Games that should get remade

[TedEH]

I'd put something like the 3ds remakes of the Zelda games in that grey area. At first glance it looks like everything was just made to look a bit nicer (It's a remaster!) but if you dig a little farther you realize that parts of it have been either heavily tweaked or potentially re-implemented entirely (Maybe a remake...?). Same with the Diddy Kong Racing remake. It's 80% the same, but a bunch of new things were added, some mechanics altered, etc..
There are lots of things in between "some visuals were updated" and "we started from scratch".

 

[Qweklain]

So I want to add one more. It was going to be two, but I just learned that they are remastering MediEvil!!

Suikoden 1 & 2

 

[wankerness]

I'd put something like the 3ds remakes of the Zelda games in that grey area. At first glance it looks like everything was just made to look a bit nicer (It's a remaster!) but if you dig a little farther you realize that parts of it have been either heavily tweaked or potentially re-implemented entirely (Maybe a remake...?). Same with the Diddy Kong Racing remake. It's 80% the same, but a bunch of new things were added, some mechanics altered, etc..
There are lots of things in between "some visuals were updated" and "we started from scratch".

Hmm, OK, I will admit total ignorance on all of those. You very well may have a point here! Which Zelda games have 3DS remakes?

They probably get referred to with the blanket term "PORT" which can refer to either. I guess it makes it so no one ever thinks to try to distinguish between the two or has this mental struggle. The few Nintendo ports that I've played tend to add a bunch of bonus material and change up the control scheme on top of maybe redoing the graphics. (IE Mario 64 DS).

I guess there's a sliding scale with a gray area, you win! There's a ton of stuff that's definitively on one side or the other, though. I guess it doesn't matter for this thread as long as you don't take the thread title too seriously.

 

[GatherTheArsenal]

The FPS Black for ps2.

To this day, one of the best shooters ever created. And when it came out it was mind blowing.

Oooh yes! I remember staying up trying to beat one of the levels with my cousin. Such a great game, seems to have gone under so many radars though? Or is that just my perception?

 

[cwhitey2]

Oooh yes! I remember staying up trying to beat one of the levels with my cousin. Such a great game, seems to have gone under so many radars though? Or is that just my perception?

I think you are correct. I feel like it was ahead of its time. It would have been a great online game, but back then there wasnt the online community for ps2 like we have today. PC's were dominating online play.


Not to go off topic, but since we are talking online games now. Day of Defeat was the shit. Miss that game so much...and it was online only.

 

[TedEH]

They probably get referred to with the blanket term "PORT" which can refer to either.

Except that, no - a port is a specific term for taking an existing piece of software and making it work on another platform or under different circumstances. What's being called here a "remaster" is usually, on some level, a port. (Source: It's part of what I do for a living.)

What games journalism calls "a port" stems from a lack of understanding of how software is developed.

 

[wankerness]

Except that, no - a port is a specific term for taking an existing piece of software and making it work on another platform or under different circumstances. What's being called here a "remaster" is usually, on some level, a port. (Source: It's part of what I do for a living.)

What games journalism calls "a port" stems from a lack of understanding of how software is developed.

I know how port is used, and what it means, I meant that to avoid having to identify what something is gaming journalists/gamers use that blanket term. Man, let's just let this rest. MOSTLY, it's obvious what a remaster vs a remake is, and yes, things can appear in the gray area according to your nintendo examples, and I'm not really sure why it matters anyway! I'll take either.

I am disappointed by those slapdash PS1 ports ala FFIX where they just throw the original backgrounds in at PS1 resolution with the character models looking much better. At least they don't label them remasters! I read some speculation as to why they hadn't done that with FFVIII yet. It's too bad, I'd really like to replay that game and don't really want to depend on my rickety old PS2 and PS1 memory card/scratched old discs working all the way through. But, better that than playing it on PC!

 

[TedEH]

For the purposes of this conversation, it doesn't really matter -> But viewing things from the inside out, there's so much misunderstanding about how games actually work and get made out there that it's really grating, and sometimes leads gaming conversions/debates into some very ignorant territory. Games get judged on entirely unfair terms, IMO. But anyway.

What I feel like I'd appreciate more than these kinds of remakes or remasters would be..... maintaining things to continue to work on modern platforms. It's one thing to throw together a dosbox setup for a game and sell that, but what about games for older versions of windows? Games where the lighting methods aren't supported anymore because PC video hardware has changed too much? Games that relied on outdated components that aren't available anymore? The first two Splinter Cell games are still good games, except that the lighting doesn't work properly anymore which breaks the stealth mechanics. I've got some old Windows 3.1 and 95 games that relied on now-ancient versions of QuickTime that you'd have to jump through ridiculous virtualization hoops to play. I know there's definitely some efforts that get made to do this kind of thing (GoG!), but I'd love to see more of that kind of thing.

 

[Bloody_Inferno]

For the purposes of this conversation, it doesn't really matter -> But viewing things from the inside out, there's so much misunderstanding about how games actually work and get made out there that it's really grating, and sometimes leads gaming conversions/debates into some very ignorant territory. Games get judged on entirely unfair terms, IMO.

I'm genuinely interested in that side of the spectrum. As I have said, personally I would prefer if all last gen consoles and games were properly preserved without resorting to dodgy emulators or nostalgia fueled kickstarters. In an industry moving at a speedy rate, it's a good way to measure the games that hold up or all the bad ideas that have been made. Nintendo at least have the right idea porting old games even if I don't agree with overcharging for Balloon Fight. But I digress.

Had this thread started 7 or so years ago, I'd pull out a short list based largely on nostalgia alone. But now even with some awareness of developers being rushed by their publishers to make release dates to the point of some games released unfinished, I'm more picky with my choices (for the most part). I chose Xenogears specifically because of its development woes preventing it from what it could be. But it could have also be a lot more bloated had too much time and budget had been spent. Conversely I chose Mana 2 for much more simpler reasons. It didn't get the international treatment for yonks and with the first Mana game remade, give SD3 the treatment but better.

While Final Fantasy 6 would be nice to get the remake 7 is getting, personally I think the game still holda up, and it's been rereleased enough times as is, even if each version has some imperfections.

That and nostalgia is an incredibly deceiving and blinding mistress.

 

[dhgrind]

Clayfighter

 

[Demiurge]

^It wasn't the best gameplay-wise, but it was certainly a hoot because of the visuals.

Imagine an update where the stop-motion work was Nightmare Before Christmas level of quality. It would be prohibitively expensive to make but it would be awesome!

 

[Ralyks]

Isn't the reason FFVIII hasn't been ported or rereleased is because a bunch of the code is missing?
And having just restarted the PS4 port of FFIX and finished the first disc, my only real gripe with it is that it feels laggy at times. Looks nice otherwise.

At this point, I'd just take an FFVI port on PS4 with trophy support. Yeah, I'm that douche.

 

[wankerness]

I'm genuinely interested in that side of the spectrum. As I have said, personally I would prefer if all last gen consoles and games were properly preserved without resorting to dodgy emulators or nostalgia fueled kickstarters. In an industry moving at a speedy rate, it's a good way to measure the games that hold up or all the bad ideas that have been made. Nintendo at least have the right idea porting old games even if I don't agree with overcharging for Balloon Fight. But I digress.

Had this thread started 7 or so years ago, I'd pull out a short list based largely on nostalgia alone. But now even with some awareness of developers being rushed by their publishers to make release dates to the point of some games released unfinished, I'm more picky with my choices (for the most part). I chose Xenogears specifically because of its development woes preventing it from what it could be. But it could have also be a lot more bloated had too much time and budget had been spent. Conversely I chose Mana 2 for much more simpler reasons. It didn't get the international treatment for yonks and with the first Mana game remade, give SD3 the treatment but better.

While Final Fantasy 6 would be nice to get the remake 7 is getting, personally I think the game still holda up, and it's been rereleased enough times as is, even if each version has some imperfections.

That and nostalgia is an incredibly deceiving and blinding mistress.

Nintendo are by far the WORST at preserving their own history. They had a tiny trickle of virtual console games through the life of the Wii/Wii-U and they all went away with the Switch, which is also not backwards compatible. So now there's what, 10 NES games available? Plus the NES/SNES classic things, I guess. They're also completely draconian about emulators. Which like, fine, they're illegal, but with video games it's like if libraries had to toss out all their books every few years unless they're currently in-print. There are HUNDREDS of games for each system that Nintendo is never, ever going to reissue that are just going to be lost to the winds of time if not for emulators.

PS4 has that PSnow thing to cover a fair number of their back catalog games along with a pretty consistent stream of remasters of their "first party" games, and Xboxone, for all its faults, is doing an incredible job of preserving the back catalog of Xbox in a digital form that seems like it should continue existing going forward. Nintendo just doesn't seem to care.

 

[Bloody_Inferno]

Nintendo are by far the WORST at preserving their own history. They had a tiny trickle of virtual console games through the life of the Wii/Wii-U and they all went away with the Switch, which is also not backwards compatible. So now there's what, 10 NES games available? Plus the NES/SNES classic things, I guess. They're also completely draconian about emulators. Which like, fine, they're illegal, but with video games it's like if libraries had to toss out all their books every few years unless they're currently in-print. There are HUNDREDS of games for each system that Nintendo is never, ever going to reissue that are just going to be lost to the winds of time if not for emulators.

PS4 has that PSnow thing to cover a fair number of their back catalog games along with a pretty consistent stream of remasters of their "first party" games, and Xboxone, for all its faults, is doing an incredible job of preserving the back catalog of Xbox in a digital form that seems like it should continue existing going forward. Nintendo just doesn't seem to care.

I said they had the right idea, I didn't say they were any good at it.

I've already harped about Nintendo's history with not getting along with third party developers pre Switch so I don't expect a lot of the NES/SNES back catalogue being rereleased outside their usual first party stuff. No wonder everyone mods the mini consoles. Funny how easily tht can be done given Nintendo's stance on emulation.

 

[TedEH]

with video games it's like if libraries had to toss out all their books every few years unless they're currently in-print

The game preservation thing could be a whole thread/conversation on it's own, and I agree that games aren't always great at preserving it's history, but I don't know that I'd call that a good analogy if we're talking about retro games - I feel like that conversation pretends that all the cartridges aren't still out there in people's homes and circulating through various markets. The preservation argument always comes up in defense of emulating retro games that still work just fine if you still have them, but IMO your analogy works better for PC games - where hardware obsolescence, software updates, etc., mean that the copies you still have no longer work.

I honestly think the current state of games are in a worse position for preservation than they've ever been - all the worst things about modern gaming, the loot boxes, the always online components, mobile ports and mobile-only games, etc., mean that preservation will be not just a legal problem, but also much more of a technical one than it is now. Some day, when Fortnight is considered a retro-game, it's going to be impossible to play it in a comparable way.

 

[Bloody_Inferno]

Clayfighter

^It wasn't the best gameplay-wise, but it was certainly a hoot because of the visuals.

Imagine an update where the stop-motion work was Nightmare Before Christmas level of quality. It would be prohibitively expensive to make but it would be awesome!

Have the same companies that developed the Killer Instinct reboot (Double Helix/Iron Galaxy) and give Clayfighter the same love and make us forget the original's utter jankiness and we have ourselves a winner game.

EDIT: Speaking of fighting games...

Turtles Tournament Fighters.

That was already a great fighting game (one of the best Street Fighter clones of it's time) and it actually still holds up decently. But the thought of giving it to Arc Systems Works and getting a Dragon Ball FighterZ style treatment is too good to pass up. At least a sequel with more characters that missed out the first time (Bebop, Rocksteady, etc), and refine the SF style engine with the hybrid anime fighter (but without going overboard on the latter), sort of like Sengoku Basara X.

 

[KnightBrolaire]

I think I said it way back in the other gaming thread, but I'd love a Primal Rage or War of the Monsters remake. There's something super satisfying about running around as a giant monster and beating the shit out of other monsters/ robots.

 

[wankerness]

The game preservation thing could be a whole thread/conversation on it's own, and I agree that games aren't always great at preserving it's history, but I don't know that I'd call that a good analogy if we're talking about retro games - I feel like that conversation pretends that all the cartridges aren't still out there in people's homes and circulating through various markets. The preservation argument always comes up in defense of emulating retro games that still work just fine if you still have them, but IMO your analogy works better for PC games - where hardware obsolescence, software updates, etc., mean that the copies you still have no longer work.

I honestly think the current state of games are in a worse position for preservation than they've ever been - all the worst things about modern gaming, the loot boxes, the always online components, mobile ports and mobile-only games, etc., mean that preservation will be not just a legal problem, but also much more of a technical one than it is now. Some day, when Fortnight is considered a retro-game, it's going to be impossible to play it in a comparable way.

PC games are almost all still playable via OS emulators, and they are very widely available either piracy-wise or through GOG. You don't need to actually dig up a 486 to play games that were written around that hardware. Kind of like Console emulators, only much more sanctioned!

The thing with cartridges/old CDs is more that you need an increasing pile of obsolete hardware to make them WORK, and old consoles are failing more and more with less and less ability to fix them. Not to mention having to keep around a CRT to get proper results. If you have a top loading NES, sure, you're probably good for a while, but working standard ones are probably going to be a rare breed at some point. At least Nintendo's build quality was far higher than that of say, Sony. N64s feel like they'd keep working if you ran it over with a truck, a ps1 tended to stop working if you looked at it wrong.

 

[TedEH]

Funny enough, my N64 has some stability problems sometimes haha. There's something wacky with the power supply, and it occasionally heats up and crashes.

Maybe it comes down to the individual games, but I've been finding it hard to get some older games running again. Splinter Cell lighting doesn't work properly anymore. I tried Kane & Lynch a while ago and it's just unplayably chuuuuuugs along for reasons unknown. So many games have resolution problems (Old Thief games, Deus Ex 1, Rogue Squadron, etc), a couple of games claim to be been maintained but still don't work (7th Legion - I know, it's not a "good" game, but still, lol).

I actually did try recently to get a Win 95 machine going in a VM and maaaaan what a pain it is to get that OS running now.

 

[wankerness]

What program were you using to try and build the VM? The built-in one in Windows 10? I haven't experimented with that much, the only thing I have done with it was set up a Windows 10 32-bit machine on someone's computer that had hardware that only supported 64 bit. It seemed pretty intuitive.

I have only used my N64 once in the last several years and that was to play Diddy Kong Racing! It was fine for that. But, yeah, I guess I wouldn't trust Expansion Pak games to work reliably, especially those that required it.