The 13 Videogames that Desperately Need to be Remade (16-bit and Under)
Posted at 5:04 AM Aug 29, 2008
By Bryan Hartzheim
It’s no secret that games have gone the way of Hollywood, for better or worse, cranking out bigger budgets, better graphics, and more and more studio-financed sequel after sequel of the same safe and formulaic genre material, while leaving more experimental endeavors for school departments of digital media and independent flash game designers. Sequels are a way of life now in video games—best to embrace them and pressure the hell out of studios to remake our childhood favorites.
While most classic titles have been given requisite facelifts, there are still dozens of games desperate for true remakes that have never had the next-gen silicon implants they deserve. Here are thirteen from our 8 and 16-bit halcyon days of yore which remind us that games back then were really better, albeit a little shittier looking, and should promptly be remade for millions of dollars as a fan service and penance for raping us repeatedly with interminable Final Fantasy moogle porn.
13) Star Tropics
The jungle-themed Star Tropics, much like its time-traveling sequel Zoda’s Revenge, is a charming little adventure game that stars gee-whiz, wholesome heroes playing an journey straight out of a Jules Verne adventure. The story, a tropical island mystery with enough twists and turns for your average J.J. Abrams-produced TV show, unfolds over revelatory chapters, with gameplay mimicking the events out of the book and with fights against giant octopi or discoveries of sunken submarines at the end of every section. The plot not only anticipated shows like Lost, it undoubtedly inspired summer blockbusters with its inclusion of zombie pirates. This was true gaming art.
12) Little Nemo the Dream Master
It’d be pretty hard to remake those great NES Capcom games made from TV Disney series (well, it’d be easy, but they’d only sell to guys over 25 who long for Darkwing Duck). But the criminally-neglected is ripe for a 3-D platforming makeover. The game has you in charge of a little boy in pajamas who has to commandeer giant animals by feeding them candy and mutating with their bodies to perform their animal behaviors. Sound twisted? Well, it is and it’s awesome. The entire game is set in a nightmare, meaning bizarre stages set to pitch black skies, freakish enemies like flying turtles that vomit eggs, and incredibly catchy music. They just don’t make game soundtracks like this anymore, and they likely never will again.
11) River City Ransom
Shenmue was a unique, reflective, and overall classic game, but it had a problem: nothing happened. How cool would it have been if, instead of operating forklifts and buying gashapon, you became a manga hoodlum and ran around beating up the townspeople with whatever random objects you could find. That’s River City Ransom in a nutshell, and with a high-quality, GTA-like model of a Japanese town where you hurl pachinko balls at delinquent schoolkids or wayward salarymen, this game would step right into the 21st century without missing a beat.
10) Megamania
Most of the great Atari games were given awful new ports with poor level design, but Megamania has thus far escaped the purge. Megamania, according to the singing lunatic wearing shades in its TV commercial, is a video nightmare that will drive you insane. The player is trapped in a hallucinatory world and assigned to shoot random, fast-moving crap like hamburgers and bow-ties, although they really resembled more closely the abstract orbs and lines of a Duchamp short film. SuperMegamania has serious promise for a shooter in a nightmare world of downloadable icons and Internet celebrities.
9) The Guardian Legend
One of the first fusion games ever made, the original Guardian Legend had you play a shape-shifting android that could morph from a fighter jet into a cannon-armed soldier. The game combined a side-scrolling shooter with an action-adventure dungeon crawler, and benefited from an art style more reminiscent of Macross than Transformers. Its influence can be felt in a host of multi-format games, from the somewhat superior NES Xexyz, to the ultimate fusion series Sakura Wars. Considering memory limitations were one problem with Guardian Legend’s repetitive dungeon design, an adventure/shooter hybrid could work beautifully with the right FPS or 3-D platformer elements mixed with some old-school, ultra-difficult Ikaruga shooter mechanics.
8) Crystalis
Let’s face it—most role-playing games could use a graphical overhaul considering their Golden Age was during the 8 and 16-bit console wars. Even the most expensive titles at the time used the same top-down interface where characters couldn’t move diagonally and were shaped like dwarves, making it near impossible to distinguish real game dwarves from regular people or elves like Link.
If Earthbound didn’t just get a pretty nice-looking Japanese sequel, it would top this list, so the nod here goes to Crystalis. Back in ’90, Crystalis was radically different—it was set in the future! The world was dictated by technology and magic! There were floating towers and magical valleys straight out of some Hayao Miyazaki movie! Okay, so maybe it’s a little dated, but what was grooviest of all was that the developers’ were aware enough to make it an adventure-RPG hybrid and eliminate random battles by seeing your enemies in advance on the map. In any case, few games not named Final Fantasy VII have successfully portrayed a convincing RPG dystopia, so Crystalis, for all its datedness, would still be pretty damn novel if remade today.
7) Tecmo Super Bowl
You might say we have no need for another football game what with Madden and those more polished titles, but you’d be missing out on some clever game design through bypassing Tecmo Super Bowl. Sure, Tecmo Super Bowl had its flaws, particularly the fact that you could pick Young or Montana and just do 50-yard hail marys all day until you get a touchdown (even when you’re only 2 yards from the endzone, all you have to do is run back 48 yards). But football gaming needs a happy medium between the ultra-realistic sims of Madden and the arcade mayhem of Blitz. Tecmo was that medium before there were the extremes; it had semi-intricate playbooks, full rosters of players, and animated touchdown celebrations that were pretty flashy for the time.
6) Smash TV
The eerily prescient Smash TV was a game of a TV show of game. For our younger readers, some cultural background: Smash TV took advantage of the newly minted American Gladiators pop cultural phenomenon and cribbed its story from the 1987 Ahnold gem The Running Man. You played two buff contestants on a TV game show where the object is to kill as many other ant-like contestants as humanly possible before they dogpile on you. Midway’s Total Carnage was a pseudo-sequel, but not the total remake the game deserves today and which could easily benefit from the plethora of reality-show material and annoying game show contestants who should be blown into bloody stumps.
5) Ice Climber
Really, not a whole lot needs to be said about Ice Climber except to demand why a remake was never made. Maybe too much time passed and the young kids never heard of Popo and Nana. Maybe some thought there wasn’t much to improve upon the already repetitive gameplay. But now that Smash Bros. has reintroduced the pair, there’s no excuse. I mean, sweet Jesus, you already have the upgraded character models from Super Smash Bros. Brawl, and the tiered-level stages are also a pretty decent design head start. Just think up some new cool stages—40-foot igloo skyscraper lorded by evil Inuit tycoon, breaking through the Himilayas in a snowstorm to witness a beautiful sunrise above the clouds—and you already have a million-selling winner.
4) Sunset Riders
Videogames have not been kind to the western, whose old Hollywood glory has been difficult to translate to the smaller screen. You’d think iconic heroes like John Wayne, James Stewart, or Randolph Scott would make great manly videogame heroes, and the expansive vistas of Monument Valley or Leone’s spaghetti west would have produced at the very least some interesting MMORPG opportunities. But for whatever reason, most western-themed games seem stilted and unexciting, from Mad Dog McCree to Red Dead Revolver. There are two exceptions: Playstation’s Wild Arms, and Konami’s arcade shooter Sunset Riders, which also appeared on the Sega Genesis. It had varied level design, used every western cliché in the book (from shoot-outs in saloons and chasing trains on horseback to gunning down renegade Indians who say “Me ready for pow wow”), and is still a pretty well-animated coin-op. There’s no reason why a next-gen cell-shaded or 2.5-D version wouldn’t be more of the same greatness.
3) Kid Icarus
Some people would say Kid Icarus is overrated, repetitive, and too hard, but that’s only mostly true. Kid Icarus has a great premise—you fly around shooting demon spawn with a quiver full of power-charged arrows. You could shoot, jump, fly, and collect, and none were unpolished aspects of the gameplay. It was challenging and offered a sparse but present narrative through changing level design: you start off with wings and can’t use them until later in the story—the anticipation is simply built for a Zelda-style dramatic arc here! This game needs to be remade with the NIGHTS flying engine and an arsenal of upgrades from Greek mythology (hint to developers: if we can’t ride Apollo’s chariot of flaming horses, this game will be weaker than five of Zeus’s ravished virgins).
2) ActRaiser
ActRaiser, like Guardian Legend, was a fusion game through and through, but the adventure elements were fully fleshed out and non-repetitive, while the shooter portion was replaced by you playing GOD. In ActRaiser, you control the Master, a sort of Norse deity who deigns to live with the mortals, construct their towns, watch them grow, make some miracles so they worship you, and then enter their towns to fight the devil. Oh, sure, the English translation of the game calls the devil Tanzra, but he’s as sure as Satan as your Master is God. Valkyrie Profile was homage to this game, but the city-building elements never returned, even with the polished ActRaiser 2. Here’s hoping Square Enix stops shitting out Final Fantasies for two minutes so they can solidly remake this Sim City and hack n’ slash gem.
1) Final Fantasy VI
Okay, so one more Final Fantasy is allowable. When it comes to product “upgrades,” Square Enix is like a destitute man’s Nintendo, but instead of making seven versions of slightly tweaked Game Boys, they only make three editions of the exact same game for different systems. Note to Square: stop fucking us around and make some true remakes. There are really a lot of candidates for the Square remake contest: Vagrant Story, Bahamut Lagoon, Threads of Fate, Romancing Saga 3, Tobal No.2. We surely don’t really need any more Final Fantasy spin-offs since Hironobu Sakaguchi packed his bags for Mistwalker, and some of you, and by some of you I mean me, would rather have a remake of Final Fantasy VII because we like it more.
But FFVI was released on the Super Nintendo, making it look FAR more dated than the graphically respectable block limbs and pre-rendered backgrounds of FFVII. It has the best music (a sweeping, epic soundtrack) as well as just about the best story of any FF, and possibly of any RPG, ever made – the story is so huge, it’s split into two halves which are EACH bigger than most entire RPGs made today. And the characters! Any one could be the star of another game, and even a minor character like the gambleholic aeronaut Setzer is given the touching backstory and life-affirming personality of ten Zidanes and 100 Tiduses. More than anything, it has those big moments, a LOT of them, and while they were terrific then, a brilliant gaming moment like the opera scene, to name one, can only benefit from the technologies of enhanced sound and an interactive waltz scene. The game deserves a PS3 level upgrade with real-time 3-D maps, new town designs, and the elimination of the random battle system which has made us hate the old FFs just a little more than they deserve.
Comments
Ahhh, I couldn't have picked a better list. I wasted many a summer playing Startropics, Act Raiser and FF6. I am extremely happy you gave the top spot to FF6. If they ever did make a PS3 remake of 6 I'm affraid I wouldn't be able to play it due to endless tears of joy blurring up my vision. They need to stop with these unnessecary DS remakes and bring the public what we really want.
Posted 08/29/2008 at 05:53:34 AMYou'll be happy to know there is a Tecmo Bowl remake coming out for the Nintendo DS. It has the same look and updated animations for touchdowns and the like. Unfortunately it doesn't have the real players but there is a customization feature to change names and jerseys to your liking.
PS- Sunset Riders is one of the best games ever
Posted 08/29/2008 at 06:18:47 AMWait, only 2 good Wild West games? Whatever happened to LucasArts' Outlaws? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifbB_nM05lE&feature=related
Posted 08/29/2008 at 06:49:33 AMSunset Riders should be number one on that list! I still play the game to this day.
Who wouldn't love a Symphony of the Night style remake of that game?
Posted 08/29/2008 at 07:28:36 AMMy local Pizza place still has Sunset Riders.
Posted 08/29/2008 at 07:51:20 AMAn Actraiser remake (or proper sequel) would be absolutely awesome, even now I still bung the original into the Super Famicom and work my way through it over a few days.
Posted 08/29/2008 at 08:06:11 AMI think Adventure for the atari 2600 should be up there as well.
Posted 08/29/2008 at 10:37:35 AMAct Raiser kick asses.
Posted 08/29/2008 at 11:14:03 AMI've never played Startropics (not my memory anyhow) but good lord, that's sounds fuckin excellent.
Posted 08/29/2008 at 12:57:46 PMWhat about Shining Force? Not that it was innovative in it's gameplay or anything, but I remember being quite wrapped up in the story...of course I was also 12 at the time, but hey!
A lot of games don't have a story line worth playing, or they are completey self indulgent, mastubatory, and contrived! *cough* MGS$ *cough*
That is what I miss most from the old days.
And of course truly innovative games and gameplay are a thing of the past. That's what really stands out from this list, the unique ideas behind the games.
Your boy over at Joystick Division had a most excellent article about this a few days back.
A few games still have a decent to good story line (RE 4, Resistance) but they are far and few between.
I've never seen ice climber before but that looks amazing.
Posted 08/29/2008 at 03:20:16 PMBut I have to have the music thats on the trailer its fantastic anyone know where to find it?
Sunset Riders was also available for the SNES. It was one of my favorite games.
Posted 08/29/2008 at 03:37:06 PMActraiser! Excellent choice. Not only was the game fun, but the music was wonderfully epic (and as such, very appropriate!).
Posted 08/29/2008 at 03:37:56 PM"1) Final Fantasy VI"
Just give Square-Enix a few years, they're clearly working their way to it...
Also, E.V.O: Search for Eden. Fun game that, even if the translation was laughable...
Posted 08/29/2008 at 03:45:49 PMDear Lord I loved "The Guardian Legend" It was such an awesome game. I've been saying for years that I would love to see that game remade with today's technology. It's nice to see someone else echo that thought. I remember spending so much time with that game, beating it and then going back for more!
Posted 08/29/2008 at 03:48:39 PMRiver City Ransom was a great choice. Probably my favorite game of the whole NES library. Beautiful animation and graphics for the time, funny writing, just a great game!
Posted 08/29/2008 at 03:48:58 PMI absolutely agree that Crystalis needs to be remade! That game was fantastic. I think I may have played through that one more than Zelda, and I love Zelda (even have a triforce tat...)
Posted 08/29/2008 at 03:50:11 PMI was scrolling through the list thinking nope, nope, nope, nope, then I hit the bottom and saw FFVI and was like YES!
Posted 08/29/2008 at 03:54:05 PMFFVI either needs to be made into a modernized game, (same story, possibly diff combat system ((NOT LIKE FFXII THOUGH!)) )
Crystalis was one of my favorites and I would love to see a remake of it. Another great game, although I don't remember the system it was on, was Lufia.
Posted 08/29/2008 at 03:56:35 PMKid Icarus, Deus Ex and Actraiser for sure.
Posted 08/29/2008 at 04:11:33 PMMy vote goes to Dungeon Master from FTL
Posted 08/29/2008 at 04:13:07 PMExanded. Kid Icarus and Deus Ex, Act Raiser, Road Rash, RCR (river city was remade for the gameboy) . solar jetman, wizards and warriors 1, RC Pro Am, Pole Position Moon Patrol, Castlevania 1, BIONIC COMMANDO, Zelda II, Sword of Vermillion, Mike Tysons Punch Out, Super Punch Out, Metriod and Super Metriod, Wing Commander I, ALLEY CAT, BLASTER MASTER, STRIDER for NES, FAXANADU, Karnov , Kid Nikki (I), Mega Man I, Mega Man X, Rygar, Columns, Mike Jackson's Moonwalker, Phantasy Star I, Shining in the Darkness (RULES), Streets of Rage I, Thunderforce I, Life Force, Chrono Trigger, All the GTAs remade to the newest engine!, Prince of Persia (I) and II, Valis 4
and the ULTIMATE GAME EVER the RTS Before they existed!
HERZOG ZWEI!
Posted 08/29/2008 at 04:24:04 PMKid Icarus and Deus Ex, Act Raiser, Road Rash, RCR (river city was remade for the gameboy) . solar jetman, wizards and warriors 1, RC Pro Am, Pole Position Moon Patrol, Castlevania 1, BIONIC COMMANDO, Zelda II, Sword of Vermillion, Mike Tysons Punch Out, Super Punch Out, Metriod and Super Metriod, Wing Commander I, ALLEY CAT, BLASTER MASTER, STRIDER for NES, FAXANADU, Karnov , Kid Nikki (I), Mega Man I, Mega Man X, Rygar, Columns, Mike Jackson's Moonwalker, Phantasy Star I, Shining in the Darkness (RULES), Streets of Rage I, Thunderforce I, Life Force, Chrono Trigger, All the GTAs remade to the newest engine!, Prince of Persia (I) and II, Valis 4
and the ULTIMATE GAME EVER the RTS Before they existed!
HERZOG ZWEI!
Posted 08/29/2008 at 04:25:32 PMA final fantasy 6 remake would be awesome.
HOWEVER.
I don't know, spending money on a story I've already played?
I'd much rather a final fantasy that had a similar storyline (in terms of magic vs. technology and length and lots of characters) but was set in a different time period with new characters with different locations.
Final Fantasy 7 was close to it but not quite there.
How about instead of an opera scene, you have to plug in the guitar from guitar hero and play at a huge rock concert, similar element different execution/style.
Posted 08/29/2008 at 04:31:18 PMOne word: Zaxxon
Posted 08/29/2008 at 04:44:59 PMGame remakes suck, and so does this article.
Posted 08/29/2008 at 05:06:52 PMI would LOVE it if Nintendo would remake Kid Icarus for the Wii. That would be so kickass! They've already done Mario out the wazoo, as well as Metroid and Zelda, so why not Kid Icarus?
Posted 08/29/2008 at 05:43:03 PMStarflight, that 80s PC space exploration adventure masterpiece, desperately needs a remake and although some of the original designers for that game have been working on one for.. a decade, actually, it doesn't look like it'll ever be more than vaporware. All but a very small handful of such games, and most of them are also from the 80s, have that style of gameplay and most of /them/ are more focused on combat. Starflight was more focused on exploration, trade in the sequel, and an attempt at character interaction. It's just a shame game producers are so much more concerned with feeding the need to kill things and steal their money than they are in providing a quite possibly educating mind-expanding experience.
Posted 08/29/2008 at 05:53:11 PMWhat about qbert!!!
Posted 08/29/2008 at 05:55:15 PMMutant League Football, please! C'mon EA, it's your franchise and you already have the Madden football engine to build it upon.
Posted 08/29/2008 at 06:30:40 PMThere are quite a few games I think that should be re-done.
How about N.A.R.C the classic Arcade game. Would be great on a next gen system now.
Many of the SNK games would be great candidates. From Magician Lords, King of Monsters or the King of Fighters series. We need more fighting games.
F-Zero would be awesome.
Posted 08/29/2008 at 07:03:35 PMI gotta second one missing item from Mick Russom's overly long list he posted: Bionic Commando. What's not to love? Also, I got a mad hankering for Altered Beast right now, for no understandable reason. Otherwise, totally agree with the post... especially comments re:rpgs.
Posted 08/29/2008 at 07:39:20 PMGreat List: Star Tropics was indeed epic brilliance. The only ones i would add would be Kid Nikki, Bionic Commando, and maybe Strider...you know how memories are, heuristic.
But i am certain that the game Gumshoe was the most difficult/fun game i ever played on NES. It was a light gun game and the later levels were simply a blast. You moved your character side scroll by shooting him while also shooting obstacles and the occasional bird.
Posted 08/29/2008 at 07:39:22 PMhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gumshoe_(video_game)
Dungeon Master by FTL...wow...that was an epic game. I spent about 2 years working through it when I as about 10 yo. I think I spent 2 months karate chopping, fireballing and stabbing mini screaming trees in the infinite screamer room to level up my party.
If you have never played still an amazing game.
Posted 08/29/2008 at 07:40:45 PMAren't you forgetting Gunstar Heroes... or Comix Zone?
Posted 08/29/2008 at 08:02:50 PMYeah, where the fuck is my Final Fantasy VI remake?
Quit releasing these old, unknown FF remakes. And I am at the point of giving a shit less about FFVII anything.
Give me Cyan, Locke, Setzer, Edgar, Sabin, and Terra any day of the week over any other Squaresoft game.
Posted 08/29/2008 at 08:42:57 PMWell, River City Ransom and Crystalis were remade. Crystalis was re-done for the Game Boy Color and River City Ransom for the GBA.
Fact check much?
Posted 08/29/2008 at 10:26:50 PMLove the list but might I add BLASTER MASTER!!!! NES true gem!!! Spent weeks playing looking for as pet FROG... ended up needing the damn Game Genie to finish it!!
Posted 08/29/2008 at 11:57:16 PMHideo Kojima's Snatcher desperately needs an update.
Posted 08/30/2008 at 12:11:40 AMSunset Riders was, and still is, one of the best side scrolling games.
The controls were perfect and the animation was a dream, gunning down cliched bad guys was never so much fun.
Lest we forget the sampled speech though? That was just the icing on the cake.
I remember playing it to death in the summer of '92 with my friend Brian, we piled so much money into that machine that by the time we'd completed it we were sick of the sampled 'Yee-haw!' that every coin brought.
Posted 08/30/2008 at 12:37:29 AMNot very many people know this... but star tropics is still going on.... its actually turned into a very famous rpg! Its actually now Star Ocean...... its why the first star ocean game is called second story. But one game that's missing on this list is Kid Camelon. We haven't even seen a sequel to this game but it was so amazing and hard as hell.
Posted 08/30/2008 at 06:36:18 AMI only have one thing to say: Mechwarrior 2. Best giant robot game....EEEVER!
Posted 08/30/2008 at 07:02:15 AMSo glad a couple people mentioned "Blaster Master". That game was awesome (but the little-known "sequel" on the ps1 was garbage). How about "Space Harrier" and "Alex Kidd in Wonderland". Man, I loved those.
Posted 08/30/2008 at 08:02:02 AMSo glad a couple people mentioned "Blaster Master". That game was awesome (but the little-known "sequel" on the ps1 was garbage). How about "Space Harrier" and "Alex Kidd in Wonderland"? Man, I loved those.
Posted 08/30/2008 at 08:02:18 AMI couldn't agree more with your top choice. FF6 is by far the most touching of all the FF stories for me. It's my favorite to the point that I've played it enough times as to know the story by listening to the soundtrack, which I do very very frequently. I'm confident it'll happen at some point, though.
But doesn't anyone remember A Boy and His Blob? That game was so awesome and seeing the video for Nemo above reminded me of it. In case anyone doesn't know this one, you're a boy and this alien blob follows you around in a cave. You feed it jellybeans to change it's shape and function to suit your platforming needs. It was insane.
Posted 08/30/2008 at 10:13:07 AMRavenlockheart - Actually, the first Star Ocean game is called "Star Ocean." It was never released here, but it's so solid that it got it's very own remake on the PSP in Japan not too long ago.
Posted 08/30/2008 at 01:12:30 PMGreat list. Esp the top two picks. I would only add (as many comments already say) Bionic Commando.
But...
Do we really want remakes of these games? Remakes usually suck. Occasionally we get something good, like Super Mario All-Star, which is good because it basically just updates the graphics and music but leaves the gameplay alone, but the rest of the time the game makers can't resist tinkering with the gameplay and giving us a game that is far inferior to the original.
I say leave well enough alone. If you want these games, go play these games. They can easily be found on the internet, at gamestop, or in your closet.
I would love to see new games made in the same style as these listed. That is, *true* sequals, but not remakes.
Posted 08/30/2008 at 02:32:21 PMI'd really like to see a remake of legacy of the ancients. Pretty open-ended rpg like morrowind/oblivion but came out in like 1984. You guys should check it out if you can stand 4 color graphics ;P. Commodore 64 version is pretty nice too.
Posted 08/30/2008 at 03:11:38 PMVideo provided of Tecmo Super Bowl is actually of Tecmo Bowl. Fail.
Posted 08/30/2008 at 09:49:57 PMI so much agree with you with the actraiser! that was the best!
Posted 08/31/2008 at 05:24:33 AMI was just going to make a website with the same picks. I just got finished play FFIII again on my SNES(FF VI). That game is so perfect and I would preorder any real remake (graphics) as soon as it was announced. Plus I am surprised too about Star Tropics. Amazing game and still one of the top rpg's out there . God I wish they quit just throwing out garbage and redo these. Like stated before just change names, update graphics, and settings in which they take place a little on any of these . Release on a console (not handheld) and they would be rolling in a top 10 game for months to come.
Posted 08/31/2008 at 06:22:19 AMTwo words: Ogre Battle.
Posted 08/31/2008 at 09:01:21 AMGreat article. Thanks for the information.
Posted 08/31/2008 at 04:07:06 PMWhat No Contra?
Posted 08/31/2008 at 11:58:57 PMMechWarrior 2 would be sweet... and GODDAMMIT WHERES MY DUKE NUKEM
Posted 09/01/2008 at 04:02:10 AMWhile it might be too high end graphically for this list, I would do anything for a proper remake of Xenogears. Seriously, you a game developer and you want somebody killed? Give me a call, get to work on Xenogears, and I'll do it. None of that Xenosaga nonsense with no gameplay and tons of videos, please, just a balance like the original. And yes, of course, Yasunori Mitsuda must do the soundtrack for this one again (or just use the old OST).
Posted 09/01/2008 at 07:57:00 AMI agree with FF6 being number 1 and I'm glad someone said it. This is the best FF around, bar none, and anyone who hasn't played it that calls themselves an FF fan is an outright fool. Best rpg ever, best ff ever. Waaaay better than 7, 8, or 10. All the kids today only know what was in 3D.
Posted 09/01/2008 at 10:22:43 AMFF6 had the best story in a game that I've played so far, and I've been gaming since the early 80s.
wait a minnit, how many people said bionic commando? Do you people not know a remake just got released?
I don't know anything about video game releases and even I knew that.
Posted 09/01/2008 at 10:26:57 AMDude , Battletoads should be on this list.
Posted 09/01/2008 at 05:00:12 PMWHERE'S METAL FATIGUE
Posted 09/01/2008 at 08:06:14 PMUh.... Final Fantasy VI (or 3 here), was remade for the playstation not that long ago.... check any gamestop (or ebay) used section for something called Final Fantasy Anthology... or just pick up a nintendo ds as one was released not that long ago... gamestop new 19.99 Mega man 1 was remade for the psp like a year ago... and I agree, where's my Blaster Master? a new version would be EPIC....
Posted 09/02/2008 at 04:59:34 AMWhat about Titanic : Adventure Out of Time?
Posted 09/02/2008 at 01:07:34 PMSmashTV "Big money, big prizes, I love it!"
Posted 09/02/2008 at 06:41:52 PMAlso have to say F-Zero, Super Contra and Legend of Cage would be on my wish list. Even Super Spike Volleyball and Dodgeball would be nice.
About time that StarTropics and Crystalis get some love. StarTropics is the best NES game ever made. One of the first games to break the 4th wall by using the included letter to solve an in-game puzzle.
Posted 09/10/2008 at 03:53:28 AMAre you serious? This list SEVERLY lacks battletoads, i dont see why so many people forget about the greatest damn game in history!
Posted 09/21/2008 at 04:23:22 AMCan anyone remeber FROGGER i mean ether get your froggie accross the busy freeway and the river with alligators and logs or get squished
Posted 10/19/2008 at 11:57:15 AMI completely agree with a remake of Final Fantasy VI as long as they return to the old, classic turn based mechanics.
Notablly absent from your list: Mutant League Football!
Posted 10/23/2008 at 10:25:37 AMFF6 DEFINITELY. I've been dreaming of this for years.
Posted 10/27/2008 at 02:54:49 PMGreat list, dude! I would add only one more title: Rock and Roll Racing ('cause we don't need more Hip-hop Racing with pimped up gangsta cars, like the latest Need for Speed games! hehehe). I keep wondering how a new Sabbath - Paranoid level would look like nowadays (somewhere inside Lo - the infernal moon of Jupiter!)... Throw in some lysergic moments with some Floyd tune in the background (a Jupiter stage with a sky racing, maybe?), and there you have it: a masterpiece on wheels (and wings!)
Posted 10/31/2008 at 08:08:28 AMGolden Axe was remade. But it fail'd.
Some great games does not need to be remade. Or they'll share the same fate as Bomberman, Golden Axe and .......Afterburner.
Posted 11/24/2008 at 05:12:36 AMRiver City ransom was awesome! Great list, and well done sir, well done.
Posted 12/05/2008 at 03:24:05 PMI agree with the remaking of Final Fantasy VI, but wouldn't squaresoft make it horrible?
They would completely ruin the characters with horrible voice acting and terrible design and they would probably take away everything that made the original great in favor of "younger fans"
If they do it right, I will buy it but I'll stick to the original until then.
Posted 12/13/2008 at 06:07:52 AMOMG! YES! Finally someone who agrees with me! Final Fantasy VI deserves a total remake on a cutting edge system!
It was my first RPG. Ever. I remember playing that game for hours when I was a kid. It's tragically overlooked. Most people gush over FFVII. I turn into a chibi fan-girl over Edgar and his nifty moving mecha-castle. And Locke is SO much cooler than Zidane.
My favorite part in Kingdom Hearts 2 was in the beginning when you got to fight Setzer. I literally paused the game, set the controller down, and started running through the house screaming 'OMIGOD OMIGOD IT'S SETZER!! HE'S ON THE SCREEN! EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEH!!!!".
*insert 4-6 hours of fan-girl ranting about the awesomeness that is FFVI here*
.... Needless to say, I would love to see this game remade onto a new system, fully rendered with updated graphics and either CG or anime cutscenes. ...ahh... Kefka in 1080p.... one can only hope.
I wonder if we could start a petition....
Posted 01/29/2009 at 09:47:40 PMSTEEL EMPIRE (by Flying Edge)
SWORD OF VERMILION
Posted 02/06/2009 at 02:09:18 AMI agree with most of these. StarTropics, River City Ransom, and FFVI so very much. But Little Nemo? Come on, that game sucked and go fuck itself.
Posted 03/07/2009 at 12:45:19 PMThey basically remade "River City Ransom" with "Bully". Now if they just made it two player, beefed up the purchase list, and gave the rival gang members more character, everything would be perfect.
Posted 03/18/2009 at 07:47:53 AMMutant League and a "good" toejam and earl could be added, but that list is fantastic and I'm so glad someone brought up FF6, I sick of hearing and seeing stuff on 7.
Posted 03/19/2009 at 05:52:14 PMI'd add "MASTER OF MONSTERS" from the Sega Genesis, and "KID NIKKI" from Nintendo as well.
But yeah, I've been waiting for a new "KID ICARUS" for a looooong time. I played the hell out of that game and loved every minute of it.
Posted 03/21/2009 at 12:38:49 PMYou forgot Live-A-Live... a truly unique SNES-game, never officially translated, but a fairly complete fan-translation exists. Mostly RPG, it stradles multiple genres and hits the spot with each and every one of them. Also, where else are you going to take a party consisting of a Professional Wrestler, an Esper, a Clint Eastwood clone, a Caveman, a Ninja, a Kung-Fu Chick and a tiny, threated robot, to fight a fallen fantasy hero?
Posted 03/27/2009 at 02:52:27 AMLate entries:
Mail Order Monsters
Law of the West
Racing Destruction Set
Dammit, Mail Order Monsters could be AWESOME with today's tech if they allowed online tournaments for the titles and trading of monsters between owner/managers.
Before there was Pokemon, there was Mail Order Monsters!
Posted 04/06/2009 at 07:33:34 PMOMG Every game you guys mentioned is like its own legacy. They were some great games. I feel like 3D has mostly turned to trash any hope games with story lines as epic of FF VI. Blaster Master would be freaking awesome. ( I have the PS1 one btw, there was also a Gameboy one) Alot of developers never re-released these games due to bad blood, drama or greed. Seiken Densetsu was an awesome gameboy game as well as the Final Fantasy Legend series and Ogre Battle (I have the original cartridge.)
Posted 04/22/2009 at 10:45:03 PMZombies Ate My Neighbours!, dear god! Your list is solid, but half to a quarter generation removed from my own gaming genesis. That is, a few items click perfectly into alignment in my memory banks(FF VI, Act Raiser, Kid Icarus and Snow Climber, courtesy of that Atari game pack on the NES)but most are mere hallowed names, predating the 16 bit acid brain-bath which scrambled the thought processes of everyone born after '84. So let's see...7th Saga. Illusion of Gaia, with its whacked mystical pretensions and never ending scroll text. Young Merlin. Drakkhen. Aero The Acro-bat.
Posted 04/24/2009 at 09:16:12 PMbies Ate My Neighbours!, dear god! Your list is solid, but half to a quarter generation removed from my own gaming genesis. That is, a few items click perfectly into alignment in my memory banks(FF VI, Act Raiser, Kid Icarus and Snow Climber, courtesy of that Atari game pack on the NES)but most are mere hallowed names, predating the 16 bit acid brain-bath which scrambled the thought processes of everyone born after '84. So let's see...7th Saga. Illusion of Gaia, with its whacked mystical pretensions and never ending scroll text. Young Merlin. Drakkhen. Aero The Acro-bat.
Posted 04/24/2009 at 09:29:51 PMI call B.S.!
Posted 05/06/2009 at 02:00:51 PMLittle Nemo was already semi-remade with "Braid"
(just without the cool animals)
- and -
Why wasn't Road Rash on the list?!
River City Ransom would be an awesome remake along with any game on this list. If nobody else is going to do an updated next-gen version of any of these then I will once I get my degree. FREE DOWNLOADS FOR EVERYONE!!!! lol
Posted 06/21/2009 at 07:14:05 AMHeh, that you mentioned Bahamut Lagoon at all makes this fangirl pretty happy. Not very well known, that 'un - I'd much rather see a translated port than a remake, though, 'cause I'm sure Squenix would fuck up the very quirky humor the game had in favor of stupid FF-style wangst.
Also was really happy to see Actraiser, though if I had to choose a Quintet game to remake, I'd choose Terranigma, the one that didn't make it to the states. Epic and moving story, that one, with pretty good action-RPG/adventure gameplay. Hell, I'd love more than anything to see the entire group of 'em (Actraiser I and II, Soul Blazer, Illusion of Gaia, and Terranigma) all remade into one series; they're already thematically similar enough.
Live-a-Live FTW, also. Oersted's chapter alone is enough to warrant it being remade, because there still hasn't been anything like that since. Seconding Ogre Battle and Lufia as well, and wanting to add Sweet Home (in a vein of Silent Hill or Fatal Frame, perhaps), Treasure of the Rudras, Secret of Mana and Seiken Densetsu 3 (might be the only thing that'll make me interested in the Mana franchise again) and Super Mario RPG as well. The last one could totally make owning a Wii worth it by itself alone.
I feel like out of the ones mentioned, Kid Icarus and FFVI are most likely to be remade. I feel like they've been testing the waters for interest in the way of a remake with the GBA/DS releases of the old FFs and Chrono Trigger, and I get the feeling FFVI won (despite how much I'd rather have Chrono Trigger instead). Kid Icarus has gained recognition through Pit in Brawl, and that's how we ended up with the sudden upswing of Fire Emblem popularity stateside after years of the series being ignored.
Posted 06/25/2009 at 05:29:22 PMHeh, that you mentioned Bahamut Lagoon at all makes this fangirl pretty happy. Not very well known, that 'un - I'd much rather see a translated port than a remake, though, 'cause I'm sure Squenix would fuck up the very quirky humor the game had in favor of stupid FF-style wangst.
Also was really happy to see Actraiser, though if I had to choose a Quintet game to remake, I'd choose Terranigma, the one that didn't make it to the states. Epic and moving story, that one, with pretty good action-RPG/adventure gameplay. Hell, I'd love more than anything to see the entire group of 'em (Actraiser I and II, Soul Blazer, Illusion of Gaia, and Terranigma) all remade into one series; they're already thematically similar enough.
Live-a-Live FTW, also. Oersted's chapter alone is enough to warrant it being remade, because there still hasn't been anything like that since. Seconding Ogre Battle and Lufia as well, and wanting to add Sweet Home (in a vein of Silent Hill or Fatal Frame, perhaps), Treasure of the Rudras, Secret of Mana and Seiken Densetsu 3 (might be the only thing that'll make me interested in the Mana franchise again) and Super Mario RPG as well. The last one could totally make owning a Wii worth it by itself alone.
I feel like out of the ones mentioned, Kid Icarus and FFVI are most likely to be remade. I feel like they've been testing the waters for interest in the way of a remake with the GBA/DS releases of the old FFs and Chrono Trigger, and I get the feeling FFVI won (despite how much I'd rather have Chrono Trigger instead). Kid Icarus has gained recognition through Pit in Brawl, and that's how we ended up with the sudden upswing of Fire Emblem popularity stateside after years of the series being ignored.
Posted 06/25/2009 at 05:29:22 PMAs much as I would squeal in delight for a fully remade, hi-res FF6 (3D or 2D), just think of what the characters would come out looking like. You saw what Square-Enix did to poor Cecil in the FF4 DS remake.
Kefka would have that "pretty-punk" Cloud hairstyle, Sabin would look like an anorexic, Terra would probably have cat ears, Edgar would have DD breasts for some reason, Setzer would be genderswapped into a butchy lesbian woman...
Posted 07/02/2009 at 05:52:23 PM