I don't know, man. There's plenty to like here—charming characters, a cute story, semi-compelling political drama, good (enough) maps, gorgeous GBA aesthetic, whatever. But I've been frustrated and dragging my feet playing this. There is a tiny little fence between me and having fun, and no matter what I do, I cannot hop over it and be compelled to finish this game. That fence is named Seth.

Let me be clear. Lovely guy. Seems really sweet. But he is a sponge on the hypothalamus of my brain. He sucks up every drop of serotonin produced while playing this game. Instead of pumping my fist and shaking hands with another comically muscular man before we ride in a helicopter and are tricked into a death battle with a technologically superior alien species that only one of us escapes alive, I'm sucking my thumb and honk-shooing in my nightcap and gown beside a brick-and-mortar fireplace. Seth is the single most overpowered character I have ever seen in any video game. Still, with like 5 or 6 chapters left in the entire game, he one-shots every normal enemy and two-shots every boss. What are we doing here? Seth bends the very map design around him. Choke-points are no longer threatening. I stand slack-jawed as I drop the red-haired menace in front of 300 enemy goons, praying they will be enough to end his reign. Yet he stands steadfast as they all line up and take turns missing every attack and dying instantly. The Australian government cannot produce enough iron lances to feed into the Seth-powered enemy chipper. He is less a man and more an industrial machine.

Seth has ruined the thrill of permadeath. He has ruined my investment in the combat. He has stolen my crops, and he has pillaged my coffers. I never want to see this man again!

There is a lot to be said about how novel the pacing of this game is and how much I enjoy saving only at the end of chapters (and the chapter structure itself), but I'll save it for when I actually finish one of these things.

Irrefutably antiquated but how on earth is that supposed to be a pejorative? Games aren't this unencumbered anymore. Visions aren't this uncompromised. When was the last time you played a platformer with this kind of rhythm, this much palpable momentum? I'm obsessed with the way things move. I've found myself drawn to platformers my entire life. They are one of the few arts that explore the beauty of motion. Playing this game is like looking into the inside of a watch, seeing all of the minuscule gears twist and turn in perfect rhythmic synchronicity. And there you are, a being of glorious human error trying desperately to survive. If gameplay is commentary then Crash Bandicoot has more to say about the sordid merciless momentum of life than anything I've ever seen try to communicate it through dialogue.

I've had a pretty strange relationship with difficulty in games. For the longest time, my brain simply rejected games of a certain ilk. If I'm not progressing often then I'm not having fun, and the higher the difficulty the more likely I am to be doing the same stuff time and again. That's boring. It's that simple. But eventually, I realised it was all about mindset. Difficulty can be incredibly fun if it makes room for mastery. It shifts the progress from the external to the internal. This was the shift required for me to get into FromSoft's games last year. I will game over and repeat large sections of levels, but I relish that when I redo earlier parts I'll blow through them to a degree I'd have previously thought impossible. The finish line is all the more satisfying when you know you've earned it. Few games make this experience so rewarding.

The level design is blatantly experimental. As embryotic as all 3D platformers of this decade are, this one feels far more alien. For every idea your Mario 64s of the world ingrained into the lexicon of the genre forever more, there is a level of Crash Bandicoot no one would ever again have the balls to try for. You'd have to be crazy to think you could pull off a 'The High Road' in a 2024 platformer. But here it is. Unreal! In many ways, it still feels futuristic. I can't name another platformer where your depth perception is a skill the game finds worth testing (not to be confused with games that test your depth perception because they fuck up the camera placement), and this game builds many levels around it. Initially, this game can feel like one big reaction time test, but the longer you play the more you learn it's about ingratiating yourself into its flow. If Sekiro is secretly a rhythm game then this is Space Channel 5. Part 2. It isn't offering you ways to play it. It's a sergeant barking an endlessly wonderful song of orders.

There are many things to say about this as remake, most of which I'll save for after I've played all three games. But the biggest feather in this version's cap has to be Stormy Ascent. For a bonus, cutting room floor, "too hard and too long," DLC level, it is the perfect ending to the game. A necessary payoff to every lesson you've learned and skill you've acquired. The experience would be incomplete without it.

I find the idea of 100%-ing this game at once cumbersome and totally insane but it's so good I may do it anyway. Either way, Any% (+ Stormy Ascent) is such a phenomenal experience that I am more than comfortable counting anything else as a bonus.

If you call this "imprecise" in your review, see me after class.

I hate to be that guy. You know, the "Holy freaking crap what a nostalgia bomb, this [Product] is literally my childhood" guy. That guy is the arbiter of the pop culture death spiral we have all spent the last decade-plus suffering through. But the ugly truth of the matter is we are all that guy. Nostalgia is visceral. No matter how much we try to deny it, sometimes it overpowers our weak human analytical centres. I'll whine all day about people uncritically watching a new Disney+ Star Wars mini-series prestige sloptacular but you show me one 3-second animation of 16-bit Donatello playing on his game boy and I'll hand over my entire savings account (though you gotta know, terrible interest rate). You're just going to have to give me this one.

So yes, I grew up obsessed with the ninja turtles. But that's actually kind of weird. The show I watched endlessly ended in the 90s. At that point, I was nary a twinkle in Kevin Rudd's eye. There is a simple answer, I'm from Western Australia. I'm not familiar with the bit, who told it or when, but there's an old stand-up routine one of my uni lecturers loves to reference regarding WA. Something to the tune of 'scientists insist time travel is impossible until they visit Western Australia. As soon as you touch down it's suddenly 1983.' In my experience, this is pretty accurate. Pop culture moves slowly over here and has a hard time reaching us. What sticks, sticks for longer. So I, a 6-year-old boy in 2009, had 2 or 3 seasons of an 80s show (alongside my Disney DTV sequel collection, Lion King 1 1/2 was my favourite) on DVD that I watched obsessively. I still haven't seen 100% of cartoons released after I was born that didn't air on free-to-air TV. At least we got Regular Show and Adventure Time. Mum wouldn't let me watch The Simpsons though. She thought it was too low-brow.

Donnie was my favourite, for the record. Honestly a very effective psychological profiling system. You can glean a lot about me from that. For example, I'd rather have a large stick than a sword, should I be placed in a scenario wherein I'm expected to engage in mortal combat. Also, I prefer the colour purple. Never thought I'd get so personal on this site.

Part of what allows this to stand as an actual achievement in this form, rather than an exclusively cynical exercise in brand synergy, is the astonishing talent behind it. You got the Streets of Rage 4 people on deck. You got the Scott Pilgrim people on deck. There was no way this would be anything less than a gorgeous, stylised throwback with rock-solid fundamentals. Perhaps it's a bit disappointing that it never exceeds these expectations, but it unquestionably matches them.

The actual bummer is how mechanically shallow it is. I hadn't played SOR4 the last time I took revenge on Shredder, and the contrast is pretty hard to ignore. There's not much to the actual combat once you get over the glorious sounds of the punching and hitting. It takes a long time to do so, there are so damn many bells and whistles to distract you from it (goddamn the boss fights here are good) but eventually, you will clue into how little depth your character has.

But I don't care. Remember? I'm indulging myself here. As a fan of [Product], they get it! The personality is all here. Of course they get a power meter recharge when they taunt. Of course Mikey's taunt is the chicken dance. Of course he says 'mongo combo dude' every time you get a big combo. Of course they announce the title of each episode the way they do. Of course the 'Shredder's Revenge' part of the title is said by a guy doing the exact right EVIL voice on the title screen. Of course resurrecting your teammates involves an animation of coaxing them with slices of pizza. Of course THAT is the final boss fight. It's perfect!

I'm sick right now (decidedly not in a fun way) and have to do a lot of work for university in a very short period. I needed some comfort food before I drugged myself with nighttime cold & flu tablets and collapsed unconscious. I sat down to play this just for a little respite, my roommate was on the couch, I handed him the second controller and gestured in the direction of the glorious sounds emanating from Tee Lopes' perfect soundtrack and we beat the whole thing in one sitting. Videogames are a beautiful thing.