Finished this game in one sitting after four left a bad taste in my mouth and I am so happy to see it as one of my favorites. Many truly frustrating design decisions from the previous game have become more manageable, especially with the difficulty of the bosses.

Robot masters no longer hit like a tank and can reasonably be defeated even with the base mega-buster. This made the time spent replaying parts of the stages more rewarding as I enjoyed each of the fights. The stages also received upgrades with them being some of the most appealing themed stages I have seen in the series so far. A special shout-out to the Gravity Man and Charge Man stages for being some of my favorites. The series finally introduced interesting stage gimmicks such as gravity flipping and a vehicle section. These gimmicks are usually pretty short but they do wonders for making the stages stand out more.

The gameplay remains the same albeit with slight changes. The mega-busters charge has received another upgrade with a more destructive blast that feels great to use. The weapon upgrades are also a lot of fun to use and I found myself using them outside of boss fights more than I did in some previous entries. The gravity-hold is one of my favorites with it acting as a screen-clearing weapon that causes enemies to fly into the sky once hurt enough. The special weapon "Beak", a robotic bird, is both fun to unlock, with you having to collect hidden letters in each level, and extremely helpful to use.

Honestly, the game seems a lot more forgiving than previous entries with increased life drops and energy tanks to collect. Some might be opposed to its more forgiving nature, but it allowed me to take the time and enjoy the different aspects of the game. The entry ranks pretty high for me and has encouraged me to jump into the sixth entry right away. This game also gets bonus points for proving Proto-Man is one of my favorite characters in the series now.

Holy sidequests Batman! What should have been a fun short 5-8 hour romp was stretched to more than double that with seemingly endless fetch quests. And these aren't entirely optional either, they are how upgrades to your equipment are unlocked, so whether you want to or not, you will be running around doing menial tasks for people.

Now for the good. I liked the characters. CJ, Garoo and Isha have a fun dynamic both as characters, and in combat as classic rogue, tank, mage archetypes, though the tank role felt weak compared to the other two.

This game feels like a good intro to the world of Eiyuden Chronicles and makes me excited to see these characters again in the full game. I wish I could say I liked the game more, but what is there was adequate.

Might be the best platfomer ever made. It's either tied with Ape Escape or is better than it. Have to let the time simmer since I just beat this game (and almost 100%ed it)

Incredible levels, music, characters, story, everything. Except some chuggy framerate at parts, this is a perfect video game. A classic, an essential play. What more can I say?

For fans of living.