Well, the original is my favorite game of all time, which is easily a 10/10 for me.
For the remake, I would give it a 9 or a 10, but it’s hard to say. In many ways the game is an improvement over the original, but there are other elements that I don’t think I like as much. I don’t necessarily think the updated localization is objectively better. They fixed some dialogue bugs from the original game, but they also cut some jokes that they thought would be controversial in 2024, and made some strange, arbitrary changes, like giving it the much more generic name to the Shadow Sirens: ‘The Three’. Shadows.” What about that?
The game looks beautiful, especially in Chapter 4, which had the greatest polish in my opinion. The music is something I’m torn about. I really appreciate all the extra music they added; this game probably has three times as much music as the original, if not more, which is insane. Some of these remixed compositions are better than the original, but there are also some that I think ruined the simplicity of the original compositions because they added too many instruments that just muddied it up a bit. Sometimes less is more. I’m glad we have the option for the original though.
The sound effects unfortunately cannot be restored to the original, and as others have said, the sound effects in this game are much more subtle and less iconic compared to the original. You also can’t get through the dialogue very quickly, which is strange since Nintendo has long had such an anti-story stance. If you’re playing the game for the first time, you shouldn’t skip the dialogue anyway, but on repeat playthroughs and especially on speedrunners it will be difficult.
The Mario & Luigi remakes on the 3DS made it much easier to quickly scroll through text, so I’m shocked this isn’t there. In the original version of TTYD you can also rewind the text in case you accidentally skipped a line of dialogue, but that isn’t the case here at all. When a spectator is about to throw something at you, the fighting now also comes to a halt, which is annoying.
Characters have LOTS of new animations though, which really adds to the experience and is fantastic to see! Probably my favorite new addition is that the characters are even more expressive than ever. I don’t care about the frame rate debacle – 30 FPS is fine for me.
Then there are the QoL improvements, such as more streamlined fast-travel, a much higher maximum coin cap, and a larger inventory space, all of which go a long way. Not to mention, they’ve restored some of the lost content from the original, which will make long-time fans like me very happy! The concept art is great to have, but it’s sadly disappointing. Most of it is actually just screenshots from the remake. Each chapter only has one image which is actually early character designs from the original.
Nintendo has polished this remake in every way possible, and from a gameplay perspective the game is now pretty much perfect. But in terms of presentation, in some ways I feel like they’ve polished the game so much that some of the paint is starting to chip a bit. There are things I wish would be toned down or just left alone.
Still a phenomenal game, but because I played it so many times and already knew all the storylines and jokes (apart from the handful that changed), it was never going to be as good as my first blind playthrough. The reason we all wanted a remake of TTYD so badly is because we want it to be the catalyst for Nintendo to make NEW games in this style that will hopefully blow my mind again. We hope that will finally happen in 2027. See you all then!