Another World: 20th Anniversary Edition

tl;dr: Overall, the game sure was mind-blowing back then, it's still fine now, but the port is very lazy and does not have music! I did not play this game until now so my opinion is not tainted by nostalgia, but I did grow up in the 8-bit generation so there may be a bias in that regard. Another World has been on my backlog for many years and I avoided spoilers all that time. I finally played it today and while the game still mostly holds up in my opinion, the port is one of the laziest I've seen: - This version has no music (that was already available from the Sega CD port) even though there is an option for "remastered" sound! It does nothing as far as I can tell. - The game uses the language of your operating system, no option to select. You need to rename language files to get English if your OS is not an english speaking locale. - The remastered visuals are sometimes very nice and in many cases really hideous. The first few screens look especially amazing, maybe for promotional reasons, but most of the game just got some cheap "lighting" effects airbrushed onto it with very little effort. - The game runs at 15 fps! Seriously. Input doesn't feel precise. - There are only "classic" and "remastered" visuals. No enhanced classic visuals like a higher resolution or more colors. Something in between "remaster" and "classic" would have been nice. - The menus look like a cheap mobile app. Again, no effort. - There are checkpoints, which is fine, the original version had them too. The game just hard resets you to them though. Without spoiling anything, if there are pre-requisites in the plot that you complete nearby and you die, it looks like you can advance, but then get stuck. You need to go back, solve that puzzle every time you die in that other section. Not sure if that was the same in the original, but that would have been a "modern" update to the game that made sense.

People who can't stand platform games or puzzle oriented games should stay clear of this title. Everyone else should at least like it. The atmosphere is unique and make good usage of what would otherwise be considered dated graphics to sell a unique setting and compelling visuals. The story is extremely visual and interestingly, is told without any dialogue. Weirdly enough, you wouldn't want any dialogue thrown in there. It just works better without it. A highlight of the story for me: Buddy (your computer controlled ally through the story line) provides support and comfort in an otherwise bleak and hostile world. To a large extent, they contrast with each other quite well. The puzzles in the game are varied and very clever. They'll require you to pay a lot of attention to detail and many will require trial and error as you can get "stuck" in this game, but you shouldn't worry too much about it as the automated save points will always save not too long before you reach any points of no return so you won't have to backtrack too far. For me, the weaker aspect of the game were the platform/action elements. For starters, the protagonists' kicks are puny (but thankfully, you'll grab a laser gun early and use it as your weapon for the remainder of the game so you'll only have to cringe at the kicks in the very beginning of the game). Furthermore, platform veterans will be somewhat disappointed by the atomic quality of the protagonist's actions. Unlike classic platformers like Megaman, you cannot really combine most action types (such as moving and charging your gun or moving and firing) in a creative manner to get out of a tight spot. Rather, many of the more challenging action segments will require that you predict what the baddies/environment will do and perform a well planned puzzle-like sequence of actions that has nothing to do with intuition and everything to do with trial-and-error as well as planning. In a way, its better to view the action segments as more puzzles to solve (albeit ones that require good reaction time and sometimes precision) rather than real action segments. In that regard, the automated save feature doesn't does as good a job at saving at critical moments between action segments as it does with the puzzles and you'll find yourself having to backtrack a number of times through the easy parts to finally get to the challenging spots that you will have to try a number of times to get it right. This repetition is probably the harshest criticism I can throw at the game. Overall though, the good greatly outweighs the bad and I can see why this game is considered a classic. A note of warning though: the game is very short. I finished it in 6 to 8 hours (might take longer for people who are not that familiar with platformers or puzzle/adventure games) which makes a 10$ price tag hard to justify. If you find the game on special, then its definitely a good buy because the time you will spend in the game will mostly be time well spent as there is no filler in this game.

i had this on my amiga 1200 and its got a sad ending if i remember right a good challenge

one of the best amiga games ever in a great edition. It is a must play classic

I love this od action puzle adventure...I fly away to the wing of time in to the '90 in my Lovley Amiga C=