PS1 platformers own because the developers did not quite yet figure out how to do precise platforming in 3D, while also could not do large, expansive levels on the hardware. There's also no well-defined movesets yet either, meaning you get a ton of different interpretations of a jump, a dash or an attack move.

As such, games like Emperor's New Groove rely on the variety of objectives in shorter levels, making for a lot of memorable little fun scenarios. Kuzco is such an asshole here, and a lot of objectives rely on that. Steal a baloon from a squirrel, knock a deranged guy who thinks he is a bird into a wall, destroy some dude's statues, knock a kid off his bike, then proceed to spit at a kid to throw him off his bike, THEN make him SMASH INTO ROCKS to throw him off his bike. Many of these activities repeat, but also evolve over time.

The level design is very memorable, and has plenty of simple secrets scattered around, like a crack in a wall or an arrow on the ground pointing towards a hidden passage. Each level has a certain amount of coins, and if you collect all you get a piece of concept art for the game and the movie. There are also hidden plushies, the Wampys, which reward you with a unique animation of the demonic PS1 llama model hugging the shit out of it.

The levels get progressively larger and more complex. You start off with very straightforward paths but eventually levels expand and you'll have to choose between multiple paths, all of which ultimately award you with a key to the end door. The keys, of course, are Kuzco's faces. The game absolutely triples down on making him an asshole egomaniac.

There's also a lot of gimmicky, on-rail levels, but even there they spice it up each time. There is an entire section of Kuzco and Pacha drifting through a river on the log they wound up on after leaving the jungle. There's your introductory level, there's a level where you race the bike kid in his llama-shaped inflatable boat, and you even get a sort of a boss battle at the end. The variety is just super impressive.

The least varied type of gameplay is the rollercoaster, but it is so fun. Quite tough on the last stage, but the fact that the game manages to somehow implement this adrenaline-pumping stage in the middle of everything else it does is so surprising.

On top of all that, there are also multiple transformations throughout the game, three to be exact. You get to play as a turtle, frog and a bunny. While the frog plays mostly as you'd expect, the turtle actually always results in a racing section, and the bunny is about achieving vertical height by jumping super high and gliding with his ears like Rayman does with his hair.

There's a lot of other ways in which this game spices up its gameplay, exploration and level design, but it's worth experiencing for yourself because this is genuinely one of PS1's most interesting platformers. It will take a while to get used to, just like all other titles on the damn thing, but that's what you should be here for too in some ways.

Even as a kid I found myself revisiting specific stages just to sort of get a feel for an idea or a vibe in a given stage. I'd replay the underground a lot because it was so creepy, or the turtle racing stages because they controlled like butter but had so much of the racetrack built around these softer turns.

This is perhaps the strongest aspect of level-based games: being able to jump into a whole new world in 5 minutes after launching a game, and then a whole other vibe 5 minutes later when choosing a stage from a different set. There's obviously way more to it, and I genuinely miss it. So many games require so much effort to get back to a specific point you yourself may enjoy. Why can't I just fight this boss right now, or do this section right now unless I finagle with saving or mods? Figure this shit out developers! Emperor's New Groove for the PS1 has you beat!

feels like the writers are actively working against the game. Every time I had fun with the game, I felt like it was despite the story and characters, not because of them. I’m sick of fucking condescending quirky dialogue filling AAA games now, it’s like watching the flanderization of an entire medium in real time. Just let me have fun with your god killing game! You can still be really fucking serious ™️ and sad ™️ in your story but at least fucking try to make your themes come together in a coherent way. The entire final act of this game hits with no impact at all, it all feels incredibly hollow. At least the combat is fun.