I admit, this game absolutely did not make a great first impression on me. I picked Sweet Tooth first because he's like the mascot of the franchise and the only character I knew of before (other than Calypso), and boy, his ice cream truck handles like shit. It didn't help that the enemies are quite gung-ho on Normal difficulty, which lead to a lot of annoyingly quick deaths. It could have been a one-and-done for me, but I'm glad that I stuck around to try out all the other characters, because this game can actually be quite fun.

There are 12 characters to play as, each having their own vehicles with different attributes and special weapon. If you're like me then you'll probably enjoy characters like Mr. Grimm the most, which have the fastest and most responsive vehicle, combined with a hard hitting special weapon, but also having a small health bar. The vehicle physics definitely feels janky, and the controls will also take some time to get used to, but it's not a big hurdle to climb over. Being able to turn the difficulty down also helps. I do wish that the combat is more punchy and energetic, as the visual and sound effects of damaging and destroying other cars are underwhelming.

There are six levels, all of them set in Los Angeles, and from a design standpoint they are pretty okay overall. I thought the last level was the one level that is actually interesting, the other ones are quite basic and same-y in comparison. Typical American urban hellscape stuff. I guess being limited to LA doesn't help that fact, huh?

My favorite part of the game are probably the character story endings. These range from being straightforwardly dark to somewhat silly, and I thought most of the characters had satisfying endings. I especially enjoy Outlaw and Mr. Grimm's endings. Sadly the production value is so low, the endings are just text paragraphs without voice acting, and the background visual is an extremely dorky picture of live action Calypso.

The first Twisted Metal is certainly a fun game to look back at. Its very barebones, but its quite forgivable considering that its the debut of the series, especially since its from the early years of 3D video games. It manages to be a fun romp with its own distinct personality, and it also sets up future successors for success.

And before I'm done, yes, the PS5 port job is pretty good. The platinum trophy is a quick one, provided you take advantage of the password system.

It has trophy support on PS4/PS5, which gave me an excuse to once again play one of the most beloved games of my childhood. Has it aged well gameplay wise? Not really I guess. But it still remains an incredibly endearing and at times enchanting slice of Japanese surrealism. It's a bonkers game, in the way only an early-PS1 game from Japan could be. It also holds the honour of being one of the very first full-fledged 3D platformers, coming out even before Super Mario 64.

Sony should make a new Jumping Flash! for PSVR2. It would be a perfect fit. Assuming they can prevent the player from projectile vomiting all over the place.

Resident Evil has been my favorite series since I got into it. Therefore, I wanted to like this game so much more than I actually did. I understand that this is a pivotal point for the series, but I just didn’t enjoy it that much. I didn’t like Leon or Ashley as characters in this. Some of the side characters were alright, but for the amount of screen time they got, it just wasn’t worth it. The story was just decent to me. Regular mobs can one shot you in a very annoying fashion. Levels became repetitive, and the game was just too long.

Not to say I hated it, of course. I just have liked every other RE game more than this one, even 0 and Code:Veronica. It was a bit of a disappointment to me.

If you enjoyed it, great! I wish I had been able to more than I did.