What should a remake do?

[The Malign Knight]

On 26/5/2017 at 5:04 PM, Nobody said:

I like IS's philosophy on remakes, that is, keeping most of the game the same, but modernising it and adding a few new features. So yeah, I'm happy with the way they handled Shadow Dragon and Shadows of Valentia, though New Mystery was a bit of a mixed bag, since it has that horrible avatar that destroys Marth's character, while gameplay wise it was great.

I agree. I like IS's style of remakeing SoV and SD too

7 hours ago, Tolvir said:

At the same time, FFVII is being remade and they already made a pretty big mistake, change the battle system. Unlike Gaiden, FFVII's battle system was loved by the fans. At most a few tweaks here and there, and maybe the addition of movement in combat could of made a difference, but they have practically deleted and started replacing the original battle system, which is going to fall flat on its face because its something fans loved about the game. At the same time, the remake is fleshing out areas of the game like Midgar, and taking characters like Vincent who had little story prevalence and was completely missable if you didnt know about him, an actual connection to the story.

It's too early to judge FF7's Combat system. It may be bad, but It also could be fantastic for all we know. Saying that It's bad because the original CS was loved(and even then, this is news to me. I've never heard of people praising the CS of FF7) isn't really the best way to judge it.

[Interdimensional Observer]

3 hours ago, The Malign Knight said:

Saying that It's bad because the original CS was loved(and even then, this is news to me. I've never heard of people praising the CS of FF7) isn't really the best way to judge it.

I played FFVII a few years ago, it didn't leave the same impression on me FFVI did, but that's probably because VI came at a more formative period in my life. I bring this up because VI and VII are siblings in gameplay (besides being the two most frequent rivals for the title of best FF).

In terms of gameplay, Materia (VII) is Magicite (VI) altered (how it affects your stats), and refined (it offers more than just summons and magic spells). Limit Breaks are a refined version of Desperation Attacks the same (and in this case, inarguably better).

However, FFVI I'd argue retains a greater degree of character uniqueness, only Limit Breaks and stat differences separate the characters in VII. In VI, every character has some unique command, and the stats differences matter a bit more. Though admittedly both VI and VII suffer from characters who are too plastic, or rather, plastic without real nuances to the plasticity (Materia and Magicite). A Job System is plastic, but FFV and especially the Bravely games load it with intricacies and make it more fun to work within. Deciding on character builds in a good Job System is infinitely better than just slapping some Cure, Esuna, Fire materias on someone (plus Enemy Skills if you're willing to use a guide to break most of the game with this little yellow baby), which is all materia consists of most of the time.

FFVII also suffers from armor that does next to nothing physically is glitched to do absolutely nothing magically. And the reduction of a four-person to three-person team with Cloud being forced during all but his "departure" don't help it either.

Sure FFVII's gameplay is better than FFVIII and the early stuff from I-III (or IV). But it's debatable where it ranks among FFs in terms of gameplay beyond this point, I don't see it being numero uno though.

[Augestein]

Fix gameplay problems first and foremost. I'm fine with abandonment of the original mechanics if the design still keeps the same spirit of the game in mind. 

For the story, I think it should largely remain the same with slight tweaks to clear up weaker points and/or expand upon interesting tidbits. 

[Stopwatch]

One thing i'm thinking that I don't know if anyone here has said yet is that I hope that remaking games doesn't keep them from making cool new material. Even if you think Awakening and Fates are complete garbage, which I don't, I pity you if you aren't excited to see where IntSys takes the series next. 

[bethany81707]

My position on the story would've been 'the original, but with kinks ironed out', which appears to have been overlooked.

A Sacred Stones remake where they reorganise the plot such that Eirika has very little proof that Lyon is the villain could go a long way to making a more interesting plot, while fixing that one plot point, for relatively little effort- you only need to change Chapter 17, really.

[Locke087]

I like remakes to be faithful like SOV, Windwaker HD, and Ocarina of Time 3D these are my Ideal types of remakes.

But remakes like Majora's Mask 3D I hate because they change to much and become worse then the orignal, New Mystery also because of it's overkill changes, I would also argue Shadow Dragon went too far when it added class changing I wouldn't call it overly faithful. 

 

[Spoiler Alert]

To me, a remake should fix, or remove if necessary, what didn’t work while improving on what did.  I think changes should be expected with remakes.  They allow developers to re-tread old ground and re-imagine old ideas into something that’s potentially more functional and fun than what the original had.  The "spirit" of the original should be kept, whatever that means to the developer if anything at all, but not at the expense of fixing bugs and story issues.

Gameplay wise: improving balance, fixing exploits, and glitches should be priority.  I don't mind new mechanics if it works with what’s already there or replaces a previously failed mechanic.

Story wise: fixes to script errors, plot holes, and discontinuity are always welcome in my book.  I don’t think new characters and story elements are always necessary to a remake, but I’m not against them if they positively enhance the story or help smooth over a story error from the original.

[Jotari]

The only thing that maters is if the remake is a good game. Ideally however it should be a good game that I can't already play on another system. If they take Genealogy of Holy War and remake it exactly as is just fixing some of the unbalances and glitches, then I would be happy. If they take Genealogy of Holy War and completely redo it so it has individual chapters and some Thracia elements, then I would still be happy. If they take Shadow Dragon and completely rewrite the last act so Medeus is more involved, then I would be happy. So long as the product is entertaining. That's the only thing that really matters.