Nintendo Switch Little Big Adventure - Twinsen's Quest Review

You may not have heard of Little Big Adventure, but if you have, it's likely you remember it fondly. It popped up on PC in the last months of 1994, then found its way to PlayStation and other platforms. It didn't shift millions, but it gained cult status for its unique atmosphere, inventive controls, and memorable story of a despot, a rebellion, and a chosen one. Understanding Twinsen's Quest really means understanding its origins, so it's worth a recap.

Little Big Adventure was the first game from French studio Adeline Software, followed a few years later by a sequel. Developer [2.21] has brought back some of the original team for this remake — including composer Philippe Vachey, revisiting a memorable theme tune — as well as new creatives drawn from the LBA fan community. Designer Didier Chanfray has said that the Little Big Adventure series was always intended to be a trilogy: now the goal is to remake both of the original games in a modern style, before finally completing the set. Exciting stuff for long-time fans.

Twinsen's Quest mostly follows the story of the original game, adding on a little prologue and switching a couple of characters around to modernise the damsel-in-distress narrative of 1994. The hero Twinsen starts the story proper incarcerated in an asylum by the evil Dr. Funfrock (seriously). His crime: having prophetic dreams about the end of the world. Twinsen must break free and discover his own role in the prophecy while setting out to rescue his little sister, travelling the planet across a colorful range of biomes, from the streets of Citadel Island to the icy Hamalayi Mountains via the sands of White Leaf Desert.


But what was so magical about this game back in 1994? The first thing to strike you were the graphics. High-resolution (640x480 pixels) 2D isometric backdrops were populated by characterful, low-poly 3D figures. Twinsen was beautifully animated, skipping sportily, tiptoeing about, and throwing weighty punches. The second thing to note was the controls: Twinsen was able to change his mood, enabling different actions. When "normal" he would walk around and chat to people, when "athletic" he would run and jump, an "aggressive" mood enabled fighting, and being "discreet" meant sneaking about, with each footstep sounding out a curious note on a double bass. Ingenious… and now kind of awful.

You see, Adeline originally went with tank controls. Partnered with some fairly tight spaces to navigate, an unwieldy running mode, a dangerously slow walk, and the need to stop play briefly while changing moods – not to mention the loads between separate, non-scrolling screens – the experience was terribly stilted. At the time, it was inventive and new; unfortunately, it now seems like a dead end in the evolution of control schemes. If you're still clinging onto the nostalgia, have a quick look at a video of the original game and it won't take long for the rose-tinted glasses to slip off your nose.

All of this is to say that [2.21] had quite a challenge on its hands in revisiting a cult favourite after all this time. Some big design decisions were needed, and they have been made. Tank controls are gone, and it might sound like sacrilege, but the whole mood system is gone, too.


Now, you might expect, you could push the stick a little bit to sneak, a medium amount to walk, and the whole way to run, covering three of your moods instantly. But expect all you like: that's not how it works. However much you move the stick, Twinsen always runs. Clicking the stick will toggle a walk, but it's completely useless, and now we're back to moods anyway! We sought all over the controller for a way to tiptoe about and hear that double bass, but it seems the "discreet" mood has simply vanished. It feels like a missed opportunity, but it must be said that the big call here was allowing jumping and punching without having to switch between special states – and that alone justifies saying goodbye to the eccentric control system of the original.

In the end, then, we have a fairly normal means of navigating the world and the game has to stand or fall on the charm of its exploration and story. Fortunately, these are mostly intact. The new visuals – 3D backgrounds rather than isometric pixels – are all a bit jaunty and jokey compared to 1994. The sound effects were always in exactly that style, full of boings and squeaks, so the visual revamp works. Popping anthropomorphic robot elephants with your magic ball or dodging soldiers' rifle shots as you charge past is more fun than it ever was. Sadly, it does feel like there are some gaps in the animation – especially how Twinsen just stops dead when you release the stick, jolting back to a standing position.


Progress through the game is mostly a long trail of fetch quests and passing messages from one humanoid rabbit or talking ball-person to another. Finding the last bit of dialogue that will unlock the next section can be infuriating when it involves travelling between multiple locations, and we had our fair share of just-try-everything moments. But the story that eventually unravels is somehow compelling. Combat is not the game's forte so it's just as well there isn't too much of it until later stages. Throwing your magic ball is clunky and unreliable and throwing punches is the same. Platforming is equally poor but equally rare, with jumps being unwieldy and certainly not feeling in any way satisfying.

But the real bad news on this one is that Twinsen's Quest is severely lacking polish. We hit multiple bugs where we had to reload; various NPCs prompted dialogue then didn't say anything; Twinsen spent hours of the game asking everyone he met about the Pirate LeBorgne, even after we had solved that part and moved on; critical progress points were easily missable… it was tough going at times.


Little Big Adventure was always a charming and eccentric game. In modernising it, 2.21 had to ditch the trademark control scheme and revamp the wonderful isometric graphics – two major selling points. What remains is still charismatic, but bugs and a general lack of polish hold it back. Both for new players and for original fans, this is a quirky adventure game – but not one that will be remembered for another 30 years.