A Tale of Two Reboots.
October 20, 2010
Remakes, reboots and ports, the video game industry has been recycling ideas for years, and in today's generation with virtual console, downloadable games and with gamers like me who grew up during the golden age of Nintendo and Sega the trend has no signs of stopping, but that doesn't mean all of theese games are particularly a good thing. Today I'll go over two games, Sonic 4 and Lufia: Curse of the Sinistrals.
Sonic 4 is the first 2D Sonic game since Sonic and Knuckles all the way back in 1994. Well finally after years of crappy 3D Sonic games, Sonic Team has finally listened to their fans, thus Sonic 4, and I for one couldn't be happier. I love the game, and while their are some people complaining about the game their complaints are quite frankly moronic.
One thing people are complaining about is Sonic's design, as he is the taller, leaner green eyed model used since Sonic Adventure. Personally I don't really care. He's still a hedgehog, he's still blue, and most importantly he still runs really, really fast in 2D environments, so why does it matter that his legs are a bit longer?
Another thing they're complaining about is the addition of the homing attack, an ability added to Sonic's repertoire when he made the jump to 3D. Well some people are so up in arms about this that they refuse to play the new game. To this I say, come on, I mean come on. Did they boycott Mario when he gain the ability to fly in Mario 3? Did they say, "I'll play the game, but the only power up I'm using is the Fire Flower!" Or even closer to home, did anyone boycott Sonic 2 because they added the spin dash? No, no they didn't, so stop bitching!
The other game I'll talk about today is Lufia: Curse of the Sinistrals, a remake of Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals, an overlooked absolute gem from 1995 for the Super Nintendo. I'd go as far to say, for the most of you, it's the best game you've never played.
This game comes to us from Square-Enix, the company that seems to make more remakes than original games, and while they made straight up ports of their classic Final Fantasy trilogy for the Super Nintendo on the Game Boy Advance, Lufia: Curse of the Sinistrals isn't a port at all, it isn't an enhansed remake either, it's a completely different game. Gone is the turn based party combat, and in it's place a system that has you rotating a single fighter in live combat. I don't mind this change so much, but I do find it odd that there's only one person fighting at any time instead of having a system like Star Ocean and the Tales series that has live action battles where you control one character, while the others are controlled by the computer.
Lufia and Lufia: II had some the the biggest worlds to explore, with dozens of towns in each game, while most RPGs back then, and for the most part RPGs right now only have a handfull of towns. In the remake there is no explorable world map, all world travel in done instantaneously through a menu system.
The story however remains mostly the same with aa few tweaks here and there, that and the dungeons are still filled with interactive puzzles, and the new 3D platforming add a new level to the puzzles. All and all it's a decent game, just not the one I was expecting. In short I'd rather have gotten a port.