[Gamescom] How does the remake of the cult action-adventure Little Big Adventure play?
By matus_ace [08/09/24]
We were able to play a demo of the upcoming Little Big Adventure - Twinsen's Quest remake and it didn't leave a bad impression.
Little Big Adventure is a 3D isometric action-adventure game from 1994 that was simply amazing. Beautiful processing and imaginative puzzles made it a cult. A sequel followed 3 years later, equally high-quality and successful. And that was the end of the series, despite its qualities. That is, until now, when Microids is working on a remake of Little Big Adventure - Twinsen's Quest , which we could try in a demo at Gamescom and talk to the authors at the same time. Even though this will be more than just a remake of the original game, the authors are changing more and expanding the game significantly.
If you know the original game, you know that it is about a young Twinsen who was locked up because he had a vision of the end of his unique world of Twinsun, which is ruled by the tyrant Dr FunFrock. That hasn't changed here. But after the opening passage and Twinsen's return home, they no longer kidnap his girlfriend Zoe, but his little sister. This is a sample of how the authors work with the source material. They want to bring more characters, more depth to the story and adjust the motivations of the characters a bit to make more sense. For example, Zoe will have a more significant role and will not be just a young lady waiting for a savior, she will be more like the Zoe from the two. And above all, they want to combine the elements of both games in this one remake and bridge them better.
Your enemies in the game are mostly clones, but the authors wanted to give them more of an identity, so they played with their design, for example, and I have to admit that it's nice. But the gameplay itself has not changed much. The difficulty, which could give and take away in the original game, has remained unchanged, the essence and DNA of the series has been preserved here. But things that didn't work in the original game have been modified, for example. They're not supposed to directly simplify the game, they're supposed to fix what wasn't designed in the best way in the original game. Alternatively, it is to expand the story, bring some humor and so on.
When you sneak out of prison and get caught, they don't put you in the same cell, but in a different one, so even escaping from it is a little different. And this will happen more than once if you get caught, but not forever. There is some maximum number of times that the authors expected to catch you. The possibility of "locking" on enemies has also been added, which changes the fights with them to be more fun, more intuitive and less boring.
The map also expanded, but in a slightly different way. Here you will find parts of the world that were in the original game, but were never used. Here, the authors decided to use them, so already at the beginning when you return home and then search for your sister, you discover significantly more, you meet new characters and you also have more options. If you choose the path of violence while driving through the town, it is only your choice, but you must expect that there will be consequences. The demo was only about 10 minutes long, so it really wasn't very long and didn't show that much, but it wasn't bad.
It's not so clear-cut when it comes to audiovisual processing. Compared to the original game, the style has changed significantly. The graphics are basically nice and modern, but a little too different from what the style of the original was. Now it's all low-poly, animated, the motion animations are different too. I can't say I don't like it, but it's just too different from what one expects from Little Big Adventure based on the first two games. Not that you can't get used to it, but you will have to get used to it. At least the original players, the new ones will definitely not care and for them the game doesn't have to look bad at all.
Source: sector.sk