For example, take Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time.
As a kid and a HUGE Ninja Turtles fan, I LOVED this game. I didn't personally have a SNES(my parents believed a regular old NES was more than enough video games in the house, which just goes to prove how wrong parents can be) so every time we'd go over to my Aunt and Uncles house for Christmas Eve, I'd push and push to go to the basement to play this game, and I would play it over and over. Year after year, nothing kept me on the edge of my seat like the anticipation of playing this game. That being said, you might understand how incredibly happy I was to hear it was being remade. Scratch that, not happy, uncontrollably ecstatic. I was giddy, I was willing to pay any price to get it. And when it came out I payed the full price, and I sat down and played, and I was livid.
This was not the game I remembered. As soon as I beat it, I went over to my SNES which was recently purchased, and put in my just as new copy of Turtles in Time and confirmed my growing anger. This impostor wasn't even a lame remake. This was a completely different game. Some levels, like the sewer surfing level were shortened, and the boss removed. Other levels were completely removed. I was crushed. To this day, I've played through that remake three times, two of which with someone who never played the original and was blissfully unaware of everything that was missing, keeping it from the greatness it should have attained.
So, should this game have been remade? My answer is no, or at least not by Ubisoft, who seem to be having a tough time keeping things good.
As a kid, I never played Metal Gear, and I know for a fact if I had, it would be treated like almost every game I played on the NES that wasn't a platformer or arcade style brawler, played once and never touched again. I play it now, and see what they were trying to accomplish, and also see how they couldn't reach that point for a couple console generations. That's where Metal Gear Solid came in for the Sony Playstation.
MGS gave the series the push it needed to become a great series. The Playstation could work out the stealth and shooting in a way the NES couldn't dream of. It rewards patience and timing in a way that isn't just about making the jump from one ledge to another.
So, was it worth remaking? Extremely so. Had it not been made in the first place or remade, we wouldn't have have MGS 2-4, Splinter Cell, and in a different degree, Batman Arkham Asylum.
As we can see, remakes are a double edged sword. You can make things better, or you can ruin an already great game. So, the question now is what are your favorite or least favorite remakes? Is there one you're waiting for? How about one you hope they leave alone?
