Zool Redimensioned Review (ReL0aDed)
I have now reached world 4, Toy World in Zool Redimensioned, and I can honestly say that this version of this game finally makes Zool an enjoyable game. I'm in my mid thirties now and was first exposed to the original Zool game on my brothers Amiga way back in the early 1990s. I remember playing Zool with an invulnerability cheat, just running through all the levels with the challenge being navigating through all those levels, collecting the required items and finally reach the exit.
Playing without cheats back in the day made the game very hard, and not in a fair sense. The game was way to fast for the low screen resolution of something like 320x240 on the Amiga. The other issue (which was not that uncommon with games on the Amiga) with this game was that you would have to choose between the awesome soundtrack or sound effects on the original Amiga release, so the sound effects had to go.
There was also a Sega Genesis- & an SNES release of this game, with the Genesis version having a not-so-great audio quality when you talk about the soundtrack, and the SNES version (although having better music quality) suffering from that cramped 8:7 aspect ratio (usually stretched to fit a 4:3 TV back in the day). Zool Redimensioned actually includes the Sega Genesis version of this game, which is a nice addition.
This is the ultimate & only version one would need to play of Zool 1 in my humble opinion. The single greatest addition to this version of Zool 1 has to be the higher screen resolution compared to the original Amiga version; now you can actually see the enemies before smashing into them. Now Zool is no longer too fast for his own good, because there's no problems avoiding obstacles and enemies now with this upped screen resolution. Zool Redimensioned seems to be more inspired by the Sega Genesis version rather than the Amiga one if you compare art-styles, but at least now you have the excellent music quality from the Amiga version and sound effects as well.
Quality of Life additions such as the three optional objectives like collecting the 3 big items in a stage, completing a stage within a set time limit & completing a stage without losing a single life surely adds a bit more replay value to the game. The game also saves your progress, making it possible to continue your progress and even replay previous levels if you would like to (like getting the bonus objectives on each stage). Achievments has also been added, achievments is always a good thing to include in any game in my opinion.
This may not be a particulary long game to finish, or even one of the more revolutionary platforming games made in the early 90s, but playing this game once again with this enhanched Zool Redimensioned port actually makes this game a fun 2D platformer to play without using cheats for the first time ever in my opinion. If you're into 2D platforming games, and enjoy 2D platforming games like Sonic & Super Mario I'll guess you'll get your moneys worth playing this game. I'm having a blast with it.
I wonder what's next? Maybe Zool 2 Redimensioned?