALL SCORE OF THE PLAYTHROUGH: 8.666.100
Coincidence? I think not!

Wow. This was a fucking amazing, incredible experience. I'm legitimately sad to see it's over after 25 hours. I had such a great time exploring, drawing maps, taking notes, uncovering more and more, peacing things together to move forward, just everything. Nothing was more satisfying then uncovering this game's many secrets, some of which took a lot of thinking to even attempt, like using a certain item on someone ( a character hinted at something similar )

This game feels like it was made for me: no hand-holding, an immersive world, enough hints and a general map for me to draw my own maps. This is a the kind of game I wished I had as a kid, a game to just get lost in and experience the world and try and find my way through it.

The soundtrack is amazing as well. Honestly besides the framerate being really rough (which I unfortunately got used to) this is a masterpiece otherwise. I liked the 1st KF game but this one was a league above it. You can see how some of this game's ideas still prevail in current FromSoft games.

A PSX classic and a must-play.

Call of Duty 2 is a classic that, just like the first game in the series, brings back some great memories for me.
This game throws you into the thick of World War II with three different campaigns, allowing you to see the war from the perspectives of American, British, and Soviet soldiers. Each campaign offers a decent variety of missions and environments, keeping the experience fresh and engaging.
The historical accuracy is pretty good. Whether you’re storming the beaches of Normandy or fighting in the streets of Stalingrad, the game does a great job of making you feel like you're part of the action. Some missions are intense, some are suspenseful, capturing the chaos and heroism of WWII battles.

Unlike many shooters at the time, this game ditched health packs in favor of regenerating health. This made the game feel less frustrating compared to its predecessor, allowing you to stay in the action without constantly hunting for health packs.
The main menu of Call of Duty 2 was a nice touch, with a very war-ish song and theme that set the tone perfectly.
Graphically, Call of Duty 2 was a leap forward. It looked good back in the day and still holds up pretty well.
Both Call of Duty 1 and 2 laid the groundwork for the series with their straightforward WWII gameplay. However, the modern "Call of Duty" games have expanded and evolved into something entirely different, the difference is stark. While today's games offer a lot more in terms of features and content, there's a certain charm and authenticity to the older titles that I miss.

I wish they would remaster the older Call of Duty games, as they were the ones most true to the series' roots. Call of Duty 2 remains a classic, and an underrated game, reminding us of what the series used to be and how it is now.

Touhou Artificial Dream In Arcadia is one of the most addicting games i’ve ever played. It’s rare to see megami tensei fan games that actually make it out the door, and it’s INSANE how well done this game is. Not only does it perfectly capture the look and feel of those classic super famicom entries into the series but it also improves on the gameplay systems already present extremely tastefully. the combat takes a lot after some of the newer games while still feeling like the older ones. It kind of plays like how you always wished SMT I and II played, and it’s phenomenal. While this game doesn’t have too much of a story to it, what’s here is enjoyable and lots of fun even if you don’t know anything about touhou. I went in knowing nothing about the series and came out loving this game and then downloading touhou 6. I mean this with all my heart, if you like the classic smt games then this game is a must play. you might not find the gripping themes, atmosphere, and post apocalyptic setting that was present in those games, but what you will find is a game that would easily be top 5 if atlus officially made it. you won’t find a dungeon crawler with more gripping gameplay out there. from the expertly crafted dungeons to the fine tuned challenging combat, this game is 50 hours of no nonsense straight up gas for the entire run time. oh, and by the way, the music kicks ass too.

Fantastic video game. Goddamn this was a fun one.

I'll get the 1 negative out of the way: only 3 boss fights. The final boss was so badass it almost makes up for it. It's not a huge deal but the first game has several bosses so I was surprised it only had 3.

Ok, all the levels are so fun. This game reminds me of Sly 2, lot of unique levels with unique activities that are all fun to play. Loved all the characters you meet. This game just wants you to have a good fucking time.

Great music, all the songs fit their respective levels. Game ran at a locked 30, which for a PSX game I will never complain about. Never felt nauseous playing this one.

A must-play for the PSX. First one felt more epic which is why I felt this was a 9/10 and not a 10/10.