Asterix & Obelix XXL 3: The Crystal Menhir (2019)

## The Game

Asterix & Obelix XXL 3: The Crystal Menhir is a 3rd-person adventure–Beat them All.
It is the only game in the XXL series which offers cooperative gameplay.

### Story

When Asterix and Obelix retrieve Postaldistrix’s post which was stolen by the Romans and he brings a letter to Getafix, he finds out that the Romans captured his old friend from Thule - Avina, the creator of the Crystal Menhir. The Menhir was already hidden in Getafix’s house, as she entrusted it to him, but the shards that give it powers are missing.

Asterix and Obelix take the Menhir and travel several lands of the Roman Empire with the help of Ekonomikrisis, who takes them on board. On the way they find the Crystal Menhir’s shards and restore its powers, as well as confront Marcus Ginantonicus several times, as he wants to steal it.

In late game, Asterix and Obelix must fight the army of Caesar himself in Rome, who also wants the Crystal Menhir, and once they win, Ginantonicus arrives on a crane, steals the Menhir and freezes them. The Gauls are locked up in the dungeon, but Dogmatix frees them, and they find Avina trapped in the same dungeon. They rescue her and travel back to the village, which is being destroyed by the Romans with Ginantonicus and Caesar in charge. Getafix is frozen, and there are no magic potion supplies. Ginantonicus reveals his plan to take over Rome, and freezes Caesar. Asterix and Obelix confront Ginantonicus on his crane, trying to take the Crystal Menhir from him and break the crane. Offscreen, Avina defrosts Getafix.

After the Gauls win, Caesar is also defrosted, and wants to show them his gratitude by granting a wish of theirs. He agrees to send the Romans out of Thule. Avina makes a request to Asterix and Obelix to destroy the Crystal Menhir, since it has been proven to be dangerous in the wrong hands. She gifts Getafix a sickle which seems to be made of stone, and the rest of the Gaulish village celebrates with a banquet.

### Gameplay

Button-mashing based fights and puzzles. Platforming is very different to the previous games in the series: the player can no longer jump vertically and should be more careful when moving around. In the PC version it is possible to hold down a key while moving to walk slowly. The player needs to use the Crystal Menhir to clear obstacles from paths and interact with mechanisms.

* Collectibles
* Combat
* Enemies
* Interactive objects
* Secondary missions

### Structure

The game is divided into five levels:

* Gaul
* Thule
* Tyre
* Crete
* Rome

### 100% Game Completion

Asterix & Obelix XXL 3 features a couple of side activities that are neccessary for 100% completion. These are:

* Complete all main missions
* Collect 66 Laurels
* Collect 21 Dice
* Collect 25 Bones
* Complete 9 Secondary Missions
* Achieve gold rank on every Roman Camp
* Purchase all upgrades

Unlike Asterix & Obelix XXL and XXL 2, XXL 3 gives out 100% completion rewards in form of infinite magic potion and the circle underneath the character turning golden.

## Production

The game was first announced on July 6, 2018, together with Asterix & Obelix XXL 2 remaster.

Concept art for the game has been uploaded officially and can be viewed here:

* https://ocellus-studio.com/project/15318/asterix-and-obelix-xxl3
* https://www.behance.net/gallery/101167207/Asterix-Obelix?tracking\_source=search\_projects\_recommended%7Cchris%20cunningham

A character animation video was released which shows unused Roman designs: https://youtu.be/y8tWBeaMz4o

### Music & Sound

The game's music and sound effects were done by Valentin Lafort.

### Behind the scenes, early and unused content

In the early version of the game, Asterix and Obelix wore their outfits from Asterix & Obelix XXL 2, which are not present in the final game, they likely served as placeholders before the current designs were made. Obelix carried a seemingly normal menhir. Obelix had a different HUD icon, Asterix's icon is not shown but it could have been different as well. The health bar was extremely simplistic, shown as a heart with a number of HP. There was no Energy Bar. Dogmatix was nowhere to be seen.

Getafix texture and modelMarcus Ginantonicus modelAnimating ObelixEarly gameplay footage

## References

Video showing WIPs and early footage of the game, released on July 19, 2019: https://youtu.be/CPly6XaaC5I

## Trivia

* This is the only game in the XXL series...
	+ where Asterix and Obelix jump horizontally instead of vertically and cannot double-jump.
	+ where Asterix and Obelix cannot swim gameplay-wise; if they enter deep water, they will freeze in place with swimming animation and teleport to land.
	+ where Sam Shieffer is completely absent.
	+ which uses a top-down camera angle.
	+ that does not provide save slots or manual saving (remasters do not count).
		- The player can save the game by changing settings.
		- For the PC version, the player can duplicate the files in Asterix and Obelix XXL 3 The Crystal Menhir\\_Save\XXL3 and come back to that point by replacing newer files with these.
* For local co-op in the PC version one of the players must use a gamepad.
* Ironically, the game is more distant from XXL and XXL 2 in many aspects than Asterix at the Olympic Games. Olympic Games does not have "XXL" in its title and has a much smaller world, but it was developed by Etranges Libellules like XXL and XXL 2, and its gameplay and graphics are more similar to those games.
* This game was released around the 60th Anniversary of Asterix, and is the last game released during Albert Uderzo's life.
* The game's visuals appear to be based on the 3D Asterix movies.
* Character dialogues contain references to the comics, the previous XXL games and the movie Asterix: The Secret of the Magic Potion.
* The Collector's Edition of the game contains legionary and viking outfits for Asterix and Obelix. They are available from the beginning and the player can freely switch between them.
* Concept art for the game contains artwork of unused ideas like certain Roman soldiers (who also got models), children and different framings for the HUD icons of Asterix and Obelix depending on how they were dressed. There is also concept art of Fulliautomatix, Cleopatra, Edifis and Pepe, an Iberian boy from the comic Asterix in Spain (1969).

* The game's demo was released in May 2020, several months after the full game.
	+ The demo consists of the mission where the player needs to retrieve Ekonomikris' boat license. Alternatively the player can visit Aquarium right away.
	+ Laurels are replaced with gold helmets. Bones and dice are not present.
* The ambient OSTs added in Asterix & Obelix XXL remaster are similar to the music in this game.

* The game received mixed-positive reception from general playerbase, but negative reception from the XXL community.
* The characters have voice lines which are said when the player goes to certain places or finishes certain fights. When the player revisits them after a game over or level reload, these lines are repeated.
* If Asterix or Obelix is saying something and has to say something else before finishing the previous phrase, the character says two phrases at the same time.
* The following graphic issues have been noticed on computers with weaker GPUs:
	+ 3D graphics do not display at all. The player sees a black or grey screen (depending on video settings), dust left by the moving characters and the HUD. In the starting cutscenes, only plain-colored screens with waterfalls and some visual effects can be seen.
	+ Red pixels on lit grass.
* A bug has been noticed in the PS4 version where the 3D models may appear almost entirely in green shades. The cause of this is unknown.

weak GPU resulting in red pixels on lit grassvery weak GPU resulting in 3D graphics not being displayedA grass texture covering up any other nearby texturea dark texture can cover up the screen as well