I can't attest to the state the game is currently in. But speaking as someone who got fleeced out of 40 bucks when this came out, XIII may very well represent the worst that this industry's fetishization of remakes has to offer. The original XIII is a rare case where I honestly believe a sequel would have been a better opportunity to improve the original. The original XIII is far from a perfect game; if you want an excellent example of style over substance, it's ripe fruit for picking. Underneath its stylistic sheen and comic book influences are... another generic shooter. Once you step outside of the story sections that drag on, the actual meat and potatoes of XIII are paced pretty damn well for a game that came out in 2003. There's a solid understanding of level-based gimmicks that never feel bombastic enough to make for set pieces, but never feel thrown aside enough to be the left-over bullet points on a mid-2010s Call of Duty announcement video. Trying to do it all over again misses the point that, while the good parts of XIII certainly aren't going anywhere, they're stagnant without proper iteration.

XIII, as the remake I knew it as, showed little interest in upping the ante. If you ignore how this thing launched for a moment, you might find that it's a retread without a quarter of the original's soul. The art style, for one, still bears little resemblance to the original, favoring a more modernized, cartoony vibe. But even if you look past that, only the bare minimum has been done to add onto a game that's approaching its twentieth anniversary. Unlike the original, you don't have to install a fan patch to get it to be less clunky on modern operating systems... and that's it.

But let me talk about that technical state for a moment. The easiest way to describe how bad this thing was when it first released is this: in the original XIII, when you move around, the characters talking to you track your position with their heads. That a feature this basic in 2003 wasn't put into its 2020 remake should ring massive alarm bells. But that's hardly the tip of the iceberg. You want to know what that is? They remade all of the cutscenes in this... except for the first one. If I wanted to sound pretentious, I'd say watching a cutscene through osmosis is an innovative use of second-person gameplay. But it doesn't add anything. You're staring at a generic NPC as he stares at a wall, and you almost have to wonder: if they didn't have the talent to remake all of the cutscenes, why bother? The answer to that is that this remake had one of the most mismanaged, tumultuous developments of any to have come out so far this decade—worse than Cyberpunk. You think Bluepoint is bad? "Oh, Demon's Souls misses the artistic intent of the original"—when this came out, shooting didn't work. AI didn't work. The sound design was busted to shit, and you better believe that this thing was littered with more miscellaneous bugs than what we know of the pre-historic era. God, I wish Bluepoint made this instead of some yokel who thought he could harang success out of underpaid, overworked, and still-in-training interns. Fucking... imagine if CD Projekt Red did that. And Cyberpunk is the posterchild for rushed development now? Fuck me, man.

This might be better now, but honestly? I'm not going to bother with this again, and I don't think you should, either.

I was hoping the 2022 re-remake would have its own page on this site but it does not— This looks and plays ever so slightly better than the 2020 version, I don’t think this is the worst thing I’ve ever played and I actually think its a little fun. Its got some janky animation and facial animations, and some movement options that are a little whacky too, but otherwise I think this is a mediocre remake. Again this is a review for the 2022 version, and I’ve not played the original and only watched footage of the 2020 remake.

Definitely interesting that they kept the original game mostly intact and upgraded the visuals so they are more modern. Considering the complaints made about the game it would've been the perfect time to make adjustments while making this.

That said I still enjoyed it, can't really adequately explain why haha. The comic book feels is really well done, the plot and conspiracy make little sense but those tend to be the best kind of conspiracies. The gameplay feels like a game of the originals age with new graphics so there's a weird contrast happening. A few random events are also annoying. Like taking out the guards in a camp, having more guards spawn in randomly while you're spying on a meeting and fail the mission because they found a body.

If you played the original and have fond memories I'd recommend giving this a go... When it's on offer really cheap.

Now, I loved the original and was initally excited for this when it was announced. After hearing it was a shitshow on launch, I gave it a miss. Then I heard the PS5 version had been given some extra much needed dev time so I bought it on a sale and honestly thought it was a good remake. Still far from perfect but the visuals had been sharpened up and I didn't experience any glitches or bugs. If you're in a similar situation to me, it might be worth checking this out again if you have the chance.

Aun ignorando todos los defectos, no llego a entender la razón de ser de este remake. No he jugado el original, pero por lo que se deja ver, me da la sensación de que lo único que han "actualizado" han sido los gráficos y poco más; los fps son inestables por momentos; la imagen se ve borrosa; las texturas son super vagas, muy poco definidas y sin detalle; los controles y movimientos son muy lentos, torpes y poco precisos; los subtítulos no están bien sincronizados y no salen en las cinemáticas... Hay partes de la interfaz y los menús donde el texto se ve pequeñísimo y no se lee un carajo; me he topado con bugs que me impedían avanzar y me obligaban a cerrar y a abrir otra vez el juego... La único bonito que podría tener el juego es el estilo cell shading, pero ni eso. El juego entero me parece malo y feo. No sé si algo de esto se solucionará tiempo después del lanzamiento.

+Modern additions like sprinting or aiming down sights
+Same levels and story from the classic game
-Huge optimization problems (20 FPS near the end with RX 5600 XT)
-Weapon limiting system is needless and makes the game less varied
-Lots of bugs and glitches (So much to make the developer and the publisher apologize)
-Cutscenes are a pain to watch