one thing that bugs me is how, in spite of several releases, there can never be one "definitive" version of a certain game. Of course, people will have their own tastes, and you can't necessarily say that enhanced graphics are better than the graphics that were there before (especially given the more recent popularity of retro pixelized renderings), but it's not like an enhanced port can't include the original release as an extra, which seems to be done rarely. Then there're all these cases where a multi-platform release includes an exclusive character or something that's dependent on the platform, remakes/ports that use different soundtracks, etc., and it's all the more jarring when the releases are so close to one another. One company that's really been pissing me off lately is NIS and their tendency to re-release titles that're barely five years old onto the PSP. To be fair, these ports do add an additional story mode, and the western releases still retain the dual voice-track feature in spite of the smaller medium, but we really could've done with just ONE of these releases per game. In Disgaea's case, they made a watered-down DS port shortly after the PSP one, yet try to make it tempting by having Pleinair be exclusive to it, and for Phantom Brave's PSP port, they try to throw in a couple extra characters, which seems like a kick in the balls to people who just bought the Wii port not long before then. Seriously, fuck you NIS. Thankfully, this problem with tiny add-ons should be averted with downloadable content, but somehow, I still anticipate them making some "enhanced" PSVita port of Disgaea 3 within the next year or so.
Snork Maiden said:
Did you purposely pick the worst example possible? Chrono Trigger came out, what, 15+ years ago? While you can debate about whether or not it *still* holds up to a ten, I think the vast majority of people haven't played Chrono Trigger and they're the ones who'd benefit from any review. If you played Chrono Trigger back in the day are you really going to let the decision to buy the remake be based on whether or not something new was pitched in? I don't really think the argument that it destroys creativity holds up either, because it seems to me the vast majority of games released right now are completely new, rather than remakes of older games.
well, it may be a 15-year old game, but do keep in mind that it's been released at least 4 times. After the original SNES release, there was the Playstation port, and more recently, we got the DS release with the Virtual Console release just a little while afterwards. Although the VC version is great for people who want to (legitimately) own the game at a discount, it's being rated so highly even though it adds nothing new (in fact, coming off of the DS version, there's now less content), so he does make a bit of a point. Don't get me wrong, the game itself is certainly worthy of a high score, but it should be emphasized that it's nothing more than what's already been there before, and only people who haven't had a chance to experience the original (and either don't have a DS, can't find the DS version at retailers, or really wanna save money... and in some cases, people who no longer have their SNESes) are truly going to benefit.
Veylon said:
On the ratings side of things, yeah, there is a problem with sacred cows, just as in any other medium. Who's going to ding Wizard of Oz for it's dodgy special effects? Did you know that Disney is still selling DVDs of movies going back upwards of seventy years? Lousy coasters.
but it's not like DVD releases can't be criticized, regardless of the movie on said DVDs. I've seen several reviews that knock on companies for having bad quality, unskippable previews, menus that a 5-year old may have cooked up, lack of certain extras (like original trailers), etc. So yeah, a new release of an old movie is very much in the same boat as a re-port of a game.
