21st February 2017, 6:43 AM
If it's a good remake, I'm fine with games that completely rework the source material into a new experience. There's nothing stopping me from just playing both. I usually will play the original before playing a remake when I hear about a good one, so long as the original is easy enough to come by.
When you mentioned Quest for Glory 2, you should know that particular remake is a more subdued one. The game has pretty much identical design aside from switching from parser to cursor interface and updated graphics. The same goes for King's Quest 1. Those would be the "Metroid with a map added" sort of remake. King's Quest II on the other hand is a total reworking, and in spirit is more like what they've done for Metroid II. It really bears repeating that most people consider Metroid II the weakest in the series, so just adding a map was never going to be enough to make people say "okay, NOW this game is good". It really needed the Zero Mission treatment.
When it comes to fan projects, I don't really delve into that whole community too deeply. I wasn't even aware of this particular one until I saw an article on Polygon or something after it was completed. That works for me though, because generally the cream will rise to the top and I can generally be assured whatever I find out about is probably the best of the best. I do agree that most of these fan projects, until Nintendo changes their attitude, should probably differentiate their tributes enough to make them distinct properties. Some of them in fact do do this, and isn't it weird how that stigma over a "fan project" disappears the moment it gets reskinned into "original product". (FreeDoom is kinda an exception here, that being an attempt to provide free alternatives to all the resources in Doom's official release so people don't need to buy Doom to play custom levels. However, the resulting art resources are pretty janky and don't really look all that good compared to the original.) Another big project coming down is Mother 4. I was made aware of that one on an Earthbound fan site I frequent, and I've thought the same thing from the start. Firstly, calling it Mother 4 is a big no-no. Even if Nintendo were more generous about this sort of thing, they wouldn't accept naming the game something that would confuse people into thinking it's an official sequel. Secondly, near as I can tell it has nothing to do with the plot of previous Mother games. All I have is trailers, but if that's the case they really should rename it and strip out any direct references to previous games and release it as a standalone "inspired by" project, like Undertale. Heck I'd pay for it.
When you mentioned Quest for Glory 2, you should know that particular remake is a more subdued one. The game has pretty much identical design aside from switching from parser to cursor interface and updated graphics. The same goes for King's Quest 1. Those would be the "Metroid with a map added" sort of remake. King's Quest II on the other hand is a total reworking, and in spirit is more like what they've done for Metroid II. It really bears repeating that most people consider Metroid II the weakest in the series, so just adding a map was never going to be enough to make people say "okay, NOW this game is good". It really needed the Zero Mission treatment.
When it comes to fan projects, I don't really delve into that whole community too deeply. I wasn't even aware of this particular one until I saw an article on Polygon or something after it was completed. That works for me though, because generally the cream will rise to the top and I can generally be assured whatever I find out about is probably the best of the best. I do agree that most of these fan projects, until Nintendo changes their attitude, should probably differentiate their tributes enough to make them distinct properties. Some of them in fact do do this, and isn't it weird how that stigma over a "fan project" disappears the moment it gets reskinned into "original product". (FreeDoom is kinda an exception here, that being an attempt to provide free alternatives to all the resources in Doom's official release so people don't need to buy Doom to play custom levels. However, the resulting art resources are pretty janky and don't really look all that good compared to the original.) Another big project coming down is Mother 4. I was made aware of that one on an Earthbound fan site I frequent, and I've thought the same thing from the start. Firstly, calling it Mother 4 is a big no-no. Even if Nintendo were more generous about this sort of thing, they wouldn't accept naming the game something that would confuse people into thinking it's an official sequel. Secondly, near as I can tell it has nothing to do with the plot of previous Mother games. All I have is trailers, but if that's the case they really should rename it and strip out any direct references to previous games and release it as a standalone "inspired by" project, like Undertale. Heck I'd pay for it.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)