Tony Hawk is one of my favorite series of all time and for some reason I had never actually finished this game prior to today.

Honestly I can see the potential here for a really good game (and compared to the newer games we have sans 1+2 it hurts even more that this game is how it is). But at the same time, it has a lot of weird issues and problems that make it hard to fully enjoy as much as I wanted to.

- Story is serviceable and does it job for a Tony Hawk game but is a big step down imo from what THUG 1, 2, and THAW brought to the table. It is a return to roots in a way, but I would've enjoyed just a bit more if it had a bit more risk involved instead of a pretty standardish get to the top story.

- The gameplay honestly isn't bad. It plays like a Tony Hawk game for the most part and does it relatively well. It never feels wrong or off to play for the most part.

- Performance is one of its biggest issues as the constant and drastic frame dips can be really exhausting to see not only in messing up possible combos and goals as you load from one section to another, but also just can hurt your head after a while as your eyes keep having to adjust to below 30fps to get back to 30 to get to almost 60.

- The goals also aren't bad but get a bit samey as we approach the end and wish there was just a bit more variety.

In reality though, compared to the later Tony Hawk games, this one to me isn't bad. a bit underappreciated but also could be a lot better.

Honestly not as bad as I was expecting it to be! Not anywhere near as good as the Team Silent group of games but not an unenjoyable time either!

- I felt it nailed the atmosphere relatively well
- The story wasn't too bad, I think it would stand so much better as a standalone story and not a shoehorned SH Prequel. For what it tries to do though, it isn't the worst thing I've played.
- Combat was okay but honestly also kind of easy compared to the previous titles. I had an inventory full of bullets and items and never really felt like I was in a tough situation (esp since if you just hoard bullets the bosses are a cakewalk)
- The way you move between worlds was not my favorite idea either as it really just felt more like a means to an end of completing a puzzle rather than an actual real setpiece for the game and world that it was building.
- The PS2 version also has some weird issues:
-- input delay on certain actions though I did see this on PSP too
-- music sometimes just not looping properly or at all and just cuts out
-- pressing X to hit enemies on the ground just sometimes wouldn't work)
- It was annoying at first, but I kind of got used to it over time.

I've heard the PSP version is better (since I believe it was made for that system) but by the time I learned this I was already like 80% through the game so I just stuck it out.

At the end of the game and the credits rolled, I felt satisfied enough with my time playing it (about 6 hours) and I think its a decent enough entry. Now to continue on to the rest of the games :)