Remakes and reboots of classic games have become a big industry over the course of the last generation. Recently I played an HD remake of Prince of Persia 2 on the iPad and found it to be phenomenal. Duck Tales was one of my favorite platformers as a kid and I eagerly anticipated the release of Duck Tales Remastered, which just hit PC, PS3 and WiiU a couple of days ago. My opinions on the quality of that game are still forming but its release, and my enjoyment of the Prince of Persia 2 remake, did get me to wonder about what other 8-bit era titles I’d like to see get remastered with an HD facelift.
Blaster Master
Blaster Master was a late 1980s hybrid platformer/shooter developed by Sunsoft. It saw players control Jason, a boy who was on a quest to save his pet frog, Fred from radioactive mutants that live inside the Earth. The most memorable parts of the game for me were the 2D platforming segments where I drove the awesome battle tank, Sophia the 3rd. A new coat of paint, a reworked story and a bit of control refinement could present the game to a whole new audience, potentially opening up the series to continue with a true next gen game.
Ninja Gaiden
Ninja Gaiden has a long history but I feel that many people only look back a few years to the more modern action titles, than to the original trilogy that took place on the Nintendo Entertainment System. That fact is a shame because the original Ninja Gaiden is an action-platforming classic that required a good dose of skill to navigate through. I recently played the game on the Wii virtual console and it still plays great but a more modern aesthetic would do the game a great service. The cutscenes need to be presented as they were in the original game, there was just something great about the cinematic framing those scenes had as it told its pretty cool, for the time, story.
Wonder Boy in Monster Land
As a kid, I sat for hours in front of my neighbor’s SEGA Master System playing Wonder Boy in Monster Land, so much so that they actually let me take their system back to my house just so I’d go home. My young self was in love with the action-platformer RPG and it was my first real gaming addiction. And you know what, I think my present self could get totally hooked into Monster Land again. Out of these three titles, Wonder Boy in Monster Land would probably need the most work as it was the weakest in terms of actual mechanics out of the three but given enough love behind the project I’m pretty sure a great game could be made.
Bonus: Shadowgate
The 1989 NES adventure game, Shadowgate, doesn’t qualify to be one of the three I’d like to see get an HD facelift because one is kind of already in development by Zojoi, LLC but I still feel it needs to be mentioned. After a successful Kickstarter campaign, which I backed (I can see Tony shaking his head from here), Zojoi is making a re-imagined adventure in Castle Shadowgate. Currently the game looks like its exactly what I want out of my Shadowgate experience and I can’t wait to get my hands on it when it finally releases.
Those are the ones I’d love to see, tell us which ones you’d want in the comments.
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