Treasure is one of those companies that once you've learned their existence, you begin to want to tell everyone about them. They're such a free flowing development team that output a lot of insanely good games, with a diversity of genres. Sin And Punishment is just one within their ranks, and it's take on an arcade shooter is phenomenal.

Their specialty are boss fights, they really understand the push and pull a boss fight should give the player. There's a lot you can study by replaying the game and understanding the mechanics of how they function, what they set up for the player, and how to take them down.

I haven't played this in quite a while, so I don't have a lot of pungent things to say that really get into the nitty gritty of what makes the game work, but it's such a great game, you guys, holy shit, go play Treasure games.

My first exposure to Sin and Punishment came through the appearance of Saki Amamiya as an assist trophy in Super Smash Bros. Brawl (although I'd forget about the game's actual title until years later), and while I was interested in checking the game out, I wasn't truly excited to play it until just a few weeks ago. After having an absolute blast with Gunstar Heroes earlier this month, I took a peek at the rest of the games made by Treasure, as the only other game of theirs that I was aware of at the time was Ikaruga, and when I noticed that Sin and Punishment was a part of their catalogue, I knew that I had to play it soon. After failing to find a working English translation of the game, I decided to go ahead and play the original Japanese release instead, as it still had English dialogue, and this was honestly such a great decision, because while Sin and Punishment only took about an hour or two for me to actually beat, I can't wait to get back and play it again.

Sin and Punishment is a game where practically every one of its elements is fine tuned to perfection, as it kept me totally hooked and engaged without overstaying its welcome. The on-rails gameplay here is sublime, as it blends a tight and precise control scheme with never-ending cavalcades of enemies to shoot, attacks to avoid, and projectiles to deflect to create a consistently frantic experience where you're constantly on your toes. Despite how simple the controls actually are, there's a surprising amount of depth to your in-game moves, as even choosing between lock-on and free shooting can be the deciding factor between beating a particular enemy or boss or dying and having to start over. Speaking of which, Sin and Punishment also features some amazing and chaotic boss fights, with the final boss being intense, exciting, and visually stunning to the point where I genuinely could not believe what I was seeing. In terms of difficulty, Sin and Punishment was honestly pretty tough, but getting a full grasp of your whole arsenal of attacks and abilities made everything feel fair while still putting up a good challenge.

On top of having some superb gameplay, Sin and Punishment is also one of the best looking games on the Nintendo 64. The pre-apocalypse artstyle is oozing with style and grit, and I was very impressed by the amount of detail that all of the backgrounds and enemies had, especially with how fast-paced the game is. In terms of story, Sin and Punishment was admittedly difficult to fully take in and comprehend, but even then, I still thought that it was really cool. What starts out as a game about simply fighting off an army of Ruffians ends up involving time travel, visions, and the cosmos, and the over-the-top storytelling felt like a perfect fit for the high-octane insanity and constant setpieces of the moment-to-moment gameplay, with the delightfully campy voice acting being the cherry on top. Although there are a ton of games from the Nintendo 64 that I still haven't played yet, I have no problem with saying that Sin and Punishment is my favorite one so far, and not only am I excited to replay it over and over again, but I also want to eventually play its sequel on the Wii, Sin & Punishment: Star Successor.

Super short, but also sweet and very replayable for upping up the ranking scores. A good arcade rush bullethell for the n64 along with its highly entertaining nonsensical cutscenes, cheese dialogues and headbopping stage tracks.

Controllers may take some time getting used to, but the training mode tells you all you need to know and gives you the leisure you need to ease into the mechanics.

Easy is a nice breeze with a generous handout for CREDITS to try again if you fudge it, while normal and hard are there for you to cry with stronger goons and bosses boasting more menacing attacks.

Absolutely baffled by this
Aesthetically Amazing, strongly inspired by late 90s Seinen Anime like Lain and Evangelion, but also by some classics like Gundam, Akira and Macross. The diegesis is convoluted and abstract, but i enjoy the frantic pace and the way they built the scenes. This game is a great example of usage of cinematics in favour of a videogame, with the cinematic frames actually being a gameplay part itself, and is so carefully built. I like the open nature of the narrative too.

Ludic-wise, the gameplay is very in depth, with both a varied number of options and also differing patterns of enemies and levels. What amazes me is how many different activities the game require you to do, you are never doing the same thing twice.

The game can be REALLY challenging, and its arcade nature allows a lot of skill-based replayability.

OST and scenarios are both killers too.

The control scheme can be a little bit counter-intuitive at times though.

The Sin & Punishment games are the best kept secret in Nintendo's catalogue. I've pretty much known nothing about either game until this year, I've essentially opened and closed the year playing the sequel and now this, and I've come to realize these are some of the best games Nintendo has their name attached to.

Insane visuals, especially for the N64 which most games can't claim to have looked very nice, fast paced rail shooter gameplay, and the best type of nonsense. The most insane shit will just happen in this game, and you have zero time to process it because it will keep getting bigger and bigger until you get the most absurd finale you could ever imagine a game like this ending with. It is tragic this game got a full translation and dub with no localization effort, and essentially a doomed existence to obscurity and being an Assist Trophy in Smash. Star Successor is somehow even more batshit than this game, but this still managed to blow my mind in just all the right places.

I assume it doesn't get better than here when it comes to n64's pure action games

As a person that tried to get into the starfox and find myself not engaged with it's energy then shelving it 15 minute later, this game did what I expected from starfox singlehandedly.

Nonstop action, relentless explosions, new enemies stages levels challenges in every 5 seconds back to back to make the game pacing Godddaaaamnnnnn awesome and of course it does have a fun gameplay to back it up with shooting enemies and parrying with a sword.

Oh also it does have a story too that is probably got inspired from eva. But I think compared to eva, it's only purpose is just to give you shocking imagery and nothing more. It's not a negative for me tho, I wasn't expecting a groundbreaking story mod for an arcadey game to begin with so I can even say this part can be a plus

My only problem with it, is an outside factor that is the piece of shit wii u's input delay for n64 games that makes aiming 2 times harder.

Other than that this game is fire and it's short runtime (2 hours) is enough to make your life more positive for a while.

Alien Soldier + Neon Genesis Evangelion + Kingdom Hearts + The Room = Sin and Punishment

Entry number eight of the list of obscure games, though this game technically shouldn't count because I'm pretty sure it's not that obscure. It's been recommended by none other than PKMudkipz, thanks again for the recommendation.

So real talk, I actually had a majority of this review written up, but without telling me, my mother turned off the electricity in the house erasing it all. So excuse me if this review comes off a bit bizarre.

As an aside, I want to state: Please don't have your first playthrough of this game be in the Normal difficulty. I learned that the hard way and got my ass squarely kicked. The Easy Mode and the Tutorial exist for a reason, and even with those you'll still get your ass handed to you on a platter. Either way the game is still kino, but I recommend not learning to run before you can walk.

Sin and Punishment is a rail shmup (for the most part), where you are constantly moving forward and have to move left and right to avoid attacks and enemies. You have a dodge roll, the ability to change between a free aim shot that does more damage or a lock-on shot that does less damage but is "more accurate", a double jump, and close range sword strike that does massive damage to enemies.

This is all fine and good, but don't forget, this is an N64 game. This is a personal thing, but I have never been a fan of the N64 controller. Don't get me wrong, there are absolutely worse controllers than it, but I've always seen it as extremely clunky to use. I didn't use an N64 Controller to play this game, and to some extent I'm glad I didn't because of how aiming and moving works.

Unlike the other shmup's I've played so far, movement and aiming are not interlocked, and instead you aim with the analog stick and you move your character with the D-Pad. It's a little awkward at first, but you will eventually adapt. The game doesn't really ask for too much movement from the player outside of boss fights and a few other instances, so it's not too bad.

Your double jump is allocated to the shoulder buttons, and that's where I had the hardest time with muscle memory, because my mind had me keep pressing the A button to jump because that's just the norm. It's not bad, but definitely unorthodox.

Level wise there's only a total of nine levels (ten actually, but the first is a dream sequence), split into segments of three. Each level contains multiple bosses, called commanders, which refill your time meter and give a bonus to your score. At the end of the level is the Central Commander, and once you beat them the level ends.

A majority of the levels are pretty straightforward, like the first level which has you running through a large field and shooting the fuck out of a bunch of monsters, or the second level where you blow through a section of Tokyo.

There are exceptions though, Level 1-2, or the third level, is easily my least favorite in the game. It's an Elevator Level, which is one of my least favorite tropes in video games. Elevator Levels usually shove the player into a very narrow and small space with a fuckload of enemies. In concept it's cool, but in execution I haven't played a single game with a good Elevator Level. Now, the level is definitely manageable, but it is definitely the biggest low point in the game for just feeling lazily designed with enemies just popping in and out over and over, and laser shooting robots whose beams cover the entire floor. The bosses at the end weren't bad though, but I will say the fight with Radan was a bit... odd. When most of the fights in the game are 3D On Rails fights, having a 2D shooter boss primarily relying on your melee attacks was a bit... weird.

After that the next stage I had an issue with was Stage 2-2. The stage itself is not inherently bad, my issue, and this winds up being an issue for me the entire game. While the game itself takes up to an hour, there are just points where the game feels longer than it really needs to. The Aircraft Carrier level is a decent example of that, because at various points, while I was super happy with the absolute coolness vibes of shooting a navel vessel while flying around on a levitating scrap of metal, I was also growing kind of tired with how long the level was going on.

It felt like it was dragging when it would've been way more kino for something as exciting as blowing up an Aircraft Carrier to be faster paced. That's where I feel like comparing the game to Alien Soldier, another Treasure developed game. Alien Soldier is so well paced, Chainsaw Man paced if you would, that every level feels quick, concise, and awesome. Nothing in Alien Soldier drags on (with exception to Seven Force), and that game has 25 stages.

Then there's the second to last stage of the game, Stage 3-2. It suddenly becomes a 2D Run and Gun... with the same controls. I'm sorry, but it is extremely awkward to jump in 2D with shoulder pads. It's one thing when I'm dashing with them in like, a Mega Man X game, but here it's very awkward.

You don't even really have to shoot anything for a majority of the level, it's literally better to just run right and do nothing just to get to the end. For a second to last level, it's quite the wet fart.

Final Boss Spoiler for a 22 Year Old Game Warning Because Simon Won't Leave Me Alone Over it LMAO:


Luckily the final level, and the others, fully make up for it. I mean, you literally fight a Fake Earth while standing on the real earth by shooting all of its projectiles back at it. If that isn't like, the definition of Kino I don't know what is.


SPOILER WARNING OVER.

The game is very much inspired by the likes of Evangelion, with one boss causing what looks similar to the Third Impact and being surrounded and shooting out orange tang like fluid that looks a lot like LCL. The main protagonist, when he transforms into his Ruffian form, looks very reminiscent of Unit-01. It definitely made getting to Level 1-3 extremely worth it.

The story is both bugnuts ridiculous but also absolutely hilarious and cool at the same time. You take the role of both Saki Amamiya and Airan Jo as you face off against the alien like Ruffians and the Armed Volunteers, finding yourselves in the middle of a cosmic conspiracy that could change the world forever.

You serve Achi, who is the creator of the Ruffians, which were made to stop world hunger apparently, and you fight against the Armed Volunteers who have setup these Ruffians to fight against themselves to create a narrative so that the leader, Brad (I'm sorry, I cannot help but laugh that one of the main antagonists of this game is just called fucking Brad. I have a friend named Brad and that just makes me laugh harder.), could be accepted by humanity and become a world leader I'm assuming.

Eventually it turns out that Achi was orchestrating everything to defeat her mysterious enemy (I'm guessing this gets elaborated on in the sequel), which leaves Saki to have to take her out, which he ultimately does.

I'd definitely take the story much more seriously if the acting wasn't so laughably awful. But hey, that's honestly the charm of it. Some of these deliveries are just so bad at points, though I do feel like at least the actress playing Airan tried sometimes to sound part way decent.

Overall, while I have my issues with Sin and Punishment, I still think that it's a great game and one that you should experience at least once. Just don't buy the Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pack. Please, 50 bucks for a shitty service is not worth it.

If you were to ask me what this game was about I could hardly tell you, other than those who made it really, really liked Evangelion. In terms of an actual game, it's a solid, flashy rail shooter that gets bonus points for being a game designed with the N64 in mind. I appreciate their desire to craft the game and its controls around Nintendo's unique controller, even if moving and shooting can sometimes feel like "rubbing your stomach and patting your head" syndrome. There were a few times in the game where it wasn't really clear where and what you needed to shoot to defeat certain enemies resulting in a little trial-and-error but overall I had fun with it. I've wanted to play this game for a long time but never got around to it until now. I came away being genuinely impressed with what they made.