If it ain't broken...

[SamanthaSamantha's icon]

We often celebrate mods, patches, enhancements and re-releases - and for good reason! - but, sometimes, they don't actually improve the base games at all (and a few actually make them objectively worse).

Without trying to hate on or disrespect anyone who creates new content for beloved classics, do you have any examples of this sort of thing?

I'm gonna go with Deus Ex: The Revision because it changes some of the maps in an unfavorable way and the new lighting they implemented seems rough.

I still appreciate it, though.

What examples can you add? Remember: no hate!

 

[tenkai star]

this pains me

 

[Stare best girl]

I don't trust Atlus and Sega for more remasters and then... there's Persona 3 Portable ''remastered''

 

[moon200218]

All remasters have done for me (on pc at least) is increase the system specs and double the game size. The originals ran just fine.

This wouldnt be a problem if they didnt REPLACE the originals with the remasters in a lot of cases

Notable mentions being: Borderlands 1, Crysis series, metro series

 

[gwardojones]

I've said it before, but the Demon's Souls remake was a pretty big disappointment for me. It upped the graphical fidelity while removing all of the personality and atmosphere of the original. Plus, there was something eerie about the way no one's mouth's moved when they spoke in the original. Stockpile Thomas's new animations made him look like a Muppet, or like he belonged in a Disneyland ride.

 

[Rocket2049]

also wanted to say FF10, but for the reason of the remaster ADDING INPUT LAG
it's literally impossible to dodge 100 lightning bolts on FF10 HD (on PC and PS3,4 and 5 same issue)
you somehow have to press dodge BEFORE the bolt even shows up
i just didn't do it, skipped one "ultimate weapon" cause i just couldn't complete it on remaster.
also makes the chocobo race minigame much harder, and anything else just has bad timing.
to compare, FF10 ps2 by emulation does NOT have any issue (i did the 100 lightning dodges first try so it's not a skill issue at all)

I wanna say mario rpg because it DID NOT NEED TO BE EASIER on switch.
Mario RPG even on SNES, is one of the easiest RPG games i've seen
switch is pretty, nice cutscenes, and has some extra boss fight rematches not on SNES.
but... various things makes it easier, more item storage (and a storage box! not on SNES), fast travel, Team up super attacks (entirely new and very very strong on bosses, this might be the main factor on easier game alone!), and rebalancing (it didn't need it SNES version is super easy)
and for SOME REASON it also has a easy mode!? which allows holding 99 of every usable item, and makes timing hit/blocks easier, and enemies have less HP (its REALLY hard to notice since normal is pretty easy, maybe bosses you can tell but idk)
I like the GRAPHICS AND MUSIC upgrades but none of those game changes needed to be there, or should have been entirely OPTIONAL (like a classic difficulty mode or something)

Post automatically merged: Apr 14, 2026

OH MAN HOW CAN I FORGET
FF PIXEL REMASTER VERSIONS SUCK SO BAD, ZERO EXTRA CONTENT AND BAD GRAPHICS
all you really get is CHEATS (exp/money boost up to x4, on/off random encounter, full dungeon maps even if you literally JUST came in the first time! you see the entire map and CHESTS on it
don't play FF1 on any version other than PSP! trust me on this, it's the best FF1 port, not even close.

 

[contrail_]

That Chrono Trigger release on steam that crashes. Just imagine paying ~15 bucks for that experience instead of emulating it...
Also, the Yu-no visual novel. I understand why some would celebrate a remake of this, since some noobs have trouble running a game from '95 on their bloated windows 11 machine. But in this case the remake doesn't even contain the full story. Also, they botched the art style (which is quintessential to a vn, no matter how above that you may feel you are) all because people fear the sight of, *gasp*, unfiltered pixels...
A few examples:

An example of how the original is meant to look on on a crt display:

https://www.reddit.com/r/visualnovels/comments/q2ctzx/yuno_fan_translation_on_crt_vs_modern_display/

(I don't use reddit, but the dude took pictures, and now it's easier than ever for me to link to this example. That being said, you're still viewing those images on a non-crt monitor, so it's natural for the difference not to immediately jump out at you. It's a little bit like looking at color difference shots on a black and white tv lol.)

 

[plaindillo]

I'd give a shout out to the pixel remasters for Final Fantasies 1-6. Really, I don't mind a lot of the changes they made, (besides diagonal movement, that really gives me the ick), but a lot of the graphics just look worse, or bland. The case can be made that FF1-2 looks better than NES for sure, but we already had two remakes for those games that are much more visually impressive. The case can be made that since FF3 is the most polished NES game, the PR looks worse. And for the SNES games, especially ff6, they usually botch a lot of the original's visual flare or graphical effects, such as FF4's final boss background, or ff6 borrowing from the GBA version's oversaturated palette, losing the original's muted gritty vibe completely.

 

[Xdqwerty Xdqwerty]

Bowser's inside story didnt need a remake

 

[Bakuma1997]

The 3DS remakes of Etrian Odyssey 1 and 2, they added some QOL and a new Story mode, but otherwise they added too many cooks to the soup, you can play Classic mode, but you would be missing the new stuff that seemingly make clear Story mode was the main focus

Mercifullty the HD remasters are far better, axing the needless story mode and modernizing the OG ones in a organic way