Gaming franchises, regardless of how beloved they are, sometimes evolve so slowly or go so far that the only way to keep them going is by hitting the reset button. Unnecessary reboots, especially in the movie scene, are an overbearing plague. Gamers, however, have mostly been blessed with some absolutely fantastic comebacks. Let’s look at the best of the best, shall we?
DOOM (2016)
Resident Evil 7
Resident Evil 4
Prince Of Persia: The Sands of Time
Ninja Gaiden
Tomb Raider (2013)
Few reboots reboot it as hard as 2013’s Tomb Raider did. Remember Lara’s famous dual pistols? Those are gone, replaced by a wooden bow. If I were to say that in a preview these days, fans would get mad pissed. Blessed by hindsight, however, the gambit proved incredibly fruitful. It worked because the game nails modern platforming and people at Crystal Dynamics succeeded at coming up with what’s easily the most fun bow in the history of video games for this very bow-centric reboot.
Other than that, Tomb Raider 2013 also does a good job of creating a different Lara, one definitely more human and less video game-y than classic Lara.
Tomb Raider Legend
Plot twist, there was an even better Tomb Raider reboot, and that was Tomb Raider Legend. Legend isn’t necessarily better than the 2013 reboot, but there’s a much larger gap in quality between it and its predecessor, as that was the infamous The Angel Of Darkness.
Legend completely revamps the gameplay to create an extremely fun platforming experience, looks great, updates Lara without throwing away what people loved about her in the first place, and features simplified levels that never feel like they’re holding your hand.
Legend was also the first Tomb Raider sequel to enlist series creator Toby Gard, so it is also kind of the true Tomb Raider II.
God Of War
The original God Of War trilogy is one of the finest in the history of gaming. Making a new game in the same vein but with better graphics allowed by the more modern hardware sure would’ve worked, but the people at Sony’s Santa Monica Studio wanted more than “just great”.
The team decided to bring the story to a new setting, completely revamp not just the gameplay, but also the main character. Now, Kratos was no longer just the least-bad guy in the story. He’d become both a father and a man struggling with the heavy burden of his past misdeeds. The God Of War reboot is far from original. It was clearly influenced by the success of The Last Of Us and a few other games, but I’d argue its gameplay far surpasses that of the games which inspired it, so it’s really hard to deny this one’s place among the greats.
XCOM: Enemy Unknown
Enemy Unknown is such a deep cut that many aren’t even aware it’s a reboot. When old school gamers claim gamers used to be much harder way back in the day, the original X-COM is partially to blame. I remember getting countless teams wiped out long before I even got to see what the enemies looked like. The new XCOM not only looked much, much better, it perfectly modernized every element of the old games. You could finally properly learn how to play the game before you were put in charge of earth’s defense force.
DMC – Devil May Cry
Ok, please hear me out. I know nobody likes black-haired Dante and that the game’s plot and writing is just too edgy to be enjoyable by anyone over the age of 15. Then again, is the plot of any Devil May Cry game really something you could care that deeply about?
DMC’s fault lies not in its absolute desperation to look cool, but in its unlucky attempt to look cool in a different way, one fans just ended up not vibing with. Had it been the first game in the series, there’s no way to tell how it would’ve gone.
If you ignore the plot, DMC is much better looking than DMC4, features superior level design, and doesn’t force players to backtrack half the game just to make it last long enough to justify the full price tag. Avoid judging this loud comic book by its cover, and you’ll find a game filled with cool new gameplay mechanics that will definitely surprise you in a positive manner. Team Ninja tried, and their original vision is worthy of your time.
Grand Theft Auto 3
Here we are, the one that changed it all. Though it was marketed like a sequel, GTA 3 was a whole new thing. I’m willing to bet most fans of the series never even gave GTA 2 a chance, and that’s totally fine.
Even by ’90s standards, GTA 2 just wasn’t very good. It was a decent title, but it was mostly the game kids would want to try out because they’d heard teens talking about how cool it was to run people over on the street and flee the cops. You can’t run on controversy forever, and man, did GTA 2 lose its appeal quickly. GTA 3 didn’t merely bring GTA to the 3d world, it also imbued this possibly sterile world with truly fun gameplay mechanics, characters, and a surprisingly decent plot.
GTA would never be the same after GTA 3, but neither would the entire industry.
