What is the ideal video game remake?

[Zapp Branniglenn]

So big budget remakes of games have been making big waves in the last few years, leading me to think we may see more ambitious projects like them in the near future. I've been mulling over in my head what the best remakes of video games have been over the years, and lately noticed my favorite examples of remakes are really different in how they handled the source material. So I thought I would pose the question to you guys: What is the ideal approach to remaking a game? Along with some other flavored poll questions to spark some discussion. Be sure to mention your own favorite remakes and why you think their approach worked, even if you're not sure it's the right approach for just any game.

By the way, the definition of "remake" for this thread is starting from the ground up.  What a remake is definitely not, is a simple port of the game supporting high resolution graphics, or a remaster that just adds one or two quality of life improvements. They are also not reboots which is when developers make a new game in a franchise for the purposes of establishing new continuity, yet the developer slapped the franchise title alone on the game despite no relation or explicit homage to the other game with the exact same name.

And let me know if I missed any potential answers for the poll questions. 

Edited April 27, 2020 by Glennstavos

[Dayni]

I mean, fully replacing the original tends to be what people would want, but complementary actions on tham can give some great stuff too. I could tie underappreciated and obscure titles to remake together, but that''s contextual. But still, if you can get away with being more of a remaster (even one that alters things), it just makes budgetary sense to remaster if you can.

I ended up picking out of what I played and I have not played many of these (When this includes all the REs, N.Sane, Oddworld or that Metroid 2 (not, not AM2R), I really need to be getting on some of those.). SoV is I would argue the most total improvement of the FE titles remade (I get the arguments gameplay wise, but I still had a blast on Hard Classic barring, I guess, Nuibaba? Bit of Thabes frustration?) HG/SS are some of the best pokemon games, remaking the best region, so an obvious pick (to those who love their Hoenn, ORAS are still the best 3DS titles.). As for a third, I'm going to pick Zero mission as that's the one I think I've seen the most of at this point and it has done a lot right (RE1 would probably be here if I had). I did not pick Spyro because it's was less transformative and some invisible blocks and one of two other things brought down the experience a little (also, they removed the swimming glitch from what I can see), but this does allow you to switch music and unlike HG/SS from the start.

As for more remakes.... I bet if I researched I could roll out a list, but Trials of Mana is a remake that just released. Also, SotC was remade? Okay, what happened there? I thought that was a port.

[Callie]

instead remake the old game with the story everyone know.  I prefer new game story with charaters from older games. 

[Reality]

My pick for good (Hard) remakes that weren't in the poll 

Sid Meier's 1987 Pirates! to the Firaxis 2004 Pirates!:(very drastic overhaul even if the minigames are a bit much)

Ocean Software's 1987 Head over Heels to the Retrospec 2003 Head over Heels (slight tweak to item system changes some puzzles)

Free Fall's 1983 Archon to the Freefall Games 2010 Archon Classic (multiple maps, similar, melee is still fast but with less sniper wars)

 

 

 

Edited April 27, 2020 by Reality

[Lightcosmo]

While I've played a lot of these, I'm not entirely sure I can actually decide on which is ideal to me, but I enjoyed every one I've played, so that says something. But if I had to choose, it would be Metroid: Zero Mission. Amazing game overall in my opinion.

[Light Strategist]

Honestly, I think that the methods used for Pokémon Fire Red and Leaf Green were the best way to handle a remake.

You change next to nothing from the main story and anything that IS changed is very minor and a way to break the slog of just playing through the same game again. Provide the most meat of new content in the post-game and you have a faithful remake that can replace the originals and serve as definitive versions while adding more content to play around with after you've done everything the originals had for you to do.

In fact, it's because of those aspects that's the reason I get so annoyed with Heart Gold and Soul Silver as remakes. They literally forced the Legendary Pokémon into the story and it made less sense to do so. In the originals finding Ho-oh or Lugia wasn't exactly the most difficult thing to do but I'd argue it carried more weight to discover their locations yourself rather than being literally forced to stop your League challenge to go and get them when they never mattered originally.

I don't mind new features being added into remakes but forcing the player to do things they never had to do in the originals if it takes away the player's choice for how they want to play the game.

[indigoasis]

Ocarina of Time 3D is the ideal kind of remake to me. It enhances everything about the original and includes a lot of QoL improvements (like the iron and hover boots being moved into the inventory, for example). It was how I experienced OoT, and it's a game that I revist every year or two. However, I wouldn't say that it could necessarily replace the original N64 game. The N64 version is a product of its time, sure, but it was an impressive product of it's time. The 3DS remake is absolutely fantastic, but at its core, it's still the same game as the original. If anything, it complements the original and introduced the game to new audiences (like me). OoT 3D was also released on a handheld, so for those with both the original (or it's home console re-releases) and the remake, they have the choice to play it at home or on the go, if they so please.

I would also like to note that the original build of the game has the faster Any% speedrun times out of the original and remake by ~20 minutes. Until the remake gets that fast of a time, it's not a better version of the game.

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

I'm mainly for a remake of games which were not released for the west.

Judgral games are the best example.

[Callie]

ah wait!! why did u ask those questions ? Are u a producer or something ?

[AnonymousSpeed]

On question number 2:

• The best reason to remake a game is because it has a few tweaks which would drastically improve it. While many of these tweaks can be achieved through hacking and emulation, that's sort of like saying Super Thracia is fine because you have savestates. Which might be fair actually, but you will necessarily have savestates with Super Thracia and not so with official games.
• This is part of what I dislike so much about Zero Mission, conceptually. It's too radically different compared to the original game. This would be alright if the original wasn't so clunky (no map, long passwords, always start with the same amount of health on inputting a password, swapping between the ice beam and the wave beam requires you to physically return to their location on the map and pick them up again), but since it is we have this scenario where you have to pick between a cumbersome Metroid 1 experience or something which isn't a Metroid 1 experience any more.

That said, the best remake is obviously Mega Man Powered Up. It has new robot masters and redesigned stages, but it also has the original game simply remade in the Powered Up engine. Aside from the few quirks of said engine and reduced weapon ammo, you still can have the original Mega Man experience but with a few appreciable improvements, like invincibility frames applying to spikes. Powered Up also lets you play as the robot masters, which adds even more new fun stuff that doesn't significantly alter the essence of the original unless you want it to.

Edited April 27, 2020 by AnonymousSpeed

[Zapp Branniglenn]

6 minutes ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

On question number 2:

• The best reason to remake a game is because it has a few tweaks which would drastically improve it. While many of these tweaks can be achieved through hacking and emulation, that's sort of like saying Super Thracia is fine because you have savestates. Which might be fair actually, but you will necessarily have savestates with Super Thracia and not so with official games.

Ah, that's a good perspective. I've added an answer like that to Question 2, because I've definitely been in that position with an older game where it's like "man if they'd just change this one silly thing". Like how I'm playing the Triple Triad minigame in Final Fantasy 8 right now. It's a fun minigame with great rewards, but it has this annoying system of rules changing that is very obtuse to understand and requires straight up rng manipulation to adjust, and we could save hours of tearing our hair out if the game would simply change it to an NPC saying "hey, want to play with our region's unique rules?" and the player being prompted to answer yes/no. These are simple little things that just aren't addressed in the remaster. So whether you're playing the original or the remaster, you're stuck with a game that's taking away your best cards even when you win a match, or you're stuck with these weird manipulation strategies you read about online that take hours of resetting to perform anyway.

2 hours ago, Falcom Knight said:

I'm mainly for a remake of games which were not released for the west.

Judgral games are the best example.

Totally. That's a very relatable answer for us Fire Emblem fans, so I added it to question 2.

5 hours ago, Reality said:

My pick for good (Hard) remakes that weren't in the poll 

Sid Meier's 1987 Pirates! to the Firaxis 2004 Pirates!:(very drastic overhaul even if the minigames are a bit much)

Ocean Software's 1987 Head over Heels to the Retrospec 2003 Head over Heels (slight tweak to item system changes some puzzles)

Free Fall's 1983 Archon to the Freefall Games 2010 Archon Classic (multiple maps, similar, melee is still fast but with less sniper wars)

Oops, well I've added Other to the list to cover my bases. I tried to scrutinize what counts as a remake, but the hard truth is I don't know everything about these games, and often deferred to whether Wikipedia or the developers/publishers called it a remake. The list is alphabetical, so I'm worried if I added any entries inbetween there, it would move or even delete existing votes for other games. SF polls can be wonky like that.

8 hours ago, Dayni said:

As for more remakes.... I bet if I researched I could roll out a list, but Trials of Mana is a remake that just released. Also, SotC was remade? Okay, what happened there? I thought that was a port.

Yeah, I realized a bit after posting the thread that I forgot Trials of Mana. At the time there were no votes, so I just slipped it in there. As for Shadow of the Colossus, yes it was ported to PS3 in 2011, but I'm referring to the 2018 remake. That game was built from the ground up with totally new assets, but plays just like the original like some other ultra-faithful remakes

35 minutes ago, Hong Nhi said:

ah wait!! why did u ask those questions ? Are u a producer or something ?

I was mostly interested in people's favorite remakes and whether there's a common link between them, but yeah it does look a lot like a survey. Ha ha...

*stuffs papers in suitcase and walks out*

[Fabulously Olivier]

A lot of these come down to context, or can be either or. Sometimes, subversion is fun, and I think the FF7R did an incredible job of that. Usually, you want to be more direct. But playability is always king, and the addition of new content or the removal of bad content is welcome.

 

Sometimes, a game is damn near perfect and just needs the visual/performance benefits of modern hardware (Path of Radiance and Tales of the Abyss). Sometimes, the game has major design and/or balance flaws that warrant a remake or need more story chapters to fill in plot holes (Radiant Dawn). Sometimes, the difference between original hardware and new hardware is so profound that the game should be changed drastically (pretty much any handheld to console remake)

 

Anyway, my votes for the 3 best remakes were Spyro (made as I remember it, not how the originals actually looked), Trials of Mana, and FF7R. 

 

I wouldn't vote for the 3 FE remakes we've received thus far because, for all of their improvements, SD still has bad writing and SoV is still a bad game.

Edited April 27, 2020 by Etheus