I've played the game as a child when it came out in 2008 and recently (2022) replayed it. The game aged quite well.
Atmosphere
- Soundtrack: truly amazing. The best scores as an example:
- https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=BNDnoWMyJ8M&feature=share
- https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=g-YR4VV7ovU&feature=share
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xLjL_-esEU&t=2648s
- Art:
- Different locations feel unique and their style is diverse.
- Each location has 2 versions of art: corrupted and natural. This really makes you feel like you're making the difference in the world.
- The game has a load screen only few times in the story. This helps the immersion and an open-world feeling.
Parkour
- Has several simple elements combined differently to create an interesting path.
- Feels really smooth and meditative. Acrobatics look nice.
Companion
- Elika plays a key role in the game play.
- There are many interesting dialogues written between the main character and Elika. I was always waiting for its new pieces. It could have been a reaction to the surrounding, a backstory of a boss, a backstory of protagonists or just a chit-chat .
- Elika is constantly shown in the game following the main characters and often the animations for their interactions are triggered making you feel like she is really there.
Fighting:
- Combos:
- Exploring and discovering different combos is entertaining.
- The movement transition is smooth and intuitive.
- Two characters combining their moves results in awesome looking acrobatics.
- Enemies:
- Common enemies are all the same. Finishers are too easy to achieve and are done automatically so it's common to not be able explore/execute nice long combos.
- Bosses and their levels have their differences making them feel unique. Fights are taking longer giving an opportunity to shine the combos.
Puzzles: there are 5-6 puzzles across the entire game. They are relatively easy but satisfying.
Writing
- The main story is cool. Main characters motivations are clear and the lore of the world is interesting.
- The bosses lack details in their stories. The final encounters are interesting but all before don't reveal anything new about the bosses making the fights lacking the psychological character.
- The ending is really emotional and hits the spot.
DLC Epilogue undermines the main story and I suggest to even looking what happened there. In my opinion it should might have been a prologue to a sequel but the story of the first game is better without it.