3D fan remakes/variations of old-school 2D games

There are some fan game designers who have created essentially remakes of or homages to old-school 2D games. Some of them are done really well.

For example, there's a 3D remake of Zelda 2: The Adventure of Link in first-person shooter form. At least up to the first temple. It's done really well, and removes towns from existence, but keeps everything else - caves, the elevators in the temple, the way bumping into an enemy on a map transports you to the fight screen, and so on. Some rules were bent out of necessity, but it works really well, and can be played in a browser. Worth checking out if you can find it (I don't remember where it is, but search "zelda fps").

Speaking of FPS, there's also a game called Mega Man 8-bit Deathmatch. It's really fun. It's built off the Doom engine, but doesn't require Doom to actually play it, and is standalone. You can play as any robot master from the NES days of Mega Man, and you can pick up any weapon. As you'd expect, characters change colors when they switch weapons, so you can tell, for instance, that Cut Man is using electricity because he's change to brown and beige.

It's pretty much standard deathmatch rules, but the Mega Man motif is fantastically done. It looks like the NES in 3D - even moreso than the Zelda game - and all the items that refill life and weapon energy are there and work like you'd expect. The life and weapon meters are straight out of the series, the weapons have the behaviors you'd expect, and the levels use actual graphics from the games whenever possible as textures. You can get it at http://www.cutstuff.net

Sonic Robo Blast 2, finally, is a 3D Sonic that seeks to mimic the 2D Sonics - something the 3D Sonics themselves didn't quite do. The rules are completely old-school, as is the level design. It's also built off the Doom engine, not requiring Doom to play. It has bonus stages that can be visited at the end of a level, music that changes to a slightly different version in the second act of a level compared to the first (like in Sonic 3 and Sonic and Knuckles), and basically recreates old-school Sonic very well, although the controls can be a bit hard to deal with (switch to "analog control" for a more direct control method, but it can still be a challenge at times). It's not perfect, and takes getting used to, but it's a very admirable effort. It's up at http://www.srb2.org

What other games have you seen that work to recreate old-school games in 3D? And how well did they do at it?

Chrono Trigger Resurrection

I'd rather see new games remade in 2D.

^Gang Garrison 2?

Also, Doom3: Classic, Tiberian Dawn for C&C3 and Red Alert: A Path Beyond.

I think some of the Ultima games were up for that treatment.

Sonic Fan Remix. It's not really 3D, but it IS a remake of Sonic 2 with updated graphics. Looks really good. Plays better than Sonic 4 IMO.

http://sonicfanremix.com/

I remember that.

I remember thinking that the background visuals were really distracting.

This is interesting. I'll post here so I can find this thread later.

Yeah, the visuals are pretty to look at, but they make it hard to see Sonic at times.

edited 11th Apr '11 8:28:59 PM by Komodin

That game is gorgeous, and Sonic 2 is my favorite classic Sonic game.

@blueharp: Yeah, Project Britannia is remaking U5 & U6 in the Dungeon Siege engine.

There were also 3D remakes of Ultima I and II as well. They kinda either got discontinued or became unrelated projects.

This has lots of info on Ultima remakes.