You get to remaster one game/franchise...

[Oroboros]

Oblivion and Skyrim are dumbed down from Morrowind, and that is just...dumb.

I thought I could let this go... but I failed.

If you think Skyrim is a dumbed down version of Morrowind, then how about I tell you about the biggest dumbing down game in the series from its previous entry. Yes its Morrowind. There is a lack of ownable houses/ships/mounts, lack of language skills, inferior magic system, the huge reduction in the number of factions, the lack of enormous scale found in Daggerfall, the lack of a biography generation and other detailed bits of character creation, dropping the primary/major/minor skill system for a simplified major/minor system, a less intuitive faction reputation system, getting rid of the fast travel system, a lack of truly intricate plots with variance in outcomes and a simplified quest system, cities and shops open any time of the night rather than shutting the gates or closing up shop for the night, a lack of huge dungeons that could take multiple play sessions to explore that you really do have to plan for, no holidays or summoning days, and a lot more that I'm just not thinking of right now.

Morrowind did add improve graphics, combat, different atmosphere from the normal troupes, Vivec (always my favourite character in the series) and handcrafted land (which has its benefits and downsides)

A bit was lost between Daggerfall and Morrowind, but you are vastly overstating what was lost in that transition. Morrowind *does* have ownable houses in it-three in the base game and two in Bloodmoon. There might not be ownable boats or horses in Morrowind, but there are *plenty* of other ways to get around. Siltstriders, Mage's guild, the mark, recall and intervention spells, the propylon teleporters and boats. Yeah, daggerfall has more skills and factions, but a lot of them wasn't a whole lot of difference between knightly orders or between the language skills.

Why is the only 'dumbing down' of the series that matters from Daggerfall to Morrowind? Particularly when Skyrim is two games further down the line and thus suffers from the 'dumbing down' that daggerfall to morrowind suffered, and then some. Skyrim lacks almost all of the features that you are complaining about Morrowind lacking.

 

[immortalfrieza]

Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days and ReCoded. It's ridiculous that the two games that really needed a graphical update were the two that didn't get one and instead got regulated to being movies instead of actual games. Both were good when it came to story and gameplay they were simply horrible in the graphics department. On that note, Chain of Memories should have just been a real action RPG, everything else could still use cards but dropping the card combat would've made going through the game ten times better.

You know what was great? Final Fantasy III and Final Fantasy IV on the DS! Same great games as what was available on the Famicom and Super Nintendo but with spiffy new graphics, voice acting, and RNG tweaks. Final Fantasies one and two and, five and six didn't get that same treatment and I think that's kind of a shame...Let's do that to them, clean up three and four a bit and launch all six on the Nintendo Switch...among other consoles I guess, Squeenix can do what they want.

I couldn't agree more and all the hatred FF4DS in particular get is so nonsensical. To this day I hold up the DS Final Fantasy 3 and 4 as the shining examples of what remasters/remakes SHOULD be. Remasters/remakes should always improve upon graphics and leave everything else the way it was, with some stuff added on the side that only are additions rather than subtracting or replacing anything. Remasters/remakes should invoke the same feelings and challenges of the original game but possess enough differences from the original to make it worth getting, otherwise anyone who would be interested already has the original anyway (or could probably buy it for practically nothing even if not) and there's no reason for them to bother.

OT: For another game series that could be improved not just graphically, Knights of the Old Republic 1 and 2 are REALLY dated in this day and age. The story, dialog, and world building were incredible, it's just the combat system that was bad. It was something that tried to make itself LOOK like real time action RPG combat but couldn't even fake it convincingly, I never felt like this badass Jedi/Sith with nice superpowers or even a soldier with it and the fact that the games insulted my intelligence by trying to look like an action RPG just make it all the more apparent. Just make it into a true action RPG with a combat system akin to the Jedi Knight or Force Unleashed games and it would turn these games from flawed but still great into true masterpieces.

Oh, and speaking of games that try to make themselves look like action RPGs but aren't and just make things worse by pretending, Final Fantasy 12 could also use a switch to a real Action RPG system. the waiting to move stuff just slowed everything down while lacking the flash of the other Final Fantasy games and the whole gambit system just forces the player to micromanage an AI that is otherwise utterly useless at doing anything when it should be competent enough on it's own to only rarely require player input if any at all.

 

[Zaltys]

Master of Magic. With improved graphics, new spells, heroes, and species.
And absolutely no added multiplayer, because that'd mean that it'd need to be 'balanced'. Being able to steamroll over the whole map with a small party of absurdly overpowered heroes was one of the fun things about it. Certainly cut down on the endgame micromanagement, which remains problem in many newer turn-based strategy. If you've already clearly won, why prolong it unnecessarily?

 

[oRevanchisto]

KOTOR I and II.

Just give them better graphics, a more in-depth character creator, update the combat a bit, and give KOTOR II the Restoration Mod treatment. Perfection.

 

[bauke67]

Marathon.

Keep some elements, such as the map design, weapon variety, overall story, etc., but remaster it to make the gameplay more up to snuff. In short, Halo's gameplay ported into the Marathon setting, and take advantage of new storytelling technology (e.g. convey the story through more than just the terminals.

This would be great.

I would also like a remake of Myth(because the original is somewhat aged and I'd like to experience it as Bungie references it sometimes in the original Halo trilogy), or some other nostalgic RTS game like Lord of the Rings Battle for middle earth.(to be fair, that last one has not aged badly I think. Still very playable.)
Morrowind would also be on my list, but I guess I'll just have to be patient for Skywind.

 

[Trunkage]

Oblivion and Skyrim are dumbed down from Morrowind, and that is just...dumb.

I thought I could let this go... but I failed.

If you think Skyrim is a dumbed down version of Morrowind, then how about I tell you about the biggest dumbing down game in the series from its previous entry. Yes its Morrowind. There is a lack of ownable houses/ships/mounts, lack of language skills, inferior magic system, the huge reduction in the number of factions, the lack of enormous scale found in Daggerfall, the lack of a biography generation and other detailed bits of character creation, dropping the primary/major/minor skill system for a simplified major/minor system, a less intuitive faction reputation system, getting rid of the fast travel system, a lack of truly intricate plots with variance in outcomes and a simplified quest system, cities and shops open any time of the night rather than shutting the gates or closing up shop for the night, a lack of huge dungeons that could take multiple play sessions to explore that you really do have to plan for, no holidays or summoning days, and a lot more that I'm just not thinking of right now.

Morrowind did add improve graphics, combat, different atmosphere from the normal troupes, Vivec (always my favourite character in the series) and handcrafted land (which has its benefits and downsides)

A bit was lost between Daggerfall and Morrowind, but you are vastly overstating what was lost in that transition. Morrowind *does* have ownable houses in it-three in the base game and two in Bloodmoon. There might not be ownable boats or horses in Morrowind, but there are *plenty* of other ways to get around. Siltstriders, Mage's guild, the mark, recall and intervention spells, the propylon teleporters and boats. Yeah, daggerfall has more skills and factions, but a lot of them wasn't a whole lot of difference between knightly orders or between the language skills.

Why is the only 'dumbing down' of the series that matters from Daggerfall to Morrowind? Particularly when Skyrim is two games further down the line and thus suffers from the 'dumbing down' that daggerfall to morrowind suffered, and then some. Skyrim lacks almost all of the features that you are complaining about Morrowind lacking.

I'd look at some of the previous posts to get some context. This conversation has been going on for a while.

In Morrowind, in the main quest, you "prove your worth" to get the tools to destroy the thing. There is no real choice there (you can choose a house but they are all uninteresting). Let's compare this Skyrim which has two main quests - civil war and the dragons. The dragons was exactly like Morrowind's - No choice, no consequence. You were just following the storyline. Civil war was a bit better, you actually had to choose a side. Combined, I actually think that these main quests are slightly better than Morrowind but only because Morrowind is so bad. (Another thing I said before is that I hate having to prove my worth all the time. Dark Souls 1 is Prove Your Worth Simulator and that makes the game worse. Morrowind is the same - you spend 80% of the main quest proving your worth.)

Compare this to Daggerfall where you have five separate factions with six distinct endings (which was completely ruined by the justification of "dragonbreak" in Morrowind.) In Daggerfall, you are just an agent of the blades - you are not special like in Morrowind or Skyrim (which is so troupe for a fantasy setting), which automatically makes it better in my books. There are over 30 guilds you can join. You cant turn up to court without appropriate attire. You cant talk to people without the right etiquette. You have letters of credit because money actually weighs things...

Anyway, to your actual question - what I asserted was that the difference between Daggerfall and Morrowind was greater than Morrowind to Skyrim (even with a game in-between). Also, as Saelune stated, they put back things from Daggerfall lost in Morrowind (fast travel and houses for example.)

I also don't call it dumbing down, mainly because I don't want to criticise Morrowind, because it deserves the brunt of the "dumbing down" thing.

I was personally was very worried about everything I heard before Morrowind came out. It was a huge change. It sounded terrible and a wrong move for the series. It was restrictive (and in a lot of ways that true - handcrafting a game has that effect.) I imagined all the things the could be potentially lost (and mostly I was right and there were more than expected.) I remember I wasn't alone. While Morrowind wasn't better than Daggerfall, it wasn't worse. It was just different. Skyrim is the same. (I still am very disappointed that they'd pick Skyrim as the location - Nords are boring and there are so many more interesting settings in Tameriel.) It's just differnt. I'd prefer more choices about how to do quests including the dialogue choices I can make. But it doesn't force you into a story like Morrowind does. They made it more modular, giving up connectedness and giving freedom.

Its like trying to pick your favourite child - they are all different and valuable so just pick all of them as your favourite.

 

[djl3485]

The Mass Effect trilogy, with the main remake being the ending of the series.

Graphics update and adding exploration features, such as more visits and side exploration to different planets/cities. I wanted to explore Omega, Turian/Salarian/Asari worlds and cities, and the lore more.

 

[Wintermute_v1legacy]

I'm tired of shooters, but I'd love to see No One Lives Forever remade with current graphics.

 

[Dalisclock]

I'm tired of shooters, but I'd love to see No One Lives Forever remade with current graphics.

Working well on modern PC's would be nice too.

Too bad nobody knows who owns the legal rights to the series. That's apparently the sole reason they aren't for sale on GOG.