In my gaming career, there have always been titles that may not have achieved proper success with the masses, but piqued my interest enough and captured my heart sufficiently to beg the question, “Why isn’t there a sequel or a remake of this game?”.

I fully understand the fact that for a sequel to be considered, a game must be successful enough to garner critical praise or sell enough copies to accrue enough money for the company to profit. However, no matter how good a game may seem to me, and no matter how much I enjoy it, the fact that many gamers adhere strictly to what game reviewers or friends have to say hinders the success of many franchises that deserve a fighting chance to either improve or continue with more of the same.

Beyond that, some games just do not receive enough attention whether it be from the media or consumers to truly shine. I believe that this is a travesty that, sadly, occurs in the entertainment world as a whole – not just the gaming industry. Too many great games that people – even if it’s just a few – enjoy are left to gather dust in favor of shiny new games that you are spoon-fed just a little bit every time you hit your gaming news website of choice or open the latest issue of the gaming magazine you read. With that said, I’ve compiled a list of some of my favorite games that I feel are deserving of sequels, or next-gen upgrades.

Parasite Eve had to be one of my first truly immersive experiences on the PS1 since I was a little late to the party and my initial game purchases were those that immediately caught my eye as interesting. A title involving the word “parasite” seemed pretty amazing in my book. In the first and second games you play as Aya Brea, investigating a creature known as Eve who is trying to birth the “ultimate being”. I won’t delve much into the story so as not to ruin it for anyone who hasn’t played. It’s a survival horror with many elements of an RPG thrown in for good measure. For instance, you gain BP to distribute amongst different stats to become more powerful, and there are random encounters instead of walking around on the screen to discover an enemy. The story was one of the more interesting to come out for the PS1 and frankly, blew me away back then.

There was a sequel to the original game that was also released on the PS1, and now there has been a game called The 3rd Birthday confirmed that will carry on the series - however, it’s for cell phones. I don’t think a cell phone will do the series justice. What Parasite Eve deserves is a new full-length game on one or all of our current-gen consoles. With an overhaul of the controls and a shiny new graphical coat of paint, it’d be a great way to appease old hardcore fans and introduce the whippersnappers and graphic snobs to an already amazing game. There are infinite possibilities such as a complete reworking of the Resident Evil-style controls and more detailed character models. A new Parasite Eve would be a complete gem. Sadly, the possibilities of seeing this in the future are very slim.

XIII was a great little comic-style shooter that was inspired by the graphic novels.You wake up as amnesiac Steve Rowland in New York City with nothing but the tattoo of the roman numeral XIII your shoulder. You discover that you are being chased down by the FBI for murder of the president of the USA, William Sheridan. Apparently, a hitman known as Mongoose wants you dead as well. A great way to jump into a game, for me, is starting out with a million questions that are answered as you play the game. XIII was brilliant in that aspect as it kept you guessing. Come on, Adam West, David Duchovny, and Eve lent their vocals to the characters!

Everything was so stylistic and done just the way you’d expect from a comic book, including little bubbles like “Biff!” and “Blam!” popping up when you’d gotten a headshot or succesfully nailed someone with a crossbow. Cutscenes unfolded in comic panels and you honestly felt like you were living the pages of a comic book. However, the game was left open for the sequel that will never be made due to the game’s failure to sell its projected amount of copies. Not only does it deserve another installment because it was undoubtedly the best comic-inspired game I had ever played, but because I’m curious about what happens next! True, some might dismiss it as an uninspired shooter with issues, but to me it was truly a unique experience that begs a continuation. It proved that for a shooter to be interesting and tell a great story, ultra-detailed graphics were not required. It never took itself too seriously, and it was just the right difficulty.

Sadly, the only thing XIII fans have to look forward to is a movie or miniseries (it is unclear which yet) entitled “XIII: The Conspiracy”. Somehow, I doubt that it will be cel-shaded, and it’s going to star Stephen Dorff and Val Kilmer. Yes, Val Kilmer. I think we need a sequel to the game instead.

If you’re a fan of either Square or Mario or both, then you probably remember Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars, the very first Mario RPG ever conceived. Peach, or Princess Toadstool, has of course been kidnapped. What else is new? You, as our ever-gallant Mario are entering Bowser’s castle to try and save her sorry butt. However, this time, an enormous sword hits the castle and catapults Mario, Bowser, and Peach in different directions. Mario treks back to the Mushroom Kingdom where it is requested that he, of course, bring back the Princess. This game is widely regarded by many RPG fans as one of the greatest of all time, and for good reason. It combines what we love about the Mario series with tried and true Square RPG mechanics and ties them into a funny, well-paced adventure that anyone can enjoy. There are platforming elements such as timed jumps and the fact that you can free-roam maps as Mario, and then battles are turn-based with the occasional button presses to power up an attack. Rather than a 2-D sidescroller, however, it makes use of graphics almost akin to claymation and 3-D environments.

It was a new look for Mario, and it’s needless to say that I and many others ate it up. So why hasn’t there been a direct sequel or a remake? Well, there have been spiritual sequels in the Paper Mario games and Mario and Luigi series. It is rumored that Square-Enix will be releasing one on the DS, but of course that’s just a rumor. Given the success of anything Mario-related, a new look and a new story would definitely be something to look forward to, even a portable remake of the original! I’d be glued to my DS for days.

If you know much about me, you’d know that one game will forever go down in my memory as one of the funniest of all time - Day of the Tentacle. Upon graduating to PC games, it was one of the first point-and-click LucasArts adventure games that I had ever played. It is a sequel to the original Maniac Mansion (released in 1987) that takes place five years afterward. Having never played the original game, I was shocked to discover halfway through the game that you could actually play it on a computer in the game. Anyway, you play as one of the most stereotypical nerds ever - Bernard, as well as other equally hilarious characters. A purple tentacle drinks industrial waste and develops an appetite for world domination and human slavery as well as arms. As Bernard and an extremely funny cast of characters, you need to travel through time to stop Purple from taking over the world and you interact with historical figures along the way such as George Washington. There are so many juicy bits of dialogue from the game I could quote here but I won’t so that anyone who hasn’t played it will be pleasantly surprised

It was a simple point-and-click adventure, but the puzzles were unique and LucasArts-esque in the vein of Monkey Island and Sam and Max. For instance, one of the puzzles required you to move a sleeping behemoth off of a vibrating honeymoon bed. Sound offbeat? It is, and that’s exactly what makes it such a great game. Another adventure with Bernard, Hoagie, Laverne, Dr. Fred, and the tentacles would make for the perfect summer adventure, but a remake or a sequel seems highly unlikely.

Last but not least, before I write an entire novel, American McGee’s Alice was one of the most freakish and disturbing reworkings of a classic story I have ever seen, and BOY DID I LOVE IT! I love horror stories, and this retelling of Alice in Wonderland satiated my appetite for the occult. Instead of being the innocent and sweet Alice of the original story, you play a disgruntled girl who has lost her parents in a fire and has attempted suicide. Cheery and happy, right? She is committed to a sanitarium in which she lives out her days there in a catatonic state. She traverses a sick version of Wonderland in her dreams to free its inhabitants from the rule of the Queen of Hearts. It combined truly frightening music and visuals to create an atmospheric world that nightmares were made of.

There is good news and hope for Alice yet, though, because there is supposedly a movie in the works starring Sarah Michelle Gellar under the hand of Wes Craven that is slated for a July 2008 release - we’ll see how well that pans out. Sarah Michelle Gellar + anything that is not Buffy = laughable in my opinion. However, along with the movie there has been interest expressed in a remake of the game. Hopefully it doesn’t turn out to be a “movie game”, where a game is spawned from a subpar movie that no one really cares about. Chances of a sequel, however, are slim.

That about sums up my list of some of my favorite games. Of course, it was tough choosing these because there are tons of games that I feel deserve new chances. Now it’s your turn: what games do you feel deserve sequels or remakes?

This entry was posted on Friday, April 25th, 2008 at 3:10 pm and is filed under Video Games, Classic Gaming, Editorial. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.