The further I played the less sure I was I finished this as a teenager.
The core gameplay is very fine but if you played any of the following games first, you will miss strafing, it's just that important.
In it's defense this is a pretty unique R&C in that is makes you revisit planets in a light metroidvania sense more than the other games (if you care about that aspect)
At some point in the game, maybe 60 % through it starts hitting you with gauntlets of enemies and it's there where it falls apart for me a bit. This is not a combat game to me, it's a platformer with combat segments and it really excels there. I think in some ways the last few levels remind me of the 2nd game a bit but it introduced strafing so you can actually progress through waves of enemies more decently.
The final boss was pretty ok. I knew about the flamethrower in the PS3 version so on my final attempt it went very smoothly. It being several phases with in-between platforming and zero checkpoints made it worse than it needed to be though.
The trespasser minigames are okay, the more time passes the more I think these gadgets just break the pace without being fun enough in return, it's probably why Naughty Dog eventually let you skip them in some of the later games iirc.
I don't want to be negative though, Naughty Dog made an amazing foundation that holds up.
The core gameplay is very fine but if you played any of the following games first, you will miss strafing, it's just that important.
In it's defense this is a pretty unique R&C in that is makes you revisit planets in a light metroidvania sense more than the other games (if you care about that aspect)
At some point in the game, maybe 60 % through it starts hitting you with gauntlets of enemies and it's there where it falls apart for me a bit. This is not a combat game to me, it's a platformer with combat segments and it really excels there. I think in some ways the last few levels remind me of the 2nd game a bit but it introduced strafing so you can actually progress through waves of enemies more decently.
The final boss was pretty ok. I knew about the flamethrower in the PS3 version so on my final attempt it went very smoothly. It being several phases with in-between platforming and zero checkpoints made it worse than it needed to be though.
The trespasser minigames are okay, the more time passes the more I think these gadgets just break the pace without being fun enough in return, it's probably why Naughty Dog eventually let you skip them in some of the later games iirc.
I don't want to be negative though, Naughty Dog made an amazing foundation that holds up.