Gargoyles Remastered Review

Gargoyles is one of my favorite cartoons of all time, it's probably one of the few if not only "original" Disney properties that I really enjoy. So with that said, the only reason why I even played this game at all was because it had the same name as that show I liked.

I wasn't expecting much, I do go into any game expecting some enjoyment out of it. I already knew the game was probably going to be an extremely loose adaptation of the show since it's a 2d action side scoller so it's not like I would want to get bogged down with heavy amounts of plot, I already knew the game wasn't going to have voice acting inspite of the fact that arguably the most famous thing about the series is the voice acting. At the end of the day, I was just expecting a competent side scrolling action platformer that had the Gargoyles name on it.

To put it midly, I did not, the game is an incompetently made mess that I don't even think was a good game even for it's time. I really wish Disney had Wayfoward remake the game like with Ducktales or how Castle of Illusion got a remake because this a textbook example of a sub par game even for it's time not even being good that is somehow being preservered. I'm guessing the Gargoyles IP just wasn't popular enough to warrant a full fledged remake.

I'll start with what I liked, the Remastered visuals weren't too bad since it looks more like the show, I never grew up the visuals of the Genesis game so when I see it, the whole thing looks weird to me, at the end of the day you can change between both original and remastered visuals with a button press, I just preffered remastered visuals, hearing the main theme of the show for time in forever was nice and the save states and rewind helps makes this game somewhat playable.

Now with all that out of the way, the game just isn't good, moment to moment platforming when jumping on to different platform feel "okay" but the jump never felt as precise as I would want it. The climbing doesn't feel that great and it's hard to tell what you can or cannot climb to, I thought you could climb on any vertical service but there are parts of the environment that Goalith won't climb on to. This could be a problem with the Remastered visuals. I sometimes attach myself to walls and Goalith won't move.

There is also a shoulder charge mechanic that I can't tell is contextual or I need to double tap the d pad in order to activate, there are times where I mash the d pad like mad just to activate the attack to progress on to the next level, but it won't come out at all, this goes double for the penultimate level where you need to take out those green eye of odin statues while on moving platforms, at times it just felt like I was lucky to get past that part.

The sections with contextual handle bars are a nightmare since you have to swing on them in multiple successive d pad button presses in order to make it to a platform with higher ground, if it weren't for the rewind feature, these sections would be an even bigger hassle to deal with, rewind in general just makes a borderline grating game to play slightly more tolerable

Now, here comes the biggest reason why I dislike this game: the combat. To put it plainly combat just sucks. To the game's credit, I played on the easiest setting and there is a fair share of health pick ups, the lives systems seems to be generous, and rewind makes these parts less frustrating but it doesn't make them any less bad.

When you attack people there is no sense of feedback for when you hit them or feedback for when you get hit, when enemies don't make any noticeable grunts when you hit them and they just move their heads back when Goalith punches them, when the latter gets hit, he just makes growling sound. Enemies don't go flying after completing a combo they just stand there weaving their heads back on and forth, and they can attack you while you attack them so every combat encounter in the game is Goalith getting into an awkward boxing match until the player or the enemy caves in. The combat is so badly made that I argue it has to be seen to be believed.

Add to to all this that even basic enemy types even the Vikings at the start of the game takes an insane amount of damage to kill and boss fights being pretty bad HP sponges as well combine all this this with the weird visual language and platforming and you get a game I wonder why it was even made at all other than to cash in off the Gargoyles IP.

Overall, I get this game being lost to time but the fact that it got preserved at all with no modern remake is more fascinating that the game itself. This really should've gotten a remake from the ground up instead of a remaster.