Old games for a new audience

[Kim]

I think I can say more or less agree with you, though there are sprite-based games I would like to see remakes for for a variety of reasons. Though I really do love upgraded versions of games I haven't played yet. If they're willing to give me a better looking version of a game I want to play and probably make it easier to find by doing so, I'm totally for that. I would like to see more remakes use HD sprites though. That'd be rad as hell. The raddest.

[Ecks]

Jagos is just mad people want Majora's Mask remade while Capcom cancelled MegaMan Legends 3.

In all seriousness, video game remakes aren't inherently a bad thing. Yes, remaking a game and making it seem like a totally new one just to sell a system is kind of a farce. But that doesn't totally remove the merit of remaking a game.

As far as the focusing on improving a series through its next installment... I understand where you're coming from, but even then: nobody reinvents their flagship franchises unless its popularity plummets (read: Tomb Raider). It's usually a better idea to stick with what works, and maybe take things in a new direction a little bit.

[Jagos]

Originally Posted by NonCon

A Chrono Trigger port and wanting to continue the franchise are two separate issues. They're not making another Chrono Trigger game because they don't want to make another Chrono Trigger game. They remake Chrono Trigger because it will make them money with little investment. "If they're going to update the franchise they should do ____" seems to imply that they aren't doing one because of the other, which is wrong. Chrono Trigger sequels are irrelevant, because unless you have some magic insider info there's no reason to suspect one would at all effect the other.

I'm thinking that they should continue making stories with the Chrono Trigger franchise, not constantly update only one game out of the CT universe. The last Crono Cross game to come out is on the PS1. No one has seen nor heard of it since. If any game needed an overhaul, Cross probably does need to be reintroduced to society instead of kept in Square's "vault" like a Disney movie.

"The game's integrity"? What does that mean, exactly? That if you aren't playing the N64 version of Majora's Mask you're playing a bad version that is bad simply because it isn't the N64 version? In what way do games have any sort of integrity to be tainted one way or the other?

This is building off of Yahtzee's argument that having games like Silent Hill being done by an amateurish voice actor. The odd quirks when some games are made that immerse you more into the games. The remake would actually remove that VA and be professionally done, changing what others thought made the games special.

2. If you're arguing illegal emulation, you're basically saying that pirates should dictate how a company handles its IPs.

I'm thinking more like Gog or Steam. The problem is Nintendo tends to hold onto their IP, and leaves some games out. It's more or less an idea on showing how a company has progressed over the years. Even the defunct companies such as Virgin Games stand to benefit from people seeing their former works in a new platform. A platform that's again, not tied to the console. As I've said before, when it's time to upgrade, Steam, Impulse, all of those digital distribution sites will be right there with consumers. But all of the money spent for the 360 titles, PSN or even Virtual Console games are tied to those consoles. What happens when Microsoft shuts down the 360 servers for the next batch of games? I'm not positive if the Wii U will allow backwards compatibility, but it's still tied to a system, which is a major detriment to the console approach.

You argue in continuing stories instead of doing remakes, and then criticize Final Fantasy for continuing its story and telling new stories.

I'm arguing about how they take so long to make those stories while neglecting others. That's more or less Wada's problem. Square used to have their developers in charge of various IP which kept new ideas flowing through them. Nowadays, it seems that Square has one grandiose idea that is taking a decade to finish. It just seems that Square has only a few franchises that it focuses on, yet they do nothing with the rest of them.

So a company is only doing its job right if it's continuing its old franchises?

There's a few things here that I'm advocating:

1) Make a digital library of games, archiving the games from their respective consoles

2) Allow someone else to license a game (fan or commercial) a port or remake, while working on newer ways to add to the stories

3) Have the games accessed through the digital library, where people could pay for access like Onlive or pay for the backup game at a cheaper price. Hell, it might help take down the Gamestop monopoly.

4) Move forward with a franchise as much or as little as possible, but keep it updated on the archive.

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The problem with this, some franchises have a ton of games that have potential.

Just in Square, you have Ehrgeiz, Tobal, Chocobo Dungeon, Seiken Densetsu, Secret of Evermore. I believe that Enix just started releasing the older Dragon Quest games. But going to play all of these games would take a lot of time to find them and see if they were good for consumers.

Valkyrie Profile got a new game in 2009, and before that there was a new one in 2007.

You're missing my point. Valkyrie Profile was a game that wasn't updated for 6 years until it was released in 2006 as an enhanced port on the PSP. Then they release Covenant of the Plume on the DS. So you have to buy both consoles (PSP & DS) to continue the series. You have to wait for years for anything regarding the Valkyrie series, pay top moolah for it, and buy the consoles even if they're possibly out of stock or no longer carried. And that doesn't guarantee the success of the developer, or the franchise if the developer decides to kill it.

For the actually old games, there is, and it's called the Virtual Console or PSOne Classics. For games that came out so recently I can still find them at Gamestop in ten minutes I don't really feel like there's a need.

You're looking more towards a product. I'm thinking more along the lines of providing a service. An archival digital library that isn't tied to a console, that could be played on almost any machine? How much more valuable would that be if people could have one convenient location to pull all of those games depending on console?

Also, you're complaining about porting while arguing that they should just port all their games to a digital distribution library.

Uhm... Not complaining, just stating some of the downsides. My belief is that the developers should spend more time with newer ideas and games, less time with porting or remaking older ones. Like Crono DS doesn't add much to the story that no one already know. Why put that out when people would have been perfectly fine with the SNES version?

Obviously, it's not just Square we're talking about here. Like the Spunky Knight or Vectorman games that I've mentioned, some games won't be upgraded at all (or are remade too damn much), so people are left not knowing some game franchises.

Originally Posted by EckScizor

Jagos is just mad people want Majora's Mask remade while Capcom cancelled MegaMan Legends 3.

You would have had me if you had said Mother 3. :p

[Kim]

Why does Chrono Trigger need to be continued? You act as though we're missing out by not having countless sequels in a franchise that is only 50% good. I like to call this winning.

And then you start complaining that Squeenix doesn't focus on other franchises, ignoring the examples I gave which were hardly thorough. (Also worth noting: Square Enix has greatly expanded their publishing efforts.)

And then you essentially complain about companies releasing games on different systems. What is this?

You aren't complaining about remakes and ports anymore. In fact, I'm starting to wonder if you ever really were. This thread is you seemingly complaining that consoles aren't the same as PCs, complaining that companies don't endlessly tack sequels onto the franchises you like, and ignoring anything counter to your point by bringing up opinions irrelevant the alleged topic of this thread.

I don't know if you know what you're arguing, and I sure as hell am having a hard time figuring it out for myself. You've introduced so many tangential topics that it's just a big clusterfuck of words and opinions I can't really take seriously, none of them remotely well justified by anything you've said.

Do you have some good points? Yes, I would like to see virtual console and XBLA purchases carry over to new systems, and I'd wager people will push for that when the new systems release. I'd wager that the PS Vita is compatible with the PS One Classics, and since, IIRC, the Sony store keeps track of such purchases, you can probably redownload ones you've already purchased to your PS Vita.

[Jagos]

Non, I've been having an idea for a platform for older games that's similar to GoG or Steam.

I've been thinking about having older games all put onto a digital platform for archival purposes. It actually frees up a ton of resources for game companies to continue newer gaming projects, allowing nostalgic gamers to enjoy these older games. The point has been to look at the advantages and disadvantages of each way of making updates to a game.

What I've been saying is that those two platforms would probably work a lot better for what I'm thinking about in regards to a digital library of older games, rather than making a digital library similar to what game consoles have right now. As I've said, what happens when those consoles are upgraded? It seems that people lose access to those old games.

The essential point, the gathering theme here is to make a business out of the old games, while giving companies flexibility and choice in how a developer wants to proceed with it. The Yahtzee article actually sparked that little interest in me to see is it possible to do something like a digital library. It reminded me that our game libraries are very splintered. If fans were trying to gain access to the older titles, wouldn't it be better to allow them to play it conveniently through digital means? Then, if they wanted to buy it, well, there's plenty of options. Another avenue is old games that never had a chance in the US. I recall Square having Seiken Densetsu 3 that is only here through piracy. Let's say a small team decided to translate a game that the big publisher won't release. Shouldn't they get something for their work? It could be something as small as a badge on the service, but I would think that people would be happy to have a network that is built around the communities involved.

I haven't worked out all of the details, but it's been something that I've been thinking about all night. It's kind of a thought exercise into what game companies could allow and what may help them progress to newer games while allowing access to those people that came by later on.

[Kim]

Is your imaginary digital service multiplatform?

If no, I already pointed towards a movement towards that with PSN stuff.

If yes, what the hell was the point of every bringing up Square-Enix? This stuff is largely outside their realm of influence. Additionally, this simply isn't happening and the idea of Zelda being on a multiplatform digital download service is so ridiculous I can't help but laugh.

You're also asking companies to work with fan translators, which is unlikely to happen anytime soon and the closest we've gotten to that is when Nintendo just pretends they don't exist. Aside from that, no, fan translators don't deserve anything for their work from the companies whose work they're translating without permission. The companies make no profit off of it and experience no benefit from it. Why the hell should they reward it? "Here's a badge for ensuring that if we ever changed our minds and decided to localize the game, there would be substantially fewer sales."

Last, and most importantly, if you wanted to have a thread about how there should be a magical multiplatform digital download service that actually exceeds the scope of even Steam and also rewards fans for tampering with the franchises of major companies, you should have been clear about that from the beginning instead of wasting everyone's time with all this nonsense about how remakes and ports are bad and all that other ridiculousness. It is only tangentially related to your main point.

[Nique]

My only real contribution to this discussion is that I would gladly play remakes of games I have enjoyed in the past if the remake adds something to the experience. I'll probably take a lot of heat for this but I would have no problem playing the oft asked for FFVII remake if it featured graphics in the style of Crisis Core (in HD obviously), a little script reworking, and maybe some improvements on all those mediocre mini-games.

[Kim]

But without mediocre minigames...

Is it really Final Fantasy?

[Nique]

I guess you can keep the one where Cloud throws oblong rocks into a basket.

[Kim]

I think we all know what we really want from our Final Fantasy VII remake...

Chocobo Hot and Cold