Over 25 years ago a cult classic was born, and a once-younger version of myself happened to purchase said game. Before stepping back into it, I watched some trailers and gameplay footage to see what had been improved and changed. Needless to say, I remembered very little about the original beyond the first couple of levels — but watching that trailer reminded me of what I thought the game looked like all those years ago, and made me realize just how far we've actually come.
I can't really speak to what I remember of the original gameplay, but this remake felt genuinely tight. Controls and UI are fairly intuitive and don't take long to wrap your head around. Going back to the original, I had forgotten how odd some of the controls actually were on PS2 — using telekinesis in particular was handled so much more naturally here, showing that Black Forest Games really did their homework on improving the core systems.
Worth mentioning too is how brief some of the levels are. Many can be over almost as quickly as they begin, though going back, I do remember this being fairly common in games from the early 2000s. That said, difficulty spikes do come out of nowhere at certain points, causing plenty of restarts on levels and bosses — particularly towards the end. Thankfully, checkpoints are generous, dropping you right back where you failed, which is very much appreciated.
One of the things I genuinely loved discovering in the remake was the reuse of original sound clips and voice lines. I came across a couple of articles confirming as much — Black Forest Games stated that they kept the audio from the original game, preserving the same legendary delivery from the original voice actors while improving the audio quality as much as possible without losing its original feel. So many remakes simply ditch outdated source material without a second thought, but the decision to keep it intact here is exactly the kind of small touch that keeps the original spirit alive and well.
Speaking of that original feel — something that genuinely impressed me was the visual treatment of the human characters. Compared to the original, the remake plays them almost as caricatures of what the source material was reaching for, and personally, I think it's a wonderful touch that elevates the game without getting in the way. Contrasting nicely with that is Crypto's voice work, which at times sounds like someone doing an impression of Jack Nicholson pretending to be an alien — and honestly, it works.
Overall, I'm a big fan of what this remake accomplishes. The majority of what made the original memorable has been preserved, while the gameplay mechanics and clunky UI have been meaningfully improved. It's a tasteful, respectful update that I'd recommend to anyone with fond memories of the original, or anyone coming to the series fresh. At $30, the pricing feels right — there's enough substance here to back up the ask. 86/100.
