Capcom has made more good games they've forgotten about than most studios have made good games.

The word that kept coming to my mind as I played Maximo was "deliberate". This game forces you to be thoughtful in your actions. You need to be precise in your platforming, as levels rise and crumble around you and platforms roll down rivers like Frogger. Failing a jump often means instant death, although the game is fairly generous with extra lives and continues. There is no manual camera, only a button that will attempt to center the camera behind Maximo. Honestly, this may be because I’m from a time before manual cameras (you merely adopted the dark etc.), but I felt that the camera was generally good at being where I needed it to be. And I love the slight Dutch angle its tilted at, it adds so much to the feel of the world.

Combat is just as deliberate. Your sword bounces off of rock and metal, making Maximo vulnerable for several excruciating milliseconds. Swing at wood, and it takes even longer for him to remove it. The biggest combo is a two-hitter perk you could potentially not keep in your permanent list, and it has a noticeable wait after the 2nd attack, so with multiple enemies approaching performing the combo could leave you open.

Enemies are incredibly varied in the best way to dispatch them. Even the duck button, which seems worthless at first, is crucial to destroy certain enemies without taking damage. There are these pirate enemies that are easy to knock down, but when you ground pound them you will take damage because they’ve been skewered through with a cutlass that is now pointing up. What you need to do is jump over them and knock them down from behind, which allows you to finish them off without getting hurt.

Maximo is full of little decisions like these. Do I tank this attack with my shield or do a ranged shield throw, both of which lower the shield’s durability? The shield is incredibly useful, and when it breaks you’ll be defenseless until you find another one (Maximo’s blacksmiths took Hyrule correspondence courses). Do I do this difficult platforming section to get one of the incredibly powerful temporary sword upgrades? Do I use one of my keys to unlock a gate or chest, or save them for later?

All of this adds up to a game that I enjoyed so much I beat it in a fever rush of two days. And after playing the first level of the sequel, it turns out they removed everything that made the first game work in order to make something that plays like… (checks notes) MediEvil? That can’t be right?