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Konami "Retro-Revival" Sequel.

Posted: Sat Aug 02, 2008 4:46 pm
by Letiumtide
http://kotaku.com/5032357/rumor-konami- ... ewcomments

"Good ole rumor-speculation combo, begun by the latest issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly and applied by Wiifanboy. First, EGM in its rumors column of the Sept. 2008 edition, promises that "one of the most beloved (yet overlooked) action-adventure franchises of yore will soon get a surprise retro-revival sequel." OK, that, like, rules out Contra, right ? Because that's anything but overlooked.

Said title will also stay true to its 2D roots, says EGM, which knows what's coming but won't name names, except to exclude Bucky O'Hare or Biker Mice from Mars Wiifanboy runs with the ball of speculation, offering some possibilities Konami could be working.

I guess my question is, why wouldn't it be Contra? Unless they're thinking after Mega Man 9 and Bionic Commando: Rearmed, people will have exhausted their supply of nostalgia for platform action games. If it's Rush'n Attack I'm gonna choke."

I'm kind of crossing my fingers for Snatcher, Policenauts or even Goemon.

Also, I hope it hasn't been posted yet.

Re: Konami "Retro-Revival" Sequel.

Posted: Sun Aug 03, 2008 9:23 am
by Dick Motorman
Letiumtide wrote: I'm kind of crossing my fingers for Snatcher, Policenauts or even Goemon.

Also, I hope it hasn't been posted yet.
I doubt it has anything to do with snatcher, or policenauts, for the simple fact that we already kind of 'know' they're working on something Snatcher related, 'project S'.

When it comes down to it, NEVER GO TO KOTAKU. You can get better info from reading the graffiti inside a bathroom stall.

Re: Konami "Retro-Revival" Sequel.

Posted: Sun Aug 03, 2008 4:46 pm
by JimboKudo
All these "Retro-Revivals" being made tells me that game makers are running out of ideas. Also, Kotaku may be biased, but it's not exactly the worst place to get info on games. Although I can name several instances when they REALLY screwed up on the information that they were giving out.

Re: Konami "Retro-Revival" Sequel.

Posted: Sun Aug 03, 2008 4:49 pm
by Commander_AK-47
JimboKudo wrote:All these "Retro-Revivals" being made tells me that game makers are running out of ideas.
=D>

Re: Konami "Retro-Revival" Sequel.

Posted: Sun Aug 03, 2008 6:08 pm
by Dick Motorman
JimboKudo wrote:All these "Retro-Revivals" being made tells me that game makers are running out of ideas. Also, Kotaku may be biased, but it's not exactly the worst place to get info on games. Although I can name several instances when they REALLY screwed up on the information that they were giving out.

Its the same with the movie industry, and television as well.

Re: Konami "Retro-Revival" Sequel.

Posted: Mon Aug 04, 2008 12:12 am
by Artemio
It is just easy money. My generation is very nostalgic, and maybe we all are. Just sell something that people love from their childhood and you'll get easy sales without effort.

Re: Konami "Retro-Revival" Sequel.

Posted: Mon Aug 04, 2008 11:05 am
by Commander_AK-47
That is very true, for example the Ironman movie, it was awesome but I'm sure it wasn't made awesome, just that all of us guys who used to read the comics way back when loved to see it. Plus it was awesome. I'm trying to think of a better example but I cant right now, I just woke up.

Re: Konami "Retro-Revival" Sequel.

Posted: Mon Aug 04, 2008 12:01 pm
by Nitroadict
IMO, Iron Man was legitly good. It wasn't incredible, but you'd be amazed at what a few perfect casting choices (Robert Downey Jr., Jeff Bridges, hell, Gwenyeth Paltrow was almost not-annoying in this movie), economical use of special effects, and a good script can do for a movie. Yes it had a bit of a stereotypical treatment with the terrorists, but not more than what is usually allowed in actual comics (not in-depth, but enough depth to serve a purpose in the storyline).

As for nostalgia, if nostalgia is the trend in the market, then it will play out until nostalgia is no longer a trend (i.e. when it no longer becomes instantly profitable). At some point, it will not become profitable, and while it is, there are still other people who are not hopping on the nostalgia band wagon, where normally, they might not get paid attention to.

The fretting over nostalgia as a trend ("x is running out of ideas"), that somehow will not end anytime soon, is reactionary. While Square-Enix may be busy remaking stuff & I might not trust anything "original" they come out with, no worries, Disgaea 3 is coming out, and I'm already catching up on the first two on my PS2.

While major players may be doing the nostalgia bit, this allows the original efforts of smaller players to stick out more and step in to get some business done.

Re: Konami "Retro-Revival" Sequel.

Posted: Mon Aug 04, 2008 12:32 pm
by Commander_AK-47
Nitroadict wrote:While major players may be doing the nostalgia bit, this allows the original efforts of smaller players to stick out more and step in to get some business done.
That is very good fro the game/movie economy. The little companies get to show their stuff with original releases and its gets the flow of different producers going. If one or two companies monopolized the market everything would become stagnant and boring.

Re: Konami "Retro-Revival" Sequel.

Posted: Mon Aug 04, 2008 11:40 pm
by JimboKudo
The thing about remakes is that they tend to make me back away. For example, Final Fantasy 1&2 came out for the GBA a few years ago. At first I was saying, "Heck yeah!" but after seeing some more details I found that they had added a few classes, changed the battles up a bit, and pretty much all the graphics. They messed with the game so much that it didn't even look like it was the original final fantasy games anymore.
Sometimes I think it is slightly acceptable. A case of this would be the re-release of FF5 for the Playstation. Our original translation had to cut back on a lot of storyline since our text ended up taking too much room on the SNES cartridge. On the re-release, they re-translated the text and, as far as I know, left the rest of the game alone.

Re: Konami "Retro-Revival" Sequel.

Posted: Mon Aug 04, 2008 11:44 pm
by Commander_AK-47
Well when game creators remake games, they are tempted to change some stuff, take MGS:TTS for example, it was a lot different from the Playstation version of MGS.

Re: Konami "Retro-Revival" Sequel.

Posted: Tue Aug 05, 2008 12:16 pm
by Dick Motorman
But on the opposite side of that, remakes give new people a chance to really make a great game, it's a chance to show their perspective on a story, on a character and his/her world, so it's not all bad. Take Rygar for example, a funny, but pretty mediocre game for the NES, however a decade later they 'reinvented' the series for the PS2, and it's such a great game, albeit a hugely overlooked one.

Re: Konami "Retro-Revival" Sequel.

Posted: Tue Aug 05, 2008 10:13 pm
by JimboKudo
But rygar was very different from the original NES version. So much that I wouldn't necessarily call it a remake. I guess a remake, for me, would have to be very much the same game, but with a few differences. MGS:TTS is still enough like MGS to be called a remake, but Rygar PS2 is 3D and completely different than the original. Rygar PS2 might qualify as a remake, but it sure doesn't seem like that's the case.

Re: Konami "Retro-Revival" Sequel.

Posted: Tue Aug 05, 2008 10:52 pm
by Dick Motorman
JimboKudo wrote:But rygar was very different from the original NES version. So much that I wouldn't necessarily call it a remake. I guess a remake, for me, would have to be very much the same game, but with a few differences. MGS:TTS is still enough like MGS to be called a remake, but Rygar PS2 is 3D and completely different than the original. Rygar PS2 might qualify as a remake, but it sure doesn't seem like that's the case.
Thats why I said "REINVENTED". How about Metroid: Zero Mission for example? A great update of the original, or the countless Lunar and Castevania remakes (albeit not all of them are good), or even our beloved Snatcher.

Re: Konami "Retro-Revival" Sequel.

Posted: Wed Aug 06, 2008 8:39 am
by Letiumtide
Yeah I know, Kotaku is a kind of iffy place to get news for some stuff, but I usually know when they're wrong, as I've told them about it over and over until it's eventually corrected on the front page. Augh. Either way, it's at least not something that they're suspecting or making up if the picture they have is a magazine clip. Might have merit anyway. (and it's certainly not the first/only place I go for my game news)

IGA was talking about doing something akin to the Megaman 9 idea for the Castlevania series, so I imagine that has a chance for something similar.

Although these type of things are likely easy cash-ins they're low cost developement and unlike squeenix they aren't going to toss them at you for full price either. The Megaman 9 game is going to cost the same as your basic wiiware game, so what $10? (or free *cough*)

I enjoy my nostalgia glasses, not everything that is a remake or a cash in has been terrible.

Re: Konami "Retro-Revival" Sequel.

Posted: Thu Aug 14, 2008 11:09 pm
by Junker Gear Snatcher
Well, one of the things we have to keep in mind, is not all "nostalgia" projects are made with Nostalgia in mind.

A project can spawn from a scenario like this:

Man A: "You know, I think my favorite project to work on was [game]"
Man B: "Seriously, it was whimsical, free-floating and fun. We could really ease up and make a game for the heck of it."
Man A: "Tell me about it, I'm stressed as it is over [High demand game series' next installment] Fans are demanding a sequel, my mailbox is overflowing and it's starting to give me writer's block."
Man B: "Yeah, something like [1st game mentioned] would be a nice change of pace."
Man A: "Not to mention the fans have always been asking for a sequel or a remake."
Man B: "We COULD remake it you know, a sequel would require more effort, more than we can spare at the moment.. What with [lists current projects, ideas, teams and localization efforts]


Sometimes it's simply the creative process of re-envisioning something already concrete, that development teams need, in doing so they can cross some of the block in a seperate current project, warm up on a different or new medium or technology, test out new systems while also receiving feedback, criticisms or whatever.

There's so much more to this process than "money-milking"

It may sound kinda funny, but I used to work at a Pie factory. Yes, the profit is a huge deal, but there's a lot of other things that go on beyond what we see and hear as consumers.

Here's an example, with huge demand for low-fat/low-sugar/low-carb food stuffs, the company's gotta experiment and tweak recipes, while ALSO making sure the product ISN'T Super time consuming, there's many "new" pies out there that didn't make shelves because they took too much attention to detail on the "factory floor" How does this affect games? Well, if the sequel recipe calls for something different, it's sometimes easier to get a separate team to test the "baking"

Sometimes the fastest team with the most overstock, isn't the ones meeting the higher quality, but the faster team might have an extra half an hour to try a new "recipe"

See what I'm saying?

Consider it like... a tech demo hiding in the guise of a remake.

Re: Konami "Retro-Revival" Sequel.

Posted: Fri Aug 15, 2008 12:18 pm
by Commander_AK-47
Dick Motorman wrote:But on the opposite side of that, remakes give new people a chance to really make a great game, it's a chance to show their perspective on a story, on a character and his/her world, so it's not all bad. Take Rygar for example, a funny, but pretty mediocre game for the NES, however a decade later they 'reinvented' the series for the PS2, and it's such a great game, albeit a hugely overlooked one.
I still think they shouldn't remake games if they are going to change anything. They either make a new game or remake a game without changing anything besides the graphics and engine and what not.

Re: Konami "Retro-Revival" Sequel.

Posted: Fri Aug 15, 2008 7:03 pm
by Junker Gear Snatcher
Depends on how long ago the original project was made.

The developers that really care about their product are going to update it.

It's a balancing act. You want to update your game for the times, but you also want to stay true to the original vision... sometimes, that means deviating from the original PRODUCT, as developers some times couldn't do something that they wanted to do on the original medium.

To me, there's no such thing as bad graphics, but there ARE updated graphics.

Personally, I'd be disappointed to receive a game that's identical with merely better graphics. I'm sorry, but if I have the original game, it's not worth buying again, unless it's got something else, something more to offer.

And if I'm somehow disappointed, I've always got the original to fall back on.

Re: Konami "Retro-Revival" Sequel.

Posted: Sat Aug 16, 2008 12:25 am
by Commander_AK-47
Yea update, but not change, you're not getting what I'm saying, they can update the graphics and looks and minor details but I would like them to leave the story alone.

Re: Konami "Retro-Revival" Sequel.

Posted: Sat Aug 16, 2008 7:27 pm
by Dick Motorman
Commander_AK-47 wrote:Yea update, but not change, you're not getting what I'm saying, they can update the graphics and looks and minor details but I would like them to leave the story alone.
Then just play the original. If the development team and the guy in charge aren't going to add their own flavor and take on the game then it's kind of pointless.

Re: Konami "Retro-Revival" Sequel.

Posted: Sun Aug 17, 2008 12:44 am
by Commander_AK-47
But you can do all that without even touching the story. Usually that is possible and I would like that to be done. In rare times when its not possible then they have no choice.

Re: Konami "Retro-Revival" Sequel.

Posted: Sun Aug 17, 2008 12:52 am
by seraphssavior
Who cares? I just want a Castlevania where you play as a Belmont again, not some crappy side character, who exists only for the purpose of introducing new skills. (I like the other characters, but I want my whip back, and the "cross-a-rang".)

Re: Konami "Retro-Revival" Sequel.

Posted: Sun Aug 17, 2008 1:10 am
by Commander_AK-47
That sounds good. I also would like a PS3 Version of MPO. (Even though that doesn't really count as a remake.)

Re: Konami "Retro-Revival" Sequel.

Posted: Sun Aug 17, 2008 8:17 am
by Dick Motorman
seraphssavior wrote:Who cares? I just want a Castlevania where you play as a Belmont again, not some crappy side character, who exists only for the purpose of introducing new skills. (I like the other characters, but I want my whip back, and the "cross-a-rang".)
Personally I'd love another game with Alucard, just like Symphony of the Night AND a new old school rondo type Castlevania.

Re: Konami "Retro-Revival" Sequel.

Posted: Sun Aug 17, 2008 12:10 pm
by seraphssavior
Dracula X Chronicles kinda filled both those roles, but I want the 1999 games to come out. (Not ones released in '99, but the ones that take place in 1999) They built up to it in the "Sorrow" series', gave us the new Belmont, then left us out to dry with another side character and a fighting game. Hell, if we're lucky, we'll be able to play as Alucard in the 1999 one.