ranting about video game remakes

I dislike outdated feature in old games that waste my time. Example: the door loading screens in the older RE games suck. Do they build mood? Sure. The first few times. After that its nothing but a waste of time.

Load screens on the PS era were like the long ass passwords of the NES era. A necessary evil due to how the games worked and loaded data. At least in SotN you could move around and change equipment in the load rooms and they looked like fancy hallways. They did their best to mask the load screen issue and make it feel like part of the game. In a way the RE doors did too. It's not really needed anymore. But suspenseful moments that are linked to doors could just be one time events or just be given sound cues. Remember the hallway in RE that had the dogs bursting through the windows? An actual creative use of a jump scare.

I don't feel Final Fantasy 7 needed a remake. But we all knew one was probably coming someday.
 
The Remake of Riven, the Sequel to Myst is coming out today and I am full of dread. Apparently there had been two major updates done to the demo after the demo came out, which concerns me. Demos should be so polished that you don't need to add large patches to them.
... There's a Riven remake and somehow this is the first I'm hearing about it?
 
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The biggest problem with Artistic Integrity™ concerning old games that date past the PS2 era is that the art was designed for CRT Monitors/TVs with all the technical limitations in mind.

crtcompy.jpg

What's interesting is that since pixel art has become an art form in itself rather than a transfer process of analog art into digital - there are people who probably prefer playing it on a flat screen with the sharpness filter. Ironically you lose a lot of detail by making it sharper. That is the problem with running older games on modern tech. The seams are more visible than ever. Combine that with archaic controls, poor performance, (and if you've ever tried playing old games on a modern PC) bugs, crashes, and visual artifacts - it's a rough time.

Remakes for video games make sense more than any other medium. Games are getting too expensive to make and returns are shrinking. The average gamer won't buy a 70 dollar game if it doesn't as good or better than the last game they bought. Why take risks with new IPs when you can remake something for half the cost that people are guaranteed to pay full price for. As a consumer I'm fine with it. I've played enough duds to know that modern game design is aimed at the darksydephils of the world, and modern game stories are written to get the tumblr seal of approval. Whatever the real issue is, there's a soul missing from current games. Success of remakes just proves that to a degree.

In regards to the MGS 3 Remake, I was pretty iffy on it but after watching the interview with the producer it's pretty clear they don't want to mess it up. It's nice that you can choose to play with the original camera, and filter if you want. It clearly a no-expense-spared way to ingratiate themselves back into the gaming sphere. SuperBunnyHop had a good take on it at 30:30:

 
the Diablo 2 remaster is excellent too. I haven't played the WC3 remaster, but I hear it has the same sort of deal where you can swap between the old and new graphics. I also understand they made some balance changes, maybe that's a big part of the cringe, although IMO, the changes they made to Diablo 2 (new runewords, resistance penetration charms, etc) all definitely work in the game's favor.
WC3 remaster was a death by a thousand paper cuts, except that paper was actually made of steel and it had the shape of an actual sword.

The most remarkable downgrades I can think of are:

-Bugs and crashes through the roof, specially annoying in multiplayer and ranked matches.
-Features that were present in the remake (automated tournament, player profiles, saving in online games) were gone at launch. (And you'd look at that, they added it back but now it's super broken)
-ToS policy of Custom Maps, basically dictating that any custom map you make for WC3 can have its rights taken away by Blizzard at any given point (if you made a banger custom map like Dota, which was a WC3 custom map, they could steal that from you and give you 0 credit for making it.)
-They promised a lot of awesome content for the singleplayer mode, but never did it, like remade in-game cutscenes or even a new campaign based around Warcraft I (basically a retelling of the first game).
-And worse of all, you were forced to update your original WC3 to accomadate Reforged, and no longer would you be able to play the original game back, besides pirating of course.

It was sad seeing this because WC3 was one of my favorite childhood games.

I guess if you were a single-player guy, WC3:Reforged is... """fine""", but if you loved the multiplayer ranked matches or custom maps? Yeah they took a crap on it and gave it back to you. Enjoy!
 
I just think its funny how at least a third of the hyped releases I've seen the past couple years have been remakes. The entertainment industry is too busy playing it safe for the most part.
 
One remake that really fucked the dog for me was Front Mission 1st Remake, being a huge mechafag. Don't get me wrong, it's not entirely incompetent...I just don't see why you'd ever play it, considering the animations are worse than 2D, the music doesn't loop properly, and it uses pretty much the exact same systems as the original so short ranged weaponry is the only real pick. The DS version is easily emulated if you want the best experience.

It's what it led up to that was worse. It didn't prepare me for the shitshow that was the FM2 remake. The game is poorly translated, and I don't mean regular trannylation. I mean crazy misspellings and grammar that make Tecmo's Secret of the Stars seem well written - the plot is nigh incomprehensible. It's first time we got this game in the west in any form and it is completely fucked beyond belief, and Squeenix probably hates that the game didn't sell and won't fix it. FM3 remake will probably be worse than the original Playstation version at this rate.
 
I don’t mind remakes/remasters if all that’s being done is things like giving the game QoL and bug fixes, a graphical upgrade and getting it to run well on modern hardware. That’s all awesome.

The issue I get with certain remakes is when they completely sacrifice what the game originally was in order to cater to normies (dumbing down the difficulty to a ridiculous degree) or inserting a political agenda when it wasn’t needed (adding tranny characters in the Baldur’s Gate 1 remaster which otherwise was an excellent remaster)
 
ToS policy of Custom Maps, basically dictating that any custom map you make for WC3 can have its rights taken away by Blizzard at any given point (if you made a banger custom map like Dota, which was a WC3 custom map, they could steal that from you and give you 0 credit for making it.)

yeah they definitely did this because of dota lmao. they were so salty they lost that to Valve
 
Well, you see, you've got remakes, and then you have remasters, and then have modern ports, and then you've got your updated re-releases, and also remixes, and enhanced editions, and reboots, and reimaginings. I think these might somehow be different things. Nobody knows, for sure.
 
yeah they definitely did this because of dota lmao. they were so salty they lost that to Valve
Not even I can defend Blizzard for that blunder lol. I believe Dota's creator even offered to make a standalone game as long it got funded, and at a time where people pirated or sometimes bought WC3 just to play Dota, Blizzard was like "nah we good".

EDIT to not go off-topic: I also learned that WC3:Reforged messed with a lot of the old custom maps too (:_(
 
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Games are immune to remake criticism because games are primarily all about immersion and interactive choices. You can remake a classic game and if you give it 4k graphics and some nice quality of life options and improvements it tend to be as a rewarding experience as the original. That's also not to mention the full blown from the ground up remakes that take the settings and stories of classic games and give them more modernized perspectives and gameplay (FF7 and RE2 remakes being the big examples). These are almost not remakes like a movies are remakes as for better or worse they become entire new experiences Basically people will always argue over subjective aesthetic choices like this, and thats why movie remakes get heavily criticized movies lack the more objective gameplay elements and are just aesthetics.

Basically the potential ceiling on the quality of a game remake is higher than movies at least from my perspective.
 
Now, remakes in my opinion are only a problem when they outright try to replace the original game, and I can't think of a single one that does that.
I'm curious how you define "replacing the original." Way I see it, if the remake is easily available but the original is not, then the remake is a replacement. Resident Evil 2 is a replacement. MGS Delta isn't since Konami just put the original MGS3 on modern digital storefronts.
 
I'm curious how you define "replacing the original." Way I see it, if the remake is easily available but the original is not, then the remake is a replacement. Resident Evil 2 is a replacement. MGS Delta isn't since Konami just put the original MGS3 on modern digital storefronts.
The original Resident Evil trilogy was just released on some PC storefront recently, I think.
 
the Diablo 2 remaster is excellent too. I haven't played the WC3 remaster, but I hear it has the same sort of deal where you can swap between the old and new graphics. I also understand they made some balance changes, maybe that's a big part of the cringe, although IMO, the changes they made to Diablo 2 (new runewords, resistance penetration charms, etc) all definitely work in the game's favor.

While generally considered lazy ports Blizz did go out of their way to fugly up the female character models in both the D2 and W3 remakes

WC3 remaster was a death by a thousand paper cuts, except that paper was actually made of steel and it had the shape of an actual sword.

The most remarkable downgrades I can think of are:

-Bugs and crashes through the roof, specially annoying in multiplayer and ranked matches.
-Features that were present in the remake (automated tournament, player profiles, saving in online games) were gone at launch. (And you'd look at that, they added it back but now it's super broken)
-ToS policy of Custom Maps, basically dictating that any custom map you make for WC3 can have its rights taken away by Blizzard at any given point (if you made a banger custom map like Dota, which was a WC3 custom map, they could steal that from you and give you 0 credit for making it.)
-They promised a lot of awesome content for the singleplayer mode, but never did it, like remade in-game cutscenes or even a new campaign based around Warcraft I (basically a retelling of the first game).
-And worse of all, you were forced to update your original WC3 to accomadate Reforged, and no longer would you be able to play the original game back, besides pirating of course.

It was sad seeing this because WC3 was one of my favorite childhood games.

I guess if you were a single-player guy, WC3:Reforged is... """fine""", but if you loved the multiplayer ranked matches or custom maps? Yeah they took a crap on it and gave it back to you. Enjoy!

WC3R is almost offensive in how half assed it was. The character portrait models sum it up entirely. The originals while crude and blocky were clearly made by experienced people who put love and care in them. The new ones while higher poly are flat and generic as if someone downloaded a standard model of the internet and added some window dressing to it.
 
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