In the source code of Pokémon Black & White, an unreleased remake of Yoshi for the Nintendo DS was discovered, which according to the commit notes was intended to test multiboot functions for the two games. Its copyright notice is listed as 1995 and credits Ape Inc., which had shut down in the same year, suggesting the ROM's source code was ported from prior hardware instead of being made with the DS in mind. The remake only has one stage, an underwater level, with Mario using Jill's voice lines from Drill Dozer, while Yoshi retains his modern voice.
In a 2024 Famitsu interview, Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater producer Noriaki Okamura expressed uncertainty about his team developing future remakes or installments in the series. He felt they could not make remakes of the first two MetalGear games or Metal Gear Solid in the same way they remade Snake Eater, and that they would have to make many new parts, and significant changes and deviations from the original games' playstyle to meet contemporary standards. As for new installments in the series, he felt this depended on the feedback they would get from the Snake Eater remake and a concerted effort with Konami to preserve the longevity of the series:
"The number of staff members who worked with the original staff at the time is dwindling considerably. Before everyone who was involved in the original is gone, we need to create a path to preserve the Metal Gear series for 10 or 50 years into the future. I think this is something we have to do."
While it's not known to have been explained by the developers, Maria's outfit in the original game bears a near-identical resemblance to one worn by American pop singer Christina Aguilera at the 1999 Teen Choice Awards, which were held in August 1999, two months after the game began development. Further suggesting this connection, Maria is also Aguilera's middle name. Maria's outfit would be redesigned for the game's 2024 remake, but the original outfit still appears during a brief scene where she finds it while raiding a closet and asks James if she would look good in it, to which he hesitantly responds: "Umm... Sure."
According to a 2018 Rely on Horror interview with the game's producer Yoshiaki Hirabayashi, they decided to streamline the game's narrative by merging the A and B scenarios when playing as Leon or Claire in the original game (which was four scenarios total played in a dual perspective) into a single, cohesive story for each character. This was meant to remove the repetition from that approach while ensuring that players can still enjoy the depth and intensity of the narrative without having to play through multiple scenarios to see everything.
There is an unused title screen in the Metal Slug bootleg game Terrifying 9/11 that suggests it was originally going to be released as a straightforward bootleg version of Metal Slug instead of a bad-taste cash-in on the September 11th attacks.
Cid, a recurring character in the series who is usually a mechanic with some relation to airships, first appeared in Final Fantasy II and did not appear in the first Final Fantasy game. For the Final Fantasy I & II: Dawn of Souls re-release however, the original game's plot was retroactively changed to make "Cid of the Lufaine" the ancient creator of the airship that the protagonists used.
In a June 13th, 2024 interview with the Dragami Games CEO Yoshimi Yasuda published on the Gematsu website, he stated that in 2021, he asked Tomo Ikeda, one of the directors he led in the development team for the original Lollipop Chainsaw, to help with the game's remake Lollipop Chainsaw RePOP, but Ikeda turned him down due to conflicts from already leading development on a different project at that time. Yasuda still expressed that he felt very proud of his former developers for advancing in the industry and maintained a good relationship with the original game's writer Masahiro Yuki, having spoken several times with him in 2023 about RePOP and the future of Lollipop Chainsaw. He described Yuki as "something like a repository of wisdom within the team" during development, and gave Yasuda lots of proactive and stimulating opinions that were reflected in RePOP. Yasuda stated that the agenda for RePOP was to "improve on the user-friendliness" and give a more fun experience for players that were left lacking in the original game. In order to do that, he contacted the engineers who worked on the original game to provide detailed development information, like how data was handled and special processing related to Unreal Engine 3, which directors and producers would not be able to provide, and called their support "especially indispensable".
Pac-Man World's ending has been noted for containing darker humor compared to the game's otherwise lighthearted tone. The game's antagonist Toc-Man, the robot impostor who kidnapped Pac-Man's family, is revealed to be Orson, a tearful grey ghost who just wanted to be as famous as Pac-Man, who responds to this by pretending to show sympathy before eating him. According to the game's designer, Scott Rogers, his reasoning for this tonal shift was:
"If someone terrorized, kidnapped, and imprisoned your friends and family, you'd probably want to eat them too."
Rogers also noted that they wanted to have Pac-Man respond to Orson's cry of "nobody loves a ghost!" with "I do!" (in the sense of loving to eat a ghost), but this was scrapped alongside Pac-Man's voice as a whole.
Pac-Man World: Re-Pac amends this divisive ending by designating it as a bad ending and adding a new good ending. If the player fails to rescue Pac-Man's family, the ending plays out as it did in the original game, with an added scene where Orson's ghost minions choose to rescue Pac-Man's family themselves, but if the player successfully rescues Pac-Man's family, he opts to forgive Orson.
According to producer Kazuhisa Wada, the addition of the female protagonist from Persona 3 Portable was considered during development of Persona 3 Reload, but was ultimately deemed "too time-consuming and expensive" compared to remaking "The Answer", the epilogue chapter from Persona 3 FES.
Sephiroth's inclusion as a DLC fighter was apparently so top secret that even certain members of Square Enix had not known that the villain was going to be included in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate until the corresponding show-stealing announcement at The Game Awards 2020 was made. Even Square Enix employee and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth director Naoki Hamaguchi was quite shocked and stated:
"[...] it was actually extremely confidential that he was even going to be in it, [...] So, none of the dev team knew, including myself. So it was more like when the whole world knew it, and that's when we knew it like, 'Oh, I had no idea!'"
In an interview with the game's co-director/designer/programmer Naoki Hamaguchi published in The Washington Post on July 2nd, 2021, he reflected on the evolution of Final Fantasy VII Remake's battle system, which drew inspiration from the original game's Active Time Battle (ATB) system. Hamaguchi expressed satisfaction with its current form "in which the strategic element of the command-based battle from the original co-exists with the real-time, action-oriented battle". Additionally, the "Intermission" episode featured in FFVII Remake Intergrade introduced combo moves where Yuffie and Sonon team up, which Hamaguchi stated he wanted to try leveraging along with other elements from "Intermission" as he worked on what would become Final Fantasy VII Rebirth.
In April 2023, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth's lead battle programmer Satoru Koyama discussed the challenges he aimed to tackle when working on the game, with his main aspiration being to enhance the capabilities of AI characters. He emphasized the desire to create an AI capable of juggling a variety of techniques and magic, going beyond the limitations of Final Fantasy VII Remake's combat system. He said his goal was to surpass the Gambit System introduced in Final Fantasy XII, which allowed players to set commands and actions based on specific conditions, providing a wealth of strategic options.
When "THE JOY OF CREATION" was still in development as "The Joy of Creation: Ignited Collection", the first game in the The Joy of Creation series was going to be remade as part of the collection, where it would have been known as "The Joy of Creation: Classic". However, on July 27, 2023, Nikson revealed that he had changed his mind about adding Classic to the collection, instead having it only include The Joy of Creation: Reborn and The Joy of Creation: Story Mode.
Checkered Flag was originally called Checkered Flag 2 (referring the previous game with the title on Atari Lynx), before being changed to Redline Racing and finally Checkered Flag, positioning it as a remake/port instead of a sequel.
In the DLC update, Ninja Gaiden Black, Ayane's kunai messages featured fully voiced dialogue, which was not a feature in the original version. In Ninja Gaiden Sigma, the text and dialogue that explained the controls were changed to reference both PlayStation 3 controls and altered mechanics.
One of Falco Lombardi's most famous lines in Star Fox 64 is "Hey, Einstein! I'm on your side!"
This line is somewhat controversial because it implies that there exists some version of scientist Albert Einstein within the Star Fox universe. It is worth pointing out that this was added in for the Western localization of Star Fox 64, as in the Japanese version of the game, Falco simply just says:
クッ！敵と味方の区別も出来ねえのか！(Damn it! Can't you even distinguish between friend and foe?!)
Ultimately, the Western version of Star Fox 64 3D would have this line be changed to: "Hey, genius! I'm on your side!"
Both the original GameCube release and the Nintendo Switch remake are rated E by the Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB), but the GameCube version's rating was simply given the descriptor "Mild Cartoon Violence". The remake’s ESRB rating was updated to replace it with the descriptors "Mild Fantasy Violence" and "Mild Suggestive Themes". These "Mild Suggestive Themes" most likely refer to flirtatious dialogue (i.e. "Aren’t you a fine specimen of a man"; "Perhaps if I…grabbed you and gave you a little sugar") and a character with a large chest/exaggerated proportions, referencing Madame Flurrie.
Kirby's Return to Dream Land Deluxe redesigns Wing Kirby's costume, changing the pattern on the headband to a series of straight lines, adding a red jewel on the front (similar to the kind seen on other Copy Ability hats), and replacing the rows of feathers on the back with arrangements that more closely resemble a bird's wings. As the original design was based on a Native American warbonnet, the redesign was likely to avoid cultural appropriation, as real-life warbonnets are regarded as sacred in tribal cultures and consequently can only be worn by those who have earned the right to do so.
Chiptune composer Martin Galway developed an unofficial port of The Great Giana Sisters for the Nintendo DS and released it online on February 20th, 2007 to mark the 20th anniversary of the series. The port came out two years prior the official release of Giana Sisters DS.
High Boo's Thought Peek quote, "*sigh* ♪Stomp, stomp, clap. Stomp, stomp, clap.♪", references the 1977 song "We Will Rock You" by English glam rock band Queen. The song famously features a percussion section consisting of two stomped eighth notes followed by a clapped quarter note. Uniquely, this reference is a new addition to the remake; in the original SNES version, High Boo (known there as Li'l Boo) says "Beep pa doodle-dee!♪"
While it's not known to have been explained by the developers, Maria's outfit in the original game bears a near-identical resemblance to one worn by American pop singer Christina Aguilera at the 1999 Teen Choice Awards, which were held in August 1999, two months after the game began development. Further suggesting this connection, Maria is also Aguilera's middle name. Maria's outfit would be redesigned for the game's 2024 remake, but the original outfit still appears during a brief scene where she finds it while raiding a closet and asks James if she would look good in it, to which he hesitantly responds: "Umm... Sure."
There is an unused title screen in the Metal Slug bootleg game Terrifying 9/11 that suggests it was originally going to be released as a straightforward bootleg version of Metal Slug instead of a bad-taste cash-in on the September 11th attacks.
One of Falco Lombardi's most famous lines in Star Fox 64 is "Hey, Einstein! I'm on your side!"
Kirby's Return to Dream Land Deluxe redesigns Wing Kirby's costume, changing the pattern on the headband to a series of straight lines, adding a red jewel on the front (similar to the kind seen on other Copy Ability hats), and replacing the rows of feathers on the back with arrangements that more closely resemble a bird's wings. As the original design was based on a Native American warbonnet, the redesign was likely to avoid cultural appropriation, as real-life warbonnets are regarded as sacred in tribal cultures and consequently can only be worn by those who have earned the right to do so.
Chiptune composer Martin Galway developed an unofficial port of The Great Giana Sisters for the Nintendo DS and released it online on February 20th, 2007 to mark the 20th anniversary of the series. The port came out two years prior the official release of Giana Sisters DS.
High Boo's Thought Peek quote, "*sigh* ♪Stomp, stomp, clap. Stomp, stomp, clap.♪", references the 1977 song "We Will Rock You" by English glam rock band Queen. The song famously features a percussion section consisting of two stomped eighth notes followed by a clapped quarter note. Uniquely, this reference is a new addition to the remake; in the original SNES version, High Boo (known there as Li'l Boo) says "Beep pa doodle-dee!♪"