Thanks to Eastasiasoft for the review code
Title: Montezuma’s Revenge – The 40th Anniversary Edition
System: Steam (PC)
Price: $19.99
Release Date: 01/16/2025
Story
Here’s a familiar game! A good while ago, I covered a very simple port of a more recent NES reissue of the classic adventure game, Montezuma’s Revenge. Well, now the original game has been remade in full 2.5D, and uh, you can probably guess how this may turn out by looking at it. Either way you’re in an ancient ruin to try and take all the treasure!
However, that’s not all! While I’m focusing strictly on the base game for this review, a faithful recreation of the original pixel version is available as DLC for this Steam reissue. $20 DLC, that is, unless you spend $30 to get the both of them together. Yeah, so you have to buy the game two times to get the two different interpretations, or spend almost half the price of a big retail game to get them both at the same time. Why Director’s Cut isn’t a separate SKU on Steam, I don’t know.
Short form thoughts on the Director’s Cut of the original, since this review is of the other version; DC is pretty good and more fun than this 2.5D remake, but the UI is a bit of a mess with selection highlights that don’t make much sense (I kept choosing the opposite option of what I intended far too many times to count) and some pretty hideous menus, plus the game is still just as brutal as ever although it does massively revamp the original rooms and expand the game by quite a lot. My preferred version of the two, honestly, but the main version is the 2.5D remake, so that’s what we’ll review here…
Presentation
OK I’m just gonna cut to the chase. Montezuma 40th Anniversary Edition might just be the ugliest and most obnoxious game I’ve played for SFG in quite a while. A very bad attempt at transitioning the classic adventure game into 2.5D, going with some of the most soulless and borderline creepy character models I’ve ever seen. The UI is hideous, the main game is hideous, and the sound is terrible.
Oh god, the sound. The OST is just an obnoxious, incredibly generic loop of generic tracks that don’t really do any good. They go in one ear, out the other, and you may end up scrambling to mute the background music just to keep your sanity intact, as these generic tunes are truly that bad. In fact, this remake tries to add an extra bit of “personality” by having the spirit of the temple taunt you every time you die or do anything significant, which is constant considering the difficulty of the game and size of these rooms. These taunts have voice lines which get incredibly grating in no time at all, and while you thankfully can mute the voiceover, you cannot disable the text taunting you with the same, terrible one liners over and over and over again. Just truly insufferable.
The original game didn’t really have much of an OST to begin with, but I’m astounded a remake 40 years later managed to end up with a way worse presentation, which is even more confusing when you considering how the Director’s Cut edition looks great with the sharp pixels you know and love.
Gameplay
So Montezuma’s Revenge was a very early example of the metroidvania format. You go into a big temple, explore the many rooms while trying to find keys and masks to progress deeper into the temple until you encounter Montezuma himself. Several levels of varying sizes are in the game, and the game thus has some decent popularity as a result, especially thanks to ports on Master System and various computers.
This 40th anniversary version is unfortunately, probably one of the worst attempts to remake a game I’ve ever experienced, which is weird since if I list off some QOL attempts, it sounds pretty good on paper! You have the ability to continue infinitely, meaning you can just keep throwing yourself at the wall until you finally get past the trickiest rooms, along with multiple difficulty option and the ability to save anywhere and pick up right where you left off in a stage. No more starting from the beginning anytime you game over!
Unfortunately, even with these QOL attempts, none of that can excuse either the horrendous presentation, and worst of all, the bad controls. You know how 2D games are meant to be played with a D-Pad, or at the very least, with snappy movement so that there isn’t much difference playing with either a D-Pad or a stick? For some reason in this 3D remake, you must use the left analog stick. No D-Pad support whatsoever! Don’t think you can fix it with the Steam input and make everything better either, as for reasons I cannot possibly fathom, your character still does a 360 degree turn when switching directions. You can even hold up or down and have the character face the camera or away from it! Now this doesn’t mean you have analog movement or anything, but it did lead to many, many times where precise platforming jumps became pure trials of hell to overcome. I’m talking like, four to five continues in the same room just to get past a stupid jump before the response timing and play control feel clunky as all hell. Considering how super snappy the NES port was, this was pretty darn sad to experience.
So yes, in terms of the base Montezuma’s Revenge 40th experience, this remake is bad. It controls poorly, is way too frustrating for its own good despite some QOL attempts, and has a presentation so unsettling to look at that the original version kicks it all the way into outer space. I’m not good at the original version by any means, but when I was having less control problems and more fun with a harder version of the game design wise, that should explain a lot about how frustrating this remake turned out.
Conclusion
Somehow despite me being frustrated with the NES port, I still liked it a lot more. Difficulty aside, it was a fun demake of an early take on the metroidvania style, but this 40th Anniversary edition somehow manages to be outright terrible in so many ways. No D-Pad controls, weird input timing, one of the most hideous presentations I’ve ever dealt with here on SFG, and a lot of baffling design choices led to this remake being pretty darn infuriating and very unfun to play. When the DLC campaign is somehow better and more faithful than your base game showpiece, that just ends up being pretty sad.
Honestly, if Director’s Cut was standalone, I’d easily recommend that version instead. More faithful to the pixels, slightly better controlwise despite less QOL and still relying on the left joystick, and still having a lot of good extra content. But alas, the 40th Anniversary Edition is what I chose to cover as the base game everyone can buy, and thus, that’s the shameful, aggravating remake I have to strongly advise you not play. It’s cursed!
I give Montezuma’s Revenge – The 40th Anniversary Edition a 3 out of 10.