If you write a review for any sequel or remake and your opinion is solely based on your experience with previous games in the franchise I am going to mark your review as not helpful and not read it . There are so many people who get so attached to the idea of what a previous rendition of a game meant to them, they are completely blind to some of the good qualities of new games. The amount of times I've read: these new devs don't understand what made [old] great; a mere cash grab at nostalgia; just play the original instead - is cliche trite at this point. I'm not saying cash grabs don't exist or the spirit of the original game isn't sometimes carried over, but I think you should know that there has been at least thirty years between you and your favourite game, in which, teams have turned over, game design has changed and your inability to see the flaws of your favourite game have been entrenched in your mind. I'm quite tired of people taking poorly developed games as a personal insult. You are a person beyond this game that has meant so much to you, and there were flaws to that game when it came out and was often patched to a more playable state than it was at release as well. This is particularly relevant when I come across a review of a game that was written a short time after a sequel or a remake was released, and it doesn't take into account any of the development that has occurred after launch. Devs shouldn't be in a criticism free space but if I was in their position I often would completely disregard any opinion that starts with, I've been a fan of this series since the beginning but this game...

TLDR
I think your review is worthless if your thesis hangs on nostalgia, and you should stop acting like you are being personally attacked if a game fails to live up to your expectations.

I approve of this message.

Ok, but it still doesn't change the fact that Fallout 3 is shit and if you like it you're a casual

Can you name any specific examples?

I think you make a good point, although to play devil's advocate, imo it is quite reasonable for a remake to be compared to the original. Why wouldn't it be? Developers who are making remakes of classic games should be totally prepared for that.

But I agree it is important to be objective and not just say "it's different to the old game I know and love, therefore it must be bad." I could point to examples of both (imo) good and bad remakes. I really liked the Xcom remake and Baldur's Gate 3 imo is looking pretty awesome.

Fair point... and there are a lot of nostalgia-infused reviews out there. But OP should stop acting like what people should do and what they actually do is the same thing, or he'll be setting himself up for a lot of disappointment in life.

How are you going to know what a review is based on, if you won't read it?

What kind of a question is that???

He'll go back in time and stop himself from reading the post in the first place!

I think if you're gonna make a game which is a sequel and call it "XYZ 3" then of course you are gonna get many fans who enjoyed the prequels and expect/want that game to have the same gameplay style/theme/genre/"feel", and will be disappointed if the game deviates radically from the previous titles.

If the developers do intend to radically change the gameplay formula/genre, then they should create a new IP/setting for that game, or if they REALLY have to, make it a spinoff game not a numbered sequel. As a good example, when Interplay wanted to make a Fallout game in a different genre, they wisely called it "Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel" rather than Fallout 3. Bethesda on the other hand, did the worst thing you could do, in changing the genre to a First-Person Shooter and calling it Fallout 3, which was the equivalent of taking a giant dump on the original fans (it was also one of the first instances of "generational warfare" in gaming where the developers entirely abandoned the older Fallout fanbase in favor of Xbox kids). If it was called Fallout: Washington or something I imagine the the reaction wouldn't have been so bad, after all Fallout fans had already had seen spinoffs like Tactics and the truly awful Fallout: BIS.

It honestly has nothing to do with "nostalgia" and everything to do with "expectation".

Oh yeah, and get a visit from the Department of Temporal Investigations every time. Not the best plan. Unless someone enjoys their company, I guess.

In theory people should indeed judge games on their own merit. In practise, we live in a time where cheesy cash-grabs of "minimum effort remasters + remove the old game from sale purely to quadruple the price of a 20 year old game" seem to be becoming the new trend, and obviously the new game hardly exists in a vacuum.

- Example 1 - Neighbours Back From Hell is missing levels compared to the original. This is definitely helpful to know, not "unhelpful" for "remembering" the originals so it 'must be nostalgia'...

- Example 2 - Age of Empires 1-2 Collectors Edition are DRM-Free. Age of Empires HD & Definitive are not and even contain Denuvo-style Arxan DRM. I certainly want to know this stuff before buying, not just an echo chamber of "I like this game. Let's not talk about other versions. That is all"...

As for out of place feeling sequels to established franchises (eg, if someone made Doom 5 a walking sim then said "Now, now, judge it on its own merit not the franchise") honestly they are going to be laughed at since the concept of a franchise in general is a running theme / continuity. Not just for games, but movies, books, etc. Half the time that a game gets down-rated, it's because the developer wanted to "reinvent" it as a new game by radically changing it to play very differently, but didn't want to call it something new due to the free marketing that comes with riding off the back of the old one, but then tell people "don't compare it to the old one in reviews" and 5 minutes later you see an advert / PR release for the game where the developer / publisher is doing just that in their own marketing materials. They can't have it both ways... First up, it's entirely possible to play an old game new for the first time fairly recently without any nostalgia hook and still find it better in some ways than the remaster. Secondly, "Game design has changed" both ways, ie, some areas there's been some evolution / innovation of mechanics. Others it's also been dumbing down and consolitis. People are naturally going to mention both in reviews. If I can rebind keys in the designed for PC original whilst the cross-platform remaster only exists because of a new console generation release and was heavily consolised (hard-coded to WASD only and they only bothered to play-test on a controller), why shouldn't such a key accessibility factor be mentioned? If a developer wants to release a game in a buggy state, and only fix the game "properly" 6-18 months post launch, then you can expect the first 6-18 months worth of reviews to match that. That's perfectly normal. People who play it at launch and then move on to other games are simply not going to go back and re-check for a new version every day for 18 months to re-edit their old reviews. That just isn't how people work. Sorry, but this one is absolutely on the devs. They either need to 1. Delay the release until it can be polished more, 2. Hire more staff to get more work done in the same time-frame, or 3. Scale back on their unrealistic ambition, when faced with the age-old "ambition vs competence" development time-frame mismatch.

Never mind.

Is it true they censored Miranda's ass in the ME remasters? Bad taste.
Of course it is, you saying that if Witcher 4 was RTS game the fans would have to suck it up because expecting Witcher to be an Action-RPG is wrong? If the developers don't want expectations they should make a spinoff or an entirely new IP.

It's like trying to have your cake and eat it too, have the exposure of it being a sequel to a well-known franchise, AND then say the fans are entitled to expect the same gameplay style.

Never mind.

Mod that sucker up, accept that it's a post-apocalyptic open world RPG-lite game (I played it entirely in third person, btw) and that it's not really a Fallout game per se, and it's actually pretty great. I had a blast with it.