Review #645: Asterix & Obelix XXL 2

 With an extra large serving of bugs and glitches.

 As average as it was, I've always held a soft spot for Asterix & Obelix Kick Buttix(AKA XXL1), a simple but fun action-platform game on the PS2, and always lamented how its sequel never made it outside Europe. Well, the gods have smiled upon us, because for whatever reason the developers saw fit to port the sequel, but not the original for whatever reason, to all modern consoles. I finally get to experience what I've been missing for all these years. But maybe, that's the way it should've stayed.

  As per usual, the story follows the endless conflict between the Gauls and the Romans. This time around, Getafix, the Gaulish druid, seems to have betrayed every Gaul village, so Asterix and Obelix set out to rescue the captured druids and figure out the mystery behind Getafix's betrayal. The story has a few attempts at humor, but it's pretty, so unless you are a kid you'll probably find it falls flat upon its face. With Asterix & Obelix XXL 2 the developers went for a full videogame parody/tribute theme, so you'll be fighting Raymanesque Romans, superSonic Romans and even a mustachoed Roman called Pablo, equipped with a water-pumping machine. Heck, Caesar's new right-hand man is a Tomb Raider parody called Larry Croft. I'll admit that seeing all the tributes did bring a smile to my face a couple of times, and it was always fun discovering murals or other less explicit references.

  As far as gameplay goes, not much has changed from the first game. You play as Asterix with Obelix in tow, while there's no multi-player you can swap characters at will, even though both play exactly the same. They can slap enemies around, double jump, ground pound or even grab dizzy enemies to use as whips. Hitting enemies continuously will eventually activate 'Rage' which makes you attacks faster, and after a few upgrades, stronger. Regardless, the game falls into the SAME EXACT pitfall as the first game did: The combat isn't good, but dang it, if they aren't gonna force it on you. Combat is way too frequent, and too often does the game force you to defeat X amount of enemies before you can continue. Sometimes it tries to be different by endlessly spawning enemies until you throw a certain amount of them into a target or a Roman toilet. The combat isn't even hard, it's just tedious, something that you just want to get done with but rarely is there a way to do so. Every now and then a 'bonus' will trigger, in which an enemy designated by a 'Gift' label will require a specific combo to be hit with, upon which you'll get rewarded by health, currency multipliers or, if you are lucky, the druid's potion, which will make combat end faster, particularly once you purchase the mighty potion-moves. Sadly, it seems like the potion power-up bonus only appears on the very last few levels.

 When you aren't fighting you might have to do a bit of light platforming or simple puzzles, like figuring out how to get a bomb to a Tetris wall. Sometimes you'll have to make use of Asterix size, to get through tight walls or Obelix's strength to punch down metal walls(Although I think this only happened a single time in the entire game, during the last level). These moments are a more palatable, and while simple, they don't wear out their welcome. However, I must admit that I felt like the environments weren't as varied or as fun as the ones from the previous game. The developers also removed costumes, one of the best and most rewarding parts about the first game. As a matter of fact, collectibles in this game have absolutely no purpose besides bragging rights. Postcards, 4 per level, offer nothing more than non-funny gags while diamond helmets, 5 per level, do absolutely nothing....

 ...although, maybe, that wasn't always the case. Y'see, I did some digging, and, apparently, Diamond Helmets used to be worth 1000 helmets(The in-game currency). But in this game they are worth nothing. That's not the only thing they changed, the new graphics are a bit of a mixed bag. While most of character models look like their PS2 originals, they changed the lighting effects to be more realistic, which is fine, but a lot of color was lost in the port. Things like collectible helmets used to have this vividly colorful glow, which is gone, and even the druid's potion had better effects. A lot of various special effects were either completely removed or changed into something more boring. While this game might look sharper, it's decidedly less colorful, which for a game based on a cartoon is a terrible change. To top it all off, the Switch version runs at 30 FPS or less, which is completely baffling as this is little more than a dolled up PS2 game. Plus, the camera loves to get stuck on walls and/or corners, I don't know if it was a problem in the original, but it's a problem now. I never died or lost health due to the camera getting stuck(Not that it matters, since you have infinite continues), but it was quite annoying since it was so frequent, even if it wasn't all that hard to get it behind Asterix again.

 And then we have the glitches. A ton of them. It happened to me first when I first entered a level, either the third or the fourth one, that during the 'LOADING' screen the game crashed into the dashboard. Then, the game didn't crash again during my initial playthrough, but I noticed that a lot of areas in the WCW level were missing music. Was it like that in the original? I dunno, but it feels weird. The last level was missing music in a few parts as well. Sometimes you have to light torches to progress, well, the WCW has a lot of torches that never turn on, even though it seems like the camera pans towards them as if trying to tell you that they caught fire? It didn't stop my progression, but it looked quite weird. The Pirate Shore level is absolutely bugged, every time you enter the level, or even when you try to exit it, it will play the level introduction cutscene in which it pans out through the entire are. It's the only level with this problem, but it's quite dumb. But, whatever, I finished the game, but I was missing a few collectible items that you can buy with helmets, so I traveled back to the second stage and... the game crashed. Once I loaded up my file again and try to get there again it worked, but it seems like the game is prone to crashing. Lastly, traveling to the first city, and its first checkpoint, will make an awful 'opening door' sound repeat endlessly until you get far, far away from a nearby door. Did anyone test this thing?

 I'm gonna be entirely honest here, Asterix & Obelix XXL2 is as average as the first one, having the same problems that one did, but lacking a few of its more positive qualities, like costumes and more variety in its levels. But I could've dealt with that. I was having fun with this simple game thanks to its nostalgic retro charm. But the bugs, man.... they really didn't care at all, did they? Bugs and glitches aside, there's no reason as to why they had to sap away all the color and life from the graphics, this is a game based on a comic-book, it has to be colorful!
 3.5 out of 10