A superb remake, and the most obvious follow-up gaming experience to Braid.
What the few reviews I've read about BCR fail to mention are how the little details contribute to a robust gaming experience; it's clear that the developers didn't "phone-in" a single aspect of the game. Of course, the grappling is spot-on; you'll find that you need to complete the challenge levels (and there are a healthy assortment of these) to teach yourself the finer nuances of the grappling arm. There are secrets in every level that lead to worthwhile bonuses: weapon upgrades, bonus challenge levels, 1-ups (which you'll need). The storyline's dialogue is not a haphazard NES rehash, but instead presents an often hilarious send-up of 8-bit action-hero cliches. The soundtrack is fantastic, taking the canonical tunes of the original and turning in a slickly produced, nostalgically chiptune atmosphere. Every little detail has been tweaked, even the inventory method of old has been discarded - a welcome improvement as you no longer have to return to your helicopter to get that damn Green communicator, or waste an item slot with the flare.
As for the graphics themselves, I was surprised to see how well the "2.5-D" (they don't use that term much anymore) perspective worked. The tricky part with games like this is you risk sacrificing the elegance of the platforming mechanics when you bring a classic game to an unnecessary 3-D perspective; so much relies on careful movement that you risk compromising player input with what's on screen. See many of the Sega remakes for some examples of how a 3-D perspective can damage or in some cases ruin an old-school game. In this case, the 3-D works perfectly, offering slight visual cues of spacial depth (i.e. enemy soldiers stepping out of a doorway in the background, their ragdoll corpses plummeting off of a cliff as you step by them) while never making you feel like you missed a jump thanks to a hasty or distracting 3-D veneer that obfuscated a graspable ledge.
I have yet to beat this game, but my time with it so far has exceeded the cost of the game, inspiring me to write this review. This is a definite keeper. Braid last week proved itself to be a crown jewel of the platforming genre, and since most everyone who purchased it has played nothing else until now, BCR serves as the most natural progression. Capcom has made history again with this superb remake of an NES game that, although not enjoying the fanclub of the Sonics and Marios, was a unique and ingenius classic. The game stands so well on its own that I perhaps envy those who missed out on its ancestor, and instead get to play this superior version. How lucky you are to have this.