Asterix and the Great Rescue

[Foxysen]

After I learned that the main tactic versus all enemies is standing on one place and keep holding "punch" button, I somehow begun to enjoy it.

[goldenband]

Thread revive to say:

OMG! I guess this puts me on the sidelines again. Lol. This is, imo, one of the best titles to ever grace the Sega Genesis. The music and graphics are among the best of the 16 bit era. Also, it is one of the best 2D Platforming Puzzlers I've ever played in my life. Asterix FTW!!!

While I'm not quite as enthusiastic as QuickSciFi, I do think this game is very good -- verging on excellent -- and is certainly one hell of a lot better than the review makes it sound. The music is terrific, the graphics are fine, and the gameplay is a blast. To address the main criticisms in the review:

Yes, the attack range is limited and that's off-putting at first. But it's a deliberate design choice that, once you get used to it, never penalizes you (with the possible exception of the crocodile boss, which is kind of annoying). The manual even says "Let your enemies come to you", so it's not cagey about the dynamic it expects. I didn't have a problem with this at all, save for the aforementioned crocodile boss (and there it was only a minor issue).

Yes, the time limit can get tight, but only on Hard does it really breathe down your neck. On Easy, it's not an issue, and with lavish continues -- you get 5 on Easy, and the passwords don't store the number you have remaining anyway -- there's plenty of time to explore and learn the stage layouts. And this kind of game wants you to play it on Easy first, then Normal, so that when you get to Hard you already know the stages and can deal with the added challenge of having to blast through them quickly.

I'll admit the boss fights are a bit one-dimensional, and the later stages are comparatively short (especially in Rome itself) and seem rushed. But neither of those things really bother me. By the time I got to the end of each set of stages, having a simplistic boss fight was almost a relief, since what came before had been pretty demanding. Similarly, I don't mind "front-loaded" games where a lot of the difficulty comes early on, and then as you progress things actually get easier -- though there are a few nasty stages spread through the last three levels. Overall there's a good mix of longer, more involved stages and shorter, "one-trick pony" stages.

Actually, Asterix reminds me somewhat of Shadow of the Beast (a game I liked quite a lot). There are a lot of similarities: the limited attack range, the way that the game opens up as you learn it...and the way you can exploit certain potion respawn locations by scrolling them offscreen. Asterix is much longer, of course, and is broken up into smaller chunks with time limits, so it's like a bunch of sprints vs. Shadow of the Beast's marathon. BTW the review is incorrect about the game's levels -- it's not divided evenly into six stages + a boss fight per level; the Gaulish Village has something like 9-10 stages, whereas Germany has only six or so.

(It's almost like someone crossed Shadow of the Beast with The Smurfs -- another tricky platformer that uses licensed characters, passwords, and so on. Not coincidentally, all three of these games are also Euro titles; I'm beginning to see that I'm much more receptive to the Euro aesthetic than the average gamer/Sega-16 poster.)

That said, Asterix does have problems, ranging from the petty to the substantial. The default control scheme is stupid -- the exact reverse of what it should be -- and that would've wrecked the game had it not been configurable. More significantly, the item selection scheme is awkward, and on multiple occasions I changed an item when I meant to use it, or vice versa. I didn't bother with Obelix, and I agree that his inclusion is almost pointless.

I also found myself cursing at the game for (sometimes) not using color or shape to differentiate between platforms that collapse under you, and those that don't. In several levels, there's simply no way to know which leaf or rock will support you and which one will fall -- except memorization. Unfortunately, the game's biggest control problem shows up here: if a platform starts to fall, it's very hard (maybe impossible) to jump off of it. And since they fall within less than a second, there's almost no margin for error.

Speaking of margins, the game does expect almost pixel-perfect jumps and attacks in a few places, and those can get aggravating. But the levels are short enough, and memorizable enough (with just the right number of secrets), that it's not a big hassle to practice until you get the hang of it. And Asterix can take 6 hits before dying, and the game has no instant deaths except for falling, so "perfection" isn't usually required. Plus if you're clever, you can find alternate routes through many stages, especially the ones that mainly scroll vertically.

I realize that different people are into different styles of games, that one person's feast is another's famine, and so on. But this review seems borderline unjust -- this game is a bona fide hidden gem, IMHO -- and it pains me to see something with so much TLC (and a few flaws) get panned so brutally. I'd give it 7/10 and am tempted to go to 8/10; even accounting for variations in taste, anything less than 5/10 seems like an injustice to me. Otherwise, you're just penalizing the game for being part of a genre or gameplay style you don't like.

[Christuserloeser]

If you give this a 7/10 you'll have to give Sega's Asterix and Asterix and the Secret Mission 99/10.

[goldenband]

If you give this a 7/10 you'll have to give Sega's Asterix and Asterix and the Secret Mission 99/10.

Haven't tried either of them, but I'm always up for trying SMS cousins to Genesis platformers I like. Do they run OK on a NTSC Master System/Genesis? I know there's a Brazilian release of Asterix and the Secret Mission but I don't seem to have a separate dump of it.

[BrianC]

Haven't tried either of them, but I'm always up for trying SMS cousins to Genesis platformers I like. Do they run OK on a NTSC Master System/Genesis? I know there's a Brazilian release of Asterix and the Secret Mission but I don't seem to have a separate dump of it.

I have the first SMS Asterix. It not only plays very well on a NTSC SMS, but is a blast to play too. Other JP developed EU only games play great on US SMS as well (even some EU developed games play well on US SMS). I'm not sure of the Genesis games, but those might be region locked or optimized for PAL.

[gio]

This game is really bad. Not like Asterix and the power of gods (Astérix et le pouvoir des dieux en français) which is really excellent game, very true to the comic.
And The power of gods was translated in french ! What is the least we can do for Asterix.

[Wesker]

Haven't tried either of them, but I'm always up for trying SMS cousins to Genesis platformers I like. Do they run OK on a NTSC Master System/Genesis? I know there's a Brazilian release of Asterix and the Secret Mission but I don't seem to have a separate dump of it.

The Brazilian releases are rarer so it's nonsense to go after them when you can have the European releases. The games are pretty much the same and work perfectly in either region and system.

This game is really bad. Not like Asterix and the power of gods (Astérix et le pouvoir des dieux en français) which is really excellent game, very true to the comic.
And The power of gods was translated in french ! What is the least we can do for Asterix.

Nothing to be surprised of. Both games were translated under the usual multi-5 euro policy.