Astérix and the Great Rescue scores 7/10 in the verdict of The Games Market editorial team.
Once Upon a Time
Asterix and The Great Rescue, brawling and fun!
by Simon Larocca·November 3, 2024
Talking about arcade video games,
whether they are platformers, fighting games or shooters, always means creating
small openings connected to the past, where the afternoons spent
in front of the cathode-ray tube television with a joypad in hand and wonder
in our eyes are nested. And those unrepeatable moments carry with them the seed of memory, and
it is thanks to this that I can recall my adventures playing Asterix and
The Great Rescue, aware of how much fun it gave me.
Title a must-have for every
owner of the Sega MegaDrive,
Asterix and the Great Rescue (in English everything always sounds better, who knows
why!) was released in stores in 1993,
probably the high point for Sega's superior console, and it spawned a version of the game also for its smaller sister,
the Master System. The character created by the French comic artist Goscinny was known all over the
world, and adapting his adventures set in the Roman era, an army
famous for its invincibility and unable to overpower the fierce
and folkloric Gauls, could only bring satisfaction to anyone
who had comics in their blood. And indeed the game starts from this
assumption: since Caesar and his men fail to prevail on the battlefield
against their tough enemies, they decide to act sneakily, kidnapping
Panoramix the druid and his beloved little dog. In this way, in their view,
Asterix and his people should finally surrender. Right?
Nothing could be more wrong.
Impersonating the mustachioed rooster and
his pot-bellied companion, we will set off to the rescue to free our friend,
through 2D levels that faithfully recreate
with excellent visual and sound results the atmospheres that fit so well
on paper. The choice of whom to use at the beginning of each level depends on
us; of course, the characteristics of Asterix and Obelix on paper differ
in skill and power, but in the end it won’t change much in terms of
strategic approach to the various obstacles, puzzles, and enemies we will face throughout the
levels, in full side-scrolling style like so many games of that video game golden age!
The impact we will have as we start playing will be nothing short of exciting: the sprites
of Asterix and Obelix do justice to the console on which the game is running,
and the colors of the MegaDrive
bring out the beauty of the natural settings, forests and villages first and foremost,
but even the underwater level offers many interesting points of interest when it
comes to properly praising the graphical power of the 16-bit console.
Nemeses
such as giant crabs, which will force you to become masters of timing in order not to run into yet another
unexpected death, are just one of the factors that place The Great
Rescue among the annals of the hardest titles ever: the learning curve does not
gradually ease as the levels progress, so don’t expect
gentle tutorials: from the very beginning you will have to sweat seven Gallic leather corselets
to defeat the Romans and finally free the druid and his
faithful four-legged friend!
What stands out in this
title is the ability to portray Asterix and Obelix in a way very similar
to their paper counterparts: the characters move exactly like them and
even small details like Asterix’s standing pose or their celebrations
at the end of each level constantly remind us of their origin in the comic-book world created by Goscinny.
Indubitably a title platform
to play, a pixel-format reminder of how video games of the Nineties
always knew how to give us something extra.
7
Pro
Goscinny's franchise comes to life thanks to the Mega Drive graphics
Level design respectful of comic-style settings
For those who love challenges, it’s a challenging game!
Contro
For those who don’t like challenges, it’s a challenging game!
Controlling Asterix and Obelix in some levels is rather tricky: no timing no victory
My name is Simon Larocca, and I am a gamer, collector, and lover of pop culture in all its forms. I go to the cinema whenever I can, I have been reading since I started wearing glasses, so, basically forever, and I have a passion for storytelling in all its forms, so powerful that it became my profession. But as Doc from Ritorno al Futuro would say, there would be no present if one did not look at the past with respect and admiration, and it is the Simon child of more than thirty years ago, give or take a year, who is to thank for that.
Simon Larocca
My name is Simon Larocca, and I am a gamer, collector, and lover of pop culture in all its forms. I go to the cinema whenever I can, I have been reading since I started wearing glasses, so, basically forever, and I have a passion for storytelling in all its forms, so powerful that it became my profession. But as Doc from Ritorno al Futuro would say, there would be no present if one did not look at the past with respect and admiration, and it is the Simon child of more than thirty years ago, give or take a year, who is to thank for that.
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