Topic: Too much time spent remaking old games!

Are the sales in 'old' games and remakes encouraging developers to be lazy? I can understand bringing back some of the more popular games from previous systems, it gives people who may have missed it in the past a chance to give it a try. But more and more I am seeing games that I don't see the need to be remade and then read many comments with people pleased about them. I just see it as easy money on their part and can only think that the time spent doing it would have benefited the industry more to have new games available.

Do we not want these people to spend time on old games, or on new games?

@dew12333 I don't think so.
Many people want to replay games on newer systems or play total remakes of old games.

I am one of those people.

New games are still made and they still have good sales.

@dew12333 I like it because a lot of older games I never got a chance to play, so they are new to me.

Still... some can be disappointing. I tried the Medievil demo for example and it’s a bit bland. It’s a shame because I like the style and look of the game, but the combat and level design is just weak for 2019.

Although I think as many games as possible should be available to play for modern audiences. Just not so many of them need to be totally remastered, unless they are really worth it.

Some old games I hadn't played for so long (Spyro and Crash) that it pretty much felt like a brand new game.

So I get a brand new game, made on a smaller budget, that we already know was very well received.

Seems like a bargain to me.

I get what you're saying but at the same time it's not like new games aren't coming out as well. And to be honest I love the remake of Links Awakening! I'm glad they remade that and it's beautiful!

I don't see them as a bad thing at all really. Take the upcoming Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore for example. To me, this is a JRPG that's overlooked and didn't sell well on the Wii U because it was on the Wii U. With the upcoming re-release to Switch, it has another chance as people who never had a Wii U can play it come January, and the game reaches a wider audience.

I don't see how that is bad at all, also, new games are coming out for those who want to play something new. I've been playing Tokyo Mirage Sessions on Wii U since Christmas last year, and I got very excited at the news because what I consider is a great game is coming to Switch and reaching more players.

I always feel that people think that because companies are doing these remakes, that there's less people left over to dedicate to newer games, and as such, they fear that developing these remakes is taking precious time and manpower away from newer and/or bigger games, but nothing could be further from the truth.

For example: in the specific case of the Link's Awakening remake, a separate, smaller team was assigned to the task, so that takes absolutely nothing away from the development time of Breath of the Wild 2. The same will be true for most other games. Only if companies are smaller, they may have to cut into their own resources to accomplish such a remake/remaster.

So, in short: no, companies are NOT spending too much time on remakes. Instead, they're adding to the catalog in a positive way, and at the same time bringing memories back to people already familiar with the original versions of these games, while offering a completely new experience to (younger) people who are often only vaguely familiar with these games, or not at all, so bottom line is that it's only a good thing, and nothing to scoff at or complain about.

It also depends on the kind of remake. If we're talking about a "remake" of Assassin's Creed III, it's not much of a "remake" It took a tiny team a minor amount of time to refresh some assets, fix or enhance some event scripting, building it in the newer version of their engine, and go back and redo some things that didn't turn out as well as intended the first time through. It's basically a $60 patch.

If we're talking about WiiU ports, it's even less. It's just a hardware port, a small team working out technical differences to function on different hardware, possibly with some minor enhancements thrown in. It doesn't take much manpower to do.

If we're talking a remake of Trials of Mana, it's not really a remake, it's an all new game that revisits the story, locations, characters, and events of a classic game. The original games aren't going to jive well with a new audience as they're bound to idiosyncratic design norms of the era they're from partly due to the technological limitations of the era they're from. Think of it as a Technicolor remaster of Casablanca. The original cameras didn't capture color, so they had to remake the entire movie, frame by frame, by hand, coloring it all in. It's the same movie, remade to be viewed as it was really intended but limited by technology. It took manpower, but it's the way the designers really wanted you to see it when they made it, but couldn't. When talking Duck Tales, or Mana, or FF7, etc, these are games that were supposed to be fluid and larger than life, but the NES/SNES/PSX just didn't have what it took yet to really complete that vision. The story and world and characters are timeless and can be retold to every generation. They just can make it more "complete" now.

@dew12333
When you say remake, does that encompass ports of jedi outcast, GTA 3, devil may cry, etc? I have to admit, i wonder if resources have been diverted from creating new games to port the games i just mentioned.

@RedderRugfish It'll be interesting with BC on both PS5 and Scarlett how this practice is affected. You'll still be able to buy the $18 "it's on digital sale every 5 weeks" versions, no ability to sell re-boxed ports without actually enhancing them in some way to make them desirable.

I always expect the worst from Level 5. They make beautiful games but their corporate practices are Konami/Disney level. I hold their studios in high regard, but I don't hold the company in very high regard at all.

The newness of the game is irrelevant. Ni no Kuni, a game I've wanted to play for a long time, is finally available in enhanced form on platforms I actually own now. That's worth the price to me, regardless of how old it is. It's not a matter of "falling" for anything.

I don't think "new" games are necessarily any more deserving of my money than "old" games. Especially when the ports of those "old" games allow me to play them in a way that was impossible in the past.

@Ralizah It's not really enhanced, it's just running unlocked. Despite the marketing. But yeah, I hear you on it being available on platforms you want to play it on. I bought 2 and hoped 1 would be ported forward because there ain't no way I'm hooking my PS3 up again...ever....

But next gen it will be interesting when there is no schtick like that for them to pull (except for Nintendo gamers...)

(I bought it, and THEN learned it's depressing and put it in the "someday" pile, though.... )

Honestly, to throw out the opposite viewpoint, remasters and remakes are critical to continued growth of the game industry. Take Xenoblade Chronicles:DE for example. All signs are pointing that it's being created by the new studio Monolith just opened, with basically no existing staff. So to get them up to speed on the Monolith design style and process they get to start on an easier project, and gain valuable experience that way. Or Spyro Trilogy. Toys for Bob has no experience with the (actual) Spyro franchise, so by revisiting the games that made the series famous first they now have a much better place to work from in making new games that are received well moving forawards.

@NEStalgia I mean, regardless of the coding involved, it runs at 30fps on PS3 and 60fps on PS4 and also runs at a higher resolution on PS4, up to 4K on the Pro, whereas the original, I believe, was 720p. That sounds pretty enhanced to me.

But yeah, I never owned a PS3, so I'd even buy a straight PS3 port (and probably will via the Switch version).

@Ralizah No changes to the game were necessary for that, it's literally running unlocked with a higher render resolution setting. That's not to say you don't get a better experience, but it's the same as buying a new PC and turning the resolution up on your game. Or running an X1 game on a 1X and getting the higher res/framerate output. Same game, different render config. I doubt they spent more than an hour on it.

(@JaxonH was going to blow a blood vessel trying to explain that to people in the NNK announcement ages ago when everyone was all "Switch can't run the enhanced version hurr durrr." )

@NEStalgia But, but... the other consoles... and they... how...
The STANDARD edition?

@link3710 That's a very good point right there.

@RedderRugfish Enter Switch tax laments...

@RedderRugfish The pricing on PS3 is irrelevant. We're not talking about that version. Generally, games that are ported to new platforms go back to or around MSRP before dropping down again. Barring that, they typically sell at a higher price on the platforms they were newly ported to than they sell for on the older platforms they were previously exclusive to. See: Skyrim; Monster Hunter World on PC; etc.

You can decide for yourself if playing the game on Switch/PS4 is worth paying more, but it's not like people are being tricked into it. Nobody is falling for a scam.

@NEStalgia I'm sure some optimization work was required on the Switch version at least. Like I said, though, I don't know, or care, really, about the coding that went into it. It was previously available only on PS3 at 720p/30. Now it's available on Switch at 720p/1080p30 with the option of portability, or on PS4 at 1080p60. That's an enhanced experience, regardless of the work that was done, or not done, behind the scenes to make it so. Maybe it'd be a more relevant talking point if the previous version wasn't exclusive to a single console or could be played via backwards compatibility, but we know that doesn't happen with PS3 games.

The problem with your restaurant example is that restaurants don't open and close generationally, the "price" being paid for the food is in line with what I'd pay for similar meals at other establishments, and, in this case, the food is of higher quality because the newer location has access to a better kitchen. So, paying a normal price for a higher quality version of a meal that was never available to me at the other restaurant that closed down? I'll take it.

@Ralizah Switch is certainly a more involved port in general for the new architecture. It's the PS4 "enhanced remaster" that's pure marketing fluff. It's not an enhanced version...there's no new art, new assets, new textures or models. It's the same game set to run at a higher resolution on a more powerful box.

Switch is different, whole new architecture and it's not advertising "remaster" like the PS4 version. That's just shameless.

@NEStalgia Did they advertise it as having new assets/textures/art/whatnot? All I remember them talking about is the game running at a higher resolution and framerate, which is what you get with the PS4 version. You can, of course, quibble over the word "remaster." I don't know if that's technically accurate or not. Regardless, what actual claims have they made about the PS4 port that are inaccurate? If the only previous version of the game is 1080p/30, then a port that runs at a higher framerate and has a higher resolution is an enhanced version of the game.

But I do get the annoyance of them drawing this distinction between the "enhanced" PS4/Steam versions and the "non-enhanced" Switch version when literally the only difference is the capability of the hardware running it.

I wouldn't call it "shameless," though. I think they're trying to give people an easy way to understand that the Switch version won't run at a higher framerate like the other versions.