Originals that are better than a re-release?

[Deleted member 45703]

In your opinion, what are some games where the original release is superior to any port, remaster, remake or whatever else?

 

[Cardboardtubeknight Cardboardtubeknight]

Resident Evil 4

 

[Shihainin]

The OG Battlefront II. It seems like an obvious choice, but the 2016 release has been gaining a bit of a following recently, with the release of the Celebration edition. But for me, it'll never beat the pure joy I get from the original.

 

[Scotty Scotty]

Sonic Adventure 1 on Sega Dreamcast is great example. The DX version has worse graphics and is even buggier.

 

[Xdqwerty Xdqwerty]

Mario and Luigi Superstar Saga and Bowser's inside story

 

[Viviana Santos]

Sonic Adventure is much better than the remastered/re-released Sonic Adventure DX version in many ways, especially in terms of visuals, lighting, textures and various other aspects.

Post automatically merged: Jun 13, 2025

This video here goes into more detail about why the DX version is much inferior to the original.

 

[RanmyakuIchi's icon RanmyakuIchi RanmyakuIchi]

As others have said, Sonic Adventure 1 is definitely one of the biggest examples. I also prefer the original Resident Evil 4 to the remake as well.

 

[Bakuma1997]

*Enters the chat with a Hot Take*

N.Sane Trilogy, i love the game's new graphic facelift (Coco is ADORABLE) but the gaming component...

+ Jumping feels like if Crash ate an anvil
+ Losing in Crash 1 doesn't denies you the Box Gem... except the Color ones
+ Boxes themselves has wonkier hitboxes be to land on them as well as hitting them (The Polar Bear levels never give me too much problem for the Box Gem in PSX, but here the boxes seems to be ghosts)
+ Controls feel jankier regarding sliding, especially cruel since you really want to slide or courch jump often due to the aformentioned jump physics

 

[nyka]

OG Shadow of the Colossus, playing at 15 fps like God Fumito-Sama Intended!

*edit* oh wait; I can't not mention Baroque. OG Sega Saturn Version for the noir lighting and all that Saturn rizz~

 

[GardeniaSky's icon GardeniaSky GardeniaSky]

*Enters the chat with a Hot Take*

N.Sane Trilogy, i love the game's new graphic facelift (Coco is ADORABLE) but the gaming component...

+ Jumping feels like if Crash ate an anvil
+ Losing in Crash 1 doesn't denies you the Box Gem... except the Color ones
+ Boxes themselves has wonkier hitboxes be to land on them as well as hitting them (The Polar Bear levels never give me too much problem for the Box Gem in PSX, but here the boxes seems to be ghosts)
+ Controls feel jankier regarding sliding, especially cruel since you really want to slide or courch jump often due to the aformentioned jump physics

Glad it's not just me! I can play through most of the OG Crash Bandicoot on PS1 with ease. On the remake, I'm dying constantly. Something about the controls just feels bad! It feels delayed.

 

[X y b e r - S k u ll]

SA1 and RE4 like others have already mentioned, but I'd like to mention Secret of Mana as well. Considering the original is so highly regarded, it's a mystery how that remake turned out as bad as it did. "Soulless" is how I would describe it in one word (It also has the honor of being the only Steam game I've ever refunded).

 

[Kamako]

Silent Hill 2 & 3 for PS2/PC over the HD Remaster for 360/PS3
Re: The same games

Original DOOM trilogy over modern DOOM trilogy, even though all of those games are glorious.
Re: The same series re-booted.

NFS Most Wanted 2005 over 2012
Re: The same game re-imagined (?)

 

[Frickinfrik]

GTA PS2 Trilogy
Silent Hill 2
Silent Hill 3
Majora’s Mask
XIII
Sonic Generations (yeah I said it, I don’t like the remaster)
Samba De Amigo (The Wii Version is awful)
Super Mario Galaxy (Playing it on Switch doesn’t feel right)

 

[Izzy]

The Tales (of) series. Hell, sounds a lot better with restorations

 

[middler]

I'd have to go with Xenoblade Chronicles X. The WiiU version characters have sharper features that i like more than the roundier ones from the Switch version. Other than that the visual "upgrades" either don't look different at all or weren't notable. The biggest thing they did was make the gameplay dumber, a lot dumber.
The worst remakes are the ones that didn't need to happen all, like this one... and Last of Us.

 

[Stare best girl]

I don't get why Twilight Princess HD is loved and people wants it ported on Switch/Switch 2 while has worse visuals and worse frame-rate compared to the OG Gamecube version

 

[JPchicre]

Resident Evil 4

Th wii port was quite good.

 

[Bakuma1997]

Glad it's not just me! I can play through most of the OG Crash Bandicoot on PS1 with ease. On the remake, I'm dying constantly. Something about the controls just feels bad! It feels delayed.

IKR, the worst thing is that watching some videos they are some levels that actually benefited of the Remake's QOL (You can actually see shit in the UFO race level in Warped) but if the rest of the game is going to have Fake Difficulty galore, i would rather play the OGs

 

[thanonyx thanonyx]

The Secret of Mana remake was God awful. It was just a broken mess.

 

[Cardboardtubeknight Cardboardtubeknight]

Th wii port was quite good.

This is true

The Secret of Mana remake was God awful. It was just a broken mess.
View attachment 80566
View attachment 80567

I had completely wiped that from my memory... how could you

 

[FrootyLoopsSamurai]

I prefer the original Demon's Souls on PS3 vs the remade version on PS5. They made changes to the art style that I'm not a huge fan of.

I also have similar feelings about the Metroid Prime art revisions as well on Switch, but maybe a bit less so. I also like the original Gamecube controls more than the new ones.

The modern version of Final Fantasy X has worse music arrangements.

I'm glad more people can experience these games, but these versions just don't replace the originals.

 

[Viviana Santos]

Shin Megamix Tendeu Strange Journey Redux is by far the worst re-release Atlus has ever done, it simply ruined the original vision and added a bunch of shit that doesn't fit with the game's story.

---

And also the new character Alex is awful, and they've also replaced the character portraits that were originally drawn by the legendary Kazuma Kaneko with these new really ugly character portraits.

The original version.

The Redux version.

 

[Zerohour2k12]

SH2 and RE4 for sure.

 

[MasterEn]

pikmin 1 and 2 for the gcn are far better than the wii and switch ports. there were several new glitches introduced into the wii ports, which were never fixed and are present in the switch ports as well.

 

[Reamkalamid]

Tales of phantasia