10 Most Desperate Ways Video Games Got You To Play

Nostalgia is one hell of a drug.

Hollywood has perhaps proven more than any other entertainment medium the intoxicating power of dredging up people's childhoods and selling them back to them with a shiny new lick of paint.

But gaming isn't far behind, either, with publishers well aware that raking over their legacy hits is easier than actually coming up with compelling new IP or ideas.

Take Sonic Mania, a game which single-handedly reversed years and years of critical misfortune for the platformer series, and yet one which largely functioned as a "reimagining" of its earlier, better entries.

By creating familiar-but-different "remixes" of the franchise's most iconic levels, Sega was able to pander to players' gravitation towards familiar comfort food yet offer just enough new content to not be outright self-cribbing.

The Pokémon franchise has perhaps been most criticised for dining out on its prior successes and failing to bring sufficient innovation, while the gaming industry's current obsession with remakes and remasters is further indicative of the commercial viability of the past.

And we as customers are certainly much to blame - if it didn't work they'd stop doing it.

This isn't to say that nostalgia can't be invoked in creative and interesting ways - take Final Fantasy VII Remake's interesting new take on the original story - but that it often feels like a crutch that imagination-devoid developers lean on for easy profits.