My favorite game, and one i have countless memories of playing in my childhood. I spent many hours exploring the levels and trying to complete the various trials _ i don't think I even beat it until a few years after I got it, but it has remained with me all this time.
The difficulty is a very nice progression throughout. The levels are unique and full of personality. There is Rareware's unique brand of British 90's humour interspersed without that makes the game so charming. Grant Kirkhope's soundtrack for the game is Iconic, whimsical and gives the world even more character.
10/10

I received Ocarina of Time when it released in 1998, and it blew me away, as I had not played anything like it at the time. Something about the world it crafts and the atmosphere just astounds me and I haven't seen anything quite like it since. there's a heroic tale of good vs evil, but it's layed on top of a world with melancholic undertones and some lesson about maturing and responsibility.

Combat is great, music is great, I love the colorful characters you come across throughout the game. the items are fun to get and to use, and have so much utility. one item can be for combat, for traversal, and puzzle solving all at once.

It wasn't until I became an adult that I saw just how many little hidden secrets and hidden facets of the game there were, and i still enjoy a playthrough once in a while.

for context, I want to preface, I am a big fan of JRPGs, i have been playing them since the mid 90's, on all different consoles, including some more obscure ones. I have also been an avid anime watcher since the same time. I have played Xenogears on PS1 and thoroughly enjoyed what I've played.

I waited some time to play XBC2, and i thought it would tick all the right boxes, but it fell flat on all fronts, so I'm just going to list why I did not enjoy the game at all:

- Did not enjoy the combat at all. There is a lot of combat in this game. it was slow, and felt cumbersome. my attacks did not feel like there was a large impact and using combos did not seem to be as useful as they should be.
-the game does not explain it's own combat system well through natural progression, and more mechanics keep getting thrown in throughout the game, which just makes it very bloated.
-Enemies do aggro you from a long distance away, forcing you to retreat to safety if they are too high level.
- constant repeated, annoying lines and quips after every single battle gets on your nerves.
- the levels are 3-dimensional but maps are 2D, and don't have multiple layers so everything looks like it's on top of each other on the map, making things confusing.
- excessive chance-based/ gatcha elements for a bunch of things like getting blades or dive containers.
- too many damn shops. why are there like 15 shops in every town?
-an excessive amount of fetch quests which often amount to "collect 10 of this and bring it back" which comes parceled with going out to the field, killing monsters and coming back, and then doing it again, repeat ad nauseum. I fully expect this in an MMO, not in a single player game, at least not this many.
- all the characters are written like someone threw a bunch of anime tropes in a hat and drew lots. of course all the women are comically well-endowed and are in love with the main protagonist. it's all cringey and I can't take it seriously. other JRPGs have this of course but not to this extent.
- the performance is pretty poor on the switch, it's probably one of the worst I've seen from a 'AAA' developer. I would enter a town area and it would get extremely blurry and stay that way for a good 5-10 seconds. this is not fun.

I gave it a serious chance but it did nothing for me.