And then there’s a complete remake that completely remakes and reimagines the game. These usually deviate more clearly from the source material, and in something as sacred as Resident Evil 4, that’s something I naturally hesitate to do, given how great the GameCube original is still.
But I also admit that OG RE4 can feel a bit clunky for newer players who haven’t experienced it in the 2000s. Unencumbered by decades of design limitations, Capcom has led the way in demonstrating how to pay tribute to the source and reimagin the classics in exciting ways.
Finally, go to Zelda. Specifically Zelda 1, The Legend of Zelda. Now, this is a game I never played near release (I first beat it on the 3DS, just like the sequel), and despite how great it is, I can clearly see how difficult it is for new players. . enjoy the same. Feel free to boot up on Nintendo Switch Online and tell us what’s wrong in the comments… But despite its openness and great design, the vast majority of new players today say they bounce off the original Zelda. think.
This is heartbreaking for me. I, too, have a fondness for Zelda II, and the thought that these games are getting more and more arcane and don’t speak to an entire generation of gamers makes anyone who loves this medium chill. Looking at the list of the best Zelda games, LOZ is number 19 at the time of writing. The 19th installment of the game that gave birth to this series!
This is different from the Street Fighter series. number two The game that laid the foundation for the rest. The Legend of Zelda provided an incredibly fully formed series template on the NES.
Looking at another formative title, Super Mario Bros. for the NES currently sits at #11 in the comparable Mario game rankings. That wildly fun, accessible, and evergreen game that shaped an industry and defined an entire genre is clearly just the 11th best entry in the series.
And what do you know? I disagree. Perhaps all classics are doomed to oblivion. It’s certainly a mistake to confuse importance with importance with quality, and nostalgia is always tricky. Like I said, the pace of advancement and near-constant improvement in gaming as a medium is rapid. SMB is probably his 11th best Mario game, and LOZ his 19th best Zelda game.
and that is Why it’s time to treat The Legend of Zelda as a remake. For those unfamiliar with it, especially young gamers who adore Breath of the Wild and are driven insane by the excitement of Tears of the Kingdom, the genealogy from 1986 to today is accessible and engaging. , should be easy to follow. to them.
This could include Grezzo revisiting Link’s Awakening engine or an entirely new top-down system. You can even love the Wonder Boy: The Dragon’s Trap style remaster/reskin draped over the original chords. The game is certainly robust enough to shine without a total overhaul. Can you imagine The Legend of Zelda?Does it look like the key art from the original NES manual?Tunic is a recent game, especially in that manual, in exchange for nostalgia for his art, beautiful and mysterious gameplay integrated into I would love to play a game that looks like that and plays like OG Zelda in a heartbeat.
Cinema is not a good point of comparison when it comes to reimagining classic texts, but if you go back far enough, perhaps the literary world is. Farewell to Weapons But the language of centuries-old novels and other written texts can be a stumbling block for modern readers. Shakespeare’s lines can be difficult to understand unless you sit down and actually analyze their meaning and research the references in the footnotes.
Translating you are old That said, it makes it more digestible, more modern, and feels more like localization to me. The source is naturally hidden in some way and inevitably loses elements.But if you can adapt well, the thrust and spirit flavor be taken over. Perhaps that’s a better analogy for a video game remake. These are “temporary” localizations for players who cannot parse the text in its original form.
It’s easy to get cynical about remasters and remakes and blame the games industry’s biggest players for their lack of imagination, but Zelda’s 40th anniversary comes to us in just three years, so it’s time to cook something up. It feels like a no-brainer… something special for that milestone, especially one that looks to the future as well as the past. Nintendo is notorious for avoiding the obvious because they aim to “surprise and delight” us all, but we’ve seen much younger games in the series retooled and enjoyed anew. I’ve seen it. It’s time to return to the source.
As you know, I spent a few months on Tears of the Kingdom.
