Asterix and Cleopatra level 1 Asterix no damage
4Be sure to check the playlist. Link is too long. 50004life
“Asterix & Obelix: Bash Them All!” is a GBA game I had in my childhood. I remember having a pretty good time with it, to the point of remembering distinct IRL memories.
It’s a single cartridge that houses two separate and original Asterix games.
The second one, simply titled “Asterix and Obelix”, is apparently the most popular one according to its speedrun page. Yet it’s the one I liked the least. I don’t remember it being fun to me, it felt more punishing and grindy than fun. Not to mention I was completely stuck at a certain level, that I could never figure out how to get past.
I should still check it out at some point.
But what I was looking forward the most out of this game was definitely its first side (that I thought for the second time was the second, until I verified it for this description), “Asterix and Cleopatra”. It’s a simple beat-em-up with 6 levels and mini-games interlaced along the mix.
One thing I was surprised to see before playing was that there’s actually barely any coverage on the internet about this game.
I’ll try my best to speak about Asterix related things using the proper English localization, even though I know nothing about it. Like what the hell is a Getafix and a Dogmatix.
Anyways so I replayed the game. I’ll cut short on my reasons for playing it in the first place cause it ended up not being relevant to say.
Took only two attempts to get through it, unsurprisingly.
And, fitting to my recollection, the game overall was fairly neat.
But the more I played it, the more I was confounded about certain things.
Along this series of videos where I no damage clear each individual stage, sorted from easiest to hardest, I shall expose them.
Level 1 :
I remember this level the most, but that’s probably because it’s the opening one. Sick background.
The game takes about an hour to complete if you don't idle. Level length is variable, this one is about average.
You can play between Asterix and Obelix. Despite Asterix being selected by default as you enter this menu, he’s the worst character for survival, by a wide margin.
That was a big surprise for me to learn, as I always thought they were mere copies. I always mained Asterix, because… why take Obelix, the obviously slower and bulkier Gaul-looking choice ? (even though canon wise he’s supposed to be able to wipe out everything in one hit)
This level is the easiest one by far. The hard bits are honestly not even combat related. Mostly remembering where the rolling barrels hazard spawn so you don’t forget about them and lose the run. The bridge section at 5:29, as the jumping mechanic coupled with dodging the wonky hitboxes of these barrels make for a pretty awkward segment to play. Oh and those yellow-beard enemies have kind of weird erratic movement that can confuse you sometimes.
Much like the beat-em-up genre as a whole I suppose, the game is mainly about advancing forward, then taking a halt to bash up hords of enemies. Although some sections will ask that you break a certain obstacle in order to advance. Like the box at 1:11, even if it doesn’t look like that’s the way forward.
Speaking of boxes. The game has various things you can destroy or hit for either food or extra lives (or nothing). Sometimes these structures can be less obvious to spot.
For some reason though, the boxes in this level respawn as you get back and forth the ships. I get the design reason for it, it’s the tutorial level. But it’s still funny to point out.
And as it turns out, barrels are destructible objects as well, that can hold items. But they’re a pain to destroy, as their hitbox sort of blends with their damage one. You need to pull a punch quite close to them (air punches don’t work) and they knock you hard. It’s a lot easier on the minigame version of this.
Every level has one special enemy based on a sprite color swap of one normal enemy. They die in one hit and try to run away from you. Getting just one of them unlocks the bonus level after you beat the main one. They are self explanatory and not super interesting, so I won’t show them here. You can look them up.
They can drop health sometimes.
The three small boxes at 3:16 can be picked up and thrown. It’s the only level throwable objects are available in the whole game !
The progression may sometimes mislead the player. During the final part, you can keep punching the mast, but it’s 90% useless. Except for the last go, you only have to do two quickly-timed punches for the captain to lose grip, beat the spawning enemies, and repeat.
That’s it for level 1.
For what the game is, it has decent music. I’m a bit worn out on this one though.
You might ask why I’m playing the game on 50 Hz. Well, I didn’t even know there was a 60 Hz version... and the higher pitched sounds feel completely off to me so I’m definitely not playing it ! You can argue the game was designed for Europeans anyways (someone please don’t prove me wrong)