Rascal

I think this might be the worst game I've ever played, granted I've been blessed with avoiding most of the notorious stinkers over the years, however even if I immersed myself with some of the shovel ware I've seen online, I still think this might be an all-time low in gaming history.

Thought that Busby 3d was uncontrollable? Well, it is, but this game comes close to that reputation as our titular hero rascal has a similar control scheme to that disaster from the tank controls to him being unable to slow down once he starts moving. At least the game isn't as ugly to look at compared to Busby, however that's like saying shark tale looks better than hoodwinked as it doesn't make the former fun to look at even if it's more visually pleasing than the latter. The real problem here is that is has no sense of direction, that is, your goal is unclear, and the game makes no attempts at helping you figure out what to do as it just throws you into the gameplay once you boot it up. You can theoretically save during gameplay, the problem is that a: there's only one place to save which is in what appears to be our sisters bedroom and b: saving will likely cause the game to crash which means you're better off completing it in one playthrough, that is assuming you can finish this in the first place with how cryptic it is and how awful the gameplay is. Speaking of gameplay, it's atrocious as you're a young boy (who’s such a 90s stereotype you'd swear this was made ten years later as a parody if the decade) whose equipped with a bubble ray gun which.... fires water bubbles at the enemies. As you can imagine, said ammo does very little damage unless you collect a power up, even then the enemies respawn so you're better off avoiding them when you can. He does a better job defending himself with a but stomp as that has a decent damage range, although this is mostly useful for smaller enemies as larger enemies are naturally more durable towards this attack. I could go on with what's wrong with this game from the repetitive music to how confusing the level design is, but I think you get the point.

This game sucks, it's ugly to look at, has a confusing story and feels like it was made to satirise both 3d platformers and the 90s and failed at doing so.

I have been one of the few to play (and own) this game, eventually completing it.
The game, much like most of the latest games developed by psygnosis / traveller's tales (etc), manifests the usual problem: corny colorful graphics and a nice presentation that is, alas, not marred by adequate gameplaying. This curse had affected many games, eventually culminating with the demise (and disaster) of Crash Bandicoot: Wrath of Cortex -- a game with which this one shares many similarities, starting with the kitsch time-travel and landscapes and the jungle/dance soundtrack.

Rascal feels like a time-travelling Super Mario 64 for the Vanilla Ice generation: a blonde rap kid jumping, running, and shooting around with a bubble gun in several level that are to be explored in two variants -- past and present, and eventually future for each respective boss stage -- in a manner not much dissimilar from Sonic CD.
Unfortunately, the game is marred by an infinity of troubles, including: dumb Bubsy-alike movement controls, difficulty in shooting enemies (particularly bosses) due to the player's movements, extremely confusing mapping in various levels (most notably the first ones) but also in the "warp room" overworld, decreasing framerates in several parts of the game, and several glitches of various nature, including glitching the final stage, glitching the game over screen, and the music that plays slightly asynchronously leading to stuttering parts and even subliminal music glitches (inconsistent tempo between instrument parts, etc.)...

The shooting system is cumbersome, because the bubble gun runs short very often and you'll find yourself hopeless to the monsters' whims.
There are powerups, but these appear to be placed in pretty much random fashion, and do not last for long.
Enemies sometimes respawn randomly in places and times that are unconvenient (respawn was needed for things later in game but, apparently, there was no way to undo it for each "regular" enemy), leading to several frustration.
The Boss fights simply consist in running in circle around the boss, waiting for its turn to attack, and then shooting a single bubble, a tedious fighting system to say the least.
The last level (set in space, with the rascal jumping from galaxy to galaxy) features 5 Bosses to be fought, and there is no real way to replentish ammos because as soon as as you're done with one of those bosses you cannot pick the powerups in the boss area as you are transported back to the main galaxy "lobby".
What a waste of resources.

And that's too bad, because the game was only among the very few that supported high framerates on the PlayStation1, transparencies, hi-res graphics, catchy music, and interesting scenery -- which, however, at times is quite confusing and counterintuitive, for example in the sawmill / present-era aztec level (the one with those horrid 2D wasps).
There are also a few novel modes of transport like Swimming (in the Atlantis and Shipwreck/Pirates levels), and skateboarding (aztec level) that unfortunately reminds of the sliding levels found on another botched derp game, Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly.
The game also featured characters purpoted to have been designed by the Creature Shop by Jim Hanson (the creator of the Muppets, if I'm not wrong), these are somehow corny (like the dragon in the first level), albeit the gaming (un)experience will make them a nightmare rather than a thing to remember.

Rascal feels like a botched lobotomized Alex Kidd 3d-replica stuck in flat-foot running in spherical motion whose volume decreases toward 0 in nth gameplays dimensions. Corny, Hip, and so forth, but essentially destroyed by rushed programming.
Never ever rush game design schedules, period.

I remember owning this game as a kid and I had no clue what to do. I could only really beat the first level, then I got stuck and just eventually gave up. This game is just frustrating from what I remember, and had horrible design and really bad animations and graphics.