We’ve put together this handy list of the best videogame remakes which outdid the original games.
Unlike films, videogames can be hard to go back to. Whether that’s because of ageing controls, improvements in graphics, or simply nostalgia shading what actually wasn’t a good experience to begin with – it’s difficult.
While game developers could certainly fix the problem by remaking every one of our childhood classics, for obvious reasons only a handful are ever selected.
That said, when a publisher does commit to remaking an older release, it’s easy to mistake the title for being brand-new altogether, and that’s what this list is essentially all about: These are the remakes that went above and beyond what we expected, bettering the original’s release, making them the definitive version.
But, before we start, let’s first clear up a common misconception…
Remake: Building the game from scratch for modern standards. Everything is overhauled but kept in the same vein of the original release.
Remaster: Uses the same original game code but graphics are updated à la HD. Can include minor quality of life improvements.
Now that’s out of the way, here’s our list of the best game remakes.
For seven years there was an absence of everyone’s favorite marsupial. After all hope seemed to have died out, Shaun Layden took the stage at E3 2016 to reveal that the first three Crash Bandicoot games would be “fully remastered from the ground up”, and boy, did they deliver.
The N. Sane Trilogy not only looks gorgeous in ‘Fur K’ but it actually feels better. Developer Vicarious Visions even improved upon a lot of the control issues that plagued the first Crash. To top it all off, sales were higher than anyone could have imagined, which culminated in Crash Team Racing being announced as the next remake in the franchise.
At a time where Lucasfilm could do no wrong, The Secret of Monkey Island’s gameplay, music, and humor stood above all else on the market. Nearly 20 years on, thanks in part to fabulous writing, the swashbuckling adventure has kept its charm.
Utilizing what was basically the same team (Tim Schafer, Dave Grossman, and Ron Gilbert) for the remake, this special edition lives up to its name.
