Basically a Nintendo 64 era collectathon but on a OG Xbox disc. It translates the gameplay from the first ToeJam & Earl game very faithfully into a 3D world. The presents are a very fun way to break the game and some of them make the levels feel almost sandboxy in the freedom they give you, although you still have to use them intelligently as presents appear randomly and are limited for every level, even when bought from mailboxes or vendors. To break the repetitiveness, there's also many bonus and secret levels sprinkled around the worlds. I thought the idea of music albums being the main collectibles for reaching other worlds in the game, as well as the way to unlock more in-game soundtracks, was very nice and fitting for the "funkyness" of the game.

I find it interesting just how for as much as Sega was allegedly propping the Original Xbox to be the "Dreamcast 2", out of all the franchises Sega could have granted Xbox exclusivity, they went with some of their weirdest, nicher "core SEGA fan" IPs like ToeJam & Earl, Rent-a-Hero, and Panzer Dragoon. I feel that treatment would have been more important for Virtua Fighter 4, Sonic Adventure 1 DX/2 Battle or for a port of Shenmue 1, but hey, that would be playing it safe. And this just feels right at home with the weirdness of original Xbox exclusives like Mad Dash Racing or Munch's Oddysey.
Kudos to Back to the Groove for remembering Latisha!