Well, the original is my favorite game of all time, which is easily a 10/10 for me.
For the remake, I’d give it either a 9 or a 10, but it’s hard to say. In many aspects the game improves on 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 fix a few dialogue bugs from the original game, but they also cut a few of the jokes they thought would be controversial in 2024, and made some weird, random changes like giving the Shadow Sirens the much more generic name “The Three Shadows.” What’s up with that?
The game looks beautiful, especially in Chapter 4, which I would say had the most shine. 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 crazy. Some of these remixes are better than the originals, but there are also a few where I feel the simplicity of the originals is ruined because they’ve added too many instruments that just muddy it up. Sometimes less is more. Still, I’m glad we have an option for the original.
The sound effects unfortunately cannot be changed back to the original, and as others have said, the sound effects in this game are much more subtle and less iconic than the original. You also can’t speed up dialogue as quickly, which is odd since Nintendo has long had such an anti-story stance. If you’re playing the game for the first time, you shouldn’t miss the dialogue anyway, but for repeat playthroughs and especially speedrunners, it’ll be a pain.
The 3DS remakes of Mario & Luigi made it much easier to fast forward through text, so I’m shocked it’s not here. The original version of TTYD also let you rewind text in case you accidentally missed a line of dialogue, but that’s not the case here at all. When an audience member is about to throw something at you, it also causes fights to stop, which is annoying.
The characters have a TON of new animations though, which really adds to the experience and is fantastic to watch! Probably my favorite new addition is seeing the characters even more expressive than ever. I couldn’t care less about the frame rate failure – 30 FPS is perfectly fine for me.
Then there are QoL improvements like more streamlined fast travel, a much higher maximum coin cap, and increased inventory space, which all go a long way. Not to mention they 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 sadly unimpressive. Most of them are just screenshots from the remake. Each chapter only has one painting, which is actually an early character design from the original.
Nintendo has really polished this remake in every possible way and from a gameplay perspective the game is now almost perfect. But performance-wise, in some ways I feel like they’ve polished the game so much that some of the paint has started to peel off a bit. There are things I wish they would tone down or just leave them alone.
Still a phenomenal game, but after playing it so many times and already knowing all the story beats and jokes (except for the handful that changed), it was never going to be as good as my first blind playthrough. The reason we all wanted a TTYD remake so badly is because we want it to be the catalyst for Nintendo creating NEW games in this style that hopefully will blow me away again. Hopefully, in 2027, that will finally happen. I’ll see you then!
