In Praise of 2D Remasters

[JackOfSomeTrades]

We get a lot of discussions on remaster/remakes on this forum, but the vast majority of them are 3D. In anticipation of the latest high budget 2D Remake in Dragon Quest III, let's discuss some of the incredible 2D remasters we have seen(mods/rom-hacks/fan projects allowed), starting with one of my absolute favourites:

The Legend of Zelda - Link's Awakening DX HD

I'm currently finishing up a playthrough of this and it is phenomenal. The Switch remaster is great and pretty and has some of the same QoL improvements, but this to me is the definitive way to play Link's Awakening nowadays.

The 2D classics we grew up with came out in a time of severe technical restrictions that sometimes clashed with the design of the game, Links Awakening is a good example of this where the team tried to cram a full Link to the Past experience on a machine with two face buttons, a tiny screen, a slow processor and no colours.

The project was made by some anonymous fans and is fantastic(and now delisted), and it truly retains the soul of the original work.
It's highlights are:

• Quality of Life
  • Having 4 face buttons to equip items cuts down drastically on the time spent in menus
  • Autosave
  • Addition of scrolling screens as opposed to the fixed screens of the original
    • This does break the difficulty of some puzzles, so it would have been nice to have the option but personally it helps more than it hinders.
• Aesthetics
  • Retains the visual and audio aesthetic of the original
  • Uses a tasteful overlay rather than a bottom menu bar to show equiped items
  • Allows you to scale/zoom the world view, so you can zoom out and show the whole map at once if you wanted
• Technical Performance
  • Runs at uncapped framerates, can run at 120fps on a potato
  • Scales to any sensible resolution, you can even run it in TripleWide:
    
    

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXgXwDAwRaU&pp=ygUgbGluaydzIGF3YWtlbmluZyBkeCBoZCB1bHRyYXdpZGU%3D


What are your favourite 2D Remakes/Remasters? Which would you like to see?

Shoutouts to some of my favourites:

• AM2R (Another Metroid 2 Remake)
• Final Fantasy Pixel Remasters
• Sonic 3 AIR & Christian Whitehead's Sonic 1 & 2 ports
• Live A Live
• Pokemon HeartGold and SoulSilver
• The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past PC

 

[DrHercouet]

I remember finding out about BS Zelda 1 back in 2002 and I played it so, so much. So good, really.

 

[BasilZero]

Final Fantasy Pixel Remasters have been my favorite.

I've played all of the first 6 FF games on SNES, GBA, PS1, PSP, DS, PC and iOS multiple times but when I heard they were remaking the first 6 and for modern platforms and PC - it was one of the best announcements I've heard in a while.

I have the Pixel Remasters on Playstation, Switch, PC and iOS - hoping Xbox gets it as well so I can get the entire series on there too.

I've finished the entire collection on Switch - the best versions of the games I've played mainly due to the QoL features introduced such as turning off encounters, increasing exp/money, etc.

I need to play Pokemon HeartGold/SoulSilver - as a huge fan of the Pokemon series, havent tried that or FireRed/Leaf Green yet - I did play 3rd gen remakes and have the 4th gen remakes but havent played those yet.

Most other 2D games that got remade that I love so much (Trials of Mana for an example) were remade in 3D.

 

[JackOfSomeTrades]

I remember finding out about BS Zelda 1 back in 2002 and I played it so, so much. So good, really.

Click to shrink...

If I hadn't played through Zelda 1 so recently this would be next on my list, looks rad!

I've finished the entire collection on Switch - the best versions of the games I've played mainly due to the QoL features introduced such as turning off encounters, increasing exp/money, etc.

Click to shrink...

Can't be understated how much these improve the originals. I can't remember who said it but described it as "tying negative consequences in the form of roadblocks to the simple act of movement was an odd design decision", it's hard to not see it when going back to older JRPGs. Think it was Dev Game Club (would recommend) when they were playing through one of the original FFs.