The Baldur's Gate stuff in particular pisses me off no end. The Mona Lisa doesn't need more brush strokes and that's exactly what they did with the Enhanced Edition. Shit writing to inject bad characters that don't mesh with the existing world and do nothing but defile a masterpiece and taint it with the unholy ideology that plagues our entire society. If nothing is sacred anymore then it just means we need to wage a holy war to protect that which should always be held sacred.
I like that EE is easy and available, but somebody mod out all the new shit. And use AI to voice all the dialog.
Neera is annoying but not too much different from the carnival tent in the promenade writ large. Rassad is just dumb.
But Hexxat is literally the worst. She can't be killed and you get a bag of holding at like level 2 in the first act if only you can sit through a struggle session. Totally unbalanced.
I like that EE is easy and available, but somebody mod out all the new shit.
The GoG installer for the original version of the games runs out of the box on my machine just fine, so I don't really see that as any sort of selling point EE has over the real thing.
Pokemon Fire Red and Leaf Green seemed alright, but that's about the only positive experience I can recall having with a re-make/re-master.
I think it's safe to say that the only thing old games need is to be made compatible with more modern systems. Leave the actual game itself completely unaltered.
the updated controls and detailed textures were great, but they fucked up the lighting. The original had many dark sections that you could illuminate by shooting down the hallway. The remake is brighter and projectiles don't illuminate walls.
It's weird, I wasn't able to get into Soul Silver as much as I got into Leaf Green, and Leaf Green was a cartridge I found in the middle of a very busy street by sheer dumb luck. I played that way more than the game I paid good money for because running around properly EV training a Nidoking for the first time was a blast but fiddling with the egg walker peripheral just didn't do it for me I guess.
For me it’s just that the memory of why I like the game also includes a bunch of intangibles that are very much a time and place. Sure you remember how great the game was but maybe you were also playing that game at your grandmothers house. Or you and your best friend were playing it all summer. Years later you can’t replicate those other emotions and experiences so it always feels hollow and unsatisfying.
When Homeworld Remastered Collection was released, Gearbox completely broke the usefulness of strategic formations due to the way they imported HW1 into the HW2 engine - or something like that anyway. I don't have direct experience because I was warned off the game by the one, sole Steam review which noticed this (the user also explained his issues in this video), as well as by remembering how much I hate Randy Pitchford and Gearbox. At that time, all the other reviews were saying how great HW:RC was.
From what I can tell, this still hasn't been officially fixed, fully, despite what the updates in that review say. I just found a reddit post from 1 year ago which says a player-made patch has to be used.
Lesson being, you can't trust when people tell you that a remaster is good, either. OG fans will overwhelmingly be blinded by their love of the original and fail to notice flaws introduced in the remaster, even huge ones. Or perhaps they simply don't care because of shiny new graphics and screen resolutions. I loved HW1 and that issue with formations would have completely ruined it for me. It blows my mind that anyone had high hopes for Gearbox's HW3, considering.
I take a grim sort of delight that they'll never be able to re-do Homeworld: Cataclsym, due to loosing the original files or some such.
I hated HW2 due to it's dynamic 'difficulty' scaling, and I only learned after the fact that they had imported that into the HW1 'remake'.
Any game dev who tries to introduce dynamic difficulty scaling into their RTS(or gaming as a whole) should be dragged out into the street and have things done to them that would get me banned off of youtube for saying. I loathe that type of bullshit.
I think Age of Mythology's remaster (Extended Edition in 2014, not the OTHER remake they announced recently) was well-received, although I didn't play a ton so it's possible there was an issue I'm forgetting with it. They did make an expansion for it two years later that everyone hated, so I don't know how that impacts the scoring.
But if you're referring to Celes' first scene, where they removed them torturing her, that change was in the Japanese GBA version too, and it seems to be due to changes in Japanese law, not anything Square Enix themselves did. Had they kept it in, they would've had to give the game a harsher rating.
I hate the change too, but it was out of their control.
im fine with both but it depends on what that game needs
Some graphics stand the test of time, others become a jumbled mess to our modern eyes but it all feels fine mechanically, feel free to just bring those up if the mechanics are all still passable.
But yeah old controls can be jank, sometimes a game needs a mechanical remaster, ai improved, and bugs removed.
Just make the game open to modding though, and if it's good people will make graphics remasters for you, for free.
Destroy All Humans 1 and 2 Reprobed were good remasters. I played the first and they used the original sound files but made graphical changes, more upgrades, and skins. Can’t remember if there were any woke changes but I don’t think so. Played a bit of the second one and Natasha still has her “plot” so there’s that.
They both had a dumbass trigger warning on boot, though.
SOTC was actually really good. They fixed the bugs from the PS3 era remaster, changed it so you could get both sets of the time attack items in one save (They were locked to your difficultly mode on PS2/PS3) and added a new side quest and a couple easter egg locations.
To me that is the gold standard of Remastering/Remaking a game. It's a shame they'll never add in the cut colossi, but there are a few fan projects that are at least covering it.
Master of Orion was ok, but I never played the original. It was better than Sins of a Solar Empire, and about equal to Endless space, Stellaris is still miles better, and deeper than any of them.
Remasters are all about tapping into the markets that never played the original.
That's how Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes (a GameCube remake of the original for the PlayStation from 1998) was done. They took the MGS2 engine, remade the assets (including re-recording all the dialogue, bc the original recordings were unusable in the higher-fidelity consoles of the GC/PS2 generation) and plopped those into it, and bam. MGS with high-poly graphics, first-person aim, all the modern conveniences.
Now if they'd just ported that to the PS2 (or 3-5)....
Pretty sure the Borderlands 1 remaster was solid. Mostly just updated some graphics and added more unique weapons afaik. Might've introduced a few new bugs here and there, but I guess compared to most remasters that's hardly egregious.
Bioshock 1 and 2 remasters are solid too as far as I'm aware.
Metro series enhanced editions have some mixed opinions from fans, but I thought they were pretty well done. Admittedly, I didn't play enough of the originals to know what some of the gameplay changes done with guns and other equipment.
As much of a mess as Skyrim Special Edition was early on, it made absolute sense to release an updated version to support 64-bit. The Anniversary edition however was an absolutely retarded cash cow that no even wanted.
Yup, exactly. And it put a bit of a damper on modding and compatibility for a little while as a result, after having 2-3 years or so to flourish without game updates fucking something up.
Zone of the Enders HD collection was fine. The psp persona 2 remakes were pretty good, too. The various Skyrim remasters, while yes they break mods, that's technically not part of the game itself (and they kept adding new functions and functionality for modders anyway). There are a lot of not-objectively-worse ports. There isn't as much to discuss about competence compared to a trashfire like wc3 reforged.
The Baldur's Gate stuff in particular pisses me off no end. The Mona Lisa doesn't need more brush strokes and that's exactly what they did with the Enhanced Edition. Shit writing to inject bad characters that don't mesh with the existing world and do nothing but defile a masterpiece and taint it with the unholy ideology that plagues our entire society. If nothing is sacred anymore then it just means we need to wage a holy war to protect that which should always be held sacred.
I like that EE is easy and available, but somebody mod out all the new shit. And use AI to voice all the dialog.
Neera is annoying but not too much different from the carnival tent in the promenade writ large. Rassad is just dumb.
But Hexxat is literally the worst. She can't be killed and you get a bag of holding at like level 2 in the first act if only you can sit through a struggle session. Totally unbalanced.
The GoG installer for the original version of the games runs out of the box on my machine just fine, so I don't really see that as any sort of selling point EE has over the real thing.
You're not going to really enjoy the 800x600 the way it was intended without a CRT. It just doesn't look the same on flatscreen.
Pokemon Fire Red and Leaf Green seemed alright, but that's about the only positive experience I can recall having with a re-make/re-master.
I think it's safe to say that the only thing old games need is to be made compatible with more modern systems. Leave the actual game itself completely unaltered.
The Metroid Prime remaster that came out like a year ago was pretty good. Mostly a straight-up port with enhanced textures and models.
Very little dialogue or voice acting for some Treehouse jackass to fuck up.
the updated controls and detailed textures were great, but they fucked up the lighting. The original had many dark sections that you could illuminate by shooting down the hallway. The remake is brighter and projectiles don't illuminate walls.
IIRC there were also some mirrored surfaces scattered around the original that were not present in the remaster.
Disappointing but not a deal breaker.
I remember enjoying HeartGold and SoulSilver too but admittedly I haven't played those in 9 years or so.
It's weird, I wasn't able to get into Soul Silver as much as I got into Leaf Green, and Leaf Green was a cartridge I found in the middle of a very busy street by sheer dumb luck. I played that way more than the game I paid good money for because running around properly EV training a Nidoking for the first time was a blast but fiddling with the egg walker peripheral just didn't do it for me I guess.
Pokemon HeartGold/SoulSilver were peak remakes, and it's not even close.
For me it’s just that the memory of why I like the game also includes a bunch of intangibles that are very much a time and place. Sure you remember how great the game was but maybe you were also playing that game at your grandmothers house. Or you and your best friend were playing it all summer. Years later you can’t replicate those other emotions and experiences so it always feels hollow and unsatisfying.
When Homeworld Remastered Collection was released, Gearbox completely broke the usefulness of strategic formations due to the way they imported HW1 into the HW2 engine - or something like that anyway. I don't have direct experience because I was warned off the game by the one, sole Steam review which noticed this (the user also explained his issues in this video), as well as by remembering how much I hate Randy Pitchford and Gearbox. At that time, all the other reviews were saying how great HW:RC was.
From what I can tell, this still hasn't been officially fixed, fully, despite what the updates in that review say. I just found a reddit post from 1 year ago which says a player-made patch has to be used.
Lesson being, you can't trust when people tell you that a remaster is good, either. OG fans will overwhelmingly be blinded by their love of the original and fail to notice flaws introduced in the remaster, even huge ones. Or perhaps they simply don't care because of shiny new graphics and screen resolutions. I loved HW1 and that issue with formations would have completely ruined it for me. It blows my mind that anyone had high hopes for Gearbox's HW3, considering.
I take a grim sort of delight that they'll never be able to re-do Homeworld: Cataclsym, due to loosing the original files or some such.
I hated HW2 due to it's dynamic 'difficulty' scaling, and I only learned after the fact that they had imported that into the HW1 'remake'.
Any game dev who tries to introduce dynamic difficulty scaling into their RTS(or gaming as a whole) should be dragged out into the street and have things done to them that would get me banned off of youtube for saying. I loathe that type of bullshit.
I think Age of Mythology's remaster (Extended Edition in 2014, not the OTHER remake they announced recently) was well-received, although I didn't play a ton so it's possible there was an issue I'm forgetting with it. They did make an expansion for it two years later that everyone hated, so I don't know how that impacts the scoring.
Final Fantasy Pixel Remasters. All of them.
Except FF2, that game cannot be fixed.
I enjoyed the FF8 remaster, too.
Didn't they screw around with Final Fantasy 6 to keep the empire from saluting?
No.
But if you're referring to Celes' first scene, where they removed them torturing her, that change was in the Japanese GBA version too, and it seems to be due to changes in Japanese law, not anything Square Enix themselves did. Had they kept it in, they would've had to give the game a harsher rating.
I hate the change too, but it was out of their control.
im fine with both but it depends on what that game needs
Some graphics stand the test of time, others become a jumbled mess to our modern eyes but it all feels fine mechanically, feel free to just bring those up if the mechanics are all still passable.
But yeah old controls can be jank, sometimes a game needs a mechanical remaster, ai improved, and bugs removed.
Just make the game open to modding though, and if it's good people will make graphics remasters for you, for free.
The Crash Bandicoot 1-3 remakes were excellent.
Master of Magic seems OK, from what I remember of playing it 30 years ago.
They remastered it? I'll have to look into that, played it a ton back in the day.
Yeah, it might still be on sale, too.
Nightdive Studios has been pretty solid in their work, in my experience.
Destroy All Humans 1 and 2 Reprobed were good remasters. I played the first and they used the original sound files but made graphical changes, more upgrades, and skins. Can’t remember if there were any woke changes but I don’t think so. Played a bit of the second one and Natasha still has her “plot” so there’s that.
They both had a dumbass trigger warning on boot, though.
SOTC was actually really good. They fixed the bugs from the PS3 era remaster, changed it so you could get both sets of the time attack items in one save (They were locked to your difficultly mode on PS2/PS3) and added a new side quest and a couple easter egg locations.
To me that is the gold standard of Remastering/Remaking a game. It's a shame they'll never add in the cut colossi, but there are a few fan projects that are at least covering it.
Master of Orion was ok, but I never played the original. It was better than Sins of a Solar Empire, and about equal to Endless space, Stellaris is still miles better, and deeper than any of them.
Remasters are all about tapping into the markets that never played the original.
That's how Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes (a GameCube remake of the original for the PlayStation from 1998) was done. They took the MGS2 engine, remade the assets (including re-recording all the dialogue, bc the original recordings were unusable in the higher-fidelity consoles of the GC/PS2 generation) and plopped those into it, and bam. MGS with high-poly graphics, first-person aim, all the modern conveniences.
Now if they'd just ported that to the PS2 (or 3-5)....
Pretty sure the Borderlands 1 remaster was solid. Mostly just updated some graphics and added more unique weapons afaik. Might've introduced a few new bugs here and there, but I guess compared to most remasters that's hardly egregious.
Bioshock 1 and 2 remasters are solid too as far as I'm aware.
Metro series enhanced editions have some mixed opinions from fans, but I thought they were pretty well done. Admittedly, I didn't play enough of the originals to know what some of the gameplay changes done with guns and other equipment.
As much of a mess as Skyrim Special Edition was early on, it made absolute sense to release an updated version to support 64-bit. The Anniversary edition however was an absolutely retarded cash cow that no even wanted.
Yup, exactly. And it put a bit of a damper on modding and compatibility for a little while as a result, after having 2-3 years or so to flourish without game updates fucking something up.
Zone of the Enders HD collection was fine. The psp persona 2 remakes were pretty good, too. The various Skyrim remasters, while yes they break mods, that's technically not part of the game itself (and they kept adding new functions and functionality for modders anyway). There are a lot of not-objectively-worse ports. There isn't as much to discuss about competence compared to a trashfire like wc3 reforged.