Re-make reservations

So as you all know from previous blog posts and podcasts, I'm a huge fan of the Kingdom hearts series. It's probably my favourite game of all time despite my massive love of all things Bioware. I love the way they integrated all of the Square style storytelling and characters with the Disney worlds and characters. I loved the gameplay, loved the story, loved pretty much everything. There were a couple of issues I had, like the controls being a little sloppy, same with the cameras, but overall it worked really well and I've wanted to go back to it again and again.
Sadly a few years ago my PS2 copies of Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2 were stolen when I posted them home from one of my jobs. I considered re-buying them a few times, but with square releasing all the playstation final fantasy games on the PSN and then opening up PS2 store on there I figured Kingdom hearts had to be right around the corner. four years later Kingdom Hearts 1.5 Final Mix is released onto the PS3 as a full retail game with Chain of Memories and 358/2 days along side.
Now I love that they did that, I pre-ordered the limited edition version a year in advance, as soon as I heard and I don't regret it one bit.
However, I don't know that in general it's a good thing to do. Re-creating old things for a little money in order to get a big pay off from nostalgic nerds/geeks. It doesn't add anything to the series, but it does give people a new way to play it.
To be fair Kingdom hearts have done something really good by releasing the two games set between 1 and 2 on the PS3, when previously they were only available on Gameboy advance and Nintendo DS where many players refuse to play. Kingdom Hearts' HD re-release does actually add to it for many players, but many other releases do not.
It gets the publishers paid, sure, but it's nothing new, nothing that progresses anything, not the game, not a story, not even technology and the games industry as a whole. the whole industry of re-makes does nothing but show that we have no imagination anymore. Why not make a Kingdom Hearts 3 for the PS3 instead of just updating half the graphics of KH1 (and by the way, that's all they did. A lot of the graphics are still crappy definition, a lot of the models and textures still look old, but other times they look great. It's like they got halfway through and just decided 'Fuck it, we gave them enough to make a couple trailers, they'll still buy it.'
And... well I did.

I don't know how I feel about re-releases, but I guess if theres a market for them its not too bad. if that's what people want, why not give it to them? beats me. Oh well.

Convos-with-my-youtube
- James