"If only I could play the original."
I'm normally firmly in the "eh whatever" camp for remakes, but I felt inspired by Klonoa Phantasy Reverie and the strides PCSX2 has made in general. This list is more like a guide, I plan to make stuff like this on my own neocities at some point with more detail/hand-holding but for now I want this to exist somewhere. TLDR mainly focusing on games that have botched remasters/remakes, and how to play their original or definitive versions as best you can.
I'm not going to explain how to get the ISOs, ROMs or stuff like BIOS files; but https://emulation.gametechwiki.com should be your primary resource and they explain how to "rip" the aforementioned. Totally unrelated but QBitTorrent is a fantastic torrenting client with fairly straight forward setup and I recommend checking the trackers on the wiki instead of sites like archive dot org.
Entries without notes are WIP. List is sorted alphabetically, grouped by notes vs blank. I'll also add significant changes as "updates" at the bottom of this description.
Feel free to comment for more suggestions, ideally games that aren't as straight forward or had less than ideal remakes/remasters.
================================================
Thanks to...
Nowhere, for helping with most of these and frankly carrying.
SlapOnToast, for pointing me towards some of the Resident Evil stuff.
================================================
Additions/changes below, most recent at top of list.
================================================
Update 04/20/23: Added Advance Wars. Updated 3DAS SM64 section with recommendation for Rosalie's Mupen GUI.
Update 01/20/23: Updated Shadow of the Colossus notes. TLDR can play at 60 flawlessly via RPCS3.
Update 09/29/22: Updated Sly Collection notes. TLDR patches/cheats/3rd party memory cards may softlock the game, happens on original hardware too.
Update 09/06/22: Added basic recommendations for Chrono Trigger/Cross. Added Pac-Man World Re-Pac.
Update 08/28/22: Ratchet & Clank 1 plays very well on the latest PCSX2 Nightly, MASSIVE jump in performance over 1.6. Only occasional slowdown on friend's system now vs big chug before.
Update 07/14/22: Added drag 'n' drop configuration files for Klonoa 2 via PCSX2 to notes.
Update 07/12/22: Changed SADX's notes to direct to SADX Mod Installer instead of BetterSADX. The latter is likely fine but the community says to use the former lately.
I'm not going to explain how to get the ISOs, ROMs or stuff like BIOS files; but https://emulation.gametechwiki.com should be your primary resource and they explain how to "rip" the aforementioned. Totally unrelated but QBitTorrent is a fantastic torrenting client with fairly straight forward setup and I recommend checking the trackers on the wiki instead of sites like archive dot org.
Entries without notes are WIP. List is sorted alphabetically, grouped by notes vs blank. I'll also add significant changes as "updates" at the bottom of this description.
Feel free to comment for more suggestions, ideally games that aren't as straight forward or had less than ideal remakes/remasters.
================================================
Thanks to...
Nowhere, for helping with most of these and frankly carrying.
SlapOnToast, for pointing me towards some of the Resident Evil stuff.
================================================
Additions/changes below, most recent at top of list.
================================================
Update 04/20/23: Added Advance Wars. Updated 3DAS SM64 section with recommendation for Rosalie's Mupen GUI.
Update 01/20/23: Updated Shadow of the Colossus notes. TLDR can play at 60 flawlessly via RPCS3.
Update 09/29/22: Updated Sly Collection notes. TLDR patches/cheats/3rd party memory cards may softlock the game, happens on original hardware too.
Update 09/06/22: Added basic recommendations for Chrono Trigger/Cross. Added Pac-Man World Re-Pac.
Update 08/28/22: Ratchet & Clank 1 plays very well on the latest PCSX2 Nightly, MASSIVE jump in performance over 1.6. Only occasional slowdown on friend's system now vs big chug before.
Update 07/14/22: Added drag 'n' drop configuration files for Klonoa 2 via PCSX2 to notes.
Update 07/12/22: Changed SADX's notes to direct to SADX Mod Installer instead of BetterSADX. The latter is likely fine but the community says to use the former lately.
26 Games
22 Comments
The Super Mario 3D All Stars Collection on Switch is probably an obvious example here
OG resi 1
Ninja Gaiden Black
You can also play Crash and Spyro in their original forms on PS3, via the PS1 Classics releases. Yeah, you'll have to access the storefront via the PS3 itself since they were delisted from the webstore, but still perfectly doable.
@Dief88 I'm trying to outline the best ways to play these games, not literally every way; otherwise the SM64 decomp means I'd have to list it for, if I had to guess, around two dozen different platforms and all their quirks. I'm just focusing on the best methods for playing these which is, most of the time, on a PC.
Haven't heard anything bad about the Ace Attorney collection before, why's it on the list?
Some people don't like the redone artwork (most common complaint is the Judge in particular), I don't think it's bad but I want to point back to versions with the og artstyle. I should rewrite the list description at some point, but basically while I'm focusing on mostly bad jobs, I think it's worth commenting on even "good" remakes i.e. SotC, DeS.
Worth mentioning that there's the Classic REbirth patches for the PC versions of Resident Evil 1+2+3 (as well as Dino Crisis): https://appleofeden.de-doc.com/index.php/downloads/resident-evil-classic-rebirth/
Thanks, I'll update the notes for the RE entries.
I mentioned it before but Ratchet & Clank (2002) is another one. It can be emulated on PCSX2 but it's more CPU intensive than most PS2 games, iirc.
FF XII?
What's wrong with cave story+
The Cave Story entry is mostly regarding the Switch release where it uses some fugly 3D model for water and terrain textures immediately fade out in (imo) a kind of awkward way that makes it look like levels are just awkwardly floating in space. Comparison vid: https://youtu.be/Y2kduludVCk
@Bjoangles4th ohh gotcha, I thought the redone art was just the art from the originals just not compressed since it's not on a handheld anymore?
No, even on Wii where they could have used higher quality art, they didn't. They redid the art for AA trilogy.
@Bojangles ah I see, the art looked so similar it was hard for me to tell but fair enough
You should add the House of the Dead remake
I'm not really sure how I'd approach that since the original was an arcade lightgun release.
Could not agree more with chrono trigger. Let me play it with the duperior ted woosely translation.
MalditoMur
1 year ago