Wicked atmosphere and decent gameplay but with a few mortal flaws.
The gameplay itself was not the best ever, but it was good, up until the 3rd or 4th level, I can't remember. Then the drawbacks were suddenly thrown in your face. There is a point where you are required to perform many difficult platformer type jumps, and if you do not succeed you fall in the water and die, and you die a lot. With only three lives to spare, even if you did make the jump, you usually died before getting far enough to never have to make the jump again. This part of the game made me very angry, and prevented me and everyone else that played it from ever getting to the majority of the game, which later, was not nearly as frustrating. Why game designers insist, to this very day, on putting crap like that in to games is completely beyond my comprehension. Crap like that can ruin an entire game (not everyone is a controller ninja). It was also additionally frustrating since in the game, if you do not fight, your adrenaline meter goes down, taking HPs with it, and eventually you die. So if you took too much time to line up your jump, you died anyway.
This game could have been a classic, but it was like they were trying to sabotage their own game. I believe it could have been a successful franchise. Instead, it is lost in obscurity.