Thirty years ago, superstition and the sword ruled. It was a time of darkness. It was a world of fear. It was the age of Gargoyles.
No, that isn’t quite right. Disney’s Gargoyles was never popular enough to have its own “age”. I am one of two people I know “in real life” that ever consistently watched the show when it was on the air back in the 90’s. I have met multiple people online who were into it, though! Why, back in the day, I remember lurking around fan pages where Greg Weisman, creator and lore master of Gargoyles, would comment and explain plans for the (eventually) cancelled show that would never come to pass. Ten years after Gargoyles was banished to the darkness of Disney Channel reruns, it was fun to imagine a world where such a program was popular enough to warrant attention across games and media.
Even in its heyday, Gargoyles could barely merit a tiny section of the toy aisle at Boscov’s. Now, in 2024, Gargoyles is part of a Target endcap:
Demona lives again! Next to Batman! And Goliath is fighting Wolverine!
I’ve been trying to figure out exactly how this happened, and I keep coming to one answer: I have been lied to.
Let’s go back to the start. Gargoyles was part of a programming block known as The Disney Afternoon. The Disney Afternoon was launched in 1990, and either ended in 1997 (when it lost the official “block branding”) or 1999 (when the last shows standing stopped airing new episodes). So we have at least seven years of TDA there, which would roughly equate to a target audience of every child in a kindergarten-through-8th-grade school. To be precise on that statement: if a child entered kindergarten in 1990, they could be watching Ducktales, and by the time they were hitting their freshman year of high school, they could still be watching Disney’s Doug. That is a thorough childhood of Disney indoctrination fun! Gargoyles did not air for the entirety of the Disney Afternoon run, though. Gargoyles only existed as part of the block from 1994-1997, a meager third of the full DA existence. However, if we look at it from the perspective of “that was the exact history of Aladdin (the animated series)”, which featured all-stars Jason Alexander and Gilbert Gottfried, then it sounds a little more prestigious. Considering three years can be a very influential period on a child (keep a kid in a cage for three days, and somebody is going to call the police. Can you imagine doing that for three years?!), and The Disney Afternoon was popular enough to be profitable for nearly a decade, it is extremely likely that Gargoyles was watched by millions of children across the United States.
And the videogames! Practically every show from the Disney Afternoon for seven years had a videogame adaption. Adventures of the Gummi Bears somehow missed the mark, but DuckTales and Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers were legendary. They got sequels! Darkwing Duck and TaleSpin both kept the embers hot, and Goof Troop was… Well, it will probably get its own article one day. Friggen’ Bonkers somehow got two games from two different developers! The Mighty Ducks got a pinball game! It sure looks like the wretched Quack Pack was the only property that received absolutely no digital tie-in (give or take if you count the movie properties as one solid franchise). So, of course, there was a Gargoyles videogame for the Sega Genesis.
And it was bad guys. Really, really bad.
The Gargoyles franchise should be a slam dunk of a videogame. The series has a rogue’s gallery that could rival Spider-Man, with plenty of bad guys that both come with their own minions (Xanatos has his army of robots at it again!) and more precise physical threats (time to fight each and every member of The Pack! One is a werewolf!). You have a gang of gargoyles that are all different enough to be distinct (you know Broadway must be slower with more defense) but still have enough similar skills to play equally. And those skills! They fight, climb buildings, can soak more than a few hits, and even glide! Batman had to invent some kind of gliding apparatus to get around Arkham City, but Gargoyles have amazing traversal methods built-in to their concept/backs!
So it is a shame Gargoyles for the Sega Genesis was a horrid game from practically every perspective.
Where to begin? Let’s look at how it is a 2-D action game, and Goliath, our favorite gargoyle, controls like absolute garbage. It kind of looks like the producers were aiming for a (Genesis) Aladdin “animation over gameplay” presentation here, but Goliath handles even worse than his Arabian pal. His basic attack has no range, his dashing attack was confusing windup, there is never an offensive reason to use his power stomp, and gliding appears to be discouraged by practically every expanse throwing an obstacle at you that will punish any attempts at freedom. Starting in the second level, “flipping” off background objects becomes a significant traversal method, and there is never a point at which that feels natural and/or precise. You may as well be steering your hulking gargoyle around in a dark kitchen. It’s terrible for property values. Oh, and looking at stage progression, there are only five levels and five bosses. They all suck. It is the epitome of “the food is terrible, and such small portions”.
And we need to take a dedicated look at how the game all but ignores the source material. You have exactly one named, recognizable villain from the actual show running around here, and it’s Demona. Good pick! A rival Gargoyle allows for a mirror match of skills, with the added caveat that Demona always had a tendency to employ extra armaments if it meant she could guarantee a win. Excellent choice! But making the real villain of the piece the Eye of Odin is a bad choice. The Eye of Odin is a malevolent piece of jewelry in the proper series, but it is one of those Jekyl/Hyde deals where it simply enhances whatever is going on with the user. For instance, it transforms the traditionally reserved Fox into an angry furry. Here, the Eye of Odin was “created by Viking magic” (no, it is literally Odin’s lost eye), and is sentient, mobile, and able to create random monsters for over a thousand years. Weird! And “angry jewelry” is chosen as the antagonist over, say, Xanatos, who is never mentioned despite his Steel Clan cameoing as a group boss (“Lead Steel Clan Bot” was Xanatos in disguise in the show, but that red robot notably explodes here, so they probably did not kill our beloved antagonist onscreen… right?). And speaking of “never mentioned” the rest of Goliath’s clan is never acknowledged, either. I am not saying we needed a playable Hudson (yes I am), but the lack of the other Gargoyles paints Goliath as a lone, time-traveling warrior. Where is Elisa Maza, dammit!? She freaking rocked!
And you know what? When I played this game in 1995, I expected it to be bad. Sure, I wanted another Chip and Dale, but I knew it was a lot more likely I would see a Total Recall, NES X-Men, or Fester’s Quest. This was how properties were treated when they became videogames. Hell, even my beloved DuckTales got Scrooge’s coat wrong! (Note for pedantic nerds reading this article: I know.) Videogames were mostly treated as a gift from the producers of our favorite movies, television shows, and comics, and the cost for that gift was that nobody involved was going to, under any circumstances, actually pay any attention to that license. It didn’t sting all that badly with Bebe’s Kids, but something about Tim Allen fighting dinosaurs in Home Improvement: Power Tool Pursuit felt a little off. It ignored everything about the Tim “The Toolman” Taylor canon!
It has been nearly thirty years since those days. The standard nowadays is that even if you get a terrible licensed game, at least someone in the Disney marketing department was called a few times, so the featured Xenomorphs at least adhere to established canon. The new normal is that terrible videogames are still allowed to be released, but at least nerds can argue over their authentic canonicity and not just write angry rants on GameFaqs message boards. So, in 2023, the good people that brought us Groovin’ Blocks for WiiWare granted us a modern reimagining of that Gargoyles title from the bad days of1995.
Unfortunately, it still sucks for every reason that has already been mentioned. But! Now you have a rewind feature, and the graphics/sound have been dramatically improved to match the animation of the original series. Though, that does add the slight issue of the 3-D-ifcation of the environments making the already imprecise platforming even more difficult. And there are a few areas where hazardous debris or arrows are now practically imperceptible before they drain your gargoyle’s health. But at least the game is preserved! At least this piece of Gargoyles history can be played on modern consoles, and in a format that would not be completely repellant to modern eyeballs. By Oberon, you can even toggle the old graphics/sound back on with the press of a button. That is at least… uh… neat.
But here’s the scary thing: someone at Disney greenlit and funded this remake. No one was clamoring for the chance to play an ancient Gargoyles title that was disliked by Gamepro editors and fans alike. Nobody was kicking Gargoyles around Top 25 lists for Lost Sega Genesis Treasures. And, hell, there was not even a modern Gargoyles remake to justify the endeavor. There have been a few scattershot comics over the years, and there are always rumors of that mythical movie right around the corner. But Gargoyles ended in 1997, and has publicly stayed as silent as a statue ever since. Where was this support for Gargoyles even coming from?
Well, maybe the literally millions of people that watched and enjoyed Gargoyles?
Alas, history does not appear to have ratings available for The Disney Afternoon or its attendant shows. But we can look at similar “family” shows. Home Improvement was the second most watched show in 1994 (ahead of Seinfeld!). The similarly family friendly Full House ranked #16, and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air was tied with Dave’s World for #21. Family Matters, the home of Urkel, was #30. Family Matters had to have the same audience as Gargoyles, right? Every kid that was nasally asking their mom, “Did I do that?” while giggling also had to be a fan of Goliath, right? And Family Matters had 20,000,000 viewers that year. If Gargoyles had just half of that viewership, we are talking about 10,000,000 kids across the country. And if half that number grew up to own a Switch and be nostalgic for a game that costs $15 to download… Well, $75,000,000 sure does sound like a worthy reason to scrape a cruddy Genesis game off the bottom of the barrel…
And while we are at it, let’s produce 10,000 action figures and dolls to sell at Target. Those aging millennials will eat that slop up!
Lord knows I did
And here is where I have learned the truth of my own fandom. I was never alone. I may have only known one other “real life person” that was into Gargoyles with the same fervor, but I was one of millions of fans. Maybe more! And how do I now know this? Because it is profitable to market to me! To us! I am an old man with disposable income, and Disney damn well knows I am not the only one this nostalgic for winged muscle monsters. My childhood is worth a solid Jackson or two! And we are legion!
Even if it is just a byproduct of crass capitalism, it is good to know you are not alone.
FGC #664 Gargoyles Remastered
- System: The original was solely on the Sega Genesis, but now you can play it on your Xbox One, Playstation 4, PC, or Nintendo Switch. If you are curious, this review was based on the Nintendo Switch version. Nothing about the other consoles could fix any of my complaints, though.
- Number of players: Your clan is staying back at the castle, so one player.
Advertising Copy: The official site for Gargoyles Remastered boasts “Authentic Gargoyles Experience: Relive the story of Goliath and the Gargoyles’ battle against the evil Eye of Odin…” While this is technically true of the game, it is absolutely not “authentic”. Boy, I really hope somebody got fired for that blunder.- Widescreen Woes: The original game was formatted for standard TV sizes of the 90’s, and the Remastered graphics are widescreen. However, sometimes the Remastered backgrounds just kind of end, because there is no game beyond the boundaries of the standard aspect ratio, and nobody felt like filling in the blanks. This may be a side effect of the ability to swap graphics, but the end result is distracting, for I fear the void.
- A Good Night’s Rest: It is an important part of the mythology that Gargoyles heal from all wounds during their daily stone sleep. This Goliath never gets a health refill between stages, and that includes the 1,000-year nap between the second and third level. Time to rise and grind, purple buddy.
- Favorite Boss: The final opponent of the third level (the first stage that takes place in modern times) is an Eye of Odin-possessed elevator. It is difficult not only for the regular reasons of this game being difficult to handle, but also because it is confusing trying to figure out how to damage a damn elevator. But at least it is interesting! The previous stage’s boss was just an angry Viking! After the boss before that being an angry (presumably) different Viking.
- Pick it Up: Your pickups through this adventure are a shield that makes you invincible for a short period of time, a sword that activates one-hit kills, and golden chalices that refill health. Aside from “generically medieval”, nothing about these items is particularly Gargoyle-y. Come to think of it, complete with Goliath’s grayish sprite, was this game designed with the concept of a generic mobile gargoyle in mind, and then they got the license later? Or they didn’t even know there was a license? Hm…
Did you know? Oh! I get to provide some esoteric Gargoyles knowledge? Sweet! Uh… Oh! In Future Tense, an episode of Gargoyles from 1996, Goliath is trapped in a magical imagining of a “bad future” set in approximately 2036. And, while it is confirmed this is a “fake” future even within the fiction of the show, 2036 New York City includes a skyline that is missing the Twin Towers. Way to predict that one, Disney animators!- Would I play again: I did mention this game was terrible, right? I played through it just to confirm my childhood memories were not dominated by some “I was bad at videogames as a kid” nonsense, but, no, it’s terrible. I am not playing this game again. Gargoyles fans, I recommend you do the same.
What’s next? Random ROB has chosen… Little Kitty, Big City! Let’s do this one for the cats! Please look forward to it!
Welp, Xanatos is dead now