Day Of The Tentacle Remastered (Crossbuy)

Editor's Notes

Digital PS4 version reviewed. 'Day of the Tentacle Remastered' is cross buy, cross play, and cross save between the PS4 version, and indeed, the review time included some significant play on the PS Vita.

Introduction

It's been decades, but now the 1993 LucasArts' classic, 'Day of the Tentacle' makes its triumphant return. Featuring new, hand-drawn art, remastered audio, intact classic mode, concept art gallery, commentary, and one of the better Easter eggs in gaming, ' Day of the Tentacle Remastered' debuts as a PS4/Vita, and PC/Mac game.

'Day of the Tentacle' is closely associated with one of its creators, Tim Schafer, but is also loosely framed as a sequel to Ron Gilbert's 1987 'Maniac Mansion.'

The Game Itself: Our Reviewer's Take

Let's just cut right to the chase. If I were to create a wish list of features for a 'Day of the Tentacle' PS4 port, I would have stopped short of what's been realized in the 'Day of the Tentacle Remastered.' It's as updated and friendly as I think possible short of remake or redesign. Unlike last year's 'Grim Fandango Remastered,' 'Day of the Tentacle' is a 2D adventure game and wow does that make the resulting remastering so much more palatable in spite of the game's age.

'Day of the Tentacle' ostensible cribs the interaction system of its forerunner, 'Maniac Mansion,' but the result is really a design that became very popular in the 90's and continues to this day. That is, the player searches around each environment for objects which will hopefully be useful in accessing the next environment or else in solving a puzzle needed to advance the story. At the same time, making these attempts and successes, gives the game ample opportunity to let the characters be funny.

At the same, the trial and error of puzzle solving, which for me sometime clicks happily and other times hits a brick wall, is penalty free. The only way to fail is to quit trying.

'Day of the Tentacle' has a little of the b-movie/sci-fi trappings of 'Maniac Mansion,' but it's really more in vein of classic Saturday morning/pre-feature cartoons. Painting a white strip on a black cat (in the far future no less) instantly turns it into a skunk, which in turn is useful for one specific situation.

Aside from the very Looney Tune-y style, which extends to each of the major and minor characters, the game employs a three-protagonist, parallel approach. This provides the player with a growing familiarity with the environment and NPCs which is useful for puzzle solving and for further parody. Even more tangible, this sets up the mechanic of having the player trading items and solving puzzles across time. This tends to make the Hoagie part of the game the most important and does involve some tedious treks to the time machine, but the execution is nevertheless pretty great in that zany way.

Along with the progression comes several moments of adulation as certain characters are foiled in one manner or another. Pulling the wool over the novelty joke purveyor (and Benjamin Franklin look-alike) was practically a high five moment.

I was looking forward to getting in-game on the PS4 and Vita, but once the game started, I had a moment of serious concern as I realized how cursor-intensive the game was. (Which is fine when using a mouse, but what a controller?) As it turns out, the DualShock 4 enabled control scheme is both easy and effective. For the most part, the collision detection for making selections is spot on. Only when pulling out certain objects from the inventory did I have any trouble, (like using the coffee pot or attaching the rope), but that's really just because the rest of the game was so natural.

The Vita controls were just as good, and some might argue better as the touch screen can also be used. On both platforms, pressing Up on the d-pad highlights all clickable items. Pressing Left or Right on the D-pad switches between characters (and thereby timelines). This is instant of the PS4, and just a tad slower on the Vita.

To be fair, I found the intact inclusion of the full 'Maniac Mansion' to be a huge bonus. It's not remastered in terms of art or sound, but it is the better PC version, and it controls and runs like better. (Though grabbing dimes from the Piggy Bank was extremely tricky on the Vita.) I've written a little about playing 'Maniac Mansion' in the 'Day of the Tentacle Remastered' here, and the only further thing that I want to point out is that the much sterner (easy to fail) nature of 'Maniac Mansion' is still really great to play. That game is darker (it even has some real tension), and makes great use of having different party members and different endings. This inclusion on its own makes this whole game worth it. (After beating 'Maniac Mansion' at least once, I suggest checking out this amazing post on the changes that had to be made to the NES version.)