Remakes are always a topic of heated debate in the gaming community. Sometimes they result in games that garner critical acclaim, but I’d say that most remakes we’ve seen so far simply end up showing us how good the original was, and that we’d rather be playing that.
Still, if someone wants to put the time and money into remaking a game, I’d usually wish them the best of luck and hope it ends up as something I’d want to play. However, when it comes to certain titles, I think the prospect of a remaster is a fool’s errand, and the games are already as good as they’ll ever be.
10
Chrono Trigger
Chrono Trigger often tops lists of the best RPGs, JRPGs, or just games of all time. This SNES title has been ported to a huge number of systems, and you can play it on your mobile devices or PC right now. In fact, my favorite place to play this game is on my iPad Pro, because of its 4:3 aspect ratio.
Chrono Trigger is a turn-based 2D JRPG, which to some people might seem like an obsolete game format, but there are modern games, such as Sea of Stars, that are a clear homage to Chrono Trigger and are beloved in their own right. Then there’s the rising popularity of so-called “HD-2D” games like Octopath Traveler, which mix modern 3D lighting and other effects with 2D sprite work. In fact, when it comes to remaking Chrono Trigger, giving it this HD-2D treatment is a common request.
However, Chrono Trigger doesn’t need the HD-2D treatment, much less the Final Fantasy Remake treatment. The art is beautiful just as it is, the pacing and gameplay are as pitch-perfect now as then. The story? The only thing you’d achieve is make it worse. Just make it available on every new generation of hardware. They can start with current-generation consoles. Not even the Switch has it, for some reason.
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9
Grim Fandango
Grim Fandango is a unique, well-written, brilliantly-designed, and timeless classic of an adventure game. It’s already received the remastering treatment that did a great job of simply sharpening the graphics, providing more modern movement controls as an option, and generally working to preserve the game but change nothing about its art direction or gameplay.
While Grim Fandango could certainly use a sequel or at least another game set in the same world based on a fascinating take on the South American mythology regarding the afterlife, the original can never be duplicated. That magic was captured once, and doesn’t need anyone to try again.
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8
Vagrant Story
Vagrant Story is an original PlayStation game that released less than a month before the PlayStation 2 did, which I think means it didn’t get the recognition and hype it deserved at the time. Today, however, it’s widely considered one of the best RPGs for the PS1, and certainly one of the best in the Square Enix stable. The game was never ported to other consoles, but it has been available officially via emulation on some consoles, such as the PlayStation Vita.
Personally, I love playing this game on modern emulation handhelds, but it was just as good on my PS Vita, and I hope we’ll see it come to the current PlayStation consoles via emulation, or a modest remaster, just as virtually all the Final Fantasy games have received.
Vagrant Story is set in the same world of Ivalice as Final Fantasy Tactics, and Final Fantasy XII. However, it’s completely different from either of those titles, with its real-time-with-pause gameplay, innovative combat sphere, and a dozen other mechanics I don’t have the space to mention here.
On top of that, it’s quite possible the best-looking polygonal 3D PS1 game ever, and it’s almost hard to believe it’s made to run on the same console as Final Fantasies 7-9.
The game has no voice acting, but it has cinematic in-engine cutscenes that would put Metal Gear Solid to shame, a fantastic story, and perhaps most importantly an aesthetic that should not be touched. So hands-off remaking this one, just bring on a straight remaster please.
7
Another World
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Another World was a visual masterpiece when it first saw the light of day in 1991. This was before teh flood of CD-ROM multimedia games with full-motion video, so seeing such intricate animations in a computer game felt like seeing Crysis for the first time.
Long before Dark Souls, this game expected you to die over, and over again as you learned how to pass the obstacles on each screen. Your character can’t survive even a single point of damage, so expect to keep at it until you get your platforming or combat timing just right, or work out how to avoid hazards, or enemy strategies.
The 20th Anniversary edition was released on just about every hardware platform you can imagine, and the graphics were carefully redone in collaboration with the original creator of the game to make something that’s sharper, but otherwise perfectly faithful to the original.
Another World is such a singular experience, and has such a distinctive look and gameplay style, that there’s just no way you could remake it in any meaningful way. Besides, this should be played exactly as it is, though the remaster does offer an easy mode if you want it.
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6
The Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 1 & 2
The Soul Reaver games have received a brilliant remaster that preserves the original PS1 and PS2 art styles, with reworked assets, but also the option to simply switch to the original visuals at the press of a button. That’s as far as it should go in my opinion, because a large part of what makes these entries in the Legacy of Kain series so special is the time and place they were made. The cutscene style, the level design, the acting, combat, all of it is the product of the developers pushing against technological limitations of the day.
The first Soul Reaver game is in many ways a title that set the template for modern third-person action-adventure games, and I feel it would be almost a crime to remake it using the later refinements of the genrem turning it into a generic clone of itself. The games are still perfectly playable today, the remaster looks great, and you can have some concessions such as modern camera controls if you like. Changing any more than that will simply lead to an inferior experience, no matter how shiny you make it look.
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5
MDK
MDK is, well, I’m not sure what it is entirely, but on the surface it’s a third-person action game with a unique visual style, strange creatures and characters, and I love it. You play as a janitor who has to save the Earth from aliens with the help of a mad scientist and a weird robot dog. The humor is its own thing, and if you get it you really get it.
If you tried to remake MDK today, apart from having all its edges sanded down, I think you’d lose the game’s unique character by giving it modern graphics. MDK looks like MDK, for lack of a better way of describing it. The game is more than the sum of its parts, so you just can’t keep what makes it special by reimagining it. You might get something good, but you’ll lose the MDK-ness of it all.
4
Giants: Citizen Kabuto
Trying to remake Giants: Citizen Kabuto would be like trying to remake RoboCop, and we all know how that turned out. This is one of the most original games ever made, and it’s not for everyone, but it’s definitely from a time when game publishers were not playing it safe. I can’t imagine anything like Kabuto being made today, with its weird mix of comedy and epic sci-fi action, it’s extremely varied and off-the-rails gameplay.
Also, you should know that this game was developed by an offshoot of the same team that made MDK…
3
Crusader: No Remorse
Crusader: No Remorse is an isometric video game from 1995 that still has a reputation for being one of the most violent, action-packed games of all time. The main character, The Captain, is clearly based on the design of Boba Fett from Star Wars. This knockoff Mandalorian shouldn’t be taken lightly however, because even old Boba would wince at the carnage the Captain could dish out.
The dystopian cyberpunk story and setting feel very specific to the game, and remaking the game would definitely lose some of the grittiness and flavor that goes with how Crusader looks and plays. Sometimes you can pull it off, as was the case with Diablo II: Resurrected, but for every successful graphical overhaul, there’s another situation where the paint should’ve stayed in the can.
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2
Fallout 1 & 2
The original duo of Fallout games are simply two of the best games ever made. I like Bethesda’s Fallout games just fine, but the originals are true RPGs whereas the action-RPG titles we got later lack the bulk of the depth and player agency the isometric titles gave us. It’s not only that I think these games shouldn’t be remade, or even remastered, it’s that I think it’s literally impossible to faithfully remake them.
You’d have to invest Baldur’s Gate 3 levels of time and money to even have a hope of making a modern game that matches up to the core experience of the original Fallout games, and more than likely you’ll fall short. The games are being preserved well and are widely available too, so there’s no reason to drag them through the remake process.
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1
Blade Runner
The Blade Runner game feels strangely forgotten, so I don’t feel that it’s in any real danger of being remade, but it’s also one of the games I’d be absolutely against anyone remaking. Its specific aesthetic is a core part of the game’s appeal, and mechanically it’s weirdly ahead of even modern story-driven games. The game has a unique system where AI characters do their own thing while you are playing, and they pursue their own agendas and goals. The game has numerous endings, and facts like which characters are replicants (including yours) change from one playthrough to the next.
The Enhanced Edition has been well-received, but you can still buy and play the original if you like too. I’d be completely behind a new modern and original Blade Runner game, but I think we can leave this one alone.
