An enjoyable game overall, but not without its flaws.
It tackles the topic of mental health in an indirect way through a science fiction setting. The main character is literally training to go inside people's minds and battle their personal demons. It's a sensitive subject matter, but it is handled well here. I imagine this is the main reason why the game became so popular. It's probably not something people expected to see in a video game in 2005.
I'd describe the art style as acquired taste. I didn't fall in love with it right away. In fact, it seemed rather odd at first, verging on unappealing. However, it grew on me over time and I found some of the later levels to be particularly beautiful. As is often the case with heavily stylized games, the visuals have aged better than expected. As long as the art style agrees with you, of course.
As far as gameplay is concerned, I particularly enjoyed exploring the world for secrets and collectables. You have a large hub world as well as multiple somewhat open levels that get unlocked as you progress. The environments are large enough to be interesting to explore, but are kept manageable. You should be able to find most collectables by yourself if you are thorough and pay attention, which is something I really appreciate.
The platforming can be fun when it works, but sometimes it does't. For example, you can get stuck in geometry, or fall through holes that are difficult to see, or auto-attach to a rail when you don't want that to happen. In a few cases it was hard to judge depth too. In one of the levels in particular, it felt like I had to break the game to get certain collectables. The jumps the game was expecting me to perform seemed simply impossible and I had to look for ways to jump off nearby geometry to somehow get where I needed to. I found similar complaints online when I looked for help. Overall, it feels somewhat janky, but you may not notice it so much if you're not set on collecting everything.
The combat is not particularly challenging, but it's fun enough and you'll have plenty of options to dispose of enemies by the end of the game. Most of the bosses have some kind of a light puzzle element to them. That's not a bad thing, but a lot of the times I found it difficult to figure out what the game wanted me to do. Sometimes the thing would actually occur to me, but I wasn't doing it exactly how I was supposed to, so I would think it wasn't the solution after all. The game has a neat and seamless help feature where you can contact a character at any time and ask for tips. I like the way it's implemented, but I had to resort to it more often than expected.
A note on the technical side of things. The developers updated the game in 2011, so it supports modern resolutions, works with Xinput controllers and has achievements. I did experience some weird stuttering as if the game was having issues with loading assets, but it went away after I reinstalled on an SSD, rather than a mechanical drive. Could have been something on my end. In any case, the out-of-the box experience is better than you'd expect for a game of this vintage.
So, overall I had a good time with the game and I recommend it. It has some issues, some of them probably age-related, but the positives far outweigh the negatives. I'll be checking out the sequel at some point.
It tackles the topic of mental health in an indirect way through a science fiction setting. The main character is literally training to go inside people's minds and battle their personal demons. It's a sensitive subject matter, but it is handled well here. I imagine this is the main reason why the game became so popular. It's probably not something people expected to see in a video game in 2005.
I'd describe the art style as acquired taste. I didn't fall in love with it right away. In fact, it seemed rather odd at first, verging on unappealing. However, it grew on me over time and I found some of the later levels to be particularly beautiful. As is often the case with heavily stylized games, the visuals have aged better than expected. As long as the art style agrees with you, of course.
As far as gameplay is concerned, I particularly enjoyed exploring the world for secrets and collectables. You have a large hub world as well as multiple somewhat open levels that get unlocked as you progress. The environments are large enough to be interesting to explore, but are kept manageable. You should be able to find most collectables by yourself if you are thorough and pay attention, which is something I really appreciate.
The platforming can be fun when it works, but sometimes it does't. For example, you can get stuck in geometry, or fall through holes that are difficult to see, or auto-attach to a rail when you don't want that to happen. In a few cases it was hard to judge depth too. In one of the levels in particular, it felt like I had to break the game to get certain collectables. The jumps the game was expecting me to perform seemed simply impossible and I had to look for ways to jump off nearby geometry to somehow get where I needed to. I found similar complaints online when I looked for help. Overall, it feels somewhat janky, but you may not notice it so much if you're not set on collecting everything.
The combat is not particularly challenging, but it's fun enough and you'll have plenty of options to dispose of enemies by the end of the game. Most of the bosses have some kind of a light puzzle element to them. That's not a bad thing, but a lot of the times I found it difficult to figure out what the game wanted me to do. Sometimes the thing would actually occur to me, but I wasn't doing it exactly how I was supposed to, so I would think it wasn't the solution after all. The game has a neat and seamless help feature where you can contact a character at any time and ask for tips. I like the way it's implemented, but I had to resort to it more often than expected.
A note on the technical side of things. The developers updated the game in 2011, so it supports modern resolutions, works with Xinput controllers and has achievements. I did experience some weird stuttering as if the game was having issues with loading assets, but it went away after I reinstalled on an SSD, rather than a mechanical drive. Could have been something on my end. In any case, the out-of-the box experience is better than you'd expect for a game of this vintage.
So, overall I had a good time with the game and I recommend it. It has some issues, some of them probably age-related, but the positives far outweigh the negatives. I'll be checking out the sequel at some point.