Not every return to old gaming classics turns out glorious. While some remasters and remakes delight with improved graphics and a sensitive approach to the original material, others end up as disappointments. Technical errors, incomprehensible design changes or just plain laziness on the part of developers can ruin even the greatest legends. Below you will find a selection of remasters and remakes that the gaming community has labeled as downright unsuccessful.
GTA: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition
When Rockstar announced the return of iconic games GTA III, Vice City and San Andreas, gamers were jubilant. But what they got was more of a nightmare than a celebration of a classic. The game suffered from numerous technical problems, strange visual styling of the characters and missing effects. Instead of nostalgia, disillusionment came and the developers had to extinguish the situation with additional patches. And it took a long time.
Warcraft III: Reforged
One of the biggest disasters in gaming history. Blizzard promised a complete remake of the legendary RTS with new graphics, a modern interface, and a host of new features. However, Reforged ended up offering almost nothing of what was originally promised. The game even replaced the original version of Warcraft III, making it impossible for players to return to the classic, and damaging the studio's reputation forever.
Chrono Cross: The Radical Dreamers Edition
The remaster of the PS1 classic was supposed to be a tribute to one of the most underrated games of its time. Instead, it delivered a technically flawed port with a low framerate, confusing visuals, and unbalanced audio. It also took months for the developers to fix fundamental issues. So fans of the original were left playing the original version via emulators.
Silent Hill HD Collection
The remastered versions of Silent Hill 2 and 3 for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 were anything but HD. The new textures and lighting effects looked more modern, but they broke the atmosphere of the original games. In addition, Silent Hill 4 was missing from the collection, and the game suffered from poor framerates and often audio bugs. The original game codes were also lost, so these were back-conversions, not true remasters.
