Re-Boot, Retcon or Re-Master

[Goro]

So Aliens: Colonial Marines put Hicks back in the game, so a Retcon of sorts I guess, and we all know how that went down.
DMC got a Re-Boot, and it split opinions
Silent Hill got the remaster treatment and set fire to the Universe or something.
So if it had to happen, and I know it's asking if you'd rather be bitten by a rattler or a copperhead, would you rather your favorite series got a Ret-Con, a Re-Boot or a Re-Master?

 

[Nouw]

Reboot definitely. New people could bring something fresh to a franchise, case in point the upcoming Starship Troopers reboot for which I am too excited for my own good.

 

[DoPo]

Out of the three - remaster. Reboots could work but too often aren't needed. And are also used way too often. Retcons also could work but are a recepy for a disaster, unless handled really carefully.

 

[bafrali]

Reboots can kiss my....
Retcons are iffy. Portal still makes my head hurt.
Remasterings are OK in my book. Recently we got Black Mesa and it was a fantastic little trip that fixed, expanded, or re-imagined the original without pissing on it. Sad thing is that it was a fan mod.

 

[Vaar]

Without giving too much thought this would be my first response:

If the series has really been run into the ground, give it a reboot.
If the series is mostly good but some games were not, retcon
If the series was great all the way through but is quite old so as the experience to be enhanced with todays technology, give it a remaster.






Waka waka do doo yeah.

 

[Sansha]

Remaster.

I really appreciated the Doom3 remaster, and now Age of Empires II. I'd lose my shit for a Jazz Jackrabbit remaster, and Battlefield 2142.

 

[Thaluikhain]

What about rip-offs? Something suspiciously similar, but not canon in the same universe.

 

[DoPo]

What about rip-offs? Something suspiciously similar, but not canon in the same universe.

Well, a rip off is by definition negative. I'm not sure many people would be enjoying it, and even then, it would probably just be very specific things, rather than the concept/process/idea as a whole.

 

[Dr.Awkward]

Reboot. Although, if they need a good example of how to do it right, I'd suggest looking into Metroid: Zero Mission, with how they introduced weapons and abilities from later games of the series and improved the bosses. Easily one of the best reboots made to this day.

 

[an annoyed writer]

I kinda like remasterings. I can list off a few good ones: Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes, Black Mesa, and Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D all do it right: don't piss on the original, but do a good job of bringing them to today's standard.

 

[Ilikemilkshake]

Anything but retcons... They make me weep.
Remasterings or reboots are alright provided they're done right.

 

[Baron_BJ]

Anything but retcons... They make me weep.
Remasterings or reboots are alright provided they're done right.

Retcons aren't always bad, though only if done right. I'll use as an example one of the most famous retcons of all time; Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker's father. People have gone back through the series original outline and interviewed the people who worked on the films and originally what was stated in the film was true, that Vader had killed Luke's father but they decided to just handwave the whole thing away in with "Nah, that shit was true in a sense, I totally wasn't just fucking with you".

I think that's a pretty weak way of doing it but it worked and people loved it.

OT: I'd go with retcon myself, but I don't want them ignoring shit that has happened in the past, you have to explain yourself. An example of this being doing HORRENDOUSLY WRONG is how they cobbled together the official canon for the Resident Evil series (They mixed together things in a way that a player can't even match up with the canon by playing the game. You can't even get the correct canon by fucking copying them!). I dare you to look that shit up and then return here and say "nah, they didn't daisy-chain that stupid shit together like an ADD 6 year old high on pixie sticks holding a glue gun, it's fiiiine".

 

[Ilikemilkshake]

Anything but retcons... They make me weep.
Remasterings or reboots are alright provided they're done right.

Retcons aren't always bad, though only if done right. I'll use as an example one of the most famous retcons of all time; Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker's father. People have gone back through the series original outline and interviewed the people who worked on the films and originally what was stated in the film was true, that Vader had killed Luke's father but they decided to just handwave the whole thing away in with "Nah, that shit was true in a sense, I totally wasn't just fucking with you".

I think that's a pretty weak way of doing it but it worked and people loved it.

That's a good point actually.. But I think that only worked because at no point did they ever actually give any evidence for that being the case other then Bens/Obi-wans word and it seemed entirely plausible that he might lie about something like that. I'd see it less as a retcon and more of a.. remoulding.

So if it's done like that then it can work fine but if it's something like say Dragon Age, where you can kill a character and physically decapitate them but then that gets retconed and that character reappears in the sequel with their head still attached, that's a douche move.

 

[Keymik]

Reboots, it'd be fun to see some of my favorite games with better looks and such.. And even if it sucks I can still just go back and play the old game..
Remastering is alright I guess, I'm sort of neutral on those..

And retcons are evil and should be burned.. Most of the time..
But that has more to do with the fact that I like story and invest alot of time getting to know the story and all the nooks and crannies of it. (I'm the dude that can't sleep at night wondering where meat comes from in the pokemon universe)

And if they just go ''Well btw that part of the story doesn't matter anymore lol'' it annoys me.
But like everything in the world there is always exceptions.. Not that I can think of any.



Captcha: Check your work

Thanks Captcha I discovered a typo because of you! ^^

 

[VoidWanderer]

So Aliens: Colonial Marines put Hicks back in the game, so a Retcon of sorts I guess, and we all know how that went down.
DMC got a Re-Boot, and it split opinions
Silent Hill got the remaster treatment and set fire to the Universe or something.
So if it had to happen, and I know it's asking if you'd rather be bitten by a rattler or a copperhead, would you rather your favorite series got a Ret-Con, a Re-Boot or a Re-Master?

I just want to watch my favourite shows again, as long as they keep the same feel to them.

 

[dementis]

I own the Devil May Cry HD collection, the ZoE HD collection and the Metal Gear Solid HD collection, OoT 3d, Black Mesa and many other great classics with lovely up-scaled visuals. So I'm thinking Re-master.

 

[Baron_BJ]

Anything but retcons... They make me weep.
Remasterings or reboots are alright provided they're done right.

Retcons aren't always bad, though only if done right. I'll use as an example one of the most famous retcons of all time; Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker's father. People have gone back through the series original outline and interviewed the people who worked on the films and originally what was stated in the film was true, that Vader had killed Luke's father but they decided to just handwave the whole thing away in with "Nah, that shit was true in a sense, I totally wasn't just fucking with you".

I think that's a pretty weak way of doing it but it worked and people loved it.

That's a good point actually.. But I think that only worked because at no point did they ever actually give any evidence for that being the case other then Bens/Obi-wans word and it seemed entirely plausible that he might lie about something like that. I'd see it less as a retcon and more of a.. remoulding.

So if it's done like that then it can work fine but if it's something like say Dragon Age, where you can kill a character and physically decapitate them but then that gets retconed and that character reappears in the sequel with their head still attached, that's a douche move.

Yes. That is the move of a wanker. I like the Dragon Age Series thus far (yes, even 2), but it has a real problem with just completely ignoring certain decisions the player made.
If the warden died in Origins it turns out that they didn't really die in Awakening, that whole funeral that was held with your corpse in the center, yeah, turns out it was just for LARFS.
The outcomes are normally standardized, so when My Anders in Awakening decides that being a member of the Wardens is what makes him truly happy and he ultimately decides to stay there for the rest of his life and die happily it kind of annoys me when he comes back as a whiny ponce who merged with Justice, another character who could have actually been ignored by players, left to wander in circles in the swamp.
I guess the players who murdered Ogren and lopped off his head were just kidding because there he is in Awakening, and is he ever happy to see you again!

Dear writers, plan this shit out in advance, you can't give players a choice and then randomly change shit because the idea bucket ran low.

 

[The_Echo]

I'm sure nobody likes retconning. It's just weird.

Remasters are good; I've bought quite a few in my day.

But reboots... well. I don't like them. But in the case of DmC, I'd consider that a reimagining. A reboot is starting over (think every superhero film franchise), whereas a reimagining is taking established characters and/or events, rearranging a lot of it and coming up with something fairly if not entirely new as a result.

I like reimaginings on a conceptual level. In practice, it's a little iffy.

 

[TheRightToArmBears]

Probably reboots, even though a lot of the time I think they're a bit unnecessary.

I don't really like remasters; I don't mind films dating a bit, it gives them some character. Case in point: Terminator, the jerky stop-motion style animation on the Terminator is really damn cool, and kinda creepier than if it moved more naturally.

I'm not that keen on retcons, they tend to make things a bit confusing and if it's a big one, it makes the events lose a bit of weight. I mean, if a character dies, but you think he might just turn up later, it's not really as dramatic. That said, I don't mind small retcons, or retconning things that are widely regarded to be terrible decisions. Something like X-Men: First Class ignoring bits of X-Men Origins: Wolverine and the third X-Men film (whatever it was called. Who cares?) is fine by me, especially as Charles getting shot is a pretty dramatic moment. It's a small loss for a big gain.

Reboots tend to be a bit unnecessary, like The Amazing Spiderman (from a purely non-business perspective), or the last Prince of Persia. On the other hand, I kinda like seeing re-imaginings of well known characters, it's interesting. And to be honest, Tomb Raider had dated in a bad way, I think it was pretty well due.

 

[thejackyl]

So Aliens: Colonial Marines put Hicks back in the game, so a Retcon of sorts I guess, and we all know how that went down.

Wasn't the problem with Aliens:CM more that the game was lackluster and bugged to hell? I heard a LOT more complaints about that, than I did about Hicks being back in the game. Than again, I haven't seen any of the Alien movies, so maybe I'm missing something here.

DMC got a Re-Boot, and it split opinions

And the main complaint was that they changed Dante too much. Wasn't there a big issue over... Nero (DMC4's protagonist), because he looked a lot like old Dante, but wasn't him? From what I've played, and seen the game play is still fine, and I never had an issue. Again I wasn't a fan of DMC in the first place.

Silent Hill got the remaster treatment and set fire to the Universe or something.

That's because of issues that shouldn't have existed. Silent hill 2 and 3 shouldn't lag or have audio de-sync issues on the PS3 or 360's hardware (since the games ran fine on the PS2), but they did. They're the only games I've played on PS3 that have EVER caused lag for me. Also, it took them way too long to fix and they only fixed the PS3 version from what I remember.

So if it had to happen, and I know it's asking if you'd rather be bitten by a rattler or a copperhead, would you rather your favorite series got a Ret-Con, a Re-Boot or a Re-Master?

As for my thoughts as a whole:

Retcon: Depends on the situation really. Blizzard gets away with it all the time in WoW. This is probably the one I would stay away from the most, even more so if it's an established franchise.

Re-Boot: Is the franchise already dead, and the fans would love a new one? Rebooting it can work. Good example: X-Com Enemy Unknown. Bad examples: Shadowrun(FPS), Syndicate (FPS). If you reboot a franchise try to stay close to its original genre. I do think that if they rebranded those games as spinoffs rather then reboots that they would have been much better received.

Re-Master: My favorite of the lot honestly, take a game from the past, refine the controls, touch up the graphics, fix existing bugs, and sell it at a lower price point. And for the nostalgia junkies, add in a mode that is (basically) the original game with the bug fixes.