Recent reviews by jojon3s

While this isn't Paradise Killer 2, I think it has a lot in common with what made that first game so special. The world is filled with great characters (humans and mascots alike), there's an expansive but not overwhelmingly so world to explore and find goodies in, and a really compelling story thread to keep pulling at. And it's all held together by immaculate vibes and a banging soundtrack. My only regret is that I burned through it in a few days and didn't make it last longer.

Also Pinky is the cutest severed finger ever.

TLDR: I'd recommend it while it's on a sale, mostly on the strength of its presentation.

First off, the game looks beautiful; It really nails a 'playing a Ghibli movie' feel. Despite the story being pretty light, it's not hard to get wrapped up in the world of the game thanks to the visuals as well as the great soundtrack. The whole thing as a package creates a world that's easy to get lost in for a couple of hours (well, mostly... see below)

The game doesn't set out to be challenging, which is totally fine, but there were one or two little things that I encountered which felt unintentionally challenging during my playthrough.

Early on there is a section where you need to swing and jump between flowers to progress. I found myself always falling short of grabbing the next one (and in some cases just moving straight up when I tried to jump to the next flower). So I thought 'oh, I must need to unlock double jump first' and decided to come back... only to find out I needed the collectibles past this point to unlock double jump. I ended up watching a YouTube guide to make sure I wasn't doing anything stupid, but I was doing what they were doing. Eventually I got it, but I felt more like it was luck than skill.
These same flowers also need to be grabbed from a fairly precise location - if you hit the side, it just shoves the whole thing out of the way and you fall. Later on, there were also a couple of gaps to jump through that were so narrow that I hit off the top and didn't get through. None of these are a huge deal themselves, but each feels like it requires a needlessly precise action from a game that seems mostly about just kicking back and enjoying the world.

Aside from the above, the gameplay is pretty relaxed. It doesn't ask anything too taxing of the player, and also doesn't do anything that hasn't been seen before in a game like this (think Limbo, Inside, etc). That's fine though, I think the visuals are really the main draw here and the standard but pretty solid gameplay is a bonus.

I played it on Steam Deck, which for the most part ran perfectly. One issue I encountered though was that, after sleeping and waking the console, cutscenes were choppy - they'd play for about half a second, freeze the display for a second, then skip ahead and play another half second etc. Maybe a reboot would have helped, but it did take the reward out of the ending a little.

I didn't play Sphinx back when it first came out, so I don't really hold any sense of nostalgia for it. Though I think anyone who has ever played a PS2 era action platformer or some of the earlier 3D Zelda games, will appreciate it.

I think there are better versions of the type of game it is - both from back when it first released (though that could be the nostalgia goggles speaking) and more recently - but it's definitely worth a play through for anyone who loves the era/genre and wants to see what they missed the first time round (like me!)

Plays well on the Steam Deck, though I did get a few audio glitches after waking up the Deck until I restarted.