Asterix & Obelix XXL: Romastered

I went in hoping for a clean, confident revival of a cult-favourite beat-em-up platformer and came out with a very specific kind of frustration: the kind where you can see exactly what the game could have been. OSome Studio took the 2003 original and gave it updated character models, revised sound, four difficulty modes including a locked Extreme tier, a speedrun timer, and two optional challenge types (Course and Countdown) scattered through the levels. The bones of the original trip across Gaul, Normandy, Greece, Helvetia, Egypt, and Rome are all here. So is everything that made those bones creak. On its own terms, this is a breezy 3D action-platformer with some light puzzle work and a steady flow of Roman legionaries to punch into the sky. You swap between Asterix and Obelix on the fly - Asterix is the quicker, lighter fighter with short sharp combos, while Obelix has a grapple that lets him grab enemies and spin them overhead like a cartoon sling. Dogmatix can be sent in to bite and stun, and the save system - whacking a sleeping druid to trigger a checkpoint - still lands a dry comic beat that fits the source material. The comic-book fan service is genuinely there, and for players who grew up with Goscinny and Uderzo, revisiting those locations carries a real warmth that is hard to fake. The problems start the moment you look past the IP affection. Combat is fundamentally a button-mashing exercise with very little depth beyond the character swap mechanic. Most enemy encounters resolve by planting yourself in the middle of a group and tapping attack until the screen clears. The helmet-collecting economy - crates stuffed into every corner of every level - sounds like a progression system but functions as filler, with a shop that offers so few items you will struggle to spend what you earn. Some NPC challenge gates demand you grind specific helmet counts mid-level through clunky controls, which tips from annoying into legitimately unfun. The camera remains a recurring liability, and PC players have flagged achievement bugs and audio loop issues that still surface years after launch. The visual upgrade, meanwhile, is cautious to a fault: level geometry is largely unchanged from 2003, and the new lighting occasionally makes areas look worse rather than better. The one feature that genuinely works is the on-the-fly toggle between the Romastered presentation and the original 2003 art style. It is a transparent, honest way to show exactly what changed - and in doing so, it highlights that the gap is narrower than the word remaster implies. If you never played the original, that toggle will tell you everything you need to know in about thirty seconds. For series newcomers, XXL 2 and XXL 3 are the stronger entry points. For returning fans, there is a specific, low-stakes charm here that a patient playthrough on Normal can still deliver - just go in with calibrated expectations and turn on the classic soundtrack. Alex, Scout Team