Hey everybody welcome back to LegalSpeak am TheLawMorris and this is the video essay series where I get to talk about the games I've been playing and the video game industry as a whole. Today we are going to be talking about remakes and remasters. Before we get into all of that though I want to take a minute to remind everyone to check out our podcasts HardReset where we discuss video game news and video game related topics in a more free form conversational format and NoRefunds the podcast that watches bad movies so you don’t have to! You can find both of those on itunes and youtube, HardReset is also available on Spotify and iHeartRadio and NoRefunds will be available in those places soon. You can also find everything we do all in one place over at ColdNorthPro.com. Now…Remakes and remasters.
Before we dive into whether or not remakes and remasters are good let's nail down a definition of the terminology that is thrown around about these types of games. There are a lot of "Re" words thrown around pretty willynilly these days and frankly I get annoyed at people misusing these terms. So for the purposes of this video and hopefully as a public service announcement here's a quick definition of the four terms commonly used and abused around this conversation.
Remake: A remake is making the same game from the ground up. Same levels, characters, style, essentially the same game but new game engine, graphics engine, art, etc. same game new assets. The Spyro Reignited Trilogy is a perfect example of a remake.
Remaster: A remaster is a game that uses the old game and essentially gives it a really solid spit shine. Same assets but those assets have been polished and made to work on and utilize newer hardware. Same game with new polish. Final Fantasy x and x-2 and Kingdom Hearts 1.5 and 2.5 on PS4 are excellent examples of remasters.
Reboot: A Reboot is a fresh take on an existing character. A new artist having a new idea for a character or IP that already exists and wiping the slate clean to start the story anew. Tomb Raider 2013 is a reboot. There seems to be a lot of people that call sequels reboots just because it's been a really long time since the last entry, Live Free of Die Hard, Predators, and The Force Awakens are all sequels not reboots.
Port: Finally a port is the least exciting term that needs defined. A port of a game is simply taking the same assets and game that existed on one platform and making some modifications to provide the same experience on different hardware. Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories originally released on PSP was later ported to the PS2.
Now that we are all on the same page with respect to terminology we can discuss remakes and remasters.
During the eighth generation of consoles there has been an increasing number of remakes and remasters released when compared to previous generations. The reasoning for this can be speculated on until the cows come home but regardless of why this has been happening it doesn’t change the fact that there is a fairly vocal group of players that dislike remakes and remasters. While I am someone that loves remakes and remasters (more on that later) I think that the anti group has some legitimate arguments.
The main sticking point that the anti group leans on is that remakes and remasters are consuming resources that could be used to make new games rather than just remaking old games. Video games cost money to make and good video games require talented developers. If publishers are spending money on and assigning talented developers to remakes and remasters that leaves less money and fewer developers to work on new games which in turn means fewer new games available to play. What lends this argument credence is that over the course of this generation the double A segment of video games has almost entirely disappeared. There used to be small indie games, mid tier games, and big budget triple A games. In 2018 there are more triple A games than there ever have been but the smaller budget games from major studios are nowhere to be found. Without the "double A" segment we no longer get games like Chronicles of Riddick, Ratchet and Clank, or Indiana Jones and the emperors tomb instead we are getting more remakes and remasters than ever before.
These games are sometimes also seen as blatant cash grabs. While I am definitely of the opinion that sometimes remakes and remasters are cash grabs there are some people that are ready to call any remake or remaster a cash grab and even go as far as to accuse developers and publishers of manipulating and withholding products to double dip on the same game. Early in the PS4's life cycle people were quick to accuse Sony of forcing Naughty Dog to build The Last of Us for PS3 and PS4 simultaneously so they could stagger the release and sell multiple copies to some players. Similar accusations were leveled against Rockstar claiming Grand Theft Auto 5 was ready on PS4 much earlier than it was released but held back so that people would buy the game on PS3 then eventually again on PS4. I personally am of the opinion that the people that make these claims are conspiracy theorists that are convinced the world is out to get them.
And finally some people dislike remakes and remasters simply because they force people to come to terms with the fact that they have romanticized games in their minds. I know people that have raved about Red Faction Guerilla for years but when the Re-Mars-Tered version was released earlier this year that person was forced to face the fact that the game isnt as good as they were remembering.
Regardless of all of this I am still of the opinion that remakes and remasters are not only a fun stroll down memory lane but they are good for video games as a medium and the industry as a whole.
One of the most daunting threats to video games as a medium is compatibility. Video games are relatively still in their infancy and as a result there isnt a mass organized effort to preserve them. We are finally just now getting to the point where software and hardware developers are starting to think about the past and what it will take to be able to run older games now and in the future and conforming to universal standards. The PS4 and Xbox one both run on an X86 architecture similar to the one that PC's have been running on for years. At this point even the laymen like myself are starting to expect the next generation of consoles to be backwards compatible and for that backwards compatibility to be standard moving forward. Remaking and remastering games for the Xbox one and PS4 means those games and memories will be preserved for years to come. A great Remake can trick the player into thinking they are playing the old version of the game, I still from time to time find myself thinking that I'm playing the older version of Halo 2 while I play Halo 2 Anniversary and I press the button to change the graphics to the new style only to realize I've been playing the new style all along and the game is simply emulating my memories of how Halo 2 originally looked. That memory is worth preserving.
Over the years many great games have faced technical issues and without an internet connection to patch in a fix those issues have tainted an otherwise great game forever. The original Spyro the Dragon games have atrocious controls that have been immortalized on those discs and can never be fixed. The PS2 classic Shadow of the Colossus has always had frame rate issues that stand out as an eye sore on an otherwise excellent game. And Skyrim famously had a terrible memory leak on the PS3 version making it less and less playable the more you play the game to the point that the game finally just crashes upon launch. The Spyro Reignited Trilogy has resolved the control issues and made the game more comparable with contemporary games, the Shadow of the Collosus remake runs at a rock solid 60fps on a PS4pro, and the memory leak is nowhere to be found in the PS4 version of Skyrim. Remakes and remasters allowed developers the chance to make minor fixes that greatly improve the overall experience of otherwise great games.
Not only do remakes and remasters offer developers a second chance to fix what they have let slip through the cracks but they offer players a second chance to pick up a title they may have missed for any myriad of reasons. The first time I ever played some of my favorite games of all time was when they were remade or remastered. I was an xbox and gamecube kid during the sixth generation and didn’t have reliable access to a PS2 so when I had the opportunity to jump on Shadow of the Colossus when it was remastered for PS3 I was all over it. I played the entire Bioshock series and The Last of Us for the first time on PS4, and the catalyst into one of my favorite stories ever told happened when I was stuck on a plane and had nothing else to do but sink my teeth into Metal Gear Solid 3D on my 3DS.
Remaking or remastering a game can offer developers and players a second chance for romance but they also have the potential to set the stage for a more meaningful future. After the Crash Bandicoot Nsane Trilogy, Spyro Reignited Trilogy, and the recent announcement of the Crash Team Racing remake I have little doubt that Vicarious Visions and Toys For Bob wont be trying their hand and picking up where Naughty Dog and Insomniac left off.
Overall some remakes and remasters are bad but the same can be said for anything else. I appreciate the work that goes into remaking and modernizing some of my favorite games and allowing me to relive some of those experiences on contemporary hardware.
What are some of your favorite remakes or remasters? Which ones did you think were a disaster and never should have happened? And what games from yesteryear do you want to see get the anniversary treatment? Let me know in the comments down below.
If you liked what you heard or read make sure to subscribe for more videos like this and check out coldnorthpro.com for everything we do all in one spot. This week on HardReset we will be discussing the what games would have made the PlayStation classic and instabuy for us and we made the mistake of watching Gotti recently so we will be discussing that on NoRefunds on Tuesday. I will be back next week talking about Just Cause 4 so until then enjoy some remastered games!
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