I know that remakes and remasters are contentious, but let’s pretend whatever game in question you’re thinking of is handled with the utmost care by your favourite devs and they absolutely nail it.
Mine would be Shadow of Memories (called Shadow of Destiny in North America). It’s legitimately one of my favourite games of all time but it kinda flew under the radar and I haven’t met many people who know of it let alone played it. Seeing it get modern graphics, maybe some expanded mechanics, would be soooo cool.
Red Alert 2
Tiberian Sun / Firestorm as well
Yes. But they need to be very careful to keep that bleak and hopeless aesthetic.
Sly Cooper and Jak & Daxter are both criminally forgotten in this era of games
I would kill for a Jak 3 remaster. I loved using the button mash glitch with Light Jak and flying around using the wings. I played through that game so many times as a kid.
Also why the fuck won’t Sony port both those series to PC?!
I’d buy those!
The games that actually need it are the ones stuck on old consoles with no forward compatibility, particularly PC. Just looking at the games still on my shelf, that don’t belong to Nintendo, and are not locked in some kind of licensing hell:
- every Burnout before Paradise
- MechAssault 1 and 2
- Mega Man: Network Transmission
- Metal Arms: Glitch in the System
- Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes and MGS4 (there’s some hope here, maybe???)
- every old Ratchet & Clank game
- legacy Soul Calibur/Soul Edge games, with rollback netcode
- legacy SSX games
- Super Monkey Ball 1 and 2
- Uncharted 1-3
- the Viewtiful Joe series
And I don’t have it on my shelf, but would it kill someone to remaster the old TimeSplitters games?
I love SSX 3 and just about a month ago replayed it on my steam deck. Would love a remake of that. I was probably in the minority but I mostly liked the SSX reboot, minus all the online connectivity.
I think the lack of split-screen killed interest for a lot of us. It did for me.
Not a niche game, but: day (???) of waiting for Sony to put Bloodborne on PC.
Also, this is a bit of a tangent, but I really wish Nintendo would start putting some of their games on PC. Not even so that I can play them, I do have a switch, but because there are quite a few of them that just don’t do well on console, either performance-wise or in terms of UX. For example, I’ve been playing the new Zelda game. The game’s core mechanic involves scrolling through a MASSIVE list of objects to find what you’re looking for and the best solution the game has for this is a handful of sorting options that only get you so far when there are just this many things. Without changing any of the gameplay, you could make the experience soooo much better by:
- Letting you use a mouse on the menu.
- Adding a basic search filter.
- Letting you hotkey some echoes.
Some games just deserve better treatment than what they got from the limitations of their original platforms.
Its not that old (although that does fit the theme) but Hotline Miami 1, and to a lesser extent, 2. Both are limited a lot by the engine, and by the small scale of their development. If they could be re-made in a new engine, with some modern customizability and QoL features, as well as added polish on things like the door physics, I think it could go a long way to ensuring they stand the test of time.
I would give my left nut for a Dark Cloud or Black&White 2 full remaster
Black & White 2 gets my vote
Timesplitters Future Perfect
A lot of people surprisingly don’t know the game but I’d love to see Arc the lad: twilight spirits remade. I really enjoyed the story and the style of the game it would need a bit of graphics overhaul
Brightis, made by the developers that made Arc the Lad, would be great to see redone and released in English/other languages.
The first 2 infamous games, they’ve aged reasonably well but are stuck in the PS3 running at the choppiest 720p.
Diddy Kong racing! Maybe even a Diddy Kong racing 2?!
Omikron The Nomad Soul
Nox
id just like to see these two games visually modernized and gameplay improved. still have yet to beat either, but maybe some day!
I’d love to see Darkwatch get ported to PC and remastered. Loved it on ps2 and have it working at a somewhat cranked up resolution on emulator, but a legit updated PC port would be awesome.
Colosseum: Road to Freedom
It’s a PS2 game where you play as a gladiator. There’s plot where you rise up the ranks to duel other gladiator camps’ champions for a chance to spar with Ceasar, and you get involved in a plot to murder him with a couple different endings based on what decisions you make.
The gameplay is some fun button mashing and the battles are fucking rad. Bladed weapons do more damage to unarmored opponents, blunt weapons can break limbs and have a better chance to knock off armor, curved swords and flails can reach around shields and armor. There’s “hunting” fights were you go up against bulls or tigers. And then the mock battles. They set up like a fake city or fake boats in the colosseum to recreate real battles from wars that the gladiators fight in.
There’s even a glitch where you bypass all of the endings and the game just continues forever with random fights at the colosseum every couple of days. Makes me think the devs were planning on making the game endless, but didn’t finish it or it got cut for some reason. But yeah, I really want a new gladiator game
Tokyo Jungle, the only reason my PS3 is not in a box. Shadow of Memories would be cool too. Not so niche but I hope a remake of Project Zero 2/Fatal Frame 2 is coming soon.
Kind of like with movies. I want to see games/movies/etc with great stories/plots that were terribly executed. Do good games deserve a refresh, sure. But come on, do something original and stop riding the nostalgia wave.
