INSiGHT | The Best Way to Re-Release a Game

That's certainly a topic worth exploring, but the reality of the situation is, for better or worse, gamers are seeing a lot of re-releases, remakes, reboots, and remasters (which we will simply refer to collectively as "re-releases" going forward, to avoid all this rediculous repetition). There's a large gap, though, between the best of the re-releases and the worst. Some have a great deal of love and effort put into them, while others are barely more functional than an emulator is - and still others less so.

The ports of the re-releases of the remake of Final Fantasy IV, for example, are fantastic, but there is still the issue that there's no reason to purchase the Android version when it actually has less content than the original remake that graced the Nintendo DS, thanks to the exclusion of Whyt.

Given the recent re-release of Tales of Symphonia to PC and the almost unanimous agreement that it's a "no effort port," this is a terrific time to discuss what these re-releases mean, why gamers want them, and what some developers and publishers may be doing wrong.

As I said in my review of Final Fantasy V on PC, simply bringing a game over to a different platform isn't enough; getting the game to work isn't enough, not for a product that people are expected to pay for. Whether the AAA industry is happy about it or not, this is because it is possible for someone to play Tales of Symphonia on PC at no additional cost, and this has been the case for years. That this is shady (and illegal, in the case of downloaded ROMs) doesn't change the fact that it's true.

With the addition of several enhancements aimed at streamlining the gameplay and improving the graphics, the PC version of Final Fantasy VIII stands as a great example of what should be done when a game is re-released. There are enhancements here that simply aren't possible using an emulator. The sound is shoddy and should have been fixed by now, but that's really the only issue; overall, it's a great example of a good re-release.

Will players have a perfect experience with the PSX re-release of Final Fantasy V if played on PC with an emulator? Certainly not. Emulators are not perfect, after all. It's worth mentioning, however, that this avenue does have a number of benefits: save states, easy cheating, graphical enhancements, and others. Did I mention that this experience, of playing the game with an easy way to cheat, the ability to save at any point, and improvements to the graphics, is free? Yes, it's illegal to download the games and share them, but this doesn't change the fact that emulation happens, it exists, and it's not going anywhere.

That is a screenshot of Tales of Symphonia captured from WolfieGGnS' playthrough using the Dolphin emulator, which could easily have been accomplished by inserting the Nintendo GameCube disc into the PC's CD-ROM tray. It's beautiful, and WolfieGGnS didn't have to pay a dime in order to play the game on PC. The legality of this can be debated all day, but this doesn't change the fact that it's possible. It happens, and developers and publishers are going to have to face the fact that their re-released games may very well already be available - and in a form that is superior to the official re-release.

Let's not get into the fact that it took legendary modder Durante a total of fourteen minutes to fix the terrible port that is Tales of Symphonia on PC. Fourteen minutes. People who actually were paid to make their game were shown up in fourteen minutes by a person who did it for free. To say that the people who released this botched port, which was noticeably improved by a measly fourteen minutes of effort, should be ashamed is an understatement.

Comparing WolfieGGnS's emulated version to the official release is a joke, and everyone stopped laughing the moment that Durante needed only fourteen minutes to fix the official release's biggest problems.

It sounds great when we talk of bringing classic games to modern systems and experiencing them again, and, generally speaking, we all want to relive these wonderful games and feel their magic anew. In many cases, though, this is already possible, and one has to wonder how Bandai Namco could have considered the official release acceptable when the emulated version is vastly superior.

That's the thing, though - we do love playing these games again, and publishers know it. This taboo on emulation, where we're throwing the baby out with the bathwater by blanketing all emulation as piracy despite there being entirely legal (in the United States, at least) ways to do it, is precisely what allows shoddy re-releases like this to exist. How would Tales of Symphonia really fare if it had to face the emulated version, if the two were stacked against one another? Even after Durante's fixes, it's no contest: being free for those who already own the disc, the emulated version wins hands down, and it doesn't really matter whether it's shady or even illegal; it happens.

What does Square Enix's official and rather costly PC release of Final Fantasy V offer players that can't be achieved with an emulator? Certainly, it's illegal to download the game from the Internet, but it's well within a person's rights to insert their physical copy of Final Fantasy Anthology into their PC's CD-ROM tray. That's another important question here: what does the re-release offer that players don't already have, more or less at no additional cost?

The answer is "nothing." This is the case with both FFV and Final Fantasy VI - legality aside, there's no reason to purchase the games when the emulated versions offer more benefits, are typically better, and are free. An official re-release should bring improvements, enhancements, and advantages, and should certainly not be inferior to the emulated game.

The Android version of Final Fantasy IX serves as yet another good example of how to re-release a game: seven new enhancements are brought to the game, all of which are aimed at making the gameplay more convenient. While I'd rather have seen them as unlockable features, they are still undeniably reasons to get the re-release instead of simply emulating it - and that's a good thing. That's a wonderful thing, in fact.

Tales of Symphonia has brought with it some extortive accusations about PC ports, namely that we should buy it in order to support the publisher and "convince them" that it's worth it to port their games to PC. That's absurd! Years and years of history and sales prove that porting a game to PC is worth it; The Witcher 2: Assassin of Kings launched on GOG with no DRM attached, and it still sold very well, for instance. People will buy something that they think is worth their money. It's that simple.