It’s obvious, right!? Metroid Prime Remastered is a remaster, natch, Return to Dream Land Deluxe is a fancy port, and Skyward Sword HD and Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD are apparently both, er, HD remasters? Although Wind Waker HD was more of an HD remake. Probably. What is the Millennium Gate again?
To investigate this noodle issue, Team NL sat down for a chat to see if we can find the Nintendo Life Definition…
Gavin: Okay then, let’s start broad with our general ideas. How would your define the difference between remake and remaster?
Ollie: More often than not, I’m quite happy with whatever the developers feel it is – they should know better than most, right? But without that information, a remake to me is generally something that’s completely redone from scratch, so none of the original code or assets from the original release remain. The remaster, on the other hand, is the original game ‘amped up’, enhanced with nicer visuals, tweaked gameplay – that sort of thing.
Alana: That’s where I mostly fall down – I think the phrase ‘rebuilt from the ground up’ best sums up how I feel about remakes. I think of a remaster as a fresh coat of paint, whereas with a remake you’re rebuilding the whole house. Weird metaphor, but that’s the best way I can visualize it.
Jim: I’ll go three for three and agree once again. I’m not very tech-savvy when it comes to game code and such, and I’m sure there’s more to the remaster than just a “simple” facelift, but in my opinion, if it looks basically it also plays basically same, it’s a remaster. It seems that the ‘Remake’ should bring something more significant.
Gavin: I rule of thumb was that if you can take a cutscene or splash screen and overlay it onto the original, and it’s essentially the same (maybe with added widescreen, better resolution, etc.), it’s a remaster. What features would you expect to see in a remaster, as opposed to a remake?
Alana: At a minimum? ‘HD’. At least nowadays. There are plenty of examples of pixel smoothing that I really hate, but it seems to fall under that ‘visual refresh’ umbrella. It has to look cleaner, neater, to a certain degree. Otherwise, it’s just a port, right?
Gavin: Ha, Alana was the first one brave enough to say the P word! The rabbit hole awaits…
Alana: You can be a remastered port or just a port!
Jim: I would repeat Alan and maybe add some changes to the soundtrack. It’s not the bare minimum (hell, it’s still not that common), but if the visuals get a fresh coat of paint, it’s always nice to hear how you like the audio. Anything more technical and we get into else
Ollie: It depends on how old the original is. If someone asked me what I would like to see in a remaster The Last of Us Part III would shrug my shoulders and say, “I haven’t got the foggiest, mate.” But if we’re talking pre-2005, then yes, HD visuals, maybe upscaling if necessary. Some quality of life improvements are always welcome; modernized control schemes, save states, etc.
Gavin: Maybe some scrubbed textures. It’s hard when you get into nomenclature and how publishers call things and that inconsistency. We’ll come back to that in a second. Apparently, Paper Mario TTYD is Nintendo’s game of the moment, and they called it a remake, right?
Jim: That’s right. I’ve been calling it a remaster for months now, but noooNintendo had to go and officially label it differently.
Alana: I called it between remaster and remake in the preview, but then went with the full remake for the review. And by Gavin’s criteria, it feels like a remaster at first – the layers are very similar. But I was looking at GameCube and Switch screenshots before the review came out, and the visual changes are frankly stunning. There is a huge improvement in quality between the 2004 and 2024 editions. Intelligent Systems had to rebuild most of it.
Of course, it feels the same to play, and there are some quality of life features, a few new things in the game. But the visual and musical brilliance surpasses what we’ve seen in, say, Dark Souls: Remastered or something similar.
Gavin: Delving into other Nintendo examples and touching on the ‘HD’ label, how would you say TTYD compares to something like Wind Waker HD? Would you personally classify it as a remake?
Ollie: Not! With Paper Mario, I think the series has always had a pretty timeless art style, so the distinction between remakes and remasters has always been difficult. But watching TTYD on Switch on the go, I can definitely say it’s built from the ground up. With Wind Waker, Nintendo did an outstanding job with the visuals, but it’s still the same game through and through.
Alana: Yes, Wind Waker HD is still a GameCube game underneath, animations and all. There’s new rendering and lighting on Wii U. TTYD is a completely new engine – it’s not just re-rendered visuals and lighting. Actually it wasn’t any lighting in the GC version, and details were pretty minimal. I wouldn’t be surprised if he uses The Origami King mechanism.
Gavin: WW HD did have other tweaks though, changes to Triforce Hunt, GamePad integration, etc. Such a fine semantic line between these things! As for me, the recent Wizardry remake made me question my previous criteria. In it, the original Apple II is literally (and optionally) visible on the screen, flowing beneath all the new stuff that Digital Eclipse has built on top of it. The OG game is there, with all the modern code included, and yet I don’t think anyone would say it’s not a total remake. Here, the lack of knowledge of exactly how the code and underlying logic is used makes the lines even more blurred. Something like the Resident Evil remakes are much easier to label. [Editor’s note: Since we spoke, I was reminded of the brilliant Wonder Boy: The Dragon’s Trap from Lizardcube, another example of a totally transformative facelift that still featured the original game running beneath. What a marvellous game that is! Anyhow, back to the chat…]
