Your video game hot take(s) thread

[BrawlMan]

One of the things I hate most about remakes is that they cover up the original. You have a game that was created by a team of extraordinarily talented people, every aspect of the game is filtered through their personalities and vision and comes out in a particular way as a result of the individuals that created it and their mental state at the time of creation. Now, it happens that people like the particular way that the game turned out and the popularity persists 5-10 years until the publisher decides that there is money in remaking the game. So they hire a new team to remake the game, and they use the latest technology to paper over the original with new textures, animations, voice acting, etc. until you have a new game that ostensibly resembles the original, but in fact is a different game entirely.

Now a person comes along and wants to play the game because it's very popular and they've heard much about it, so they pick up the remake because it's more available. Now they feel that they've played the game, despite the fact that the original artistry may have been significantly altered or lost entirely. I think that's just awful. Just think of the effort and imagination that the original team put in, which was good enough to create a lasting popularity, that is being forced out by what is essentially a counterfeit made by people that think they can do it better.

That really depends on who you're talking about.

Capcom respects their original titles along with their remakes.

You can still play RE4 and RE4R. With OG RE4 being on almost any platform now. FTR, Shinji Mikami hated the story for RE4, and considers the remake a massive improvement for the story and characters. He finds them much superior. The RE PSX Trilogy has their PC ports on GOG now.

The people behind the Dead Space Remake are huge fans of the original and wanted to do right. Which they did. Even the original team for the original game were impressed and approved. The original Dead Space you can still buy on EA's Origin, GOG, XBOX Live, and even on Steam. So nothing has been lost.

Former members of Team Silent worked with Bloober on SH2R, so there's no disrespect there. Also, it's next to impossible to get the OG SH Trilogy running on modern hardware. Hence the remake.

The System Shock 1 Remake makes the original pointless to play. Not to mention, og SS1 takes so much effort to get running and most people aren't going to go through the effort of getting the damn thing to work. The original is super difficult. SS Remake is no walk in the park, but is much more managable to play and fun.

Tengo Project loves the Ninja Warriors franchise and chose to remake the game, because none of the original developers weren't at Natsume/Taito anymore. Not to mention the SNES game was stuck on SNES. The remake re-did the pixel graphics and upgraded them to even better 16-bit pixel graphics, new animations, new combos and moves the main characters can do, redrawn stages, some new enemies, and two new characters to unlock and play as. You can even unlock the arcade soundtrack and SNES soundtrack in Ninja Warriors Once Again/Ninja Saviors.

Now something like XIII Remake or the GTA PS2 Remake Trilogy fucking sucked and are wasted. Especially on Rockstar's end where they deleted the originals from all digital stores, so no one can play them unless they have the original hardware or PC discs. The same applies to the Night Slashsers Remake too. The original was removed from eShop. So now it's back to emulation/MAME to play the pixel arcade version. I bought my copy before it got removed, so count me as one of the lucky ones.

 

[Worgen]

Imagine if the Mona Lisa got re-painted every 10 years in a new style and everybody always went to see the new one and never had a thought for the original. Would that painting have remained in the public consciousness for centuries if that had been the case? I don't think so. The very idea is ludicrous.

What if the frame the Mona Lisa was in had to be replaced every 10 years since it stopped working? Plus, then this means that something like the Master Chief collection should be something you love since you can swap between the original and the new version with a button press.

 

[Drathnoxis]

What if the frame the Mona Lisa was in had to be replaced every 10 years since it stopped working? Plus, then this means that something like the Master Chief collection should be something you love since you can swap between the original and the new version with a button press.

Then you put it in a new frame, there's no reason to paint over the original.

 

[Worgen]

Then you put it in a new frame, there's no reason to paint over the original.

Except sometimes during the framing process the painting goes missing, so all you can do is remake the painting. Like what happened with Spyro.

 

[Drathnoxis]

Except sometimes during the framing process the painting goes missing, so all you can do is remake the painting. Like what happened with Spyro.

I feel like your analogy is breaking down, what happened to Spyro? It's a PS1 game, which is easily emulatable. Just package the game with an emulator, not really a revolutionary concept. Nintendo and Sega have been doing it for years and I'm pretty sure the Bubsy releases on Steam are just emulators as well.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

RPG mechanics may have been one of the worst ideas ideas in gaming. It can be passable in a turn based RPG where the game is essentially a puzzle to figure out the optimal strategies and equipment, although it can easily make the game a grind if not done well. However, they're just purely awful in action games. You've essentially thrown balance out the window for no advantage. Skill becomes meaningless because a difficult fight doesn't mean you need to execute your actions better, it just means you need to come back when you have better stats or a higher level. It also kills the pacing because you need to constantly stop every time you pick up a new bit of equipment to decide whether it's better for your build or not. Sometimes I just want to play a game and not have to agonize over skill trees and stats. I understand that RPG mechanics, along with crafting materials, are tantalizing to game developers because they are easy ways to reward exploration and side quests, and thus increase the length of your game, but it sucks in practice.

I like it when games give me new equipment that aren't just stat boosts.

Like one of the big problems with the new God of War games is that too many items just give you stat boosts. Most defense, more damage, etc.

The cool part of equipment in the Norse GoW games isn't the boosts to your stats, it's the changes to gameplay. Swapping to a different armor set and getting the ability to slow down time on a perfect dodge is sick, or getting the ability to parry projectiles, or changing the way that blocking works, etc. Being able to swap out your "spartan rage" for other ultimate abilities that may give you more survivability, or change your moveset is infinitely more interesting than just a +10% increase to armor.

The problem is that developers always seem to think that more is better, but they don't tend to have enough ideas of what "more" is, so they just make stat increases.

Instead of having 30 different armors, all with slightly different stat buffs I'd rather have 5 different armors that change core gameplay mechanics.

 

[Worgen]

I feel like your analogy is breaking down, what happened to Spyro? It's a PS1 game, which is easily emulatable. Just package the game with an emulator, not really a revolutionary concept. Nintendo and Sega have been doing it for years and I'm pretty sure the Bubsy releases on Steam are just emulators as well.

Then you are good to go play it on emulation, so why are you complaining about remakes? The source code for spyro was lost, so they couldn't just use that when they did the reignited trilogy, they had to put the effort in to remake the Mona Lisa, unless they decided to just stick a polaroid on the wall.

 

[hanselthecaretaker2]

Former members of Team Silent worked with Bloober on SH2R, so there's no disrespect there. Also, it's next to impossible to get the OG SH Trilogy running on modern hardware. Hence the remake.

Also worth noting, they were more faithful to the core of the game than Team Silent would’ve been had they done it (again) themselves. They admitted this because they wouldn’t have wanted to make the same thing all over again.

Silent Hill 2’s original devs wanted to make more changes to the remake, but Bloober Team resisted | VGC

Its producer says the original creators didn’t want to make the same thing all over again…

www.videogameschronicle.com

I take that as a sign that Team Bloober respected Team Silent’s work and honored that in the remake, but also it makes me really curious what a fresh game from them might look like after all these years.

 

[Drathnoxis]

Frankly, I wouldn't want to see a remake by original devs any more than I would by different devs. Time changes people, and you cannot be the same person creatively that you were 15 years ago. Let's not forget the Star Wars Special Editions.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

Frankly, I wouldn't want to see a remake by original devs any more than I would by different devs. Time changes people, and you cannot be the same person creatively that you were 15 years ago. Let's not forget the Star Wars Special Editions.

The world isn't the same as it was 15 years ago either. Something that was incredible and ground-breaking when it came out can, in retrospect, easily become dated and out of touch as the world moves past it. Wanna talk Star Wars? A New Hope revived a genre if not an entire medium, but watching it in 2024, it just isn't that good. Everything it does has been done better, and being the first one to do it by itself isn't enough anymore.

If you ask me, a great remake is one that can recreate the 'spirit' of the original for a new audience, without having to be shackled to its 'physical' aspects if those aspects are no longer applicable.

 

[Drathnoxis]

The world isn't the same as it was 15 years ago either. Something that was incredible and ground-breaking when it came out can, in retrospect, easily become dated and out of touch as the world moves past it. Wanna talk Star Wars? A New Hope revived a genre if not an entire medium, but watching it in 2024, it just isn't that good. Everything it does has been done better, and being the first one to do it by itself isn't enough anymore.

If you ask me, a great remake is one that can recreate the 'spirit' of the original for a new audience, without having to be shackled to its 'physical' aspects if those aspects are no longer applicable.

I still like A New Hope. It's a good movie no matter the year. If you can't appreciate something just because it's old, the problem is probably with you.

Rather than trying to recreate the 'spirit' of a game that still exists, they should just create a new game instead of trying to ride on the coattails the the greats of the past.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

I still like A New Hope. It's a good movie no matter the year. If you can't appreciate something just because it's old, the problem is probably with you.

I didn't say that. I like plenty of old movies. A New Hope, specifically, does not hold up as well as other movies before and after it do. At the time it came out, it was doing things no other movie was doing. Now, it's been left in the dust. Other movies have as-good (or even better) visual design and spectacle, while also having better writing and characters. It's still a fun time, but it isn't any more than that now, even for everything it achieved then.

But, whatever. I'm not gonna bother replying anymore if you're going to shove words in my mouth.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Frankly, I wouldn't want to see a remake by original devs any more than I would by different devs. Time changes people, and you cannot be the same person creatively that you were 15 years ago. Let's not forget the Star Wars Special Editions.

Sometimes developers have to use tricks to get around certain technical limits of hardware, and those tricks caused by that technical limitation are exactly what gives the game a unique sense of identity. Without those limitations the games would not feel the same nor have the same spirit.

Like the reason the original Silent Hill had all of its fog was because of hardware limitations. Having the player constantly surrounded by fog when outside meant their rendering distance could be much lower and they could render more within that small visible space.

Whether I want a remake of a game or not largely depends on whether the developers think that the technical limitations they encountered prevented them from achieving and implementing their vision, or if they actually enhanced it. If the game was specifically built around the limitations then removing them likely wouldn't make a better game.

Like I would love a remake of Kotor 1 and 2 (especially 2) because while they're fine games, 2 is still basically an unfinished game and has enough really interesting ideas that it deserves a proper finale not marred by technical issues.

 

[Worgen]

A New Hope, specifically, does not hold up as well as other movies before and after it do.

Wait, what starwars movies came out before it?

 

[NerfedFalcon]

Wait, what starwars movies came out before it?

I meant movies generally, not specifically Star Wars movies.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Wait, what starwars movies came out before it?

Obviously since that's episode 4 there were 3 previous ones. DUH.

 

[BrawlMan]

Once again, no one is forcing you to play these remakes, and I find it funny all the recent good examples I listed have been ignored. There's still plenty of games that aren't remakes already out now, about to come out, or just the check the AA and indie side. Video Game Remakes aren't as big as a problem some people are making out. It's super minuscule and reminds me of Sphere Hunter going on about being "tired of remakes". Sphere, you are a cool gal and everything, but you asked for this like so many other Resident Evil fans. Don't act like you never had a chance nor didn't ask for this. Yes, you changed your opinion on RE3R (which I still consider a great game, and better than the original), but you sure had no problems praising RE2R, RE4R, and RE4R's Separate Ways to hell and back.

These remakes made money, so certain companies are going to keep doing them. Capcom already said the next RE game is going to be the 9th mainline entry. After that game, it's more than likely RE5R will be next.

 

[Drathnoxis]

I didn't say that. I like plenty of old movies. A New Hope, specifically, does not hold up as well as other movies before and after it do. At the time it came out, it was doing things no other movie was doing. Now, it's been left in the dust. Other movies have as-good (or even better) visual design and spectacle, while also having better writing and characters. It's still a fun time, but it isn't any more than that now, even for everything it achieved then.

But, whatever. I'm not gonna bother replying anymore if you're going to shove words in my mouth.

"The world isn't the same as it was 15 years ago either. Something that was incredible and ground-breaking when it came out can, in retrospect, easily become dated and out of touch as the world moves past it."

I didn't mean it as an insult for you specifically, I meant "you" in the general sense. Really though, I don't know how else I'm supposed to interpret this statement. I just don't believe it's true. If something was truly good when it came out it's going to be good no matter how many years pass, and if a person can't enjoy it because it's "dated and out of touch" I can't see how that is the fault of the work.

A New Hope is debateably the best Star Wars movie ever made, the only close competition is the Empire Strikes Back, which suffers by not being a self contained story and relying on a lesser sequel. The prequel trilogy isn't even in the running, and The Force Awakens was so bad I wouldn't have even watched the whole thing if I hadn't been in the theater with someone else.

Sometimes developers have to use tricks to get around certain technical limits of hardware, and those tricks caused by that technical limitation are exactly what gives the game a unique sense of identity. Without those limitations the games would not feel the same nor have the same spirit.

Like the reason the original Silent Hill had all of its fog was because of hardware limitations. Having the player constantly surrounded by fog when outside meant their rendering distance could be much lower and they could render more within that small visible space.

Whether I want a remake of a game or not largely depends on whether the developers think that the technical limitations they encountered prevented them from achieving and implementing their vision, or if they actually enhanced it. If the game was specifically built around the limitations then removing them likely wouldn't make a better game.

Like I would love a remake of Kotor 1 and 2 (especially 2) because while they're fine games, 2 is still basically an unfinished game and has enough really interesting ideas that it deserves a proper finale not marred by technical issues.

But you'll never get a real ending to Kotor 2. Anything that a remake would add on would essentially be fan fiction. Even if you had the entire team of original developers back to work on it, it's still not possible. To illustrate, think of something you were working on 20 years ago, now recall all the feelings and ideas you had surrounding it, and also everything you were doing or thinking at the time that would have influenced what you were working on. Did you do it? Can you even remember what you were doing in October 2004, specifically? Because if you aren't in the exact same place mentally it's never going to be the proper ending that Kotor 2 should have gotten if it hadn't been rushed out the door. It's going to be the same as if a different person wrote it anyway, and if that's the case they may as well write something original instead of trying to revise history and pretend that Kotor 2 got a real ending.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

But you'll never get a real ending to Kotor 2. Anything that a remake would add on would essentially be fan fiction. Even if you had the entire team of original developers back to work on it, it's still not possible. To illustrate, think of something you were working on 20 years ago, now recall all the feelings and ideas you had surrounding it, and also everything you were doing or thinking at the time that would have influenced what you were working on. Did you do it? Can you even remember what you were doing in October 2004, specifically? Because if you aren't in the exact same place mentally it's never going to be the proper ending that Kotor 2 should have gotten if it hadn't been rushed out the door. It's going to be the same as if a different person wrote it anyway, and if that's the case they may as well write something original instead of trying to revise history and pretend that Kotor 2 got a real ending.

Just because some time has passed doesn't mean that people can't make a work that is true to the original's intent and character building. Hell, it doesn't even mean that other people can't write it.

Baldur's Gate 3 isn't made by the same team or even the same studio as Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 and it's still brilliant.

I disagree with the idea that an unfinished Kotor 2 full of broken questlines,, bugs, and glitches is somehow superior to a Kotor 2 finished by a different team of people who understand the original's intent.

 

[BrawlMan]

Oh, that is awesome!

Director of Original Silent Hill 2 ‘Not Satisfied’ With Limited Camera From 23 Years Ago, Much Prefers the Remake’s Modern Perspective - IGN

Now Bloober’s Silent Hill 2 Remake is out in the wild, the director of the original Silent Hill from 2001 has offered his thoughts on this reimagining of his work, and he’s full of praise.

www.ign.com