Gaming

41. remake, re-release, reboot – a go-to when all else fails

Comments (3)
  1. Rob says:

    One of my soccer teammates and I were talking last night about how necessary a FF7 remake was. And tactics, for that matter. Both games were absolutely perfect.

    To your citing X3 as an example of a reboot gone wrong, I have a few things to say. First, it wasn't really a reboot; it was a new director hijacking an in-progress trilogy. A real reboot is the new Batman trilogy (brilliant), the upcoming Spider-man film, or either of the two Punisher movies that released after the 1980s Dolph Lundgren gem.

    Second, I think that games suffer from the same weaknesses as comic book franchises – the fans attach themselves to the voice, atmosphere, and experience delivered by a specific group of minds. When that group is changed – whether it be a change of who is delivering or a change in how they choose to deliver – the fans feel left behind. I'm sure Batman comic fans were insulted and appalled by the travesty that was the former movie series; those same fans are rejoicing in the commitment and stylings of Christopher Nolan. (Inversely, X-Men and Spider-man fans were each pretty pleased with their first films, but suicide rates skyrocketed after the third iteration from each franchise.)
    Now let's take it back to video games. If/when FF7 is re-released, it needs to be perfect. Any changes made had better be an absolutely essential change. If there is even one moment of "meh"dom while playing, I will go berserk and burn all of New Jersey to the ground. Do I have high hopes for Goldeneye? Of course I do. My buddies and I *still* play it on my N64. I just hope that they don't go the way of the Perfect Dark sequel (which was, for all intents and purposes, a giant deuce dropped on my face).

    Part of the problem is that we, as self-proclaimed "true fans" demand too much. We come in with expectations that are sky high – it's almost an unfair bar to set.

    I'm at work and I lost my train of thought, so I guess I'll wrap this up. Keep up the strong posting, T.

  2. tushar says:

    i tried SO hard to leave perfect dark out of this. and reading it back i agree with your assessment of X3. i am in fact a damned idiot and meant x-men origins: wolverine, which did alter an origin story. i'm making that edit right after this.

    totally agreed about FF7. i will probably demand perfection from a remake if/when it happens. but in my head perfection is leaving everything untouched and enhancing it with graphics and sound the ps3 has at its disposal. the original FF7 had story and character development enough to hook me. but fans do feel left behind. it's how i feel about devil may cry based on how it looks so far. what angered me was major changes. but in reality, any shift from canon would have irked me to some degree.

    every franchise is going to have a very dedicated core of fans that accept the stories as mythologies that we almost want to believe in. i understand the need for sales to continue a franchise – which requires some level of content dilution, but a lot of those core fans don't, and demand purity even if it kills a franchise. in addition to american comics and games, japanese manga to anime conversions hold to that as well

  3. Jason says:

    I never got into FF VII. The only Final Fantasy I had played prior to that was FF 3 (aka FF VI). What I liked about that game was the story and the characters, so when I looked at FF VII, I just couldn't get into. I didn't know who any of the FF wanna-bes were… and I didn't want to know…

    As for X-Men Origins: Wolverine, I've seen it recently on HBO, and I have to ask? Why the hate? Because of that pseudo-Deadpool? Really? Who cares. Deadpool was a lame character anyway. Never liked him. In fact, the movie version was more memorable to me than any of the comic iterations I may have read (not that i can remember… he was that forgettable.)
    I'm not saying I thought Wolverine was one of the best Marvel movies… but it's hardly the worst, either.

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