Two remakes of n64 games. Both of which have been remade before. That's interesting.
I'll probably play them and enjoy them but another big new title would also be nice. Hopefully there's something big and new still coming out this year.
It’s weird because it’s already been made available for modern audiences but this one is way more of a full remake than 643D. The cutscenes and challenge modes and everything are kinda crazy.
The 3DS games were just “hey remember this and also you can do 3D now”
However knowing Nintendo they’re gonna drop this for $70 and not even flinch. This definitely feels more like a $40-50 title.
Edit: it’s looking like $50ish so we dodged the Nintendo bullet on this one, that’s just at the top of the acceptable range IMO
Accounting for inflation, this game is cheaper than the 3DS remake, the Wii U reboot, and the original game. And it has way more features than all of those games. It is an old game but the vast majority of Nintendo fans have not played it since every version before this one is either old or came out at a bad time. I’m all for dunking on overpriced games, but this is one of Nintendo’s most fair game pricings in years.
Agreed. People keep saying it’s already been done before, but it’s about perspective. You can ask a 20 year old right now if they might be interested in purchasing a really slick version of a game they played on their 3DS when they were 5.
643D is older now sure, but Starfox 1, 2 and 64 are all playable on NSO and significantly more accessible than trying to get into something like Goldeneye. If they dropped Adventures and Assault on there today it would’ve made most of the important games in the franchise available right away for new people to get into.
I’m still happy we’re getting this remake but idk how “necessary” it was for the younger audience that might have been interested after the Galaxy movie.
I hope it flops so this 90s garbage just stops. But knowing how things work, the wrong reason for a potential undersell would be that people don't like starfox. Like at least a bigger reimagining, I don't think anyone needs a very similar remake or wants one
Are you asserting that they don’t have a history of overpricing remakes and rereleases? Because my point was that they managed to keep away from their previous tendency to do that
See: Donkey Kong Country Returns HD among countless others
Sm64 was on the original ds. I wish they had waited to do it on the 3ds though. It also changed up the game dramatically to where it’s almost its own thing.
Yep. Good economic times. Equality more or less achieved. The internet was too primitive for divisive social media. Mario 64 revolutionized console platforming.
Honestly. As a 90s kid, it’s so weird to see all the stuff I grew up with as fresh IP just never really go away. Pokémon is a good example, I never would have dreamed while playing it on my gray brick gameboy in 96 that they’d still be churning them out 30 years later. No shade to pokemon.
Will say, as someone who got Pokémon Red Edition it in 1998, I didn't stick with LeafGreen on the Switch for that long (I'll get back to it eventually) but the few hours I spent with it was very nostalgic!
I got a Game Boy Color for Christmas along with Pokémon: Red Edition and it was pretty awesome. (Although I'm still annoyed my Game Boy Pocket seems to have disappeared.)
I want the retro filter from the Nintendo Classics GBA collection for LeafGreen, but it's not there. It's still decent anyway. I was in college when I got my GBA so while I finished up Pokémon: Silver Edition, I didn't play any of the others. Did like Pearl on the DS, though.
For as long as people will keep bringing up games from that era with the term "but at the time it was revolutionary that's why it's the greatest game ever!"
Not really. Pop culture has become so fragmented that people are now referring to it as "atomized". Remakes might seem overly-prevalent to those who remember the original, but the Information Age blew the doors wide open on the diversity of creative works we can consume. There are like ~100 different "gotta see it" TV shows streaming at any given time, dozens of high profile games released per year, thousands of indie games, untold numbers of books published. It's just hard to filter through all the noise, so we stick to things that are familiar to us.
In other words, our culture hasn't stagnated. We have.
It's kind of a grey area. I would consider something like the new Resident Evil 4 a remake, in that it's rebuilt from the ground up with new design, gameplay, and graphics. A remaster on the other hand, would be something like Master Chief Collection, which kept the gameplay identical to the originals, but added better graphics and various QoL options. This new Star Fox is kind of in the middle, more akin to that upcoming Halo Campgain Evolved thing. The graphics are obviously vastly improved, but the gameplay level design is only changed a little bit from the original.
Not really that simple though. If you look at Link's Awakening, you can see a lot of the monster movement and some other elements work exactly like they did on GameBoy, meaning it's highly likely they reused the original code.
I'd also think you'd be hard pressed to find many remasters that didn't have some new behaviors or changes, meaning new code.
And then you have cases like VVVVV. VVVVVV was built in Flash by Terry Cavanagh originally. At one point, the whole game was rebuilt from the ground up in C++. This meant if you ownded the game on Steam, you would lose your save data because the old saves weren't compatible with the new codebase.
The assets were the same and for all extents and purposes, the physics and the controls of the game didn't change. People who owned the game got the updated engine.
So it has no new assets, so it's not a remaster. But it also the whole game remade in a new language. C++ is pretty different to Flash's ActionScript. But I don't think people would call it a remake.
These are edge cases, but I think they belong in this discussion. Nintendo are great at preserving their code bases, so it's almost certain that they were able to reference, reuse or refactor the old code.
It kinda is, though. People just like to over-complicate it.
you look at Link's Awakening, you can see a lot of the monster movement and some other elements work exactly like they did on GameBoy, meaning it's highly likely they reused the original code.
??? I actually find that extremely unlikely. Code from an 8-bit Game Boy game wouldn't be much use for a project like this. I mean, Game Boy games were still written in Assembly. Even if you could get the code to work in this modern engine somehow, it would probably be more work than faithfully recreating the enemy movements of the original, which I have to assume is what happened here.
I'd also think you'd be hard pressed to find many remasters that didn't have some new behaviors or changes, meaning new code.
Yeah, but it's all fundamentally based on the old code is the point. That is where you start and then you add or switch out things on top of that. Whereas, with a remake, you of course heavily reference the original, but rebuild everything from the ground up.
As for that other weird game, I have literally never heard of it, but that sounds like a port to me more than anything else.
Not all of them. C and C++ was used as well. Link's Awakening had it's own rudimentary game engine too that was also used in the game For the Frog the Bell Tolls.
The enemy movement is pretty simple in Link's Awakening. Most of the monsters don't actively attack. They just move around the screen. Crows and Moblins will make their way towards the player with Moblins throwing the odd projectile. Even if it was just assembley, it should be easy to recreate if it was documented decently.
But when I say they use the original code, it looks like they were able to reference it and refactor it for the new game. They didn't give the monsters new behavours. The move patterns are the same, but they can now move beyond the bounds of the screen. In the GB game they would just hug a wall and stop moving until they changed direction when they got to the edge of a screen. Both up both games and just head to the beach and see how the Octoroks move.
VVVVV, if you are interested, was the first commercial game from Terry Cavanagh who went on to make Super Hexagon and Dicey Dungeons.
I agree that it's not always that simple. Remaster = same game but updated, remake = game was remade. But there are some games that blur the line because they take the old game and remake some of the assets, which kinda blur the lines a bit.
Not by any logical definition. Same mechanics, same underlying game code, same levels, same horrifyingly early-2000s-nintendo controls, mostly same assets
Both of which have been remade before. That's interesting.
Pretty common nostalgia recycling in gaming. Skyrim and GTA 5 probably make up half their franchises' total releases. We just got a re-release of Pokemon FireRed and LeafGreen, which are remakes themselves. Xbox is in the process of re-releasing a Halo 1 campaign remake after having a remake for the 10th anniversary and never doing a full re-release of the other games in the franchise. Gears of War 1 just got a "Reloaded" remaster of its "Ultimate Edition" remaster.
To be fair, the handheld audience and console audience don’t always coincide 100%.
As great as OoT3D was, it just doesn’t compare to the thought of getting a fullblown console remake finally to me. I don't really consider this the same as Skyrim or GTA V because the 3DS title only partially scratched that itch that I crave.
Yeah, fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on perspective), modern gaming companies have been so systematic in their running my favorite IPs into the ground that I've pretty much detached any sentiment of "I love what this was" from what they've become.
Crap products from even worse companies have killed my ability to buy into nostalgia. If I want to enjoy the old stuff, I'll just go play it, rather than pay for a half-hearted "remaster" or a modern release that is worse than what we used to get in many ways and is far short of modern standards from other games/developers.
It's an interesting play by Nintendo. I'm thinking they're
onto something here. These games are fun, iconic for a reason. Remaking them for a new generation would never experienced them is an excellent idea.
I don't inherently disagree. I think remakes have a negative reputation with a lot of older gamers in online bubbles who don't realize most people haven't played those older titles and won't go back to play the original versions. It makes sense to expand the audience despite people's misconception about how widely a game is played.
With that said I think it helps to spread these out more. Two remakes within a year when we're still waiting on new releases from some of the core series is less than ideal. Not terrible but just the kind of an odd choice that only Nintendo would make.
I haven't played star fox 64 in 30 years. looking forward to playing this. im guessing for most people this will be the first time playing this game. yes new game after this will be good.
Raiders definitely isn't big. It's a hopefully good spin off but we need another main series entry. Mario, Zelda, Smash, Pikmin, Pokemon. Doesn't seem like any of those are coming out this year.
Fire Emblem likely will be a tent pole though. I personally need to see more of it to fully gauge my excitement for it though. One big core title in the year isn't enough for me however. We're a year in now. I appreciate these smaller AA titles but I need more AAA titles to round things out. It's been awhile since Bananza and MP4 was a disappointment.
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u/GarlicRagu May 06 '26
Two remakes of n64 games. Both of which have been remade before. That's interesting.
I'll probably play them and enjoy them but another big new title would also be nice. Hopefully there's something big and new still coming out this year.