Dr. Muto - 2002 PS2 platformer where you can unlock transformations into 5 different creatures: a hamster, gorilla, piranha, spider, and a flying squirrel. Each mutation has different uses - squirrel can fly so you can reach previously unreachable areas, piranha can swim so you can reach the underwater areas of each level, hamster can travel through small gaps/holes. Pretty standard platformer, nothing really special in terms of level design or mechanics, but damn I loved this game as a kid because HE CAN TRANSFORM!! I first played this in the era of Blockbuster right after its release (so like 2002-2004ish) and remember beating it within a day or two & spending the remaining week just flying around the levels as the squirrel. Goofy ass game but it is burned into my memory (especially that little hip-thrust dance Dr. Muto will do when you get a collectable/unlockable)

Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters - 2002-3 Gamecube kaiju fighting game. This shit is what actually put me onto kaiju like Godzilla, Rodan, and Ghidorah. Had a Destruction mode that I really dug where you had to destroy more city buildings/infrastructure than your opponent. You could fucking call in Mothra airstrikes. The NPC Army would attack all monsters randomly with missiles and shit. But above all else, I loved just playing Destruction/Multiplayer mode with my brother and essentially roleplaying our own Godzilla movies.

War of the Monsters - 2003 PS2 kaiju fighting game. I have to pay respects to Destroy All Monsters because without it, I would have never stumbled across this game in Blockbuster as a child and been like “yes!!” but because I had played Destroy All Monsters, I remember being like “yes” immediately. Funnily enough, while Destroy All Monsters used actual kaiju like Godzilla and Rodan, War of the Monsters had ‘original’ kaiju that were very clearly meant to be shit like Godzilla and Rodan but tweaked enough to avoid copyright/licensing issues. There were a bunch that were wholly, at least from what I remember and know now having seen a ton of actual kaiju/Godzilla films, original though. Kineticlops, a giant fucking humanoid eyeball whose limbs are electricity and Preytor, a giant fucking preying mantis stay in the recesses of my mind. Me & my brother actually wound up BEGGING our dad to buy this game for us after we rented it 3 weeks in a row just so we could spend hours roleplaying as our favorite monsters in battles. Most notably, War of the Monsters had actual terrain/movement features that Destroy All Monsters lacked. Preytor could glide and climb up buildings fast as fuck like a bug, Kineticlops’ attacks would bounce and arc between enemies, the larger monsters like the King Kong knockoff (Kongar was its name iirc) could grab things like transmission antennas off of buildings or cars from the road and use them as weapons. You could launch monsters through buildings with combos.

I mean, just look at these two dudes and tell me child you wouldn’t go

Jet Set Radio Future - This one isn’t wholly forgotten compared to like Dr. Muto or Destroy All Monsters; especially not with the reboot they announced a few years ago, but goddamn thank you Microsoft for bundling this and Sega GT together with new Xbox purchases because this game consumed me. The soundtrack still slaps today, thank you Hideki Naganuma. (Understand understand the concept of love - free love is too tame for him! )

The Simpsons: Hit and Run - Another one that isn’t exactly forgotten by most people who were gaming in 2003 but I have to put this one down because more than the other 4 games I’ve mentioned, this is the one my brother and I were OBSESSED with because we both loved the Simpsons. I spent so much time trying to master the Rocket Car’s handling/controls because I was like “holy shit its so fast!!”. The Ghost Ship vehicle…the monorail vehicle…my beloveds…10/10 game, especially the fact that they got the official cast to do the VA for the entire game. Bart’s ‘Eat asphalt, asphalt eaters’ is what I say to this day when I’m winning in like Mario Kart. They dunno how to make games this good anymore that’s why the Simpsons is on Season 35 or whatever and we still haven’t gotten a remaster or even a rerelease of the original on like Steam…

All of the above were basically my childhood with more popular-ish games sprinkled here and there (most people go “what is that??” when I bring up Mortal Kombat Deception and Armageddon, but they recognize Mortal Kombat…can’t say the same for Dr. Muto or even Jet Set Radio…Kingdom Hearts 4 will come out in the next decade…I don’t even try to bring up Viewtiful Joe to most people because I’m not gonna get tricked into explaining what its about…)

Thanks for actually making me think about all these - I haven’t reminisced on them in quite awhile and man, I forgot how much time me & my brother spent sitting in our dining room with the PS2/Gamecube/Dad’s Xbox playing all of the above together and essentially just roleplaying. We, of course, did the same kind of thing with Melee (I used to make him pick Ganondorf so I could re-enact OoT with Young Link on the Hyrule Temple stage…we never managed to get the Peach turnip/Falco reflector/Super Scope black hole glitch to work but I probably spent an entire summer trying to convince my brother and sister daily to play with me on Hyrule Temple as Peach/Falco so we could try to get it to work…good times)