I played this game on the GCN back in the day so I have nostalgia towards it, as well. It is a great game, extremely overlooked and underrated, and everyone who likes good old 3D platformer action-adventure games should definitely give it a go. Charming art, funny story, interesting characters, a *lot* of attention to detail (notice the amazing animations), big world to explore, etc.
Having said this, this port is bad. And I mean *BAD*. Sure, the game is still the same, they added a whole lot of graphical bells and whistles (because TotalBiscuit and his graphic whore minion tribe would shit on the game if you couldn't add anti-aliasing x500, adjust the FOV just that "perfect" way so no nerd can complain, add some 750 multisampling, run it at a smooth 50000 frames per second, and whatnot). If you have a controller, this is the best experience you'll ever have with Sphinx and the Cursed Mummy. That is, *IF* you have a controller. I don't, as many others, as well. Still, if you're making a modern port of a classic 3D console third-person action-adventure, at least give keyboard+mouse users some degree of customization... nothing is rebindable in this port. Took me a while to even understand what keys do what (WASD to move, Enter is START/PAUSE, action buttons are permanently set to TAB, F, Space and *freaking Esc*, Backspace enters the sub-menu for objectives and collectibles, mouse right button is a cancel button, while moving the mouse conveniently controls the camera, at least). This is not acceptable by any means, especially since there's no in-game prompt telling us what key does what, it just uses the very standard-by-these-days Xbox controller layout, and the player has to figure out what keyboard key corresponds to whatever Xbox button the game tells them to press.
Again: I'm aware "these kinds of games are meant for controller", but if you're making a port to the PC, at least offer a decent enough support for the "default" PC peripherals, which are the keyboard and the mouse. A Hat In Time, for instance, is perfectly playable using KB+M alone, as are many other games of this type. I don't understand why you'd waste so much time and effort upgrading the graphics -- which already looked gorgeous running at 800x600 with no anti-aliasing, no FOV adjustment, no multisampling and 30 frames per second on the consoles --, but completely overlook the control scheme. Even fighting, which was so fun in the original game, is made a chore in this port, as the attack button is permanently set to F, forcing the player to use the same hand they use to move the character to attack, thus making it all a cumbersome mess. At least map that key to mouse left button, for crying out loud... And Esc as an action button?! Who in their right mind would assign any controller face button to Esc?! So far, I only had to use it to crawl as the Mummy, and that is a toggle command, so it's not *that* infuriating, but, still, not your brightest moment, THQ Nordic/Eurocom.
I'm also experiencing very annoying sound glitches, having sound effects loop over and over again; it sometimes subsides by itself but, more often than not, it lasts until I exit an area, a cutscene begins or... another group of sound effects starts looping, replacing the previous loop. This one might be on my end, though, I'll try upgrading my sound drivers and see if that fixes anything.
I'm glad this great game is getting some love, after all these years, as it is, without a doubt, a great overlooked title that didn't get the attention it should have gotten back in the day, but I'm really sad with the state this PC port was released in, particularly the lazy (and downright laughable) keyboard and mouse support.
If you own a controller, by all means, get this game now. If you don't, however, skip it, at least until THQ Nordic releases a patch that lets us rebind key mappings properly, as the game is almost unplayable for KB+M users, at this point.
