For the most part, pixel art has a more timeless quality to it than their earlier 3D counterparts, and many games especially from the 16-bit era hold up shockingly well today. Some of the more popular current indie titles refer back to 8-bit and 16-bit pixel styles, with the likes of The Messenger and Shovel Knight paying tribute to a beloved bygone age of gaming history. Even Octopath Traveller with its pop-up book world utilises a pixel art style that captures the charm of SNES era Final Fantasy: admittedly if Final Fantasy VI were to be remade, it would look incredible in the Octopath Traveller style!
As the Final Fantasy VII Remake is finally out after what seems like a lifetime, it only seems fitting that we look back over past RPGs that are more than deserving of a facelift of their own! Remaking games has proven to be an opportunity to introduce games previously never released outside of Japan to new audiences – some of whom, for instance, anxiously awaited the day they would finally be able to play the fated Seiken Densetsu 3, until it was included in the Collection of Mana and received a full-blown 3D remake, Trials of Mana! Final Fantasy IX has been cited frequently by fans for the Final Fantasy VII remake treatment, but I personally think that’s a game that holds up well and would do better to have an in-depth remaster: not all games need to be remade from the ground up.
1 – Vagrant Story (PS1)
From Square Soft, the 2000 PS1 Vagrant Story made use of a unique battle mechanic where, rather than just hitting attack commands and tactfully picking which opponent to take out first, you choose which limbs to attack first to turn the tide of each encounter. The result is a rewarding, hard to master system that transforms the usual real-time battle systems typically implemented by RPGs and encourages a deeper level of strategy. Not only that, but Vagrant Story infuses a cinematic style that recalls Yasumi Matsuno’s movie influences – on a scale comparable to Hideo Kojima’s Metal Gear Solid – to a degree where any one of the in-game cutscenes could be recast for a visually stunning live-action film. The rich 3D world has you exploring the city of Leá Monde, with locations ranging from gothic labyrinths, dungeons and forests. The character designs themselves come from Akihiko Yoshida, known for his work on Final Fantasy Tactics, Bravely Default and Ogre Battle, and the character models faithfully capture his style.
Yet while Vagrant Story is certainly among the better looking PS1 games, having released late into the consoles lifecycle – I might go as far as to say one of the best – it stumbles in its gameplay direction with cumbersome menus, and long load times. While the combat itself is interesting and great for those who like a slower methodical style, those more used to typical RPG mechanics might find it too slow. It’s fair to say, even from a glance at its impressive visuals that Vagrant Story was an ambitious game for its time – something of a recurring theme on this list. Perhaps in some ways it would have benefitted from a release on a later system to make use of newer hardware – an impression given particularly from its lengthy load screens. While the story, dialogue, and overall pacing are exemplary here, sadly elements of the gameplay pull Vagrant Story to a grinding halt where a simplified, quick to use menu system could have helped. It’s a shame it didn’t receive quite as much attention, possibly due to releasing so close to the launch of the PS2, but Vagrant Story is an ambitious game that deserves to be re-examined with newer hardware to fully realise its ambitious design.
2 – Koudelka (PS1)
A gothic horror RPG that blends Resident Evil mansion exploration with a grid-based, turn-based RPG battle system, Koudelka is perhaps best known for kickstarting the Shadow Hearts series, even if it isn’t as well-known itself. Set in the fictional Nemeton Mansion, players take control of Koudelka, with gameplay split between story sequences, exploration and puzzle-solving, and a battle screen in which players fight the monsters dwelling within the mansion. With 3D character models and pre-rendered backgrounds shown through the use of fixed camera angels, Koudelka was criticised for its limited UI and overly dark visuals which made some areas hard to navigate, while its innovative RPG mechanics and Western horror atmosphere, with moody gothic design, are features praised across the board.
Given the depth of the Resident Evil 2 and 3 remakes, the atmosphere and level design of Koudelka could only benefit from enhanced visuals, with a redesign of its mansion exploration gameplay, while incorporating a more useful item management and weapon system. Given its influence over the Shadow Hearts series, it’s a shame Koudelka didn’t receive as much attention as it deserves, despite some obvious shortcomings. As such a full remake could highlight the more successful aspects of its design with key quality of life improvements – for example parts of the mansion that could have done with a little more light…
3 – Shining Force (Mega Drive/ Genesis)
Sega’s equivalent to the Fire Emblem series, Shining Force is a fantasy turn-based tactical RPG, with some sci-fi elements, in which units occupy squares and move across the battlefield, with familiar actions to Fire Emblem and Tactics fans. While it had an engaging story, the game suffered from translation issues, which lead to several omissions, including the entire backstory of the protagonist, Max. Although it was remade for the GBA as Shining Force: Resurrection of the Dark Dragon, with a significantly more accurate English translation, fans of the Shining Force series have noted how additional plot details contradicted the original story and criticised it for not being authentic to the original material. Since Fire Emblem: Awakening for Nintendo 3DS, the Fire Emblem series has grown significantly in popularity, and no doubt new tactical RPG fans have been clamouring for a new series to dive into. With improved visuals, a better translation, and an updated UI, a remake of the original Shining Force could see the long-awaited revival of a Mega Drive fan-favourite series.
4 – Dark Cloud (PS2)
Level-5’s first game, Dark Cloud, still remains a unique experience even 19 years after its release. Dark Cloud featured a unique blend of gameplay styles, one involving randomly generated dungeons with action role-playing gameplay and the other focussing on town-layout design. In each dungeon the goal typically involved finding keys to move to the next level and progress to the dungeon boss, while uncovering “Atla” – mysterious orbs needed to rebuild the world outside. Where most RPGs typically have players build experience points to level up their character and increase their stats, Dark Cloud’s experience system upgraded your weapons, which were also liable to break if used too often. Outside of the action RPG mechanics of the dungeons, Dark Cloud featured an immersive, deeply rewarding city-building element where buildings, landmarks and characters found in Atla orbs in dungeons could be arranged in the landscape. It’s a combination of gameplay mechanics that doesn’t seem to have been revisited in quite the same way since: town building mechanics in Ever Oasis and Bravely Default don’t give players quite the same sense of freedom of movement over town layout and design.
However well-received Dark Cloud was, the combat drew some criticism for being a little repetitive, while the weapon-breaking mechanic could be more than a little frustrating at times, especially leading up to boss fights. While Toan acted as the main protagonist, other characters were introduced who each brought skills required to traverse different parts of the dungeons. Sadly this aspect of the gameplay felt shallow, as some character skills were drastically more useful than others, some felt shoehorned for the sake of having something to do, and it was easy to underutilise some character weapons in favour of others, which made combat feel imbalanced if you were forced into using one of your weaker characters. As it is coming up to the 20th anniversary, a remaster of Dark Cloud – and its sequel – might give the series an opportunity to see a comeback it deserves, while ironing out some of its shortcomings with more up-to-date visuals! Hopefully, we’ll finally see a Dark Cloud 3 before long, too…
5 – Shin Megami Tensei
With the upcoming Shin Megami Tensei V somewhere on the distant horizon, or so we’re told, interest in the main series has peaked a little more interest, where mainstream audiences have typically paid more attention to the Persona series. The game was announced to coincide with the series’ 25th anniversary, though to really celebrate this occasion, it would have been an amazing tribute to see an SMT collection released with the original Famicom games included. These are games riddled with glitches, while those who aren’t up to scratch on their Japanese have had to rely on fan translations to play them. While an official rerelease as part of a collection would be a perfect celebration of the series, admittedly there’s no reason not to remake them from the ground up either. While the likes of Dragon Warrior (or Dragon Quest) and Final Fantasy innovated with turn-based systems and realised our D&D adventures in pixel form, the SMT franchise ditched the usual medieval, high fantasy world setting in favour of modern day Tokyo. Associated with philosophical existentialism, demon summoning and the concept of the digital revolution, SMT is also known for its unique battle system – including demon negotiation – and multiple story endings, themed around your characters Alignment with Chaos, Law, and Neutrality.
Likewise, while fans have been calling for a remaster of Shin Megami Tensei III: Lucifer’s Call / Nocturne (depending on your region), Devil Summoner was never released outside of Japan, having released in 1995 for Sega Saturn and again in 2005 for PSP, even though we received the 3DS rerelease of its successor, Soul Hackers, in 2012. Perhaps now’s the time for a remaster or total remake with a Western localisation…?
6 – Story of Thor: A Successor of the Light (Mega Drive/ Genesis)
Although it lacks some polish in certain areas of its gameplay, Story of Thor: A Successor of the Light remains a unique action RPG on Mega Drive/ Genesis. Described as an action adventure title comparable to The Legend of Zelda series, players take control of Prince Ali, who uses a gold armlet that once belonged to a wizard who waged war against the evil wielder of the silver armlet. It’s relatively short, visually stunning with stylised art, and features bright, popping colours to boot. In a remake, this could transfer easily to a bright cel-shaded style, or something hand-drawn in line with the Wonder Boy: The Dragon’s Trap remake from Lizardcube.
In some ways the combat plays like a hybrid between Secret of Mana and Link to the Past, making use of exploration, dungeons, and hack-and-slash combat with light combo commands and summons to help even the field. But this is where some of the issues lie: where Link to the Past had clearly defined hit detection and made sword swinging a blast, Story of Thor has poor hit detection, where you can easily miss your attack altogether despite being right next to your opponent, and the summons more or less move about as they please. This is particularly frustrating if you need the fire summon, Efreet, to melt an ice block as you end up having to wait for him to face the right direction before commanding him to shoot a jet of fire: more often than not, thanks to the frustrating hit boxes… he misses anyway. This is easily the most frustrating aspect of the game and can hinder the experience, though the music and visuals, as well as the unique Oasis setting set it apart from other typical action RPGs. As such, it’s ripe for a remake to iron out its shortcomings. Still unsure why the PAL title references “Thor” though. Beyond Oasis always made more sense, given the context and setting…
7 – Xenogears (PS1)
Today the Xeno series has expanded to a mass of huge JRPGs with intricate world building mechanics and multilayered combat systems, from the more recent Xenoblade series to the PS2 gems Xenosaga – which also deserve remasters of their own! However, it was the arguably overly ambitious Xenogears that started it all.
Debuting on Sony’s PlayStation in 1998, the husband-wife team of Tetsuya Takahashi and Kaori Tanaka originally drafted the title as a proposal for Final Fantasy VII, though it ended up being developed as its own project – first as a Chrono Trigger sequel, before becoming a brand new property with its own original premise. Xenogears boasts some beautiful artwork, with mecha and character designs by Kunihiko Tanaka, though infamously, time constraints, inexperience and finance issues meant that the second half of the game’s plot suffered drastically. It’s a shame, as Disc 1 is widely hailed as having set up what should have been an incredible gaming experience, with intricate in-game cinematics and anime cutscenes to tell a truly epic story, while the second disc sadly told most of the story through vastly less impressive text boxes. While a sequel was never developed, Takahashi later found Monolith Soft and developed the Xenosaga trilogy as a spiritual successor, followed by the Xenoblade series. The game held so much promise and with the experience of Monolith Soft today, it might be possible that Tetsuya Takahashi and Kaori Tanaka’s original vision for Xenogears could finally be realised: If any RPG deserves to be revisited, it’s Xenogears!
8 – Chrono Cross (PS1)
While many RPG fans have stated their wish to see the classic SNES RPG Chrono Trigger remade, I firmly believe its stunning pixel art and inspiring music, as well as its gameplay mechanics, and multiple endings hold up well enough. However, its sequel Chrono Cross would absolutely benefit from a rerelease with fancier visuals, if only because it never released outside Japan and North America. While Chrono Trigger had an updated port to the DS in 2008/ 2009, and a haphazard release on Steam and mobile platforms, Square continually gives the impression that they consider the Chrono series dead, despite fan petitions to see Chrono Cross receive the updated remake – or remaster – it deserves: without the powerful lenses of nostalgia goggles, those outdated 1999 PS1 pixels don’t do the game justice anymore, sadly.
9 – Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade (GBA)
In 2001, Super Smash Bros. Melee released for the Nintendo Gamecube, introducing players to the sword-wielding Roy as an unlockable character. We knew who Link, Mario, Donkey Kong, Bowser, and Pikachu were, but this “Roy” kid with the sword? Never seen him before! While his appearance led to the overbearing dominance of sword fighters in future Smash Bros. titles and an arguably disproportionate number of Fire Emblem characters over Metroid villains (come on, give us Trace and Sylux!), Roy’s inclusion in the game demanded the attention of players to uncover the origins of this new character.
In Japan, six Fire Emblem games had released already. The seventh – The Blazing Blade, a prequel to The Binding Blade – was the first to release in Japan and in other regions, simply called Fire Emblem outside Japan. Given the popularity of the Fire Emblem series now, the prominence of its characters in the Smash series, and Roy’s influence, it seems reasonable to give The Binding Blade the update it deserves. With enhanced anime cinematics and modernised UI, perhaps in the wake of Three Houses there’s a chance for a Fire Emblem Echoes brand to revive the older games that never saw releases outside Japan the way Shadows of Valentia brought over and updated the 1992 Famicom Fire Emblem Gaiden…?
10 – Infinite Space (NDS)
An underrated RPG from Sega for Nintendo’s ever popular handheld, Infinite Space blends real-time tactical role-playing mechanics with space simulation where players design, upgrade, and command starships with over 150 models and 150 recruitable crewmembers. It’s a huge space opera spanning multiple galaxies, with anime cutscenes, and gameplay that splits between RTS space battles (which plays a little like rock, paper, scissors), point and click storytelling, and map-based exploration. For a DS game, it’s certainly impressive, though would undoubtedly benefit from being remade from the ground up, with new ship models and cleaner animated cutscenes. Infinite Space always left the impression that there was more to explore, maybe as a series of RTS space opera RPGs, yet while it has had a strong cult following, it hardly seems to get the recognition is deserves outside “hidden gems” lists.
