This game was obviously a massive deal when it released, and what it did for the industry as a whole cannot be understated. At the time is was absolutely one of the best, if not THE best game the world had ever seen.
Playing it for the first time today though? It.. actually holds up a lot better than I was expecting! The controls are a bit strange at first, but fortunately the first handful of levels are very well designed to let you get used to them. The camera is wonky or just outright bad at times, though that can mostly be forgiven for me, given it didn't really have anything better to take notes from.
Some aspects of the game do control pretty poorly though. Flying around with the wing cap, something I had always heard was a magical and amazing experience, felt absolutely miserable to me. The flight controls and camera are definitely some areas where the game does show it's age. A few of the missions are also just plain tedious and boring. But the fortunate thing about that is that you have enough wiggle room to only get the stars you feel like. I did not enjoy playing Tiny Huge Island at all, but fortunately, I didn't have to! I had the minimum 70 stars without getting a single one from this level. In the end, I believe the far better way to play this game is to ignore all the objectives you don't want and see if you can't squeeze out 70 stars doing the ones you want to. Early on, I made the mistake of treating the game like a checklist, and the first few hours after Bob-omb Battlefield and Whomps Fortress were rough for me to say the least. But then I let go of my need to do everything, and the game became MUCH more enjoyable. Of course, here i'm judging the package as a whole, and there were quite a lot of stars that annoyed and/or bored me, and i do feel like it's worth docking points for that, even if they are possible to ignore
Overall, this game holds up better than I thought going in! It's far from perfect and it can be jarring to go into today. But there is a reason it's so fondly remembered and beloved even to this very day. It's very worth taking a look at all these years later, and a very interesting look at the beginnings of the modern 3D platformer
Playing it for the first time today though? It.. actually holds up a lot better than I was expecting! The controls are a bit strange at first, but fortunately the first handful of levels are very well designed to let you get used to them. The camera is wonky or just outright bad at times, though that can mostly be forgiven for me, given it didn't really have anything better to take notes from.
Some aspects of the game do control pretty poorly though. Flying around with the wing cap, something I had always heard was a magical and amazing experience, felt absolutely miserable to me. The flight controls and camera are definitely some areas where the game does show it's age. A few of the missions are also just plain tedious and boring. But the fortunate thing about that is that you have enough wiggle room to only get the stars you feel like. I did not enjoy playing Tiny Huge Island at all, but fortunately, I didn't have to! I had the minimum 70 stars without getting a single one from this level. In the end, I believe the far better way to play this game is to ignore all the objectives you don't want and see if you can't squeeze out 70 stars doing the ones you want to. Early on, I made the mistake of treating the game like a checklist, and the first few hours after Bob-omb Battlefield and Whomps Fortress were rough for me to say the least. But then I let go of my need to do everything, and the game became MUCH more enjoyable. Of course, here i'm judging the package as a whole, and there were quite a lot of stars that annoyed and/or bored me, and i do feel like it's worth docking points for that, even if they are possible to ignore
Overall, this game holds up better than I thought going in! It's far from perfect and it can be jarring to go into today. But there is a reason it's so fondly remembered and beloved even to this very day. It's very worth taking a look at all these years later, and a very interesting look at the beginnings of the modern 3D platformer