In the era of remakes and remasters, what niche game would you like to see receive the treatment?

I am not too fussed about remakes. There are so many games to play, I don't have enough time.

But, one game I would instantly get, Panzer Dragoon Saga. What an absolutely legendary game, that hardly anyone had the chance to play. Cleaning that up and releasing it on modern platforms would be amazing.

Blazing Angels. Amazing flight simulator fighting game that I still have the discs of for either XBox or XBox 360.

The game is still listed on Steam, but you can't buy it. I absolutely loved that game growing up, making your way through the ranks, taking part in some of the biggest air battles of WWII.

Sly Cooper and Jak & Daxter are both criminally forgotten in this era of games

I would kill for a Jak 3 remaster. I loved using the button mash glitch with Light Jak and flying around using the wings. I played through that game so many times as a kid.

Also why the fuck won't Sony port both those series to PC?!
- Good news. The Jak and Daxter series is being decompiled and ported by fans. Currently the first two games are playable on PC, they are currently working on Jak 3 and will also port Jak X.
I'd buy those!

Red Alert 2

Tiberian Sun / Firestorm as well
- Yes. But they need to be very careful to keep that bleak and hopeless aesthetic.
Yes! But not into a 3D engine. Loved some Arctic circle, everyone start in the corners and have a race for the derricks and airports!
- Hearty agreement here. I fired up Red Alert 3, hated the art style (and the co-commanders playing the game for me!) and bailed on the whole affair. Meanwhile I recently played through Red Alert 2 again on my Steam Deck and absolutely adored it.
- Absolutely. Keep it 2.5d

I would give my left nut for a Dark Cloud or Black&White 2 full remaster

Black & White 2 gets my vote
Dude dark cloud would be soooo good! That game was absolutely brilliant!

NFS Underground 1&2

Wipeout

Rollcage

Twisted Metal

Twisted Metal was so good.
- I loved Black when it came out.
Check out Grip: Combat Racing for a modern take on Rollcage. I haven't played it since early access, though, so I've no idea if it's any good.

The games that actually need it are the ones stuck on old consoles with no forward compatibility, particularly PC. Just looking at the games still on my shelf, that don't belong to Nintendo, and are not locked in some kind of licensing hell:

every Burnout before Paradise
MechAssault 1 and 2
Mega Man: Network Transmission
Metal Arms: Glitch in the System
Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes and MGS4 (there's some hope here, maybe???)
every old Ratchet & Clank game
legacy Soul Calibur/Soul Edge games, with rollback netcode
legacy SSX games
Super Monkey Ball 1 and 2
Uncharted 1-3
the Viewtiful Joe series

And I don't have it on my shelf, but would it kill someone to remaster the old TimeSplitters games?

I love SSX 3 and just about a month ago replayed it on my steam deck. Would love a remake of that. I was probably in the minority but I mostly liked the SSX reboot, minus all the online connectivity.
- I think the lack of split-screen killed interest for a lot of us. It did for me.
Super Monkey Ball 1 and 2 got a remaster a few years back.
- Friends of mine reported that the game did not control the same, so I guess I was looking for those games ported properly.
Ooh, SSX, that's a game I haven't thought about in a while. I had a lot of fun playing SSX tricky and the reboot

Dark Cloud 2 (Dark Chronical in Europe) I have never ran into a game that has hooked me like Dark Cloud 2 did. Loved how you upgraded the weapon not the character. Wouldn't even need a remake just a Dark Cloud 3 as it like Final Fantasy each game had similar mechanics but a new story with new characters with some returning in different roles.

I came here to say Dark Cloud <3
Playing through Dark Cloud 2 right now! Looooved them as a kid, would also love a remake. 2 expanded on 1 in so many great ways but I think a modern take on it with some QoL stuff would be amazing.

Not a niche game, but: day (????) of waiting for Sony to put Bloodborne on PC.

Also, this is a bit of a tangent, but I really wish Nintendo would start putting some of their games on PC. Not even so that I can play them, I do have a switch, but because there are quite a few of them that just don’t do well on console, either performance-wise or in terms of UX. For example, I’ve been playing the new Zelda game. The game’s core mechanic involves scrolling through a MASSIVE list of objects to find what you’re looking for and the best solution the game has for this is a handful of sorting options that only get you so far when there are just this many things. Without changing any of the gameplay, you could make the experience soooo much better by:

Letting you use a mouse on the menu.
Adding a basic search filter.
Letting you hotkey some echoes.

Some games just deserve better treatment than what they got from the limitations of their original platforms.

Its not that old (although that does fit the theme) but Hotline Miami 1, and to a lesser extent, 2. Both are limited a lot by the engine, and by the small scale of their development. If they could be re-made in a new engine, with some modern customizability and QoL features, as well as added polish on things like the door physics, I think it could go a long way to ensuring they stand the test of time.

Unlikely to ever happen, but Xenogears.

Chrono Trigger, in SE's HD-2D style. Do what they just did for Live a Live, change little to nothing but make it really pretty.
Final Fantasy 8. Why 8? Because it has the most room for improvement. I expect SE not to keep FF remakes faithful, and 8 is the one that will benefit from that. Just retell the story in a better game that doesn't punish you for leveling up.
Kid Icarus Uprising. This doesn't need more than a straight port really. One thing I'd really love to see though is a more competitive Light vs. Dark that restricts players to base weapons only, no min-maxing in PvP.
Any classic Tales games that was never released in the west. They keep rereleasing newer entries, but where are the 2D classics? I especially want Destiny DC/2, Legendia, and Phantasia PSP.
This is an extra impossible pipe dream for several reasons, but it's my list and I'm allowed to dream. I wish the Boktai series could come back in some form. Silliest way to do it could be to sell it with a USB-C Solar Sensor attachment for the Switch, but that's extra not happening. Even if we have to lose the original hardware though, I'd just like to see this game made available in some form...

I might be in the minority here, but I've been loving the FF7 remakes. I would definitely buy 8 getting the same treatment!

Tokyo Jungle, the only reason my PS3 is not in a box. Shadow of Memories would be cool too. Not so niche but I hope a remake of Project Zero 2/Fatal Frame 2 is coming soon.

Diddy Kong racing! Maybe even a Diddy Kong racing 2?!

Interstate 76

Excellent choice! In my vague memories it was an original game with a fun theme
- Vehicular warfare in the 70s, with a really funky art and audio design.

F-Zero GX

Specifically I want to see Sega given complete creative freedom over the project. Just add more content, mod support, online mode, and a PC port.

Point & click adventures of olden times. Day of the Tentacle, Monkey Islands 1 & 2 got remasters, hell, Monkey island got even a NEW game.

I'd insta-buy on Indiana Jones & Fate of Atlantis -remaster.

...But, tbh, still rather have a new game in same style.

Fate of Atlantis is a cannon story to me. I never saw the two new movies, so that's the end of the franchise for me, unless the new game is any good.
- Atlantis would have made a pretty good movie too, imo.
  
  I've only seen movies up to Crystal Skull, and.. I dunno, not up to par with the 3 first ones. No idea what has happened since.
  
  unless the new game is any good.
  
  so far I've only heard that it's closer to "immersive sims" with stealth gameplay than what machinegames generally does. While I do like me some sneaky-stealth games, they tend to devolve into quicksave/quickload very quickly. Who knows, but I'm waiting for some less edited letsplay footage and sales if it seems like I'd like it.
Solid choices! Just recently had my partner play through Curse of Monkey Island (the best one, fight me).
- Curse is pretty great, imo. The higher resolution cartoon style doesn't feel as "vintage" as the first two games.
  
  But, how do you want to fight, insult lemmy-commenting? You comment like a cow! /s

The Legend of Dragoon

Actually kinda surprised it took this long that that game to show up lol.
- I think we're just getting old and people have forgotten or never played it at this point

Timesplitters Future Perfect

I'd love to see Darkwatch get ported to PC and remastered. Loved it on ps2 and have it working at a somewhat cranked up resolution on emulator, but a legit updated PC port would be awesome.

A lot of people surprisingly don't know the game but I'd love to see Arc the lad: twilight spirits remade. I really enjoyed the story and the style of the game it would need a bit of graphics overhaul

Brightis, made by the developers that made Arc the Lad, would be great to see redone and released in English/other languages.

Chrono Trigger or Final Fantasy 6

Legend of Legaia

The idea of putting fighting game inputs and combos into a turn-based RPG was just so cool, and I haven’t seen anything like it since.

The first 2 infamous games, they've aged reasonably well but are stuck in the PS3 running at the choppiest 720p.

Colosseum: Road to Freedom

It's a PS2 game where you play as a gladiator. There's plot where you rise up the ranks to duel other gladiator camps' champions for a chance to spar with Ceasar, and you get involved in a plot to murder him with a couple different endings based on what decisions you make.

The gameplay is some fun button mashing and the battles are fucking rad. Bladed weapons do more damage to unarmored opponents, blunt weapons can break limbs and have a better chance to knock off armor, curved swords and flails can reach around shields and armor. There's "hunting" fights were you go up against bulls or tigers. And then the mock battles. They set up like a fake city or fake boats in the colosseum to recreate real battles from wars that the gladiators fight in.

There's even a glitch where you bypass all of the endings and the game just continues forever with random fights at the colosseum every couple of days. Makes me think the devs were planning on making the game endless, but didn't finish it or it got cut for some reason. But yeah, I really want a new gladiator game

Honestly, looking at how modern game development studios handle remakes, I wouldn't want them anywhere near any of my beloved games. I haven't played a single remake in the last 20 years where I felt like the studio that made it knocked it out of the park.

Also, I strongly believe good games should not be remade, and only remastered/ "deluxe remastered" (where even if the game is remade, its a 1:1 faithful recreation with additional features and gameplay mechanics being optional). Remake the games that weren't great, give them another chance at big success.

Sonic 2006
the XenoSaga games (don't @ me XS fans, you know the combat and boss design in those games were terrible, 1 had DOMO Carrier, Tiamat, and whatever was going on in Song of Nephilim)
Most Konami games in the late 90s - mid 2010s
LAPD Future Cop
etc

The Resident Evil remakes have been really solid imho. Bloober knocked it out of the park with the Silent Hill 2 remake as well. I've also felt like the Pokémon remakes have been generally superior.
- I only like the Resident Evil remake on the GameCube from 2002 (which was later ported and released as Resident Evil HD). It retained everything about the original that was iconic and made minor additions. I wish those were optional, but since the game came out in 2002 before options were really a consideration it gets a pass. I can't believe I am saying this, because without Kojima it feels like sacrilege, but MGS3 Delta actually looks like it might be a good remake by keeping the original gameplay as an option.
  
  As a Silent Hill fan, I disagree. SH2 remake is very mid, and misses the mark on many points IMO. Too much was changed just for the sake of being changed. It is filled with every "Bloober-ism" in the book: stupid, predictable jumpscares (which were not really in SH2 originally since it built up as a horror game in a different way from the first game which did use jumpscares), bad performance problems, etc. The game focuses too much on combat; in the original game the optimal way to play (and lore accurate way) was avoiding most combat, but the remake refuses to allow you to avoid combat like you could in the original game. Character designs are worse than the original IMO. I really wanted to love the game, but right when I start to enjoy whatever was happening, Bloober swooped in with some addition or change or -ism that immediately pulled me out and had me rolling my eyes. Also, swapping out the original's camera for a boring, bland, copying-everyone-else over the shoulder camera without even giving the option for the original camera hurts my soul.
  
  I don't really care about Pokemon so I can't comment on it. Never played it except the TCG game on GameBoy, and I never finished that game either. Just didn't hold my interest.

No One Lives Forever and NOLF2 get my vote. I enjoyed them a great deal back in the day and would love to have another bash at them now, albeit with a lick of paint.

Kind of like with movies. I want to see games/movies/etc with great stories/plots that were terribly executed. Do good games deserve a refresh, sure. But come on, do something original and stop riding the nostalgia wave.

Biing, i know many see it as an adult game only but it was genuinely difficult to survive the first day financially in that one and also it had a lot of decent jokes.

Die Hard Trilogy

Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines Not only is it fantastic, it would benefit greatly from a remake due to how the code is held together by tape and dreams of a better future

Omikron The Nomad Soul

Nox

id just like to see these two games visually modernized and gameplay improved. still have yet to beat either, but maybe some day!

Rad Warrior or Wizball.

I will never stop wanting a remake of Eternal Darkness. All the other horror games got decent remakes/updates but where's the love for Eternal Darkness?

That would be a great candidate!

There was a game on the 3ds called Fantasy Life that was really really cool it was like a mix of RPG/action-ish with a mini game section where you would do various crafting stuff I'd love to see that on PC with better graphics and whatnot.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fantasy_Life

I got that but never got around to playing it. I got kinda Rune Factory vibes from it, is that accurate? I really should give it a try.
- Sort of like rune factory, but it's been well over a decade since I played it so I honestly don't remember it well enough to properly compare. It was also multiplayer so that was cool if you have a friend to play with

I’d like a Final Fantasy 7 remake.

Yes, a remake, not a pseudo-sequel lore platform action combat game with all the cutscenes slowed down to 0.02x pace of the original.

Honestly I wouldn’t even mind keeping visuals more basic for standard gameplay just so the rest can be updated.