God every time I think about this game again… the atmosphere, the assets, the scope, the uniqueness, it’s so addictive. It’s just hard for me to get bored of this game, the way it’s designed and the atmosphere always makes it feel like there’s more to it, and I’m always down for a casual romp with different characters and different levels. I probably have 2k+ hours on this game so realistically I’ve squeezed it dry but it still feels new any time I think about it or want to play again, they really had something special with this and it shows that it was the culmination of so much experimentation in feeling out what the franchise would be. So many details in this one that were lost even in the next entry.
Also this is even more outstanding because this is a fairly easy game and I normally get bored fast of that, but there’s so much I love digging into here. Maybe I accept the easiness because of nostalgia, but even with the easiness there were moments it tried to challenge, and more importantly a great flow to the design that kept it engaging and addictive. My only huge complaint is that i really really wish this game could have had a survival mode, i don’t even care that much about difficulty options.
Plus since this is the first game it wasnt bogged down with the tons of lore inconsistencies and bad retcons that steadily came about later. They went all in with the portal master stuff here, and the background lore in scrolls and stuff genuinely feels like its creeping around the corner and fits the tone, later games would clash with this atmosphere so it’s hard to imagine some of the same lore and stuff and they gave up on the portal master shit
If you like Reignited that’s also hypocritical af, considering how much experience TFB gained from this series