We shouldn’t be surprised to discover that a good game from the past is still a good game today, but with the huge success of Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake, there’s further proof of concept that the corporate heads over at Squeenix will be paying attention to. While we’ve seen wonderful remakes of games like Star Ocean and Live A Live in the past couple of years, there’s still plenty of grist to this digital mill, so, we’ve had a good think, and come up with five other games that are begging for the HD-2D treatment.
Final Fantasy VI
With the producer of Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake saying that he’d love to do this one next, it feels as though this is a thing waiting to happen. Final Fantasy VI is one of the most important releases in the franchise, its release on the SNES paving the way for many gamer’s induction into the series’ fandom, and putting in place some of the series most iconic characters, including the villainous Kefka,
VI was the last Final Fantasy to use a pixel art-style, but it benefits from the improvement in mechanics and storytelling over its predecessors. Sure, we’ve just had the pixel remasters to help preserve this in its original form, but surely this will be the next HD-2D game.
Final Fantasy Tactics
Given that Square Enix ‘own’ the idea of the HD-2D remake, it makes sense to plough the Final Fantasy furrow further, and where better to take it than with Final Fantasy Tactics? In a sense, we’ve seen something of what it could look like in Triangle Strategy, but Final Fantasy Tactics has sat weirdly dormant amongst the catalogue despite being one of the most iconic and important releases in the Final Fantasy canon.
This strategy game’s in-depth job system, amazing tactical gameplay and memorable characters should surely set it out for a remake or remaster, and HD-2D seems like the perfect way to do that. There are already reports and rumours of a remake in the works…
Chrono Trigger
Chrono Trigger was the first release in the Chrono series, and though it’s lain mostly dormant since the late 90s, Square Enix have rolled out steady re-releases of this game – heck, I can play it on my Apple TV. Its continued to garner interest because it remains an incredible JRPG, and features the work of a dream team of iconic Japanese creators, Hironobu Sakaguchi, creator of the Final Fantasy series, Yuji Horii, creator of the Dragon Quest series and Akira Toriyama, character designer for Dragon Quest and author of both Dragon Ball and Sand Land. Add to that Takashi Tokita, Kazuhiko Aoki and Masato Kato, and this game’s development team was absolutely stacked.
It’s a literal powerhouse of a design team, and Chrono Trigger bears the hallmarks of all their input, with fantastic storytelling, enjoyable gameplay mechanics, and instantly recognisable characters. Much like Final Fantasy Tactics, it’s a series that’s mostly lain dormant, and is thoroughly ready for a return to our screens, not least because Live A Live had the HD-2D treatment a couple years ago.
Xenogears
This would be the pinnacle of HD-2D remakes, at least for me, as the foundation stone in the Xenosaga and Xenoblade Chronicles series. Originally released in 1998 on PlayStation, it’s strange that its never been returned to as it sits well within the canon of Square’s JRPG heyday.
There’s Active Time Battles, mecha suits, a storyline that draws on both Star Wars and the Bible, and an amazing soundtrack from Yasunori Mitsuda, and its just an incredible piece of RPG history. The fact that it already mixes 2D and 3D visuals means that, structurally at least, it would need less reworking than some of the other suggestions in this list.
It never reached Europe, so that lack of localisation is rumoured to play a major part in why it hasn’t returned. Surely though, the time is now, particularly with the Xenoblade Chronicles series riding high, and Chronicles X finding its way to the Nintendo Switch in 2025.
The Legend of Zelda
OK, we’re breaking out of Square Enix land for this one, but Nintendo has been one of their most reliable partners, the Switch exclusive Octopath Traveler founding the HD-2D style. Nintendo has traditionally been incredibly protective of their IP, but they’re less averse to partnering with other developers these days, and Square were the founding partners for Super Mario RPG and everything that came since. Sure, they went on a break over some CDs, but that’s ancient history now.
Alongside many other games on this list, The original The Legend of Zelda has been re-released across multiple generations of console, but it’s never been remade or remastered. Now, that could be because Nintendo feels its showing its age as a game, or that they just couldn’t settle on the right way to bring it back up to date. They could give it to Grezzo for the Link’s Awakening treatment, but Square Enix’s HD-2D style feels like it would be a perfect match for the earliest Legend of Zelda game and its 8-bit visuals, and it could form an ideal window into the history of the series, while bringing it bang up-to-date.
Anything from the Squeenix back catalogue
Square Enix are always looking for an angle – like their whole NFT and blockchain nonsense – but while remakes are the safe best, the hip and cool thing these days is actually the demake. Who’s to say that Square Enix couldn’t down-rez some of their more modern games and franchises?
As daft as this might sound, I do actually quite fancy blowing things up with a pixelated Rico Rodriguez in Just Cause HD-2D or some hack and slash pixelated action in Drakengard HD-2D? And while they might have sold off Crystal Dynamics, they kept a hold of their most important game series in the divorce. What about an HD-2D reworking of Gex after next year’s 3D re-release?! OK, maybe that’s a step too far. I should stop now before we revive the Kane & Lynch: Dead Men mobile game…
What other games would you like to see get the HD-2D treatment?
