Original Or Remake?

Either the remakes have improve on the original or they didn't do them Justice.

Some put Kirby Super Star Ultra in the former, while some pure Nightmare in Dreamland in the latter.

What originals or remakes did you prefer?

The HD remakes of Serious Sam.

OVER 5000 POLYGONS PER KRUNDLE

I have yet to play a remake that I don't prefer over the original, but maybe that's just me.

Hmm. So long as we're talking remakes and not reboots, remakes are usually better.
Metroid: Zero Mission is barely comparable to Metroid.
Mega Man: Powered Up captured the soul of Mega Man and managed to give it insane replayability.

I could go on, but there's really no point. When a company goes back and polishes one of it older titles, it usually turns out pretty nice.

I don't believe I've ever played a remake that wasn't at least as good as the original though generally they're much more awesome.

After playing games like Metroid Zero Mission, various Pokemon remakes, the GBA or DS versions of FF 1-6 I honestly can't see why anybody would ever want to go back to the originals.

Both

There are a lot of players who grew to love the legitimate problems with the originals (particularly art goofs, translations weirdness and coding errors) and throw a fit when those get fixed in remakes.

I've been disappointed with a couple remakes... Still, there's nothing wrong with Final Fantasy V Advance, Metroid: Zero Mission or Tetris DS.

Not a full blown remake, but I prefer the original SNES version of Chrono Trigger over the DS port due to the much more colourful and amusing script.

For Link's Awakening and DX, original for sure. I miss my Flying Rooster. :|

Hard to say between the two versions of A Link to the Past, really.

As for Quest 64 and Quest RPG: Brian's Journey, I'd go with Quest 64. They're both awesome in their own right, but Quest 64 takes out the Game Over aspect overall. That said, Japanese version(which is fairly different) trumps both by a large margin.

Some of the originals have way too much nostalgic value for me to be able to fully accept the remake, in particular the remake of Pokemon Gold and Silver.

A remake I thoroughly prefer before the original, however, is the remake of Resident Evil for Gamecube. I believe the creator of the game himself said that with the remake he could do all the things he had wished to do with the Playstation-version, but could not be done due to platform limitations. Of course, the original game has its charm with old control-systems and graphical limitations, but REmake is just so much better.

I feel that Kirby Super Star Ultra, FF4, FF5, and FF6 Advance, FF1 & 2 GBA, and HG/SS all go into the first one.

edited 9th Sep '12 9:07:22 AM by Bookyangel2438

Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes is very good overall, but I'm not if I prefer it over the original. The cutscenes have needless Bullet Time and ridiclous acrobatics (as well as some instances of narm due to the facial animation), Naomi and Mei Ling's accents were changed, and it has an entirely new soundtrack. But on the other hand, the graphics are much, much better, the controls are improved (being mostly imported from the second game), and Mei Ling having an American accent makes more sense if you think about it.

With Super Mario All-Stars, I'd say it's an improvement in the case of most of the games. Super Mario Bros 2 & 3 look awesome, and play exactly the same. The first game and the Lost Levels also look fantastic (although I had kinda wished they had stuck closer to the art style of the NES version), but the physics when Mario hits a block are changed somewhat in the remake, which can really mess with the rhythm of the game.

The Wii version of Punch Out is definitely an improvement over the NES game. Each opponent was reworked to be more like a Puzzle Boss, while still keeping quick reflexes as a priority. There's also a bigger variety of characters, and the Title Defense mode was a stroke of genius, legitimately doubling the game's length.

I largely prefer the originals most of the time.

To me, a remake is often like colorizing a black-and-white movie, except worse. Film buffs hate colorizations because often they produce an aesthetic that is at odds with the rest of the film (and sometimes because they just look bad) and to me, upgrading a game's graphics has a similar result. Final Fantasy I on the Origins collection, for example, may look like an SNES RPG now, but it sure doesn't play like one.

That's a minor gripe overall. I still like the Origins compilation, and the Gameboy Color remakes of Dragon Quest I, II and III.

What I don't like are things like Dawn of Souls, where they not only change the aesthetic but also the gameplay. That version basically isn't even FF 1 anymore except in plot, and if that's all you care about then that's one thing, but when I play FF 1 I want to play it for the full experience of it being FF 1, not just so I can memorize minutiae details about a story where four warriors light a bunch of crystals and defeat a demon.

So yeah, stuff like Origins, DQ on the GBC, and the point-n-click version of Space Quest I get a pass from me, but Dawn of Souls does not and I doubt the other GBA remakes would either.

All other things being equal, given an original game vs a remake with updated graphics, I will probably prefer the remake because I enjoy pretty pictures. If it smooths out some issues like archaic controls that aren't used anymore for a darn good reason, I'll consider that a bonus too (this, I think, has so far kept me from being able to get into the original Deus Ex). However if you're going to remake a classic game, you better stay true to it. No pulling a Greedo vs Han switch or anything so egregious. And watch out for that Polygon Ceiling.

I do consider it different from film colorization: for one, the original version is still easily available. Two, while both old games and black and white films are products of technical limitations, for game developers the tech of the time didn't always reflect their ideal of what the game could be without some of those limits and they are generally glad to be able to update their work for new tech.

edited 9th Sep '12 6:57:30 PM by Elle

I think most game remakes are better than the original, if only because the technology advances unbelievably fast, especially when compared to film.

The main aim of certain remakes is to allow a new generation of players to experience classics without them running into the frustrations or quirks that the original audience grew to love- which might put newbies off. They do not aim to provide a straight up higher-def version of the original experience. The FF remakes are mostly like this.

I prefer Pokemon Heart Gold because it's Pokemon Gold but more and essentially a loveletter to the fans of that generation, but I still have a soft-spot for the GB version. I prefer the original Red and Blue over their remakes though, mostly for the art and partially because of the raw-feeling of the moveslist.

More generally, any remake that includes a save function when the original didn't is instantly better in my eyes.

edited 9th Sep '12 9:53:16 PM by Braincogs

I do recall one case where I felt the remake was better overall. That was Lunar: the Silver Star Story for the PS 1, versus the original Sega CD version. The original still has a sort of campy charm about it (Fighting! Through the Darkness! All is evil, still we must press on!) but the PS 1 version seriously smooths out the problems with the story and takes the cast from being simple two-dimensional archtypes to being fully-realized people, and ultimately is the more memorable experience because of it.

Also a borderline case (since I'm not really sure if a port is necessarily a remake), the NES versions of Ultima III: Exodus and Might and Magic: Secret of the Inner Sanctum. In both cases they not only got major graphical overhauls (compared to the original PC versions) but also major gameplay changes—moreso in Might and Magic, where a lot of the gameplay mechanics and pretty much the entire battle system have been revised, and in my opinion for the better.

I guess what I'm saying here is that, remakes are fine as long as they're legitimately an improvement, or at least don't hurt. I personally don't care much for video game remakes, because despite what a previous poster said, the original version isn't really "readily available" except through piracy (which, despite what we're conditioned to think by hanging out on the internet all the time, is actually not something your average joe knows about) or else the used games scene—and again, not everyone has a working NES. I personally think all remakes should also include the original versions on the same disc, but you know that's never gonna happen (shout out to Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks for actually doing this though)

I personally think all remakes should also include the original versions on the same disc, but you know that's never gonna happen (shout out to Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks for actually doing this though)

Metroid: Zero Mission did this as well. Buying that games meaning not bothering with the Classic NES Version on the GBA.

I generally favour the remakes myself.

Streets of Rage Remake surpasses any Streets of Rage game before it, even though it's a fangame.

Indeed. Sega would've gained a lot by doing what Valve frequently does with modder teams in that case.