Poll of the Day > What's a game that wouldn't get a remake simply because games are different now?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Putting all licensing issues, lack of interest for the series, copyrights, or anything else behind, what's a game (one you might want a modern sequel/remake for or not) that just wouldn't get one because the formula for a game or just what people like is so different?
I think Kid Chameleon is a cool retro game, but it was insane even for the 90s. Over 100 levels all interconnected (with the links getting increasingly complex over time, going from linear with bonus stages to a borderline maze), no saving, and so many secrets. Nowadays, even with a save feature people would probably complain about having to use a guide to figure out where to go. What games is this board thinking about?

I don't think Metal Max could be properly remade cuz you can't war crime

Duke Nukem 3D. I don't think I need to say why.

Sure, we will have homages to it like Ion Fury and Turbo Overkill, but we aren't getting a new Duke Nukem game.

I don't think there really is such a thing. Old games owned by an extant publisher are generally owned by the sort of publisher that would just say "this was popular and I think we could capitalize on it, go remake it" with no regard for how well or poorly the game itself might have aged. That's just a consequence of game companies being run by businessmen and not gamers/developers: They see things in terms of what's popular in broad strokes and less in terms of the gameplay nuances that made them popular/might interfere with their popularity in a new market.

Monster truck madness.

Just the wrestling references alone make it impossible lol.

Turns out final fantasy 7 makes this list and so does ff6.
Destruction Derby.
Populous.
Machines
...Actually any RTS.
Xcom makes this list, the remake was terrified of all the best parts of the original game, and removed them.

Dikitain posted...

Duke Nukem 3D. I don't think I need to say why.

Sure, we will have homages to it like Ion Fury and Turbo Overkill, but we aren't getting a new Duke Nukem game.

The problem with Duke is if Forever came out and they played him up more as a 90s relic, it could have been funny, as opposed to just doing the same dated humor.

Apparently a Final Fantasy 6 Remake would take 20 years to complete according to Kitase. No clue where he got this number from, but its clear that SE has no intention to do an FF6 Remake, which is a damn shame.

papercup posted...

Apparently a Final Fantasy 6 Remake would take 20 years to complete according to Kitase. No clue where he got this number from, but its clear that SE has no intention to do an FF6 Remake, which is a damn shame.

Which speaks to squenix ineptitude. They are so pathetic that with 100x more resources they had back then they can't get anywhere close to what they had originally.

Even crazier when you remember they did do a faithful and successful remake with Trials of Mana

DeathMagnetic80 posted...

The problem with Duke is if Forever came out and they played him up more as a 90s relic, it could have been funny, as opposed to just doing the same dated humor.

He is a parody of 80's action movies, all his quotes are stolen from Army of Darkness and They Live, his voice is basically a bad Dirty Harry impression, etc. He is dated even by 90's standards. That is what made him funny. He is the embodiment of "1985" from Bowling for Soup.

The issue with Duke is more the "sexism" that just wouldn't fly today (and is the main thing most people complained about with Duke Nukem Forever).

SinisterSlay posted...

Which speaks to squenix ineptitude. They are so pathetic that with 100x more resources they had back then they can't get anywhere close to what they had originally.

Even crazier when you remember they did do a faithful and successful remake with Trials of Mana

it's more like "in 20 years all the hardline fans will be dead anyways so a remake will be easier"

custer's revenge

Ogurisama posted...

custer's revenge

As much as people like to insist that you couldn't get away with such an offensive game in today's climate, there's really no shortage of such games being created. They just all pretty much invariably end up languishing in obscurity because they generally don't have any substance beyond their edgy shock value. Custer's Revenge is notorious solely because it was one of the first examples of somebody trying to sell a game on that shock value and because later platform manufacturers screened out such content for the sake of cultivating a more wholesome image for their systems (the Nintendo Seal of Quality being one such screening measure). In comparison to any number of porn shovelware games crapped out on Steam every day, it's nothing special. A remake would sell only to a handful of people who wanted to "own the libs," each of which would probably not actually play it for more than a couple minutes.

papercup posted...

Apparently a Final Fantasy 6 Remake would take 20 years to complete according to Kitase. No clue where he got this number from, but its clear that SE has no intention to do an FF6 Remake, which is a damn shame.

so goofy lol

Big Rigs

adjl posted...

As much as people like to insist that you couldn't get away with such an offensive game in today's climate, there's really no shortage of such games being created.

Sex With Hitler is a goddamn franchise at this point, nothing could surprise me

Metalsonic66 posted...

Big Rigs

I assure you the entire SOURCE engine still hasn't figured out negative bias clamping

They tried to do a remake of Star Raiders and it SUCKED

Sega CD Jurassic Park

Licensing aside; there's no excuse for having to randomly find 5 rocks on the island to not die

E.V.O. the search for eden

nothing really stopping it from happening other than the companies involved, but i also haven't really seen much done like it in a similar way except spore and other than the character creator that game kinda sucked.

aside from maybe social politics the biggest thing holding back the gaming industry is the gaming industry. it's getting really annoying at this point.

The Guy Game

Men in Black II: Alien Escape

Nade_Duck posted...

E.V.O. the search for eden

nothing really stopping it from happening other than the companies involved, but i also haven't really seen much done like it in a similar way except spore and other than the character creator that game kinda sucked.

aside from maybe social politics the biggest thing holding back the gaming industry is the gaming industry. it's getting really annoying at this point.

the game did a good job of simulating a million years of grinding for xp

Lokarin posted...

the game did a good job of simulating a million years of grinding for xp

evo? definitely. it would be awesome to see someone give that concept a shot modern tech and quality of life changes.

Tower of Druaga

Nade_Duck posted...

evo? definitely. it would be awesome to see someone give that concept a shot modern tech and quality of life changes.

Between the two original games, there are definitely some concepts that deserve a modern spiritual successor. I do not think straight up remakes of either would work as a modern game.

KJ_StErOiDs posted...

Tower of Druaga

that game is seriously underrated... but man is it janky - I think a remake would be excellent for it

Qbert

Stretch Panic

Sandbox/simulation type games don't seem to be as prevalent as they used to be.

Anything that tries to topple the ASCII glory that is Dwarf Fortress.

Hunt the Wumpus

HiddenDoorway posted...

Qbert

https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/p/dodo-peak-159276

Not a remake per se, but it's basically just Qbert released in 2023. It's not exactly good, but it still got made.

JoeDangIt posted...

Sandbox/simulation type games don't seem to be as prevalent as they used to be.

Depends what you mean. Survival crafting sandboxes are still extremely common, trying to cash in on Minecraft's success. Factory-building sandboxes are also seeing quite a lot of people trying to jump on the bandwagon Factorio kicked off (which itself started as an evolution of Minecraft, particularly with tech mods). City sims are quite common (Cities: Skylines and its recent sequel being some of the the most prominent examples, but there are plenty of others), as are things like Powerwash Simulator and Hardspace Shipbreaker that aim to simulate menial labour, and farming sims overwhelmingly dominate the "cozy game" sphere (following on Stardew's success).

Sandboxes like Kerbal Space Program and other really open-ended simulators are indeed less common now, though. The cascade of "X Simulator 20XX" games has also tapered off as the meme value has diminished.

Ogurisama posted...

custer's revenge

Damn it, was totally going to say that.

adjl posted...

As much as people like to insist that you couldn't get away with such an offensive game in today's climate, there's really no shortage of such games being created. They just all pretty much invariably end up languishing in obscurity because they generally don't have any substance beyond their edgy shock value. Custer's Revenge is notorious solely because it was one of the first examples of somebody trying to sell a game on that shock value and because later platform manufacturers screened out such content for the sake of cultivating a more wholesome image for their systems (the Nintendo Seal of Quality being one such screening measure). In comparison to any number of porn shovelware games crapped out on Steam every day, it's nothing special. A remake would sell only to a handful of people who wanted to "own the libs," each of which would probably not actually play it for more than a couple minutes.

I feel like the controls right now are more stringent than they were a decade or two ago, which makes selling offensive games harder. You cite Steam as an example, yet Steam has been removing titles.

A remake? None. Any game can be remade - the whole point of remaking them is to modernize them, and that involves redoing anything that doesn't fit with modern tastes in gaming. Take FF7R for an excellent example - all the things that made that game feel dated, from the cultural (somewhat dodgy translation, Barrett being a blatant Mr. T expy, everything to do with the Honeybee Inn) to the technical (getting rid of random encounters, changing it from a relatively simplistic menu-based combat system to a more action-RPG combat engine in line with more recent FF titles) were completely overhauled (and I say this as someone who vastly preferred the original to the remake). With that in mind, there is no game that could not be remade; it might lose a lot of faithfulness to the original (as FF7R did), but so long as you're OK with that, the sky's the limit.

A remaster? Now that's a different story. If you're keeping the core elements of the game, no matter how dated, you start getting into the territory of games that just don't work with modern game design. A few I can think of:
-Any of the oldschool Sierra games (King's Quest, Space Quest, Police Quest, etc.). The idea that you not only *can*, but almost assuredly *will* lock yourself out of being able to complete the game because you didn't follow whatever fever-dream logic the game developers cooked up while on the acid trip that inspired the game and have to restart the entire game from scratch if you didn't keep multiple save files going is completely antithetical to modern adventure game design and modern game design in general.
-The Lunar games, particularly Silver Star Story. I love SSSC - it's one of my favourite games of all time - but all the things that made them unique and amazing back in the day have been overshadowed by what came since. In particular, there's no way an RPG would get by with a battle system as simplistic as Silver Star Story's in the modern era.
-The original Metroid. No map system, a confusing, maze-like layout, and simplistic bosses means that in order to bring it up to modern standards (as Zero Mission did), you basically need to ditch a lot of its unique features.

Count_Drachma posted...

You cite Steam as an example, yet Steam has been removing titles.

Steam's not entirely without standards, but they're exceedingly low. You probably won't ever actually see any of the worst offenders unless you actively go looking for them (Steam's quality control is decidedly lacking, but their recommendation algorithms are half-decent), but there's still quite a lot of shovelware out there that falls into the same vein of edgy offensiveness that Custer's Revenge does.

Steam's a really inconsistent case. They remove completely benign games (especially anime games- the most recent one I can think of is Dungeon Travelers 2) while leaving games intentionally meant to be offensive like Hatred up. Hatred is literally glorifying murder sprees (as in American-style mow civilians down with an assault rifle) literally to just be edgy. It was taken down at first after huge backlash but put back up with an apology!

agesboy posted...

Steam's a really inconsistent case. They remove completely benign games (especially anime games- the most recent one I can think of is Dungeon Travelers 2) while leaving games intentionally meant to be offensive like Hatred up. Hatred is literally glorifying murder sprees (as in American-style mow civilians down with an assault rifle) literally to just be edgy. It was taken down at first after huge backlash but put back up with an apology!

a lot of games get removed due to expired licenses... and as for the anime (notably the porn games), for stolen assets

Lokarin posted...

a lot of games get removed due to expired licenses... and as for the anime (notably the porn games), for stolen assets

by "anime games" i mean commercial releases of games generally adjacent to visual novels, like Dungeon Travelers 2 (a port of a 10 year old vita game which has an ESRB rating, also the first game is apparently fine), Meteor World Actor (but its sequel is fine), Chaos;head until people rioted (but two others in the same series released previously were fine). I don't mean Hot Anime Milf Simulator 5000

even the porn games can utterly escape scrutiny by providing a patch hosted on another website that has most of the game's files. valve doesn't seem to actually give a shit about the game if they're only hosting 1% of it

ya, i can't claim all of them - only some of them

for example Spec Ops The Line is gone solely cuz licensing

Riana Rouge

papercup posted...

Apparently a Final Fantasy 6 Remake would take 20 years to complete according to Kitase. No clue where he got this number from, but its clear that SE has no intention to do an FF6 Remake, which is a damn shame.

good

6 is the least deserving title that needs a remake at this point

but at the same time, they also said this about 7 when they released that tech demo for the ps3, and it's actually one of their faster titles they've been able to release at this point. only four years to release part 2 of 3? for them, that's fast as fuck.

I actually surprised that the Pixel Remaster wasn't trash... I didn't care for the audio problems on the GBA and the PS1 version is terrible. The soft-remake was 'acceptable', but while it had improved backdrops it BUTCHERED anything sprite related

HiddenDoorway posted...

Qbert

:(

who even owns qbert these days

wreck it ralph