Reboots - Scott The Woz

Hello everyone, Scott here! You know, people don't understand that anymore, combining the words "Scott", "everyone", "hey" and "here" just doesn't connect with modern word listeners. That's why I'm going to change the first four words I say to everyone so they're understandable to more people. Uh, here I have many options to change. ♪ Hi gang, I'm Scott! Welcome to Scottsburg! All? No, just Scott. Guys, look! A me! I played FlingSmash. You people, hey! Is anyone up for tennis? I bought a hat. I'm talking about

reboots

. I like that. Remember this? No you don't, he had black hair. Take it.

Do you have a beloved franchise on your hands? Get rid of it, start over. That's the key to success, at least now with most media. Reboots are a hot topic these days. They are constantly being promoted within the television and film industries, but today we are talking about video game

reboots

. I think reboots are totally understandable from a business perspective. After a series has been around for a while and there's a big fat number at the end of the title, apparently, there's a massive turnoff. Mario Party 10? Well, I have to play 1-9 before that! I mean, I'm completely guilty of this way of thinking.

If there's a game I'm interested in, but it's a sequel, more often than not, I'll want to make sure I play the previous games or at least have a good knowledge of them. That's why we see so many new games from old franchises with no new number or subtitle, just the name of the series. Easily the biggest trope of a video game reboot: getting rid of all that crap. Modern Warfare 4? Nobody knows what the hell that is. This is how it should be. I can't wait to see the next two Modern Warfares. Whether it's to give a series a fresh start or because worried people at the publisher won't accept a game called "Doom 4," taking a pre-existing franchise and making a new entry that's friendly to newcomers, ignores previous continuity, begins again, and it has a boring, stupid title to appeal to both potential new fans and long-time fans.

It's like the favorite hobby of game developers. Reboots just make sense. They can attract newcomers and veteran fans. However, they are susceptible to numerous problems: not keeping what made the franchise special in the first place, changing too much, ruining the gameplay or characters... You have to find the right balance between keeping what made the series beloved from the beginning and attract more people. Now reboots have been around for a while, especially with movies, so it's really not a new concept. However, I would say that reboots in video games started to become more common in the era of Xbox, PS2, and GameCube, but they really started to become commonplace in the next generation, with the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Wii.

A lot of people were just getting into or getting back into gaming around it, so relying heavily on previous titles wasn't going to cut it. Sonic's continuity was too much to handle. This is a good starting point. The games would make a clean break from the title and simply label something as the series title, so that more people would feel like they could pick it up. They didn't need any prior knowledge, they could just start the series here, which is everything a reboot aims to be. Sometimes we get reinventions of a game in a more modern style, a return to form, or the best thing a reboot can try to be... brave.

As players grew up, so did many of their tastes, so it was fashionable to take an E-rated franchise and make everything better. He would always look at Bomberman and say, "Well, that's not right. Where's the angst?" I just got back from Spencer's gifts. I'm ready for this. Bomberman Act:Zero is possibly the most definitive way to not reboot a series. I guess Hudson Soft wanted to take Bomberman and turn it into something that could rival Gears of War with its persistent use of brown and gray. This game knows how to not use colors and they redesigned one of the most iconic characters in all of gaming and turned him into something your mom wouldn't approve of.

Bionic command. Technically, this is a sequel to the original NES Bionic Commando. You may have played this and asked, "What happens next?" Well, obviously this. But hey, its name is simply "Bionic Commando", it came out 20 years after the original, the tone is much more distressing. I think it's fair to call this a reset. Well, I think it's... fine. The only thing I remember from this game is that he gave Nathan Spencer the "wife arm." What a twist, your dead wife has been part of your robotic arm throughout the adventure! That's something worthy of being on the back of the box.

That's when Capcom was desperately trying to inject as much "North America!" in their games as much as possible to appeal to audiences outside of Japan, which meant: reboots! And with that comes DmC: Devil May Cry, one of the most controversial reboots in all of video games. Not because it was necessarily bad or anything, that's fine, but it treated Devil May Cry's legacy very poorly. Capcom recruited Ninja Theory to develop the game, rather than developing it themselves, and pressured them to make the game as-is to help DMC reach larger audiences. That meant turning the main character, Dante, into... the most generic-looking video game protagonist out there.

A lot of these reboots like to strip all the character out of the character designs and replace them with these college dropouts. I guess with a more generic looking character, I can relate to him more. See, that's why I never got into Devil May Cry. I just couldn't relate to Dante, he had white hair! DmC was okay, it just felt like it was rebooting the series for reasons that didn't make sense. Taking things that really made the show unique and changing them because they thought those were the show's problems. It turned out they weren't. And then Capcom released Devil May Cry 5, which ignored everything DmC did and was just a direct sequel to Devil May Cry 4.

Now, instead of being considered a reboot, DmC is considered more of an alternate version of Devil May. Cry now, mainly because it's hard to reboot a series when the series just reboots. Capcom focused on these reboots for a while. There was a Mega Man X reboot in the works that ended up being cancelled: Maverick Hunter. Think something like Metroid Prime, how he took a 2D game and made it first-person. Maverick Hunter was going to be practically a first-person Mega Man So, imagine if the Bomberman Act: Zero guys made a Mega Man I'm also thinking about this in terms of how well Metroid Prime turned out.

Now that's a reboot done right! After a long hiatus, they took the Metroid series and launched it into a new dimension and perspective, retaining what made Metroid, Metroid. The Maverick Hunter development team was made up of some people who worked on Prime, so I think this project had a little more potential than some might say. But it was probably a good thing it was cancelled. This was trying to take X and turn him into something like the fucking Master Chief. I understand why they redesigned characters like this, to get rid of that cutesy, cartoony vibe, and really create a Mega Man game that you'd be proud to say you played last night at school.

But a lot of the people who are only interested in dark and gritty games for adults aren't really open to trying new things and therefore aren't guaranteed to give a damn about a gritty Mega Man X reboot. And just saying that out loud, what guy who only plays dark and gritty adult games would actively care about a Mega Man X reboot? On top of that, something like this is less likely to appeal to actual Mega Man X fans, because it's radically different from the original games. I think it's fair to say that while I think this game might have had some potential, it would have failed commercially, I guarantee it.

How about a brave reboot of a World War II shooter? If you want value, you can always check out EA's 2010 Medal of Honor reboot. The original Medal of Honor games pioneered modern first-person war shooters. Then EA asked, "Do you know Call of Duty?" Medal of Honor (2010) has absolutely nothing of its own value. It doesn't really give you any reason to play compared to something like Call of Duty. It had a sequel, Medal of Honor: Warfighter. That subtitle can be used with almost any FPS. Of course, there are reboots that don't have to exist. You know who needed a whole new origin story?

Spyro the Dragon. Children wouldn't understand any of this. Needs a sucker. Reboots can be good though, I swear! God of War (PS4) is one of the most radical reboots out there. It took a fixed-camera hack-and-slash franchise and made a game that defied all odds and it wasn't that. This is a strange reset, the more I think about it. So Kratos is still the main character, but God of War (PS4) moves from the Greek mythology of the original series to Norse mythology. But apparently, this is still the same Kratos, he simply decided to change the mythologies for us.

I don't know, I mean, sure. The reboot, however, is much more of an adventure game focused on a cinematic story compared to the original titles. It's like... most other first-party PlayStation games. Well, God of War (PS4) still retains hack and slash elements, they're definitely toned down to make way for a much more character-driven story. I can appreciate that and I think the characters stand out much more with their changing gameplay. It's just that this looks so much like a lot of the other games Sony studios are making that I can't help but think the original style was more unique in comparison.

This was much more like a game called God of War. Ah, whatever, I still like playing this more than God of War III. Wolfenstein has been through so many reboots that I don't know which one is real. One of the most influential series when it comes to first-person shooters. Well, the first major reboot was Return to Castle Wolfenstein in 2001, followed by Wolfenstein in 2009, and then rounded out with Wolfenstein: The New Order in 2015 (actually 2014). Return to Castle Wolfenstein was pretty good at the time, and Wolfenstein: The New Order and the games that followed are, in my opinion, definitive modern Wolfenstein games.

I think these are fantastic modern depictions of the series... Then something fucked up happened in 2009. Remember my review of Medal of Honor (2010)? That remains true in Wolfenstein (2009). This is a nothing game. There's nothing all that funny or extraordinary about it. However, the Nazis did some crazy things with gravity. It carried some unusual munitions that nullified gravity when detonated. Ah! Hitler. Guys, I finally started Kid Icarus: Uprising, and that means, yes, I finally lost the use of my right hand! Kid Icarus was an NES title, which later had a sequel for the Game Boy, but… that was it.

And with the inclusion of Pit in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, people began to wonder why this series never moved beyond the Game Boy. It seemed to have as much potential as all the other series that started at that time. But finally, Smash Bros. director Masahiro Sakurai put his foot down and made himself a new Kid Icarus game that looked nothing like a Kid Icarus game. It's fair to call Uprising a reboot because it's basically treating itself as a new franchise rather than the third game in the series. Sure, there are characters, enemies, and some plots from the first two games, but overall, this was a completely new version of Kid Icarus and it was one of the most exciting arthritic experiences of my life.

It's a good game I hate! It is held back by its annoying control scheme. But other than that, it's a great time! Well, that reminds me of a type of reboot that has a special place in my heart: full-blown retro revivals. Bringing back a series of retro games in all their old-school glory. This was a big trend that started in the 360 ​​days. With the help of digital distribution with Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network, and WiiWare, it became entirely viable to produce new games in old-school franchises. You could make them for cheap, charge $10 for them, and launch them online!

These were reboots in the sense that they went back to what people originally loved about these games and removed the extra crap added to later games. I really like these types of games because they bring me back to the glory of Xbox Live Arcade. I miss this a lot. Back when companies could just make a remake of the original Bionic Commando with no handcuff arm included, Mega Man 9 and 10, Double Dragon Neon, Hydro Thunder Hurricane, Rocket Knight for between $10 and $15. There were so many revivals of classic games, andThis brings me back to a much simpler time, when it was much more common for things like this to be released online for a couple of dollars.

Now, I mean, something like Bomberman R, yeah, if it was released in 2008, it would cost at most $15 on Xbox Live Arcade. And now... You see, that's a little thing that people talking about reboots right now call bullshit. My favorites have always been the Pac-Man Championship Edition games. These were definitely the "reset to basics" Pac-Man games, after experimenting with 3D platforming for a while. Like OMG I wish these games counted towards calorie intake. I want to stuff my face with these things. They bring back the standard Pac-Man maze format, but bring all this modern spectacle to it.

As well as gameplay mechanics that wouldn't be possible in the '80s. However, these retro revivals didn't start happening during this era. They've been the norm since, I'd say, the mid-90s, when they tried to take old-school gaming icons and rebrand them into a new era. Space Raiders, a reboot of Space Invaders. Yes, this is one of the most forgotten games in the GameCube and PS2 libraries. Finally, a Space Invaders that kids can get behind! Bet you didn't think a Space Invaders game could have partial nudity. Luckily, since then, they've found much more appropriate ways to leverage the Space Invaders brand, but Space Raiders will always live on in my heart until I forget about it for a few years, which is to say in about three minutes.

Ninja Gaiden is a solid example of a well-executed reboot of an old-school franchise. You go from hard NES platform games to hard hack 'n slash games. Yes, there was a gender change, but the spirit of Ninja Gaiden was still there. Now, one of my biggest pet peeves with reboots is the titles. I mean, if naming the ninth game in the Mortal Kombat series "Mortal Kombat" actually made more people buy it, that's fine. It's just when a new game is revealed and the title is revealed to be... just the name of the series. I roll my eyes a little.

Now we have to start referring to these games by unofficial titles or follow the title with the year or system it's on. Mortal Kombat 9, DOOM (2016), God of War (PS4), Tomb Raider (2013), Punch-Out!! (Wii). Those aren't the official titles, but that's what we have to call them and that's a little annoying, especially when two games are completely different, but have the same title. Saying, "Oh, I love Prey!" That could mean anything! The title "DmC: Devil May Cry" never made much sense to me in terms of marketing. For example, "DmC" is more of an abbreviation that fans used to talk about the Devil May Cry games, so simply calling the game "DmC" doesn't make much sense if they were looking to have this appeal to more people.

I feel like it would have been better if they had just called it... "Devil May Cry." I love Tomb Raider (2013), but the full title "Tomb Raider" doesn't seem the most appropriate to me. In the game you attack tombs, but it is not the main objective. I think it would have made more sense to just call it "Lara Croft" or something, because it focuses on her origin story and honestly, one of the last things I think about about this game is the tomb raid. Sonic the Hedgehog (2006). One thing I will never understand about this game is the name of it.

They wanted this to be a new beginning for Sonic. So this is what Sonic was always meant to be! I don't understand it because the gameplay of Sonic 06 is quite similar to the Sonic Adventure titles. Why were they acting like this was Sonic's rebirth and deserved to be called just "Sonic the Hedgehog," when it was pretty much just a third Sonic Adventure? Also, they re-released the first game on Game Boy Advance on the same day and it was simply called Sonic the Hedgehog (actually Sonic the Hedgehog Genesis), and that was bad too! SEGA had a lot of nerve to release two completely different bad games with the same name on the same day.

The hit!! games. Alright, how many times can you reuse the same title? Can you just call the Wii "Punch-Out!! in the Face"? However, sometimes I do think it's fair to use the generic series as a title. And when a series has been going on for a long time, the lack of a subtitle or number makes sense. I mean, why would you call Killer Instinct (2013) "Killer Instinct 3"? Although most of the general population doesn't even know that games called Killer Instinct 1 or 2 existed. Reboots can be seen as cash grabs or annoying to long-time fans. And they certainly can be!

But I think we can still look at some of these from more...creative perspectives. It can be incredibly frustrating and complicated to be tied to years of content continuity, especially if the current developers didn't work on previous titles in a franchise. The series may wear thin now and be beaten to death, but it may still have potential. The characters, gameplay, and setting are all beloved and you want to create more things around them, but you don't want to be tied down to the limitations of what came before. Sometimes it's okay to let go of the past and modify characters or settings or even change them entirely while still retaining the heart of the source material.

This is how some of the best stories and characters of all time evolve. A story told hundreds of years ago changes over time depending on who tells it. While reboots get a bad rap most of the time, I think a lot of it has to do with the terms "reboot" and "reboot" being thrown around to death these days. It's annoying to listen to them. I would recommend using the terms "reimagine" or "a new version" when describing these types of deliveries. I think those terms are much less corporate: "We're bringing back old things you love because we don't have any original new ideas ourselves!" feel for them.

Reboots can be groan-worthy at times, but I think they can be totally understandable and necessary. You can't do twenty installments of a game series called Need For Speed ​​without five reboots. You just can't!