Remake It Till You Break It

Remakes in gaming are nothing new. The leap to new, more powerful hardware has done wonders breathing new life into old games. Most of the time the game being remade needed it; whether it was due to questionable graphics, janky controls, or ambition beyond what the system was capable of. And sometimes it’s The Last of Us. Nintendo is no stranger to this practice having released updated or remade versions of classics from their catalog over the last few years. Advance Wars 1+2 Reboot Camp, Starfox, Metroid Prime Remastered, Super Mario RPG and the recent, brilliant Ocarina of Time remake, just to name a few, have hit the Switch/Switch 2 in the last 5 years alone. Recent interviews with bigwigs at the mighty N point to more remakes and remasters coming down the pike. Which makes sense, taking established titles and bringing them to modern platforms with modern sensibilities is, generally, a recipe for success. (still not sure why Shrek 2 is getting a remake but I digress…) With all of that in mind I thought I would take a look through Nintendo’s history and find a few games I’d like to see updated. I’ve already written about games they absolutely shouldn’t touch here, and I’m sticking by that. Submitted for your approval this is Remake It Till You Break It: Nintendo.

The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask - The most obvious, and arguably most likely, candidate on this list, Majora’s Mask is in desperate need of a remaster. Suffering from many of the same problems that plagued the N64 release of Ocarina of Time, which makes sense considering the reuse of assets and short development cycle, it would not be odd to say that a remaster would do even more for Majora’s Mask. Imagining the jump in visual fidelity alone is enough to make this an incredibly intriguing prospect. That moon man… damn. The quality of life improvements though, camera/balancing/etc., are maybe even more intriguing. Majora’s Mask is a Zelda game unlike any other and it deserves to be the game we all see in our heads.

StarTropics - So I love StarTropics. I love how weird it is. For those of you who don’t know, StarTropics shipped with a letter inside the box. On this letter was a code that was needed to progress in the game. You couldn’t move forward without the physical letter included in the game packaging. The gimmick went further by having the code written in invisible ink. Players needed to dip the letter in water to reveal the code. No letter, no progress. (it’s 747 by the way) In the beginning of the game there’s a room with a red potion and a switch. Pressing the switch gives you another room with another potion and another switch. Activating the switch again puts you in a room that instantly kills you by drowning. It’s obtuse, often frustrating, and gets insanely difficult late in the game. But still, I love it. I also recognize that while I find it charming for all of its quirks, there is a much better game below the surface. StarTropics wasn’t originally released in Japan, just the US and Europe. It doesn’t carry nearly the weight of a lot of Nintendo franchises. However, it did well enough to get a sequel, Zoda’s Revenge, and earn itself a cult following. A remake could put the game front and center though and for inspiration we only need to look back to the recent Link’s Awakening remake for Switch. Now, this isn’t going to help dispel the notion that StarTropics is and always has been a Zelda clone which is fine, it definitely is. But just like the Link’s Awakening GameBoy game, there is a lot more personality in StarTropics than the NES original delivered on screen. The thought of that world, Coricola and beyond, reimagined and more importantly, populated in an art style similar to the Link’s Awakening remake is tantalizing to say the least. A remake could also solve some of the issues plaguing StarTropics, namely the obtuse narrative that players had to piece together and the unbalanced, difficult gameplay. There is so much to love in the NES original. But, there is so much more there there that a remake really could be something truly special.

Kid Icarus: Uprising - There is no franchise, apart from Pro Wrestling maybe, that I want to see brought back to the fore than Kid Icarus. I absolutely adore the NES Kid Icarus and GameBoy Kid Icarus: Of Myths and Monsters. And I absolutely want to adore Kid Icarus: Uprising, but I can’t. The control scheme, in which you really need at least 3 hands to play comfortably, was about as good as it could be for what Sakurai was going for on the 3DS. That said, it just isn’t very fun to play. One of the things that has always stuck out about Nintendo as a company is their focus on fun. Whether you like a particular game or not, it is hard to argue that Nintendo games are not fun to play. (obvious exceptions are obvious) Kid Icarus: Uprising, in my opinion, simply is not fun to play. Now, that’s not a hot take. The internet is littered with similar opinions on Uprising. By just updating the control scheme to something resembling normal, and adjusting the Dual Screen nature of the original, Nintendo would have a massive hit. Uprising really is just that good with a cool story, pretty fun voice acting, nice graphics, and a nice mix of on-rails shooter and hack n’ slash gameplay. It doesn’t need a lot of help. But, dream with me dreamers, a full fledged remake, with all the bells and whistles that entails, well friends I’m not too proud to admit that idea get my jimmies rustling. I fully believe that Uprising could have been the game that turned Nintendo’s Holy Trinity of Mario, Link, and Samus into an even holier, dare I say sexier, Holy Quaternity of Mario, Link, Samus, and Pit. (yes I had to look up what a holy trinity of four things was called) Greek myth is undeniably cool. It’s staying power as a vehicle for pop culture storytelling is relatively unmatched. If a series like Percy Jackson and the Olympians can have anywhere from 25 to 40+ books, depending on the particular type of nerd you’re having that particular discussion with, 2 not very good movies, and 1 tv show with multiple seasons, 3 as of this post, than Kid Icarus can be a tentpole franchise for Nintendo. Being trapped on the 3DS is even more of a reason to give Uprising the full remake treatment. Porting 3DS titles to Switch is a mixed bag at best. Emulating 3DS games, legally obviously, is fine if not a bit wonky. The fact that an entire, massively popular, system in the Nintendo family is basically dead in the water without tons of work from either official developers or not so official homebrew maniacs is just not what you want. Giving Kid Icarus: Uprising the Ocarina of Time treatment makes about as much sense as any game in Nintendo’s catalog. I have no doubt that if done well, it could be the start of something really big.

Product Embed | Forever Pak 64 256KB Memory Pak for Nintendo 64

That’s it for this week. To hear what Kris has to say make sure to check out the pod through whatever catcher you use or on our very own Youtube channel. But I want to know what you think. Join the Stone Age Gamer discord, or you can find me on Bluesky to let me know your thoughts. In the immortal words of Billy Joel, “Life is a series of hellos and goodbyes; I'm afraid it's time for goodbye again.” See you soon.