A little rough around the edges, but the core gameplay is just as great as it ever was. Some people experienced stuttering, but I guess I got lucky. All I experienced was getting re-used to the game after decades of wishing for a new one.

It's not all sunshine and rainbows; the lighting and shading engine used in the remake of the first game is completely broken. I haven't seen graphical comparisons between 2 and its remake, but I wouldn't be surprised if that one had broken visuals too. That's the biggest slap in the face about the collection; some of the charm of this otherwise extremely charming platformer is lost to a lackluster port job. Part of me is hoping Bandai Namco sees that there is demand for this series and that putting time and money into it will be worth the effort, and maybe comes back and fixes these issues (though I'm not holding my breath).

They also used the original voice sounds from the PS1 and PS2 games, which are noticeably lower quality than the rest of the sounds and music. However, as a fan of the gibberish voice acting, I found it preferable to the English dub we got with the Wii remake (no offense, English VA crew).

Everything else is uphill from here. The music is retouched - that's a very subjective topic but I liked it (the audio mixing seemed a bit off sometimes though. Turn the music up and the sound effects down a little in the Options menu).

The games play great, and that's the most important part. The controls are tight (which is good because the games demand precision on normal difficulty) and the games strike a good balance difficulty. There don't seem to be any wild difficulty spikes or anything.

The stories are pretty great too. Not mind-blowing world-shattering (well, maybe the first game, kinda) epics, but short and bittersweet tales of a brave boy just trying to help and getting way in over his head. I just applaud the first game for having the balls to follow through on some of its darker story beats.

Overall I recommend it, especially if you don't have the originals. If you have the original games though, it's a bit of a tougher sell. The convenience of having the game on modern consoles might be enough to convince many people to buy it if they aren't hardcore retro gamers.

EDIT: The second game is not held back by the technical limitations of the first. It looks much nicer than the first, and I'm hoping the first gets (at the very least) the shaders fixed.

Both games should be experienced by everyone, either by playing the originals or this collection.

A little rough around the edges, but the core gameplay is just as great as it ever was. Some people experienced stuttering, but I guess I got lucky. All I experienced was getting re-used to the game after decades of wishing for a new one. It's not all sunshine and rainbows; the lighting and shading engine used in the remake of the first game is completely broken. I haven't seen graphical comparisons between 2 and its remake, but I wouldn't be surprised if that one had broken visuals too. That's the biggest slap in the face about the collection; some of the charm of this otherwise extremely charming platformer is lost to a lackluster port job. Part of me is hoping Bandai Namco sees that there is demand for this series and that putting time and money into it will be worth the effort, and maybe comes back and fixes these issues (though I'm not holding my breath). They also used the original voice sounds from the PS1 and PS2 games, which are noticeably lower quality than the rest of the sounds and music. However, as a fan of the gibberish voice acting, I found it preferable to the English dub we got with the Wii remake (no offense, English VA crew). Everything else is uphill from here. The music is retouched - that's a very subjective topic but I liked it (the audio mixing seemed a bit off sometimes though. Turn the music up and the sound effects down a little in the Options menu). The games play great, and that's the most important part. The controls are tight (which is good because the games demand precision on normal difficulty) and the games strike a good balance difficulty. There don't seem to be any wild difficulty spikes or anything. The stories are pretty great too. Not mind-blowing world-shattering (well, maybe the first game, kinda) epics, but short and bittersweet tales of a brave boy just trying to help and getting way in over his head. I just applaud the first game for having the balls to follow through on some of its darker story beats. Overall I recommend it, especially if you don't have the originals. If you have the original games though, it's a bit of a tougher sell. The convenience of having the game on modern consoles might be enough to convince many people to buy it if they aren't hardcore retro gamers. EDIT: The second game is not held back by the technical limitations of the first. It looks much nicer than the first, and I'm hoping the first gets (at the very least) the shaders fixed. Both games should be experienced by everyone, either by playing the originals or this collection.