Nothing incredibly amazing nor horrifically bad, perfectly average. Poor voice acting and writing, cut-scenes were really begging to be skipped. Story was also weak, and I know you don't come to these for story but if you're gonna add in cutscenes and dialogue then you gotta make something good for it. It's never established why the bad things are bad or what the Kao's impact on the world is. We're just told that he saved the forest and the ice slopes when in my mind all I know is I came in and punched a bunch of random people until I had enough runes to meet the boss.

Controls and movement all feel fine, though some things are a little unforgiving. If your hooks and ledge grabs are wonky I'd like to have slightly more forgiving aspects to like falling in water and dying. Would have loved a Battle for Bikini Bottom type of thing where touching water damaged you and sent you flying back first. Instead of just instantly dying and drowning the second you touch water. Which definitely didn't make me rage-quit the DLC after dying to a bad case of foot-touched-the-ocean several times.

I know the original Kao games weren't anything special so I can't judge this too hard but yeah. Solidly decent game. Platforming and gameplay is fine and that's what really matters.

2023's Game of the year, no contest, you're wrong if you think otherwise. The ultimate roleplaying game. Similar to games like Detroid: Become Human where your choices actually matter and impact your gameplay and what storyline you get to experience. I'd love to come back and give a proper review eventually that isn't just mindless gushing, but damn, this game goes hard.

You like Dungeons and Dragons? Story-based games? Turn based combat? Strategizing? Visual novel-esque romance routes? Are you simply a fan of good video games? You'll LOVE this.

I think I must be around 170 hours and I'm still not done. I unfortunately had to knock half a star off because Act 3 falls off hard with its poor performance, visual glitches, and overall rushed feeling.