I'd like to see an new, 3D Earthbound. I didn't finish the SNES one but enjoyed what I played of it.

I'd like to see it feature older, 20 something characters though. The game would be set in the Future and feature zany yet cool high tech gadgets. You'd travel around in a space ship saving planets from zany alien invasion schemes.

-BlazeEagle

Simple. Bionic Commando. Yes, yes, they made a gameboy one. No good. If there's no Hitler, it's just not right. Yes, I'm aware that the arcade one didn't have Hitler. That's not the point. The gameboy one also discarded the excellent graphical style of the Nintendo one. I sobbed when Capcom
never made a 16-bit Bionic Commando.

-Jon-Michael

Hello your Holiness,
There are two games I would love to see remade: Spy vs. Spy and Narc. Narc is actually getting done, http://www.gamespot.com/xbox/action/narc/index.html?q=narc, finally! You cannot deny the utter joy in watching your idiot friend looking through a room and then get blown up by a booby trap, or in decimating an entire drug lab with your machine gun and rocket launcher. Spy vs. Spy was probably one of the first head-to-head games I played until my friends decided to sacrifice me to end my reign of terror. I can see it now: a perfect FPS, setting booby traps for some fool to find, then mowing his ass down in sweet victory.

Homer S.

First thing I thought of:
Dig Dug.

I don't know why, but maybe it could be updated to a cool mining FPS. Think of it. Mining. First Person Shooting. What could go wrong?

Every moron and their cousin is going to say FF7, I bet. Don't let them do it. That game is sexy enough by itself. It doesn't need a new dress.

And FF8 was not so hot, people, storywise. Get over it. The things you love have flaws. Let's just admit them and move on.

-belzesolid

Greetings, Chris!

If I could have it my way, I'd definately bring back my all-time favorite beat 'em up, Streets of Rage. At the top of my list for improvements for this generation would be highly interactive environments, complete with scores of weapons of opportunities. For instance, let's use the Showdown at the House of Blue Leaves example, in which our hero could use a table as a sheild and if it breaks, depending on physics, the hero could then pick up or dislodge a leg, hopefully with a few nails still there. Or what if the table had a bottle of whiskey on it? Smash open and go for a nasty cut on your enemy, either by breaking it on the table or the head of your foe. You'd just need a smooth command system in which to both throw punches and kicks in a complex way, as well as interacting with an environment, and true movement on three dimensions. I'd want my options to beat my opponents to death to be limited only by my imagination.

If I'm fighting an enemy in an alley, I want the option to be there for me to lift him over the edge of a dumpster and introduce his head to the lid. Level design would have to be tight and easily navigable and wandering too far from the fray would only invite certain defeat. Of course, if the AI could be unlike most games out there and be closer to an average human being than a retard or omnipotent being, it would be a nice touch. Surrounding moves, ambushes, and combo-moves through teamwork.

And the possibilities for a multiplayer brawler are endless as well with 4 controllers or online play. If I were in the industry, this would definately be the type of game I'd have made first.

Let the good times roll.
-Scotty V.

Yee-haw, Chris!

I'm pretty much of the opinion that there are far too many classic game revivals coming out. E3 2004 was a mess of sequels and remakes, with true innovation scarce and commercialism filling the industry to the seams. It seems developers can think of little to do these next two years but find ways to sell you back your good ol' days, porting ancient NES titles like ExciteBike and Ice Climbers to the GBA and charging full price, and carting out the latest engine draped in the royal raiments of a seven-year old (but still quite good) landmark first-person shooter. Everywhere you look the past comes screaming back into your face, from last year's World War II games to next month's Viet Nam games to last month's Tom Clancy's Wet-Dream-Pseudo-Near-Future-But-Really-Cold-War-Rehash Scenario games. What happened to putting trust in a new title? Really, would a game be better if you placed a famous title next to it? 'way I see it, the new Ninja Gaiden would be just as kickin' if it were called something else. Sure we couldn't fantasize about Hayabusa-san anymore, but we'd still be killing like a hundred guys with nothing to lose.

I'm not saying that they suck. Metroid Prime rules, and I have no GameCube to back my statement, Doom 3 will provide us with a wonderful new engine to make better games on, and Half-Life 2 will make the the little hobby we spend our free cash on an more stuponfucious extravagance to love and cherish. Whatever they make out of the new new Ninja Gaiden game, I'm sure the right thing will be done. What I implore our industry to do is to feel safer dropping the 2's and 3's and wacky subtitles and childhood reminiscences. We, the players also owe something to the industry by demanding less that the industry feed our nostalgia back to us, and more that they give us a new reason to wonder. Old pizza might still taste good, but one day we'll find out the hard way that we waited too long to throw it out.

I'm also not saying that we shouldn't have sequels or try to relive the old glories that gave us the lovin', but we should be more open to the "weird" game concepts cooking up in some idealistic developer's heads. I mean, the Japanese just made a Yoshinoya game. A game about serving BEEF BOWLS! BEEF-F*CKIN'-BOWLS! Games like Incredible Crisis, Mister Mosquito, and Wario Micro MegaGame$ are now lauded for trying something different! Is the industry so devoid of new ideas that simply trying something different has become a positive quality in and of itself? Gamespot has been known to boost a games' score simply for bunking the formula, regardless of the actual playability of the game itself.

Welcome to the game industry of today.

P.S.:

It fills my heart's capacity for loving Sakura Taisen nearly to satiety when I see that people really want such games localized. Cry out! Yes, potential customers of one of SEGA's greatest properties, yell across the placid Pacific into those Japanese ears on the other side that you want those games in English, Goddamn It! Keep yelling, and they'll take the hint!

Just for your information, the Sakura Taisen V game due out this September the 22nd in Japan is an action-based prequel known as Sakura Taisen V: Episode 0 ~ Arano no Samurai Musume (The Samurai Girl From The West). The actual core games are a mixture of dating-sim-style adventure/dialog gameplay and turn-based tactical strategy. The full core game, Sakura Taisen V: Saraba Aishiki Hito yo (Farewell, [my] Beloved), is reportedly due out Spring 2005.

Sakura Taisen is one of the most popular and well-known game licenses in Japan, and originated with Sega Saturn back in '96. The currently anticipated games start a new story arc, that of following an American-based team of female spiritual soldiers sworn to fight back against demonic enemies encroaching upon New York city. The current, most familiar story arcs, which follow the original Tokyo team and their Parisian counterparts who appeared in Sakura Taisen III: Paris wa Moeteiru ka? (Is Paris Burning?) ended with Sakura Taisen IV: Koiseyo, Otome-tachi (Maidens, Fall in Love), and the stage is open for a new cast, main character, and setting. Reports indicate SEGA has seriously considered translating and exporting the Sakura Taisen brand outside Japan (and China), and into the US and Europe, but as with many wacky Japanese games, is wary of the reception of such an Anime-heavy, "Japanese"-flavored game. Prove them wrong and cry out for one of the best games you've never played!

From UnangBangkay, who wrote this letter as an excuse to plug Sakura Taisen on Gameforms, as RPGfan does that for itself already.