Certainly a game of all time. On one hand, the camera and combat is kinda ass, the game pulls a mario maker and drip-feeds the character creator features through a weird RPG levelling system instead of having everything available from the start, getting new moves for your characters is kind of counter-intuitive and emphasizes not using the custom characters that are the main selling point of the game, and the english dub is so horrible that it completely nullifies some really decent writing and solid gags just from how bored everyone sounds (like bro this isn't even a funny bad bad dub its just a bad bad bad dub). On the other hand though, this game has a really intricate character creator that's simple to use to the point where it really does feel like you can make fully 3D characters as easily as just sketching them out so you can basically make any character to your hearts content in it AND you can unlock THE Reimu Hakurei as a secret character so really let's call it a draw. The game is a pretty standard platformer otherwise and if I had this as a kid i'd probably hella fuck with it and try collecting all the different pre-made dudes. If the game had a bit tighter combat and the voice performers actually gave a damn, this would be some certified kino. (apparently there is an undub so I would certainly recommend playing that over the base english version, I didn't know it existed until it was already too late)

Here are the characters that I made before Reimu basically made everyone else obsolete for the rest of the game

amogus
this was the first thing i made to figure out how the character creator worked, and of course im gonna make an amogus im creatively bankrupt. his stubby legs meant i couldn't use him for shit in combat so i basically gave him psychokinetic elemental powers for puzzle solving purposes and long-ranged combat (until reimu could do a 3-hit combo using all 3 elements)

lostcontrol
This was the second character I made because I needed to make someone simple so I made the fucked up little triangle guy from that one meme. He was my movement guy as his tiny triangular size made him able to dodge enemy attacks and zip around the stage like a lil speedrunner. Eventually I needed a character that could fly to get the reimu card so I turned him into a one-winged angel. The music made him lose control.

jashinchan
Jashin was my first actual challenge to make but she surprisingly came out alright. There's no slithering option for movement so she just instead kind of bounces around but you know i'm cool with that. She was pretty useless at first because her punches did jack shit for damage so I rectified that by arming her and making her the combat character. At first, I just gave her a hastily-made pistol, but decided that wasn't fitting for her character and got rid of it. I gave her instead a battle axe (maybe she borrowed it from Yurine or something) for close range combat and a mega buster for long range combat.

TEST
I had to redo this mfer like 4 different times trying to get a correct hunched posture, making this guy took me an hour. I needed a character with wheels for the speed section of the game and asked my friend who would be the scariest cartoon character to see running at you at a million miles per hour. They said Robotnik from Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog would be the scariest, and so it was written. His legs are actually wheels so they spin around and his mustache and asscheeks have jiggle physics. Due to technically being a vehicle, he's technically the only character that Reimu didn't immediately render obsolete. I never learned how to change his name to anything else so hes just TEST for the rest of eternity, truly a lab subject that shouldn't have escaped his confinement

craig
my final character, the only one that isn't based off of some other character or whatnot. Originally he was going to be my combat character as I was like "what if i just make someone with really fucking long arms that just punches people from far away", but then it didn't work because he was slow as balls and I just got jashin to be the combat character anyways. Later on I needed a character with long legs to reach a specific point to get the flying ability early so I added some really fucking long legs to craig in order to get the job done. Completely deformed and experimental, craig is a being whose God has forsaken him. Behind that tiny smile is a pain greater than what anyone could know, and I stay in heaven because I fear what I hath created.

When I was a kid I would rent this game from Blockbuster over and over again because I liked the colorful box art. Turns out it's a silly platformer where you can create your own creature and murder everything in your path with it.

As an adult, on replay I still love this game but it is infuriating as all Hell. Yes, you bet your sweet ass I made my own abomination and added every functional piece to it as soon as they were unlocked. This is by far the best and most creative part of the game, but the actual action, combat, and platforming is pretty rank. There is a certain mid-game boss that deserves to be sent into saw blades instead of the Shadow Realm, in my opinion.

Despite that, it's very short and it's still fairly fun. The soundtrack is one of the better soundtracks I've ever heard, which is a shame because this game only has 24 fans.

The main draw of this game is meant to be creating your own creatures, but I'm not good at that at all, they keep walking in the wrong direction lmao. But it's fine cause not only do you create your own, enemies have a chance of dropping a card that makes them usable as well, and they have quite nice designs. The enemies you capture can be customized too so even if I'm not good at making my own I can mess them up at least. Reimu and Space Invaders are some of the hidden monsters btw.
I really love the environments in this game too, lots of toy looking places, one of my favorite genres of levels. The sand castle that's a proper castle is especially good.
Odd note: The in-game timer doesn't tick when you're editing monsters

Ok, hear me out; what if Kirby & The Forgotten Land and the creature creator from Spore had a baby, but the creature creator was actually 3D Mario Paint and the baby was actually a competent action-adventure RPG with monster collecting?

There's a lot to unpack here at Graffiti Kingdom, and it's mainly because the gameplay is such a breath of fresh air. The core premise is that you are some lazy prince who let loose a demon that has wrought destruction by kidnapping your parents and transforming your kingdom into Howl's Moving Castle but somehow more kiddy and maniacal. As such, you must now free your parents and (reluctantly) your kingdom with the help of a blue cat thing called Pastel with your magic brush, and transform into your own magical creations to fight back against other graffiti monsters and save the world. I'm not going to pretend I completely understand the narrative (especially since I haven't played Magic Pengel, the game in the series before this so I don't know if they're intrinsically connected by story), but I do think the story is just cheesy and serviceable enough to get by.

So let me try and explain the core gameplay, starting with the drawing program. You can draw your own monsters with the internal creature creator; you basically draw a 2D shape on a 3D plane that you can rotate, and the game's engine interpolates that into a 3D object that can serve as the body, an arm, a leg, a wing, etc. It's actually quite easy to do once you get the hang of it, and you can manually set up connectors to link your body parts however you'd like. Once you've drawn up your parts, you can select them to set their functionality which will determine what attacks you'll have access to when you go editing your moveset. The drawing program does remind me a bit of my early days learning AutoCAD, but with less functionality since it's a PS2 game; that said, you get access to more customization and more tools inside the drawing program as you level up in the RPG, which is a fantastic perk. There's a syringe tool to capture and inject colors, there's a pretty competent copy function that lets you transpose and flip/rotate copied parts, there's even a custom color selector with a transparency and shade slider to boot as some of the examples of unlockable features. The only notable feature that I'd say is missing is a free rotate option in the 3D space for body parts, so you have to make sure you capture your orientation well from the start or you might accidentally draw your creature upside down/sideways. Otherwise, it's a super impressive program for its time and despite being quite easy to use, has plenty of depth in its customization.

Outside of the drawing program, you can transform into your creations and traverse the overworld and fight in their bodies. From the save points, you can also change your moveset to adjust for enemies/bosses in the overworld, and there are tons of elements that require certain attacks, such as some boxes that are marked as to be punched/kicked, or elemental (ice/fire/electric) switches, or even flying functionality later in the game to ascend to new heights. You can gain these new attacks either by "capturing" enemies in the overworld with your pen as Pixel (admittingly not easy because Pixel isn't particularly fast but is quite fragile) or by collecting their cards after defeating them; the functionality of the body parts on your monsters is key to determining what attacks your monsters can utilize. As mentioned prior, leveling up will also play a role in unlocking further functionality to attach to your custom characters. Oh, and after collecting the cards, you can actually play as those monsters yourself, hence the "Pokemon" aspect of Graffiti Kingdom. What results from all of this is a practically endless creative burst of interactions between your own creations and the overworld + its elements, thanks to the many customization options lending themselves to constant experimentation. In many ways, Graffiti Kingdom is a sandbox game with RPG elements (leveling up will also increase your health and "energy meter" that determines how many attacks you can throw out in a row so you have more room to play around) and rough but still fun combat, and I'd say it more than succeeds at carrying out this premise.

That being said, there are some issues here and there being a PS2 game of this era, so I'll quickly point them out:

- Most of the boss fights are pretty easy; you can either beat them with classic hit and run tactics, or you can camp them with projectiles until they decide to approach you, which is when you hit them with your own close attacks when they do approach you and repeat the cycle. The exception to this is one of the final bosses, who loves to constantly throw out in-your-face hitboxes until the boss himself takes enough damage, and because the game doesn't afford you many i-frames, you might end up getting wobbled. So there's this drastic spike in difficulty between most of the somewhat straightforward boss fights and the dastardly obnoxious and aggressive boss fight at the end that you'll have to be aware of.

- Graffiti Kingdom uses a free cam, so hopefully you're used to rotating the camera as you perform actions in the overworld (there is at least a snap to character perspective button in R3). It's fine for the most part, though you can't rotate the camera upwards from the baseline, though you can rotate it downwards. So often times, I found myself having to back up to try and see enemies/platforms above me and did have to fight the camera occasionally if it became too focused on the ground to see my surroundings.

- Try not to fall off the stage; you won't die, but you will lose a little bit of health and respawn all enemies in the area/reset all switches. Minor complaint here, though it can get annoying if enemies are constantly knocking you into the abyss/water.

- If you want to try and collect all the monsters, do keep in mind that some of the monsters will only show up for one-time encounters as scripted in the game. There's no reward for collecting everything, so this is more or less a warning for completionists.

Overall, I'm really impressed by how much I enjoyed Graffiti Kingdom despite its relatively short runtime (less than 5 hours) and the crude yet entertaining fun combat. The sheer amount of customization options linked with the monster collecting + leveling up systems really allowed me a ton of room to mess around as I pleased, and though the narrative itself isn't anything special, it's got that gleeful, kiddy feeling down on lock with a pretty pleasant soundtrack, vibrant cartoony artstyle, and a middling English dub that reminds me of some of the sub-par Studio Ghibli dubs I've sat through. It's a real shame that this game isn't very well documented (with the exception of this guide I found regarding body part functionality & unlockable attacks), as this is probably the hidden gem that surprised me the most this year, and I'll definitely have to go and play Magic Pengel at some point; give this a shot if you're looking for something off the beaten path that exudes childlike wonder with thoughtful and practically limitless design elements.

My favorite game ever, but not even close to one of the best.

Negatives out of the way first: English dub bad, graphics a little overwhelming at times, story could use some more work. Having to use the wand to turn into enemies to get their attacks is really clumsy, especially since you'll probably want to play as your own creations most of the time. Game doesn't tell you at all what defines a creature's type or moves(although with moves you can sorta guess).

I think some N64DD or Dreamcast games (and Magic Pengel of course) already had the "model your own character" thing way before this game did it, but in my opinion Graffiti Kingdom does it best. 3D modeling with an analog stick sounds like a nightmare, but here it's easy to get something minimally close enough to what you want with varying amounts of effort.

I think the environments are really pretty. The arts and crafts theme might not shine through every level equally, but when it's there its very well done. Indoors are kind of janky, but most of the time they feel good to look at. The music is probably the best thing about this game, give it a listen even if you couldn't get through the whole thing!

She go she go she go she goin' down on it,
He go he go he go he goin' down on it,
They go they go they go they goin' down on it,
Who go who go who go who goin' down on it,
You go you go you go you goin' down on it,
We go we go we go we goin' down on it,
They go they go they go they goin' down on it,
She go she go she go she goin' down on it!
Wait a minute!
Lookout lookout!
Cha!