A while back, I played the demo of this and enjoyed it enough to stick it on my wishlist until it went on sale. Eventually, it did!
While it might not look like anything special, and there are a million late-90s style 3D platformers around, what this has that most of the others don’t is a properly controllable character. As in, the jumping and “steering” physics and controls feel right. You know how on the Super NES, Mario in Super Mario World feels right, but Bubsy the Bobcat is a horrible slidey imprecise mess? Now see how most 3D platformers from the Mario 64 era (and those that ape it) are more like nasty Gex 3D and not Banjo Kazooie in the same way. Well, Lunistice isn’t and clicked immediately with me.
It isn’t a huge game, with only a handful of worlds with most only having two acts, but it is inventive, varied and fun. There’s bits like Sonic Adventure, and bits like Mario 64, and bits like Crash Bandicoot (only good), but it still manages to be its own thing. Nice music, new-retro 32bit console aesthetic graphics, and a draw distance the PS1 couldn’t even dream about.
