Somehow both less and more frustrating than I remember.

Just had an urge to go through this again, for the first time in years, and it's still mostly good! Some handholding and crappy bosses maybe, but IIRC nowhere near as egregious as in Fusion...maybe I should play that again to check.

Title screen dance got me on board immediately, and the rest of the game is equally charming. Took me a while to get my head around the screen transitions, but it's a solid chunk of lovely fun, a great thing to zone out with.

There's something I really enjoy about when video pinball goes where reality can't. Magic.

This is GameBoy, to me. Simplicity. A pleasant nostalgia trip. Looks rad in colour mode too.

This is good, honest. A single-screen puzzle platformer about a catboy who pushes boxes and punches ghosts. Also you can travel back and forth in time. Recommended!

One Christmas holiday I played this to 100% in a single 14-hour sitting.

If you can ignore the cutscenes and the fiddly pointer bits and the crap sound design and the infuriatingly arbitrary upgrade system and the linearity, you might just find that what's left is an action adventure game that plays great.

Put this on because I'd heard of it but didn't know what it was, and now I know

Was expecting the big metal fist to enable some cool gameplay mechanics or gimmicks or fun, but no

Also why was the blurb written by a 7yo

After bouncing off it bigstyle, I found myself reinstalling because several voices I trust said they'd had a good time with it. I picked a big weapon and paid attention to the animations and had a go at learning the parry and discovered that I no longer have any interest in "soulslikes", whatever that means. Elden Ring was the whole packet I was forced to smoke, and now I'm done. What am I going be insufferable about now?

An infuriating reminder I've got a really good Monster Hunter game at home that I just don't have time to play these days.

Better and worse somehow

Slightly better than you might expect!

Strafe and lase as you would have others strafe and lase unto you