What's in a Remake?

In preparation for Resident Evil 9 releasing at the end of February, I’ve been playing some of the series that I hadn’t gotten to yet. I’m a pretty big fan of the franchise, despite being someone who scares easily. I find the campy tone mixed with genuine frights wildly entertaining. The characters are among the most iconic anywhere, and their journey from regular people to basically superheroes in the later games is so fun. It’s a type of character-driven storytelling that I really enjoy.

Resident Evil as a franchise has gone on quite a journey. The original four games are nearly universally loved, slowly transitioning from pure horror to action with each entry, but the fifth game got pushback for going too far down the action route, feeling more like Call of Duty than anything recognizable as the original series. Resident Evil 6, however, wasn’t just controversial — it was hated by most everyone who played it. From there, 7 and 8 got things back on track, and 9 looks like it intends to fuse the old and the new.

During this period, Capcom began remaking some of their older games. Resident Evil 1 got a relatively faithful remake that maintained the level design, enemy placement, and atmosphere of the original while making huge graphical upgrades and minor gameplay changes, such as Crimson Heads, which allow certain downed zombies to revive in a much more dangerous state. However, 2 and 3 received a different type of remake. The original fixed-camera perspective was swapped for over-the-shoulder gameplay with often totally different puzzles, level design, enemy behaviors, characterization, and story elements. Some might consider them completely different games, and in a lot of ways, they are.

The original games, while excellent, have undeniable issues. The writing is often laughable. Lines like “You were almost a Jill Sandwich!” and “Complete. Global. Saturation.” are frequently memed on, clearly coming from a time when less emphasis was placed on writing and storytelling. The Raccoon City Police Department in RE2 is filled with strange keys and artifacts, so RE2 Remake explains that it’s a repurposed art museum. It’s not a perfectly reasonable explanation, but it grounds the building’s architecture in a way that’s at least somewhat helpful.

The Resident Evil remakes allow for modernization while keeping some of the parts that worked in the original. Some argue they go too far, mostly those who played the originals first. I absolutely see this perspective. In a way, it’s similar to art preservation. As it becomes harder to obtain and access the original versions, we risk wiping away their impact in exchange for the new. As someone who played the remakes first and then went back to the originals, I can’t deny that, for me, although the originals are enjoyable, the remakes are a far smoother experience. The characters are more comprehensible, and the presentation is much more cinematic and exciting. Being able to target individual body parts for specific effects is not only fun, it makes shooting far more skill-based than in the clumsy originals. But if someone made major changes to a game I loved, I’d probably be disappointed too.

Resident Evil appears to be trying to remake more of its older games, with a Code: Veronica remake rumored to be in the works — the first non-mainline game to receive this treatment. However, Capcom isn’t the only studio giving old games a new lease on life. Square Enix is doing the same with Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest, with seemingly opposite strategies for each.

There’s an argument that Final Fantasy VII is the most important game ever made — or Resident Evil 4, funnily enough. Its impact on the medium was monumental; nothing was the same after. Remaking it has been discussed since a PS3 tech demo showed the beginning of the game with then cutting-edge graphics. The remake itself is a huge undertaking. It was decided to split it into three parts, meaning the development of three different games and a total dev time of over ten years. On top of that, the pressure was on for the team to recapture the magic of the original.

Fascinatingly, Square didn’t try to remake the game faithfully. The FF7 Remake project isn’t just a remake — it’s a sequel. The plot hinges on minor changes from the original that expand into rapidly growing ramifications. The third game hasn’t been released yet, so it’s unclear how far these changes will go, but much has already been altered. The villain, Sephiroth, has witnessed his fate to lose to Cloud and his party at the end of the original game. With this knowledge, he sets out to change fate. In the remake, fate is personified by the Whispers, who act to ensure events unfold as originally ordained. By absorbing the Whispers at the end of the first game, Sephiroth gains control over fate, and significant changes in the second game result from his meddling with the original flow of events.

However, on a more meta level, this causes issues. How many people will play 7 Remake without having played a 30-year-old game? As great as Final Fantasy VII is, it’s dated. It’s missing many quality-of-life features of newer JRPGs, and the next objective is often unclear. The original Resident Evil came out before 7, but its high-definition pre-rendered backgrounds and detailed sprites allowed it to age much more gracefully than FF7’s tiny polygonal characters. Square Enix couldn’t realistically ask its audience to go play the original, so it didn’t — resulting in many players finishing 7 Remake confused about what they just experienced. In Rebirth, the second game in the trilogy, some of this begins to be explained more clearly, but not entirely. More than that, the game assumes the player’s investment in Zack, a character new players will barely know.

What’s the goal of this remake? Is it to make original fans happy by bringing beloved characters into high definition, or to attract a new audience? I think the answer lies somewhere in the middle. All of this is to say that I think the 7 Remake project has been a success. There are undoubtedly moments that are confusing for new players and others that might frustrate returning fans.

The dichotomy between Resident Evil and Final Fantasy remakes is fascinating. Final Fantasy attempts to reinterpret the original, while Resident Evil modernizes it for a new era. Both approaches are valid. Remakes are about more than preservation. They’re an artistic conversation between the original work and modern conventions.