Brittany Saldita: You just finished listening to "Main Theme" from Final Fantasy VII, here on Geek Radio on Northstar. Now let's get back to my interview with former GameTV host and current Games Over Matter webmaster and founder Alex Stansfield. Our time's almost up in this discussion of retro games and video game history, and I think it'd be appropriate to conclude our discussion about retro games by briefly touching on the subject of video game remakes, remakes of old classic games on modern consoles. We're seeing remakes... actually a lot more often these days, and I just want to know, Alex, what your opinion on game remakes is. Is it good, repaying for a game you've already played to completion?
Alex Stansfield: Oh, I actually like game remakes most of the time. I don't think it's a ripoff, as long as they make enough updates and changes. If they do that, I think it plays like a brand new game. If they go back, re-do the graphics, improve the music and sound effects, add new content, then yeah, absolutely it's worth it. I mean I just bought The Godfather on Blu-Ray, and I already owned it on VHS and DVD. Paid full price for it, paid 30 bucks, don't feel ripped off at all, and there's usually a lot less of a difference between a modern game remake and a VHS to Blu-Ray transition.
Brittany: And the reason I'm bringing this up is sort of personal, since I just picked up Pickton Lake for the Game Boy Supernova. They released it, I think three months ago, I just picked it up and I'm actually really enjoying it. The thing is though, I never got to play the original.
Alex: Didn't it come out like right after the SNES-CD did, originally?
Brittany: It originally came out in March 1993. And of course back then I had just gotten the SNES-CD.
Alex: *laughs* Have you told them the story of how you got it?
Brittany: Actually, no I haven't!
Alex: You should tell them.
Brittany: Another time!
Alex: You won a Street Fighter II tournament at UC Santa Cruz. You beat like 50 guys, fought your way out of the losers' bracket.
Brittany: It's a good story, but it's a Street Fighter story. We should save it for a Street Fighter episode!
Alex: If you can find the February 15, 1993 edition of the UC Santa Cruz newspaper, she's on the front page of that.
Brittany: But anyway... ANYWAY, I didn't get Pickton Lake when it first came out. The only game I got before Super Mario World 2, besides the games that came with the SNES-CD which were Mario Kart and Street Fighter, I got Final Fantasy: New Generation.
Alex: I didn't get to play Pickton Lake until like 1996. The original one.
Brittany: I've seen footage of the original SNES-CD game but I never got to play it. But this new one, for the Supernova, it's pretty good. Alex, before I go on, you want to tell the listeners about the original Pickton Lake?
Alex: Yeah. Pickton Lake was a game where you got to play as one of two kids, Cody or his sister Cassie, and they're at a summer camp, and all their friends have been kidnapped by horror monsters. Ghosts, vampires, zombies, Frankenstein, the Wolfman shows up, I mean pretty much every horror monster you can think of is in this game. It's a platformer, it's got 16 levels, but there's also secret doors and passageways where you can kind of go and find secrets and items. Most of the items are useless but occasionally you'll find an extra life or a cool weapon or something. The graphics were decent, I mean, the SNES-CD was mostly used for voice acting and crude animation, it pretty much looked like any other SNES cartridge game. What set the game apart, I think, was the humor. It was very light hearted, not bloody or gory horror, just really silly horror poking fun at various horror tropes. Compare it to say, the Commander Keen series I think would be a good comparison to the humor in Pickton Lake.
Brittany: I remember reading about it in Nintendo Power and not being very interested in it. I was more interested in... I think Super Turrican maybe? But even that game I didn't bother getting new.
Alex: It was a cult game. Didn't sell very well but had some pretty devoted fans. I only got it because it was on sale, I think 12 bucks used at FuncoLand. Played it and beat it on a Saturday when I didn't have any games to play for the show. I probably would've given it a 3 on GameTV, maybe a 3.5? Honestly I didn't think it was anything special but I liked the humor and the voice acting.
Brittany: Well, this new Pickton Lake, the graphics have been updated significantly. It looks like a cel shaded game, like a Star Siren in terms of graphics, really zany animations, some remixed music, added treasures, expanded levels... there's 18 levels I think in this one.
Alex: Yeah, I noticed they added two more levels. They added a secret challenge level and a 100 percent completion level.
Brittany: Now in the original game, apparently...apparently Cassie got kidnapped in the final level?
Alex: Right, you had to fight the final boss with Cody while Cassie was all tied up and hanging in the background.
Brittany: Well, spoiler alert by the way for anyone interested in playing the game, if you don't want to know about the bonus levels you might want to mute this. I did spoil the game for myself just a little bit because I looked up the secret bonus levels out of curiosity, I looked them up on Youtube, and in the secret challenge level, level 17, it's Cody who gets snatched!
Alex: Yep!
Brittany: Reversing the cliche!
Alex: The dude in distress.
Brittany: I love how Cassie is just relishing it too, really rubbing it in his face. Because in the original game, Cody's mostly all heroic, but in this remake, when Cassie gets captured, Cody acts like a smartass and it got on my nerves, like "really?" but then when Cassie's saving him she acts twice as bad! Which, again, I thought was hilarious, mostly thanks to the voice acting.
Alex: They changed the voice actors in the remake.
Brittany: Which is usually the case in modern games of old ones that did have voice acting, they rarely use the original cast. I looked it up, and the original game was all non-union. I'd never heard of any of the voice actors in that original game, but in this remake, I've heard of these people.
Alex: You've probably worked with some of these people!
Brittany: I have! Jessica DiCicco, she plays the voice of Cassie in the remake and she also did a voice on an episode of Thrillseekers! She plays Beth, one of the girls in the group that's a rival to the Thrillseekers girls. She's hilarious, she's super talented and she was awesome in this game.
Alex: And I thought the actors in the original game did a really good job for the time. By 1993 standards, I mean back then, and I'm not bashing anyone who voice acts professionally, but there is a huge difference between the voice acting back then and the voice acting for games now, which I think is one of the best aspects of most of these remakes.
Brittany: So yeah, the Pickton Lake remake is really nice, though I think I might've appreciated it even more if I'd played the original.
Alex: I did play the new one for Games Over Matter and it is absolutely better. I gave it an 8 out of 10 on there, it's a really fun little platformer and even though it's got modern graphics and some quality of life improvements, it's still a nice little throwback.
Brittany: There's another remake... er, reboot, not sure, it's an overhaul but it's essentially the same game, and that's Rampart. Came out on the iTwin, came out on the handhelds, and it is Atari's Rampart, which originally came out in 1990, but redone as a modern game.
Alex: The original Rampart was incredible. I played it in the arcade and got really hooked. It had puzzle elements, strategy elements, even some shooter elements in there, and I was surprised by just how true this new one stays to that original game. They didn't try to doll it up with action segments, they didn't try to make it into some RPG or something, they just gave the graphics a hell of a boost and added tower defense elements, which I actually think is perfect since the original Rampart was in a lot of ways the precursor to the modern tower defense game.
Brittany: I got the Supernova version, which doesn't look as good as the iTwin version but it does play the same.
Alex: It does, yeah, it's the same as the iPod Play version which is basically the iTwin version on an iPod Play. There's also an iPhone version, and that one has touch controls.
Brittany: Of course it does.
Alex: Rampart is the kind of game that I think isn't for everyone, because it's not like Tetris where anybody can pick up and play it. You've got to be able to strategize on multiple levels to get the most out of it and succeed. The thing I want to know is why Rampart? There are a lot of other classic Atari games to remake, but Rampart is the one that gets remade. I mean, at least now.
Brittany: They're doing Centipede on the Xbox 2.
Alex: Oh, yeah, as an FPS.
Brittany: Yeah.
Alex: *audibly groans*
Brittany: You think maybe just doing an arcade update would've been better?
Alex: Well, look at Pac-Man: Championship Edition, that game's amazing! They didn't try to turn Pac-Man into an FPS! Why Centipede?
Brittany: The centipedes look pretty scary and cool.
Alex: But that's not Centipede! That's just a horror game about giant centipedes!
Brittany: I agree that they probably should've just updated the original arcade game, like they did with Tempest on the Jaguar.
Alex: Yeah, with an arcade game, just stick to the arcade gameplay. There's a reason those games did so well, it's because the gameplay was simple and addictive and fun. That's why the new Rampart is so good. I still don't know why the new Rampart exists but I'm glad it does.
Brittany: Same with Pac-Man: Championship Edition.
Alex: Yeah.
Brittany: So you do like game remakes, mostly, and I have to say that I like them too. One of the reasons is that, being a mom, I get to share some of these games with my kids and have them enjoy them the same way I did back in the day. Going back to Pickton Lake, the original game, from what I heard, you got a limited number of continues and lives and if you exhausted those, game over. Back to the start.
Alex: Right, back to level 1. You lost all your stuff, you lost your progress, back to level 1. It was... fairly generous with extra lives and continues, I mean you could find at least one extra life in every level, but it was still tough to make it through.
Brittany: And this new game saves after every level.
Alex: Right.
Brittany: Now, I consider myself a hardcore gamer, I like a challenge, but... I don't like wasting my time. And these games, that don't save, I mean... this is a lot more convenient for me and a lot better to play with my young kids, so that they can get through it without being sent back to the start so much.
Alex: I get the mentality that a challenging game is more satisfying to beat, there's more bragging rights in it, but you're right that making it more generous in terms of lives and saves makes it a lot more accessible. It's a quality of life thing.
Brittany: It respects your time more.
Alex: Exactly. And there are still plenty of tough games out there that are tough because they take legitimate practice and strategy to beat and not just because they sent your butt back to the start when you get beaten.
Brittany: You and Melissa just had a little girl, so when are you planning to start her on video games?
Alex: I'm not sure, and I'm not sure if I'll start her on the originals or the remakes. I think maybe I'll start her on Super Mario Bros.?
Brittany: Oh, good choice.
Alex: And that's been remade at least once.
Brittany: Right, Super Mario All-Stars. Think Nintendo might go back to it, remake it in the same style as Super Mario Flip?
Alex: Oh, that would be fun. You mean the graphical style or with the flipping?
Brittany: I think with the flipping might be fun, being able to explore the original Super Mario Bros. in 3-D.
Alex: I think I'd rather have a straight up remake, just the original game but in HD, with HD graphics on the Sapphire.
Brittany: They could do both, have one mode with the flip and the other mode just playing normally.
Alex: Ugh, Brittany, why do you do this kinda stuff?
Brittany: Hmm?
Alex: Now I really want to play Super Mario Bros. in HD! That's the remake I REALLY want!
Brittany: *laughs*
Alex: It would be like printing money for Nintendo! It would be like printing money!
Brittany: I have to stop you drooling because we're running out of time but there's one more game I want to get to, this one doesn't come out until September but it's Fairytale: 10th Anniversary Edition, also for Game Boy Supernova.
Alex: I'm noticing a trend that all our remakes today are from the Supernova.
Brittany: Not Pac-Man, that's iPod Play.
Alex: Well, most of them.
Brittany: The Supernova's a great little remake machine, isn't it? But anyway, Fairytale. Let's take a trip in the Wayback Machine, ten years ago, with this clip from GameTV.
*The clip is played of Alex and Brittany's review of the original Fairytale for the Ultra Nintendo:
Alex: Fairytale takes place in a world divided between the human world, a steampunk landscape of cities and high technology, and the fairy world, of continent-spanning magical forests filled with flowers and creatures and of course, the fairies, magically-gifted beings who look like humans but have translucent wings on their backs that allow them to float above the forest floor. The action begins when a young human soldier named Ephret wanders into the forest and encounters a beautiful fairy soldier named Claris.
Brittany: Though Claris is distrusting of Ephret, she takes him deeper into the forest, needing his help to combat the increasingly dangerous monsters who threaten the lives of her brethren. She introduces him to her friend Virtuosa and swears him to secrecy, knowing that tension between the two races is at an all time high. Together, the three become protectors of the innocent, but even amongst the forest fae, not everything is as it seems, and intrigue is everywhere, even in this forested paradise.*
Alex: What a trip down memory lane, huh?
Brittany: Yeah, and remember, we gave that game a perfect score.
Alex: It's a Hall of Fame game.
Brittany: The remake will feature updated graphics and some brand new quests, though the game itself remains the same and even keeps the original voice actors, including Mary Elizabeth McGlynn and Moira Quirk.
Alex: Mary McGlynn has certainly done a lot since Fairytale, hasn't she?
Brittany: She's the Major! And she was majorly awesome in Fairytale so I'm glad they brought her back for this, even if it's just to record a few more lines since they are using the original voice recording for most of it. So yeah, Squaresoft is remaking Fairytale, though it's not nearly as big an overhaul as Rampart or Pickton Lake.
Alex: This is more of an updated re-release, isn't it?
Brittany: And they are, by the way, still selling the original Fairytale on both the Supernova and Sapphire digital store, for ten dollars. This remake is going to be 40, so I'm not sure how well it's going to do if they didn't update very much. The new content had better be pretty impressive.
Alex: This is a problem some companies are running into, where they remake a game that's already being sold in the digital store. With the rise of these retro game download services and then you have remakes... I remember Sonic: The Collection took somewhat of a beating in sales because the original games were already available on iTunes.
Brittany: Super Mario Dimensions was never on sale on the Supernova store, because you could get the original remade game at launch.
Alex: Exactly. But they DO have Super Mario Dimensions on the Sapphire. The original, for ten bucks.
Brittany: While Nintendo still sells the Supernova version for 30 or 40.
Alex: So if you want to play Super Mario Dimensions on the toilet, you have to pay Nintendo 30 bucks extra for that privilege.
Brittany: Or just drag your TV and your Nintendo Sapphire into the bathroom and pay them nothing.
Alex: *laughing*
Brittany: At that point it's a moral victory more than anything.
Alex: Well, you can't take your Sapphire on a plane, so if you want to play it on a plane, you've got no choice!
Brittany: Well, they just released the Fairytale 10th Anniversary Edition in Japan, and it sold really well there, so maybe Squaresoft is onto something. It got....let me see, a 36 in Famitsu. So yeah, um... I guess people really will buy certain games twice if they're good enough!
Alex: Again, going back to The Godfather on Blu-Ray...
Brittany: What I want to know is if this new Fairytale game will be as scary as the old one was, will the updated graphics make the monsters scarier or not? Because I remember the old one had some genuinely creepy imagery. There was the Mayfly monster, basically a giant stone golem with the head of a fly... a very realistic fly, mind you.
Alex: I remember there was one dungeon that was a field of flowers with very soothing music, but you had these horrific insect and plant monsters roaming it. The giant hornet monster, this REALLY unsettling flower that made this weird screeching noise...
Brittany: Right, in Fairytale often the creepiest monsters hung out in the nicest seeming places. You'd be roaming this beautiful section of forest and then all of a sudden you'd go to a screen and there'd be this realistic looking giant wasp coming at you, or an oozing snake monster. The monster animations in the original Fairytale, both in the field and in battle, were so lifelike that it had this really unsettling effect. I let Arturo play Fairytale when he was five and he saw the hornet monster and freaked out, I mean screamed and ran out of the room. I felt really bad because I hadn't thought that something like that would spook him so much, but it gave him nightmares.
Alex: Geez, it was that bad?
Brittany: Yeah, I felt so awful too. He hasn't gone back to playing it since. I'm... I mean I don't ban my kids from playing a game because it's scary, so he can go back and try to play Fairytale whenever he wants, but he refuses to.
Alex: I imagine you wouldn't let Regan look at it though.
Brittany: Well, I'll tell you.... I don't think she scares as easily as him!
Alex: Really?
Brittany: She has watched Chris play Resident Evil and when the licker jumped out, Chris said she started laughing. I am dead serious, when that licker jumped out on top of Claire, Regan started laughing.
Alex: *laughs loudly* I'm surprised he even played it in front of her!
Brittany: He didn't know she was in the room, but when she started laughing it spooked HIM!
Alex: *laughing even louder* So she'd probably be fine with Fairytale then.
Brittany: Oh god, I imagine so.
Alex: You worried about her? *still laughing a bit*
Brittany: Oh, she's a sweet girl, but she doesn't scare easily at all. She has her mom's sense of humor I think. *giggles*
Alex: But yeah, Fairytale, I think people remember the Arachnoterror cutscene as the iconic "scare" from that game, with that giant spider coming out of the forest at you.
Brittany: That didn't scare me too much, I mean you had just seen Ashlyn get cocooned, what did you think was gonna come out of those trees, the Kool-Aid Man?
Alex: OH YEAH!
Brittany: *snickering*
Alex: It was just the way the spider moved, just the animation on him. It was like nothing we'd ever seen before, the animators did such a good job.
Brittany: Which makes me wonder if they re-did the old cutscenes or left them in. They do look dated now but they still hold up a bit, and I imagine they'd hold up better on a smaller screen.
Alex: As someone who has the original Fairytale on his Supernova, they do still look good on that screen.
Brittany: So you'd guess they left them in?
Alex: I imagine the original cutscenes are all still in.
Brittany: Well, we'll find out in September when Fairytale: 10th Anniversary Edition is released Stateside.
Alex: Though you could import it now if you really can't wait.
Brittany: Well, I think we should probably wrap this up, my producer is giving me the one minute warning so that's going to have to be it, but thank you so much for coming on and you know I'd love to have you on again as soon as possible.
Alex: Always a pleasure, I love talking about old games and of course it's great getting to talk about them with you.
Brittany: Likewise, and of course congratulations yet again on you and Melissa's new baby!
Alex: I'm not letting her anywhere near Fairytale!
Brittany: *snickering* That's also going to be it for me, but I'll be back on tomorrow night at 8 PM for another fun filled night of music from your favorite anime and video game soundtracks and all the latest news on everything geeky! We'll have Geek Trivia tomorrow night for you to test your meddle, and the topic will be Sailor Moon, so get your Sailor Guardians together and find out who knows the most about the pretty soldiers who fight for love and justice. I'm Brittany Saldita, and as always, "you play like a girl" is the best compliment you can possibly get. See you tomorrow!
-excerpted from the April 14, 2008 evening broadcast of Northstar Satellite Radio's Geek Radio channel