In the best possible way, this feels like an amalgam of all the 5th gen sensibilities: a briskly-paced action game that plays around with perspective and enemy arrangements, and has you fighting everything from mercenaries to BOW’s in only a couple of hours- and it also sports a pretty clever upgrade system.

Instead of just getting slotting points into static changes for your character, you’re given the ability to respec at any given time, meaning that victory is often as much about your strategy as it is about reflexes. There are some fights that gave me hell for the longest time, but more for the fact that I had carried the idea that I was committed to this single playstyle from so many other games; start playing around with your defense or range, and suddenly those same fights become a lot more manageable. It's a cool wrinkle on a feature that’s become static in the years since- though I imagine the reason more games aren’t as malleable is that it might irk too much see your damage or health go down, even as you’re powering up some other facet of yourself. (Also kind of weird to think of your character as a Star Trek-style ship, siphoning energy from your weapons to your shields, even though you're just… a guy.)

And, as much as it pains me to say it, I was invested enough in the story that the collateral damage of gameplay did feel at odds with its intro, where Jutah ends up being responsible for the deaths of a number of innocent people- only to spend the rest of the game surgically destroying everything in the environment. I don’t even mind exactly: I both admire the story for punching above the weight of PSX action game, and like the big dumb sensibilities of the game itself, but there is a bit of disconnect when you find yourself levelling entire (uninhabited) residential blocks a few missions into the game.

Otherwise, it’s great- just brace yourself for the final boss.