Starting in the PS4 generation, remaking games has become quite the hot trend in gaming! And it’s really not a surprise to see why. You take a game that did well in the past, remake it by tweaking and altering some stuff to make it more playable to modern audiences and then you’re basically printing money! Or that’s the idea anyways. In practice, it’s quite a bit harder than that. With more and more people trying to remake games now, we’ve started to see some remakes stand out among the others. Remakes like Resident Evil 4 and Dead Space. And I think what made these remakes such big successes over others comes down to how much they change about the original games and how much they keep the same. It is a delicate balance that some remake developers don’t seem to understand.

I feel like this remake craze really got started with the release of the Resident Evil 2 remake in 2019. Now this was far from the first remake, it wasn’t even the first remake for Resident Evil! But the success of this remake seemed to be what sparked the development of so many others. Without it, we probably wouldn’t have all the remakes we have today! Which some might not view as a bad thing depending on how you view remakes in general, but still. Personally, I really like remakes! I think they can bring back an old classic for a new audience and let the game’s original audience experience said classic in an all new light. However, it’s not really that easy. More often than not, I feel like remakes can be great games but not good remakes, and this all comes down to how much the game actually changes.

For a great example of this let’s look at Demon’s Souls, a remake fans of the original were super excited for but ended up feeling let down by overall.

Demon’s Souls was originally released on the PS3 by none other than FromSoftware and is generally seen as the start of their genre defining Souls series. While FromSoftware has been around for ages making plenty of games from Armored Core to Tenchu, Demon’s Souls and its cult success is really what put them on the map and it’s a game that has always been locked to the PS3. Not only that though, it’s a game that doesn’t particularly run well. Having played and beaten the original on the PS3, I can confirm that the system struggles with the game. My PS3 was practically melting during the boss fight with the Maneaters, getting super laggy and choppy making the already tough fight that much harder. So simply porting the game wouldn’t have been great and I feel like too much work would have needed to be done to justify simply remastering the game with some new graphics. So when it was announced that the game would be getting a full on remake on the PS5 no less, people were understandably super excited! Not only would the game be on a modern console, not only would it look amazing, but given the fact that it was going to be a remake meant that not only would the game’s bugs and glitches be fixed, but some fundamental issues with the game would be addressed too! Maybe they’d even add in a bunch of the game’s cut content! …Right?

Sadly, this would not be the case at all.

Demon’s Souls for PS5 is easily the best way to play Demon’s Souls. There is no doubt in my mind about that. The game runs super well, it looks beautiful, and it’s not on the PS3! But that’s honestly all there is to this version. None of the original game’s cut content was added back in, none of the bosses were changed despite most fans agreeing there were a few that really needed to be changed, and some of the confusing aspects of the original game, like the World Tendency system, were still very much present in the remake without much change to them. And while you can argue that they did change somethings like adding more customization options, adding a new short cut to one section, and adding this awesome new armor set behind a door that no one knew how to open which set the Souls community ablaze for awhile, that’s still not enough to really justify picking this up if you’ve already played the original. And that’s easily the biggest problem with remakes of this nature. A good remake not only opens a classic up to a brand new audience but it also let’s returning fans experience a beloved game like it was a new experience. I feel like that is what all remakes should strive for, so while I think the Demon’s Souls remake is the best version of the game, making it so no one has any reason to go back to the original now, I can’t say it’s a good remake at the end of the day.

And it pains me to say this is also the case with a more recent remake, Persona 3 Reload.

Persona 3 is another game that fans have been begging to get remade. While the game has been re-released in some fashion multiple times, unlike Demon’s Souls, it’s never been re-released in a great state. The PlayStation Portable version of the game is always the one to be re-released, which makes sense given it was the most recent version of the game but at the same time it doesn’t feel good to be playing a PSP game on my HD TV with my super powerful PS5. The game was in need of a make over and a tune up which is why it was so exciting when ATLUS announced they’d finally be remaking Persona 3 as Persona 3 Reload. Sadly though, much like with Demon’s Souls, this is the best way to play Persona 3 hands down, but it doesn’t do enough to justify itself as a remake.

Persona 3 Reload is basically just Persona 3 again but with a few much needed changes. The combat now plays like Persona 5, it’s much easier to get all the Social Links done in a single play through, and the game looks and runs amazingly well! However, that is kind of all Reload does. It does also add some new scenes with the main cast, especially with the male side of that main cast which did not get much screen time in the original, and those are very much loved and welcome additions but that is not enough for me to recommend the game to someone who’s already played the original Persona 3 before. Now if you haven’t played Persona 3 before? Then pick this up! Persona 3 is an amazing game and Reload is the best version of it! That being said, unlike with Demon’s Souls, Reload doesn’t actually manage to completely replace the other versions of Persona 3…

If you’re not familiar with the Persona series, each game in the series tends to get at least one updated version after the original release. For example, Persona 5 got Persona 5 Royal a few years after the original. Royal added some new characters, a new epilogue, and lots of little changes that make it the better experience over the original. This is basically what Reload is to Persona 3, the problem this time around though is the fact that there are two other updated versions to Persona 3, FES and Portable. So why is this a problem? Well it’s a problem because both FES and Portable have content that is exclusive to them that was not brought over to Reload! FES has an entire epilogue that is very important to the story of Persona 3 and Portable actually gives you the option of playing as a female main character! Something extremely rare for the Persona series! And Reload just doesn’t include these very cool and important additions to the game. Which means that Reload cannot be called the definitive version of Persona 3.

Thankfully, as I was writing this post, it was announce that we will be getting the epilogue from FES as DLC later this year, but that doesn’t change the fact that this version will still be missing the content from Portable, which I’d argue is the more unique content overall. And given the fact that the female main character wasn’t mentioned when this DLC was announced gives me serious doubts that she’ll ever be added to Reload meaning that this version will always lack very important content that is available in other versions.

And this is where Reload really fails as a remake to me. At the very least Demon’s Souls for PS5 is the definitive way to play Demon’s Souls, you have literally no reason to go back to the original unless you want to gawk at how poorly it ran on the PS3. But Reload can’t do that for Persona 3. So while, yeah, I would still recommend Persona 3 Reload to anyone who hasn’t played the original I still don’t think it’s a good remake which is really sad given how good it could have been.

Demon’s Souls and Persona 3 Reload are the two biggest cases of games that just didn’t do enough to justify being called remakes. But I do get why they came out the way they did. Bluepoint, the developers of the Demon’s Souls remake, even stated that they didn’t change much since they didn’t want to step on FromSoftware’s toes or change too much from the original that it wouldn’t be recognizable. And that’s a fair point! If a remake goes too far with it’s changes it stops being that original game that was being remade. If you want an example of that happening then you just need to look to the Final Fantasy 7 Remake.

I don’t think it’s too much of a spoiler to talk about how the remake of Final Fantasy 7 is basically it’s own thing at this point. Like yeah it still has all the original characters and takes place in the same world but the story is being changed up in some extreme ways! That much should be clear given the fact that this single game is now being made into a trilogy with the most recent in that trilogy, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, having just came out! So it’s understandable how people might feel this is going a bit too far for a remake and has become something of it’s own original thing. And while I personally think that is really cool, especially since the game is basically commenting on the nature of remakes in general, I totally understand why some fans would be upset when all they wanted was a modern way to play one of their favorite games. Especially after fans had been teased so many times namely with the Final Fantasy 7 PS3 tech demo that did show some iconic scenes from the original game with modern graphics only to be revealed to be nothing but a tech demo to show off how good games on the PS3 could look.

I am not going to go into the many, many changes that the Final Fantasy 7 remake has since that would take ages, but I felt I needed to mention it as it is the prime example of how you can go too far with the changes to a remake to the point that it barely resembles what it originally was. You really need to find that balance if you want to make a remake that changes enough to make things fresh for returning players and bring in new players while also not changing too much that it becomes it’s own thing alienating some of those original fans in the process. Thankfully, we have an amazing example of a game doing just that!

The Resident Evil 4 remake really did the impossible. When it was first rumored that Capcom was remaking the iconic and legendary Resident Evil 4, fans were upset! Myself included. We all thought that if anything this remake would ruin the legacy of the original game while not understanding what made it so good in the first place.

The original Resident Evil 4 is one of the most important games of all time. It set the standard for how third person action shooters should be played and controlled in the same way Super Mario 64 set the standard for how 3D platformers should be played and controlled. To many, Resident Evil 4 is perfect and still holds up to today’s standards. Not only that, the game is available on damn near everything so you can’t even justify the remake by saying it’s bringing the game to new people. Despite all that though, they still went through with the remake. And they somehow managed to not only make an amazing remake, but also rival the original in some regards with it’s changes!

The Resident Evil 4 remake manages to understand and capture what made the original game so good when it originally released back in 2005 while also fixing things I don’t think most of us realized where problems to begin with. Things like giving certain characters more screen time, changing the motivations of some characters to make more sense, adjusting the structure of the game to give it better pacing, and making the castle section not only more bearable but also making it’s layout make way more sense and seem like an actual castle!

I remember the biggest worry me and most other people had about the remake was that it was going to take itself way too seriously. Resident Evil 4 is where the series started focusing less on horror and more on action but didn’t manage to take the action too far like later entries would. The original RE4 was goofy and over the top, filled with roundhouse kicks and one liners. It’s super cheesy but also extremely charming, it’s an aspect of the game that is loved by just about everyone. So when the remakes that came before RE4 showed that they wanted to take the series in a more serious and realistic tone, everyone worried that RE4 would lose all that charming goofiness. Thankfully, while the remake did gain a slightly more serious tone, it was clear the developers knew what fans loved about the original and managed to respect just how goofy it was! And they did this by shifting the context for the goofiness just slightly.

Leon’s one liners are still there but it’s played off more like Leon is the goofy one in a serious world instead of everything being goofy. The developers also managed to keep in plenty of the original game’s action movie dialog even if it was switched around a little. So the game still manages to retain that beloved cheesy dialog but now it’s not used in an important scene but instead shifted to a future boss fight for example. Not only that, they actually managed to add to the over the top nature of the game with one simple inclusion, knife parrying! Leon, the main character of Resident Evil 4 by the way, is now able to block melee attacks with a cool and stylish swipe of his knife! Something that was clearly included just for the cool factor especially since it was first shown blocking a chainsaw that was about to cut Leon’s head off! It was also most likely included because Leon’s knife skills actually play into the story later on in regards to a particular character and now we actually get to experience that skill that was reserved just for cut scenes in the original. This change and so many others show that the developers of the remake understood exactly what needed to be changed and updated not only to bring RE4 to a new audience but also not alienate the original audience and give said original audience a reason to check out the remake even if they played the original to death!

Much like how the original Resident Evil 4 set the standard for how third person shooters should be played, the remake has set the standard for how remakes should be made! Respect for the original version is always key, understand what made it a classic worthy of being remade is always important, but at the same time you can’t be afraid to change things, you need to give people who have played the original game a reason to check out the remake beyond it just looking nicer. I can only imagine how terrifying making a remake can be. You are being judged on so many things. Not only do you have to try and make the remake as good as the original but you also have to justify people coming and playing the remake if they’ve played the original. But with games like the Resident Evil 4 remake you can see that it is very much possible. That remake did the impossible. It remade a truly classic game that most people said had no faults but they still found ways to improve it while also keeping it in line with the original! That’s what makes the Resident Evil 4 remake the gold standard for remakes to me and it’s the best example of how much you should remake with a remake.

Now that doesn’t mean every remake has to be as good as the Resident Evil 4 one but I hope that it inspires other remake developers to not be afraid to change certain things they truly feel should be changed. Here’s hoping we see more remakes like that in the future!

But those are just my thoughts, what are some of yours? How do you feel about remakes? Do you prefer big changes or do you want developers to keep things the same? I’d love to hear your thoughts so don’t be shy!

And thank you for taking the time to read the post! If you enjoyed it feel free to leave a Like or share the blog with a friend. You can also follow the blog on WordPress or on Twitter if you want to stay up to date on new posts. Also if there’s a topic you’d like me to discuss sometime, go ahead and tell me in the comments! Any interaction is appreciated, even just viewing this post, so thanks again for stopping by.