2013 Review
Players have 7 unique worlds to play, The latter spiking in difficulty and confusion torwards the end of the game, There is a boss battle at the end of each level and must be defeated within a time limit in order to progress, simple enough however losing the battle means starting the entire level all over again rather than restarting for the boss battle, A slight annoyance but fortunately each level should not take casual players more than 10 minutes to finish.
The graphics must have been revolutionary upon release however the game has not exactly aged well, The graphics whilst flying are revolutionary for the time of release and is amazing how fluent the gameplay is considering the constant action and speed on screen. The graphic problems begin to show once you slow the game right down, The lack of finished detail becomes noticable and sadly i feel the developers could have easily have fixed this given the saturns capabilities, Perhaps the developers were rushed for release but who knows. The common graphic issues appear on objects such as circular rings and small creatures and the land environments are pretty blocky and uninspiring but around the time of release many would have overlooked these things considering other graphical achievements within the game.
The gameplay is fast and fun, Controls are very easy to learn and master and the character is truly enjoyable to play, The levels at first can seem overwhelming but after a few playthroughs players will begin to understand the environments and the various items and obstacles within them, Unfortunately after a while you begin to realise the path is very linear and the time limit per level gives no real opportunity for exploration within each stage.
This leads to my last real problem with the game, The time limit,Linear path and longevity of the game provide no real incentive to play the game again and with a lack of other game options until the game has been completed i feel the game just doesn't have the longevity and game modes to be worth playing again once finished, I managed to complete the single player story within 3 hours and there was no desire to replay any of the levels again.
The good news is the game can be bought used relatively cheap these days and for the price the unique gameplay experience is worth it alone to try at least once, However time has unfortunately revealed the games limitations and these issues are the things which prevent this game from being a definitive must own game for the saturn.