@Daelusca: Thank god for Ubisoft, Bethesda and modern Bioware that we have such evolutionary gems like AC, Fallout 4 and ME: Andromeda! These games brought some many new formulas and innovations its mind boggling! Unlike all those lame games like P5, MGSV and Nier, Nioh, The last guardian, RE7, Guilty Gear Xrd Revelator and Tekken 7. Bleh, who even plays those? weebs and filthy casuals.
Now that I think of it, what has Japan even done for the gaming industry? Nothing at all! It all started with XBOX and that's a fact.
Finally, get your facts straight. DeS and DS weren't developed in Japan, but in medieval Europe by the Spanish Inquisition. We discovered them hundreds of years after release, stuffed away in an old torture cell. Historians speculate that they were used as an extreme mental torture device that slowly drained sanity from everyone but the leetest.
I never managed to get into FFXII, perhaps it was the starting characters, the initial dull desert environments and the mmorpg influence; but it matters not. I've been giving it another chance this past week and while missing the magic of other FFs, I believe it is a very solid game.
The game of the year will either be Zelda or Mario. Zelda is a masterpiece hands down, without this meaning that necessarily everyone is going to like it. It sure has its flaws, but i'm looking at the total package here.
Having played all major releases of this year so far and while PS4 offered me by far the best value overall, there ain't beating Nintendo in game crafting. They are a tier on their own. Too bad they suck at everything else.
Second place Persona 5 perhaps. H:ZD didn't impress me as much as did others, but being the first game of a new franchise, I forgive its mishaps. I have very high expectations from the sequel, which I have a feeling will perfect the formula and be a total beast of a game, before the third one inevitably runs the series to the ground.
I don't care if it proves to be a small boost over PS4 pro in practice, i'll still get one because they clearly designed the hardware with care. Will I ever use it though? probably not. As a major PC and console hardware enthusiast, I just want to pay my respects, literary, to the work that went in this.
I'm expecting EA and Activision to make remakesters a thing any time now. That's what they will call day one patches, but you will have to pay for them instead.
@doctor_mg: I will accept your superior knowledge regarding the changes of the remake, because I indeed never played the original. I started the series with RE2 and REmake remains to this day my favorite survival horror, along with Silent Hill 2.
Regarding the definition of a remake versus a remaster, I will simply say that I consider a complete rebuild of an old game with totally new assets, a remake, regardless of the differences or similarities to mechanics or the addition/altering of content. The work for building new assets alone, is massive by itself.
I consider a remaster any fairly new game, that underwent an amount of polish to the existing assets, making it look sharper but not really different from the original. Since it takes a lot less work to simply improve a little on existing assets, I find that remasters are way more in need of additional content and altered mechanics, in order to add value to the package.
In the end, even if we don't find a middle ground in our argument, I will accept that it matters little if we call something a remake or a remaster, as long as it is a fulfilling representation of the original and a proposal of value.
@doctor_mg: Those added elements in REmake weren't really game changing. The greatest additions were Lisa and the crimson heads. Mechanics stayed all together the same, with miniscule quality of life changes, but again, not game changing. You still had to master the tank movement, exactly as it was in the original.
Such small additions do not define a remake and can easily be found in a remaster, if the dev wants to go the extra mile to make the package more appealing. For example, the remaster of REmake offered a completely revamped control scheme that fundamentally changed the game and made it A LOT easier to navigate. This change I consider way more meaningful than the addition of being able to burn zombies and fight a new boss,because it changed the way the game is played. Should I consider this remaster a remake as well then?
A remake means building the game from ground up with completely new assets, while staying faithful to the mechanics and game play of the original. It's up to the dev if they want to add more content or different control schemes/mechanics and these can be found in both remakes and remasters.
One last example, the zodiac age allows you to get a second job speciality, which is a pretty big deal, since it allows the use of all job specialities, and adds a huge metagame dungeon. Again, should I consider it a remake due to this meaningful change, or a remaster, since all they did rebuilding wise, was upscale the existing assets?
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