Top 10 Retro Remakes In 2022

More a complete rebuild than an out and out remake. Soulstorm retells the tale of Abe’s Exoddus with new gameplay mechanics, a more detailed story and new levels.

Your favourite Oddworld inhabitant Abe still has all the classic tricks up his sleeve. From mantric psychic chants to farting on cue, you platform yours and your friends way to safety amidst the underhanded dealings of the Glukkons.

A brilliant take on fantastic game, Oddworld: Soulstorm is more than enough to warrant another replay.

One of the greatest FPS’ of all time, and arguably the first to introduce true multiplayer deathmatches to modern gaming. Quake takes gameplay elements of classic shooters like Doom and Duke Nukem and added more modern 3D models and graphics.

Now, the original Quake hasn’t aged well but this remaster has given the game a new lease on life. Try not to get too bogged down in the story, just enjoy one of gamings most important releases.

We’ve discussed Zool: Redimensioned before in our feature on what to play after you’ve finished Sonic the Hedgehog. The classic Zool, is full of fast paced run and jump action and even today is a joy to behold. You will find the levels to be bright, colourful and with plenty of space to make the most of the games impressive pace.

Redimensioned adds a few more modern touches; time trials, hardcore mode and new challenges away. Zool is a great game to play and Redimensioned is probably the best way to play it today.

One of our favourites at Hit Start – Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword is just one of the many fantastic adventures in Links history. Pushing the Nintendo Wii to its absolute limits, it fully utilised the motion plus peripheral and was quite frankly the biggest advertisement for the motion controls of the Wii (other than Mario Kart of course).

This latest release in the Zelda franchise adds New Game plus, Autosave and fully remastered HD graphics. A worthy entry into this list.

Final Fantasy 1 is a classic for all the right reasons. It was believed to be Squaresofts last game before they closed. It features the now ubiquitous turn based party RPG combat we know and love. And it introduced us to the world of Black Mages, Warriors, Theives and more.

Fully remastered in gorgeous HD with brand new handdrawn sprites. The game has been given a total repolish. We love the new look of all the classic elements but must confess the new designs do look a little too adorable at times!

We first played Diablo 2 at a LAN party back in 2004 and the less said about that the better. It was difficult joining a pre-existing players world knowing they were at the end game and we’d never played. But therein lies the challenge.

Diablo 2: Resurrected not only reintroduces the world to Diablo with impressive remastered HD graphics. But also adds shared item caches for all players and online play to make the game as accessible as possible whilst preserving the original difficulty for a new generation of gamers.

Once upon a time, Alex Kidd was supposed to be SEGA’s answer to Super Mario. However this was never meant to be, as Sonic the Hedgehog sped his way into our hearts and the rest is history. Alex Kidd was a wonderful platformer that shone with potential but just never made it big outside of Japan.

Finally, you can play a wonderfully remastered version of this classic Master System title with all new handdrawn HD graphics and more quality of life updates. Do yourself a favour and give Alex Kidd a go now.

Featuring more bidoofs than the average pokemon trainer can shake a master ball at. Pokemon Diamond and Pearl introduced us to a lot of modern pokemon staples. Full day and night cycles and reformatting the battle system to name just two.

Remaining faithful to the original releases, the game features nothing more than a graphical update. The pokemon, characters and gameplay remain unchanged from the original release and some might argue the game is a better experience for that.

One of the grandest strategy games of them all. Rome: Total War was the first entry into the Total War franchise and once featured on a UK gameshow called Time Commanders. The scale of the game was unrivaled at the time and put similar real time strategies to shame.

The game would go on to spawn numerous sequels and spin offs covering different time periods. This remaster goes to show that with just minor graphical updates, a great game can be revived for a new generation.

One of the first turn based strategy games to be commercially successful. It has been almost 30 years since the Advance Wars series first debuted and this remaster of the incredible Advance Wars 1 and 2 from the Nintendo Gameboy Advance and DS is a sight to behold after so many years.

Simple turn based strategy aside; the story, characters and setting are all incredibly charming. Whilst the sheer depth of this easy to play but hard to master strategy game is a joy to play and we cant wait to get stuck back into it again.

Advance Wars 1 and 2 has been delayed in the short term but is due for release on the Nintendo Switch in 2022.