My birthday happened recently. I had a fun time with lots of friends. Most of my gifts happened to be Nintendo eShop cards.

With those eShop cards I was able to buy several games that I have wanted for years. One of those games was The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe.

The Stanley Parable is an extremely well-made game. I won't dive into the specifics here, because this article could very easily get way out of hand if I did that (*cough cough* Persona 5 Royal article *cough cough*), but what mostly sold it for me was the various endings it had. There's a certain feel that meta games like The Stanley Parable have that really resonates with me. I wish that I could describe it to a greater degree, but honestly, I just don't know how.

The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe is a remake of The Stanley Parable (yes, a remake, I'll get into that later) for modern consoles. They could have just left it at that; instead, they chose to elaborate more on the fact that it is a port.

SPOILER WARNING!

One of the decisions that had me scratching my head is the fact that this game opens asking whether you've played The Stanley Parable before; if yes, you have to play 2-3 endings (depending on which endings you actually chose). Later, I realized that there is a definite purpose to this: it eases you back into the game. Especially if you haven't played a game in 5+ years, jumping into the New Content can sometimes be really jarring.

When you do unlock the New Content door, the narrator is really happy, and excited to see what the New Content is. The Jump Circle turns about to be a complete waste (in the narrator's opinion) and he laments about expecting the new content to be any better than it is. This is obviously analogous to our new remaster strategy. Everything speaks for itself here.

After resetting the game, you'll find the New New Content door, showcasing the various aspects of "The Stanley Parable 2".


Upon the completion of the expo hall, you can restart the game and actually find The Stanley Parable 2. The addition of the bucket and its extra dialogue adds for some new flavor(?) on top of the already existing endings, sometimes allowing for new endings (my personal favorite being the "Is This A Bucket?" ending). I feel like this is a good way to go about adding new endings to the format that The Stanley Parable instilled.

Lastly, this is a top-tier remake. Remaking a game isn't easy: you need to reawaken the feelings that the original brings. People are often disappointed in remakes for not meeting what they consider to be a reasonable expectation; this expectation is the game matching the feelings that the original gave them, not the gameplay. The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe passes this goal with flying colors.

I've been koola, and bucket murder is a crime.

(Stanley wondered why the bucket was being described in the third person, despite his apparent ability to understand the bucket himself.)

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