I had a few paragraphs written closed the tab and it got ate up so I'll keep it brief.

SotN is one hell of a game to come out in 1997 in the age where the 3D graphic push was damn near mandatory for your game to succeed, but SotN having beautiful pixel art, 2D side-scrolling action that is seamless speaks volumes this game's aged better as time went on compared to 3D games trying to figure anything out.

It's not without faults though. The whole search-action part feels really underwhelming as you gain few useful abilities to unlock new areas, heck some places are just unlocked through some key items that you'll never use. Especially way more annoying you'd find out to use Mist through a gate only to find out behind there is a sword that's not much better with what you have. Even yet if I really REALLY love the art direction in this game, some rooms look straight up the same which is not much of a bad thing, but nothing really had a landmark to jolt my brain to think back to the sections of the castle. Familars straight up suck, Fairy helps a lot but my boy Demon Card got cheated hard just to press a button twice.

But still highly recommended, even for it being the other side of the coin to Metroidvania.

This here was my first on-sight purchase for the PS2 so i guess all the teenage bias will still stay but after having to slog through R&C1 this sequel is a major improvement. Movement is fluent, the combat is fine tuned now you have over 20 weapons to use, even the gimmicks like space dog-fighting and racing are surprisingly solid.

My small issues is how the story goes nowhere at a certain point, without having to spoil so much for a 2003 platformer, but there's just a good chunk of the plot where you jump place to place only to have the huge reveal be laid out for you at the final level in it's final minutes. The gadgets don't really get utilized that much, Dynamo and Sligshot were the only two gadgets I had on the quick select because they're almost in every level. Clank sections are okay but Giant Clank sections are......no.

Replay-ability is where it really shines. The NG+ adding in upgraded weapons to purchase to fight against the upgraded enemies with the added Bolt Multiplayer going up to x20 adds so much. Hunting for Platinum Bolts and Skill Points is always a treat as they unlock special bonuses. Also the secret developer's room where developers and designers talk about how things work, showing off cut content in the game and telling you how it'd be used for is something I highly appreciate more today than I did years ago.

Music is also on fire like holy hell David Bergeaud you didn't have to go hard mixing electronic music with bombastic orchestras

For one of the first of it's kind it's really rough on a lot of edges, mostly noting the non-working spells and your party member flailing their attack in the air if their target is dead, and the starting difficulty curve is quite a steep hill to go up. With it's flaws, I can't simply hate it so much. The only times I were really annoyed were the backtracking fetch quests that you get in the middle of the game, and after that it picks up right at the water temple. Though I would imagine the remakes on PS1/PSP/GBA are the ways to play as they fix up a lot of old game issues, but for an experience where you got controller on one hand and guide book on the other, it's been a swell adventure for my liking.

Yet like you're good to skip it just jump to IV if you wanna.