Pizza Tower's creator described Wario Land 4 as his main influence when it came to building the game. The main character Peppino's move set is an expansion on Wario's from Wario Land 4. And he summed up Pizza Tower's level design this way:

"Wario Land 4 with more focus on the R-dash mechanic maybe? I was scared when making the level design at first because I realised Peppino controls very differently from Wario in WL4. He has an air-dash now, can do a Super Metroid shinespark and needs a lot of start up space to execute his dash. So basically I can’t design the levels exactly like a Wario game, because Peppino is versatile and just different. But for the overall level progression, I simply took Wario Land 4 frog switch mechanic because it’s probably my favourite idea from that game. That and the transformations puzzles are the most similar aspect for the level design."

It was 'playable' yes, but not to the point it was anywhere near in a state it could be released

https://www.eurogamer.net/sony-had-to-re-do-work-on-the-last-guardian-still-a-ps3-game

"We had the game playable," Yoshida explained. "At one point we felt that it would be produced for a certain time period. That was the time we prematurely talked about the launch window. But it turned out the technical issues are much harder to solve. So the engineering team had to go back and re-do some of the work they had done."

It still didn't run all that well on ps4 dropping to 15 fps on the base ps4

https://www.eurogamer.net/digitalfoundry-2016-the-last-guardian-face-off

Overall, it's no surprise that the best way to play The Last Guardian is on PlayStation 4 Pro, but it's still a shame the original PS4 struggles as much as it does. The 20-30fps performance profile is a clear upgrade over the 'cinematic' presentation seen in Shadow of the Colossus, but it's still way off the pace compared to what we've come to expect from a modern PS4 title.

After such a protracted development stretch, the conclusion is that PlayStation 4 Pro comes across as the only machine capable of delivering the ideal experience. Whether that's in aid of a solid 30fps, or boosting image quality for 4K displays, its higher specs are seemingly a better fit for the game's ambitions. It often leaves the standard console trailing behind, and from our perspective, we feel that the 1080p30 Pro mode is the best way to experience the game.

If the PS3 could have run it 720p30 with drops to 20 fps, it would have released first on PS3 and then resold again on PS4.

But yes there were other internal problems at play as well. Dunno what came first though, yet it seems plausible that technical difficulties and delays led to internal friction. Especially when you have an auteur refusing to reign in his vision to make it work on the PS3. Which I'm happy for. Rather late than a CP2077 situation on PS4/XOne. That was 'playable' as well...

I don't remember getting stuck everywhere, played it twice, replayed it again on PS5 through BC. The controls are not as easy as Mario, but once you get the hang of it they work fine. You simply can't turn on a dime and sprint over all the obstacles without falling on your ass. Traversal is a big part of the game play.

What I did notice in repeat playthroughs is that Trico is very much on rails, however the controls for 'Boy' grew more and more on me.

One of the best years ever.

Voted Melee just for all the memories I have with that game.
I still enjoy watching high level play of Melee but I like playing Ultimate more.

Halo pretty much single handedly made Xbox relevant in the console market. Not a small feat. I think the second installment is superior but since I don't like any of them the impact factor places the first game above.

In the other section list of games there are multiple once I enjoy very much.

Conker's Bad Fur day is still leading in number of laughs a game have created.
Ico is the first time I played a game that I truly felt was art as much as entertainment.
Luigi's mansion while short and a bit repetitive is still a fun experience. Best played as a sort of arcade game only going for high scores.
Advance wars is one of my favorite series (not including the battalion wars games). The first game is good but I consider each of the sequels to be superior.
Golden sun is one of my favorite RPGs. I really like the puzzle elements of combining Djinns. Bit text-heavy but still enjoyable today and one of the best looking games on the GBA.

Edit: I thought Wizardry 8 was from 2002. So since it's 2001, let's rectify the list.

And it's Other again for me.

5. Civ 3: A great Civ, mostly held back by ressources disappearing, generally when you need them the most

4. SSB Melee: Why don't the successors have that same achievements screen after the fight anymore? It's the one thing me as a more casual player am missing from melee

3. Black & White: A great godgame, it's only problem is a lack of feedback, so you don't really know what your creature is thinking

2. Wiggles (known outside of Germany as Diggles: The Myth of Fenris): A very underlooked gem, imagine dwarf fortress merged with terraria, add 3D graphics, some comedy, stoners and and annoyed elfin fairy having to deal with the dwarwes and you're getting the gist of it.

1. Wizardy 8: My all-time favorite game, and the swan song of classical western CRPG. Also the fairest of all the wizardry titles and comes with great voiceacting, great writing and a genius leveling system.

Since it looks like "Other" might take this, I should note that I voted that way and my vote would've gone for Civ3. TBH, I probably shouldn't even be voting because I was mostly out of gaming at this point in my life so Civ3 is honestly the only game listed that I've ever played.

2001 was a year of smaller titles for me.

Actually, I never even played any of the main poll games. Not even Smash Melee (did play the original, Brawl and Ultimate though but that's besides the point), GTAIII (but did play the original, 2 and 4) or Halo (which my stepfather played a tiny but didn't like). This is mainly because our family never got a PS2. We already had a Dreamcast, two in fact, and because it looked at least as good graphically it made the PS2 seem unnecessary. By this year and the time Dreamcast died the beter looking GameCube and XBox came out so why would you still get something that's older and looks worse? Yes, our line of reasoning had some holes back in the day.

Meanwhile however the PC would get more and more of my playtime.

Even of the 'Others' list, I've only played Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex (not "the Codex" ), Luigi's Mansion and Mario Kart Super Circuit. The fourth Crash game, which I played on GameCube, was actually quite good. It's sad that when the newer one came out they called it '4', disrespecting Wrath of Cortex. Luigi's Mansion was great though, I was quite surprised by this and it gave Luigi a unique identity which he still has today. The game has a fun story with a fun premise and fun enemies and fights. It was adventurous and memorable, and challenging enough with plenty to discover and uncover. It was a much better game than the GameCube's main Mario game, or even its Zelda game for that matter. Mario Kart Super Circuit though, the series first handheld entry, always disappointed me a bit.

However, regardless of this mild list, 2001 is still within the, though now declining, Golden Age, because it doesn't stop here. Even still in the console space, this year was also the year of the Zelda combo, Oracle of Seasons and Oracle of Ages on the GameBoy, though I wouldn't play those until years later when I went out of my way to track down full original copies of the Zelda games I missed when I was younger. The GameCube also saw some more playtime with Star Wars Rogue Squadron II. On PC though, I got to play some of Red Faction, and the rts Cossacks: European Wars. This game could have up to 8000 units all at once in a game. I remember me and my friend creating near 4000 strong armies of riflemen each, and then fire upon them with one cannon which would kill over a hundred units in a single shot, flinging them backwards. It was beyond epic. I also played quite a bit of the rts Empire Earth. This game starts you off in the stone age, and advances you all the way to the future. We came to realise, that once you get to the modern age, post World War II tech, you can just nuke everything all the time. Which was fun.

However the biggest impact would be Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds. This rts, I had a bit of an rts streak, is built upon Age of Empires II, and it shows. It's almost no more than a sprite-swap, but that was okay when the foundation is this good. This would become one of my most played games of all-time, and we (the same friend) would play this for literally decades to come. We'd do multiplayer, always as a team against two or three hard AI. In fact, we played this just this last weekend. Even though you're playing AI, a match is quite difficult on the higher difficulty levels, because obviously, the AI cheats immensely.

Still, as a game, I think the game of all these that stuck with me most as a quality video game for this year was Luigi's Mansion. So my vote goes to "Other", for Luigi's Mansion.

Oh shit, Cossacks: European Wars, I forgot about that one. Was that one where you have to upkeep your units with gold and food?

I was looking for Burnout for 2002, but it already came out in 2001!

Back when Burnout still required a lot of skill, any slight touch with another car was fatal. That made it all the more exhilarating to race through traffic with adrenaline pumping close calls trying to beat the timer. My favorite was using the city bus in rush hour reverse, making the perfect run chaining boosts together in the bus. The original Burnout is a game we have come back to a lot over the years as my dad kept a ps2 hooked up to their TV to play Burnout every time I came by to visit. Always fun to do some more split-screen runs.

Please make a new main stream Burnout game, it's been so long since Burnout Paradise. One with proper crash challenges as well, Paradise botched that. It was so much fun to swap the controller around in crash junction challenges.

Went to the Steam page and watched the trailer, and lol, yeah, it's A LOT like Wario Land 4.