Platformation Time Again #2: Asterix & Obelix XXL Romastered PS4

I originally reviewed this game to celebrate the release of the latest Asterix & Obelix live action film at the time, that being Asterix & Obelix: The Middle Kingdom, but it was before i fully decided to reboot this rubric, and since i was gonna cover Asterix & Obelix XXL 2, i’d figured i would “remaster/remake” the old review, thought it’s so expanded and has more than enough and more in-depth writing it’s almost new one, BUT since the old review it’s quite recent, i didn’t feel the need to completely throw out everything, i’m pointing this out if this feels like deja-vu.

It is. Kinda.

Also, FIY, i will try to use both original and localized names for the characters, for clarity.

HISTORY

This is one of those series that is huge in many regions but since it never properly took off in North America, it may look like it’s a thing that’s “huge in Europe but nowhere else” (especially given how the perception skewed the US as the only place where things happen or matter), but Asterix & Obelix is one of the longest running comic book series and one of the most popular of all time, to the point its being only outsold and out-translated by One Piece, worlwide.

I grew up with these, as it was hugely popular in Italy as well (irony noted) as France, Belgium, the UK, and basically anywhere that wasn’t America, even though most of the later animated films did see some kind of US release (of the live actions one i think only Asterix And The Middle Kingdom, the most recent one, saw a Netflix release in US territories), and there’s a Netflix exclusive animated series adaptation of Asterix The Big Fight coming later this year, in the hope of feeding a US fanbase of the series that i’m sure is there and its fuckin starved in terms of official releases.

Just in case, let’s go over the basic premise.

Created in 1959 by Renè Goscinny and Albert Uderzo, Asterix & Obelix takes place in 50 B. C., at the times of the Holy Roman Empire having occupied all Gaul (which would later become France)….. well, ALMOST, as a little village stands strong against the Roman invasion, using the magic potion brewed by the village druid, Panoramix/Getafix, with the titular duo of Asterix, a feisty small Gaul soldier, and Obelix, a rotund big gentleman (which doesn’t need the potion of strenght since he fell in a cauldron of the “sauce” when he was little), always followed by Obelix’s loyal tiny terrier, Idefix/Dogmatix, often sent by the village chief to fight off the Romans and in general embark in adventures all over the world to help friends, fetch important items, which often involve foling the machinations of Julius Ceasar, dejected to see this small spec of a village being unpervious to the mighty Roman army.

Especially as one sip of the potion and even the village fishmonger can slap the most hardened Roman Centurion unit out of his sandals and into the fuckin stratosphere with a flick.

It’s a comedy-satirical series, lovely uncaring of historical accuracy, because who cares about that when we can make funs of the Italians. And Corsicans. And Germans/Goths. And Greeks. And Swiss. And anyone that ever walked the Earth.

Yeah, some of the stereotypes have aged badly (hence them often not appearing in recent adaptions, including this one, FIY), but mostly it’s all in good fun, as they also poke fun at the Belgians/Franco-Belgians own stereotypes, presented in retro-historical comedy fashion.

Heck, the fact the main butt of the joke in the series are indirectly the Italians (because of age old rivalries that we’re supposed to have against other European countries, as if we don’t infight enough among ourselves XD) and yet it’s a beloved series here, has been so for decades and still gets new edition and omnibus collections should be telling enough.

This means also a lot of videogames based off it, mostly platformers and beat em ups (there’s even an arcade one by ol’ era Konami), and sometimes a bit of both, as is the case with the first of what would be the Asterix & Obelix XXL series, originally developed by Etranges Libellules and released in Europe by Atari in 2003 on PS2, Gamecube, Windows, GBA, but we’re mainly looking at the remastered edition by Osome Studios released on PS4, X-Box One and Switch, though after Microids rereleased the second title of the XXL series, Asterix & Obelix XXL 2: Mission Las Vegum, with the remaster for the then current consoles simply named Asterix & Obelix XXL 2, despite not being a HD port (kinda) but also making some changes they would later apply for consistency to this remaster of XXL 1, and eventually carry over in XXL 3.

PLOT & GRAPHICS

The plot sees the titular duo wander off of their little Gaul village to the ol’ boar hunt (as long time readers of the comic known, Obelix’s diet its beyond boar-centric) only to come back and find out Ceasar (yes, Julius Caius Ceasar from Caligula III The Untold Story, exactly) has somehow managed to storm the village, capturing most people and sending them off to various distant ends of the Roman empire in order to have locked out sight and mind, hopefully for good.

But with the help of a fired roman spy that got gibbed and wants to stick it to Caesar, you find out that most of the imprisoned Gauls most likely managed to get a piece of the map (not a Gwar ticket, but will do) indicating their location, as Ceasar took the extra step – just in case – to rip the map in pieces and scattering them in various locations.

I wonder why he didn’t just ate the map, but it’s good enough as any excuse in terms of videogame logic to have Asterix & Obelix travel to various places like Egypt, Normandy, Greece and Helvetia, freeing their fellow gaul citizens and getting more pieces of the map along the way.

The story isn’t anything special, basically rejigging the premise of the “Asterix and the Goths” (as in, the Germans) comic book/volume, but the game does capture the spirit of the comics by Goscinny and Uderzo, their characters and tone, i love that boars here endlessly give out hams health pick-ups when slapped, that you have to slap a random druid just twirling a cauldron to save the game, and most importantly both Asterix and Obelix feels like themselves.

It definitely does a good job in terms of preserving and adapting the source material, there’s no deluge of random ass references to random shit made for the sake of being edgy or take the piss on other videogames, the characters don’t randomly spout bullshit phrases just to be saying something, fearing that the player would read the silence as a lack of character or “zest”.

Not yet, anyway.

It’s a fairly good looking remaster, all things considered, especially compared with XXL 2 being more of a HD port you can tell this one they could actually label as “r(o)mastered”, again, good for what one could reasonably expect from a mid-to-low tier publishing company such as Microids (well modern Microids, the company has been around but just in recent years has basically become what Infogrames was at the time), the old soundtrack has been remastered as well, with mixed results, but it’s pretty much still a surprising box o’ bangers, and of the kind you wouldn’t expect, at all, plus they all make one wonder if the composer also wanted this to be a Devil May Cry “for the kids?” style affair, but let’s not skip ahead.

A nice feature (that sadly was not in XXL 2 remaster) though it the game letting you switch on the fly between the new and old graphics, which also reverts the music to the original compositions, and you can do this even during cutscenes, no issue as they pretty much kept the various European dubs of the era (like the Italian one) intact, maybe touched them up a bit.

It’s good to have the option, because while the remastered visuals are nice, they do bring the detail and quality of the textures to a more modern standard, something its lost in terms of vibrant colors and tone being kinda “muted”, in that the old look of the game is still better.

There are still some innocuous glitches, like a friendly NPC that in the remastered visuals seem standing on a pocket of thin air 10 cm above the ground, while he does make contact with the ground perfectly when switching to the “old graphics”, or some stuff like a boar spazzing out by circling while standing still, or some bugs in the “snowboard slides” sections (like the desert one).

But nothing game breaking.

GAMEPLAY & LEVEL DESIGN

When it comes to typical 3D action platformers, Asterix & Obelix XXL definitely was one of them, fitting the “typical of the era” profile perfectly, as you jump, button mash/slap silly your enemies, and do some simple puzzles, often involving litting braziers with torches and flipping switches, sometimes operating manually some devices that also require the cooperation of both characters, as Obelix needs to drag the pulley Asterix is sitting on (as he’s small and lightweight), can destroy with his bare hands iron boxes that otherwise would be nearly impossible to crack, while Asterix can fit through narrow passageways Obelix can’t, the usual stuff.

Sadly there’s no co-op and curiously no switching the controlled character on the fly, the game will either directly change that when needed to progress or offer a rare “switch point” to achieve the same thing, but i also understand there was no simple and quick solution to offer co-op that didn’t involve straight up remaking from scratch the game (instead of a remaster), as it clearly was always built around and intended for single player and single player only.

One major revision over the original PS2 game is the use of helmets, the in-game currency previously used to unlock just gallery fluff (concept art, statuines of the enemies and characters), now instead actually feeling more like proper currency, as you can uee these to buy some minor upgrades, health pickups and eventually the powerful special “combo moves” (when they were previously story based unlocks), which aren’t exactly what you’d think since there’s no chaining of light and heavy attacks, these are basically special moves that have Asterix and Obelix collaborate and are used to deal with the many foes the game will throw at you.

Speaking of combat, as you would expect from a 2003 licensed release, it’s pretty mindless, mostly button bashing the enemies until they drop the guard and become trapped into your punching (which ends with them flying up into the air, in proper Asterix & Obelix style), throwing them around like rags when stunned, sicking Idefix (the small dog) to bite enemies in the butt making them drop their guard, because there’s no parry or dodgerolling or backstabbing.

It’s still enjoyable (the sounds of the smacks and slaps against the Roman soldiers are delightfully cartoony as expected), it just makes one wish the game was made a little later or on a bigger budget, because it could have used a proper hack n slash combat system, but it was 2003 and back then you pretty much “had” to choose if you wanted an action adventure or platformer or a hack n slash, the timing was right to make “DMC clones”, but the budget clearly wasn’t, as this was published out by “ex-Infogrames Atari” originally.

So cash was never abundant and while that didn’t stop Tamsoft to take a stab at it (pun intended) with the first Oneechanbara a year later, i guess there was never any intention to go that way in terms of combat, as the sequel would make clear, but we’ll discuss that in more detail later.

What might be surprising given i broadly summarized this as “very typical” for a platformer of its time (because it is), it’s worth pointing out this ISN’T a collect-a-thon style affair, since it was still the prevalent style for 3D platformers even during the PS2/XBOX/NGC era.

sure, there are some collectables to find by exploring the levels thoroughly, which are connected and you can travel back and forth by using catapults, but it’s a linear affair. Which is good, actually.

In terms of stuff that could have modernized or removed without having to redo the game from scratch, there’s definitely the falling in pits meaning instadeath, which isn’t too annoying since there’s no lives system and you just try again from the last checkpoints, but some are quite far apart so you’ll have to redo sections that also including punching to the moon hundreds of Romans.

They could have made the character respawn at the cost of some health instead, but didn’t. Odd.

The other thing is one that honestly confused me, as in the overworld map.

Is not that the overworld itself it’s hard to use or anything, but when you load a save you’re always taken back to the first proper stage on the world map (Normandy, as Gaul is basically the opening act with tutorial stuff and not much more), and will have to scroll until you find what last area you actually reached, you don’t start back at the last cauldron/save point used, leading you to believe the saving fucked up, but NOPE, the game it’s just like that.

Again, a minor niggle, but just seems like an odd oversight, especially for a remastered.

Kinda funny in hindsight that you can tell its “PS2ness” by how there’s there more than one “sliding downwards a snowy slope” and Crash-esque “run from menace coming from the upper side of the camera angle” sequences. Those stuck around more than one would expect, indeed.

DIFFICULTY & LENGHT

Despite its origins and technically being a “licensed kids’ game”, Asterix & Obelix XXL (at the “Normal” difficulty setting) it’s not too easy, the enemies will eventually ramp up the aggression and come in numbers to the point where you’ll take damage even by the peons, so to deal with them you have special “combo moves, like a wrestling style power move, a ground burrowing, which are powerful but aren’t completely broken, as some of them consume more of the combo bar than others; if the game wants you to easily deal with a bunch of enemies it will simply have magic potion pick ups appear, but they’re not overused to the point of feeling mundane.

Though in the latter parts of the game you’ll absolutely need the more powerful combo moves, as the game will make you defeat dozens, then hundred, then thousands of enemies, and still some parts aren’t easy even with all the specials bought/unlocked from the shop.

Obviously for balance’s sake Obelix isn’t as invincible/unvulnerable like the canon, and combat wise it’s just stronger-and-slower than Asterixm but they’re about the same.

It’s still more on the easy side of things for more experienced players, bit it’s never too easy to the point it makes the experience worse for it, or too cheaply frustrating for that matter.

In terms of stuff that does show its age it’s the lenght of each location/stage, most stages have 6 levels each, but i would have prefered 1 more location with less levels each, even more since the locations have distinct looks but don’t have unique gimmicks each or introduce any proper new obstacle or stuff like that for each of their sub-areas.

I mean, even in the Egypt stage they feel the need to cram in another “snowboarding slide” sequence, as in they clearly recycled the same assets used in the mountain sequences, and just overlaid a different graphics, changed that goat into a camel munching on flowers, etc.

It’s not a huge problem given the era this game hails from, but it doesn’t help that this issue extends to bosses, so boss fights are the same roman war machine, with some new obstacles or made harder more each time, but still the same war machine, or other…. different war machines.

Even the final one is a bigger, bigger, Roman war machine, a new one, but still, it is obvious corner cutting just as it was at the time of release.

In terms of content and playtime, the game will take 10/11 hours to finish on the Normal setting, which also unlockes the Extreme difficulty setting, and to help replayability there are extra costumes to unlock by finding all the “allorum” collectables hidden in each area, with new optional battle challenges added for this remaster, alongside a gallery where to unlock concept art, illustrations and so on by using the overabudant amount of romans helms/money you’ll have by the end of the game.

And of course the various achievements/trophies added for good measure.

OVERALL EVALUTION

Overall, Asterix & Obelix: Romastered it’s a solid mid-tier remaster-port of an early PS2 action platformer, a decent one, preserved quite faithfully with its strenght and the by now old-school style of design, and with a nice option to switch between the original visuals & soundtracks or the remastered look and sound at the touch of a button, and some mild streamlined refiments.

The game holds up but it’s definitely a bit of an acquired taste, since even for the time it felt a bit ancient compared to some of its peers, not helped by its nature as a more old fashioned take on the 3D action platformer, meaning it’s no collectathon, just a fairly straighforward ensemble of platform challenges, some vehicle sequences, exploration, puzzles and simple combat, with some touch up, QoL features and a new graphical overhaul that can be switched back to its original incarnation, but mostly it’s the same game as it was back in 2003.

It’s a bit rough and one wishes it was made just a little later in the early 2000s so it could feature a proper hack n slash/beat em up style combat, but remains an entertaining action-platformer that does manage to feature the quirks of the Asterix & Obelix comics into the gameplay and perfectly capture the style of the beloved Gaul duo and their little world of cooked boars, magic potions, wise druids, roman soldiers sent flying into the stratosphere.

And gagging the village bard before he gets a note in, as always.

Fan of the PS2-era platformers will definitely enjoy it, it’s a decent-almost-good one from that period in time, one that also makes good use of the license it uses, so if you’re hankering for some vintage action-platformer fun, Asterix & Obelix XXL Romastered it’s worth a look, especially if you’re fans of the Asterix & Obelix comics and-or its many animated (and live action) films.

LEGACY

Evidently the game was fairly successful at the time of its original release, enough to spawn a direct sequel 3 years later, Asterix & Obelix XXL 2, which was also the first of the series to see the remaster-port treatment, later followed with a new game in the series, The Crystal Menhir.

I say evidently meaning it definitely sold enough for Atari to warrant investing in a sequel, even if not right away, and by that i mean more specifically it sold enough in Europe, which isn’t that surprising considering it was always more popular here…but i’m getting ahead of myself.0

After all, this became a series that technically had its latest game released in 2024, and at least the first two games are fondly remembered by a sizable (and admittely very nostalgic, as far as i can tell) fanbase, more than most of the many other Asterix & Obelix videogames.

OTHER VERSIONS

While in Europe we got the original game released on PS2, Gamecube and Windows (which to my understanding are pretty much the same), in the US it was released only on the PS2 as Asterix & Obelix: Kick Buttix, at least before this remastered version, which is also available on PC (Steam), Switch, and X-Box One, and there’s also a collection for PS4 and Switch with all 3 XXL games.

As most of the older folks know, when we had multiplatform release of 3D platformer, often we also got a version for the handheld consoles that due to limitations was either a 2D redux version of the game or an entirely different game altogether.

In this case we have a GBA version, which we could briefly go over here, but in this case we’re dedicating our first EXTEND addendum of Platformation Time Again, because it’s quite inusual.