Recent remasters (or remakes) worth playing?

[danzibr]

Preferably available on Switch (or PS4).

Seems like remasters (and remakes) are exceptionally popular nowadays. Just yesterday I learned of a Star Ocean 2 remaster on Switch (which, admittedly, is based off of a previous upgraded version of the original). Looked into the features compared to the original, holy smokes huge improvements. Also played SaGa Frontier remaster in the recent past. Basically all they did was add NG+ and another scenario, but wowza 10x better than replaying the original. Also currently finishing up Live A Live, never played the original since it was never released outside of Japan (at least back in the day), and gotta say awesome game, worth playing.

But then you look at some remasters and it's like... slightly improved graphics + monsters give more experience. Which might indeed be worth playing if you never played the original, or if you have a serious hankering to replay the original.

With that said, my recommendations would be...

• Star Ocean First Departure R. I tried to play the original back on SNES, but hoo boy imo it didn't age well. The remaster is definitely worth playing. I'd also like to suggest Star Ocean Second Story R but... haven't played it yet.
• Resident Evil 2 Remake. Trying to play the original RE2 nowadays for me is a bit painful. Since RE4 came along and made it over-the-shoulder, I don't like the older ones.
• VR Resident Evil 4. Playing it on the Quest. Haven't quite finished it but man, so far awesome.
• SaGa Frontier Remastered. It's quite simple as remasters go, but the NG+ feature makes the game far more enjoyable. Looking forward to SaGa Frontier 2 remaster.
• Live A Live. Never heard of it before I saw it on the Switch shop. It started kinda slow for me, but gets much better at a certain point. Feels like SaGa Frontier + Chrono Trigger.
• Pokemon Let's Go Eevee/Pikachu. Maybe controversial but ngl I like the catching mechanic in this game. Probably because I'm old and lazy and don't like all the fighting.

And then there are some remasters/remakes which I did indeed play but wouldn't strongly recommend. The new Link's Awakening, Final Fantasy VII Remake (though I'm only like 15 hours into it), a few of the other Final Fantasies for that matter, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1+2.

[Batcathat]

I kinda want to say the enchanted editions of Baldur's Gate 1 and 2, but they're like a decade old at this point so I suppose that would be stretching "recent" a bit too far.

[danzibr]

I kinda want to say the enchanted editions of Baldur's Gate 1 and 2, but they're like a decade old at this point so I suppose that would be stretching "recent" a bit too far.

Oh yeah that totally counts. Had I thought of them, I'd recommend them. Adding kits to BG1 was very welcome (though some of the kits clearly weren't meant to be used at low levels >.>).

[WritersBlock]

I generally do not trust most remasters/remakes. Far too often content is cut/removed or sometimes the game is just outright butchered. (The Yakuza 5 remaster making the pachislot game unusable is just one example.)

Well, the remaster of the first Neverwinter Nights is good and it comes with the old diamond edition as well. (well the gog version does) And the Rise of the triad remaster (Ludicrous edition) is great.
Nightdive do some really decent remasters when they don't add extra "difficulty" the old game did not have by "improving the ai" and making enemies behave how they were never intended to. (the quake 2 remaster was guilty of this, on top of adding a new enemy with a really bad unavoidable damage leap attack)

[Artanis]

The System Shock remake is *really* good.

[Zevox]

Just to rattle off the ones I have, all of which I can attest to being good:

Remasters:
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword
Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore
Super Mario 3D All-Stars (Technically this is more of a set of emulated games, but eh, it's old games on a new console with no major changes.)
Mass Effect: Legendary Edition
Devil May Cry 4 Special Edition
Persona 3 Portable (Technically I haven't played the PS4 version of this, but I haven't heard they messed anything up.)
Persona 4 Golden
Darksiders Warmastered Edition

Remakes:
Advance Wars 1 + 2: Re-Boot Camp
Final Fantasy 7 Remake (Note: major changes from original, including entirely new gameplay and being the first of three parts.)

Coming up next year we've got two major remakes for me quite quickly: Persona 3 Reload, a full remake of P3 (albeit sadly minus the female protagonist path from portable), and Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, the second part of that remake. Both launching within a month of each other at the start and end of February respectively.

[Psyren]

For SNES RPG fans, Trials of Mana (aka Secret of Mana 2, or Seiken Densetsu 3) got a full-blown remake on PC and console. I had fond memories of playing that as a child co-op with friends and family and the remake brought back all those memories for me.

[WritersBlock]

What I want to know is when are we getting the remaster/remake of Buck Bumble

[JNAProductions]

What I want to know is when are we getting the remaster/remake of Buck Bumble

For some reason that game's theme song has popped up in my recommended on YouTube.

I've never played it, don't even know what the gameplay is, but with a theme song like that, I already agree.

[Gnoman]

The Etrian Odyssey ports to Switch/PC are extremely good, with nice QoL features. Particularly good because they were previously locked on a gimmicky handheld that had ergonomic issues for an unknown but non-zero number of users (I physically can't play a DS for more than ten minutes without siginificant pain because my hands are too big, doubt I'm alone), so getting onto other platforms is great.

[Morgaln]

I'll add the following to the list:

Command & Conquer Remastered Edition
Legend of Mana
Darksiders 2: Deathinitive Edition
Yakuza Kiwami
Yakuza Kiwami 2
Yakuza 3 Remastered
Yakuza 4 Remastered
Yakuza 5 Remastered
Total War: Rome Remastered
Final Fantasy III 3D Remake
Final Fantasy IV 3D Remake

[GloatingSwine]

With that said, my recommendations would be...
[LIST][*]Star Ocean First Departure R. I tried to play the original back on SNES, but hoo boy imo it didn't age well. The remaster is definitely worth playing. I'd also like to suggest Star Ocean Second Story R but... haven't played it yet.

Star Ocean 2R is very good. They've smoothed out some of the skills system, rebalanced the characters, and changed the way secret moves upgrade so you don't have to spam them a zillion times to get the upgraded versions.

Plus now you can't accidentally your way into releasing the final boss' limiter and making the game super hard.

Also it's now fully voiced and all the environments have been recreated in 3D (but with fixed camera angles in towns so they're still a bit like the prerendered ones), it's the best looking of Square's recent HD-2D games by some distance.

[danzibr]

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

Oh yeah I somehow missed playing this, like ever. Interested in doing so in the near future, good to know.

For SNES RPG fans, Trials of Mana (aka Secret of Mana 2, or Seiken Densetsu 3) got a full-blown remake on PC and console. I had fond memories of playing that as a child co-op with friends and family and the remake brought back all those memories for me.

Ooh nice. I've wanted to play this for years and years.

Final Fantasy III 3D Remake
Final Fantasy IV 3D Remake

Oh yeah. That's the only version of FFIII I played, gotta say, it was alright. Seems far superior to the original. Innovative job system, but definitely been refined over the years.

I'd really like to play the 3D FFIV...

Star Ocean 2R is very good. They've smoothed out some of the skills system, rebalanced the characters, and changed the way secret moves upgrade so you don't have to spam them a zillion times to get the upgraded versions.

Plus now you can't accidentally your way into releasing the final boss' limiter and making the game super hard.

Also it's now fully voiced and all the environments have been recreated in 3D (but with fixed camera angles in towns so they're still a bit like the prerendered ones), it's the best looking of Square's recent HD-2D games by some distance.

Ooh great to hear. I oughta ask the missus for it for the holidays.

[Toastkart]

Star Ocean 2R is very good. They've smoothed out some of the skills system, rebalanced the characters, and changed the way secret moves upgrade so you don't have to spam them a zillion times to get the upgraded versions.

Plus now you can't accidentally your way into releasing the final boss' limiter and making the game super hard.

Also it's now fully voiced and all the environments have been recreated in 3D (but with fixed camera angles in towns so they're still a bit like the prerendered ones), it's the best looking of Square's recent HD-2D games by some distance.

I want to second this opinion. I'm having a blast with it. A lot of the grindiness seems to have been reduced. Item creation is smoother and more consistent. Mage characters are more useful. If I had one complaint, it's that if you lose a fight, your options seem to be either retry the fight or return to main menu. There doesn't seem to be an option to just load your last save point. In practice, it adds 5ish seconds before you're playing again, but it just seems odd to me not to have included it.

[danzibr]

I want to second this opinion. I'm having a blast with it. A lot of the grindiness seems to have been reduced. Item creation is smoother and more consistent. Mage characters are more useful. If I had one complaint, it's that if you lose a fight, your options seem to be either retry the fight or return to main menu. There doesn't seem to be an option to just load your last save point. In practice, it adds 5ish seconds before you're playing again, but it just seems odd to me not to have included it.

Ooh nice. As long as I can still get the Eternal Sphere absurdly early, I'll be happy :P

(kinda joking... I'd be happy even if I couldn't make it, and it makes the game so easy I might actually hold off)

[T.G. Oskar]

Ooh nice. As long as I can still get the Eternal Sphere absurdly early, I'll be happy :P

(kinda joking... I'd be happy even if I couldn't make it, and it makes the game so easy I might actually hold off)

Haven't played it but seen videos about it, and yes - you can still get it, except it's called Aeterna now, and it gets a little improvement.

(And you can also get Mischief - now called Sprite's Bracelet as per the PSP version - in the same spot.)

I'm also looking to get it, though physical.

[GloatingSwine]

I got it on PC because Greenmangaming had it for 20% off. Whilst I do like the Switch for games like this there's also just something nice about throwing overwhelming power at things.

Last time I played through Second Story was on a PS1 on a 14" TV with some terrible ancient interconnect, so having it at 4K 120fps with Auto HDR and 7.1 audio is a hell of an upgrade.

[Spore]

The Command and Conquer Remaster is quite good, the gameplay and AI definitely did not age that greatly. But the flavor of the AMVs, the music by Klepacki goes as hard as it did in 1995.

I wouldve bought If but I am wary about EAs Copy protection which can be very invasive and require another Account.

[KillianHawkeye]

I played the Secret of Mana (Seiken Densetsu 2) 3D remake, and it was pretty good.

The Final Fantasy pixel remasters have all been great (although I haven't played FF2 yet). Truly top notch throwbacks to the 16-bit jRPG era!

[NeoVid]

The only remaster I desperately want, Suikoden 1 & 2, had its release date pushed back a lot. I have no idea whether that will make things better or worse, especially since there's a major lack of info about what they'll be changing in the remaster. They confirmed the original combat sprites are returning, but that might not even be a good thing, since the sprites of classic games weren't designed with today's monitors in mind.

[Gnoman]

The only remaster I desperately want, Suikoden 1 & 2, had its release date pushed back a lot. I have no idea whether that will make things better or worse, especially since there's a major lack of info about what they'll be changing in the remaster. They confirmed the original combat sprites are returning, but that might not even be a good thing, since the sprites of classic games weren't designed with today's monitors in mind.

You can do a lot with filters to alleviate the issue you're referencing, and the shots I've seen look like the sprites were redrawn to accommodate the higher resolution and crisper pixels of today's screens. I haven't heard whatever you're citing to say that "the original sprites" are going to be used - without context that could simply mean they're not doing the sort of 3d conversions that a lot of remasters have done.

[Psyren]

I played the Secret of Mana (Seiken Densetsu 2) 3D remake, and it was pretty good.

Ooh, there's a 3D remake of the first Secret of Mana? I've been meaning to replay that!

[ArmyOfOptimists]

I played the Secret of Mana (Seiken Densetsu 2) 3D remake, and it was pretty good.

The Final Fantasy pixel remasters have all been great (although I haven't played FF2 yet). Truly top notch throwbacks to the 16-bit jRPG era!

Back when I played it, the FF2 PR suffered from a bug that caused any monster with an on-hit effect to inflict it every attack. Mildly annoying when you fight creatures with Poisonous attacks, but it created a hell-zone when a late dungeon has instant-death inflicting Coeurls in it. I hear this eventually got fixed, though it took a while.

Even with the updates to smooth the gameplay a bit, I still can only recommend playing it for the historical context. It's neat seeing how early some of the series mainstays were developed and actually clarified some later game design decisions. Like the Blood Sword is absurdly powerful in FF2, so I understand now why some of the later SNES games included it in conspicuous areas as if it was a legendary weapon. The gameplay is awkward and primitive, though, with little of the simple charm that FF1 has and the story plays out like something I wrote in fourth grade.

[T.G. Oskar]

The only remaster I desperately want, Suikoden 1 & 2, had its release date pushed back a lot. I have no idea whether that will make things better or worse, especially since there's a major lack of info about what they'll be changing in the remaster. They confirmed the original combat sprites are returning, but that might not even be a good thing, since the sprites of classic games weren't designed with today's monitors in mind.

Not in the same level of desperation but I do want this remaster as well. I played and finished the first (with all 150 stars!) and I held my save in case I ever got my hands on Suikoden II.

Curiously enough, they're already promising Suikoden III and IV (or so I recall seeing in a YouTube video; take this with a grain of salt).

As for the Pixel Remasters - not interested, since they're remasters of the originals and miss some of the stuff later ports have (specifically the new classes in V). VI is especially egregious because the Opera scene was done with the same tools used in Octopath Traveler but they refused to make the entire game share this look. (Would it kill to see, say, Mt. Kolts or the Phoenix Mountains or even the Tower of Kefka done in HD-2D with 3D backgrounds? And then you're missing both the Dragon's Den and the battle with Kaiser Dragon, which is a shame.

Personally, I'm finding a different kind of "remaster" for FFI a whole lot more interesting. Same graphics, optimized for PCs but with new jobs, bug fixes and QoL upgrades. Just adding about seven new jobs makes the FFI experience far, far more interesting and boosts the game's replayability.

[danzibr]

I played the Secret of Mana (Seiken Densetsu 2) 3D remake, and it was pretty good.

The Final Fantasy pixel remasters have all been great (although I haven't played FF2 yet). Truly top notch throwbacks to the 16-bit jRPG era!

Oh yeah I remember seeing that. Interested.

Also I had no idea FFPR was a thing. Nice.

I personally (unpopular opinion) liked the version of FFII that I played. One of my favorite characters if all time is from FFII. Hope you enjoy it!

The only remaster I desperately want, Suikoden 1 & 2, had its release date pushed back a lot. I have no idea whether that will make things better or worse, especially since there's a major lack of info about what they'll be changing in the remaster. They confirmed the original combat sprites are returning, but that might not even be a good thing, since the sprites of classic games weren't designed with today's monitors in mind.

Whoa awesome didn’t know of this. I would looooove to be able to transfer saves through all Suikodens (not gonna happen but still…).

If we’re talking wish list, the Breath of Fire series could use some love.

[Razade]

For SNES RPG fans, Trials of Mana (aka Secret of Mana 2, or Seiken Densetsu 3) got a full-blown remake on PC and console. I had fond memories of playing that as a child co-op with friends and family and the remake brought back all those memories for me.

The Trials of Mana remake is especially good, still need to play through the last few characters. An easy JRPG to just sorta put a podcast on and play.

[ShadowShinobi]

Not in the same level of desperation but I do want this remaster as well. I played and finished the first (with all 150 stars!) and I held my save in case I ever got my hands on Suikoden II.

108 stars, not 150. Sorry, couldn't help myself.

[Rodin]

A couple others I haven't seen mentioned:

Demons Souls - A perfect example of how to do a faithful remake. They changed nothing they didn't have to, added QoL features like omni-directional rolling, and made the game beautiful with stylish animations without compromising the feel of the original gameplay. It's a bit of a hard sell at full price if you played the original (since it doesn't add much new content), but it has also entirely supplanted the original.

Resident Evil 4 Remake - Going the other direction, RE4 Remake is made for those who played the original. It's different enough that RE4 and RE4 Remake stand together as separate great games. There are a ton of nods to the old version while massively expanding on the content, and the difficulty feels like it expects you to have played RE4 before. Extremely fun game, and I recommend the whole trilogy of remakes.


The Super Mario RPG remake also comes out tomorrow, it looks excellent from the trailers. I'll be sure to post my thoughts once I've played a bit.

[darkdragoon]

Want
*Super Mario RPG
*Red Dead Redemption

Keeping cautious tabs on
*Batman: Arkham Trilogy

Oh yeah. That's the only version of FFIII I played, gotta say, it was alright. Seems far superior to the original. Innovative job system, but definitely been refined over the years.

It was already brought up since I was originally going to respond, but you might find the Pixel Remaster version of III more interesting.

[Toastkart]

Want
*Super Mario RPG

Kinda want this myself, but I can't justify the expense of buying a Switch for a single game.

Since Star Ocean 2's remake has turned out so well, I was kinda hoping for a remake of Valkyrie Profile too.