This is a game about breaking away from a controlled world without free will. It's a game about taking a risk to find something meaningful and almost every aspect of it embodies that philosophy.

Some might see the character art and assume this is no different from so called "mascot platformers" of the time.
Instead of the usual colorful vibrant worlds and carefree settings the game features barren wastelands, abandoned spaces, and landscapes almost void of life.

Venturing into an unknown abandoned world. More than anything it really captures the feeling and atmosphere of discovering left behind landscapes and hostile ruins untouched for hundreds if not thousands of years. It is a game filled with the sense of mystery and discovery, within a game that itself is nearly forgotten and undiscovered.

The plot has more thought put into it than I expected, it's not exactly deep but it explores ideas that I don't often see in games and it's not a clear cut premise about saving the world, revenge, defeating an evil antagonist, ect.

There aren't many characters in the game but they get plenty of screen-time and are distinct from one another, the game is fully voiced in English and this helps the personality of each character come through, it's not bad acting or script either it's competent overall but not amazing.

Whether it's the of often obscure secrets the game holds or the odd and surprising unique visuals in certain areas it feels mysterious to play, it starts off with dull brown rocky textures of an underground network of caves, into an expanse of broken down abandoned metropolis to some egyptian inspired ruins and tombs.

These areas are populated with undead monsters the game calls ghosts, which are the previous residents of these levels. The game leaves this a mystery, it makes one wonder what happened to these places and why is everyone living in this one structured city underground, it brings to mind games like Panzer Dragoon and various dungeon crawlers with it's setting, it somehow feels like a perfect fit for a Saturn game.

What makes this game so unlike "mascot platformers" of it's time is it's subdued
approach to level design, if I had to describe the feel of the game in one word "subdued" would be it.
The starts of really slow almost quiet and slowly eases into more dense visually striking areas, It seems like it's not out of laziness or lack of creativity but restraint.

The game plays in a unique way too, there are fully 3D environments with a top down fixed angle and what makes this game special is full camera rotation, it's the one thing mechanically that the game uses the most. It makes jumps much more manageable and deals with depth perception better than purely isometric games.
Often puzzles and navigation are centered around looking at things from a different angle, at times the environment and camera are used in very interesting ways.

Like many Saturn games all characters, enemies, and objects are flat 3D rendered images with multiple variants for each camera angle, and it works well here.

The enemies are very simplistic looking but there is some charm to their design even if they could be a lot more detailed and are at times goofy-looking, enemies are the one thing ingame visually that doesn't mesh well with everything else.

Truth be told I like Sonic 3D Blast, I always have, it's flawed but still charming and fun overall especially the Saturn remake, despite its limitations it's a game I enjoy and appreciate...
But what if it was better?

Essentially this is if that game had been given the time and budget to be fully realized, improved, and given some actual plot and character.
In other words while Sonic 3D is good, W.W. is everything it could have been.
For a game about the theme of "freedom" it feels like the developers had exactly that, and were able to make basically anything they wanted, as a result it ends up being experimental, creative, and inspired.


The level design is difficult to sum up because every of the games 6 worlds have a different gameplay focus and pacing, it's full of variety, some worlds are more straightforward, one was focused on running down a winding path to beat a timer much like a racing game, and a later world focused on puzzles more than platforming, and these were inoffensive and fun to solve.

At times it seems as if the developers were influenced by early first person shooter games with small secrets and collectibles hidden everywhere and hordes of enemies that fill rooms all that leave behind a corpse when defeated so you can tell where you've been.
It has its own obscure secrets and a rotatable wireframe map that looks almost ripped out of early Doom, the levels feel as if they had been designed in a raycasting type of 3D engine despite that not being the case.

Willy doesn't jump on enemies to defeat them, instead he uses a short range and fast melee attack or slower long range boomerangs, while there isn't much depth to it on the surface the game uses the environment to make it more interesting whether it's putting enemies in hard to reach or disadvantageous places, or having traps that open up a room full of enemies unleashing them into the play area, often objects and items need to be hit or collected with the boomerangs and often these are their own small puzzles that add variety to the game, enough to never be completely dull and ideas are used as much as they need to be without getting repetitive or redundant.

The player can jump, rotate left/right, and dash in addition to attacking, it's a simple game to play and is easy to get into.

By far the most memorable and striking thing about this game to me is the environment and music, it's not just stereotypical ruins and forests, there's some surprising artistry here, to the point a few times I just had to stop and look around for a bit looking at every intricately designed detail.

The way color and lighting are used is memorable, and genius. often there will be some ruins or slightly generic natural environment and suddenly bright neons and harsh pure white or black surfaces will come up, these often have a number of moving parts, like a switch somewhere will make the floor shift around to form an intricate colorful geometric designs. Things often are intentionally clashing yet somehow they don't feel out of place. There is absolutely nothing else like it that I've seen, it is simply amazing.

And all of this; from the visuals, atmosphere, and plot wouldn't be nearly as effective without the music, it fits every level perfectly often subdued and atmospheric, the more melodic parts come in as the game gets going.

I suggest listening to "Detriam City" or "Ruins of Khuf" to get a feel for what kind of music is used, these are the highlights for level themes and (the sadly unused?) track 11 is also very good.
The music is a good listening experience even just on its own

The game does also have a 90s era theme song and ending with vocals that would not sound at all out of place in any Saturn era Sega game such as Nights, Sonic R, Burning Rangers, ect. It is that exact sound and direction.

I wouldn't call this game hard, but it can get challenging, Willy Wombat doesn't have a lives system, you have one generous health bar, if it runs out the game ends and it goes back to the title screen, where the option to reload the last save is given, if you didn't save you have to redo everything up to that point, it's not too punishing and while saving costs some ingame currency it's one of those cases where the game gives more than enough to save frequently.

The last few worlds focus more on precision platforming, often this risks being frustrating or causing players to give up but thankfully this game is forgiving and almost never used bottomless pits or damaging ground around difficult jumps.

collectibles are part of the incentive to actually explore levels, instead of getting 100 coins for a life, getting all of the collectibles in a level earns a save, and levels can be replayed at any time, beyond that there are items that expand the max health bar and these are important to survive the later more hostile parts of the game, but not essentially enough to ruin the playthrough if a few are missed.

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While there a many positives, I do have some complaints as well starting with the minor stuff;

-enemies are mostly simplistic and don't fit the visual fidelity of the environment or main character

-a few levels are more tedious to get through than fun. Sometimes taking a wrong turn, falling off a ledge, or taking the wrong portal means starting the entire level over. Thankfully this only happens in a few areas and often getting back to the end doesn't take more than a few minutes.

-some environmental sound effects in a few specific places overlap and get very loud and annoying

-some areas get very cluttered leading to the framerate going way down (again only happens in a few specific areas)

-the early levels don't have as much going on and can be a bit boring during a replay

-getting 100% can be a chore since levels often have a sudden point of no return late in the level any missed collectibles means starting over, this happened to me several times


The most glaring problems;

-This game has a run maneuver, keep in mind this is a Saturn game, so there's plenty of buttons that can be used.

6 out of these are already used and while button mapping is an option a 7th input could have easily been mapped to this yet it can only done by tapping a direction twice in succession, it can't be changed

This alone doesn't feel good, however what makes this much worse is when platforming gets precise; often I'd try to get close to a ledget to line up a jump and accidentally press forward again too soon, starting an unintentional sprint right off the platform, it's really annoying.

-completion does nothing, I got 100% but it was more about the journey than the reward (though I could be missing something this game is very obscure with its secrets)

-The worst thing about the game is the bosses. While there are 3 fights, 2 are basically the same and are so easy it's comical, the stun frames on the boss don't work so you can just mash attack and end it in about 5 seconds and the attacks it has are really easy to dodge.

The last boss has 2 attacks and doesn't do much, you push it off the ledge in about 20 seconds once it's figured out and that's it, no extra phases, no special attacks, and it looks really bland and thrown together, it's a really unfortunate way to end the game, but it shows that despite everything else being so good some things had to be cut, this aspect of the game was underdeveloped for whatever reason.

Altogether even with those faults this is a very unique and experimental game, even if it stumbles a bit it's still unlike any game I can think of and one that left a strong impression. The ambition, creativity, and passion still comes through in the level design and visual elements and it has an atmosphere that is well worth experiencing, at times relaxing mysterious and awe inspiring, I was invested all the way to the end

Not "near-perfect" in execution but extremely enjoyable and fantastic to experience, and one that hasn't been replaced.
This absolutely should be enjoyed by a wider audience and I recommend it to anyone looking for something more off-beat, subdued, and accessible from this generation