In a world with few new truly fresh ideas and constantly performing necromancy on classics to pilfer valuable coin from the consumer, why in the world would I want MORE remakes? Well to be honest, normally I wouldn’t, but you see games like Bionic Commando Re-Armed, some of the Ys re-imaginings, Pac-Man Championship Edition, and a number of others and you start to think maybe they’re not so bad after all…if they’re done right.

So enough build up…here are 5 titles I think should be made as remakes/re-imaginings and how they should work.

1. Final Fantasy 3D

Imagine if the original Final Fantasy got a massive overhaul and was completely remade with Final Fantasy 12’s engine. Now, I say this for two reasons. One, most modern gamers are getting tired of the whole turn-based system. Me personally? Nah, but I’m an older gamer, so it doesn’t really bother me. Then again, playing FF12 for a while, it could totally work like this.

Besides that, imagine various places like the Marsh Cave, Corneria, Chaos Temple, and so on completely redone in fully rotatable 3D environments with enemies actually swarming you rather than you being transported over and over again to a battle screen. It would be quicker, still just as grind intensive (though nowadays you could add an adjustable difficulty level), and amazing.

Gamers old and new could experience the original FF in an entirely new way and at their own pace. In fact, I could seriously see this working on any platform, including iOS.

2. Chrono Trigger Resurrection

Yes, I’m suggesting either let the original team do it, assist them in doing it, let them on your team, or at least make the goddamn thing, Square-Enix! You’re very quick to file a cease and desist letter, but not take the attention they gained in such a short while into consideration, then release a half-assed port to the DS way too late in the game.

For anyone that doesn’t know what this is, CTR was meant to be a fan-made, not-for-profit indie remake of Chrono Trigger…in full 3D. It really does look and feel as incredible as it sounds…even though it’s all prototypical and most likely will never reach the light of day. Look Square-Enix…we get it. This is your baby and you’ll do whatever you want with it.

You cannot deny, however, that there were so many people hyped up for this. This alone would get people back on your side, convinced you can make solid RPGs again. But I’ve talked enough about oldschool Squaresoft titles, so let’s move on to…

3. Shadowrun – The MMO

My first experience with Shadowrun was the SNES title. Some people love it, some people hate it. I thought it was pretty fun, but I thoroughly hated the hacking segments and often you were just wandering around trying to find stuff to do. I wasn’t even aware there was anything before the console games and honestly, the only other Shadowrun experience I’ve had is the Genesis version, which is still addicting to this day.

When I heard the 360 was getting a Shadowrun game, I was pumped…then it turned out to be a major disappointment. I started thinking about this the other day…with the whole cyberpunk mythos, decking, recruiting people for runs, the different classes and races, and so on…and immediately I realized I could be describing the next great MMO.

A true Shadowrun game would adopt many play styles to accompany the many different things I already know about the Shadowrun universe and many I don’t because I’ve still never checked out the pen and paper game. To my knowledge, The Matrix Online never really took off and as far as I know, there’s never been an MMO about decking. I strongly believe this would be the next big MMO.

4. StarTropics Returns

Look, I understand there were 2 StarTropics games. I get that. But let’s be honest…this is one of the few titles that hasn’t been ported, remade, or otherwise spoken of again since the NES days. And before you ask, yes, it’s all Nintendo. They could just as easily put out a new StarTropics as they could release New Super Mario Bros. 2 or 3 (as in 2.5D versions of those titles).

I don’t know if it’s just that they won’t because they’re too busy with Zelda and feel it’s too similar or what, but at the very least they could do a 2.5D remake of the titles or even an “All Stars” remake of them. I mean, think about it…you could even have both in the same pack. It would totally work and it would totally be fun to play. It could even be made on the 3DS if they wanted.

The reason I sound accusative is only recently has Nintendo reminded us of certain franchises like Ice Climbers, Clu Clu Land, and Kid Icarus. It just seems like they’re very choosy as of late, but fast and loose with what they know works. It’s a very odd combination. It’s as if they’re willing to make Super Mario Beat Em and Eat Em before they’d be willing to revive certain older classics.

5. Vectorman Returns

Now maybe this is just me reaching for a niche within a niche, but Vectorman was an awesome shooter with lots of variety, great graphics and sound, and in general very fun and sometimes difficult gameplay. It was everything a 16 bit shooter needed to be. And that’s why we need it back. It seems like a lot of modern brawlers and shooters, especially those done by the indie crowd, are bland, often featuring long, boring hallways with the same generic enemies over and over again and often little to no powerups.

Where are my awesome animated backgrounds? Where’s the variety? Where’s the immersion? Games like Final Fight did have unnecessarily long stages (especially the Bay Area and Uptown stages) and not every shooter had amazing backgrounds (especially if they were space shooters), but for the most part you really got into these games because of enemy patterns and variety, great music and sound overall, good level design, and in general just plain knowing the craft.

Vectorman had everything that was necessary for a great shooter and what better time than now for it to make a comeback? Well, that’s about it for this time. Post your ideas for remakes below!