Disney’s Lilo & Stitch: Trouble in Paradise or simply Disney’s Lilo & Stitch was always like a forbidden fruit to me. As a kid, we had a disc of the PC version, but it didn’t work. It seems to have a pretty poor future proofing, and as far as I remember, we had a Windows Vista machine. But it was so long ago, I can’t say for certain. Regardless, I couldn’t play it for more than a decade. Thankfully, there is a Playstation version of the game, which is much easier to run (thanks to emulation). So, what have I been missing on all this time?

…A bad Crash Bandicoot-like game. This is a 2002 PS1 game, and the first Crash Bandicoot game has been out for almost 6 years at this point, and the devs failed to capture what made that game work. First off, the controls. The platforming is imprecise – trying to do tricky platforming can be a frustrating task. Heck, even simple jumps can be a pain. The levels shouldn’t be that difficult, yet they are due to the unrefined movement and physics. The jank definitely doesn’t help. For instance, in the level “Pali Trail”, in this section with moving platforms, jumping on the platform to the right caused me to die a couple of times – either because I got teleported in a weird way, of because the platform simply decided to let me pass through. I also had one softlock where I think an enemy’s projectile hit me while I fell into water, which would’ve made me lose a life, but instead I landed on a solid ground, unable to do anything. Thankfully, it happened early on in the level, and I could restart, but still. Oh, and after you land, you can’t jump immediately, you have to wait a solid second for the landing animation to end before you can jump again. certainly doesn’t help with a few tricky sections.

And then there are regular enemies, and I swear they’re the most annoying pieces of work I’ve dealt with in a while. It feels like when they attack, they ignore YOUR attacks, which leads to inevitable damage. And some enemies are quite vicious too, hunting you down and force you to eat up damage. Like tiki enemies, that spit fireballs at you & fast, and I don't know how you're supposed to dodge the attacks. And then there are the kinds of enemies that simply won’t stop attacking until you back off, so you have to assault them when they turn their back. The camera is also not very helpful spotting these suckers, in 2D stages anyway. Just like Crash Bandicoot, there are traditional 3D hallways and 2.5 platforming stages. Really wish there was SOME camera control, at least in 2D levels, because it can feel unfair when you get hit by an enemy that you can’t spot. Especially if it’s the projectile shooting variety. I think I died to annoying enemies more than the janky platforming.

Anyway, you play as either Lilo or Stitch depending on the level. Both characters have a few differences, and Stitch is just better. It’s simply objectively true. First off, Stitch has TWO attacks instead of one. First, he can do a spin attack, as if the Crash Bandicoot inspiration wasn’t clear. He can also spit acid. I don’t really see any differences between these, I mean obviously the spin attack is longer, but there aren’t any advantages to using either when destroying enemies. It’s not like the spit attack is a ranged one, you still have to get close and personal, so there’s basically no mechanical difference when it comes to combat. Stitch does get one more trick up his furry sleeve – he can roll into a ball. His stages have coffee cups scattered about, collecting them slowly fills the image of Stitch in the bottom-right with red, and when full, Stitch changes his walking animation. Pressing Triangle also makes him roll into a ball of destruction, which makes him invulnerable and kills enemies on touch. You can cancel it at any moment, so conserving it for unfair enemies it is beneficial. As for Lilo… she just sucks. She only has a voodoo doll attack, which is basically the same as Stitch’s spit. There are also voodoo spoon items that summon the Ice Cream Guy to take out a SINGLE enemy. And you have to be close enough to an enemy though you don’t have to be too close, so it can be used to defeat them from a safe enough distance, otherwise he just falls on top of you, which doesn’t damage you, but it’s still a waste. That’s about it. I think I would’ve preferred it to be like a screen-clear bomb to defeat all visible enemies, as-is it’s just not as useful as Stitch’s roll maneuver. And that’s about it. Both characters can also butt-bounce by performing an attack in air, I didn’t use this move too often.

Of course, just like the aforementioned Marsupial Jumpy Game, the game also features chase levels. There are standard ones where you just run towards the screen away from someone like Cobra Bubbles, which doesn’t make much sense in the context of the movie (and believe me, there’s A LOT of things that don’t match the movie), but there are also a couple levels which are basically the same deal, BUT you also occasionally get shot with a projectile from the pursuer. Which is even more “””fun”””, because being hit by something stunlocks you for a moment, and it can interrupt your jumps, which makes things even more tricky/frustrating. There’s also one level where you race Mertie, which takes place in a 2D platforming section, and it’s just okay.

The game features a linear progression, but also not. There are multiple hub areas with different paths that you can traverse. Each new path is locked behind a mini-boss. A stone… golem… thing. Did I hint that the game isn’t very faithful to the movie? Anyway, these encounters are all pretty much the same. Don’t go too far, or they’ll start throwing projectiles. Avoid a simple attack, let them turn back, then attack. Repeat until they die. Repeat until you unlock all the paths. Feels like padding to me. Anyway, sometimes you’ll have to return to one of the previous hubs to explore different paths for things like Elvis vinyl records or alien devices. That said, the game is pretty short, it took me under 3 hours to beat this thing. There are optional collectibles, in the form of aforementioned coffee cups for Stitch, or various items like pineapples for Lilo, collecting 100 earns you an extra life, and unlocks a time trial challenge, try to beat the level in under 4 minutes, if you care about this game enough. Which, I don’t.

The music is decent, there are a couple of tracks that I like, but overall, it’s alright. The graphics are about average to good. I mean, they’re technically better than Crash Bandicoot, but that’s not a very high bar for such a late release. To be honest, I didn't pay too much attention to the visuals, maybe because I was too fed up with the game, but they look nice enough for what they are. On the other hand, I also didn't really notice any performance issues, so... I guess it's fine in that regard too?

I’m sure I would’ve eaten this shit up as a kid, but as an adult, I didn’t find this game to be very impressive. When the most enjoyable thing in the game is the cinematics from the film, I don’t think that’s a good sign. It did make me want to rewatch the movie, because I know it would prove to be a more enjoyable experience than playing this game. Ultimately, Disney’s Lilo & Stitch: Trouble in Paradise is not a good game, with janky and frustrating platforming, odd design decisions, and it’s not very faithful to the source material. Even the first Crash Bandicoot game still holds up just fine and would be a much better play experience than this Crash clone (and I'm not even talking about the sequels which are most likely even better).

Death Count = 48

A Crash Bandicoot clone stripped down to nearly the bare minimum. It’s not abysmally terrible, but rather just flat-out boring. All the levels feel the same, all the bosses are the same, all the chase sequences replace Crash Bandicoot’s boulders with one of the film’s antagonists (also one of them being a random prison alien???), and it just stops introducing new mechanics pretty early in. The controls also feel stiff and your attacks will often get caught on enemy hitboxes. Some platforming sections feel bad because they expect you to jump in rapid succession but there's a sizable delay between landing and being allowed to jump again. It almost feels like the developers were given references for the locations and the characters (I bet they were given this exact frame of Lilo), but absolutely nothing for the plot. I’ve played a few Lilo & Stitch games in the past and while none of them are particularly great, this one is probably the worst. At the very least, you can 100% it in about 2 hours. I wish I could write more, but there really is just nothing else to say about this one.