Games That Need to Be Remastered

I know we do a lot of top ten games lists every few years.
But I don't recall a list of your favorite games that deserve or even need to be remastered. We have seen quite a few of them already but I wouldn't exclude games that have been remade but you feel could have been done better or were nothing more than a slap of fresh paint.

And since I think there will be a lot of crossover, I'd include games that deserve a modern sequel. The core is games that were ahead of their time or ones with major unfulfilled potential.

So in no particular order:
Mechcommander 2
Champions of Krynn
Secret of the Silver Blades
Dawn of War 2
Spore
Global Agenda
Nox
Lionheart (fantastic setting, the gameplay was just atrocious, ripe for RTwP/TB hybrid overhaul)
Crescent Hawks Revenge
Lands of Lore

I wouldn't mind seeing the Elder Scrolls Daggerfall remade in the Skyrim engine.

Super Mario 64 and Super Mario Sunshine remade in the Odyssey engine (with some fixes/cleanup in Sunshine's case).

Zelda: Ocarina of Time remade in the Breath of the Wild engine.

fangblackbone wrote:

I know we do a lot of top ten games lists every few years.
But I don't recall a list of your favorite games that deserve or even need to be remastered. We have seen quite a few of them already but I wouldn't exclude games that have been remade but you feel could have been done better or were nothing more than a slap of fresh paint.

And since I think there will be a lot of crossover, I'd include games that deserve a modern sequel. The core is games that were ahead of their time or ones with major unfulfilled potential.

So in no particular order:
Mechcommander 2
Champions of Krynn
Secret of the Silver Blades
Dawn of War 2
Spore
Global Agenda
Nox
Lionheart (fantastic setting, the gameplay was just atrocious, ripe for RTwP/TB hybrid overhaul)
Crescent Hawks Revenge
Lands of Lore

Wow, these 2 standout because I loved them! Totally agree! Would also be cool to see these redone with updated graphics and mechanics no particular order:

Star Trek Armada 2
Age of Mythology
Mass Effect 3 multiplayer (yeah i won't let go of this dream)
Dune 2
Syndicate
Hidden and Dangerous
Kohan
Combat Mission

Mass Effect 3 multiplayer is a terrific pick!

I haven't paid much attention to the recent Mario games but 64 and Sunshine were so head and shoulders above what was thought possible at the time. Both are also terrific picks. I never played either but I religiously watched friends play and the creativity for those was staggering. They pushed platformers such a huge leap forward.

whispa wrote:

Syndicate

Yesssssssss

Satellite Reign and The Ascent both scratch some of the same itch but I would still love to see a proper remaster.

Podunk wrote:
whispa wrote:

Syndicate

Yesssssssss

Satellite Reign and The Ascent both scratch some of the same itch but I would still love to see a proper remaster.

Agreed! Tokyo 42 is another with Syndicate-ish vibes but doesn't have that grim Cyber feel.

None. Let's see something fresh for a change.

Perfect Dark
Vampire: Bloodlines
KOTOR 1&2
New Vegas
Hitman Blood Money/Contracts
Alpha Protocol
Thief 2

I'm lovin the Vampire and KOTOR nods!

Xenogears! XENOGEARS!

Give me a remaster/remake that actually lets them end the game the way it was intended instead of the team running out of time and cutting nearly everything.

There was a large portion of story and artwork that did not make it into the final game. The game's second disc consisted mainly of narration by Fei and Elly of events following the party's escape from Solaris. While it was popularly assumed to be due to budget constraints, Takahashi later revealed the full reason; as his team was inexperienced they were unable to create the entire proposed game in the expected two-year development time, so instead of ending prematurely with the end of the first disc, Takahashi offered up a compromise which became the second disc's content, allowing the staff to finish the game within time and budget deadlines.

Wing Commander.

Yay?

HOW HAS NO ONE SAID FREESPACE 2 YOU f*ckS? FINE I'LL SAY IT.

Freespace 2 DANGIT.

Guess I'll go way back to my Amiga 500 days. I'm too lazy to download an Amiga emulator and try and get these Psygnosis games working even though I really want to play them again. They never got the re-release treatment so no way to really play them outside of emulators. These would be my choice for remasters:

Shadow of the Beast 1-3
Blood Money
Awesome
The Killing Gameshow

Games were frustrating as all hell but so many memories. Some HD treatment with more modern controls would do them a world of good.

In all likelihood I'd probably play them for 10 minutes and go f-this and move on to something else. But man to have them in my collection again - that's really what it's all about.

No One Lives Forever

Might be cool to see the Witcher trilogy get the same treatment as Mass Effect.

Also same answer I always give- X-wing and TIE Fighter.

Budo wrote:

No One Lives Forever

And the sequel.

Jagged Alliance 2
Final Fantasy VI (III Japanese SNES release) but a proper remake like FFVII
Heroes of Might & Magic III - no updated stuff, just new graphics
The Disciples games

Wing Commander.

You know, it's funny. I would have furthered that with suggesting Privateer, but it has already been done with RG:O and it didn't grab me as much as I wanted

I will say that the mission structure in Wing Commander is still one of the best I've seen in any game to date.

Oh yeah, I forgot- Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri.

Sticking with the Sid Meier theme, I’d love to play Pirates! in 4k. I think the original remaster still looks pretty nice, but it doesn’t handle hi-res displays well at all.

Came in to say Fallout: New Vegas, but I'm loving these suggestions more:

Secret of the Silver Blades
Pirates!
Alpha Centauri
Syndicate

More like needs to be ported but:
Lumines: Electronic Symphony - Languishing on Vita physical media due to rights issues.

fangblackbone wrote:
Wing Commander.

You know, it's funny. I would have furthered that with suggesting Privateer, but it has already been done with RG:O and it didn't grab me as much as I wanted

I will say that the mission structure in Wing Commander is still one of the best I've seen in any game to date.

Hell yes. I'm always surprised that out of all the sci-fi flight sims that came out after Wing Commander that the mission structure (where it was possible to fail and keep going to get a "bad" ending) wasn't really mimicked outside of that series. Colony Wars on the Playstation was really the only one I can think of.

Veloxi wrote:

HOW HAS NO ONE SAID FREESPACE 2 YOU f*ckS? FINE I'LL SAY IT.

Freespace 2 DANGIT.

Okay, bud. You do you, I guess.

Mostly just games that either haven't been "replaced" with new titles or sequels that capture what I loved about these games in particular, so if we're not going to get a sequel then a remaster so I can play them at current standards (or, in some cases, at all) would be most welcome. A few that spring immediately to mind:

Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise - Yes, I know it's not that old, but there's nothing else quite like the VP games. They were unique, charming, and very relaxing.
F-Zero GX - Wipeout and others of this style are nice, but F-Zero is unmatched for pure hyperspeed racing bliss
Wave Race: Blue Storm
Freelancer - There's been a few that come close, but just don't quite hit all the notes covered by this one
Master of Magic - I first played this in 2011, so when I say there's just something special about this one it's not nostalgia goggles doing the talking.
Vagrant Story - A remaster or a new title, don't care which.
The Legend of Zelda - Yes, the original title. Oh, it's eminently replayable as it is, no question there. However, the Switch remake of Link's Awakening was such an absolute delight that I immediately found myself hoping that we could get a remake of the original title in a similar style.

Jeb wrote:

None. Let's see something fresh for a change.

Agreed.

I greet each remastering with dismay. Precious game development resources wasted on 'gussying up' ancient content that's was surpassed a generation ago.

And remasters seem only to make the games prettier without making them better mechanically. The remaster of 'Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare' is a case in point. It looked nicer, but retained the (subsequently much improved)mechanics of the original.

@Crawley - Once you start changing the controls, is the game still a remaster? Or is it something else? I spent some of 2016 - 2019 exploring some of PS3's 'greatest misses' and I was struck by how idiosyncratic some of the control schemes were. Alpha Protocol springs to mind.

And how far should this go? Should the controls be tweaked sufficiently to make Mirrors Edge more forgiving? Should difficulty settings be added or tweaked too?...

For me, there's a basic question that needs to be answered: what is the artistic purpose of a remaster? Or isn't there one? Is the sole purpose a commercial one - to entice a new audience to play an old game by making it look better?

[quote="detroit20"]

Jeb wrote:

@Crawley - Once you start changing the controls, is the game still a remaster? Or is it something else? I spent some of 2016 - 2019 exploring some of PS3's 'greatest misses' and I was struck by how idiosyncratic some of the control schemes were. Alpha Protocol springs to mind.

And how far should this go? Should the controls be tweaked sufficiently to make Mirrors Edge more forgiving? Should difficulty settings be added or tweaked too?...

For me, there's a basic question that needs to be answered: what is the artistic purpose of a remaster? Or isn't there one? Is the sole purpose a commercial one - to entice a new audience to play an old game by making it look better?

As far as controls go I think they can be tweaked for remasters. For the Quake remaster it got moved to a new engine and the floaty movement is mimicked. I haven't played the game in at least a decade and I'm sure it's not 1:1. But it feels right to me.

For the games I mentioned (old Amiga Psygnosis games) I'm particularly thinking of the Shadow of the Beast games. Most of the Amiga joysticks were mainly digital and only had a single button.Today we're playing on analog controllers with multiple buttons. For SoB to jump you had to push up on the joystick - which even with a digital joystick was a bit of a pain. I can see adding a button press for jump now.

To go from the punchy digital controls to analog I think there would need to be some changes made. I would be fine with them adding additional frames to the characters movements if it makes the game playable with modern controllers.

With the remasters I'm looking to play classic games brought in to the modern era. If it means updating janky controls I'm fine with that. If I want a 1:1 experience I'd load the originals or play them through emulators.

If I want a 1:1 experience I'd load the originals or play them through emulators.

That is the spot I am at with Diablo 2 Resurrected. A lot of vocal fans are so stubborn and toxic. That game is screaming for adding an "adventure mode" but it gets shouted down with such ferocity, even if its optional, or bnet only or offline only.

My feeling is the core of remasters are untapped potential. Either the mechanics got over complicated in the sequels. Or the story was so amazing as to deserve modern visuals. Or the mission structure had peaked but there was a struggle with jank controls that was later streamlined. Or we just wanted more and never got it.

Oh, here's a relatively anonymous doozy: Mage Knight Apocalypse.
The controls were functional for most characters but they were awkward as hell. It had great arpg bones and a decent story. I actually finished the campaign with 1 or 2 characters. The character design was unique and stylish. A reboot with more contemporary OTS action rpg controls would be fantastic!

I thought of another one - but it really just needs a release that works on iPads or other modern machines. Heroes of Might and Magic III

IMAGE(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/82/Sacrifice_by_Interplay_-_box_art.jpg)

I would love to see a modern controller friendly version of Sacrifice. I enjoyed the multiplayer back in the day and the way you controlled it as an avatar should be doable with a controller.