Touhou Koumakyou New Classic

I was pretty excited when I saw the Touhou 6 remaster announced because I really liked Touhou 6 even if I was ass at it. It has some of my favourite characters (Meisaku warriors rise up) and some of my favourite songs as well, and of course it was the first mainline Touhou game I tried to play when I was trying to get into Touhou (outside the fighting games).

Now that being said, this blogpost is less about Touhou Koumakyou: New Classic because… well there’s not really much to talk about. Instead I’m using this as a game to ramble about my feelings about remakes as a whole.

But to cover my opinion on the TH6 remaster which I still have yet to 1CC (one day, I promise…), I liked it! I liked the new visuals, I think it’s cute that they retraced the original art, the new rearranges while I prefer the originals over some of them, I still on a whole enjoyed them, and perhaps most importantly, I’m glad to be able to buy the actual game on steam (though I actually do own a physical copy of the original). I’m nowhere near good enough of a Touhou or shooting game player to really comment on the gameplay mechanics and changes (which I heard there’s a few), but I think some of the QoL additions they added are very welcome and I appreciated them like spell practice and practice mode in general.

Playing the remaster though really made me think about remakes/remasters in general. I think the majority of people who play games and see new games coming out can see that there is a pretty large uptick on remakes coming out. I couldn’t say which game really kickstarted the trend but just listing a few of the popular ones like RE2make, RE4make, Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter, Silent Hill 2 Remake, and then of course the plethora of remasters like Dark Souls Remastered, Dead Space Remastered, and so on and so forth. There’s also what I would consider just ports, stuff like how Skyrim has… I think both actually. Both ports and remasters, where it’s basically just porting the game onto the next gen/PC or what have you to make it playable on another platform.

Before I continue, I try to keep consistent with how I term these things so just to clarify how I classify them, here’s how I do it. A port is like I mentioned, a straight up just move game from platform A to B. There’s no additional content added, no changes outside maybe some minor textural ones (and obvious ones like controls), though I’ll say for PC I would consider good ports to include options to change things like graphics. These are what I consider the most “barebones” option.

Remasters are similar to ports, but to me they usually include additional things like bigger graphics upgrades, maybe including cut content or bundling DLC content, and to me personally, I would consider porting from an older generation to a newer generation a remaster ASSUMING that the remaster is taking advantage of the newer generation (tying in with bigger graphics upgrades). I would maybe also throw in QOL changes in this category as well, and stuff like including more accessibility options. But the core of the game is still very much the same, and if you were to look at both games you could tell that they were both the same game, though one might look better than the other.

Remakes on the other hand are the most different, in which they fundamentally “remake” the game from scratch. This to me would be something like using a completely new engine, making the core content of the game different (not necessarily just gameplay but can also include story), and if you were to compare the two games side by side, you probably wouldn’t be able to say they were the same game.

The reason why I’ve been thinking about it more lately is not only are we seeing more remakes coming out, I see some of my friends talk about how they want X game to be remade, or some of my other friends say they don’t want games to be remade.

I personally think that companies have been thinking about remakes more and more often lately because of the success of a lot of them, or at the very least, the positive reception I’ve seen. Obviously, with games like RE2 and RE4, there will always be people who say they prefer the original and either think the remake is pointless and/or even bad. Even for remakes like Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter. But I think they’re a vocal minority, and ultimately these games tend to do quite well.

Do I lean towards the camp that remakes are pointless/bad? I’m pretty split on the topic to be honest. I’ve played remakes like RE2/4 and honestly I very much enjoyed them! In fact, I consider them so different from the original games that I think there is value in playing both, and I appreciate that both exist. I think it’s completely fair and valid to like one and not like the other too because of how they differ. I also think this is a good example of a remake, where because of how different the game is, there’s value in playing and experiencing both.

Buuuuut, I don’t like the trend and the implications of them being so successful. Mainly because I think remakes can honestly be… too safe in a way. Ultimately, a company is just rehashing their ideas still. Even if they change and add or remove certain things, a remake is still playing off their old ideas and the DNA is still there. If you asked me if I would rather have a remake of an old game I liked or get a completely new game, I would personally rather get the new game EXCEPT, with the current state of the game industry, I find it unfortunately more likely that a new game might not even be fun or good. Which is where I think the demand/success of remakes come from, because these companies know these old ideas were good, they’re likely to sell because they play to nostalgia, they know they can do them again just with a fresher coat of paint (and add/change some things), so bam! Here’s a success coming out the oven!

And I think it’s sad because new ideas should be explored! We shouldn’t rehash old these old games because they already exist, and on another note I also think modernizing old games in certain ways isn’t great either. I think there’s value in preserving old archaic game mechanics, even if they were terrible or bizarre. I have a lot of feelings about the greater game industry as a whole because of how companies are forced to be profitable which means taking less risks and making safer products that will sell and yada yada yada I can ramble on and on about how I feel disappointed in the trend of most modern game companies.

Now that being said, I don’t think this way about games as a whole, because I think beyond the industry there’s lots of passionate indie developers that have cool visions that stick to them and release cool games! Even if they may be flawed or not perfect, I enjoy them, and as long as these people continue to exist, I will continue to enjoy games. That’s partially why I created this blog too, to talk about smaller games that I like! I just find it a bit of a shame that the bigger companies I used to like in the days of past I can’t really find myself being that excited for their new releases like I used to. Also shoutouts to steam calendar feature for putting a lot of games onto my radar that I wouldn’t have seen otherwise.

Bringing this back to the TH6 remaster (to me this falls under that, even though I believe they had to remake the engine from scratch to my understanding?), I know I just talked a lot about how I think game companies should focus on making new ideas and not rehashing old ones, I do think there is some exception and this is one of them. TH6 is not really legally accessible for most people. Even my legal copy of TH6 is a pain to play because I would have to mod it for modern windows systems, which while existing, is still a hurdle. And that’s not even including the fact that I got this copy while I was in Japan!

To me, where this remaster excels is that it makes the game very accessible to global audiences! And a super cool thing they did is include the original (as close as possible) so that if you wanted to truly play the OG, you could! I thought that was a very nifty idea, and I appreciate keeping the core gameplay and mechanics in the remastered version as well. I was stoked to be able to buy the game on steam, and know that others are able to do the same as well.

I think making an old game that is no longer purchasable or accessible (legally at least) to be available for purchase on modern platforms (and work) is really cool, and something I really like GOG for as well. There’s definitely an argument for “should they be remade or just remastered or even just ported”, and I think ultimately there’s no right or wrong answer. I’ve definitely been guilty of using some QoL features in remasters of old games (shoutouts to no encounters in FF6). It’s also cool to see touch ups in ways like rearranges of old songs (while still being able to use the old songs) too.

Anyways, this long ramble is all to say I hope that we stop getting these long elaborate remakes in favor of developing new games. But I do hope that we manage to make some older obscure games playable on modern systems too, and I think there’s value in supporting initiatives that do so (like this one!).

Also Meiling and Sakuya are a great ship.