There are many mysteries in this world. What cosmic force put us here on this planet? How deep does the ocean go? And most importantly: Why do Shenmue fans hype their games up so damn much?

Shenmue is secretly a fusion of 20 Questions and the longest game of Telephone ever conceived. 80% of your time in Shenmue is spent doing two things: walking around and asking random people about your current objective. Rinse and repeat until you get lucky and talk to the correct person, granting you a new thing to ask the whole town about. There is damn near nothing else to do outside of these two things. Buy gachapons, practice punching air in an empty parking lot, play a couple arcade games, or gamble your life savings away at the slot machines. If you're not interested in these meager side activities, then too bad! Ryu's not gonna diverge from his unbreakable circadian rhythm, because you can't go to sleep and move on to the next day until 8:00 PM in-game. Ryu would rather stand motionless in his room, like a statue, than go to bed.

The next 10% is spent on combat. Of the 3D fighters I've dabbled in, I've managed to neglect Virtua Fighter. I'm going to guess that this game plays nothing like it though. It's extremely stiff, inputs feel inconsistent at best, and your worst enemy is the damn camera. You can't control it, nor can you control what enemy Ryo is facing, making the process of picking your fights feel nigh impossible. The game neglects having much combat at all until the last third, at which point it eventually hits you with the 70 Man Battle. This is a 15 minute long ordeal of nothing but fodder enemies, until you hit the very last one, a boss who will most likely kill you and make you experience the monotony again. I speak from experience. On the other hand, I beat Gollum using nothing but the low sweep kick move over and over, and that was pretty funny.

The last 10% is (and final third of the game) is spent on the god damn forklift. If there's one thing I can commend Shenmue on, it's how it perfectly depicts the 9-to-5 wagecuck grindset like nothing else I've ever experienced in a virtual medium. Your first time on the forklift will feel like magic, a sudden shift from your mundane lifestyle. Next morning, you'll even be greeted by the glorious forklift race! And then you start to do your work, and the magic fades, like it was never there to begin with. That's because it never was there, the forklift job is work. You wake up, go to your job, (do the damn race,) work your shift, get off at a time when nearly everywhere is closed, go home, and play Sega Saturn games far past your bedtime. That last sentence describes my personal lifestyle in a way that hits a bit too close to home, but that's how it feels ingame. When I come home from work, I play video games to de-stress and escape the mundanity of real life, but coming home to Shenmue has legitimately kept me trapped in my work mindset. That in itself is one hell of an achievement.

People talk of this game being "revolutionary" back in 1999, and I see where they're coming from. Detailed items you can pick up and observe, a town of NPCs with their own daily routines, voiced dialogue for anyone you can talk to, a full day/night cycle, in-game weather that could match the real-life weather by using an internet connection, the list goes on. It makes for a very impressive tech demo, but it never clicked with me as an engaging video game. Anyways, I can hear the Shenmue fanbase coming to run me down with their forklifts. I'm not certified, so excuse me while I run away from a potential OSHA violation.

I ironically kinda enjoyed my time it's a inferior Tetris but it made me laugh.

let's start with the controls, it's mass produced cheap plastic in every way of the word here, buttons are sometimes hard to press down others aren't I'm willing to bet every single copy of the game is personalized because of this.

now let's talk about the part that made me laugh, when you finish the game the text "G O O D J O B ! ! 🤍" scrolls by at a snails pace it's amazing because I didn't do well at all so it feels like it's insulting me.

overall it's just Tetris but controls worse and I'm glad to have this in my collection.

I feel like, intellectually, I only have nice things to say about Not-Bloodborne Kart. Its got incredible presentation, with a mix of well-planned and well-choreographed cinematics as well as a faithful but lively PS1 user experience. The inclusion of guns and combat in a kart racer feels pretty solid, managing to avoid feeling unintuitive or janky in like 99.9% of situations you can find yourself in. The kart racing itself is mostly competent, I find it difficult to complain about the game itself - and certainly I find this to be a better platform for Liliths creativity than Bloodborne Demake was.

But man…. something about it makes me feel slightly hollow. I guess the best way I could phrase this is: its still not a very exciting use of Bloodborne. Yeah, its Not-Bloodborne now and yeah, its mostly a comedy game, but theres also attempts at staging tension and bravado with Nightmare Karts facsimile of Bloodbornes narrative and..... idk. It just leaves you wondering why some parts were so important and worth being tributized and other parts werent so much. No Yahar’gul? No forest race track? Shadows of Yharnam but no Rom? No Amygdalas? You got Astral Clocktower and Maria but no mfing Fishing Hamlet?? Theres just weird representation choices here - but thankfully the humor takes the opportunity to incorporate quite a few. Church Giants squeezing into a kart or the fact that the Bloated Pig is a vehicle are excellent decisions.

In fact despite some of my reservation I actually have to give it a full star exclusively for the fact that, in addition to Nicolas J Micolash’s kart being just him running like a lunatic on foot, his death scream is also like a 15 second long reverb-laiden howl that can be heard no matter where you are on the track. It just absolutely floors me every single time I hear it like "ooooooooooooyyYYYAAAAARGHAHHHHHHHH"

In the same time that a end of a cycle brings a feeling of insecurity for the future, it also gives a sense of pride, because everything ended after our many ups and downs, and the Final Shape ending is the exactly representation of that.

I'm impressed that even with the many flaws and problem Destiny has and had, they could bring a excellent closing for the Darkness and Light saga, something that many things couldn't get to do.

Now i'm here, feeling anxious of what will become of Destiny, but being curious of what the future reserves for this game.

Ive spent close to 6000 hours of my life on the 10 year Destiny project, with a hope (or maybe an increasingly morbid curiosity, I cant figure out which one it is) of where it could go. What profound thing would the Traveler have to say? What exotic societies and concepts reside in the bounds of the greater cosmos outside our little solar system? When it was all said and done, what exactly was the Final Shape going to be and what shape would we have to take to deny it? In the story of the three great nations and the three great queens, would it mean we would have to be the third queen?

And so I am beyond disgusted that the answer to where itll go is: nowhere. Nothing mattered. It was all just opium, just vapor and sawdust and pretty colors and shiny things, whatever it would take to mesmerize you for another year and for another $100. It fills me with rage, to have seen such fertile soil curdled into pigshit and tar. Art so negligent it should be criminal, work so poisonous it should be illegal. I am beyond hate for Destiny, and if theres any justice in the world itll become insolvent for Bungie and laid to rest, where its swollen husk can be pillaged by creatives who are actually worthy of its potential.

I say this only as a half joke, I think Destiny fans should be in prison. You let Bungie get away with it, you permit them at every opportunity with success for being unimaginative.

Note - as I did not beat the game, this write-up should be seen as a set of observations over a genuine review.


Dark Souls is one of those titles that does so much right: visually it's fantastic, the boss fights are great, the music phenomenal, and it boasts some of the best-realized combat I’ve ever seen in a game. It cemented FromSoft as the premiere developer for difficult RPGs, a label they’ve since used to generate critical acclaim and lucrative bank.

It’s unfortunate, then, how Dark Souls chooses to wrap-up these traits under some genuinely frustrating design schemes, and yes, I use the word frustrating because my problems with Dark Souls have less to do with objective difficulty and more to do with artificial flavors tossed in for no other reason than virtual sadism.

Of course, one can’t criticize Dark Souls without incurring the wrath of apologia its fan base has accumulated over the years, and while I’ll abstain from stereotyping thousands of gamers, you don’t have to look far to see the worst of their rhetoric. From their perspective, it’s easy to shut down any criticism under the banner of “git gud,” and I’ll acknowledge upfront that I’m not the best at video games: I sucked at Horizon Zero Dawn’s combat and my favorite titles are ones that are relatively-easy to master(+). But there’s a difference between a challenge and an irritation, and Dark Souls inclusion of both has unfortunately led to fans and critics alike intermixing them, when the truth is they should be viewed as separate elements.

Let’s start with the bad: the backtracking. Dark Souls is an action RPG best described as an 80s platformer in light of its atrocious checkpoint system. Every area contains two, let me repeat, two save points in their entire vicinity, and, as a result, you’re going to be wasting cumulative hours(!) re-running through the same paths again-and-again-and-again. The issue isn’t the lack of an autosave but the employment of an outdated save apparatus we all agree was only done to deceptively-elongate past releases, so why anyone thought to bring it back into the 21st century I have no idea. Plenty of modern video games have limited waypoints, but the difference is they’re smart enough to place them in areas advantageous to the player’s progress, such as, you know, after a major endeavor or right before a boss gate. Forcing gamers to spend minutes, I kid you not, minutes on end returning to a boss’s entrance or past a set of dangerous traps is beyond idiotic and commits the cardinal sin of wasting player time.

Of course, the arguments in favor of Dark Souls’s checkpoints are how it encourages obstacle circumvention by either “teaching” players to methodically-approach situations or learn the terrain for quick bypassing, and the fact that both these notions contradict each other should indicate the level of intelligence apologists have put behind them - if you’re meant to run past every critter, what was the bloody point in even having them revive? And if they were intended to be engaged with, why stack them with cheap shots, RNG, and extraneous numbers the player would fundamentally be unable to master (more on these later)? Dark Souls isn’t the kind of game about farming enemies for drops or experience, nor is it about clearing areas for long-term safety, making the two prospects very confusing.

To reiterate, I don’t have a problem completing a difficult section or two to “earn” a respite, but Dark Souls is rarely interested in providing that equity and outright boneheaded when it comes to logical placement. No seriously, there are so many areas where an additional save space or two (bonfires) wouldn’t have conflicted with enemy placement, yet the devs didn’t bother adding them for no other reason than maintaining director Miyazaki’s nonsensical 2-Bonfire rule. The trail from the sewery Depths to the Lovecraftian Blighttown, for example, forces you to run through a door, down some stairs, across a tunnel, and then down a long ladder….why not just put a bonfire at the end of that ladder? Why make players redo the same course when they’ll (inevitably) die to Blighttown’s new slate of enemies prior to reaching the first official Bonfire there anyway?

Another notable instance of this occurs in the grand city of Anor Londo, wherein your spawn point is separated from the next objective via a long dash to an automated elevator and spiral staircase followed by ANOTHER long dash down a platform….why not just place a bonfire at the halfway point of said platform? The idea that simple additions like these weren’t considered says a lot about the kind of griefing FromSoft gleefully indulged in during development.

I’m not done ranting about the bonfires as there are two extra qualms associated with them that make an already-faulty system laughably frustrating. For starters, FromSoft went out of their way to hide some of them! No, I’m not joking: if I wasn’t semi-playing with a guide, I wouldn’t have discovered half the pyres out there, and that alone speaks to the callousness guiding FromSoft’s approach to game design: the idea of deliberately ensconcing an already scarce resource for no other discernible reason than sh!ts and giggles.

The second quandary is less-egregious, though still objectively annoying, and that’s the lack of fast travel between bonfires. Now, to be fair, Dark Souls is very good at connecting sites through story progression; however, there’ll be situations in which you may have to return to a previous area for some reason or other(++) and will consequently have no choice but to backtrack like a caffeinated hare.

And this whole schematic is the main reason why I abandoned Dark Souls. I’ll get into the other problems for sure, but understand that, unless you’re willing to put-up with the limited save points, you won’t have fun with this game. True, you only lose souls upon death, but that can be really vexing in the early stages of the journey when you’re trying to increase stats or upgrade weapons (+++).

In addition, an unintentional casualty of the whole shebang is how it diminishes any motivation to explore - there were tons of places off the beaten path I genuinely wanted to check out, but ultimately absconded from in light of fears of either losing all my souls on hand, or drifting too far away from the nearest beacon and subsequently getting sucker-stomped by some new behemoth that would force more, you guessed it, backtracking to where I died. To anyone curious, yes, there are quicksave mods out there for PC players; however, I personally don’t recommend downloading them as they’re a pain in the @ss to install/use courtesy of Dark Soul’s online component (more on that later).

The second biggest setback you’ll run into is the skill system as it is very atypical by RPG standards. Those familiar with the genre know that, in most titles, everytime you level-up, you earn points that can be funneled into a variety of stats for the overall purposes of getting stronger.

Dark Souls retains that basic premise, albeit with some changes for better and for worse: on the plus side, you’re not earning experience towards an arbitrary bar, but souls to then shovel into 8 different categories, with each upgrade concurrently raising your hero’s base level. On the negative side, though, the devs made the bizarre decision to scale soul requirements to the highest one you have, and I genuinely don’t understand what the thought process behind this was - if you’re at 20 Strength and 12 Attunement, for example, you’ll have to spend the same amount of souls upgrading Attunement as Strength, with every other requirement also inflating in the process. I’ve heard fans claim this was done to encourage builds; however, that argument falls flat when you realize universal attributes like endurance and health are afflicted by this system as well - if FromSoft was really intent on distinguishing Dark Souls from other role-playing titles, why not meet in the middle via categorizing skills for the cap (i.e., have the scaling for strength apply only to dexterity, or Faith to Intelligence)? As it stands, this all-or-nothing approach will definitely nag at you during the beginning stages.

The third quandary is how Dark Souls doesn’t bother explaining a number of its more intricate components. On my end, for instance, I never figured out how the magic system worked, and frequently had to look-up things like factions, the purpose of different items, how to do summons, and so forth. I fully concede these may have been located within the title, but by no means were they ergonomically sited.

In terms of the game’s general difficulty, I agree with fans that patience is a virtue. Dark Souls combat is based around the idea of attack-and-response: every enemy has memorizable patterns you can either block or strafe around in the hopes of exploiting openings for your own hits. The key to everything is managing your stamina, this bar dictating your capacity to strike, dodge, or defend, and only replenishing when doing nothing. There are growing pains with each new foe encountered, but that’s also a part of the fun, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy the skirmishing system FromSoft created.

Unfortunately, as much as I liked the combat, it’s also where you’ll find the last rung of unfairness due to it involving several enemy advantages I alluded to above: first, even when blocking, monsters will occasionally get a hard hit on you that saps you of your endurance (or health if unable to shield), and it didn’t appear to be related to any specific move but good old-fashioned RNG. Secondly, weapon-based creatures occasionally get stuck in this everlasting strafe wherein they’ll continue to circle about you without breaking their guard or lunging, making for some really annoying encounters since they turn too quickly to be flanked nor attack themselves. Thirdly, you sword strikes can ricochet off walls-and-barriers, yet this same limitation is conveniently absent for foes, who instantly recover; and finally, just like with Gothic, Dark Souls’ fighting is inherently built around 1v1 bouts, and just like with Gothic again, it still tosses multiple thugs at you. I will never comprehend the logic backing these decisions as it results in players (like myself) engaging in cheap tricks to cheese the game ala inching closer to trigger individual enemy aggros(++++).

To clarify, nothing about these four combat hitches is game-breaking by any means, but when taken in conjunction with those prior two macro flaws, you’ll find them getting under your skin more than they would’ve in any other product. And that sums up Dark Souls issues in a nutshell: individually, they could have been tolerable, but when cruxed together, they add up to a thoroughly-unenjoyable experience.

It’s a shame because, again, the game does so much right - graphically, it stands as prime proof of how a solid art style will always age well, the gothic romanticism here blending well with some of the best texture meshing I’ve ever seen in a video game: seeing cracks on different pieces of armor or the visceral rotting of wood or the slimy residue on subterranean slabs goes a long way towards showcasing the kind of love that was poured into this game. Much like the second God of War, Dark Souls warps familiar locations like sewers and wooden villages under a unique skin, and it consistently blew my mind whenever I’d enter a new locale purged by these aesthetics.

I’m not going to delve into excessive detail about said aesthetics as I didn’t enjoy or play the game enough to do so (plenty of walkthroughs and screen caps exist online that I encourage you to look-up), but what I will highlight are three major achievements, beginning with the varied elevators you’ll utilize. See, FromSoft was so dedicated to their in-game cultures, that they literally crafted multiple unique assets for something as simple as an ascension apparatus: in the medieval-inspired Undead Burg, you have a creaky chained shaftbox; in the wealthy Anor Lando, a beautiful-floating tile; and within Blighttown’s plague-scoffed planking runs a rickety waterwheel amidst the muck. I’ve always had a deep love for architecture, and the fact that FromSoft thought to build engineering feats specific to their various cultures was beyond mesmerizing.

Second is the gorgeous dynamic lighting that not only bounces well off plate armor and metal grooves, but offsets the need for a torch via your avatar generating a bioluminescence.

Finally, you’ve got the Monster designs, their composition ranging from standard enemy tropes to absolute nightmare fuel, and as a result of that berth there’s admittedly a bit of a hit-or-miss effect in terms of memorability - catching wind of skeleton warriors or giant rats, for example, doesn’t quite evoke the same sense of dread as bug-eyed frogs or Deep One-esque critters. Don’t get me wrong, everyone’s movements, skin textures, and groans are exquisite - I just wish the game had been less generic-fantasy at times.

These same criticisms extend to the few bosses I fought, which, to repeat, are fun, but which sometimes leave more to be desired as far as visualization: on the one hand, you could get a disturbingly-alluring specimen in the spider queen Quelaag, only to have her followed-up by a regular iron golem literally called the Iron Golem.

Thankfully, what consistently elevated even the more-drab titans was the score by Motoi Sakuraba, and I can’t believe this man hasn’t achieved greater notoriety as his tracks here were consistently amazing. Dark Souls may stand as the only game I’ve played where you could strum a boss’s theme and I would be able to tell you exactly who they were by virtue of the music alone: that’s how perfectly-done the OST is -- by-and-large, my biggest regret from dropping the game is knowing I’ll never hear Sakuraba’s other compositions juxtaposed against their synced monstrosity.

SFX, I won’t go too in-depth in either other than to say that this is unfortunately a headphones-favored title: you’ll miss out on a lot of intricate aural details like the breathing of fake chests or stomping of underground monsters without a pair of buds. That said, the primary beats surrounding weapon usage, walking, and armor chinking are top-notch, with FromSoft even programming in individual footstep dins for each leg (an aspect you’re liable to noticing in light of the variegated surfaces you’ll literally run across).

With regards to technical issues, the only quibs I ever saw were some weapon clipping, a lack of cloth physics for certain suits (e.g. Silver Knight capes), and sudden color palette swaps when shifting between interiors, all of which were ultimately minor stuff.

I’ll touch on the story briefly because it’s another case of a genuinely bad aspect being praised to unworthy heights. See, Dark Souls shoves the bulk of its narrative into flavor text: while there are narrated bits and some NPCs you can chat with, you won’t understand a single thing about the world you’re in unless you take the time out of your day to read-up on the item descriptions laden in tools, weapons, boss drops, or merchant wares, and I don’t know about you guys, but I don’t play video games to read books. Optional lore is one thing; supplementary material a second thing, but this tactic FromSoft utilized right here is outright lazy. It literally comes across like the video game equivalent of the Marvel Method wherein artists for the eponymous company would do all the work crafting the story, only for writers to come in and add their own selfish scribbles atop the panels. To be fair, Dark Souls’ tale isn’t anywhere near a focus of the game; however, that doesn’t diminish the fact that it was a wasted opportunity to really make something immersive.

Some people may be curious about the multiplayer component, a facet that’s infamously led to FromSoft foregoing pause screens due to the insistent need to stay online. The truth is I didn’t engage with it a lot, so I can’t say whether or not it’s worth fielding -- it is kind of cool seeing dead phantoms and left-behind messages by players, but the culture shock wears-off the second you realize how idiotic 90% of these messages are. Worse yet, if you ever undergo Internet issues (like I did), you’ll find yourself getting booted out of the game at a moment’s notice (luckily, you are loaded back into your immediate position, but it’s annoying nonetheless). As such, unless you have a solid bandwidth, I’d recommend playing the game offline to avoid potential tech surprises.

I say that last sentence with a clump of salt as, while I obviously didn’t like Dark souls, everyone should form an opinion for themselves at the end of the day. Dark Souls continued the revolution wrought by Demon’s Souls by creating a new genre, and I’m happy many have found joy….or so I hope….

See, I want to end this review by asking Soulsborne enthusiasts a genuine question, which is, are you sure you’re having fun? One of the biggest criticisms towards Ubisoft titles, for example, is the concept of dopamine exploitation: how players aren’t actually enjoying what they’re doing, but being deluded into believing they are courtesy of small achievements (like finding collectibles) auto-triggering the release of the infamous neurotransmitter.

I wish to apply a similar concept here, albeit under the guise of cost-sunk: playing Dark Souls, backtracking repeatedly, and dying constantly, I’m curious if you actually enjoy what you’re doing, or if it’s a case where, having invested so much time & energy into an endeavor and finally overcoming it for the dopamine, that you’re simply overvaluing the factual task at hand?

Just food for thought.


NOTES
+An exception being the Donkey Kong Country games.

++The two times it happened to me (both of which occurred in Blighttown ironically enough) involved having to repair my weapon with a Smith; and having to gather a ring that would allow easier traversal of the swamps.

+++Please prioritize upgrading weapons over leveling-up. The game doesn’t tell you this, but weapon stats are more important for damage output than personal dexterity.

++++Enemy aggros can be SO bipolar - there are some where standing five feet in front of them won’t do anything, while others are prone to charging at you from a long ways away.

-As the Remaster was my first incursion into this series, I can’t comment on any specific differences from the vanilla release. From what I understand via a quick Google search, though, they stayed very faithful to the OG (compared to DS2’s equivalent Scholar of the First Sin) and incorporated some natural resolution and framerate bumps.

-Puddles have reflective surfaces!

-Dark Souls is officially the only game I’ve played where you can control an undead specimen wearing a thong.

The thing with the first Uncharted is that it was a remarkable game for the year 2007, but it feels a bit wooden by today's standards. There are some aspects of the game that feel dated, which is understandable given its pioneering role in the series.

The story is alright, not groundbreaking, but it sets the stage for the series by kicking off Nathan Drake's adventure. The real highlight is the characters, especially Elena and Sully, who bring charm and personality to the game. Their interactions and chemistry with Nate make the narrative engaging, even if the plot itself is relatively straightforward.
For its time, Uncharted: Drake's Fortune was visually stunning. The lush environments, detailed character models, and fluid animations were a benchmark in 2007. While it may not hold up to the graphical standards of today, it still has a certain charm and showcases the technical prowess of Naughty Dog at the time.
The gameplay is decent, combining shooting and climbing mechanics that were innovative at the time. The cover system trick is a life saver, especially on Crushing difficulty where you die immediately. The game's areas are well-designed, capturing the Indiana Jones ancient lush jungle vibes perfectly. The mix of exploration, puzzle-solving, and combat keeps the gameplay loop engaging.
However, not everything is perfect. There are some annoying sections, like the Jet Ski segment with Elena, which can be frustrating and break the flow of the game. These moments are few and far between but noticeable enough to impact the overall experience.
The soundtrack is pretty much nonexistent besides "Nate's Theme," which every game in the series has recycled. It's Naughty Dog's fault, they fail to create more than one memorable track per game, whatever that game might be. This lack of a varied and impactful soundtrack can make some parts of the game feel less immersive.

Even though this is my least favorite Uncharted, it remains a solid game that set the stage for an incredible series. While it may feel dated and wooden in some areas, it remains an important piece of gaming history. The characters, gameplay, and overall adventure capture the essence of a great action-adventure game.
However, the fact that it didn't age as gracefully as its sequels and that the later games surpassed it in almost every aspect drags the game down a bit.
But despite its flaws and the superior quality of its sequels, it's still worth playing for anyone interested in the origins of Nathan Drake's epic journey.

JAM AND HYPE IT UP

I played a little bit of this ages ago when browsing through gamecube kiosk demo disks as normal people do, and while I remember the vibes being interesting the game played like hot ass so I hard passed. Recently though by watching a lot of rebeltaxi and having this games insanely banger 2000's ass japanese pop punk theme song stuck in my head for the past few weeks, I knew that I had to at least give the game a reasonable go. I'm honestly glad that I did because while this game certainly ain't perfect, it does do some interesting things and really doesn't play nearly as bad as I remembered it to.

It's a cartoon-themed skateboarding game with the primary gimmick of having there be designated stage hazards that you can intentionally run into and maim yourself to both keep your combo going and potentially reach new places. The base controls aren't really a clone of THPS, but they take enough things from it to make the controls feel familiar like how manuals mostly work the same way and how combos have the same general type of flow. It's certainly easier to rack up a crazy high score than THPS since grind and manual balance management is a lot more lenient, and when you activate a stage hazard you get this whole meter that keeps your combo no matter what so it's trivially easy to get some ridiculous scores, and it feels pretty alright to do so. The game is structured kind of like an arcade fighting game as each character has their own story mode of generally the same events, but a run is like 40 events long so it's really not the most snappily to replay game unfortunately. While scoring is fun the game does also have a bunch of dumb bullshit events that you have to do like battles where you can attack another player with projectiles aimed by the C-stick (there will be no chance in hell you can properly aim shots on a moving skateboard firing in the distance at another person moving on a skateboard, the CPU has no problems whatsoever though so good luck), and "races" which are where you have to hit as many hazards as possible to earn medals or earn debuffs that you can send on your enemy. The race events are the worst because there's no rhyme or reason to which hazards will earn you what, and not even any guarantee that the debuffs will hit your opponent instead of you so it's honestly complete RNG bullshit whether or not you will win, and sometimes the game doesn't even show you where the finish point is in the event where you DO happen to get everything you need. There's also "simon says" events where you need to hit certain hazards and that's equally as RNG based since sometimes the hazard you need to hit might be in some insanely-hard-to-reach location, wasting way more time than needed just to keep the score flowing. The game emphasizes being familiar with each of the levels over everything else, which while that's definitely fundamental for any skating game it's doubly important here. If they like halved the event types to 20 or so then I probably would have bothered to do full playthroughs with every character.

As for the vibe though, man this is that good early 2000s shit. I don't really know if this game counts as cel shaded or whatever but it certainly is colorful and very animated. While the game was pretty much designed and created entirely in Japan the general artstyle was (to my knowledge?) made and supervised by Spumco, the studio behind Ren and Stimpy. It gives the game a very unique blend of like colorful cartoony colorful visuals reminiscent of many jpn-developed dreamcast and PS2 games + the raunchy, grotesque spumco humor + dialogue and writing that def feels translated from japanese jokes + the aforementioned bitchin' soundtrack of japanese pop punk and some damn smooth electronic music, and it all just comes together to make something extremely of its time.

It's one of those games where really you should just watch the intro cutscene and your instinctual reaction to it will pretty much determine how much you will really fuck with this game because if you are like me really any of the downsides this game has are going to be completely drowned out by screaming YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH at the vibes. i miss the 2000s