Pyroclastica

I played this because The Electric Underground said in one of his videos that it was a great action game. He was not wrong!
Extremely well-told and fleshed out story, not just for a game of this age but overall.
The voice acting is good, the music is great, the settings and characters are well made, and yet somehow none of that stuff gets in the way of gameplay like they would in a modern game. There are no unskippable cutscenes, no long walks where you don’t do anything, no “RPG elements.” The gameplay is all killer no filler.
That being said, there are some segments which are a little too long or which just re-use settings from earlier in the game (this is the Gamecube we’re talking about; there obviously are limits to how much stuff you can put on a disc). Specifically Chapter 13 really feels like a slog. Not because it’s a break in the action, but because it’s pretty repetitive.
I am not familiar with any of the creators of this game, but it is amazing that they managed to make both the gunplay and the unarmed fight sequences feel so good. Both are also simple on the surface, but surprisingly deep.
The Shadow mechanic is also very fun and rewarding 🐕

Dead to Rights