Worst Videogame Remakes

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Every now and then, a developer remakes a classic video game. Some remakes are cool. Others don't exactly live up to their original. The rest just makes others want to play the original more because the developers can't do a remake the right way.

The worst remakes I've seen and/or played:

Megaman & Bass (GBA). It just didn't appeal to me the same way as the Japanese SNES Rockman & Forte for some reason.

Sonic the Hedgehog Genesis (GBA). I saw this game once in a store and thought this wouldn't be any good. Several years later, I was on YouTube looking for game footage on Megaman X7 to see plot of that game and stumbled upon ClementJ642. I looked at other stuff he's done. He has a video taking apart Sonic Genesis and how much of a piece of trash it was. The music, the physics, the slow downs, it was all bad. The game itself was worse than I originally thought when I saw it in stores.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YH3o5LNJuFA[/youtube]

Last but not least, Conker's Live and Reloaded (Xbox). Originally intended to be a sequel to Conker's Bad Fur Day titled Conker's Other Bad Fur Day (I could be wrong). The plot was Conker's somewhat unsuccessful tenure as King. He spends all the treasury money on beer, parties and hookers. Thrown into prison, Conker is faced with the prospect of execution and the game starts with his escape, ball and chain attached, from the Castle's highest tower. The sequel was scrapped for some reason. The game itself did some things right. Graphics, Detail, improved scenery, a simple switch to a bat with a nail in it from a frying pan, music improved (including a new song for Rock Solid), all that and more. What was so bad about that game? Well...

The game gets a lot of heat over censorship. In the original, it was the F-word that got censored. In the remake, it was much more. When the army general said "F*** that s***" with s*** uncensored, I thought it was funny. When s*** was censored, the humor was killed. The censorship killed a lot of the humor from the original game for example: The password scene to get into the Rock Solid nightclub was also censored. The caveman follower said something pronounced "vedayshio" and then Conker said "F******." It wasn't the actual password, just a misinterpretation. I still had to go back to the original just to see what that word was (It's uncensored in the original). Then my worst nightmare was realized as I was skipping through game. A big Darth Vader "Nooooooooooo" was echoing in my mind when I heard it. The Great Mighty Poo Song was ruined. Nintendo let the original be uncensored while Microsoft (the company behind the remake) was about to leave the remake also uncensored but that was changed some time during development.

What do you think was the worst remake that made the original look better?

Ys 1 and 2 for the DS.

It's almost impossible for a remake to make a game worse, in my experience. For one thing, the nature of video games means that a lot of progress is made over time - not just with graphics and audio, but progress in the basic assumptions behind game mechanics.

Also, remakes are usually made by people who have played the original over and over again for many years, and have become aware of the good things which need preserving, and the annoying things which need fixing.

The only example I can really think of is Cave Story - its music was remixed and thus lost some of its charm. But even that doesn't really count, since it keeps the option to listen to the original music.

Sword of Mana for the GBA. It was a remake of the first game in the Mana series, released as Final Fantasy Adventure on the original Gameboy in the US. Unfortunately it was just nowhere close to the same level of quality despite having shinier colorful graphics and some newer gameplay elements. The combat just felt off and really floaty and just wasn't as fun.

I would say that the most disappointing one for me has been Goldeneye on the Wii. It's more a cash in on the fame of having the same name as the original on the N64. That's honestly what it feels like, and it wouldn't surprise me if it was never intended to be a remake at all. To me, a remake should be something like Halo Anniversary, Ocarina of Time 3D, or Pokemon Heart Gold/Soul Silver; keeping to the originals right down to the core, only updating the graphics and music and sound effects and adding to things, not changing the entire layout or engine of the game entirely. Even if I didn't mind having a clone of Call of Duty, I would still be disappointed in getting one instead of what was promised - a proper remake.

Not really sure I can count it as it's really just a modified port, but the Wii version of Zelda: Twilight Princess is pretty bad due to controls. Was not expecting anything near as good as Skyward Sword's motion controls, but I still thought there would have been more a point to porting it than to add in stupid waggle that's hindered by a very noticable delay. Ugh. Because of this there wasn't even a very good reason to mirror the entire game, either, as it doesn't really matter what hand Link holds his sword in if it's not accurate.

Persona 3: Portable. Well, technically, it's a down-port(a downgraded port to a less powerful system, usually a handheld). It got rid of the original graphics, and went with a visual novel design, which wouldn't have been so bad if that was the original version of the game, and a version that had character models hadn't existed prior. Without seeing Shinji headbutt that guy, it's just radio. The wisp, and navigating the parts of the game outside of Tartarus is just embarrassingly bad. A wisp? Seriously? On top of all that, fusion spells have been replaced by cards, and the ability to choose one's weapon of choice has been removed. The player now has to pay at the clock to heal the party, rather than having everyone's hp and sp restored when they go back to the lobby. Such a design choice made sense in P4 as a limiting factor, since the characters can't get tired. However, it doesn't make any sense in a port of P3. Not to mention, from the perspective of portability, it would be much more convenient for the player if they were fully healed upon returning to the lobby. I believe I tackled all the issues I have with this port that I either don't have with P4, or dislike even more than I did in P4, since the original P3 and FES didn't have those problems. If it wasn't for the extra content, particularly the female mode, I wouldn't even bother with this port.

Oh yeah, I forgot about this. I think that might really be a case of a remake being worse. I mean, it's not as if the graphics and load times were improved much. We just got weird sword controls and a backwards world.

Technically the Wii version of Twilight Princess came out first. The gamecube version came out a month later. But neither are considered a remake since its the same game, developed for two platforms at the same time. Also the motion controls in Twilight Princess may be tacked on just to release it as a Wii launch title, but they do work. They may not improve the game, but they dont make it worse either.

I actually hated Skyward Sword's motion controls more as at times they simply don't work. The fact that they had to bind a direction on the d-pad to re-calibrate the motion sensor, is proof enough that the controls are botched. Recalibration is something that should only ever have to be done rarely, and be done through an options menu, not made so common that an otherwise useable button during gameplay has to be taken up with a quick recalibration button.

Skyward Sword's controls were the most accurate motion controls I've used. The "recalibration" button isn't really that so much as it is meant for auto centering, which I feel that any game with motion controls needs to have in order to work properly. There's a REAL calibration option in the pause menu if things start getting wacky, but I've never had to do so.

I didn't like the Super Mario All-Stars version of "Super Mario Bros." with the graphics completely changed. Super Mario Bros. is better with the original graphics style in my opinion. SMB 2 and 3 are better with enhanced graphics though.

By the way I heard Super Mario All-Stars for the Wii is literally the old SNES game on a disc. It should have included Super Mario World at least.

I don't like a lot of the SNES to GBA ports primarily because the sound always ends up getting butchered and the controls become compromised due to the GBA having less buttons than the SNES.

What went wrong with the DS remake?

Well the biggest crime is the change in gameplay. In every other version, you kill enemies by walking into them. In this one, you have to hold down a button. Sounds silly but it really throws everything off. Not to mention the game is available on like 8 or 9 other platforms, so there's no reason to get the one with inferior controls.

GBA games aren't very fun unless they're played on the Gamecube Gameboy-Player with an HDTV. That's probably the main reason the OP said he didn't like "Mega Man and Bass".

I always wanted a Gamecube Gameboy-Player but I didn't have a Gamecube. I was too busy having fun with the original Xbox. Because of that, I missed out on Super Smash Bros. Melee.