Your actual top 3/5/10/20/50 most wanted remakes/remasters - have you ever?

The Back Page podcast did an episode on their top ten most wanted remakes and I'm playing Ghost Trick on Switch.  That made me look for a thread like this, but I couldn't find a thread like this.  It probably exists, Forumotion's search functionality is bobbins.  Ah well.  I want to know: what are your most wanted returns of old games in any form?

Of course I'll start off, with two top fives: my most wanted remasters, and my most wanted remakes.  Here a 'remake' involves a redevelopment of the art assets, changes to the gameplay, and other fundamental changes; whereas a remaster involves upscaling into HD/60fps where required, no more than tweaks to the gameplay, and at most an orchestration of the music.  Your mileage may vary, I don't mind where you draw the line (although I think it's an interesting topic for discussion!  I just don't think many here will agree), but this is where I'm drawing it.


Balla's Five Most Wanted Remakes

5. Lylat Wars
I know it got a 3D remaster.  I know it got a Wii U 'reimagining'.  What it could really do with is something that remains true to the core of the original but is just different enough, maybe with some longer rebuilt levels and a level select, and without a control scheme that absolutely murders my tiny brain and alternative vehicles that aren't any fun.
4. Skies of Arcadia
I missed this one when it came out on GameCube.  That was prior to my descent into full-on JRPG superfandom.  From what I've heard I'm not sure the base game would hold up: it probably needs a reheating of some aspects of the core game, including some edits to the random battle system.  Hence why it's under remakes not remasters.  Ah I'd love a chance to play it though, for less than £100.
3. Super Mario 64
Yes Odyssey exists.  Yes SM64DS exists.  I don't care, Odyssey is a different beast and DS was rubbish.  This does need a full remake IMO, the visuals need reshaping almost from scratch and several of the levels need to be made tighter for an audience no longer wowed by basic 3D.  I still think it would be a great game, justified by the Wing Cap and Koopa Shell alone.  Let us ride Yoshi on the castle too, why not?
2. Oracle of Ages/Seasons
In the style of the Link's Awakening remake.  I felt like that was just a bit too pre-Ocarina in its dungeon design for me to fully enjoy.  I reckon these would make for a better time in 2024.  Stick them both on one package, add more references to the two games interacting, and you'd have a great version of two games too old for me in their original forms.
1. Twilight Princess
Sorry Nintendo, an HD remaster simply doesn't cut it for the ugliest Zelda out there.  Redraw this game in autumnal yet vibrant tones, make the glowing creatures of the Twilight Realm stand out.  This needs a full artistic overhaul, and an opening up of Hyrule Field to get rid of the weird loading corridors, and maybe some gameplay tweaks to get rid of the bad motion controls from the Wii and bring them up to scratch for gamers who've enjoyed BotW/TotK.  But the dungeons though.  The dungeons deserve to be preserved and reiterated on.  And the Spinner!  And the Dual Clawshots.  What a game.  Make TP Great Again.


Balla's Five Most Wanted Remasters

5. F-Zero X or GX
I don't care which.  All these need is a lick of paint and maybe some guitars going harder for a cheap and easy sale that doesn't require reinvention of the steering wheel.  Add an easy difficulty setting to GX too, for me please.  I was crap at it.
4. Ever Oasis
This game probably still holds up, but it was released after the Switch so no bugger played it.  Make that desert world beautiful and let more of us revel in managing our oasis village that's actually just a sandy monument to capitalism.
3. Hotel Dusk
If they're remastering Ghost Trick they can bring this to a new generation.  Make the storybook characters pop off (the right-hand side of) the Switch's screen.  Bring the whole Cing catalogue to Switch actually, why not.
2. Kid Icarus Uprising
Here's a game that only needs a bit of polish and proper controls to reach its full potential.  Stick it on Switch in HD, watch the game blossom.  There are rumours of it.  Make the rumours true you fools.
1. Paper Mario TTYD
Natch.


What about you?

Lylat Wars is such an obvious win. They seem to realise that; Starfox, Starfox 64 and Starfox Zero are all basically reimaginings, yet they're always messing around with it.

Balla wrote:

Mario 64

Wow, where did you get such a wild idea?

If you asked me this in 2002, I would have said Resident Evil 2 after REmake but after playing the REmake of 2 we got, which I just found fine and then REmake 3 to be dreadful. Will say, when I have seen REmake 4, it does look like what I'd imagine a remake of 4 would look like, just don't think we needed it. On the other side of things, I didn't think we needed a remake of The Last of Us, but it was so good that it is now my second favourite game of all time.

I know a bunch of games I want to see on modern systems, just not sure how I want them on modern systems.

3DS I'd like to see come to Switch / Switch 2 like Fire Emblem Awakening maybe FE games make more sense, Samus Returns as I've into Metroid this year and would like to play it, Kid Icarus to shut up people who moan about controls, SMTIV as III & V are on Switch, Monster Hunter Stories to name a few.

VITA most have come over to things but an Uncharted is stuck on it and even a Killzone hopefully even on Plus like some recent PSP games.

Wii a lot as it's a system that I sort of missed though things like Last Story and Pandora should get the love Xenoblade gets, on Xenoblade where's X on Switch.

Then a mix of things like Panzer Dragoon Saga, Parasite Eve, Chrono Trigger, Vagrant Story, AvP, Xenogears, Dino Crisis, Otogi etc from those gens as I feel audiences for them now after success of REmake, Xenoblade etc

Balla wrote:

2. Kid Icarus Uprising
Here's a game that only needs a bit of polish and proper controls to reach its full potential.  Stick it on Switch in HD, watch the game blossom.  There are rumours of it.  Make the rumours true you fools.

I'm with you 100 percent on this as the game would be perfect with updated gyro controls.


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Already got spoiled for remasters/remakes this year with Metroid Prime & RE4 so for me, my one pick has to be:

Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate
If you ask any MH fan to pick their favourite in the series this is usually top of the list.
Why does it need a remaster? It is the only main line entry in the series to not have a console version released which makes it a little harder to revisit especially for extended periods of play.

I’ve also been fortunate and recently seen companies release remasters and remakes of several of the games I know I’d have typed as an answer to this thread’s question three years ago. The answer’s back then would have been Sonic 3 & Knuckles, Super Monkey Ball, Klonoa 1 and 2 and Super Mario Galaxy.

There’s other games that I think are better off simply being re-released in near-enough their original form. I wouldn’t do anything to change Banjo-Kazooie or Ridge Racer Type 4, I’m perfectly happy that they’re playable across the newest Xbox, Nintendo and PlayStations. There’s likely dozens upon dozens of games that I’d like to see that happen to.

I’m fine with what they done with Starfox 64 3D, I’m not bursting for that to be re-made for a second time. Off-topic, but how many times have Nintendo re-made one of their games more than once? Of course it’ll happen in future with Ocarina of Time and stuff like that, but right now it can’t be too many.

Anyhoo, here’s three other notable games that I’d definitely like to see return in one way or another.

1. Rocket Robot on Wheels – It’s just too brilliant a game to be stuck in this weird place it’s currently in, marooned on the twenty-five year old Nintendo 64 hardware yet under license from Sucker Punch’s owners, Sony Interactive Entertainment. I can’t see a scenario where this comes back again, but if something could somehow happen I’d be delighted.

2. Kid Icarus Uprising – Everything Balladeer and Jaster said, adding that the 3DS controls are pure Brexit. 1,000,000% this should have been a Wii U game that eventually blossomed on Switch alongside the ports of Bayonetta 2, Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze, Super Mario 3D World and others. It can still be a Switch game, it seems just like the ideal sort of thing to remaster while the console starts to wind down.

3. Jet Set Radio Future – I tried my best with this when I played it for the first time a few years ago, but it made me very angry and so I didn’t finish it. I might have said elsewhere on this forum that if there was ever a game that needed a remaster then it was this. I found it really frustrating for loads of reasons, the main ones I remember being the maps and the controls. There’s many modern conveniences that could be added here that would massively improve it.

Rocket is one of those games from the era that I didn't get and wish I had, much like Skies of Arcadia (only Cappa likes it, so nothing like Skies of Arcadia). Great shout.

Buskalilly wrote:

Balla wrote:

Mario 64

Wow, where did you get such a wild idea?

Would you believe I hadn't got to that part of the episode before making this post? I'm a very slow and fragmented podcast listener. Still haven't finished it in fact.

I agree with the need for Cing's games to return, as well as a new version of Jet Set Radio Future. Classy games with a timeless look, but either dated in their gameplay or locked to defunct platforms.

I'd like to see a nice Time Crisis collection, with the relevant tools to plug and play on modern TVs. Wii sensor bar-style - they don't even need remastering, just let us play them.

As far as a fullblown remake goes, I'd love to see the Dotemu guys who did Streets of Rage 4 tackle the Golden Axe series. Golden Axe 4, but give them some light combo mechanics in conjunction with the magic. Or failing that, stick some Golden Axe DLC on to Streets of Rage 4.

Balla (and then everyone else), you got most of the ones I'd've picked, so hopefully someone's uncle who works at Nintendo is listening. Yeah to a new port of Kid Icarus for all the reasons y'all said (it's painful to watch someone else play it even) and Thousand Year Door, and the Hotel Dusk games. And in terms of proper re-dos, the thing is (whisper it) the Zelda Oracle game worlds are more interesting and less clunky than Link's Awakening, so would be great in the "smooth Link" format.

As for other ports:

• I know it came out on the 3DS but the original Donkey Kong Country Returns can probably be HD-ified - if only to avoid having to shake the remote to do a precise jump.
  
• This is crossing the line a bit as it was original in VGA resolution and would essentially need to be re-drawn, but Sam and Max Hit the Road is much better than the episodic games that followed it.
  
• Chibi-Robo - it might now be cult classic-y enough to take off now, just (he says as if it's a 5 minute job) need to revamp them textures a bit.
  
• Affordable Space Adventures

- the WiiU GamePad usage was great, but it's not absolutely 100% necessary to get the fun out of the game.

As for other reimaginings:
[*]Lemmings. Do you remember Lemmings? 30 years ago you couldn't move for the fuckers.
[*]Solar Jetman - I know a lot of your big space adventures have some aspect of haulage now, but travelling do different planets in a spaceship to pick up cool stuff is a neat concept (HEY RARE IT'S LIKE SEA OF THIEVES IN SPACE *COUGH*) - and loads of people bounced off it when they played Rare Replay.
[*]I actually have loads of other answers but they're all obscure computer games from the 20th Century that you don't care about, that suffered from a really interesting concept but designed at a time before people knew how to make games fun.

Chibi-Robo is absolutely a top answer! I can't believe I didn't think of it myself. Probably because I didn't play it at the time, so it didn't automatically spring to mind. That and Little King's Story are a couple of games I'd absolutely love to get rereleases in pretty much any form, although LKS did come up in that Back Page episode and Castle said it was nails so I'd probably need a difficulty re-do.

Other Jimbob games: I don't know whether DKCR would just feel a bit old hat on the same machine as Tropical Freeze, they're very similar but DKCTF has a champion soundtrack. As for Lemmings, you could play Tin Hearts instead? If you wanted a slow version of Lemmings. That's stupidly twee. And obviously designed for VR but isn't in VR. In fact, don't play Tin Hearts instead.

Jet Set Radio (and by extension Future) is one of those games where the only reason I didn't mention it is because I've never played it. I've watched videos where people say how dreadfully the thing's aged and is ripe for a do-over. That's why Bomb Rush Cyberfunk exists I suppose.

Golden Axe is a excellent shout from gJones, where I was thinking more what from a few gens ago and not that far back.