Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee Remastered is a 3D brawler where you can play as Godzilla 1990, hurl Godzilla 2000 across a city, and then watch Anguirus drop kick him through a building. It’s hilarious. That alone is a compelling sales pitch to have me and many other Godzilla fans say, “Why, yes, please take my money.” It’s a pitch that follows through on its promise, which shouldn’t come as a surprise considering it plays one-to-one like the original 2002 game.
It’s fun to wail on giant monsters as the city crumbles around them, and that fun factor only increases when playing locally with three friends–especially if you’re playing on Nintendo Switch 2 where you can pop off a Joy-Con, hand it to the person next to you, and laugh maniacally when you throw them into a pool of lava on Monster Island.
It’s just unfortunate that the game’s simple, straightforward, arcade-like fun is hindered by hours and hours of grinding needed to unlock all the game’s monsters, stages, and modes. Nor does the grind complement the game’s pick-up-and-play design, turning a fun game that offers plenty of laughs into a laborious chore when all you want to do is play as Rodan.
From the start, you have access to four of its 12 monsters: Godzilla 1990, Gigan, Megalon, and Anguirus. The four starting monsters showcase the variety in monster types, with the exception of flying ones like King Ghidorah and Rodan. Monsters generally have the same movesets, with some having a few extra tricks, like Gigan’s ability to teleport or Megalon burrowing underground and grabbing its foe when it emerges. At first, monster movesets can feel samey, each one having identical combos, and similar effects like stomping on a foe’s foot, or pressing back and kick at the same time to perform a drop kick. But there are small quirks and flourishes to each monster that make them unique from each other, like Anguirus’s block, which sees them turn around, exposing their spiked back to an opponent’s attack before stunning the enemy momentarily as they shake their mitts in a display of slapstick buffoonery.
While it isn’t a deep fighting game, there’s enough versatility and depth to sustain fun fights, like the ability to throw buildings or collect power-ups that call in Mothra for an air strike. The variety also ensures no two fights feel the exact same. Having four monsters running around the stage, blasting beams out of their mouths, tossing buildings, or rolling around endlessly to avoid each other is just fun. The experience can feel thin on your own, but with friends it’s a romp, and that’s owed to it being a very approachable fighting game. And even during the hours I’ve spent playing alone, the game still manages to get an occasional laugh out of me due to its cartoony kaiju violence.
It’s just too bad that unlocking other monsters isn’t as straightforward as in the original game. In the 2002 game, unlocking monsters simply required completing the game’s Adventure mode, which was short and arcade-like, and saw you defeating one monster after another until facing off against Mechagodzilla in the end, rewarding you with a new playable character. In its place in the remaster are three forms of progression: character XP for each individual monster; Research Points, which complete Projects that in turn unlock characters and stages; and Rumors, objectives to fulfill in order to unlock Projects. All of these layers coalesce into an attempt to prolong the game’s playtime and unlock your favorite monsters (like Rodan!), and it’s for the worse.
In the 11 hours I’ve spent playing, the majority of that time has been alone trying to unlock characters, which I’ve yet to complete doing, with the remaining three being Destroyah, Mechagodzilla, and, yes, Rodan. Unlocking each monster requires a checklist of variables like winning 12 fights with either Megalon or Gigan, which in turn unlocks a Research Project, which progresses by playing Adventure modes or multiplayer battles (both online and locally). Completing Rumors and fulfilling Research quotas vary in time, and sometimes fulfilling them reveals more Rumors and Research quotas needed to unlock a monster. I was misled a couple times thinking I’d only have to complete one Research to unlock Mecha-King Ghidorah, only to realize another Project would unlock first. This grind extends to the game’s Adventure modes, which are locked behind an individual monster’s level. It’s exhausting.
The two new Adventure modes offer a welcome change up to the tried-and-true classic Adventure, with the addition of Adventure Gauntlet and Adventure Challenge. Gauntlet pits you against two CPUs that get more difficult with each round, and Challenge is an even harder version, where CPUs start with power-ups. It’s too bad that unlocking these requires leveling up one monster at a time, and can be very time-consuming.
There is, however, a way to play all the monsters and stages without grinding: Tournament Mode. This mode is peculiarly tucked away in the settings rather than available in the main menu. Toggling this disables all modes except Custom Battle, and halts Research and Level progression. Here you can play as any monster in either a 1v1 match against a CPU, or with three other friends locally. Tournament Mode cannot be played online, meaning you’re still stuck unlocking characters the boring way the game intended. Still, this mode is a saving grace that allowed me to finally play as Rodan and knock around Destroyah with my pals. It’s a weird workaround, and one that wasn’t made clear to me until after reaching out to the developers to see if the game had cheat codes of its own (the original game’s codes do not work).
The game’s grind feels more in line with what’d be expected in a modern live-service game, and while I’m thankful there are no microtransactions in this game, the game’s inclusion of these systems puts it at odds with a game that celebrates pure and stupid fun.
Destroy All Monsters is a blast, and whether you’re playing it in-person with friends or online, there are a lot of laughs to be had in the spectacle of watching giant kaiju fly through the sky. So despite the grind of its single-player modes, the joy of playing hadn’t worn thin.
Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee Remastered is at its best when it simulates the idea of smashing kaiju toys together as a kid in short sessions with friends, and at its worst when it attempts to prolong a game that never had much depth to begin with. The result is a remaster I’m glad exists considering the drought of Godzilla brawlers, but with a few caveats–not to mention the sting of realizing that the original GameCube and Xbox game were absent of arbitrary grinding.
Just let me smash my toys together, please.
