A trailer is out for the forthcoming remastered version of Day of the Tentacle.

So the artwork has been redone in a style that looks very similar to that of the original, just higher-resolution. Not sure if it’s been redrawn from scratch, or just put through some filters. It looks like it could be made out of vectors, perhaps.

In any case, I have a nagging feeling the graphics have somehow lost some of their charm. Is this just nostalgia at work? Maybe the issue is, in those old days of slightly blocky-o-vision, there was room for your imagination to fill in gaps about that pokey rural motel and the off-beat characters we met. Now we see the game with a new level of clarity and it disappointingly adds nothing, revealing only flat colour.

Of course no-one was actually trying to create pixel art in 1993. That’s a modern fashion. Back then it was just art, done to the highest standard the technology allowed. So maybe this was the original intent? I’d like to think, though, that the artists would have included more detail if they could.

Or maybe the animation, which didn’t have a whole lot of frames to it, is the issue. This was a problem with with that Monkey Island remaster from a few years back; Guybrush’s 3-frame actions were fine in ye olde VGA but just looked cheap when done in higher-def artwork.

This sounds like nerd complaining, which is something I try not to over-do here. So I should say, it’s good just to be able to buy the game once again. Despite it being my favourite of the Lucasarts adventures, I somehow never owned a legit copy. Now I can get one on the convenience of digital distribution. Also the new artwork is optional, so it’s there for people who appreciate the cleaner lines, and can be turned off for those who want to totally return to ’93.