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Thursday, March 30, 2017

Remake, Please! Vol. 1

Welcome to Remake, Please! A feature where I go on about remakes I'd really love to see and the things that could be done to improve upon the original.

Metal Gear (MSX2)



Many gamer's exposure to the original Metal Gear is the NES port, which Metal Gear creator Hideo Kojima bashes whenever the opportunity presents itself. The game is certainly rough in a lot of places but the original MSX2 version is hardly exempt from criticism.

Even by 1980s game design standards, the original Metal Gear suffers from a pretty horrific inventory system, the worst of it being the way card keys function. Lots of doors are activated via card keys and these don't stack so you have to pause the game, look through the card keys to find the right one to open a doors, which are not labeled, by the way.

Rather than see Metal Gear itself in the NES version, the only machine that awaits Snake at the end of his journey is a giant super computer. Sure, you get to see Metal Gear in the MSX2 version, but you don't even get to fight it. Heck, Metal Gear isn't even activated. All you do is plant some explosives on the thing's feet and blow it up.

Those HD remakes of the the Solid games are all fine and dandy but I'd love to see Konami (with Kojima's involvement) take a stab at remaking the game that started it all. Think about it: voice acting, a vastly improved inventory system, area designs that don't look so similar to one another and more music because as great as Theme of Terra is, I wouldn't mind more music for all the times you're sneaking around Outer Heaven. Oh and definitely give us an an actual battle with Metal Gear.

The Legend of Zelda (NES)



I can see more than a few eyebrows being raised with this one. Am I actually suggesting that a game that helped revolutionize gaming and was a huge inspiration for the mega hit Breath of the Wild, could use a remake? No, I'm not suggesting such a thing. I'm freaking demanding. Don't misunderstand, I still like the first Zelda game and I'm grateful for what it did for gaming, but if any entry in this 30 plus year franchise could really benefit from a remake, it's the original game.

The Zelda series has often been accused of holding the player's hand in recent years (something Zelda producer Eiji Anouma has admitted to) but trying to play the first Zelda entry without a guide or some kind of assistance is like trying to navigate a cave at night time without a light source. To put it bluntly, The Legend of Zelda can be vague at best and cryptic at worst. Dungeons have numerous secret passages but not once does the game give you any sort of indication that a particular wall can be blown up. The same applies for burnable bushes as the look just like any other bush. And unless you have meat to feed the Moblin that's blocking your path in dungeon seven, you ain't going anywhere anytime soon. How on Earth would you know "Grumble Grumble" means he wants food?

Combat in the first game also feels very stiff, compounded by the fact that Link cannot move and swing his sword at the same time as well as only being able to move in four directions as opposed to the eight way movement A Link to the Past introduced.

2013's A Link Between Worlds was a wonderful return to the top down style of Zelda games and could be used as a basis for a remake of the original Zelda game. Eight way movement would make for much smoother combat, and it wouldn't be hard at all to let us know which walls and bushes are destructible. The original Legend of Zelda isn't as hard to go back to as, say, the original Metroid but it really does show it's age and it baffles me how many critics flat out don't even acknowledge the game's flaws. A remake of the original would make for the definitive version of the game and I'm sure Nintendo would throw in some bonus content such as new items and extra dungeons.

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