Probably the oomfiest game of all time.
Honestly the main reason this game means so much to me is cause it’s about a depressed 14 year old and I played it as a depressed 15 year old. Still, I like it a lot today. I love Nanashi a lot, he’s real cute and needs to get happier. It’s a fairly straightforward game, nothing’s too complex, you could finish the game in a day or two. Much of the friends you can make aren’t so developed, but but it’s still not hard to enjoy them. Friend making in this game is the classic style of “give someone gifts until the affection level goes up.” Possibly a bit simple for a game where the whole gimmick is making friends. Misane’s bonus chapter relationship is a lot weirder than I remember though.

This is definitely a predecessor to the PS3 onward era Sony Cinematic Game, but whereas those suffer from being overly safe, this suffers from having experimental ideas that haven't really been refined further.
This was midway into the PS2 lifespan, the right stick still hadn't been fully embraced as being only the camera control/aim stick yet, so this game tries to make it the primary method of fighting, similar to Death by Degrees. This style gives lots of control over which direction you attack in, but also limits how much variety your attacks have. The speed you hit the right stick in a direction changes your attack, but this is something hard to actually get used to. Also got my thumb tired quite a bit. There's grabs and countering too. I found that countering often hit enemies just out of reach to continue combos, so that's annoying. I feel that the most obvious way to improve a game like this would be to add mild tracking to attacks. There's shooting segments too, these are pretty basic cause you don't even really aim, you just point the stick in a direction and it auto aims for you to shoot. Targeting enemies and objects is a separate button so that's annoying. There's actually a cover system too but you can only use it for dodging, no aiming from cover. Lots of segments like outrun explosions, stealth, and dodging snipers exist too for quick diversions.
The story is "Hong Kong action movie in video game form" more than anything else. Cory Yuen worked on the choreography of the motion capture. Lots of nods to Jet Li films, like a fight in a room with leaking gas where you have to constantly keep your oxygen up. Even the main menu has a bit of a DVD vibe, the level select screen looks the same way a DVD would make a scene select screen and there's behind the scenes interviews. Jet Li seems so happy to try motion capturing. Costumes you unlock for completing the game are neat