My 100 Video Game Challenge (2024) #30: Day of the Tentacle [Remastered]

Played on: PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, Xbox One, PC

Maniac Mansion quickly endeared itself to me as an instant classic adventure game that's even older than I am. Unsurprisingly, its glowing 1980's-era reception quickly motivated LucasArts to propose a sequel, and fortunately, one (and only one, sadly) was made in 1993; Day of the Tentacle.

Day of the Tentacle, much like its lauded 1987 predecessor, has been highly acclaimed and considered a genre staple since its initial release on Mac OS and DOS during the early 90's. After being restricted to vintage computers for many years, the game would finally gain more mainstream attention with Day of the Tentacle Remastered, an updated version featuring touched-up graphics and gameplay, which hit then-current PlayStation devices and PC in 2016, before later expanding to Xbox One in 2020, where it went straight into Xbox Game Pass.

Day of the Tentacle maintains a few nods to Maniac Mansion, but outside of having three player characters (whom you sadly can't choose this time), and featuring the Edison Family mansion as a central location for at least one of them, Day of the Tentacle's mechanics are actually very different than its predecessor's. A few characters do return from the first game though, including the Edison family, their two tentacle underlings (one of which, Purple Tentacle, serves as the eponymous antagonist), and one player character, Bernard Bernoulli, who was one of the six potential allies you could enlist alongside protagonist, Dave Miller in Maniac Mansion. Apparently, another Maniac Mansion character, Razor, was also originally planned to return in Day of the Tentacle during pre-production, though she was eventually cut from the final product entirely. Imagine my heartbreak when I learned that my favourite Maniac Mansion character was entirely deleted from Day of the Tentacle!

Regardless, Day of the Tentacle pairs Bernard, now the main character in lieu of the absent Dave, with two new allies, those being Hoagie, an empty-headed band roadie, and Laverne, a mentally disturbed medical student. After Purple Tentacle drinks toxic sludge that... Gives him arms (?), he gains enough confidence to take over the world, resulting in Green Tentacle taking it upon himself to summon Bernard, whom he befriended during the events of Maniac Mansion (Bernard and Razor are the 'canon' allies to Dave it would seem, coincidentally my most preferred Maniac Mansion trio!), to try and stop Purple Tentacle before his designs can be completed.

Once Dr. Fred Edison gets involved in Bernard accidentally setting Purple Tentacle free from captivity however, that's when things get truly complicated. Following Dr. Fred deducing that he can use his time machine to defeat Purple Tentacle one day in the past, thus preventing his rise to evil altogether, Bernard, Hoagie and Laverne are forced along on the experiment... Which predictably goes wrong when it's learned that Dr. Fred cheaped out on the fake diamond fueling the machine. The resulting catastrophe drops Bernard back into the present-day Edison mansion, while Hoagie is flung two-hundred years into the past, and Laverne is dropped two-hundred years in the future.

As much as it's disappointing that Day of the Tentacle gives you a pre-set roster of characters, rather than allowing you to choose two of your preferred allies like Maniac Mansion did, the sequel being larger in scope, and more intimately designed around a set trio of characters, also helps to nicely expand the experience. The three time-displaced environments players can explore are overall similar, and you can see where original developer, LucasArts saved money by copy-pasting some of the navigation, though Day of the Tentacle's excellent, Saturday morning cartoon-inspired style nonetheless helps to paper over this, and make it pleasing to players anyway.

Another fantastic hook throughout Day of the Tentacle, even if it can also drastically expand the game length if you don't know the puzzle solutions, is the fact that Bernard, Hoagie and Laverne can all share items across time. Using their 'Chron-o-Johns', i.e. time machines that resemble porta-potties, the three characters can find items and send them across time to their two allies, should they find something that's useless to them, but could be used by one of the other two player characters. Better still is that you can exploit the timeline to alter items without just sending them through the Chron-o-Johns to boot! For example, Hoagie can discover wine and leave it in a time capsule, which can then be found by Laverne in the future, now as vinegar. Likewise, Hoagie and Bernard can collectively tamper with the American flag, which eventually redesigns it as a costume that Laverne can wear. This is a very cool core mechanic, and like Maniac Mansion, it presents a hook that's entirely unique to Day of the Tentacle, one that doesn't appear to have been replicated in any other point-and-click adventure game to date.

The extra flourishes throughout Day of the Tentacle Remastered will also be instantly appealing to genre fans. Several of these were also featured in the previous Grim Fandango Remastered, including the ability to instantly toggle between the new and old graphics, as well as a developer commentary track that players can optionally listen to as they play. Day of the Tentacle Remastered even comes with the added twist that turning on the old graphics will re-enable the SCUMM commands from the original 1993 release, forcing players to click on verb prompts before they interact with characters and objects. By contrast, when using the new graphics, Day of the Tentacle Remastered utilizes a more modern interface, allowing players to choose from a wheel of context-sensitive commands, which slightly streamline picking up items and puzzle-solving.

Once again, the writing, presentation and sense of humour throughout Day of the Tentacle are all outstanding, and better than ever in its modern, remastered build! As much as some of the game's puzzles can be a little complicated, definitely presenting more developer moonlogic than Maniac Mansion did, in my opinion, I nonetheless found Day of the Tentacle to be just as fun, hilarious and memorable as its predecessor often was. Day of the Tentacle truly is another classic in the PC-style adventure game genre, and one that's just as satisfying on consoles as it is on an actual computer!

I had previously bought the PlayStation edition of Day of the Tentacle Remastered several years ago, and beyond that, I could play the Xbox One version for free, thanks to Xbox Game Pass. Plus, I also happened to receive a free Steam Key for Day of the Tentacle Remastered's PC version a while back to boot, so I was all set!

As for whether there are any differences to note in each version of the Day of the Tentacle Remastered, well, none of them appear to be significant. I will say that the Xbox version appeared to be slightly less optimized than its PS4 cousin though, having slightly buggier achievements and slightly less stable performance here and there. The PS4 version meanwhile seems to be the flagship build of Day of the Tentacle Remastered, and seems to overall present the most polished and consistent experience.

The PS Vita version of Day of the Tentacle Remastered meanwhile gave me a great excuse to dust off my Vita and enjoy it again, and that version is actually pretty great as well! The portable advantage on Vita is obviously a significant one (especially with Day of the Tentacle Remastered still not available on Nintendo Switch at the time of writing, unlike Grim Fandango Remastered), and the ability to use the Vita's touch screen is also handy. If you're strictly a console gamer, the Vita version of Day of the Tentacle Remastered naturally takes a graphical hit compared to the PS4 and Xbox One versions, but the touch inputs also make the Vita build the ideal way to take the actual point-and-click experience outside of the PC space.

If you do have a gaming-ready PC available however, Day of the Tentacle Remastered is also pretty sharp on its original platform from 1993. The ability to use a mouse is ideal if you're playing with the old graphical style especially, but outside of that, the game seems to look and run just fine on PC, in both new and old styles. Best of all, Day of the Tentacle Remastered's PC build also plays very well on Steam Deck, where I did a significant chunk of my PC playthrough, and didn't find that the experience struggled at all. It's tough to match the native PC experience with Day of the Tentacle Remastered if you're splitting hairs, though I also found the game's PS4 and PS Vita versions to mostly be just as solid, with only the Xbox One version having a few annoying technical hiccups here and there.

Day of the Tentacle sacrifices some innovation and flexibility (but definitely not all of it!) to create an experience that leans more into the power of its writing, and its central time travel mechanic. Even if it's initially disappointing that you're stuck with the same three characters on every playthrough this time, this revised approach also allows for far more character development, especially if you take your time exploring every dialogue option, and grabbing everything that's not nailed down. Day of the Tentacle is still a game from 1993, so its narrative depth still only goes so far, but this sequel remains highly polished across the board, now being better than ever on top of that, thanks to developer, Double Fine's excellent remaster job!

IF I HAD TO SCORE IT: 9/10