Superfrog HD

Whatever you think of Team17, there's no denying that the studio puts a great deal of love and attention into its back catalogue remakes.

Alien Breed was wonderfully restored earlier this year with HD visuals, interface improvements, and tons of new features. And now it's done the same thing for Superfrog HD.

This time around, however, age is very much a factor. While Alien Breed just about got away with feeling prehistoric, Superfrog HD hasn't aged well at all, and feels highly clunky.

You play as a prince who has been turned into a frog by an evil witch. You're tasked with rushing through platforming level after level, grabbing collectibles, dodging baddies, and winning back your princess.

There's plenty of content packed tightly into Superfrog HD. The main game has been overhauled, with fresh new HD visuals that really shine, and slightly altered level design that fixes some of the difficulty spikes that plagued the original game.

But Team17 is aware that fans of the original will want to play it exactly as it was, so the studio has included the original levels too, completely untouched (apart from the revamped visuals).

There's plenty of nice new additions, too. Frog Trials is an entertaining aut-runner mode that keeps throwing randomly generated paths at you and asks you to keep on running until the time runs out.

Meanwhile, a fruit machine at the end of each level allows you to unlock levels and power-ups, while a level editor is present to cater to your level-creation needs. Alas, the latter doesn't allow you to share levels with friends, so it feels a little pointless.

While this is the best remake that players could hope for, there's nothing that Team17 could have done to fix the fact that the years have not been kind to Superfrog.

The game just feels like a massive collectathon, with fruit and coins scattered all over the place in sprawling levels that lack any semblance of form or structure.

And the controls feel clunky and slow compared with those in modern platformers, which in turn saps the energy from the action.

The PS Vita version has some niggles, too. The stop-start nature of the loading times can be troublesome, and the fact that the action is squeezed down onto the Vita screen means that you'll regularly fail to see enemies in front of you as you rush forward.

There are some saving graces. The online leaderboards are a fantastic addition, and the graphics and extra modes demonstrate a characteristic attention to detail and affection for the source material.

But nothing can change the fact that Superfrog is no longer up to snuff. If you want a trip down memory lane then this may well satisfy you. Otherwise, there are plenty of platformers on Vita right now that are far more enjoyable.