Back in 2020 I chose Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 to represent one of my favorite video games of the year. The reasons why I chose it should be obvious. 1) It’s Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 2) Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 and 3) they didn’t mess it up! Those are the bare essentials for doing a remaster properly and somehow, someway, Activision is about 4/4 for not fucking up their remasters compared to their competition. It is a really rewarding feeling to know that someway, somehow, I can actively enjoy the Tony Hawk franchise without the lack of backwards compatibility for legacy platforms. In the end, sadly, not all remasters and remakes (and ports) are of the same quality of the 2020 banger, and we wind up with some duds and missed opportunities.
One of my favorite PlayStation franchises, Ape Escape, has a bit of a disjointed history in North America due to the nature of the IP and the different publishers that handled the series. Different localization teams for different regions, Ubisoft doing the US localization for the sequels, the weird reverence that the franchise has with Konami’s Metal Gear Solid — it’s honestly a lot for a niche 3D platformer birthed in the genesis of the DualShock era. Still, I adore Ape Escape and it may very well be my favorite franchise out of Sony, whether I can actively play it on Sony’s modern platforms or not. Merciful as they are, Sony have graced me and fellow Ape Escape fans and now the series can be enjoyed on anyone’s PlayStation 4 or 5!
…sort of. Only Ape Escape 1 and 2 are available on those platforms, leaving 3 in the wispy aether of never getting a re-release. If that were the only issue, well, this written piece would probably end here. While the first two titles are available, those games aren’t without their issues; the PS4 version of Ape Escape 2 — much like the PS3 version before it, is ridden with input latency issues and a horrid case of smearing. It is also based on the Europe release of the game — meaning it’s afflicted with questionable, localized voice acting and a refresh rate of 50hz that only compounds with the mentioned latency issues. The PS5 version? HOO. BUDDY. It ain’t good! Ape Escape 2 is afflicted the hardest on the $500 powerhouse of a console, while Ape Escape 1 shares issues not uncommon with the rest of the PS1 titles available on the PS5; input latency abound and port imperfections. It’s disheartening to see that the platformer holder or the team responsible for porting these games for modern architecture just allow these sorts of things to happen. It doesn’t encourage me, an already reluctant owner of PlayStation hardware, to invest any further in the now-convoluted subscription service that grants PS owners these classic experiences. It’s even harder of a sell when the competing platforms offer alternatives to enjoy these games without the hang-ups. More on that later.
I want to talk about the recent ‘vibe’ I’m getting with the industry and enthusiasts’ reaction to Remasters, Remakes and Ports — or RRP for the sake of the piece. We’re in an exciting time for remakes where I’m extremely into what Capcom’s doing with the revisits of their catalogue. Capcom as a publisher is a stellar example on the several angles of the RRP, offering a variety of ways to revisit what is one of the greatest games catalogues out of a publisher to exist. For every masterclass Resident Evil 2 (and eventually RE4) remake, there’s an incredibly impressive suite of port collections that not only hold true to the source material’s game feel but also provide a myriad of options to make those experiences feel modernized. Capcom Fighting Collection released in August or so, and since then Capcom has gone above and beyond the grain with offering several accessibility options with Super Gem Fighter 2 Turbo, and actual hitboxes supported in their fighting game. These are the sort of ports that I appreciate; attempts to preserve the original product as best as you can while giving simple resolution and accessibility additions. It’s modernization to a hard limit instead of a total rework of the original product.
With that said, I understand why it’s rare to get port attempts like this these days. As more developers announce full-on remakes of original games or reboots of long-dormant IP, it just isn’t feasible to put a similar amount of work into restoring legacy content into a modern framework. Capcom in particular feels that with the low performance of their ports like Ghosts and Goblins, Onimusha, and their fighting collections. Hell, Onimusha’s remaster a couple of years back only has a measured player count of 500 unique users on Steam alone — which, for a game priced at around 20 bucks, is depressingly low. There isn’t a lot of confidence in investing in these sorts of ports if there’s a low return out of the audience clamoring for it. How would the developer make these restorations a lucrative product without the investment needed?
Then comes the issues that remakes bring to the table. Recently a Silent Hill 2 remake was announced by publisher Konami, the project being headed by Observer and The Medium developer Bloober Team. (THAT is another can of worms I don’t really want to get into for this piece.) Despite all the visual bells and whistles that are going to apparently headline said remake, as well as the obvious control and game design updates that should come from it, this remake and a lot of remakes of its kind are essentially new games. New experiences completely divorced from the original concept, not unlike a classic film from Disney being remade with new creative talents and technology. Unlike what films do with remakes, films do not have the issue of mass preservation that gaming has. The original Silent Hill 2 is only available on modern platforms in the form of the abysmal HD Collection that released on Xbox 360 — which is backwards compatible on modern Xbox platforms. While it’s great to see those preservation efforts extended to Xbox platforms in some degree — more on that later — it’s still just one island of consoles divorced of what other consumers play on. As remakes of classic games of eras before are announced, the question comes if the original experiences will ever be available to compare the accomplishments of the remake. Bounce it back to Capcom a bit; Resident Evil 2, which was remade, does not have its original incarnation available on any platform. Even thoroughly abysmal remakes of games like XIII don’t have the source material ready to purchase on anything beyond PC platforms.
To me it feels like an erasure of titles that would have a better chance of reception to new audiences had the original experiences been readily available. To me, it feels as if the work contributed by the original teams of these games are effectively silenced beyond a credit mention, or two people from a 20–50+ team providing offhand input of how the remake should be approached. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not against remakes at all but should there ever be a situation where something like Ape Escape gets remade, I’ll be extremely bummed that the original game wouldn’t be available in an official, legal capacity that’s also not a heap of shit to play.
So, as I type this from my $1200 PC Desktop, the natural response you would have while reading this is, ‘why don’t you just emulate?’ That someone would be right. The bleak realization that the only people that will genuinely give the effort to make these older experiences playable and enjoyable for modern platforms will likely only come from the talented developers responsible for the emulation of different platforms. It’s practically trivial to set up something like Duckstation or PCSX2 to play what I would consider a frame perfect version of Ape Escape 1–3, and the resource gathering involved with emulation is such an open secret at this point that it feels redundant to even bemoan about the spring of remakes coming from the industry. Hell, I could sing my praises on how much unequivocal good that Fightcade, an online networking platform for classic fighting games, has done for that genre alone. Preservation practically starts and ends with the tireless support that regular people put into saving lost and abandoned media — but as it stands for gaming at least, it’s restricted to two platforms. PC and Xbox. There is still a massive portion of consumers that don’t have the courtesy these platforms do when it comes to setting up emulators and finding the games of their choice to play.
(There’s also that piracy thing. Look, these people aren’t going to see the money from their original product anymore so fuck that moral high ground rhetoric. If you own it, good for you. If you don’t? Is what it is.)
The brief period that Xbox owners and publishers got to experience was that newfound emulation tech they’ve been using to push their backwards compatible front is nothing short of astounding. It’s resource heavy, and often times there are more misses than hits in the emulation process, but the execution is nothing short of astonishing. The issue of porting not being perfect slowly improved and iterated over time to where once DREADFUL experiences like Deadly Premonition and Sonic Unleashed on its original hardware, now performance and graphically perfect. Down to the nitty gritty detail. It’s something that you only saw with popular PC emulators — those same emulators now available as dedicated APPS on RETAIL Xboxes, mind you! -, done in a near record time frame by the investment of the publisher themselves. Seeing OTOGI, OTOGI 2, Ninja Gaiden Black and all sorts of other vintage Xbox classics just…there, ready to buy and enjoy? No better feeling.
I honestly don’t see any positive change towards more porting and emulation efforts beyond the massive strides being seen for Xbox 360 and PS3 emulation on PC. With Microsoft bowing out of the effort with still so many original Xbox / Xbox 360 games left to the wayside, the burden is now left on Sony who is going painstakingly slow with supporting their legacy franchise. Nintendo’s just, weird about it, with Goldeneye’s upcoming port on Switch being a straight N64 port that won’t be on PC — nor will it be a continuation of the original Xbox 360 port attempt, which was chock full of features and visual upgrades. Again; PC and Xbox are the most lucrative places to do some unofficial emulation on the side, but the chance at providing more is being cast aside in favor of those big budgeted remakes that leave a sour note in me. I wish there was more that can be done for others who don’t have the luxury of having either of those platforms. Here’s to hoping emulation as a whole isn’t affected by some crazy change in the law or something.
