We’re currently living in the age of video game remakes: onceCapcomfound the goose that laid the golden eggs with 2019’sResident Evil 2, every publisher wanted in. The early 2020s saw high-profile remakes of some of the biggest video game series like Final Fantasy, and even old properties likeAlone In The Darktried their luck.
For the most part, the games that get remakes are ones that were already good. The intention often isn’t to improve a game, but simply to modernize it so that fans will buy it out of nostalgia. Yet as these remakes prove, that’s not always a bad thing. They were unnecessary, but they were still fun, and that’s what counts. Some of them came out earlier than you might expect, meaning this trend isn’t confined to recent years.
When the 3DS launched in 2011, there was a flurry of 3D remakes and remasters lined up for the console. Surprisingly, Cave Story also got in on the action. The original was the proto-indie game: launched in 2004 as a freeware title, it earned a dedicated fanbase for its moving story and simple yet engaging gameplay.
This remake abandoned the originalpixel art designsin favour of 3D character models. What makes this remake feel unnecessary is that it came out less than seven years before the original Cave Story, and the pixel art version of the game was also available on the eShop. But Cave Story 3D was worth it, even if it never went multiplatform.
Games like Shadow of the Colossus beg the question of what constitutes a remake and what constitutes a remaster. Though all the assets in the PlayStation 4 iteration were made from the ground up, the game played out exactly like the original and used the PS2 version’s codebase.
Is the remake good? Yes, because the original game is good. But when you play through it, and see how identical it is to the original, apart from some control scheme changes, it makes you wonder why they didn’t just polish up the PS3 remaster again. Regardless, this PS4 version kept the game alive for another two generations, thanks to thePS5’s backwards compatibility.
The 2005 version of Need for Speed: Most Wanted was one of the most popular games of its time. It sold 18 million copies, a mind-bending number for a PS2 title. It established theNeed for Speed seriesas the king of the racing circuit for years to come.
When the 2012 remake came out, it confused audiences. The 2010 remake of Hot Pursuit made sense, as that revived a PS1 title, but the 2005 version of Most Wanted wasn’t dated by any measure. This remake was a good game, but it didn’t need to exist.
The Pokemon series is no stranger to remakes at this point, and most genuinely do feature enough overhauls to justify their existence. This wasn’t the case in 2004, when the Game Boy family of systems still ruled the handheld world.
Pokemon’s first-generation titles were less than a decade old at this point, and Game Freak had already seen success on the GBA with Pokemon Ruby & Sapphire and their then-unprecedented count of 386 Pokemon. FireRed & LeafGreen going back to the original 151 Pokemon while recycling the Generation 3 engine seemed like a move designed to sap fans of goodwill. Yet surprisingly, it worked, because the game was still high-quality and allowed you to trade Pokemon from Gen 3 titles.
Apart from Ruby & Sapphire, the Gen 1 remakes can also connect with Pokemon Colosseum on the GameCube.
Metal Gear Solid was one of thePS1’s establishing titles, and a massive leap forward for video games as a cinematic medium. It made sense for Nintendo to seek a series title for its GameCube console, yet the choice to remake MGS 1 in 2004 was a truly odd one.
Apart from its primitive graphics, which were still impressive for the PS1, Metal Gear Solid was a perfectly contemporary title at the time. The addition of gameplay elements from MGS 2 was thought to make the game too easy. Yet if you want to experience MGS 1 without characters bobbing their heads to convey speech, The Twin Snakes is still worth your time.
With no gameplay improvements to make, The Twin Snakes instead sought a different story tone, with filmmaker Ryuhei Kitamura directing the cutscenes.
In 2009, Demon’s Souls was a killer app for the PlayStation 3. In 2020, Demon’s Souls was a killer app for the PlayStation 5. Barring a few quality-of-life adjustments and higher graphical fidelity, almost nothing changed between the two games.
It’s impossible to talk about Demon’s Souls today without mentioning its influence on the Soulslike genre. The game was storied and well-respected, making its remake an obvious choice as a PS5 launch title. Yet one has to wonder: couldn’t it just have been a port?
Persona 3 is a modern classic and one of the most influential JRPGs on the PS2. Its use of dating sim elements made relationship mechanics a staple of the genre from that point on, and it’s no coincidence how many JRPGs started getting school settings after Persona 3 did it.
See what we called it? A modern classic. Persona 3 didn’t need to be reloaded, especially with its PSP version being ported to modern platforms in 2023. But just over a year later, Atlus launched a remake of the game anyway - and it was still good.
Fans are embittered on Bowser’s Inside Story + Bowser Jr’s Journey for reasons that have nothing to do with the game itself. The game is high-quality, making great use of the 3DS’s small form factor. The reason this remake stings for fans is that the corporate mismanagement surrounding it led to developer AlphaDream’s closure.
This remake came out when the 3DS was at the end of its lifespan, and most fans of the Mario & Luigi series had already played the DS version. The addition of a tower defence side game did little to entice people to another purchase, meaning the game was a commercial failure despite the Mario branding. This meant most people missed out on what was a vastly improved version of the original.
Dead Space was derided every day until its 2023 launch. It was cited as proof of EA’s corporate greed, resurrecting a beloved IP to get on the remake gravy train while having killed off its original studio. The original 2008 title wasn’t even outdated by any means - Dead Space quite simply didn’t need to exist.
Yet once it came out, fans warmed up to it rather quickly. The gameplay was tight and responsive, the graphics were phenomenal, and the fear factor was off the charts. Isaac having dialogue was the only big difference - otherwise, it was still the Dead Space we knew and loved, and that was enough.
As long as video games remain the way they are now, the medium will owe a collective debt to 2005’s Resident Evil 4. The game invented the modern third-person shooter: its over-the-shoulder view and innovative aiming system made it the template for all action games to follow. While Resident Evil 2 and 3 getting remakes made sense, due to them being retro PS1 titles, RE4 categorically defied the need to be modernized. If you want any further evidence, just look at how many platforms it got remastered on.
Yet in 2023, the game finally did get a remake. This was the one game Capcom could not afford to mess up on: a poor reception now would validate every criticism of unnecessary remakes and erode fans' trust. Incredibly, the remake didn’t just live up to the original, but in the eyes of many fans, surpassed it.
