10 Hidden Gem Video Games That Would REALLY Benefit From Remakes

Remakes tend to be quite a controversial subject. Whether a game is changed too much from its original iteration, whether it’s barely changed and is a humble remaster, or whether it was needed at all, it’s hard to please the fanbase at times.

When a generations-old title is released at full retail price (quite a Nintendo move), that can be problematic too.

The thing is, though, almost all gamers have lists of dream titles they’d love to see remade. Beloved classics from their childhoods, perhaps, or simply an all-time favorite that they want to see in full, glorious HD on modern systems. As long as justice is done to them, they’ll typically be well received.

While it’s important for a remake to be faithful to the original, this isn’t to say that certain improvements can’t be made too. Though there are titles with wonderfully unique art styles that would look brilliant if lovingly remade, there are others that would hugely benefit from a longer campaign, or being made an overall bigger package.

Some of them simply deserve another chance to be appreciated, being largely overlooked the first time around. From a unique adventure for Wario to the time Dracula competed in a Game Boy Advance kart racer, these gems would be excellent choices for a remake.

A strategy title of 1990s Bullfrog fame, Dungeon Keeper is a PC experience like none other. The game’s tagline, it’s good to be bad, is fitting indeed, as it flips the traditional roles on their heads.

Rather than beating back horrific invaders bent on overrunning the land, the player must instead attract an army of dark creatures to their dungeons, train them and lead them against the defenders.

Building different rooms attracts different types of creature, and so there’s considerable strategy in selecting which ones to build, how large to build them, and how to lay everything out so your hordes can get to where they need to be easily.

There are spells to research in the Library, doors and traps to manufacture in the Workshop, and more besides, and it’s important that your minions can get from their places of work to their food supply at the Hatchery and back again quickly. Roaming the halls takes up valuable time when Heroes are trying to break through your walls, after all.

A true remake would do wonders for this forgotten classic. Online matchmaking, the ability to easily create and share custom dungeons and map layouts, new and increasingly ghastly minion designs and campaign options … there could be a huge amount of content here.

Dungeon Keeper fans, for whom the cancellation of the third game still rankles, deserve better. Better than the microtransaction-hungry mobile ‘reboot,’ certainly.