It could be said that one of the main purposes of gaming as a hobby is to take you on adventures you may otherwise be unable to experience. That’s why adventure games are one of the bedrock game genres, to the point that a statistical majority of all games could probably be categorized as one to some extent. Unfortunately, with such a massive breadth of games, some are naturally going to slip through the cracks of history, becoming unreachable to us like a dropped quarter in a storm drain.
10 PS2 Games That Never Got Remastered, but Desperately Deserve One
There are so many excellent PS2 games that deserve to return with the remaster treatment.
Many adventure games have managed to successfully resurface in the modern age via remakes, remasters, and digital collections, demand for which is powered largely by fan demand and developer/publisher interest. Even with these revival efforts, some games have yet to make a comeback, remaining trapped on the forgotten corpses of their original systems and platforms. Perhaps, by shining a light on these precious games, we could at least get the rusted wheels of the industry turning and start on the path toward reviving them.
10
Dark Seed
Mike Dawson, Ace Detective
In the olden days of PC gaming, an “adventure game” specifically referred to point-and-click adventures like King’s Quest or Monkey Island. There were a lot of games of this nature released throughout the 90s, with one particular cult classic being the original Dark Seed, released for MS-DOS in 1992.
Dark Seed follows Mike Dawson, a novelist who, after buying an old manor, has a nightmare about horrific extradimensional beings implanting an alien egg into his skull. He’s on a time limit to solve this supernatural mystery and defeat the invaders before his head pops like a water balloon, taking humanity with him. The game features art by the late H. R. Giger, giving it its distinctly unsettling, biomechanical aesthetic.
The game’s writing and voice acting is a bit on the cheesy side, but the creepy vibes are the real deal, especially when the art and animation get uncomfortably detailed. Unfortunately, its developer and publisher, CyberDreams, went defunct almost 30 years ago, so I can’t even begin to guess who to turn to for a port.
9
Amazing Island
Make-A-Monster Workshop
When PokéMania rocked the world in the 90s, everyone and anyone began looking for any possible angle they could tackle the partner monster concept. This led to a lot of similar creature-collecting RPGs, but one little GameCube game, Amazing Island, decided to take things in a slightly different direction.
In Amazing Island, you can create a monster buddy of your own entirely from scratch, drawing its proportions and body parts with your controller, then tacking on accessories like claws, wings, and eyes, and customizing its voice and body color. That monster is then used to compete in a series of Mario Party-esque challenges, such as skipping over water or smashing stone pillars. The further you progress in the adventure, the more bits and bops you unlock for making new monsters.
Admittedly, Amazing Island didn’t knock anyone’s socks off critically, but I have an old soft spot for it as one of my favorite recurring Blockbuster rentals. It’s the kind of game that, if it can’t make a comeback itself, and it probably won’t, I could easily see an indie game inheriting its spirit.
8
Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon
Ninjas and Robots are a Great Combo
The friendly ninja Goemon was one of Konami’s first mascots, making numerous appearances throughout the SNES days in the Ganbare Goemon series, known in the west as Mystical Ninja. On the N64, Goemon got two games, both of which actually managed to make their way westward. These games were the sidescrolling Goemon’s Great Adventure, and the more open-ended Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon.
Unlike Great Adventure, which is a slightly more straightforward sidescrolling platformer, Mystical Ninja is a full 3D adventure with towns and dungeons to explore, kind of like a diet Zelda. You have several playable characters to choose from, each with their own unique abilities for combat and exploration. Each major dungeon is capped off by a boss fight, following which may be an additional encounter against a giant enemy, which you battle in the equally gigantic clockwork robot, Goemon Impact, which also has its own theme song.
Sadly, Konami hasn’t paid much attention to any of Goemon’s games lately, so I don’t know how willing it’d be to fork over the cash for a remaster. I think both Mystical Ninja and Great Adventure would be great candidates for Switch Online’s N64 library, though.
7
Rocket: Robot on Wheels
Baby’s First Physics Platformer
Around the late 90s, games started experimenting more with semi-realistic physics engines. The most prominent example of this is, of course, Half-Life, but over on the console side of things, there was another interesting effort, and from a source you may not expect. That game was Rocket: Robot on Wheels, released in 1999 for the N64 by Sucker Punch.
Rocket is a 3D collect-a-thon platformer adventure starring the titular robot as he visits the many attractions in a futuristic, malfunctioning theme park to restore their functions and depose the park’s mascot gone mad. The game is built largely around physics puzzles and interactions, with Rocket’s primary ability being a tractor beam that can pick up and throw small objects like crates and bombs. It’s not exactly cutting-edge by today’s standards, but it was charming for its time, not to mention distinctly colorful and creative in its visuals.
Sucker Punch doesn’t seem to like acknowledging its more cartoony productions like Rocket and the Sly Cooper games these days, focusing on more serious IPs like Ghost of Tsushima. If we wanted a remake or remaster, we’d probably have to turn to the game’s publisher, Ubisoft, and the odds of that panning out feel… slim.
6
Tony Hawk’s Underground
Somehow, this is Eric Sparrow’s Fault
The vast majority of the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater games are straight-up arcade-style affairs. You drop into an open map, you skate within the allotted time, and then you stop. The first major departure from this came to us in the form of Tony Hawk’s Underground, released for GameCube, PS2, and Xbox in 2003.
Underground has all the same basic skateboarding mechanics as its predecessors, but rather than being arcade-style, it’s a full skateboarding adventure. You can hop off your board and explore the various towns and cities you find yourself in, completing missions and uncovering secret areas as you progress the overarching story of becoming a skating legend while battling your nemesis, Eric Sparrow. Curse you, Eric Sparrow.
Tony Hawk Doubles Down On His Love For Tony Hawk’s Underground, Remake Sadly Still Not Confirmed
Fans of the Tony Hawk’s Underground series just had a collective heart attack, with Tony Hawk making yet another cheeky reference to the classic game.
As the Tony Hawk remakes have worked their way through the numbered entries, Underground would be the next logical choice, as the original is otherwise unplayable. At the time of writing, there haven’t been any commitments from Activision, although Tony Hawk himself has gone on record that he would personally like to see Underground get the remake treatment.
5
Ultimate Spider-Man
Save (or Devour) New York
Just about every major video game console has had its own take on Spider-Man, either as a linear action game or, in the later generations, open-world adventures. There were quite a few of the latter category during the sixth console generation, though one of the only ones that wasn’t based on one of the Sam Raimi movies was Ultimate Spider-Man, released in 2005 for PS2, GameCube, and Xbox.
Ultimate Spider-Man, based on the comic series of the same name, tells a two-pronged story of Peter Parker’s daily exploits as Spider-Man and Eddie Brock’s nightly hunts as Venom. At regular intervals, the game switches perspectives between these two characters, both of which have their own objectives and side missions to pursue in the open world. Web-head has all of his usual tricks and powers at his disposal, while Venom can perform soaring leaps and feed on bystanders to refill his constantly-draining health.
When it comes to asking for ports or remasters, Marvel games are a particularly thorny path, as they’re often a tangled mess of copyrights and IP permissions. Activision had the publisher slot back in the day, but at least to my knowledge, it doesn’t have any fingers in that particular pie anymore, leaving the matter up in the air.
4
The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction
Bring Back the Car Gloves
As open-world sandbox games were the style of the sixth generation, everyone and their grandma was getting one, including any other Marvel superhero that could theoretically handle one. Compared to Spidey, The Hulk hadn’t had nearly as much love in the gaming sphere, but one of his best showings came about in 2005 with The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction.
Ultimate Destruction was another sandbox adventure, albeit one tuned specifically to Hulk’s particular specialties, i.e. breaking lots of stuff. With his immense strength, Hulk can leap across massive swaths of the open world, crushing soldiers, buildings, and cars with his meatloaf fists. There are missions and side missions to pursue, of course, but you’re just as welcome to bum around and cause trouble. Both give you XP to unlock bigger and better abilities, including the game’s signature mechanic, having Hulk tear a car in half and using it as a pair of metal boxing gloves.
If there’s any hope of a remaster of this game, the ball is once again squarely in Marvel’s court. Vivendi Universal handled publishing originally, but it was absorbed by Activision in the Activision Blizzard merger, so presumably, it’d have first dibs, but only if Marvel deigns to offer them.
3
Mega Man Legends
Why, Capcom, Why
In recent years, Capcom has been gradually restoring access to the greater spectrum of Mega Man titles, mostly through connections. He is supposed to be its mascot, after all, so it’s only right. Even with these efforts, though, there’s a particular subset of Mega Man that’s gone largely disregarded, that of Mega Man Legends.
Originally released on the PS1 and N64, Mega Man Legends was a full 3D adventure, featuring both large, explorable towns and labyrinthine dungeons full of hostile robots. It was a surprisingly dense game for its time, with lots of hidden sidequests and collectables like power-up items and swappable weapons. It also had a very lovable cast of characters, who even had voice acting!
While Legends is a cult classic, it’s treated as a bit of a black sheep by Capcom. It got one sequel and one spin-off, and has largely been abandoned since then aside from some cameos in fighting games. There have been some rumblings about a new Legends collection, but at the time of writing, rumblings is all they are.
2
Metroid Prime 2: Echoes
The Interest is There, Nintendo
It’s no secret that when it comes to software preservation, Nintendo has a bit of a… spotty track record. If we’re lucky, we get retro games on its various digital distribution systems or libraries, but if they aren’t available there, Nintendo would rather you not play them any other way. That’s rather frustrating, because there are a lot of classic adventure games from Nintendo’s own stable that remain inaccessible, such as Metroid Prime 2: Echoes on the GameCube.
A direct follow-up to the previous Prime, Prime 2 built on the 3D action-adventure principles established in that game, while adding the extra wrinkle of dual-world gameplay. Samus regularly has to hop between the light and dark iterations of the planet, braving the latter’s caustic atmosphere to find pockets of safety. It was a cool way to broaden the scope of the game’s world without overbloating it.
With the release of Metroid Prime Remastered, there is a spark of hope that Prime 2 (and Prime 3, for that matter) will get the same treatment at some point. Until that happens, and unless it’s added to the Switch Online GameCube library, we’re outta luck.
1
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
On Three Systems, All Dead
Speaking of Nintendo games, the company has done a relatively better job of preserving access to titles in the Legend of Zelda series, either through remasters, ports, or additions to digital libraries. However, for some reason, there’s a distinctive hole in the Zelda pantheon, right between Majora’s Mask and Skyward Sword: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess.
Not unlike Metroid Prime 2, Twilight Princess also dabbled in dual-world gameplay; in the light world, Link is his usual self, solving puzzles and beating baddies with an assortment of items. In the dark, Twilight realm, he transforms into a wolf, using his enhanced agility and senses instead of items, while his partner Midna snarks away on his back.
Twilight Princess was originally released on the GameCube and Wii, then got an HD port on the Wii U. If I were to hazard a guess, someone at Nintendo doesn’t want to sink any more money into remastering a game that technically already had a remaster, even if said remaster is no longer available. Ergo, we’re just going to have to hope for an addition to the GameCube library.
9 Best Action Games Still Stuck on Older Systems
The only thing these games can’t punch their way out of is their dead consoles.
