What's the Deal With Video Game Remakes Anyway?

I really like it when video game companies re-release their old games. Did you know that you can buy and play the original 1984 Hydlide for PC-88 on PC1 and Switch? I think that's neat. Outside of Japan, we really only know Hydlide as that odd 1989 game on the NES that plays a knockoff of the Indiana Jones theme endlessly and sucked in comparison to stuff like The Legend of Zelda and Final Fantasy. We received the game completely devoid of the context that it was one of the first action RPGs ever (alongside Tower of Druaga and Dragon Slayer as its contemporaries, both also in 1984), and was massively influential to the development of video games in Japan. (Image credit D4Enterprise/Steam) Hydlide is an interesting game to go back to because it's very simplistic and unrefined, a raw expression of the ambition in creating the world's first "Active Role Playing Game", as the game's box prescribes itself. The game isn't difficult to pick up, switching to attack mode and damaging enemies…