I've already made a post about my very mixed opinions on Treasure and the quality of their games. They don't always hit the mark, but I respect that they're games are as bonkers, experimental, and boundary-pushing as they are. And when Treasure does get it right, it's something truly special. Enter Sin & Punishment, easily one of the best games Treasure has ever made. It's got everything that defines Treasure as a company. Genre-blending, complex movesets, unpredictable level design, unnecessarily deep lore for those interested, and visuals you wouldn't think the N64 was even capable of. There's just something so original about Sin & Punishment to this day, there isn't really a game like it outside of its sequel, and even that doesn't quite match the same feeling of experimentalism that the original has.
Sin & Punishment can best be described as an on-rails gallery platformer shooter. I'd say it's a game where you automatically run through stages, dodging left and right, jumping across platforms, and gunning down enemies, but that's only like a third of the game. It doesn't mention the more traditional gallery shooter bits, the 2D platformer segments, the sword fight, or the mech sequences. Sin & Punishment is a game that's willing to change gameplay styles constantly, but what makes it work is that they all use the same, very unique control scheme. The N64 controller's weird three-prong design has been a punching bag for a while now, but Sin & Punishment is one of the few games that feels entirely built around its imperfections. You use the analog stick to aim, and you can use either the D-pad or the C-buttons to strafe left and right, accomodating for both right-handed and left-handed people. Pretty much everything else is done with the shoulder buttons. It can be a bit weird at first, but once you get the hang of it, these controls work wonderfully. And where most N64 games only really make you use just the D-pad or just the joystick, Sin & Punishment manages to use all three prongs of the controller in a way that feels entirely natural.
Like most other Treasure games, Sin & Punishment also boasts a surprisingly complex moveset. Along with moving and aiming, you can press the L and R buttons to jump or press them twice to double jump, double-tap the directional button to roll, change your shot type between a standard shot and a less powerful homing shot, and coolest of all, if you press the shoot button (Z) when an enemy or projectile is near by, you can pull out a sword and knock it out of the way. This counterattack actually becomes really important as the game goes on. Along with being practically necessary for some boss fights, it soon becomes clear that there are just too many enemies for you to simply shoot. Eventually, you start to get into this rhythm of sweeping your cursor around, dodging left and right, slashing away at anything that comes near, and it just feels great. It's also quite necessary to use every move at your disposal because Sin & Punishment has a combo system too. The more enemies you can take out without getting hit, the more points you get. Your combo is communicated through a simple number that shows whenever you land a hit, and it just feels super satisfying to watch that number go up. With an abundance of moves and a addicting scoring system that encourages using said moves, Sin & Punishment manages to pack in a lot of depth, and encourages replaying the game to improve your score and even get a 1cc. And even with how crazy the level design gets, the fact that the control scheme and scoring system remains consistent throughout means the skill ceiling remains consistently high throughout.
Speaking of which, let's talk about that level design, shall we? Sin & Punishment has ten levels across three acts and a prologue, and they're practically all different from one another. You start running through a city, before being tossed into an elevator that takes you to a boss you fight solely on a 2D plane, before getting into a mech fight over a pool of blood, and you get the picture. Pretty much every level in Sin & Punishment is memorable, both due to the variety of settings and the variety of what you do within those settings. The highlight of the game for me is Act 2 which easily has the best levels it has to offer. 2-1 is a lengthy platforming gauntlet with chase scenes and sword fights (it's my favorite level), 2-2 is a show-stopping stage where you soar across the skies taking out aircraft carriers, and 2-3 has you run through a subway with each car boasting a new enemy type. Nearly every level has at least one boss fight, as you'd expect from Treasure, and the game culminates in one of the nuttiest final bosses I've ever seen in a video game. You played Sonic Frontiers and thought fighting a moon was weird? How about fighting a decoy of Earth in a giant mech-alien by shooting asteroids, solar flares, and falling stars back at it, while also defending your own Earth from said asteroids, solar flares, and falling stars:
It's just as crazy to actually play, believe me.
Sin & Punishment is a pretty short game capping at around an hour in length, but it makes up for that by being incredibly replayable. It's so replayable in fact that immediately after beating the game for the first time, I decided to replay it just because of how breezy and fun it was. For me, that's the mark of a great, replayable game. Beyond simply replaying to improve your score, Sin & Punishment has three difficulties, and they're all worth playing on their own since they all have unique enemy and boss placements, the harder difficulties even having exclusive bosses. On top of that, beating each difficulty unlocks something new in the game's menu, including a sound test, a frame skip option, and my personal favorite, the Turbo Mode which makes the game go at double speed. It's just as crazy as you'd expect. The most interesting unlock is the subtitles option. See, Sin & Punishment only released in Japan, but it's voiced in English. So for the game's intended audience, they won't be able to actually understand the story unless they unlock the subtitles. It's a pretty neat concept, and would get expanded on even more as time goes on so that not only people from one country can benefit from it. Ico, at least outside of America, has a New Game+ where you can unlock subtitles for Yorda's alien speech, and the infinitely less good The Quiet Man has a second playthrough that adds in audio you couldn't hear the first time (though, once again, to far less success). Sin & Punishment also has a surprisingly fun and lengthy tutorial that basically feels like another level in itself, and a two-player mode where one person can move and the other person can aim. Treasure games don't often have much in terms of content, but Sin & Punishment has so many ways to keep playing that it makes for a game that's incredibly easy to jump back into at any time.
On a presentation level, Sin & Punishment is also fantastic across the board, mostly. The story is admittedly kind of convoluted and the voice acting isn't very good, but I think it does just enough to give the game a consistent sense of forward momentum and urgency, and works as somewhat of a love letter to Studio Gainax's similarly excessive work. And like in most of other Treasure games, there is a lot of world-building and lore hidden in if you're really interested. In terms of visuals, I've often see Sin & Punishment described as poorly aged, but I think that's selling the technical prowess on display really short. The art direction in this game is striking and stylish. From those bright orange fields you run in during the prologue, to the grand sense of scale that makes all the locations that you visit feel bigger than they actually are, to the sharp angular character and boss designs, to the pool of blood setting that caps off Act 1, there are so many memorable bits of imagery here. This game is filled with explosions, crazy imagery, weird camera angles, and badass character designs, and it just looks so cool. But on top of everything, the most impressive thing about Sin & Punishment's visuals is that even with its abundance of enemies and explosions, even with its long interconnected levels, even with its massive bosses, this game does not lag. Sin & Punishment keeps a consistent 30fps throughout, on a console where frame dips were a frequent occurrence. The music by Toshiya Yamanaka is just as unconventional as the rest of the game, it's a strange proggy jazz fusion that not only sounds great but gives S&P its own unique flavor. It's laid-back and gritty at the same time.
Overall, Sin & Punishment is, for me, the Treasure game that perfectly toes the line between being creative and unconventional, and also just being a really damn fun and well-designed game. It has a unique control scheme that makes the most of the N64 controller's weird layout, has a wild variety of stages and bosses that keeps you guessing, and boasts an absolutely nuts narrative. It also feels great to play, has an addicting scoring system, is super well-balanced in its difficulty, packs in tons of replayability, and has impressive visuals that can keep up with the game's fast pacing without sacrificing framerate. There still aren't many games quite like Sin & Punishment to this day, it's entirely itself, and that's something I respect immensely.
