It is no surprise that for years remastered games have taken a hold of the game industry. Games that we grew up playing as kids are being recreated with better graphics and better overall gameplay appeal to fit with modern advances in technology and expectations from, us, the gamers.
Remastered games offer the opportunity to revitalize old classics and pull our nostalgic heartstrings. However, they also have the potential to squander the magic of their classic predecessors, make studios lazy and uninventive, and exploit gamer’s nostalgia for money. Today I’m gonna walk through what makes a remastered game good, bad, or just plain horrible.
What is a Remastered Game?
First off we need to understand what a remastered game is before we can accurately pass judgement. My definition of a remastered game is a pre-existing game that is improved upon to create a meaningful and enhanced experience that can cater to both veteran and new players of the franchise.
Remastered games starting taking hold in the game industry during the arrival of next gen consoles (PS3/Xbox era and up). When remastered games first started appearing they weren’t even called remasters. My first remastered game that I saw hit the market was Jak and Daxter HD Collection, which bundled all 3 games into one package with HD graphics. These kinds of games offer players to play games they grew up with better graphics, increase framerates and the ability to access all their favorite games of the franchise off of one disc.
It wasn’t until the PS4/Xbox One era kicked off where remasters really started to become saturated across the game market. Games that came out on the PS3/Xbox were now being resold with better graphics and bundled dlcs. Studios saw the advantage of the technological prowess of next-gen consoles and decided to bring hits from the late PS3/Xbox era to newer consoles, probably due to the lack of titles they had when these next-gen consoles first launched.
The graphic fidelity of these next-gen consoles was and still is groundbreaking and people wanted the best experience of a game they could buy. So when games like The Last of Us, Tomb Raider, Final Fanatsy X/X2 came out with remastered graphics people snatched them up. Afterall, these were all great games when you originally played them, so why wouldn’t you want to buy an enhanced version of the game to take your experience and overall enjoyment further?
The Spectrum of Remastered Games
Now when gamer’s find out a game is getting the remastered treatment, they are either filled with excitement or disappointment and frustration. All remastered games are different and it’s important to differentiate what makes games “low-end remasters” or “high-end remasters”.
Low-end remasters, as I like to call them, are games that studios put very little effort in to resell a franchise. If they just transition the game to HD or increase the resolution and add nothing more to enhance the gaming experience this would be the textbook definition of a low-end remaster.
Now sometimes this is just a way to bring an outdated game into the fold of current technology and consoles, but a lot of the time it’s typically a lazy attempt by game studios to cash in on an old IP. They try to market the game as a “definitive” experience, but really it's just a glorified port to another console and studios try to capitalize on it as much as possible.
Take Borderlands 1, for example. Recently, this game was given the “remastered” treatment and was brought to next-gen consoles as a promotional strategy for the upcoming Borderlands 3 game that is about to launch in a couple weeks. In the advertisement, it claims to support Ultra HD and 4K resolution making it seem like the ultimate way to experience the game.
However, if you look at the comparisons from old and new consoles, there’s very little differences from the original version and the “Ultra HD” version. Sure the improvements are there, but it’s far from being a game changer. As a friend of mine described it all they did was put on a fresh coat of HD paint on the graphics, added some updated VFX, and called it a remaster.
Sure people who have never played Borderlands 1 can now play it on the new consoles with all the dlc, but to people who have played the original game before this doesn’t really offer anything new. Low-end remasters like this aren't bad by any means, but it can sometimes build up false expectations in gamer's expecting a "true" remastered experience.
Now a high-end remaster is a game that goes above and beyond to deliver a worthwhile experience for both new and veteran players of a game. This is where the studio sits down and really pushes the envelope on the original vision for the game using the skills, creativity, and technological advances that they have to work with.
A high-end remaster is a game that revingorates the magic and fun that the game made players feels during its initial release. The best example I can think of is Spyro: The Regnited Trilogy. This remaster was made by a company known as Toys for Bob and they did a phenomenal job at bringing Spyro back. Toys for Bob rebuilt Spyro from the ground up creating highly detailed graphics, expressive animations, precise controls, beautiful music, and so much more all for just $40. I personally had a blast with this game!
Now I didn’t grow up with a PlayStation 1, so I never played the original Spyro games. But, I have to say, if there’s a remaster out there that does the original game justice this one has to be it. They put so much effort in establishing this world for Spyro without cutting any corners to give players the best experience possible. No overpriced retail value, no microtransactions, and no game breaking bugs at launch. This is what a true remastered game should look like.
Now that we know what a remaster is and have a better idea of this spectrum of quality remastered games have let’s get down to the nitty gritty of the good, bad, and ugly of these kinds of games!
The Good
Old Classics Become New Marvels
One of the benefits of putting out a remastered game is that it gives players who have never played the original game the opportunity to play a polished, better version on their current-gen systems. Which is perfectly fine! It makes sense that people who haven’t played the original would spend their money to buy a definitive version of the game than an outdated one.
While Borderlands 1 might not be very appealing to veteran players, a person who's never played the game before might find the $30 game worth it. The same goes for games like Spyro and Crash Bandicoot.
Not everyone was raised in the 90’s, so not everyone is going to be able to play the original Crash Bandicoot on the PlayStation 1. With game technology advancing, consoles are constantly being replaced by shiner, more powerful systems. And with that games are going to look, play, and feel better as videogames grow.
While some purists might say Crash is best on the PlayStation 1. It’s unrealistic to tell someone to find an old Playstation, find a game, and play it on a small tube television. Not only is it a hassle to find all those parts, but its freaking expensive too!
The more outdated the system, the more expensive it gets. So, when you have a fully remastered Crash Bandicoot on the Playstation 4 that you already own selling for $40 it becomes a lot more accessible for people to play a reimagined classic.
An Enhanced Experience
Another great thing about remasters games is that some of these games really offer the players a more polished experience or a fresh new take on their favorite games. Take the Last of Us Remastered, for example. One of the biggest additions to this game that wasn’t available on the PlayStation 3, was the HDR functionality.
Back when this game originally debuted on the PS3, the graphics were amazing. This was the PS3’s peak of visual fidelity and people were awestruck by it, but as impressive as it was it still wasn’t the best that the game could offer.
When HDR was introduced on the PS4, however, the developers revisited the LAst of US to boost the graphics further by offering the HDR functionality in the PS4 rerelease of the game.. The Last of Us is a great for a lot of reasons, such as the story and the gameplay, but where I think this game really shines and brings all these things together is the hyper realistic graphics seen in the characters and in the world.
In a survival post-apocalyptic game like The Last of US, providing realism and an atmospheric world are critical to get players immersed into the characters and the game. Adding different settings to enhance the overall look of the game really help to add that extra thin layer of immersion to an already great game.
The Bad
The “Remastered” Trap
When companies found out that they could resell the same games they’ve already produced just by enhancing the graphics, a lot of their focus was on just reselling the same franchise. Games that sold really well, were sold again with the title “remastered” or “defintive edition” attached to it, making it seem like it was a brand new experience for veteran players. When, in actuality, they just made the game prettier.
This introduces a big problem that has been taking hold of the game industry. Graphics do NOT make a game fun. They don’t. Yes, as game technology advances there is going to be a certain level of expectations and standards when it comes down to the graphic fidelity of games. However, graphics, on their own do not make a game great nor does it necessarily make older games better, except with games like The Last of Us being rare exceptions.
You can’t tell me that a game that came out 5, maybe 10 years ago, is going to be better simply because the graphics look better. Gamers have fallen into this trap of thinking that if a game is remastered it must mean it is better than the original version of the game. Some even have expectations so high that they believe that if a game is remastered it is almost an entirely different game than the original that it’s based on and odds are its not.
Studios think if they make the graphics prettier and bundle past dlc with the game, they can easily resell their old material. They spend all their time polishing an already completed game instead of working on an entirely new and different franchise as a way to make some easy money.
The Yakuza Remasters are a perfect example of this. The Yakuza games have been around for early 15 years and there's a strong fanbase for the franchise. However, the whole series is getting a remaster makeover, so every game that has been released, except for the recent ones, are being prettied up with better graphics.
This isn't necessarily bad on its own because this offers the whole franchise to be playable on current-gen consoles. However, the remasters themselves focus so much on the graphics that they don't focus on improving other aspects for the game. Yakuza 3 Remastered looks amazing compared to what it original looked liked, but while the graphics are modernized the gameplay is still pretty dated. The combat is as janky and imprecise as it was 10 years ago.
This can cause a disconnect for players because they expect a similar experience to playing the most recent Yakuza 6 with precise controls and fluid gameplay and then playing Yakuza 3 with weird timing and movesets.
If they were going to completely remaster these games, they should equally focus on making the game as technically sounds as possible as well as making sure the visuals are up to today's standards and add another level of immersion to the player's experience.
Remasters vs. Remakes
Recently games like Destroy All Humans, Spongebob: Battle for Bikini Bottom, and Ghostbusters have been announced to come out as remastered editions. Now I remember playing these games as a kid and loved them, especially Destroy All Humans. However, when they announced that these games were coming out again as complete remasters I was kinda disappointed.
Yes, the games look great and everything, but the problem is that it’s still the same game. When I first heard that Destroy All Humans was coming back, I was really excited because I thought it was going to be a remake and they were going to have a fresh new take on Crypto and expand on messing with humans with newer and more powerful technology available to developers. However, once I realized that the game was just a remaster and I saw some of the gameplay footage I wasn’t impressed.
The graphics are fancy sure, but I prefer the Playstation 2 version any day because it's the way I remember it. I would’ve preferred they remade the franchise instead of just remastering it because I’ve played that game a hundred times and somehow the fancy graphics just ruin it for me a little.
Sometimes I think that remasters of certain games are a missed opportunity on the developers part. Some games, however dated they might be, are great the way that they are and remastering them doesn’t really add anything to the initial experience. In fact, it can dampen the experience you remember having when you were a kid because it’s almsot like their modernizing or polishing up your childhood in a way.
What might be better for the franchise is to come at it from a different creative angle and develop a new experience, while holding fast to all the aspects that made the original game so enjoyable. I think a remake of Destroy All Humans would be much better way to revisit the franchise than just updated the graphics of the game to today’s standards.
The Ugly
The Vicious Cycle of a Console Owner
Remastered games have their problems, but I think the people who suffer the most are those who own next-gen consoles. Every time a remastered game comes out, console owners fall into the trap of paying money for the same game again and again. Sure the graphics are better and maybe they added some new features to the game, but shelling out your hard earned money to play a “better” version of the game you played a couple years ago can both be taxing on your wallet and frustrating as a gamer and consumer.
Unfortunately, videogames are a disposable medium and while you may enjoy your games now, it's no guarantee that they’ll be as good as you remember them in the future. When a next-gen consoles launches, everything you currently have seems outdated and sub-par compared to the top of the line games setting the new standards for games.
In order to keep up with the times and play some awesome games you need to invest in a new system and games, which may mean you have to sell off your previous systems so you can afford all your new hardware. So, you can’t be expected to hold onto every game or game system you collect over the years.
If you purchased a game on Steam that came out 5-10 years ago and the company who made the game decides to come out with a remastered version of the game, all Steam users need to do is download an update and they get a better version of the game absolutely free. Consoles owners on the other hand, have to buy the newest version of the game even if they bought the game before on a last-gen console or even on the current-gen console they already own to experience all the juicy new upgrades.
That means console owners can get roped into paying the same game multiple times for a “better” experience that at the end of the day doesn’t seem worth it. The game itself is still the same game you played 5 years ago. The graphics and bug fixes just give the game a nice polish and gamers get frustrated for buying the same content over and over again.
Laziness of Game Developers
Many people are worried about the effect remastered games have the game industry. For one, many players believe that game companies that publish remastered IPs are becoming lazy, realizing they can still make profit off of older games instead of making new ones. Why go through all the effort and trouble of creating a new IP when you can just blow the dust off and give a nice shine to a game you already made and sell that?
Borderlands 1 and Assassins Creed: Ezio Collection are just a couple games that are guilty of this. The developers basically just made the resolution better and called it a day. Ubisoft knows they haven’t made a decent Assassins Creed game in years, so instead of focusing on what players loved in the Ezio Trilogy to put into a new game, they just remaster the series and resell it because they know people will buy it. Why? Because gamers loved the Ezio Assassin Creed games when they played them 10 years ago and Ubisoft knows they can tap them out of their money by reselling a better “experience” to them.
What makes remastered games super frustrating is when there are more bugs in the new version of the game than in the old one. When you are relaunching a game whose sole purpose is to enhance your gaming experience and you somehow put more bugs into the game that make the textures look like crap and make the character slip through walls, that’s where you know the companies simply didn’t care.
I’m calling out the Ezio Collection again on this! When this “remasterd” game first came out. The graphics that were suppsoed to be “updated” and “better” were so buggy that it actually made the game seem WORSE than the original. Lighting setups were all over the place, the game would crash at random points, and the faces of characters were inside out forcing you to see bulged out eyeballs and teeth outside of the character’s mouths! It was a horror show and a complete slap to the face to the original series.
Unless you are rebuilding the game from the ground up like Spyro or Crash Bandicoot, there should be no bugs that break the game or break your immersion in the game because you are already working on a completed game! Companies that release buggy remasters are clearly just trying to make some quick money and shows they didn’t take the time to go through a thorough quality check before reshipping the game. Why am I giving you my hard earned money for a game that’s glitchy and sometimes just flat out broken when I can just play the original that works fine
Final Thoughts
Besides remastered games that are obviously trash, the quality of a remastered game really varies from person to person. Some people may love remasters and others might think they are cop outs from studios and prefer the originals. It all depends on who you ask.
What do you think about remastered games? Is there a remastered game you enjoy or is there a old classic you would love to see get the remaster treatment? Comment below and I'll talk to you soon!
Dean Willms
~Gamer. Designer. Friend.
