This game came with an old megadrive I bought on eBay. It was obviously a pirated copy because the cartridge was made of cheap plastic and had a Columns label on it.

The game has a supprising amount of car customisation but I couldn't tell if any of it made any difference to how the car handles.

As with other racing games of it's ilk, there is no music during the races, so it feels anaemic.

This is probably the oldest game I've ever played and I have fond memories of it when I was young playing this on an IBM machine. It's a very strange game that puts you in the role of a cat slinking arround for your kitty girlfriend (as cats are wont to do). There is quite some delight in causing mayhem and mischief, and it's pleasing to me that you can get that from such an old game. The game was also very hard for me; the controls are not great and I always got torn to shreds by the dogs. For some of the rooms, my 5-year-old brain could not figure out what the goal was, and so I never completed it. Maybe one day I will revisit it for nostalgia.

I replayed for the achiechievements on RetroAchievements. This game is delightful for gameplay and packed full of secrets. The terrible voice acting has become charming as it aged. I sometimes felt as though the first castle becomes too easy with just a few levels and then the second castle jumps a bit too high in difficulty. The menus are also a bit clumsy. My biggest criticism is that the second castle is hidden behind a puzzle that is a bit too cryptic for me and I would have definately needed a guide to figure it out.

There is obviously a lot of depth and content in this game, which I can understand why so many people like it. The whimsy is charming, the grind is crunchy and the graphics are blocky. It harkens to an era when kids had to squeeze entertainment out of very limited computers and therefore benefits largely from the nostalgia factor today. The problem for me personally is that I had no connection to this nostalgia. To me it just seemed like an absurd amount of game served up in a clumsy interface with a poorly aged aesthetic. The induction of me as a new player was mostly neglected by the game. I didn't know where to go or what to do to make the game more fun. I needed someone with me to show me how to make the game fun, and even then I was still bored for most of it. I would like to think that MMO's have moved on from this and there is little incentive for a new player to play it today. This one is for veterans only.

The gameplay loop is very engaging. I spent most of the game just roaming around doing side quests, going wherever I wanted to go and doing whatever I wanted. The agency was great.

Eventually I started to feel like it was becoming a grind because everything is so expensive. So, naturally I started doing the main quests to wrap it up and that's when the game fell off a cliff for me. The story is infantile trash that explains the same history 5 times. I could tollerate that once, but 5 times over is basically assaulting me with plot.

The dungeons were only mildly interesting, and often I wondered if I was doing them properly or cheating them. For example, the fire temple had all the mine carts that you're supposed to ride and instead of following them, I just climbed wherever I wanted to go. In the end I could hardly believe it was a dungeon.

The finale had a decent boss fight. The loss of hearts was a new challenge that meant it took me quite a few tries to win. After being assaulted with one last corny cutscene with terrible voice acting, I was glad that I played it and glad that I won't again.