eeeeyowch this game is quite difficult. It's one of those games where the keys to progression lie in mastery of the less-than-orthodox control scheme and memorization of the levels. Not super trial-and-errorcore but getting kinda up there. The first few hours of playing this were certainly frustrating as I didn't have a manual of any sort to help me understand the full extent of the controls, but once I figured it all out things actually somehow started to fall into place. This game also basically pioneered the "cinematic platformer" genre, so I have to respect the boundary pushing they were going for here in making a grounded, weighty, realistic 2D platformer. I tried out a bit of the ports before settling on the Sega CD version as it seemed to remain faithful to the original PC game while implementing some solid quality of life improvements. This version also added anime cutscenes with a funny bad dub but honestly it was hard to get anything out of said funny bad dub because the audio mixing was horrible and everyone was too quiet to hear. This game was certainly a little more on the painful side to play, but I eventually got the hang of it and can respect what it was going for.