Is it just me, or has 2026 seemed like a year full of game remasters that are both unexpected and yet not unwelcome? My subject today falls into that category. What we’ve got here is Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee Remastered, developed by Pipeworks Studios and published by Atari. Destroy All Monsters Melee was originally released for the Xbox and the GameCube back in 2002. Back then, it was published by Infogrames rather than Atari. Reportedly, Pipeworks Studios rebuilt as much of the original game as possible in Unreal Engine 5 rather than simply upscaling and porting the original to modern platforms.

As far as I can recall, I don’t think I played much of the original version as a kid. I’m sure I had a copy of it on GameCube and played it to some extent, but it wasn’t exactly the only game that occupied my time back then. That is to say, I doubt I’ll be able to compare Destroy All Monsters Melee Remastered to its original version. Instead, I’ll just do my best to evaluate the remaster on its own merits. As you’ve likely guessed from its title, Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee Remastered does exactly what it says on the tin.

You’re put in control of one of a selection of giant monsters from the Godzilla franchise and expected to engage in kaiju fisticuffs. Now is probably a good time for me to mention I don’t think I’ve ever seen any movies attached to the Godzilla intellectual property in my life. I certainly haven’t seen any all the way through, at least. The only monsters I recognized that are playable in Destroy All Monsters Melee are the titular Godzilla himself and his original mechanized version. Destroy All Monsters Melee doesn’t really need a plot driving its arcade mode, but it has one anyway.

The plot of Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee Remastered involves a hostile extraterrestrial race called the Vortaak, who take control of the minds of all the kaiju on Earth and send them to attack major cities as a means of weakening Earth’s defenses. Whichever monster you choose to play as in any arcade mode run is the only one who breaks free of the Vortaak’s control and goes on to fight off all the other monsters to defend Earth. Win enough battles, and you’ll eventually find yourself aboard the Vortaak mothership to face off against their “ultimate weapon,” Mechagodzilla.

As you compete in most of the various game modes present within Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee Remastered, you’ll earn either experience points with your chosen monster, “research points” that go toward unlocking new monsters and stages, or both. The more experience points you gain with each monster, the more they’ll level up. In turn, the higher the level you reach with a monster, the more access they’ll have to different game modes. The core gameplay loop in Destroy All Monsters Melee Remastered doesn’t exactly have a ton of depth to it, but what is there is still pretty fun.

Even with each monster’s unique abilities that help them stand out in the playable roster, it probably won’t take you too awfully long to master the basics of the core gameplay loop. If you stick to mainly playing modes that give you both character experience points and research points, there’s a good chance you’ll already have unlocked everything by the time you’ve mastered combat, as well. One aspect of the core gameplay I particularly like is that, as far as I can tell, attacks from non-mechanized monsters will potentially be less effective against their mechanized counterparts because of their additional armor.

There’s even an accompanying visual cue and sound cue to indicate that whenever it happens. I’d rather not admit how long it took me to figure out that that was what was happening, but I digress. Speaking of sound cues, the only two bugbears I have with Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee Remastered lie within certain parts of its audio. The first is something I doubt will even be widely noticed, but it’s bothered me all along. It sounds like most (though not all) of the announcer’s voice clips are compressed, as though their quality wasn’t increased from the original 2002 game.

The fact that certain voice lines from the announcer don’t seem to be compressed helped to make this minor annoyance even more obvious to me, specifically. As I said, I doubt this aspect of Destroy All Monsters Melee will even be noticed by much of its audience, and it’s definitely nowhere close to being a catastrophic issue. My second issue is that, since I’m so unfamiliar with the Godzilla IP in general, I didn’t realize how many irritating noises all the playable monsters make. I always hate fighting Anguirus, in particular, because the sounds he makes in battle really drive me up the wall.

Overall, I’m still willing to recommend Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee Remastered even though, if I hadn’t had the opportunity to review it, I probably wouldn’t have gone out of my way to buy it. However, if you have any amount of nostalgia for the original 2002 version, don’t let me stop you from picking up a copy. I should mention that the fact that online multiplayer functionality exists in this remaster might also be a good reason to grab this one, especially if it enables you to play against the same people you battled in local co-op back in 2002.

A PC review copy of Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee Remastered was provided by Atari for this review.

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7

Score

7.0/10

Pros

• Solid core gameplay loop.
• Relatively high-quality remaster.
• Online multiplayer functionality.
• Gameplay is intuitive and fairly easy to master.

Cons

• Certain minor issues with audio might annoy you.