When you’re trying to look for the real origins of Metroidvania, a few games are highlighted as the precursors to indie gaming’s most celebrated subgenre. Games like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: Radical Rescue and The Goonies II are usually listed as the real grandfathers of the genre, alongside the original Metroid, of course, but I’d argue that 1984’s Montezuma’s Revenge could be called the greatgrandfather of it all. Hilarious named after the common cases of diarrhea people contract while visiting Mexico, this Parker Brothers title was the first 2D platformer with an emphasis on key hunting, free exploration and backtracking, the main elements which would eventually be associated with the genre.

This game takes “trial and error” to annoying new levels.

I don’t think the franchise has received the respect it deserves. Maybe it’s the fact it has very rarely received sequels and updates over the years (all I remember from it was the fact a planned sequel for the N64 would eventually be cancelled), but gaming history is something we should strive for with more dedication. Thus, games like this deserve to be recognized and replayed nowadays. The announcement of a brand new remake of the original, aptly called Montezuma’s Revenge: The 40th Anniversary Edition, piqued my interested because of that. Finally, this old-school veteran would get a second chance to shine, right?

When you hear about a remake being released, you expect for it to be a complete recreation of an older title, from the ground up, taking advantage of brand new technology and quality of life features whilst retaining the elements that made the original appealing in the first place. This is what made remakes such as Resident Evil 2, Pokémon HeartGold & SoulSilver, and Silent Hill 2 so acclaimed in the first place. They retained the spirit of the originals, every single element that made them classics in the first place, but weren’t shy to completely change the gameplay or add in new elements in case that was needed. They weren’t afraid of implementing quality of life features. Montezuma’s Revenge: The 40th Anniversary Edition doesn’t do that. At all. And this is terrible.

Fall damage. This damn platformer has fall damage.

Retaining the gameplay and physics from the original Montezuma’s Revenge is a big fat mistake because that game is a whopping 41 years old. It came out before Super Mario Bros, so it’s a pretty jurassic and clunky platformer, with horrendous physics and unfair gameplay features. For instance, it has fall damage. It’s a 2D platformer with goddamn fall damage. Sure, that may have been okay back in the Reagan administration, but we’ve seen platformers evolve a lot over the past two fifths of a century; it’s okay to add in quality of life features, especially since the original version of Montezuma’s Revenge is still included as a bonus, if anyone really wanted to play the game as originally intended.

As a result, what we have here is a 2.5D platformer with improved (but still hideous) visuals, an even more confusing level layout as before, and the added issue of a clunky framerate making the physics and controls feel even less responsive than the 1984 original. Everything kills you with one hit, no map functionality, the same room configuration as before… but with the added “benefit” of everything looking like a CGI commercial from the late 90s. With poor frame pacing. I don’t even know how this was actually possible.

Now picture someone reading this line in Spanish, and picture hearing stuff like this every time you walk into a new room.

By far, my least favorite thing about Montezuma’s Revenge: The 40th Anniversary Edition is its sound design. I’m not exactly talking about the soundtrack because, to be really honest, it’s not awful. Mediocre and forgettable, sure, but it’s still, possibly, the best element this game has to offer alongside the ROM for the original game being included as a bonus. There’s voice acting in here. A lot of it. Every time you walk into a new screen, or go back to a previous one, Montezuma himself begins to taunt you with a one-liner.

Even if you walk back to a room by accident, another line is uttered. Sure, that by itself would be annoying, but that’s not what makes this element so, uh, “special”. The thing is, he does it in Spanish. And it’s every single time you move from one screen to another. Why would an Aztec ghost taunt you in Spanish and not in Nahuatl is beyond me, but what really makes this apocalyptically annoying is the quality of the voice acting. It’s like they hired the single most amateurish Mexican telenovela actor in history to record these lines with as much enthusiasm as a Duolingo voice clip. It’s not even so bad it’s funny… It is just grating.

The original is much better, and is included here as a bonus.

I really tried to appreciate the fact another classic gaming franchise from the earlier days of the medium was finally making a comeback, cementing its legacy, but I had a miserable time playing Montezuma’s Revenge: The 40th Anniversary Edition. It’s buggy, confusing, and uninspired. It’s easy to forgive the clunkiness of the original, since it was released more than 40 years ago, but we expect quality of life enhancements from a fully-fledged remake. There are none. Everything we could have lived without from the original is featured, resulting in a game that tarnishes the reputation of this classic to a wider audience of players. If anything, I legit had more fun playing the ROM of the original game, included as a bonus, than the remake itself. Not that it was that much of a feat, of course…

Montezuma’s Revenge: The 40th Anniversary Edition is available now on PC. Console ports are coming out later in 2025.

Reviewed on Intel i7-12700H, 16GB RAM, RTX 3060 6GB and Asus ROG Ally.

A copy of Montezuma’s Revenge: The 40th Anniversary Edition was provided by the publisher.