Gaming Forums > General Gaming
Was Super Mario All Stars the first Remaster?
supermario2k:
I think it is similar to how movie fans can't define reboot, remake, or homage. Somethings are just hard to categorize. Honestly I wouldn't even call All Stars a remaster, I see it as a compilation of enhanced ports. The gameplay and levels are all identical all that has changed is the improved graphics and the ability to save progress and sort of customize controls. I consider a remaster just going back to the source material and cleaning it up. Like a restoration. A reboot, to me, is ignoring everything that came before and starting again. I think a remake is more akin to what we have now, HD remakes is how I see them not so much as remasters.
Even if not the "true" first, still one of the best.
Ian Sane:
Movies are easier to define because they get remade from scratch with a different director, cast and crew. A movie can have it's theatrical release and then get released on VHS, DVD, Laserdisc, Blu-Ray, etc. and that's all considered the same movie. No one ever considers a re-release on a new format to be a remake of any sorts.
But videogames needs to be ported to other formats. Sometimes you just get straight emulation so no porting has been done there but when an arcade game got a home version in the old days a new program that was similar to the original had to be made. It's the same thing when a game gets developed on one console and then later gets ported to another. I never really saw these as remakes or remasters or anything like that at but sometimes a port would have some extra features thrown in to entice a double-dip so is that really a straight conversion of something different? No one ever used the term "remaster" in videogames until we started seeing "HD remasters" on the PS3 and Xbox 360. Using that terminology, the concept is really recent.
You could probably consider a conversion to another platform in the same generation as a port, a conversion to a new console generation that is not emulated as a remaster, and an outright new game that shares the same story as a remake. Reboot is essentially a remake but the publisher promotes it as a new start for the series. A single entity can be remade but a series gets rebooted. Not sure what to call a VC-like situation where it's just a ROM being resold. I guess that a re-release and several of those in one package is a compilation.
supermario2k:
Sounds good to me.
rygar:
Were you just considering home gaming? Depending on how you define remaster, you might include earlier cabinet iterations like Pac-Man, Pac-Man Plus, and Super Pac-Man. I think Asteroids and Space Invaders also had multiple versions, including enhanced graphics with the latter. There were also the disc based games like Dragon's Lair which I also think had subsequent versions with crisper sound and visuals. Also interesting to consider when comparing arcade games is whether changes to the cabinet itself constitute remasters. I know I would pay the extra quarter to play the sit-down version of Star Wars and the Tron cabinet you could step into was more immersive than the traditional cabinet.
ShyGuy:
Geez, I didn't even think of arcade cabinets. They evolved quite a bit.
I guess when I think of a Remaster, I think of the same creative forces bringing their game to a new, technologically superior platform (usually a in-line successor to the previous platform) and promoting it as the definitive version.
I guess the creators intent goes into it a lot. They are trying to sell the remaster to existing fans and new potential fans alike. They are saying "Look! this is the new definitive version of Super Mario Bros! Played SMB before? Get the even better version! Too young to have bought Super Mario back in the day? jump on board with this version!"
Now what about Reimaginings?