GAME CLEAR No. 143 -- PowerSlave Exhumed

PowerSlave Exhumed (2022, Multiplatform)

Remaster of: PowerSlave (1996, Multiplatform)
Original Developer: Lobotomy Software
Original Publisher: Playmates Interactive, BMG Interactive
Remaster Developer: Nightdive Studios
Remaster Publisher: Nightdive Studios, Throwback Entertainment
Clear Date: 9/4/23
Clear Platform: PS5

I don’t wanna die

When you dive into retro games the way I do, PowerSlave is the kind of game you live for. A Doom clone (from back when that sort of meant something) with an Egyptian theme? But it’s also got some Metroid-style abilities-and-backtracking stuff going on? And it’s a little different on PS1 and Saturn? And it’s never been ported to more modern platforms? Wow, this game has it all.

That’s what I thought before 2022, anyway. This was exactly the kind of game that made those retro store visits fun and made owning old hardware worth it. It was a chance to play a game that was at once a product of its time and ahead of its time. Unfortunately, it was also super expensive, so I never bought it. The pandemic exacerbated this problem as it did with all old games, so that pushed it even further out of reach.

Fortunately, Nightdive came to the rescue and remastered the game, smashing the exclusive bits of the PlayStation and Saturn versions together in the process. Wow! Now that’s what I call a quality retro product.

Well, it’s a solid retro product anyway. Like Nightdive’s other projects (or at least the ones I’ve tried), what you’re getting here is a port of an old game that looks and plays better than ever and has some nice QOL updates and polish but that is still fundamentally PowerSlave more or less as it was in 1996. It does get bonus points for merging the PS1 and Saturn versions into one experience, making it the surefire definitive edition of the game.

And that’s all great! But in some ways, I feel that this sort of thing should be the bar for classic game ports or re-releases. The reality is that such ports often fall short of that mark, but in my opinion what I’ve described above should be what companies that do this sort of work should strive for as a minimum viable product. There are exceptions for games like The World Ends with You, which relies on input methods that are not offered on popular modern platforms, but for a rather traditional product like PowerSlave, I don’t think its an unreasonable expectation. Nightdive regularly hits that bar, and it’s nice to have a company like them around to trust as a consumer with this kind of thing. I hope they maintain this standard under their new ownership by Atari.

That’s all a bit of a digression, though, I realize. Yes, this is the best version of PowerSlave, but is it actually good?

Mostly! Like so many old curiosities of its kind, PowerSlave is a mixed bag that is ahead of its time in some ways, but in the process of trying new things, it sometimes falls short of greatness. For example, the introduction of ability gating to the still-nascent FPS genre is pretty cool! In Doom staying quick on your feet is essential to survival, and PowerSlave really raises those stakes by increasing your mobility options over time. It’s a fun and rewarding power creep. But then the game inexplicably completely ignores these abilities in boss fights, where they could be really interesting! It’s a game that can frustrate as often as it delights, but sometimes that’s a nice antidote to the banality of more mainstream titles.

I guess my super short description of this game would be that it’s almost really cool, and in some ways that can be fun to experience first hand. For some though, a YouTube video about it might be just as enjoyable. Only you can decide how you spend your precious time in this life.