The original XIII game never quite did it for me. Aside from the novelty of it taking a European comic book aesthetic into the video game space, it felt like a subpar FPS in a console generation that wasn't lacking in iconic FPS experiences.

I was thus quite surprised that this poorly-received 1-to-1 remake did work for me. I don't know what it was like at release and it could still do with a few bugfix patches (bugs encountered listed below), but otherwise I found it to be a good update that kept me engaged from beginning to end both in regards to gameplay as in story.

I think currently the game's biggest issue is that it slips between the cracks of fans of the original that view this one too critically by comparison, and new people who have trouble with what is fundamentally still a Playstation 2 game.

Bugs encountered:
- Occasionally throwables such as knives and grenades would refuse to work until I switched back and forth with another weapon
- Some cutscenes transitioning between chapters appear to be missing
- The in-game Achievement screen remained empty a few times
- Using a zipline once doubled my character model and made me incapable of proceeding (the only breaking bug)