What if the industry started remaking bad games instead of good ones?
I dislike the idea of remakes, but perhaps my problem lies less with the craft and more with how the industry employs it. Have you ever wondered what it'd be like if companies remade games not to milk hits, but to unleash the potential of once-promising-but-failed titles? Big-budget AAA remakes take a lot of time and prevent big teams from coming up with new, possibly revolutionary ideas. Anyone who grew up in the 90s was used to SquareSoft releasing a massive Final Fantasy title every two years. Nowadays, it takes nearly a decade for us to get one mainline Final Fantasy entry, and one of the big reasons for that is that Square Enix is stuck remaking Final Fantasy VII forever, a quest of ever-diminishing returns and ever-growing costs. Instead, if the industry really needs to remake something, I posit it should give games that were almost great another shot. I'm not talking about games that nobody liked or projects that never had a chance to appeal to a wide enough audience. I'm talking about games that sold well but fell short of what they could have been with better design choices. Unlike movie sequels, video game sequels can always improve upon the original. The same applies to a hypothetical remake of a 6 or 7/10 game that could’ve been great. If you need an example of what I’m talking about, think Dark Souls 2.What bad games should we remake? Dark Souls 2 had so many great ideas, and was, by the words of Hidetaka Miyazaki himself, instrumental for the creation of Elden Ring. So, it has many merits, but by itself, it just isn't a great game. Many years of delving into it have, however, given us the perspective required to know what went wrong and what could be done to fix it. Please tell me you wouldn't play Dark Souls 2: Prepare to Enjoy edition. Image via FromSoftware And this bizarre kind of remake already exists, even if the industry at large might be unaware of its beautiful existence. The newly released Legacy of Kain Defiance Remastered is actually very close to our premise. Anyone unfamiliar with the title will probably imagine it's merely the re-release of a popular entry, but that'd be a grave mistake. Very few people, fans of the series, even, really enjoyed Defiance. Because at every step of the way, it felt like there was a marvelous game to be found, but it was forever just out of reach. It's also more than a remaster, as getting the camera to work meant remaking large swathes of the game. So, accidentally or not, players ended up getting the remake of a bad game, and the result is astounding. It feels like a completely new game, one still rooted in what people loved about the previous games from its franchise. Though there might not be an example as obvious as Defiance out there, yet, I'm sure you've felt disappointed by many games in the past that you're sure could've been great if not for one surprisingly pernicious aspect that made the entire thing go astray.Some bad games should be left in the dust I remember when the backlash to the ending of Mass Effect 3 was so harsh that the devs decided to remake its ending, and I'm sure that felt like a nice touch to people who thought the only underwhelming part about that game was its ending, and not its entire lacklustre plot and oftentimes bizarre writing. Now, you might be thinking I'm trying to ease you into the idea of remaking Mass Effect Andromeda, but rest assured that it definitely is not the case. The only thing that game ever had going for it was the Mass Effect title, and I believe brand recognition alone shouldn't be enough to carry a franchise. No amount of tweaks could make it an unforgettable title, so the Mass Effect fans out there are better off just hoping the upcoming Mass Effect title is good. In the end, finding the perfect bad game to revive is far from an easy task, but a worthy one in my opinion. What "bad" games would you like to see remade? The post What if the industry started remaking bad games instead of good ones? appeared first on Destructoid.
I dislike the idea of remakes, but perhaps my problem lies less with the craft and more with how the industry employs it. Have you ever wondered what it'd be like if companies remade games not to milk hits, but to unleash the potential of once-promising-but-failed titles?
Big-budget AAA remakes take a lot of time and prevent big teams from coming up with new, possibly revolutionary ideas. Anyone who grew up in the 90s was used to SquareSoft releasing a massive Final Fantasy title every two years. Nowadays, it takes nearly a decade for us to get one mainline Final Fantasy entry, and one of the big reasons for that is that Square Enix is stuck remaking Final Fantasy VII forever, a quest of ever-diminishing returns and ever-growing costs.
Instead, if the industry really needs to remake something, I posit it should give games that were almost great another shot. I'm not talking about games that nobody liked or projects that never had a chance to appeal to a wide enough audience. I'm talking about games that sold well but fell short of what they could have been with better design choices.
Unlike movie sequels, video game sequels can always improve upon the original. The same applies to a hypothetical remake of a 6 or 7/10 game that could’ve been great. If you need an example of what I’m talking about, think Dark Souls 2.
What bad games should we remake?
Dark Souls 2 had so many great ideas, and was, by the words of Hidetaka Miyazaki himself, instrumental for the creation of Elden Ring. So, it has many merits, but by itself, it just isn't a great game. Many years of delving into it have, however, given us the perspective required to know what went wrong and what could be done to fix it. Please tell me you wouldn't play Dark Souls 2: Prepare to Enjoy edition.
Image via FromSoftware And this bizarre kind of remake already exists, even if the industry at large might be unaware of its beautiful existence.The newly released Legacy of Kain Defiance Remastered is actually very close to our premise. Anyone unfamiliar with the title will probably imagine it's merely the re-release of a popular entry, but that'd be a grave mistake. Very few people, fans of the series, even, really enjoyed Defiance. Because at every step of the way, it felt like there was a marvelous game to be found, but it was forever just out of reach.
It's also more than a remaster, as getting the camera to work meant remaking large swathes of the game. So, accidentally or not, players ended up getting the remake of a bad game, and the result is astounding. It feels like a completely new game, one still rooted in what people loved about the previous games from its franchise.
Though there might not be an example as obvious as Defiance out there, yet, I'm sure you've felt disappointed by many games in the past that you're sure could've been great if not for one surprisingly pernicious aspect that made the entire thing go astray.
Some bad games should be left in the dust
I remember when the backlash to the ending of Mass Effect 3 was so harsh that the devs decided to remake its ending, and I'm sure that felt like a nice touch to people who thought the only underwhelming part about that game was its ending, and not its entire lacklustre plot and oftentimes bizarre writing.Now, you might be thinking I'm trying to ease you into the idea of remaking Mass Effect Andromeda, but rest assured that it definitely is not the case. The only thing that game ever had going for it was the Mass Effect title, and I believe brand recognition alone shouldn't be enough to carry a franchise. No amount of tweaks could make it an unforgettable title, so the Mass Effect fans out there are better off just hoping the upcoming Mass Effect title is good.
In the end, finding the perfect bad game to revive is far from an easy task, but a worthy one in my opinion. What "bad" games would you like to see remade?
The post What if the industry started remaking bad games instead of good ones? appeared first on Destructoid.
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