When a Game Remasters Juuuuuuust right

Squilookle

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Veldie said:
Squilookle said:
More guns, better graphics and functionality and customisation in PD yes, but singleplayer levels were much less linear in GE, and most would say counter-op, as amazing as it was, ran too slowly to be playable.

Don't get me wrong, Perfect Dark is the N64 game I go to first when I want some instant action multiplayer, but Goldeneye had the better singleplayer, with the same level of customisation (007 mode basically was Perfect Dark mode).

Also despite how many hundreds or thousands of hours I've put into PD loving every minute of it, I have to admit the design of it's arenas is pretty crap. Both Goldeneye and The World Is Not Enough had better multiplayer map design than PD.
Counter Co-op is prob one of my fav modes ever and I wish more games had it. The first few levels of PD and playing with a friend is damn fun.
I wish I got to play it more- whenever a friend was over we'd try it a bit and they'd say 'that was fun. Now let's do deathmatch!' and that was the end of it.

Did you know they were planning to put counter-op into Banjo-Tooie as well?
 

Veldel

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Squilookle said:
Veldie said:
Squilookle said:
More guns, better graphics and functionality and customisation in PD yes, but singleplayer levels were much less linear in GE, and most would say counter-op, as amazing as it was, ran too slowly to be playable.

Don't get me wrong, Perfect Dark is the N64 game I go to first when I want some instant action multiplayer, but Goldeneye had the better singleplayer, with the same level of customisation (007 mode basically was Perfect Dark mode).

Also despite how many hundreds or thousands of hours I've put into PD loving every minute of it, I have to admit the design of it's arenas is pretty crap. Both Goldeneye and The World Is Not Enough had better multiplayer map design than PD.
Counter Co-op is prob one of my fav modes ever and I wish more games had it. The first few levels of PD and playing with a friend is damn fun.
I wish I got to play it more- whenever a friend was over we'd try it a bit and they'd say 'that was fun. Now let's do deathmatch!' and that was the end of it.

Did you know they were planning to put counter-op into Banjo-Tooie as well?
I could see it being much harder to implement in a Banjo game but it would be fun id think.

One of my fav things in PD was how you could disarm guards and they would raise there hands and beg you to spare em. Or if you shot them they would drip blood as they moved around leaving a trail.

Might seem minor but in the N64 days that was so cool to me and led me to do non kill runs of missions
 

immortalfrieza

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Well, whenever I think of the perfect Remaster/Remake I think of Final Fantasy 4 DS, and it is probably what I'll always hold up as a shining example of what Remasters/Remakes SHOULD do until something surpasses it. They took a previous 2D Final Fantasy and made it 3D, with voice acting, cutscenes, reworked the translation, and a few other tweaks that does a lot to make the game feel new, but left the game as it was mostly alone. The combat system is largely the same, the areas are of the same configuration, and the story isn't altered much at all, which means it's an improvement for newcomers to enjoy and has enough changes to prompt the longtime fans to come back while also avoiding butchering it in the process. The graphics are a bit blocky but it's to be expected on the DS given it's capabilities, if it had been on an actual console it would've looked significantly better.
 

sXeth

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immortalfrieza said:
Well, whenever I think of the perfect Remaster/Remake I think of Final Fantasy 4 DS, and it is probably what I'll always hold up as a shining example of what Remasters/Remakes SHOULD do until something surpasses it. They took a previous 2D Final Fantasy and made it 3D, with voice acting, cutscenes, reworked the translation, and a few other tweaks that does a lot to make the game feel new, but left the game as it was mostly alone. The combat system is largely the same, the areas are of the same configuration, and the story isn't altered much at all, which means it's an improvement for newcomers to enjoy and has enough changes to prompt the longtime fans to come back while also avoiding butchering it in the process. The graphics are a bit blocky but it's to be expected on the DS given it's capabilities, if it had been on an actual console it would've looked significantly better.
Funnily, thats one of my go to examples for my pet peeve of taking a 2d game and giving it 3d graphics for no particular reason (Other then the style of 3d is probably easier or more readily available then redoing the 2d art). Which seems to be Square's thing rolling right on to Secret of Mana now (although that one is also altering the game mechanics from the video I watched).

I'd much rather get the HD versions of the 2d art then retooling it into 3d models that are operating on a 2d space anyways.
 

kilenem

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Super Mario Bros 3 in the Super Mario Allstars bundle is probably my favorite redux. Everything is the same just with a new coat of paint. They didn't change the Mechanics to much and just fixed some glitches.

Pokemon Heart Gold and Soul Silver are probably my least favorite of good remakes because those games feel so much slower then the original. Maybe its gen because it was built on the same engine as Gen 4 or maybe there just a lot less mechanics in Gen 2 slow down pacing.
 

Neurotic Void Melody

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Veldie said:
One of my fav things in PD was how you could disarm guards and they would raise there hands and beg you to spare em. Or if you shot them they would drip blood as they moved around leaving a trail.

Might seem minor but in the N64 days that was so cool to me and led me to do non kill runs of missions
Also you could shoot the guns out of their hands and hold them hostage, sometimes if you looked away too long or didn't pick up their gun, they would either pick it back up again or pull out a back up pistol. Annnnd you could use the psychosis gun to turn them against their own side. I could go on and on about the little things in that game, it really did push a lot of boundaries that still seem absent in even modern day shooters, ffs.

OT: Nobody mentioned The Last of Us remaster? GTAV remaster was/is pretty substantial too.
 

Jamcie Kerbizz

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max734734 said:
What makes a remaster? Other than the urge to release something as a result of being out of ideas.

Okay bad question to start with. Let's try this, what makes a remaster work?

By right, the term itself means modernizing something old with new conventions, which could mean all sorts of benefits, like adding stuff, tweaking bugs, making it better obviously.

But, should a remaster have the need to repair the faults of the original game?

I mean, if you take something old filled with bugs, and have it reborn with all those issues fixed, is it still the same game?
To me good remaster is one that tackles 3 things:
I. attempts to apply fresh coating of paint
optimizes the game to modern machines and refurbishes graphics without killing the theme; if there were iconic glitches, you can recreate them in controlled manner (i.e. so you don't need to restart/load game) as a nod to the original game and people that knoww it.
II. checks what's under the hood and what is available/possible
matter of officially fixing outstanding bugs and inclusion, re-creation/adaptation of community mods (best games on PC always attract people capable of that) that don't change or rehash the game entirely.
III. finishes what was already started but left behind
final thing is taking all of the available code, leaked or shared information or even reaching out to original developers to create and include missing content, that for practical project management reasons had to be cut before launch and never found its way to the game.

That 3rd part is the most tricky one imo and often is treated by remaster creators as a pass to add in whatever they see fit as their own 'touch' to bring game to 'current year' standard/present relevance etc. In reality thou it is pretty much 'jerking off on a piece of art because one can and people will have to look at that'. Absolutely deplorable attitude. I don't say that re-creators should be working on their knees but healthy archeologist's attitude would be in order (preserve, recreate and most importantly don't damage/deface anything while working).

I'd love to see extended and remastered editions of i.e. DeusEx, DE: Invisible War, KotOR 2. Planescape torment happened already as did BG but in my opinion, both missed point of part 3 of their work (each in different way though).
 

Souplex

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Saelune said:
Remaster? Best would be Ocarina of Time 3D. It did not vastly change -anything-. It upped the graphic quality, including giving Link his Majora's Mask belts, added a thing to help people if they get lost that is optional, added Master Quest, and made the Water Temple less confusing. Who knew that all it took to fix it was some vivid yellow lines?
Did it make the Shadow Temple less shit though?
 

iseko

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Ironman126 said:
I've got to say that Homeworld: Remastered is the best I've ever seen. It left the core of the game alone, but applied a load of quality of life updates. It felt like the original, but looked modern and departed from all the old '90s UI design choices.

So, to answer the question, I think that a remastery needs to make UI fixes, update the graphics, apply some QOL updates, and maybe clean up any audio faults, but it should leave the core of the game, the gameplay, difficulty, etc, alone.
They toned down the difficulty in that remaster. It made they game WAAAAAAAY to easy.

But yea I agree in general. Dont touch the story and or gameplay.
 

Ironman126

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iseko said:
Ironman126 said:
I've got to say that Homeworld: Remastered is the best I've ever seen. It left the core of the game alone, but applied a load of quality of life updates. It felt like the original, but looked modern and departed from all the old '90s UI design choices.

So, to answer the question, I think that a remastery needs to make UI fixes, update the graphics, apply some QOL updates, and maybe clean up any audio faults, but it should leave the core of the game, the gameplay, difficulty, etc, alone.
They toned down the difficulty in that remaster. It made they game WAAAAAAAY to easy.

But yea I agree in general. Dont touch the story and or gameplay.
Did they? I was pretty young when I played the original, so I assumed the ease with which I beat the remastery was due to the fact I'm infinitely better at videos games 15 years hence. All I really know for certain is that they incorporated a lot of Homeworld 2 into the remastery and as a result the frigates are made of tin foil and weetabix.
 

Pyrian

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Hmm. The original Homeworld was over-difficult in the Wastelands and Garden (especially Wasteland 2) until you figure it out - and those are pretty early levels.
 

Bad Jim

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Saelune said:
Aerosteam said:
A button that you press to toggle between the new and old graphics is de facto the best feature a remaster can have.
Has any other games but the Halo remasters done that?
Well I've been playing Starcraft Remastered and you can press F5 to go back twenty years.

I think it depends on how faithful the remaster is under the hood. Starcraft Remastered had to play exactly like the original, so it's easy to do. Other remasters have a different engine, a few tweaks here and there, they play like the originals but there are tons of subtle problems with trying to show the old graphics.
 

Yoshi178

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max734734 said:
What makes a remaster? Other than the urge to release something as a result of being out of ideas.
a remaster is when the developer gives you literally the exact same game, but just improves things like the Audio Quality, the picture resolution and Quality and the dev might include all the DLC from the original and such on the Disc.

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and Pokken Tournament DX are Remasters.

A Remake is when the Developer literally builds and "remakes" the game from scratch and might include things like new story elements and such.

Metroid: Samus Returns & Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga + Bowsers Minions are remakes.

Remakes > Remasters
 

Arnoxthe1

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Souplex said:
Did it make the Shadow Temple less shit though?
The only bad things about the Shadow Temple (although the problems are kinda substantial) are two things. One, the puzzle to actually, you know, get to the boss door was so bloody obscure and that should have been changed. And two, the boss itself was pretty anti-climatic. If I had it my way, I would have made the Shadow Temple the last temple in the game and would have had it give some insight around Ganon's dark powers and/or life. Perhaps also put in some show-but-don't-tell stories about Hyrule's nasty little atrocities in the past that it sometimes clearly hints at in the game proper.
 

DefunctTheory

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Arnoxthe1 said:
Souplex said:
Did it make the Shadow Temple less shit though?
The only bad things about the Shadow Temple (although the problems are kinda substantial) are two things. One, the puzzle to actually, you know, get to the boss door was so bloody obscure and that should have been changed. And two, the boss itself was pretty anti-climatic. If I had it my way, I would have made the Shadow Temple the last temple in the game and would have had it give some insight around Ganon's dark powers and/or life. Perhaps also put in some show-but-don't-tell stories about Hyrule's nasty little atrocities in the past that it sometimes clearly hints at in the game proper.
You could also get into the Shadow Temple without the lens, which can be problematic. Which I did, somehow.

It was confusing. Probably should have put an 'item gate' in there.
 

Arnoxthe1

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DefunctTheory said:
You could also get into the Shadow Temple without the lens, which can be problematic. Which I did, somehow.

It was confusing. Probably should have put an 'item gate' in there.
Well... Technically, you can play through the entire temple without the lens but... Holy hell, is it gonna be a massive pain in the ass for you, yeah. lol