I got this game beacuse in elementary school we played the sequel on our school's computers. It was pretty fun even though only one of us were able to get past the first world within the hour we could play on it. It could be nostalgia but something about that game gave off a whimsical vibe that stayed with me throughout my adult life. That brought me to the table, and what made me stay were some pretty fun levels and good controls. The settings of the levels vary from grassy areas with lava pits to deserts with ridable elephants. Basically you go through each level while collecting gems and rescuing Gobbos, furry members of the tribe that adopted you. You also fight some pretty quirky bosses and eventually defeat the evil Baron Dante. If you collect all the Gobbos in a set of levels you can get access to a secret level. Completing all the secret levels unlocks the final world (which I haven't done yet) where you defeat Dante once again. I have to mild criticisms. The first is that you don't really need to collect gems (other than the colored ones). They act like Sonic's rings in which if you get hit you lose them and have a chance to get them back. Having just one is enough and they don't add to your any level score. If they really wanted to, they could've added a level ranking system that takes how many of the level's gems you got. The second complaint is that it is not very clear when the bosses are hittable. But all in all its a very good game that proably wouldve gotten a 9/10 instead of a 7/10 back in the day if they had the same good controls this remaster has now. It is a lot more scaled down compared to the other 3D platformers back in that time like Mario 64 and Banjo Kazooie but it is still very well made for its size.
I first saw this game when we were allowed to play on the computer during Elementary school. I was amazed by its visuals and the dark premise it set. I got it later when I was in middle/high school and loved it. It is a great 3D platformer that really gives you a sense of exploration, even though most of the levels are linear. The game is divided up in 15-20 levels (can't remember right now). Each one of them is very unique and almost all of them have 50 lums to collect. There is one level where you have to save a whale underwater, there is another where you run away from a pirate ship bombing you, there is another where you ride a walking shell (missile). The levels are very memorable and have a real charm to them. There are some issues with this version. It runs using a Glide wrapper called nGlide. Although it allows you to run it on modern systems, the Glide version of the game graphically looks inferior to the DirectX version; considering it looks worse to Direct X 6, it is no wonder they lost the war. If I remember correctly, the lums looked more detailed in the DX one. That being said the game still looks as great as an N64 era game should be. The controls on the PC version aren't remappable, the manual even proudly states this. As far as I know, there is not true analog control support so even if you remap the keys via ds4windows or joy2key, it will just emulate the four directional arrow keys. If you like 3D platformers like Super Mario 64, definitely give this a try. You won't be sorry.
