Super Mario All-Stars for the SNES to me is the definitive way to play the original NES classics. For today’s gamers who’ve been exposed to constant remakes of today, remakes even happened back then, they just weren’t a regular thing. This is one example of them and Nintendo hit it out of the park with this. The visuals are crisp, you would almost not believe that it was originally released back in the early 1990s before its re-release later in 2020. Just everything about this package of games, is the gold standard of what remakes should be about.

Super Castlevania IV is another example and yet another game I put in high praise as a remake. This entry of the series, though confusing at first, is the re-telling of the very first Castlevania game released. They just wanted to do it on newer hardware at the time and do things they couldn’t with 8-bit constraints. That really showed here because everything about this game is nothing short but amazing of a remake from visuals to music to even the additions that might’ve not been possible the first round.

Both of these examples are a testament to their craft because to this day, nobody is touching them to remake them from the ground up. They may get repackaged, but it isn’t like anybody looks at them with the thought of an entire do-over.

I’m sure the fat neckbeard moderator’s fat jowls and jelly belly flubbered about in what small victory that they had over someone.

I am revisiting Medievil II for the PS1 and going through it, but I really recall not having liked the sequel. I was okay with the story, which did make comprehensible sense given the time going forward, someone ending up with the pages of Zarok’s spellbook and all. It’s just a rehash of the first game, just time going forward.

Some of the bosses you got to fight were okay, but a lot of them weren’t memorable. It was cool to fight Jack the Ripper in that game and they made him creepy as hell. The levels were annoying and were poorly planned. Winston the Ghost was like Navi to me in that game, but only more bearable because you can skip his ass a lot of the time.

The weapons aren’t that fun to use, only glad they kept the crossbows and a sword, I guess. The cane you get is arguably the worst of them. The characters introduced were forgettable. I mean, I’m finding more setbacks with the sequel than there is to like and I’m struggling.

The original game was more fun with its dark gothic fantasy setting, you went off to some area to get your upgrades and you met characters whose weapons they specialized in which was cool. The talking gargoyle heads had wit to them and I always talked to them wherever they were, loved the voice acting.

The first game was remade twice probably for good reason. Although I probably would have wished that the sequel would’ve been given a remake of its own, just to see what would be taken out and what it’d be replaced with. It probably would’ve been better in that exchange.