For the past handful of years (probably even longer than that), gaming companies have been releasing long-overdue sequels, remasters, reboots, reinterpretations, (“re”-everything) of older, formerly successful titles in the hopes that gamers’ nostalgia will be piqued enough to want to purchase (or re-purchase) the updated version or next chapter in the series. It’s as if Hollywood’s method of reusing the same tired properties on the big screen has bled over into the gaming industry, leading game studios and publishers to believe that revitalizing old franchises is what gamers really want. However, just like the movies that no one asked for (I’m looking at you, second and third movies in the Dumb and Dumber franchise), these soon-to-be revitalized games should have either been released well before 2019, or left in the past as the games that we fondly remember playing as kids.
Battletoads
Battletoads originally released in 1991 from developer Rare for the Nintendo Entertainment System. The original beat ’em up spawned a handful of follow-up games, while even releasing a pilot for an animated TV show in an attempt to compete with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Although the TV show never found its footing, the original Battletoads game received high praise, with plenty of outlets calling an HD remaster or another revival of some kind.
Battletoads is also considered to have been one of the hardest games to have graced the NES, which primarily had to do with the fact that it was nearly impossible to beat as a single-player game, generally requiring co-op action to complete it. Unless the new Battletoads game - which was shown at E3 2019 with an announced release timeframe of sometime this year - is a Soulsborne title, it’s likely that the game will be plenty easy to beat as a single-player campaign. This takes away a major part of the charm that made the original so great and memorable. Since being acquired by Microsoft, Rare’s track record and overall catalog of games have also been relatively forgettable. That doesn’t exactly give us much confidence in the resurrection of a title that is really only catering to the older generation’s nostalgia.
Streets of Rage 4
Similar to Battletoads, Streets of Rage 4 plays to the older generation that grew up with it. The original game released in 1991 for the Sega Genesis and saw two sequels, the last of which was released in 1994. You’re telling me that after 25 years, demand for a new Streets of Rage sequel was so great that they finally decided to make another? What confuses me, even more, is the fact that Streets of Rage 4’s plot will reportedly take place only ten years after the events of Streets of Rage 3. At this point, they might as well just make it an actual real-life timeline and give us a weathered, grey-haired “Old Man” Axel Stone, along the same vein as Old Man Logan.
Admittedly, the art design seen in the Streets of Rage 4 trailer looks pretty outstanding. But, is a beat ‘em up video game the best platform to revitalize the franchise? With its art style, a comic book would be a fun and potentially more lucrative way to reintroduce the younger generation of gamers to the series, given the fact that the beat ‘em up genre is saturated enough with mediocre games as it is. Here’s hoping that Streets of Rage 4 doesn’t ruin our fondest thug-bashing memories by leaving a sour taste in our mouths.
A Case For Renewed Franchises
Although it’s probably not a worthwhile endeavor to kickstart old franchises with another 2D remake/sequel, there are rare, somewhat odd circumstances where doing so actually make the original games better, such as Shaq Fu: A Legend Reborn. 2018’s game rewrote history by actually being fairly decent, especially compared to the iconically terrible original from 1994. Shaq Fu: A Legend Reborn. didn’t do anything revolutionary, nor did it remove the horrible, repressed memories from 1994. It merely attempted (and succeeded) in giving us the game that it originally intended on being all those years ago.
Sure, Battletoads and Streets of Rage could give us something good. But, those games were good already. Why fix it if it isn’t broken?
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