RPGs that fell short of greatness and should be remade

[Darth Canoli]

ToEE
Just complete the game, turn Hommlet into something edible, add some great content to get at least to level 15, another dungeon like the Moathouse and then an Hommlet invasion you have to repel or orchestrate with some side missions.
And of course, add Temple+ to the base game.

Dark Sun
Dark Sun in the KotC or ToEE engine would be amazing, the game is already a classic but a better combat engine would probably make it one of the best if not the best RPG of the galaxy.

Wizardry 6 & 7 into a modern engine, Wizardry 8-like with ultra-fast animations and projectiles or 2D but with a better UI and a revised character creation and development, more Wizardry 8-like.

They're already all great but they could be even better.

 

[Blutwurstritter]

A man can dream though, a man can dream ...

 

[vazha]

Oh, dont get me started - Flawed gems have a special place in my heart. Here we go:

Inquisitor - Boy, oh boy. Fix the trashmobs and its a delight to play. Proper Medieval.
Prelude To Darkness - The source code, The source code, half a entire kingdom for the source code!
Siege of Avalon - remove the class- specific areas, improve the combat - shouldn't be that hard, its trash-tier, and you've got another masterpiece on hands as far as setting, story & atmosphere is concerned.
Lionheart - Make the entire game happen in Barcelona. Never descend into sewers.
Spellforce 3 - Great game, would be even better as a Myth-like, with tedious rts base management part removed.

The Spiders / Cyanide games deserve a special mention in this conversation. All they actually need is AAA production funds. The first two chapters in every spiders game is invariably superb, and then it all falls off the cliff because they run out of funds and make do with what they've got.

 

[Darth Canoli]

Prelude To Darkness - The source code, The source code, half a entire kingdom for the source code!

Brofist for Prelude, how could I forget about it, this game in a good engine with a wider bestiary and good encounter design would be my number 1.

 

[Fedora Master]

Any remaster or remake will inevitably include a politicised rework as well. So be careful what you wish for.

 

[vazha]

Prelude To Darkness - The source code, The source code, half a entire kingdom for the source code!

Brofist for Prelude, how could I forget about it, this game in a good engine with a wider bestiary and good encounter design would be my number 1.

I'd not even dare to ask for more than a bug-free run of it. That already would be heaven.

 

[anvi]

I would say all of them because even the classics are janky and have things that could be improved, not even including the graphics/sound side. But the one closest to my heart would be Everquest. That game was such a piece of insane shit and it's the best thing I ever played by far. But it was a fluke in my opinion. And the problem with a remake is that I doubt anyone could make sense of the great / terrible parts and balance it for a modern audience. I've never seen a developer even come close to understanding how to balance things like that.

 

[Humbaba]

If that's your gripe there's literally an entire path where you say fuck you to them all, and I'm not talking about a slight ending change, that path leads through the entire game and changes it. It's kind of the whole point of how the game is designed, too, if you pick the errand boy path and only play once, well, that's on you.

But I don't want to say fuck you to them all, I want to be a loyal Gestapo officer.

 

[Die Healing]

Anachronox, even just tinkering with the boring combat animations would improve the game tenfold.

 

[Alphons]

Fallout: use the F2 "engine" for better inventory and companion behaviour.

Already done.
https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/fallout-et-tu-fallout-to-fallout-2-engine-conversion.131767/

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

ToEE
Just complete the game, turn Hommlet into something edible, add some great content to get at least to level 15, another dungeon like the Moathouse and then an Hommlet invasion you have to repel or orchestrate with some side missions.
And of course, add Temple+ to the base game.

Not clear what you mean by "complete the game", since The Temple of Elemental Evil is a fairly faithful adaptation of the classic adventure super-module T1-4 by Gary Gygax. Though I suppose if you wanted to lengthen the game by adding higher-level adventures, the conclusion of the adventure in the Temple itself could lead to the discovery of Drow involvement, which would then begin an adaptation of adventure modules D1 Descent into the Earth, D2 Shrine of the Kuo-Toa, and D3 Vault of the Drow, finally culminating in Q1 Queen of the Demonweb Pits with the party confronting Lolth herself.

Keith Parkinson's cover art for compilation GDQ1-7 Queen of the Spiders

 

[The_Mask]

Fix a few things about Alpha Protocol.

Otherwise, I subscribe to pretty much everything else posted.

 

[Morpheus Kitami]

Basically every game could be made into something great. I actually had a revelation about it not too long ago. I was playing the Japanese version of a text adventure, The Count by Scott Adams. The original version is one of the first video games that's truly impressive. It does everything right for a text adventure. Its a very clever game. Meanwhile, the Japanese version commits every sin an adventure game could commit, and possibly ones that haven't been seen elsewhere. Any game could be turned into something amazing with the right sets of hands on it. Except Fallout 3.

For a few specific games:
Starflight - A combat system that's fun to play, as opposed to something to be avoided
Planet's Edge - Being an actual RPG with character development as opposed to whatever it is now.

 

[curds]

No remakes please. Take the cool ideas from other things and use them to make something new.

 

[Broseph]

Given the recent trend of remakes and remasters turning out substantially worse than the original games, I’m also in the camp that I’d like to see less remakes and not more.

That being said, remaking something like Betrayal at Krondor with detailed 3D environments instead of flat polygonal landscapes would be awesome. I wouldn’t even necessarily change anything about the gameplay.

 

[Drowed]

I can say I agree with several of the games cited here, but few are comparable to Lionheart. The game feels like a bipolar crisis where the first 10% was produced by a group of interested and dedicated fans of RPGs that were trying to create an interesting setting with great worldbuilding, but the other 90% was handed over to be finished by a group of teenagers who just played Diablo and were told: make a copy, but worse in every way. The bait is so real that would make Kevin Smith proud.

 

[Morality Games]

ToEE
Just complete the game, turn Hommlet into something edible, add some great content to get at least to level 15, another dungeon like the Moathouse and then an Hommlet invasion you have to repel or orchestrate with some side missions.
And of course, add Temple+ to the base game.

Not clear what you mean by "complete the game", since The Temple of Elemental Evil is a fairly faithful adaptation of the classic adventure super-module T1-4 by Gary Gygax. Though I suppose if you wanted to lengthen the game by adding higher-level adventures, the conclusion of the adventure in the Temple itself could lead to the discovery of Drow involvement, which would then begin an adaptation of adventure modules D1 Descent into the Earth, D2 Shrine of the Kuo-Toa, and D3 Vault of the Drow, finally culminating in Q1 Queen of the Demonweb Pits with the party confronting Lolth herself.

Keith Parkinson's cover art for compilation GDQ1-7 Queen of the Spiders

The trouble people have with Hommlet is that there's a lot to do there but most of it is busywork. It's also busywork you really need to do in order to gain experience. But, that was the way it's written in the original module, so the Troika team uncritically ported it into the PC game.

Goes over well in the module because in pen and paper you are with a bunch of bros and you can have fun dicking around with the locals (sometimes literally -- in one run, one of the guys' characters in our party seduced the intended in a Romeo and Juliet situation between feuding farmer families which transformed the quest into this whole shitshow we had to address before heading off to the Temple). In a module, pissing off a random NPC can always cause him to run off to the Temple to join the darkness and became a thorn in your side. In the PC game, you mostly need to play it straight and little of interest develops from anything you do.

Personally, I've always been fine with the Hommlet content in the PC game and appreciate the intention behind including the busywork content (although it was probably module writer's intention, not Troika's). It's supposed to nurture a connection between the player(s) and the village they are supposed to be saving from the horrors within the Temple of Elemental Evil.

 

[luj1]

Wizards & Warriors

 

[luj1]

Fallout 2 minus pop culture references and with harder combat

and more build variety

that is the no1 problem with FO

 

[luj1]

Pillars of eternity with the same graphics but a completely different game + world + systems

yeah that is useless. better start from scratch

 

[samuraigaiden]

Ultima 2. The ideas present in Ultima 2 could produce the greatest game of all time. Not a joke

 

[Faarbaute]

Neverwinter Nights 2.

It fell short in so many ways. You got the impression you were playing a prototype, not a finished product.

They should have just remade NWN with better graphics + full party controls + expanded multiplayer tools.

It would have been an instant classic.

 

[HoboForEternity]

Spoiler

Forgive me.

Spoiler

Realms of Arkania HD

i knew what it's gonna be but I am still weirdly pissed and pleased at the same time

 

[rusty_shackleford]

better off relying on fan remakes than anything official at this point
ironic that they attempt to be true to the source material when not even having the source material to work with

 

[Darth Canoli]

Not clear what you mean by "complete the game", since The Temple of Elemental Evil is a fairly faithful adaptation of the classic adventure super-module T1-4 by Gary Gygax. Though I suppose if you wanted to lengthen the game by adding higher-level adventures, the conclusion of the adventure in the Temple itself could lead to the discovery of Drow involvement, which would then begin an adaptation of adventure modules D1 Descent into the Earth, D2 Shrine of the Kuo-Toa, and D3 Vault of the Drow, finally culminating in Q1 Queen of the Demonweb Pits with the party confronting Lolth herself.

The ToEE engine just deserved more quality content, there's a lot of filler avoidable combat (bugbears anyone?) and the planes don't bring anything worthwhile.
I didn't play any pen and paper D&D so I'll have to take your word for it but sure, all of the above sound great.

I don't get why no company after Troika developed a good TB/party-based engine to turn all the available material into gold.

You just need a time and money investment to optimize your engine and then, there's a shitload of source material and you could just print money.
It just has to be a faithful 3.5 D&D adaptation, not a delusional "improvement" (read dumbing down) like PoE.