Game On: The influx of classic game remakes is good and bad

Another day, another remaster, it seems. You’d think remaking an old, popular game would be the safest move a publisher could make and a surefire way to sell boatloads of copies and garner heaps of praise. Despite that hunch, it’s not difficult to come up with a long list of remasters that made critical missteps.

The most obvious example is “Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition” and its sequel. Since it was handled by former employees of BioWare, the development team of the original, you’d think it would’ve been in good hands. That wasn’t the case. Rather than revamping the graphics in any meaningful way, the newly formed Beamdog team applied an upscaling filter to the game.

Worse, they felt the need to add new playable characters to the game, which stick out like a sore thumb. Their portraits don’t match the style of the original game, nor does their dialogue. Whenever I revisit the series, I do play the “enhanced editions,” but I go out of my way to avoid the new characters.

The remake of “Resident Evil 3” was surprisingly divisive after the remake of “Resident Evil 2” was almost universally praised. Both faced the challenge of transforming a game from clunky survival-horror games with fixed camera angles into full-blown third-person shooters, which they both managed with unparalleled grace.

Strangely enough, the developers behind the “RE3” remake cut entire areas from the original game and removed several instances of player choice – the end result was a far more linear experience. It was still popular with new players, but most who experienced the classic game came away disappointed. Removing player agency is never a popular decision with gamers.

Perhaps the most obnoxious nostalgia bait of all is “Final Fantasy VII Remake,” which made two divisive decisions. First, Square Enix altered the game from featuring tactical, turn-based combat to real-time combat to be trendy. Second, the 1997 epic was cut it three pieces. Despite being teased since 2015, only the first third of the game was released in 2020.

And there’s no word on when the next part is coming. It’s a beautiful and thorough reimagining of the original title, but just hearing about this bizarre and greedy move by Square Enix makes me thankful I’m not much of a “Final Fantasy” fan. For those of you who are, you have my condolences.

But developers have sullied good names in worse ways. 2019’s “Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled” was a solid reimagining of two of Crash Bandicoot’s kart racing games in one package, but they pulled a dirty trick.

Initially, all of the game’s content could be accessed for free, but a month down the line, Activision added expensive cosmetics that could be unlocked faster by purchasing “Wumpa Coins” with real money. Activision likely did this to trick critics into rating the game higher, since gaming journalists tend to look down on the use of microtransactions.

Of course, even that pales in comparison to the 2014 remake of “Dungeon Keeper,” which turned a classic PC game into a typical “freemium” mobile game. Like other freemium experiences, most content is available, but unless you plunk down real cash on a rolling basis, you’re stuck waiting on hours-long “cooldowns” to move onto new challenges.

Peter Molyneux, creator of the original “Dungeon Keeper,” echoed the frustrations of players by stating, “I just want to make a dungeon. I don’t want to schedule it on my alarm clock for six days to come back for a block to be chipped.”

Fortunately, for every botched remake, there’s a brilliant one. Even Activision reined in its usual shenanigans to release “Crash Bandicoot N-Sane Trilogy” and “Spyro Reignited Trilogy,” two reasonably priced and nearly perfect remasters of the bestselling PlayStation 1 franchises.

Nintendo remade 1993’s “The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening” from the ground up in 2019 – it was appropriately faithful to the original with a massive bump up in graphical fidelity. So, while it’s somewhat disappointing to note that many new releases aren’t entirely “new,” some remakes truly succeed at breathing new life into old games.

I’m looking forward to Capcom’s remake of “Resident Evil 4,” the best-known and often highest-regarded game in the franchise. And while I’ve almost given up hope for the oft-rumored remasters of “The Legend of Dragoon” or “The Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver,” I’ll keep my fingers crossed that they’ll get the remake treatment soon.

Riordan Zentler can be reached at riordanzentler@gmail.com.