Completed as of writing this review: 100% but not all achievements (not going to bother with unfair difficulties) Since the original is not available digitally, I will leave my review for both the original and remaster. Original version: One of the nostalgic games that I absolutely adore! It's simplistic for it's time, which still reminds me of how back then the most important part was for a game to be fun, just like many other games in the 6th generation. I'm not that familiar with the lore of Asterix (if there even is one), so I don't know how accurate this is. But man, the developers of the original didn't play around. The gameplay is just a beat-em-up and nothing out of the ordinary but the presentation is BADASS!! The music and how serious it presents itself is so cool! I can't describe how much I still love this game for this. The licensed games now choose a safe cartoony aesthetic while this is the 2000's in all it's glory! If being serious it's a simple action-adventure game, that may seem repetitive for a newcomer, but the stages are huge with interesting puzzles and pretty scenery. Punching the Romans always felt satisfying and never unfair. (until the last stage but more on that later) I don't think you can really get bored here because the stages always have something to do in them. There are also moments to spice things up like a crazy slide down the mountain on Obelix's back . There are also occasional collect-a-thon moments that are satisfying to get through when you get the multipliers. The music is by far my favorite part here. It makes it fun to get rid of Romans while, for example, some devilish gibberish sounds are sung in the background (you'll know when you hear it). The puzzles are also interesting to some extent, though annoying at first. The extra things like collecting Laurels can also be fun. Now the problem is probably the cryptic final stage. You'll have almost no trouble until you reach it, due to one requirement: one specific combo. Without it you're going to have a bad time. That's why I didn't beat the game in my childhood because I actually didn't know how to use combos. So keep that in mind! And there is unfortunately one boss for the entire game, just slightly different each time. Don't get your hopes up on that one like we did as kids. Overall, it was actually hard to describe what I like about this game without nostalgia kicking my mind. But I still recommend this game if you need a simple action-adventure with puzzles to enjoy. I don't think it'll disappoint. At the very least listen to the kick-ass soundtrack! Remastered version: Now this is a surprise for sure. After a very bare-bones remaster of XXL 2 and something else they dared to call XXL3, they've actually decided to deliver a very good remaster! Usually I'm skeptical about remasters due to them ruining the original game's feel. But here, I'd even recommend it over playing the original on PC! The remastered graphics are veeery pretty without ruining much of the original's art-direction. And the best part about it is that: if you don't like it, just change it on the fly to the original! Graphics, music, sfx are still intact! That's genius and something I've never encountered before! (I played Halo remasters only after this, just so you know) Now, it's not perfect, the UI is not 3D like in the original; for some reason the textures are not filtered, making them pixelated; and the sfx is lower quality than it should be. But still it's the idea that I respect the developers for! As for what's new, the music has been changed and there are now new time-trials. The time-trials are fun to go through, especially the coin ones. The problem with them is that they were added without much testing, as it's VERY easy to break the game, while you play them. Of course the game was not made with them in mind, so sometimes it can be annoying to fail them due to something not behaving properly. Especially in the trials that are located in the boss arenas. The music is surprisingly good! Obviously not beating the original but it has it's own spin. Unfortunately for people like me, it goes more for the "epic orchestra" rather than something funky, but it's okay for returning players. For newcomers though it's a must to turn it off in options (respect for letting us do that). I wish there was a way to combine the old tracks and the new tracks they added for ambiance. Now you may have noticed I didn't do all of the difficulties. That's because if you go for the extreme difficulty, it'll literally be unfair. That's actually ridiculous that they decided to add an achievement for that, since it clearly was not tested. You can hardly hit anyone and their constant poking from all sides will turn your HP to zero in seconds. I think it's completely fine to cheat those in some way, since, you know, they are unfair anyway! I've got a friend, who is more of a fan of the series than me, and even he didn't bother. I think that's enough evidence. For 100% just go through all achievements and don't try the extra difficulties. I think that's everything that was needed to be covered. Of course I could also mention the unfortunate players with AMD GPU's, who didn't have correct effects load in, making the game basically unplayable, but that was fixed. A bit late, but at least not never. This remaster is worth the money (in my opinion) and I highly recommend you to play it!
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