Crash Bandicoot is a platformer with an emphasis on skill, with just two moves to make use of, keeping things pretty straightforward. I played through the game normally and it wasn't really anything special, levels which use the same templates, questionable design choices like crates which are off screen, giving you no indication where they are, buffered inputs for jumps could also be annoying sometimes too.

None of that really matters though, because the best part of this game is the relics, which require you to beat every stage under a certain time without dying. You learn to navigate through some long, complex stages, especially the DLC, and when you finally get that perfect run it's pretty satisfying. That's where this game shines, when it demands real skill from the player.

If there was a little more variety in the stages and some of the gems didn't have bullshit crates off screen, I'd probably rate it higher.

What if you wanted to go fast but God said you have to stop and find the collectibles?

This game was built with speed in mind, and you're set off to figure things out for yourself. Learning movement tech as you keep playing is actually satisfying and you can eventually chain moves together to skip large gaps, and complete stages much faster. The main character makes use of a yo-yo, offering a double jump, a dash forward through the air, and the ability to spin around the yo-yo while it stays in the air after a dash. This lets you carry the momentum as you swing forward, like choosing where to place a rope at any time. You can also drop down onto the yo-yo and ride it like a wheel.

The stages are mostly fine, not many of them stand out to me except the penguin world which was my favourite. It's a decent game which can be played casually, HOWEVER, there's bugs everywhere. Getting stuck in terrain, falling through the floor, the game literally crashing after clearing stages, those all happened to me.

There's also a score system, but it's kind of pointless since you can do things like bounce on a platform 100 times to get a 100 combo.

An enjoyable but flawed Final Fantasy experience. A classic story premise presented in a more grounded way rather than going full anime, for the most part.

For something that started out so strongly, the further into the game you get, the more it seemed to start dragging on rather than being enjoyable. This is both because of the pacing of the story and the core combat offering little options, a problem they created since they obviously wanted you to play around your Eikon abilities rather than going full DMC combo mode without them. Granted the abilities are fun to play around with, though even then encounters start to get more tedious as you go along. The way you can choose the abilities you want and work out how you want to combo them all together is probably the most satisfying part of this game's combat, and I enjoyed using the counter moves to parry the bigger enemies and tear through their will gauge, leading to quick staggers.

You do have some amazing fights too, the first two major boss fights are both great, and the fight against Titan is probably the highlight of the entire game for me. Pretty much every fight is good if it's a major character. Even the final boss is actually worthy of being one (unlike FF15, what was that).

Another highlight is the characters themselves, and the voice acting in particular stands out to me, there's a lot of good performances here. Let's not forget the best character in the game, the absolute hero Torgal who saves you multiple times, and you can pet him so it's a good game.

As for what I don't like, well first, there's the pacing issues I mentioned where sometimes it feels like you're just being sent somewhere do something for the sake of it. Then there's the side quests, which honestly, most of them are pretty bad. Literally fetch quests and talking to people to do errands, yeah so good. Hunt marks offer some variety though, and some unique encounters which are pretty fun.

Overall I did enjoy the story, and I had fun playing through the game too, but by the time I was at the final Eikon I started to wish the game would be over soon (this guy is a woody by the way, the worst character in the game).

One more thing, this game has performance issues, even on performance mode you won't be hitting 60 fps. Not really what you want to see on a next gen console exclusive.

This doesn't feel like a Mario Golf game.

It feels like a golf game with Mario in it.

A lot of Nintendo games these days feel lacking in personality it seems.

A side story set at the end of the original game, just like the previous DLC, this time introducing two new Eikons into the game with their own abilities.

I don't usually review DLC separately but I just wanted to say, the DLC is much better value if you have yet to do your Final Fantasy mode playthrough since you'll have these new powers with you from the start of the game.

As I had already finished Final Fantasy mode, this DLC was all I had left. Thankfully they seem to have thought of this and so you do get given the Leviathan powers near the start to play through it with. It was fine, I guess. I wasn't particularly hyped by the new boss, definitely the hardest in my opinion though. The story was fine too but the new characters are basically just nothing. Same old boring side quest structure returns from the main game, but there are a couple of new hunt marks to do which I don't mind.

Then there's Kairos Gate, which had a lot of potential, but didn't really live up to it in my opinion. It does give you the freedom to try different ability combinations once you've unlocked everything though.

It's better than Earthbound in pretty much every way, yet they don't want anyone to actually play it. It plays a lot smoother and the UI is just better in general.

It shows you why capitalism is bad and why we should return to monkey instead.

If you want to play it there is a fan translation out there.