While it's nice to see Chaos 0 again, I'm a little disappointed.
The stat boosting on emerald collection is cool for the main campaign, but it also means that if you play a one-off level, or a short level pack, then you will most likely obtain no emeralds and will have no way to shrug off your sluggish starting stats. You either are slow as molasses, use Pandora's Box (if that is even an option) tog et all 7 am end up way more powerful than you should be, or awkwardly objectplace *some* of the emeralds to give yourself *some* power. There's no option to use the same default stats all the other characters have, for the casual play of these single/small level packs, but I understand if that clashes with the intended vision.
What I *really* can't excuse is how his abilities are handled. With his low jump (which remains low no matter what your emerald count is), you need his abilities for basic movement, but switching between the two is forced into a cooldown. 20 seconds is so long to wait in a platformer, and really kneecaps the potential this character truly has. Frankly, this character shouldn't have cooldown *at all*, and instead, you can switch as much as you like on land and you're restricted to one switch in midair until you land or hit a spring/damageable object, allowing you to use the DJump and Glide in conjunction with eachother, instead of the very rigid system he has. /Being able to use these abilities with eachother, but having to cancel one into the other once per jump could really widen the potential movement capabilities for Chaos, but for now, it just feels like you pick one or the other, and you have to hope int hose next 20 seconds, you really don't want to use the other. It mostly leads you to picking one, and not touching the other.
In addition, the UI for this is really obnoxious. It didn't need to be a full string of text telling you what it is, and another bit of text telling you what the line is for. This could have been boiled down to a line that says either "Glide" or "Jump", and the line below it either saying "Custom 1" or the cooldown timer itself (if you insist on keeping the cooldown), or not having a second line at all if you don't have a cooldown. It's location is also in a really awkward spot, when it could have been to the lower right, or in the center, or perhaps to the left but centered vertically. It could even be using small text. Look at how BattleMod handles its UI for special moves. It does not need to take up so much screen real estate for something that can be so simplified.
Finally, I notice he goes into his water form when running fast enough, which seems cool at first, but its completely undistingusihable from spinning, except that his trail is slightly less opaque when spinning. I don't know why him going this fast isn't considered something that could damage objects and go under small passages, or why spinning can't have *something* to look different, like it having a larger water trail. Either one of these would be fine solutions, but right now, its just visually confusion that these two are nearly identical, but functionally different.
Overall, I'm not impressed. Its cool he gets buffs underwater and can't drown, for obvious reasons. I think he also always has touch destructability on walls but don't quote me on that. He's someone that coulda been done way better, even excusing how poorly aged his spritework has become over the years. I don't know if the original creator of this port will read this, but I hope someone gets the message.
