We are living in curious times, isn’t? In this time we’ll come back to the past in order to understand “what make a remake necessary in video games”, and we’ll think about the mean of “being memorable”
This is a statue in the "Paisley Abbey", In Scotland. Yes, this is a Xenomorph from the Aliens franchise and yes, this monument was changed in his restoration, and this strange statue was used by the Spanish journalist "Lynx Reviewer" like an example of the discussion about Remakes in our industry: "how something can be a tribute, an insult or a joke in the same time"
But in my case, I want to use this in order to put us into the general context:
We must see the reality; we are living in a time which old faces are receiving a improvement in form of Remake, Reboot, Remastered or Revival:
We can see Crash Bandicoot jumping again in our screen, we can see Kratos fight one more time while he try to be a father in the new God of War, we can see how Zelda Breath of the Wild show us the original spirit of The Legend of Zelda (Zelda I) from NES.
We are seeing how our childhood comes back more strongly than ever, and in the middle of this discussion about "what game needs a remake?" I want to come and ask myself:
"What make a remake necessary?"
The answer actually is simple and obvious; a remake is needed when something can't be enjoyed in the same way than before, when something "didn’t age well"
And we have many examples of that:
This is the first "Half-Life", released in November from 1998 in PC, which was a revolution in our industry.
Can you see it? this feels strange and distant from our actual standards, isn't?
That was the principal reason why "Crowbard Colective" choose make a MOD for “Half-Life 2” named "BLACK-MESA" that in the future was approved by Valve and which we are waiting for his official release.
Another Example is the first generation from Pokémon, Pokémon "Red/Blue" from the original Game Boy was released in February in 1996, and this is an example of "how something feels very old" but in the mechanics of the game:
We can see it on the very old menu system (that was fixed in future generations) or things like critic’s percentage that is based on the speed stat that can easily broke the game.
8 years later, the remakes named “Pokémon Fire Red and Leaf Green" came out in 2004 and rebalanced all their mechanics using the balance from the third generation (Pokémon Sapphire/Ruby/Emerald)
Well then, we have in mind good examples about when is necessary a Remake, the time have no mercy with graphics or the mechanics (and in other cases the game was in a format that the people don’t like in modern times, like Final fantasy 7) and it could be sad to see how many games fall into the oblivion or see how the original magic of this games could be affected...
But that doesn’t mean that always happen
Much is said about what games need remakes, but think about by a single moment, how many games "don't need" remakes? this games have a kind of eternal magic:
This is the case of Mother 3 from Game Boy Advance released in 2006 by Shigesato Itoi, his magic can't be affected for time, his style, his topics, his humour, his simple mechanics, and all of his components always will be great because Shigesato Itoi made them in a specific way and Shigesato Itoi understood this in 2006, even in 1994 with Earthbound and his topic about the childhood. I don't want to imply that games like Half-Life "don't have identity", but is a fact that some identities resist better the time pass than others, and some franchises understand this some late, like: "Shin Megami Tensei: Persona"
For those who played the last title: "Persona 5", will be easy to see how this is the first Persona game that could resist the pass of time with his memorable style in his look, animation and charisma (and casually this was the last game for the director of the entire series, this tell us that the director leaved all his heart in this).
And if we still looking this topic, we'll notice how one market apparently don't have this problem of " memorable identity" and for consequence, don't have the problem of remakes, and this market is the Indie industry.
It's very easy to think how this is possible, Indie Games have more closeness with the people's heart (especially with his authors) than triple A games, and the clearest example of this, is Undertale.
Toby Fox learned from Shigesato Itoi and find his own identity through of his effort and "determination", as a result of this Undertale was one of the most famous games in our industry while the game tell a timeless story with ageless themes.
Now you remember why these games are memorable and how you and your works can be memorable?
All this is thanks to the heart, effort and practice, of the authors. And we must never forget that:
We can't forget have an identity, we can´t forget be memorable.
Well, that's all.
Many thanks to read my first work in this language and excuse me for any mistake.
However, Be free to say me "Hey, we don't use X in this context", Any feedback is welcome. See ya, have a good day!
Bibliography
LynxReviewer
Paisley Abbey
Half-Life
BLACK-MESA
Persona 5
Undertale
The gameplay's screenshots are from my computer, But these IPs are not mine.
I don't have any right of them.