Cloud Strife from FF7
Everyone is clamoring for a Final Fantasy 7 remake, or a Chrono Trigger remake, the list really goes on and on. But I think this has to do with the infantile state of the gaming audience. Re-makes rarely ever live up to expectations, there’s always something off about it, and most fans are turned off. The big problem with gamers is graphics are king, and some people (for instance my brother) won’t even play a game that doesn’t have the best graphics (he’s not a PSone classics fan it seems).
So it makes sense that a company would remake a game, and some have turned out great, like one I can name, Metal Gear Solid, The Twin Snakes for the gamecube, or Resident Evil also for the gamecube. But how many after that have lived up to the original?
To see how foolish this idea is we have to look at the film industry. Look at the classic defining movies of the past. Casablanca, Citizen Kane, or Gone with the Wind. Although the gaming generation doesn’t know these movies too well, we realize that these are true classics, and if someone decided to re-make one or all of these great films they’d be laughed out of the business. Sometimes a work of art needs to be respected enough to speak for itself.
- Image via Wikipedia
Now, what’s becoming interesting with all the digital distribution of classic games is original properties are being given the chance to find a new audience, and be appreciated by the younger gamers out there. One for instance Silent Hill was released on the network this year. It was one of the first PSone Classics I downloaded, and to my surprise I was hooked. Now out came Silent Hill Shattered Memories, which was a re-telling of the story (a re-make) built for the Wii, and ported to PS2, and PSP. This game was well reviewed, but it makes me wonder why I would choose the new version over the old, when the old game began the long running series, and this other new (and much more expensive game) was just trying to emulate it.
The same fate could befall Final Fantasy 7; a landmark achievement in many gamer’s minds, and the game that sold the Western market on JRPGs. What I find odd is that the fans are pushing for this. That the same creative people who once built this game that is so loved should put their creativity on the shelf and remake a game that came out over ten years ago. If the same thing happened in the film industry it would be ludicrous, could you imagine Spielberg remaking Schindler’s List ten years after its release? It’s insane! He should be working on new projects not just revisiting old properties to cash in (the rest of the industry can do that VERY well).
I think the problem with the gaming industry today is that game directors aren’t being considered real artists, and this is changing somewhat, but there are only a few that I can think of. Shigeru Miyamoto, Ken Levine, Peter Molyneux these guys are all spectacularly gifted game directors, but they also have something in common, they all work on sequels, Miyamoto does the same games over and over again, sometimes Mario, sometimes Zelda, (where the only plot twist is when Link gets his boomerang) Ken Levine although Bioshock is one of my favorite games ever, just remade System Shock 2, I mean he barely even changed the name, Peter Molyneux… well he just seems to have really big ideas but never seems to follow through on them, although I did enjoy Black and White. (Of Course how could I forget Hideo Kojima! A great talent that has remade the same game for years on end it seems…)
- Image via Wikipedia
These guys are the cream of the game creator crop, but they’re stuck doing sequels time and time again. Again look at the film industry, it’s like Speilberg released a new Jaws movie every three years with slightly updated special effects, actors who looked the same, but had the same basic story over and over again. People would get bored of it, because film audiences are (and I hate to say it) smarter than the average gamer. What sells is re-releases of Madden every year, and the same shooters taking place in the same countries as last time just with different numbers on the box.
If gaming is going to become a legitimate art form we need to educate ourselves about the past. The older crowd has done it though growing up during the rise of gaming, but the younger crowd is still playing the same game over and over again, and getting their parents to shell out another 60 bucks for the same crap they played last year. I think that’s where the excellent PSOne Classics come in, along with the Wii Virtual console and formerly (now defunct) Xbox games on demand. We need to demand our games are playable on new systems backwards compatibility should not be a problem with disk based gaming systems. It seems the Wii was the only one who got it right this generation with that, the other two systems to a smaller extent. Play the classics, become a more literate gamer. The future of the medium depends on it.
PSOneClassics.com
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April 15th, 2010 on 6:09 pm
I thoroughly agree on your comment on the film part with a few differences. Example: take a game like, say, Mega Man, or the early Mario and Sonic games. They and all their (initial) sequels featured gameplay that was almost exactly the same with slightly, if at all, changed graphics and fresh level and enemy design. The trick is some play better than others or, in the case of a game like Metal Gear Solid, are more focused on a drive in the continuing of a story, despite very similar gameplay elements.
I also would like to throw my two cents out there and say that as a longtime fan of Final Fantasy VII and Chrono Trigger, I can see I have mixed feelings about remakes of these. Have they aged poorly? Yes and no. Chrono Trigger still looks fresh even after all these years, and the DS port actually made it look cleaner, but I wouldn’t be opposed to a cel shaded remake with no voices.
Similarly with VII, I’d like a remake with enhanced graphics, no voices, and a better translation. Playing it on my PSP when the Japanese version came out was a blast and it looked great, but once I actually got it up on my HDTV that I hadn’t played it on before, I realized it won’t hold up very long on these newer TVs. I’ve been a fan for about 7-8 years and even I admit that they’re looking pretty bad these days.
April 15th, 2010 on 8:26 pm
I agree with you that it would be nice to see these games in high res graphics, but I think it’s a little different re-making games than re-making movies.
To me much of the charm of these older games which I have never played before are the somewhat poor graphics. What’s really ageless in these stories is the story telling, and the ways the developers built something engrossing despite the console’s limitations. Remaking FF7 they would probably change the camera angle to something more contemporary, they wouldn’t be able to get away with no voice actors I don’t think, the cinematics would have to change… I just don’t see how they could do it without pissing off the fan base. It’s not quite the same as remaking a movie because if you do remake one it will never be perfectly the same, and the actors would have to change etc. Perhaps for new gamers it would be ok… but after playing the original I just feel like it would be dooming the original property to be lost in time instead of cherished as a part of gaming history.
For instance, I played Tomb Raider Anniversary on my PSP, and I had never played the original (or did but when I was very young probably at a friends house once or so). With this game I was really impressed, I loved it. Everyone had always said that Lara Croft controls like a cow, but I found myself loving the gameplay, and the puzzles racked my brain. This worked well as a entertainment, but oddly enough I don’t think I would go back to play the original (Until I do a Tomb Raider month on here or something…). Other than for review purposes I wouldn’t touch the old one (maybe a comparison of the two would be a good article…) But I digress, something should be left alone, when the original tomb raider made it’s way out on the Playstation Store I probably would have bought it had I not played the original to see what the game that started it all was. (I don’t see why anyone would do that now because the Anniversary edition is available for only 2 or 3 dollars more on the store). That game for most people who played the re-make will pass them by, and that’s too bad I think.
Maybe when Graphics get to a certain point people will stop remaking games, just like special effects now have been kind of life-like for a while, I don’t see much improvement year over year on them, maybe now summer blockbusters will need a good storyline as well as great special effects to keep the audience interested.
Oh well, I’ve ranted quite a bit, it’s an interesting topic, but I don’t think I would buy the remake if Square made one for FF7.