The remake of a cult classic from one of gaming's best years just dropped and I am now 9 years old.

In the past 30 years, we have experienced one of the most exciting years in the history videogames. It's amazing how many of the all-time greatests were released in 1994. Genre-defining--heck even genre-creating--classics were just being flung at our heads with wild abandon.

X-COM, Warcraft, Doom 2, TIE Fighter, Super Metroid, EarthBound, Final Fantasy 6, System Shock, Wing Commander 3, The Elder Scrolls : Arena, Master of Magic, Theme Park, Beneath a Steel Sky, Tekken - and this is only a small taste of what we played three decades ago.

Fraser, a 9-year-old boy with limited funds, was obsessed with the French action-adventure game Little Big Adventure. This strange game, which placed you in the slippers and flowing robes of a fugitive who had a magical ball, became my obsession. Not only because it was a difficult game, but because it was also absurdly ambitious.

Little Big Adventure: Twinsen's quest, the remake of Little Big Adventure, is now available. I am experiencing a nostalgic overload. The art direction has changed a lot, making the world more cartoonishly colorful and exaggerated. It's also improved the mechanics. But so much of what I loved the first time is still there, just with less of the frustrating stuff.

LBA veterans may remember the stance system where you had to change stances in order to run, fight, and sneak. It seemed clever to me at the time for reasons I don't remember, but it was a huge faff. I was a child and I died a lot of times because I panicked when I tried to switch from neutral to aggressive, only to be slapped by an angry, anthropomorphic police elephant. That's gone now. Now you can play the game as if it were any other.

Strangely, however, the art of sneaking is now completely gone. You can only hide in certain situations. It's not that there isn't a certain element of stealth. For example, one of the first steps you take when breaking out of a mental asylum at the beginning of the game is to don a nurse uniform to get by some guards.

I've seen some criticism of the way it looks, but it's something I really like. LBA was always cartoonish but today's standards would describe the environments as muted and basic. I was surprised to see how far they differ from my memories of the colourful, whimsical visual identity that seemed to be so prevalent at the time. The remake's revamp makes them feel more lively and fun, but without making LBA appear like a modern video game. It still has a lot of '90s feel.

The fact that LBA, despite appearing to be aimed at children, was actually a dark adventure could explain some of the dissatisfaction over the new look. You are a prophet/terrorist who is trying to bring down a fascist scientist and his megalomaniacal regime. But LBA was always a dichotomy. It flitted between whimsical and mature puzzle-solving, and beating up clone police.

I've just started playing, but it has already brought me back to 1994. It's not just for middle-aged gamers looking for a throwback. There's a lot to recommend, even if it's your first time playing the original. You won't have to spend as much time getting smashed by the controls, as I did back in the old days.