I prefer remakes over ports, the latter appears rather lazy to me. Growing up in Ireland/Liverpool (might as well call it the land of PAL) I never played the Chrono SNES game so I don't really understand what the fuss is all about. But the American excitement has got me excited so I will eargerly await this game. And that's the main thing: Does the game require a remake/port? In this case I would say the answer is yes as the biggest video game market never received, assuming it hits our shores.

But not every game needs a port, remake, or revitalisation on the DS. For every Chrono game there's an archaic Super Dodge Ball or FF3 which is just a plain let down in all factors. Hopefully, this Chrono game will still hold up after all these past years.

PS: port the Lion King, SNES version.

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I actually prefer ports to remakes because they don't take as long to make and more effort can be put into making completely new games. I look at ports kind of like turning a record into a CD or a VHS tape into a DVD or BD. It's taking these old games/songs/movies and updating them for use with current technology. I wouldn't want to see every movie remade or every album re-recorded just so I could experience it again. :P

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I like ports, especially when not much is changed and the conversion goes from home console to portable handheld. I also like remakes, so long as the game isn't taken too far beyond its initial charm and such. Changing things too much just turns me off from the remake entirely.
In general, I feel that if there is a great demand for certain ports/remakes, companies should listen. It's money for the company so why don't they just do it all the time?

I'm waiting for a Super Mario RPG port for the DS and a portable DKC trilogy (one cartridge or disc) that does not sacrifice graphical or audio quality for the sake of simply existing (*cough* the GBA ports *cough*).

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For me, it's simple. If it's a game I've played before, I don't want to play it again. If I haven't played it before, I'll gladly play a port or remake.

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I'm generally against remakes. There doesn't seem that much point in them these days anyway what with Virtual Console and XBLA, etc.

It's just an easy, lazy way to make lots of money. If a company remakes a game and it does really well, then all the other companies see it and think "kerching!" and start remaking lots of their old games and it therefore stifles creativity and the release of new games.

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it depends on the game and the console. I don't mind playing a game twice as long as it's the right game. It'd be nice in a way if remakes could include a pixel perfect port with them.

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I'll just say this: as much as I like Chrono Trigger, and as happy as I am to hopefully have a copy of the game which is clean and not plagued by things like slowdown, I'd much rather hear news of World Destruction or another such game coming over. I prefer new IPs to remakes.

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I have enjoyed a decent number of the remakes and ports that we have seen in this round of development. My concern is the next time around on the next handheld device or future console. Do we continue to prop up the corpse of the old IP and parade it around in new shinier pixels?

At the time when these games were created these titles were marvels because they were the usually the first to successfully marry elements of both gameplay and story. They were shining stars in a sea of grey. As time progresses the re-designers update the pixels but often the gameplay and the most importantly the story are left in the original form.

Great for new audiences but, as another poster stated, most people aren't interested in retreading old ground. While we like to wax nostalgia for a moment we are often not interested in spending 20-30 hours trudging through the story of it.

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Well I just got TWEWY and i am really enjoying it , , I would rather they make new IP's , or work more on FF13 , since the final fantasy games are usually completly different , other than sharing a name . But if a game was REALLLLY GOOD , and they think it deserves a remake , instead of making a port/remake every generation , just make a remake on a home console (PS3 please ) but looking at it as making a completly new game with the some story . So basically just scraping the old graphics and making new ones from the ground up , and only remaking it ONCE .Super Cell Processer 4d GRAPHICS FTW!!!!!! , now would somebocy care to explain the difference between 3d and 4d .

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Right now the only port/remakes I really care about are Dragon Quest 4, 5 and 6, and that's mostly because 5 and 6 never made it here so they'll be pretty new experiences (other than what I played emulated).

Otherwise, I'm pretty sick or rehashes and remakes. I mean, I love these old games, but I still have em all, and still play them all the time. But it bugs me when they just release a new version with a few added new features just to try and make us rebuy them... and sometimes the conversion isn't so nice, like in the case of Final Fantasy 1 & 2 (ruined difficulty) or 3 (UGLY)...

We really need to see more completely original IPs. Etrian Odyssey was a great way to bring back games from the past without remaking, because it just took the elements gamers wanted from older games. Contact did quite a bit of this as well. We also have some great original IPs like The World Ends With You, that show if S-E puts it's production value behind a new game, it can be just as successful and great as any of their many rehashes. New ideas are definitely the way to win me over.

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It entirely depends on the game itself for me, a bad game is going to be a bad game no matter how many times they port or remake it in most cases. However, when you're looking at good older games, there's a bit more on the developers plate.

Older games like this often rely heavily on nostalgia to remain fun as the years go by. There are some people to whom that is plenty, or who really love the classics, and others who find them hugely boring or inane. As much as I hate to say it I often fall into the latter category. Though, Chrono Trigger would probably be just as fun again being that I have't played it in so many years, not since SNES, I was one of the rare people who missed the PS1 rerelease.

At any rate, many of these older games whose nostalgia factor isn't enough to carry them CAN be heavily improved with a remake as long as it doesn't stray too far from the original, if they were like "Hey, we're going to remake Day of the Tentacle with modern, hand drawn, HD animation, updated voice acting and some new rooms with new puzzles!" I'm sure a lot of people would fall down in a seizure of joy. However, if they said "Hey, we're going to remake Day of the Tentacle with modern, 3D graphics, updated voice acting, some new rooms with new puzzles and a combat system!" there's going to be a less warm response. I'm not sure that's a good analog to use but seems like most games worth making a comparison as such with have already seen a remake, rerelease or or going to in the near future.

On the subject, someone stab Sega into rereleasing PSO on DS!

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I have mixed feelings about remakes as well. I mean, updated games that I didn't get to play yet are good. Final Fantasy 1-3 (not sure, the numbering was a little confuzzling back then), Dragon Quest 4-6, and probably loads of Japan-only games too. That's good.

An updated game that I have already played, even with some extra dungeon here or there, might not be as enjoyable, even if it is nice to revisit the memories.

As someone said above, original storytelling is one aspect that could be better in many games. I mean, how many are there where the main character is a guy with a sword? Dozens at least. That's one cliché that's getting tired as heck.

Remakes/ports/whatever you call them just don't have that fresh quality. Nostalgia is nice, but in small doses please, and accompanied by lots of new stuff that actually shines in more ways than 3D graphics.

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I want Secret of Mana DS! NOWWWW!!!

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When I was a kid, I didn't have an income, and my parents never bought me more than one or two video games. So now, as an adult with a disposable income and the same love of gaming, I think of re-makes and re-releases as a way to get a hold of all of the games I wanted to play, but never had a chance to. I imagine that there are enough people who are in their 20's who are in the same boat.

Honestly, though, I prefer ports. I like the old school graphics. I just played through "Magical Starsign" and was so in love with the cheesey SNES graphics (a point that got it a lot of negative points in reviews, oddly).

Re-makes can be good, but they can also be very bad. And as many have already said, they do seem somewhat pointless. Of course, the re-make of Final Fantasy III was awesome (however, FF III never made it to North America, so that was, for all intents and purposes, a new game). The re-make of Final Fantasy IV may be received differently, since it has been ported and re-done on the PSX (and packaged with Chrono Trigger, actually), and the GBA. So will Final Fantasy IV be worth it? I don't know.

But above all else - more new games, please. They don't even have to be whacky, just give us the same old crap with new characters and new worlds. Please?

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Potential ADHD sufferers be warned! This looks way larger in the text box than it did in Word.

Remakes don’t bother me personally, as I’ve been a gamer for less than a decade and, therefore, haven’t played much from before the late PS1/N64 era. To date, the only remake I’ve purchased of a game I played in its original form is Pokemon Leaf Green, and immediately felt that the graphical varnish and bevy of extra features, items, and areas more than justified paying another $30 for a game I had played to death just four years before, not to mention the subsequent incarnations of G/S and R/S that I had logged hundreds of hours on each even after that. I’m not sure nostalgia can really set in for any game after less than half a decade, so I don’t really know what to chalk it up to. Pokemon R/B was my first gaming experience and forever colored my perception of what games ought to be, so maybe it was just the excitement of seeing my personal gold standard re-envisioned.

I can fully understand why individuals can feel less than enthused about remakes of games that they may have enjoyed, but not on as much of a gaming-defining level as I did Pokemon. I think that this is why there’s been an explosion of excitement for Chrono Trigger DS as opposed to, say, FFIII, DQ IV-VI, and even New Super Mario Bros. in the recent past. From what I gather, it forever defined the RPG genre for some people, so this kind of fanatical response, even for what may be little more than a straight port, is to be expected. When a game becomes part of a person’s identity, a port or remake’s desirability isn’t rooted merely in nostalgia, but in an opportunity to once again conjure the unique sensation of awe or the opening of one’s mind that one has only ever been able to feel the first time (and maybe the next subsequent few times) through a particular game.

As for whether remakes detract from the creation of new IPs, less remakes would not automatically equal new IPs, as a company is always going to do what is most profitable. I hate the occasional drought of inventive concepts and companies resting on their laurels while milking their devoted fans as much as the next person, but I accept it as the nature of the business and move on. When remakes are made, I agree with those who assert that they should at least show significant graphical improvement or bonus features in order to justify (re)purchase. Although I’ve never played Chrono Trigger, when it seems to be almost a straight port--and when the price of purchasing it will be almost as much as hunting down a vintage cart on ebay or, for people who believe that games that are no longer commercially available are fair game, $40 more than just opening the ROM in a folder on their computer--I can understand why some people would be dissuaded from buying it.

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I don't really need ports. If a game is good enough that it still has attention after a lot of years, I would rather see a sequel! The exception would be games that are not readily available in a playable form for me, like Mother 3.

However, I love a good remake. I'm a big fan of Space Invaders Extreme. I would call that a remix, as it took the original concept and put in some cool new gameplay.

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aj made a great point about disposable income. It took me almost a year of saving up to buy a SNES as a 10 year old. I only ended up owning 4 games on the system. With only those and the occasional rented game, I missed out on a lot of the classic gaming that I enjoy now. Not only that, but I wasn’t ‘tuned in’ to gaming as a kid. I played games based on the cover art without a clue of which ones were the gaming masterpieces. As an adult, I have the income to get the games that I want and the internet to let me know what worth playing.

I really like having the chance to catch up on what I missed on the first go-around. I always get excited when I hear that an excellent classic game that I never played is going to be re-released. I do prefer direct ports over remakes because I really like the classic style, though it is hard to justify spending $30-$40 on a ported game. As for those games that I did play, if I’m going to buy them again, I don’t want them to be messed with. Give me the same thing that I loved in the first place.

I think something like the Virtual Console, but on DS would be the perfect solution. They could use the Micro-SD DS cartridge, with a full-sized SD adapter for the Wii (or PC, but it’s Nintendo so they’re going to keep it in house). Games could be downloaded through VC onto the micro SD and played on DS via an emulator to minimize development time (Virtual Handheld?). Of course, Square Enix would never go for it when they can sell the remakes for $40, but many of the games already on VC could be carried over, and it would be a good way for them to squeeze more money out of those gamers who have bought a full library’s worth of VC games. There are probably plenty of homebrew applications out there that do this already, but plenty of people will still pay for it.

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