A bonus round, meant for the previous “draught”, but it still isn’t Christmas, as Mr. Wright would point out, so enjoy!
Since the industry is experiencing the inevitable resource creep and is eventually forced right now to reap what they sow, as the new consoles “have no games” because mainstream big budget videogames have pigeonholed themselves into a situation where is too expensive and takes too long to even make one of these (emulating the big budget cinema industry they wanted so much to be to a tee), remasters have been the way too go.
Old crap with new paint or fixes to the rope itself takes still less than making a new game from scratch, is easy as you can cater to the evergrowing nostalgia market (due to the gaming populace aging because natural entropy is a thing and your flesh will fail you, eventually) longing for ages long gone, be it the Atari early days or the mascote platformer craze of the 90s, you can safely bet on an already established name, and the market is big enough that even obscure shit like Felix The Cat videogames of yore and Bubsy can get a collection with improvements, quality of feature, and shady publishers like Piko Interactive can publish in 2022 (on Steam at the moment, with console releases coming) a somehow buggier, worse looking version of Glover than when it launched on Nintendo 64. In 1998.
Be it collections of enhanced ports or remasters that just update the graphical side of things, the public craves and buys these for a variety of reasons, publishers are more than happy as it cheaper all together, so in the spirit of the time i will be dotting down my own wishlist of remasters/ports/re-releases that i would like to see.
Order is casual, btw.
- Muramasa The Demon Blade (and Princess Crown)
If not only for the sake of the amazing artstyle and craft of Vanillaware, i feel some of their older titles have not been ported or made easily available, which is fine as they’re a niche studio that’s still doing good, as shown with Unicorn Overlord.
But still, while Odin Sphere and Dragon Crown have been ported to many modern (even if now “old-gen”) consoles and platforms, i can’t help of thinking of Muramasa The Demon Blade, “stuck” in its original physical retail form on the Wii, and at best on PS Vita with the DLC extra content/Stories, and us in PAL/European territories didn’t even get the physical version of that.
It would be a relatively easy remaster, not even much to fix (at least without redoing the entire game from scratch), and why not, an easy way to make some moolah, maybe throwing in that darn official localization of Princess Crown, i mean, they made a PS4 japanese version as a free DLC/add on if you bought 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim, sure, its just the PSP port (it originally launched on the Sega Saturn).
Probably they need a Kickstarter thing, but still, i would give them money to make a Muramasa HD port or a proper localized version of Princess Crown that they can benefit from.
I would.
2 God Hand remaster
Since a new Okami sequel was just announced, Kamiya is back in Capcom with the CLOVERs team, the chance of this happening are now not zero, and boy this is a case where i don’t want a remake. The game had already plenty of what we now take for granted in terms of accessibility/difficulty adjustment features, not that it can’t be improved, but honestly i wouldn’t want any major change in terms of story, style, or gameplay, i’d keep even the quirks with the controls, and the ability to basically personalize completely your entire combo movesets is something not even the later gen beat em ups/action games did.
Maybe just throw in some extra side activities or modes like i dunno, ape wrestling.
And since CLOVER Is back, remaster the original Viewtiful Joe games, Capcom, what the heck.
3. Medievil 2
It’s kinda funny in how many times Sony rereleased or remade the original Medievil, it never did even a PS1 Classic re-release of the sequel, which to my understanding has a split reception due to the story new tone, and some of the gameplay, even with the cool new “Dan Hand” mechanic and them trying to fix some of the issues of the first game, like the camera, while also having more platforming without fundamentally fixing the jumping and the feel of Dan not being built for elevation shenanigans.
Then again, it’s no surprise there’s a lot less nostalgia, since it was released in the PS1 twilight years, and by then it wasn’t exactly what people wanted from games on the console, heck, i wager a lot of people didn’t even knew there was a sequel to Medievil before the PS4 remake/remaster dropped… or now that i just mentioned it.
But even more than the first, Medievil 2 would actually benefit from a ground up remake not only for the aesthetical side of things, but the gameplay side as well, especially that, and especially the platforming itself.
I guess when eventually Sony has to fill a release slot for an October release, maybe?
4. Disgaea 3 and Disgaea D2
I frigging love Disgaea and i’ve been a firm believer of the series since i discovered it with the DS port of the first game, i’ve bought the complete editions over time, and NIS definitely enjoyed getting more cashamagazoo in recent years with releasing the series on PC as well.
Yet, with even them porting over the Prinny PSP spin-off titles to Switch and recent platforms, it seems like they’ve stopped just short of re-releasing Disgaea 3 outside of the (then usual) PS Vita expanded port, just about rereleasing any other title in the series in a new “complete-r” edition for modern consoles and Steam.
And given the Prinny games collection being a fairly barebones duo of ports from PSP, i wonder what stops them from releasing “Disgaea 3 Complete” for older and current gen consoles (and PC), especially as they’ve been quick to rerelease Complete edition of recent Disgaea mainline titles not that far after launch, as demonstrated with Disgaea 6.
I kind get why they are not jumping the gun to remaster or rerelease it, as it had been a kinda divisive entry back in the day, not only for it stuck to pixel sprite over any attempt at 3D models during the PS3 era, but because it made some unpopolar changes to the longtime established systems fans had spent years and hundred-thousand of hours getting used to.
But especially as the main cast is still fairly liked, i wonder why they didn’t rerelease this, and especially Disgaea D2, which is actually a direct sequel to the first Disgaea (all mainline entries have different characters and stories and worlds), being still stuck on PS3.
Mind you, i’m glad NIS took time to do more original one-off titles and weird experiments, especially when it’s such a niche company that no one would reasonably “blame” if it stuck to its main moneymaker, aka Disgaea, but i’d say these titles in the series have been long due to a remaster-port with benefits, i would pay for them, and i feel i’m not alone.
5. Dino Crisis “trilogy”
More Capcom titles, i know, but instead of begging once again for Capcom to localize old or new Sengoku Basara games, i will bang the other drum that many others did and still do, this time in spite of them saying they ain’t planning to do anything with the Dino Crisis IP.
Exoprimals had some of that “Big Dino Capcom Energy” but they also kinda lied, as they recently re-released a PS4/PS5 compatible version of the original Dino Crisis on the PSN, as a paid title outside of the PS Plus premium tier subscription.
They could actually keep doing that and rerelease in these “enhanced emulated ports” the sequel and leave it at that, most likely they ain’t gonna touch Dino Crisis 3 or Dino Stalker ever again, but this is a wishlist so i’d say they could actually package all the series as a Switch release first (so you would have the joycons acting as light guns for Dino Stalker) and then for PC.
Heck, even just releasing the old versions on Steam (and not just the soundtracks, come on, now) as is would be a better service to their niche IP than nothing.
6. any fuckin Namco or Sega light gun shooter collection for Switch or “Switch 2”
I’ve lamented and shaken my fist before at how publishers almost completely ignored the chance to republish their old catalogues of light gun shooter despite the Switch main model also having motion controls that could make porting old ass arcade light gun on rail shooter easy as hell… and given how little has changed (they did port good ol’ Big Buck Hunter to the Switch eShop, that was a staple of many arcades for a good decade or so, and even the Corpse Killer remaster appeared worlwide, even if only on Steam here), im gonna lament myself again and maybe hope the Switch 2 also has motion controls or controls that can replicate the light gun accessories feeling.
Because honestly, in this age of nostalgia being a driving point of the market, being the safest if not only way to approach the situation, as people have demonstrated to be potentially nostalgic for everything (the Tiger handhelds replicas do exist), it’s surprising Namco didn’t simply rerelease all Time Crisis older games, especially since Time Crisis 5, released back in 2015 only for arcades, was the last proper mainline entry it got.
Just go “big bang for your buck”, and thrown in the pS1 and PS2 spin-offs, and what the hell, once again Deadstorm Pirates, love that one (and it was also previously re-released as 3-in-1 pack with Razing Storm and Time Crisis 4 for PS3), no need to even do much of a graphical overhaul, i honestly don’t care too much, and in these day and age we, as the last of our kind (on rail shooter enthusiasts), can’t afford to be picky, at all.
What the hell, include all the Point Blank games, while we’re at it, why not?
Heck, even Sega, whom would score easy nostalgia point with a complete collection of the House Of The Dead series (minus the Typing Of spin-offs, at least on consoles)… hasn’t, to the point Microids (that usually puts out licensed games based on French IPs and similar european , while they don’t somehow get the Ufo Mazinger game to publish, surprisingly so) published the House Of The Dead 1 remake.
Maybe it is too niche even to bother nowadays, but if fuckers can try to sell a compilation of 2 old ass platformers based around Felix The Cat (of all things)… i dunno.
7. A new, proper Metal Slug Collection
Yes, technically Metal Slug Anthology exists on PS4, physical as well (and NOT by Limited Run Games, thankfully), but it’s a cheap port of the collection that released 10 years before, in 2006, to celebrate the series 10th anniversary, and given both my love for the series and how little current SNK is doing with it in terms of stuff that isn’t (or wasn’t) F2P mobile stuff, it would be easy money to do another collection, since Metal Slug 7 (or its XX revision) wasn’t out yet, and we got recent re-releases of the Neo Geo Pocket titles too, Metal Slug Advance shouldn’t be ignored, and why the fuck not, put Metal Slug 3D in there, it’s already in English for the most part, and at least it’s not one of these modern garbage (and less garbage) gacha games that use the Metal Slug license with little regard to quality.
I could go on but time’s-a-ticking, so see you tomorrow for this years’ 12 Days Of Dino Dicember to start!
Wise Cafe (International) 