Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee Remastered - Xbox Review

Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee Remastered by developer Pipeworks Studios and publisher Atari—Microsoft Xbox Series X review written by Nick with a copy provided by the publisher.

Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes

Two and a half decades after the game first released, we have Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee Remastered available on modern consoles, and this title is absolutely a blast from the past. It’s not necessarily the deepest of games, and probably falls under the category of ‘dumb fun’ by and large, but the key there? The ‘fun’ that this title brings to the table.

I’ll begin by stating I’m an unabashed huge fan of Godzilla. At fifty years old, I grew up on the rubber suited shenanigans and even enjoyed the NES titles that came out so many years ago. Though those titles (and frankly, most Godzilla games) never quite seemed to get things right. Destroy All Monsters was one of those titles that felt as though it captured the mayhem of battling kaiju quite nicely, and this rerelease manages to keep the base game in-tact while introducing enough quality-of-life improvements to justify this remaster.

So first, let’s discuss the basics. Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee Remastered (this title is a mouthful) is a 3D brawler at its foundation. There are a few modes (Adventure, Survival and Destruction) that vary your objectives if not the core gameplay. Adventure is more focused on the monster versus monster action (and is my favorite of the modes) as you work towards a final battle (structured not unlike the late 90’s arcade fighting games I grew up on). Destruction is basically a high score / score attack mode where the more carnage you deal, the better your score. Survival is throwing waves of enemies at you until you eventually are beaten, doing your best to stay alive as long as possible. There’s also flavors of co-op and versus here, for those who like their multiplayer action.

The recipe here sounds like a shallow one, but that’s where Destroy All Monsters has always defied expectations. While the monsters all operate from the same basic move framework, there’s enough variety in the movement, speed and ranges of abilities to help the different monsters feel fresh and interesting from one another. It’s a strange mix of button mashing and strategic understanding of what monsters do well and poorly. Given that there’s a dozen different kaiju to choose from, and a lot of unlocks to be had, this variety in monsters is quite welcome. I will say that the monsters versus monster action comes across better than the building-smashing, which lends itself to my enjoyment of Adventure mode over Destruction. Moves feel a bit too floaty when trying to take out the environment, without any good means of locking onto things. There’s an indicator that lights up when you’re able to grab a building, but it can feel kind of finicky at times. It’s just more fun to wreck the city as collateral damage as kaiju knock one another around.

Progression is a bit of a mixed bag. I like that there’s a leveling element to monsters when you play, giving a sense of evolution that helped keep me engaged, even on longer playing sessions. There’s also quite a bit of content that can be unlocked, though trying to get it all can be a rather grindy and sometimes nebulous prospect, as it’s not always clear what you need to do to unlock something. That means that parts of the roster take a fair bit of time to unlock, and may mean using a character you don’t care for as much while attempting to unlock one you’re more excited about. I will say that the old game just unlocked new characters as you beat certain modes, with no real influence over who or what gets unlocked. This remastered version allows you to earn research points that allows you to unlock what you prefer, but it’s still a pretty slow process. 

Since this is a remaster, it’s only fair to discuss not just the roster and unlock updates, but the visual overhaul as well. From a character design standpoint, this is a throwback to the classic versions of the creatures I grew up on, not the newer Hollywood version over the last decade or so, and I’m good with that. Oftentimes these remasters just feel like a shiny coat of paint tossed on to justify the ‘remastered’ monikers, but Destroy All Monsters looks significantly better in this update. Movement and animation is handled well, models are detailed and generally speaking all of it comes together with the audio design to create a pleasant package. Sure, you can tell this is an older game in a lot of ways, but it looks and plays so well that I didn’t find myself lamenting that it felt dated, either.

Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee Remastered is an excellent update over a classic kaiju brawler. What worked for the original still works pretty well today, and while the unlocking system is a bit on the slower side, the progression elements and simply fun gameplay kept me coming back for more. 

Score: 8 / 10