Gotta say, I'm pretty impressed with this. I can't help but approach every one of these remasters (especially PC ones) with extreme trepidation, given how many of them have gone wrong, but there is a lot of genuine care and well-thought-through enhancements here that actually, no BS, make the original game better.
Even the graphical upgrade - which in a pixel-art game I'm especially touchy about - is quite tasteful. Basically, they touched up the color levels, added some great parallax scrolling backgrounds, and created some minor new effects that I had to double-check weren't in the original. Nothing stands out as out of place or too modern, and I am truly impressed by the restraint and consideration.
From a gameplay perspective, everything feels exactly the same as it did in '93, and that's definitely preferred. There are a bunch of new bells and whistles like achievements, level checklists, an extra difficulty level, etc., but it feels appropriately additive. They've also done away with limited lives and instead tied deaths in with your score and the extra-life collectibles in with level completion goals. Smart! (Take notes Nintendo/Mario!) And finally there's also a robust and user-friendly level editor that seems very high-effort in its implementation. Not usually my thing, but I feel like I should fiddle around with a bit just to respect the work they put in.
The game itself is still a slice of goofy fun. A solid meat-and-potatoes platformer with great art, a consistent goopy, gross-out (yet playful and charming) Halloween theme, and a novel combat mechanic. The movement and jumping recalls fellow Apogee-kid-hero series COMMANDER KEEN, with lots of momentum management and a bit of pre-planning to do on your jumps, but you get used to it, and the fun slingshot weapon with which you can freely multi-direction aim and ricochet shots and experiment with your unlimited ammo makes up for that, I think.
I was a big fan back in the day, and I still am, but playing all the way through it once again with a more critical eye reveals that it's a minor victim of that old Shareware problem where the first episode is by far the best. Unlike some contemporaries, the problem isn't that there's nothing new to see in the other chapters - there are actually tons of new assets and level design concepts - but rather that they aren't nearly as good. Level design specifically falls off a cliff more and more as you progress, and the late game has some instant-death frustration and irritating puzzle-y stuff that stops the momentum (and the fun) dead.
This is still a bit of a hidden gem for '90s platformer fans and this remaster is so well done I feel like it should be an example for other teams trying to do similar stuff. Bravo.
Even the graphical upgrade - which in a pixel-art game I'm especially touchy about - is quite tasteful. Basically, they touched up the color levels, added some great parallax scrolling backgrounds, and created some minor new effects that I had to double-check weren't in the original. Nothing stands out as out of place or too modern, and I am truly impressed by the restraint and consideration.
From a gameplay perspective, everything feels exactly the same as it did in '93, and that's definitely preferred. There are a bunch of new bells and whistles like achievements, level checklists, an extra difficulty level, etc., but it feels appropriately additive. They've also done away with limited lives and instead tied deaths in with your score and the extra-life collectibles in with level completion goals. Smart! (Take notes Nintendo/Mario!) And finally there's also a robust and user-friendly level editor that seems very high-effort in its implementation. Not usually my thing, but I feel like I should fiddle around with a bit just to respect the work they put in.
The game itself is still a slice of goofy fun. A solid meat-and-potatoes platformer with great art, a consistent goopy, gross-out (yet playful and charming) Halloween theme, and a novel combat mechanic. The movement and jumping recalls fellow Apogee-kid-hero series COMMANDER KEEN, with lots of momentum management and a bit of pre-planning to do on your jumps, but you get used to it, and the fun slingshot weapon with which you can freely multi-direction aim and ricochet shots and experiment with your unlimited ammo makes up for that, I think.
I was a big fan back in the day, and I still am, but playing all the way through it once again with a more critical eye reveals that it's a minor victim of that old Shareware problem where the first episode is by far the best. Unlike some contemporaries, the problem isn't that there's nothing new to see in the other chapters - there are actually tons of new assets and level design concepts - but rather that they aren't nearly as good. Level design specifically falls off a cliff more and more as you progress, and the late game has some instant-death frustration and irritating puzzle-y stuff that stops the momentum (and the fun) dead.
This is still a bit of a hidden gem for '90s platformer fans and this remaster is so well done I feel like it should be an example for other teams trying to do similar stuff. Bravo.