Your ideal video game remake?

[crantheman]

In the era of mass nostalgia-pandering with remakes upon remakes, I believe a lot of modern remakes have lost the idea of what a true "video game remake" needs to be. For me there are two ideal ways to remake a video game: Providing more content in an already great game, or overhauling a milk-aged game in a new engine that replaces the original in every way.

Going off of the former, growing up I played a lot of Kirby: Super Star Ultra. A remake of Kirby Super Star (an already fun and enjoyable experience), the Ultra remake on Nintendo DS expanded upon the original experience, providing more playable characters such as Meta Knight and King Dedede, added new modes, and full-motion cutscenes. For me, this Kirby remake is the quintissential way to remake an already great game without compromising the integrity of the original game.

The ideal example of the latter, and the best video game remake imo, is Metroid: Zero Mission. It's a remake of the original Metroid on NES, and takes a game that aged like milk and was limited by the hardware of the NES and transforms it into one of the best 2D platforming-shooters on the GBA. Zero Mission expanded upon the original story of the NES version, providing more depth to Samus' backstory and the Chozo. It also had tighter gameplay that felt easy to control, unlike the NES version's floaty and awkward controls. I have a bit of bias towards Zero Mission I will admit, but I adore what this game did for the original NES Metroid.

Enough about my thoughts. I'm curious what you all believe is a game that deserves a remake. Is it an already great game that could use a bit more content? Or maybe its a bad game that deserves a chance at redemption?

 

[diaw]

I would love to see a remake of Driv3r that fixes its godawful third-person shooting and adds a difficulty slider. I LOVE the driving in that game, same with the missions that are surprisingly open-ended, and the incredibly detailed fun maps. I just so badly want to play more of that game without wanting to rip my hair out.

That and Panzer Dragoon Saga. I beg.

 

[Andrew]

That and Panzer Dragoon Saga. I beg.

This is it. Straight up, I can think of nothing that deserves it more - the Saturn is still just fiddly enough to emulate that I have never been able to get it running properly 100% of the time.

I suppose I'd also take a straightforward remake of Final Fantasy 8 too. I loathe the idea that the game needs one just because of its age, but I will say that out of all the Final Fantasy games, 8 has my favorite art direction (13 and 12 close behind) and I would love to see that with the visual fidelity FF7R has. There's such a wonderfully grand scope to it with the limited hardware power available on the PS1 and getting to spend some more time in that world would make me smile a lot. Gosh, I'd get to hear a new version of Man with the Machine Gun too. That alone is enough justification for me.