One might wonder why i’m not reviewing this one as a Platformation Time Again subject.
That is because, confusingly, the third entry in this series of platforming-action games… isn’t a platformer at all.
Yeah, took me by surprise because why wouldn’t it be, especially now with the retro 3D platformer revival going on to this day?
Regardless, this is the third entry in the series, meaning its a brand new game developed by Osome Studio, makes sense as they handled the remasters/ports of the first two games that launched on PS2 20+ years ago, as Microids is definitely seeing a lot more return in using the Asterix & Obelix license than others, like their Marsupilami game (remember that? I kinda do and kinda not), not really a surprise, since the Uderzo & Goscinny created comic book series has been popular for decades in Europe, France obviously, but others including Italy as well.
But we’ve discussed this before, so let’s get to the plot.
The plot is also untied to the previous XXL games…. or is it?
Honestly i thought at first the character of Marcus Sacapus (Ginandtonicus in the english version, like what they did to keep the punny names in translation), a Roman general that’s supposed to be returning (and familiar with the duo) was maybe from the most recent animated film of the time, Asterix And The Magic Potion, but nope, he’s a fairly forgotten character that appears only in the volume/issue “Asterix The Gaul”, and indirectly he appears also in the animated 1957 films that adapts that story. One deep cut indeed.
I though to that film because they do make a couple of vague lines referencing XXL 2, but the first one its so vaguely worded i wasn’t sure if they were referring to the events of The Magic Potion animated film or the main plot point of the kidnapped druids of XXL 2, could have been both, but i guess it was a reference to the previous game, and the other one being a single throwaway line of Asterix and Obelix reminiscing about the “Las Vegum” thing when you’re in Rome.
Meaning you don’t really need to have played the first XXL games, with the plot this time around being fairly good, and not about just the Romans but more this old friend of Panoramix, the Thulean priestess Frida, being missing, and entrusting (via a letter) to find her via the “crystal menhir” she constructed, but now lays dormant as she hid the menhir fragments over various places in the world to avoid its power falling in the wrong hands. Especially Ceasar’s..
The interactions are funny and perfectly replicate the humour and tone of the strip, and it’s a relief that this time the plot isn’t drowned out by a slurry of references that also hid some low effort in coming up with a story, and it’s dubbed in various European languages, even though the cutscenes are done via the in-game engine only here, meaning not much lip or character movement, also due to the first notable change/choice over previous XXL games: the camera.
It’s a bit odd to see an Asterix & Obelix game rocking a isometric prospective akin of Diablo, even more when it doesn’t really play like that, with a very weird ensemble of choices, like keeping the combat simplistic as it was 20+ years ago….but also removing platforming altogether. Kinda.
Gameplay is definitely “the something”, bringing back some stuff from the first XXL game, like the linear progression via the world map, there’s still the emphasis on combat and a little on “puzzle solving” with little space given to exploration, but it’s not a platformer, as you don’t have a jump button anymore… which is weird since eventually the game will require you to figure out how to pull off “quasi-platforming”, not just for some extra collectibles but to reach some key quest items (and this only becomes more prevalent as the game progresses), so it feels like a weird cop-out over avoiding platforming all together, for whatever reason.
Which i wouldn’t lament much if they actually made combat better than it was 2 decades ago, or IF these “dash used as a quasi jump” sections worked well with the isometric camera… they don’t, so often you overshoot and fall into burrows or deep water, losing half a heart.
Yep, can’t even swim anymore. You could do that in the GBA version of Asterix & Obelix XXL.
Sigh. At least this goes both ways, as i guess the Roman Empire didn’t do “doggie paddle training”.
Combat it’s still mindless as ever, sure, the ARPG style set up for using the various special skills it’s an improvement as its the energy system in terms of balancing, and it can get difficult more than i expected even early in, still, using Idefix is a good way to break the enemies guard when you don’t have energy for upward launch/shield destroying special move
I will say slapping the enemies is satisfying, it is, but there are no real combos, in terms of combat Asterix and Obelix are the same, Obelix never feels heavier or hits harder than Asterix, and while Obelix gets the the menhir ground slam move… Asterix gets shit. Not even a Dale Gribble “pocket sand” attack to stun enemies, which would actually be in character. Or SOMETHING.
If it wasn’t for Asterix being able to use the magic potion pick ups and Obelix having the Idefix/Dogmatix attack instead of the potion… he would play exactly the same as Obelix, and frankly in single player there’s no real motive to NOT play as Obelix in combat, since he has more moves and the special attacks are the same as Asterix’s. There are upgrades at the shop, but – surprise – they don’t change squat, they just improve already existing abilities/special moves, extend by a max of two hits the main – and only – combo attack, and the rest are just health upgrades and the likes, useful but feels like this was okay… for a 2002-04 PS2 game, not a 2019 release.
I also noticed Obelix isn’t identical in the sense he takes less slaps to take down the same enemy Asterix has to wail on more, he’s slower but since there’s no timed objectives that don.t involve fighting as well as something else, it still befuddles me how little has XXL 3 improved things despite the 20 plus years of videogames and its many improvements.
The new major addiction to gameplay is the titular Crystal Menhir, which Obelix gets/has to carry around and that also grant him the ability to use elemental menhir attacks by slamming the thing on the ground, which help in battle and exploration in the expected/banal ways you’d think, but at least they don’t invalidate the usage of the base non-elemental menhir.
Not much else has change drastically otherwise, and while the progression is linear, the regions/levels do have some side missions you can take by talking to some specific NPCs…. its mostly the same handful (or less) of mission types, heck, in Gaul (the first level/world) one of the side missions is the ol’ “herd back a chicken to a specified NPC or location”…. on the next region/level, one of the secondary missions is to find a friend of the chieftain… whom happens to be another black feathered chicken, so yeah, aside from some outlier ones (like carrying barrels without having themd damage by snowballs), they just immediatly start rehashing the side corn to pad out the thing. Using Idefix to find buried collectibles its cute though.
I will say that this does have something that the previous XXL games didn’t: co-op.
Local, drop-in, drop-out couch co-op, which is nice, finally is here, and hence some of the old moves are reshuffled here (also due to the aforementioned energy system and the ARPG style for pulling off stuff like hurling Romans, etc), as in, those that let one character juggle romans between each other, pity you can’t choose who plays as which, Player 1 is Asterix, player 2 is Obelix.
Still, it’s almost laudable how ancient most of the designs have remained, to the point even the game trying to offset its repetitive nature…. makes one wonder if Osome Studio wasn’t given a scrapped build from 2007 of a potential sequel to XXL and told to make something out of it, i mean, it has that specific sensibility about “offering variety”, to the point in Crete they have you do a stealth mission.
Is there a stealth system of sorts? Of course no.
Lines of sight work by cartoon logic so even if they should be able to see you, they won’t because you’re behind a boulder or something, but you also get no radar, no idea of where the other patrol troops are, the isometric angle of the game works against the very idea, BUT at least it’s fairly easy and stupid, as the IA characters don’t trigger them in single player, and it’s the only stealth section in the entire game. Thankfully so.
This is not to say the game is awful, it’s not, and they tried to improve upon the previous games, with some concessions to modernity and a more streamlined attempt at meshing the various elements, meaning there’s the occasional scuffle but mostly it about progressing through the levels, solving the very simple puzzles, taking quests and items for NPCs, with most of the big combat dealios reserved for Roman fortified outposts that offer a challenge and serve as conclusion to the chapters, striking overall a better balance between the various gameplay elements.
Even those these Roman forts assaults can be quite frustrating, not because they’re too difficult, but because these areas aren’t small AND they don’t have checkpoints like the regular worlds/maps that make most of the game.
These eventually offer some variety but still, the lack of checkpoints during the “Roman arenas” sections can be frustrating as hell, since there you also see the limits of the combat system, and the game loving to throw those javelin Romans (and the fuckin archers) that can easily stunlock your character, or shields that the magic potion buff somehow doesn’t break (which it would make sense but it also doesn’t grant invincibility, which it technically, canonically should).
I guess these are design decisions made for balance, i get it, but they feel cheap, and very old fashioned, sitting on top of already old-fashioned ensemble of choices, or the costant oddity of them still designing some locales around platforms without giving you a jump, not even an indirect one like in Bionic Commando.
And admittedly they tried to do their best with the old fashion “elemental flavored weapon” shtick, like how the menhir elemental fragments improve not only exploration but combat, and the metal menhir also does some nifty things, as it can both create a magnetical pull to attract items, interact with switches, and create a force field, useful especially since – as i lamented just before – you don’t have much recourse against ranged units like archers.
Just wish the game did more with that, but on the upside, the game doesn’t make you waste time to get the various elemental gems for the menhir, the plot does move fairly fast without stretching things out too much, nor trying to do so in order to fulfill some “videogame quotas”, and it does try to offer some variety, by throwing in some escort missions that require holding and moving characters hidden in crates or something like that, and eventually you’ll find sidequests that offer brand new objectives or mini-challenge, like one in Tyrus when you have to grab-launch romans in order to destroy objects in a distant Roman cargo ship.
Still, there are some niggles, like would be nice to not show the prompt for interacting with NPCs during fights, since some battles are in urban areas and the interact button is the same as the Obelix menhir ground slam move, sometimes the objective indicator can be unclear of where exactly you need to go (sometimes overthinking doesn’t help, it’s always the simpler solution), on the upside it’s often something logical that does force you to use both characters abilities and sizes, as expected by now, even if that means having to resort to some janky methods.
Speaking of, my first impressions of the game were pretty awful, because even with the patches it’s still a fairly janky and occasionally buggy game, on my first go it crashed-froze randomly before i could finish the tutorial level, 10 minutes in, on the second try it did crash, almost immediatly after continuining from the autosave (thank god for those), on the third it finally worked fine.
Once it froze for a second, making me enraged but then immediatly unfroze itself and let me continue, so the fuck?
It can be unstable, or i have some really bad luck with it, but aside from these first impressions, then the game runs fine enough, to be honest.. mostly.
It still can freeze out of nowhere than resume immediatly, sometimes i exited to the PS4 dashboard, resumed the game/application and that fixed it, sometimes the same worked but with some seconds of delay and input delay, sometimes i had to exit to the dashboard and close the game from there,
And for whatever reason, the first area/level (just that) can have performance issues so notable i was afraid it was gonna crash or just stop working at any second. Again, after this chicanery, i never had a single crash or game breaking bug… though it’s still pretty buggy, as often Asterix or Obelix will be stuck in a lever pulling animation that they suddendly will “unstuck” themselves from, sometimes some elements in the background or in the scenery will flicker or glitch out.
One i noted is that in the early part of the Rome area even coming close where the water laden areas are will make the character act like they fell in it despite a wall separating both, once i had to reflip a switch because i did drain the water from that area but the game still made the character plop into invisible water, after that i never had that issue, but it’s indicative of how jank-ass the game can be.
Sometimes even the narration in the cutscenes will glitch for some seconds (which is funny), and a couple of times i even saw the game have dialogue boxes in the wrong order for Asterix and Obelix chatting, always in those istances where there’s no dub, which isn’t that surprising since this is just a notch above a budget release, but it’s annoying because most of the times the lines are dubbed by the VAs, it’s cutting corners,
In terms of lenght, the game it’s not that long, for best or worse it’s about on par with XXL 2, on Normal the game will take about 6/7 hours to finish, is still shorter than the first XXL game, and yes, while its not padded out… it could have used at least one more region/area, and i do wonder if they did plan to have more to in order to retrieve a Menhir elemental fragment, but couldn’t make in time; in Thule especially you’d expect to have to go into an ice cave or dungeon…. they go, but it cuts to after they went there and its retrieved.
There are more collectibles and mini-side quests often tied to them, outside of the secondary missions, like the Idefix scavenger hunts, plus the various difficulties and achievements/trophies… and some 2 bucks costume DLCs that i guess were pre-order bonuses before?
There is some replayability to it, arguably a bit more than before.. but again, not much, and that’s the main issue overall with XXL 3.
I’m not going for the stupid “Duke Nukem Forever” line of defense, trying to judge a game with standards from a decade before instead of the ones of the time it actually released in, even if it’s tempting because i love Asterix & Obelix, i liked the XXL games, so i was happy to see them do a new one… but this a mediocre disappointment, and i get no joy in saying this.
It’s not awful, mind you, there’s fun to be had, but there’s so MUCH more than could have been done, and instead we get a sequel that seems to have been put on ice in 2007 and released a decade later, given how so little of the many improvements and streamlined features we take for granted in videogames are… simply not there, even more when the older games at the times felt already a bit too old fashioned 20 years ago, so you’d figure they improved
Heck, you’d might argue we even regressed from XXL 2, as this isn’t a platform anymore, but also not a proper modern beat em up, nor a Diablo-like despite the isometric prospective.
It’s a weird compromise that seems confused and isn’t interested in being better… well it does improve some elements and unites some of both the original XXL game and the sequel, but this stuff it’s so basic you’d reasonably take these for granted, in a 2018 release.
It’s simply very repetitive almost from the first hours, and the elemental powers the menhir gets as you progress help but not much, a bit but not much, again, it’s a fossil in terms of game design choices and “streamlining”, while not commiting to any particular “gameplay backbone”, aside mindless combat that even for the PS2 in 2002 felt a bit like old hat, and some very simple enviromental “puzzles” that are mostly a matter of pushing levers, alongside the odd workarounds about platforming, since you can’t jump but the game kinda wants that anyway, so you’ll have to “dash” your way across platforms and chasms, confusingly enough.
It’s a shame because despite the low-to-mid budget, the game is quite pleasant to look at, the characters are on point as always and the plot is good this time around, free of the “parroting curse” and “parody bonanza” of XXL 2, but gameplay it’s so ancient even retro gamers might struggle to believe it’s NOT a remaster of a 10 or 20+ year old game, released alongside the other two XXL games, if not for some small concessions like the ARPG set up for special moves.
It’s not even THAT bad, it’s just so baffling how little concessions to modernity or higher quality standards of today XXL 3 gives out, doing its own outdated, unfocused compromise-regression.
Fans of the series will get something out of this, like i did , i genuinely did get some fun out of it, but it’s understandable most people not caring when the quality of the “new” Asterix & Obelix XXL game is such, so i’d recommend reading the comics or seeing some of the movies, or otherwise just get the collection with all 3 XXL titles in it, though at least here in Europe Asterix & Obelix XXL 3 on its own is fairly cheap and easy to get.
As hinted in the Platformation Time Again reviews of the previous games, the series would eventually continue, with Asterix & Obelix XXXL: The Ram From Hibernia, released in 2022, and more recently we got Asterix & Obelix: Slap Them All! 2, which are gorgeous looking old school 2D sidescrolling beat em ups i want and will get to. Maybe next year.
Still holding out for that Asterix Musou so i can slap Romans by the thousand with the bard, or as the fucking fishmonger. Oh well.
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