Gargoyles Remastered: Heart of Stone
Gargoyles is a beloved cult animated series that was arguably a little too mature for its time in the mid-90s Disney Afternoon slot to find the audience it deserved. Nevertheless, like nearly every other animated property of that same era, it still got a video game. For the time, it certainly captured the look of the series as well as you could manage on 16-bit systems. Unfortunately, the gameplay wasn’t much to write home about and while not completely forgotten, the Gargoyles video game isn’t as fondly remembered as other greats of the era like Aladdin or Quackshot.
Nevertheless, we are in an age where remasters of older games, no matter if they were good or bad, well-remembered or extremely obscure, are happening on a rather regular basis. And so with this in mind, we come to the release of Gargoyles Remastered, a faithful recreation of the original game for modern platforms along with a couple of new bells and whistles. Is this enough to warrant a purchase for any other than the most diehard of fans?
Sadly, not really. While the option of a look closer to the animated series (you can choose to either play with the new graphics or the original, but not switch back and forth at will as some remasters allow you to do), the new graphics honestly look little better than a well-done flash game you’d see on a place like Newgrounds, and the way Goliath and various enemies animate and react to hits are like that too to the point where sometimes it’s hard to tell if you are even hitting them in some occasions (or they you).
And ultimately, there’s just not much to the gameplay of Gargoyles Remastered. You only play as Goliath, he has basically one offensive maneuver, his claw swipe, and that along with pretty dodgy controls is all you have to get you through levels with some pretty cheap enemies and obstacles. Also, like many games of the time, it’s an incredibly short game, as in it can be completed in under an hour.
These problems could be much alleviated if the overall package was better. There’s no concept art, behind-the-scenes features, maybe something on the show itself, include a couple of episodes, anything. Beyond the optional graphical improvement and the ability to save your game wherever there’s just nothing extra here.
As an extensive release with lots of extras or as part of a package with other Disney games that have yet to get a re-release, Gargoyles Remastered would make plenty of sense. As is, bothering to release it like this is mind-boggling, there’s really no incentive to pick it up and it’s very likely if you do you’ll play it for 30 minutes and never touch it ever again because it simply does not give a reason to. A truly disappointing remaster when there’s a wealth of great ones out there.
That’s it for today, I have logged a little bit of time with Spider-Man 2, and I’ll certainly have some deeper thoughts on it next weekend. Until then, see ya real soon!
