Nintendo is one of the oldest video game companies out there and in turn holds many properties near and dear to fans. Most of their first-party properties are still heavily supported like Mario and The Legend of Zelda. However, that’s not to say Nintendo isn’t guilty of leaving some franchises out to pasture.
One of their biggest neglects was Kid Icarus which did return after over two decades to great praise, save for the controls on 3DS, and then disappeared again. It’s reasons like this that seemingly force fans to make their own games. Sometimes they make original sequels and sometimes, like in the case for today’s article, they create remakes.
10 AM2R
AM2R, or Another Metroid 2 Remake, is exactly as it sounds: a remake of Metroid 2 from the Game Boy. It was made by Milton Guasti and released in 2016. As is the case with most Nintendo fan games, they sent out a cease and desist, removing it from the Internet. Everyone knows that once a game is online, it’ll never go away though. What’s stranger is that Nintendo released their own remake a year later for the 3DS.
9 Super Mario 64 PC
This first made the rounds this past April. From there modders continued to do work on the project with the biggest update appearing online in July. It is essentially a remaster of Super Mario 64 with the models and environments cleaned up to run on PC.
8 Goldeneye: Source
Goldeneye: Source is using Valve’s Source engine to remake the multiplayer portion of the game. This project has been going strong since 2010. Unfortunately, in early August the team finally received a cease and desist order.
Unlike other games that have simple player, taking this down means it can no longer be played as intended. Ten years was a good run though.
7 Rogue Squadron Remake
The original Rogue Squadron game was a 1998 release for the N64 and PCs. This remake appeared in 2019 and was shown off as a video. It too was shut down before anyone could really have a chance to play it. As EA is now known to be making a similar game, it makes sense that this happened.
6 Chrono Resurrection
Chrono Trigger has one of the strongest fan communities out there. If Square Enix isn’t gung-ho on making a new game, the fans are on the case with rom hacks and even full on attempts at remakes like this Chrono Resurrection. It was planned to be made for the N64 and it was started around 1999 by Nathan Lazur. The project soon grew with more and more people joining in until a cease and desist order came in 2004.
5 The Legend Of Zelda FPS Remake
This is a remake of the first Zelda game on NES. It was turned into a first-person game. It might also be worth noting that this is using the Doom engine. It was started by Exkodius who said they didn’t have time to finish it on their own so they released the tools online for others to make it a reality.
4 Castlevania: Simon’s Destiny
This is a similar 3D remake to Zelda and even uses the Doom engine. Even though it is called Simon’s Destiny, which may call out to the second game, it’s more of a remake of the original Castlevania. It’s kind of a hodgepodge of elements from both games and is more of a reimagining than anything else. A user named Batandy created it and the latest version to download was released in 2017.
3 Pokémon Kanto
This is a remake of Pokémon Red/Blue using the Unreal Engine 4. A series of videos appeared in 2016 from the YouTube Channel Preston - DarkBlade - Dunagan. Since then no other videos were shown which may mean the project is either dead, as it has been four years, or it is now being developed in secret. There have been numerous remakes of these two games so if it is dead, it’s not a huge loss for fans.
2 Star Wars Episode 1: Racer Remake
Another Star Wars game that got the N64 remake treatment was Star Wars Episode 1: Racer. It was shown off in 2019 by Rob Jin who, along with a video announcement, also released a demo.
Of course, it has since been taken down because fans can’t have nice things. Maybe this means EA is working on a game in this realm too.
1 Cuphead 1992
YouTuber 98Demake has a plethora of videos about turning modern classics into retro games. Besides Cuphead on the Game Boy, which looks great, he also has Game Boy mockups for Fallout: New Vegas, Minecraft, and The Evil Within. He also has a wealth of PS1 games like The Last of Us Part II.