I would like to see new games appealing for both older gamers and newcomers.
The problem with spiritual successors/reboots is that gamedevs are too lazy to create a brand new game, hence abusing the fame of oldskool games to raise money.
I mean, those oldskool games were creations... Then why won't gamedevs just create new things?
First of all, the have all clearly run out of any decent ideas! You can see that in almost every new game nowadays! Even the majority of Indie developers are recycling old ideas that have been forgotten, in such a way, to avoid people making connections between the games. No matter what you think of, you won't EVER actually be able to think of something that hasn't been done already. The only way to do things now is to recycle old ideas, but do a huge twist on them! For example, for an RPG, drastically change the battle system (eg:Valhalla Knights, White Knights Chronicles, Bravely Default, etc.). The change can also be within the same series (eg:the ghosts in The Sims).
Moving on, there is absolutely nothing wrong with making a remake, but unless it's just a remastered edition, it MUST have something to set it apart from the original in a way! This is the part that the developers are wrong the most! They think that since the original did well, all remakes will do the same, so they just make what basically is a direct copy of the game and release it as an "improved" version, without it being different than the original in any aspect of the game other than graphics!
Next up, reboots and spiritual successors. When you go and make a reboot, you have to start doing everything from scratch and only keep the core aspect of a series, then start building around it all over again! Just taking the original, then changing just a couple of aspects to it, is NOT a reboot! That's another misconception developers have! Actual reboots may take many years to create, not just a couple of months! Just recently for example, a couple of years ago, there was both a reboot and a remake of the Digimon series (both games were for the PSP)! The remake was a greatly enhanced version of Digimon World 1, with lot's of new aspects to it, and the reboot was basically the story from the anime. While all that sounds simple, the reboot took 4 years to make and the remake just 9 months! Both were incredibly successful by the way. Do you see my point?
Now, about the spiritual successors, they basically take a huge "chunk" out of the core of the game and build something entirely independent to it, yet reminiscent of the original. Most of them end up pretty original, but with a clear connection to the original one, which just makes them more interesting. However, they must not be forced worked! Meaning that you can't just take a random game, do whatever changes you want and then consider it a successor!
In conclusion, remakes need to be more enhanced versions of the original, not just a copy of it, reboots need to have tons of hard work on making them and spiritual successors just need to keep up the good work!
FINALLY, since I know you are all tired by now, the games I think would make great reboots are:
- .Hack// (if you say no to this, you get a punch!)
- Dungeon Master (not a series, but would make great material for one!)
- Excitebike (YES, you read it right! Imagine this in HD and without you bike breaking down every 4 seconds!)
Those are all for now. For now...
