Remakes pose a tricky dilemma. How do you find that perfect balance between giving people what they loved about the original while presenting it in a fresh way? How far can you take a remake before it no longer resembles the source material? For my purposes, I'm going to examine "Super Mario All Stars", a remake that did almost everything right, and what I learned from its one big misstep.
Super Mario Bros. was released in 1985 for the 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment System. In 1993 Nintendo compiled Mario’s major NES outings onto a single cartridge for the 16-bit Super Nintendo. Each game on the cart was given a graphical overhaul. The original Mario benefited the most, seeing as how its graphics were the most dated and blocky looking. The results were amazing.
From left to right: SNES 16-bit remake and NES 8-bit original.
Look at this first picture. Notice how, despite the graphical improvements and the addition of a scrolling parallax background, all the core elements are the same. There’s the blue sky, puffy white clouds, and leafy green platforms. The color palette remains the same too: blue, green, white, and tan. You can look at this and immediately see how the remake is an enhanced version of the original.
The SNES sees the forest for the trees.
This picture taken from world 2-1 may seem to deviate from the original, but in fact, it is again taking the established elements from the 8-bit original and expanding on them. Instead of a few stray trees, there are several, and all of the same type as in the original.
Brick wall becomes Epic wall.
World 8-3 always stood out for its massive red brick wall that dominated the level. No other level was like it. The All Stars edition took this element and made it even bigger. Now it’s not just a simple brick wall- it’s a massive castle wall, complete with steel gates, loopholes, and crenels. Whereas the wall in the original was broken up into segments, the All Stars wall spans the length of the whole level.
What the...
And then there’s World 6-3. The white brick of the castle, the night sky, and the off-white platforms were unlike any other level in the whole game. The lack of color was the one thing that made World 6-3 truly unique and memorable. I always thought that maybe everything was covered in freshly fallen snow, or the castle was made of marble. The platforms might be white trees or luminescent plants. It inspired my imagination. When I saw the remake's take on World 6-3, I was let down. They took the one unique feature of 6-3, the one thing that made it stick in my mind for years, and they got rid of it. In its place we have a level indistinct from other treetop levels like World 3-3.
Let's paint the Taj Mahal red while we're at it.
Barring this one level, I love the All Stars remake of Super Mario Bros. Graphically, it’s superior to the original in every way. What I took away from all this was, hopefully, a little bit of insight as to why some remakes work while others fall short. When it worked, the game remained true to its roots, despite the improved visuals. It took the source material and expanded on the ideas and concepts and made them stronger. When it didn’t work, it abandoned core elements and replaced them with something entirely different. The All Stars edition of World 6-3 didn’t enhance what was already there. It replaced the stark black and white level with something completely different.
I surmise that the same is true of most remakes. Shaking things up and keeping old ideas fresh is great, but not at the cost of losing what made them worthwhile in the first place. Take what's already there: explore the concepts and ideas, expand on them, improve them. That's the way to do a proper remake.
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