Do remakes ever get it right?

[RyanTheArchivist]

I'm sure some of what I have read is just how people are online, but I have never seen a remake of anything getting more love than the original. They are criticized to hell and back, and the criticism is usually pretty warranted too.

Are remakes just cursed?

I think a big thing is.... a game being remade generally means the original versions will never be re-released again in the future. And if that remake makes big changes to the game it basically kills the original experience. Really what we need are remakes that include the original versions as bonus.

 

[Jayro]

I've heard comments saying Black Mesa is better than the original.

My personal opinion though is to play both.

I bought it cheap during Early Access, and I'm glad I did. Because it's not only better in all the best ways like graphics, physics, lighting, etc... But they respected the source material, and made something Gabe would be proud to have on Steam. They even added some good humor and easter eggs in there as well. Before the Zen update, I could only get to some rocket Silo, and it was a dead-end fairly quickly, but I was like "Alright... This game is mind-blowing up until this point, so I'll just let them cook." And man, they definitely delivered. If people are looking to enter the Half-Life universe for the first time and want to do a solid run through the first game and 2 with the two episodes, I tell them to start with Black Mesa first, then HL2.

 

[crico]

Plenty of them do. Some people are just really unflinching in their love of the originals. Every change gets blown out of proportion. Twin Snakes gets a lot of criticism for its cut scenes but the original had plenty of goofy stuff so it never bothered me. Swimming being tied to the magic bar in the Majora's Mask remake is kind of silly but I never found myself running low on magic where it became an issue.

They don't always hit, like the Resident Evil 3 Remake but I think more often than not they're pretty damn good and I'll take a lot of the upgrades over the odd change here and there.

 

[TVL]

IMO remakes are always done on already successful games, and the best they can do is a graphic overhaul and release... Probably a hard thing to get by, but what should be going on is scour entire game libraries and find concepts that are awesome, but the game turned out shit anyway... And correct those mistakes and make it awesome.

I think the problem is it's just too expensive to gamble on an idea, you have to play it safe or risk bankrupting your company. Therefore you make a remake of a hit that was already very good to begin with and people could just play that.

Same thing goes with a new game, look at what is already popular and do that again.

 

[tech3475]

I bought it cheap during Early Access, and I'm glad I did. Because it's not only better in all the best ways like graphics, physics, lighting, etc... But they respected the source material, and made something Gabe would be proud to have on Steam. They even added some good humor and easter eggs in there as well. Before the Zen update, I could only get to some rocket Silo, and it was a dead-end fairly quickly, but I was like "Alright... This game is mind-blowing up until this point, so I'll just let them cook." And man, they definitely delivered. If people are looking to enter the Half-Life universe for the first time and want to do a solid run through the first game and 2 with the two episodes, I tell them to start with Black Mesa first, then HL2.

I still think play both unless you can't for some reason.

To me seeing the contrast between HL1 and BM was part of the experience and gave an extra 'wow' factor that someone who purely plays modern games may not feel.

Although maybe go HL1>HL2/EP>BM to reduce fatigue.

 

[VmprHntrD]

I find it's rare a remake does it right. The Switch re-do's of Mario RPG and THousand Year Door are rarities where they did, and I'd argue the Ocarina of Time 3DS did as well too.

Usually people just seem to consistently fail to respect reaity that often times MORE is not better, and QOL fixes sometimes aren't fixes or changes but hinder the experience. For example, I was amped when ActRaiser came back, but those assholes turned the enjoyable SIM half of the game into a fairly stressful tower defense mess and if you aren't good as those it's painful to say the least, and the monster lairs now have very janky and not well done combat arenas inside that get super annoying yet the rest of the game is still fantastic but it was enough to put me off it and go back to the original.