Day of the Tentacle Remastered Review

Ah, the classic point-and-click game from the genious Ron Gilbert at LucasArt. Originally released in 1993, we were blessed with a full remake in 2016 complete with voice-overs and an overhaul on the graphics. The remastered edition was even helped along by both LucasArt and Disney themselves. The game is a set sequal of Maniac Mansion, with a few of the characters overlapping in each game.

The game takes place five years after the events at Maniac Mansion. A purple tentacle, created by Dr. Fred Edison, a mad scientist, is with his friend, a green tentacle, at a river. Being thirsty, the purple tentacle begins to drink the water from the river, whilst his friend protests, as toxic sludge is pouring out into the river. Drinking the toxic waste-water makes the purple tentacle grow arms and enhances his intelligence. He now wants to take over the world. Alarmed, Dr. Fred wants to fix the problem (the toxic sludge comes from his laboratory). His solution – kill the purple tentacle, and for good measure, also the green one. The green tentacle sends out a warning for help to his old friend Bernard Bernoulli, who travels to the Edision Family Motel with his housemates, Hoagie and Lavene, who frees the tentacles leading the purple one to once again resume his plans for world conquest.

Dr. Fred, being in a pickle, can see it will be near impossible to stop the purple tentacles world domination plan. Atleast from the present. He hatches a plan to use his Chron-o-John (a port-a-potty time machine) to send Bernard, Hoagie and Lavene back in time in order to turn off his Sludge-o-Matic machine that was the whole cause for the contaminated water the purple tentacle was drinking – and by such, stops him from becoming overly-intelligent (and have arms). Being the everly cheapskate he is, Dr. Fred uses an imitation diamond in place of a real one for his time machine, which causes it to malfunction and in turn send the three friends into different time periods.

Hoagie is sent to the past, 200 years before, where the Edison Family Motel is used by the founding fathers of America, where they are writing the United States Constitution. Bernard is returned to the present, and Lavene is sent 200 years into the future where humanity has been enslaved by the purple tentacle. Bernard, being the only one left in the present, is tasked with finding a real diamond instead of the botched one, and thus fixing the time machine. Hoagie and Lavene will have to plug their time machines into a power supply in order for them to work again. Hoagie, being back before electricity, seeks the help of Benjamin Franklin, and one of Dr. Freds ancistors, Red Edision, and goes on to build a superbattery in order to power his time machine. Lavene, on the other hand, has to evade the tentacles who wants to confine and enslave her, and run an extension cord all the way to her time machine.

Bernards task of finding the diamond eventually leads him to just buying it with the money he got from the TV series of Maniac Mansion. The three friends are then reunited in the present, just to watch the purple tentacle steal the Chron-o-John in order to travel back one day, and stopping the crew from turning off the sludge machine. The green tentacle takes another Chron-o-John in order to try and stop him. With only one Chron-o-John left, the three friends uses it together. They go back a day, only to see Dr. Fred scolding them for suggesting to use the machine all together. In result (since they didn’t listen) the three friends are now conjoined as one.

The purple tentacle has in the meantime used the Chron-o-John to bring multiple versions of himself from different moments in time to the sludge machine, in order to guard it with his ‘clones’. In the end, the  three conjoined friends stops the purple tentacle from guarding the sludge machine, turn it off and prevent the disaster from happening. Upon returning to the present Dr. Fred discovers that they aren’t really conjoined at all, but just got stuck in the same set of clothings. They are thrown out of Dr. Freds house, and credits roll.

Day of the Tentacle is one of the classic point-and-click adventure games. The remastered version brings it out to a fresh audience, and does a hell of a job. The game is still charming with it’s updated graphics, and the voiceovers are good. The humor of the game still holds up to this day, and serves as a very enjoyable experience. The soundtrack is good, and the updated graphics are nice. The gameplay is as classic as the genre comes. It is for good reason that it is fondly remembered as one of the best games in the genre, even twenty years since first released the game is played and enjoyed around the world and on every major platform. If you for some reason has held off on playing it, you should treat yourself with this gem of a game.