at the end of the day, this is a visual retouching of the levels from the original two Aaaaa games and barely an inch more.

the original two games were pretty clear in their stylistic vision. that vision's visual aspect is the part which has held up the most, while the humor could easily benefit from a re-do ...which makes it weird that this remaster excises both aspects in favor of graphically-maximized gameplay segments held together by stock Unity UIs. what's left is a game that looks exciting in motion, but is utterly skeletal the second that motion stops

this could maybe be looked past for the novelty of remastered versions of old levels, but the game fails on that aspect too. the control scheme been simplified from a standard to mouse-only, making the series' trademark speed far more disorienting and difficult to maneuver. similarly, each level has been marked with a bespoke "optimal path", removing any semblance of player decision-making

after playing a bit of this remaster, I reinstalled one of the previous games (For the Awesome) to compare, and since then I've legitimately put more time into that game than I have this remaster