Either the game holds up really well or the new release spruced up in a major way that made us love the same game all over again
The nominees for the GM GOTY Award 2021 for Best Remake/Remaster are the following:
- Fatal Frame: Maiden Of Black Water
- Mass Effect Legendary Edition
- Nier Replicant Ver.1.22474487139…
- Quake (2021 Remaster)
Deliberations Summary
The Gamer Malaya and Gamer Matters Game Of The Year Awards deliberations started differently for 2021. With some changes to award categories, Best Remake/Remaster gets to go first.
Also, 2021 saw the crew not stretching the award category to have exactly 5 nominees, with Best Remake/Remaster only having four.
The nominees are all remasters, and come from a similar vein- a game that’s good but deserved to be playable on more modern platforms.
Two came from the west, games that defined the developers in the form of the trilogy of Mass Effect games for Bioware, and Quake for id Software.
The other two are rough gems from Japan freed from having to acquire an older and now-obscure console to play them in the form of Fatal Frame: Maiden Of Black Water by Koei Tecmo and Yoko Taro’s Nier Replicant, published by Square Enix.
With a remaster-level playing field, what stood out the most is not only the amount of extra effort to make the remasters a touch better (either through reworking dated gameplay to adding extra content). Remasters can be more than just having graphical tweaks, and it’s totally okay to not go to the scope and budget of a full remake to deliver significant changes.
On that end, the crew became divided between the excellence of the original boom-shooter/arena-shooter Quake, and the flawed masterpiece that is Nier Replicant version square root 1.5.
In the end, the tilt that determined the winner came in the form of wanting to see more cult hits and overlooked gems getting a proper second chance through a remaster or remake. And in that spirit, Yoko Taro strikes again.
Deliberation length (after edits): 24 minutes
Best Remake/Remaster Winner
Congratulations to Nier Replicant Ver.1.22474487139… for winning the 2021 GM GOTY Award for Best Remake/Remaster!
Stay tuned tomorrow when we reveal the winner for Best Meme Generator.
For the full list and full recording of the deliberations (as part of dia.log – The Gamer Matters Podcast), check the main page for the Gamer Malaya And Gamer Matters Game Of The Year Awards 2021 here.