Opinion – HD Remakes Need A Scene Select Mode

Like many a gamer my age, the Kingdom Hearts series is near and dear to my heart. I vividly remember putting the first game into my PlayStation 2 and being serenaded by the now-iconic Dearly Beloved on its menu screen. From that first moment on I could never break away from the series, no matter how incredibly convoluted its plot became. Those games have a flavor of wonder and melancholy (probably sea salt) so idiosyncratic that I find myself craving it even now, 12 years after the first game’s release.

But when Square Enix announced it would be releasing HD remakes of nearly every title in the series, I wasn’t able to muster up my usual excitement. Sure, I was plenty enthused at the thought of playing some of my favorite moments in all of gaming with a new, crisp sheen, but the announcements ignited a newfound reluctance in me to play through tiresome segments like Wonderland and Olympus Coliseum. To clarify, I don’t hate those levels. My reluctance stems from having played that first Kingdom Hearts game three times over, mixed with a loathing for the series’ penchant for recycling content (here’s looking at you 358/2 and Re:coded). I wound up getting Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 Remix — and I plan to purchase its follow up — but I gritted my teeth through Destiny Islands. I couldn’t help but wish I was already at the good bits.

HD remakes need a scene select mode, particularly as they become more ubiquitous in the gaming market. This isn’t a particularly revolutionary thought; games like Uncharted, Resident Evil, and more all let you replay key moments as you complete their campaigns. A scene select mode would bring that same functionality to HD remakes, but would let you access the content without having to play through it first. No longer would you have to deal with the slog of playing through sequences that are less than thrilling. Instead you could cut straight to the action and remember why you loved your favorite games in the first place.

All gamers stand to benefit from the inclusion of a scene select mode in remakes, but none moreso than the players of the original titles. HD remakes are great for introducing classic games to generations of players who never had the chance to play them. I, for one, can’t wait to finally take a crack at Resident Evil when the REmake comes out next year. But just as much, if not more, of the hype for these products comes from the people who’ve played the original versions when they released. The gap of time from when a game comes out to when it’s remade can be huge, and you can’t push the pause button on your life. Odds are, life has changed dramatically for these old school gamers, and they likely have less time to commit to playing a 20-hour game.

For perspective, let’s take a look at Capcom’s Resident Evil REmake again. Resident Evil was first released in 1996. Its first remake came out six years later. In either of those spans of time, 12 or 18 years, life can and will throw any number of extenuating factors your way. Retro gamers who played Resident Evil in 1996 could very well have families, full time jobs, school, any combination of the three, or more. Scene select, then, effectively offers a streamlined experience to these gamers, allowing them to juggle their favorite hobby with their personal and professional commitments.

Of course, a scene select mode doesn’t preclude the ability to play through a game as it was originally intended. Purists out there can still linearly play through progression systems without crying foul at the gamer that skips to the middle. These modes exist side by side in harmony. Moreover, scene select doesn’t detract from the core experience of gameplay loops because it’s not trying to emulate it. Contrary to what Emerson says it’s the destination that matters here, not the journey. Scene select is built for a lighter, breezier style of play that, although foreign to binge gamers, there is a real exigency for given how popular mobile gaming is. It’s about jumping in, getting your fill, and jumping out in time to make dinner.

Scene select’s core ideas are already at work in some recent releases. It’s actually alive in its most pure sense in a rather high-profile, recently released HD remake. In Halo: The Master Chief Collection players can access every level from the anthology’s four campaigns right out of the box. There’s no need to play through four whole campaigns worth of content, 343 Industries kindly unlocked everything so Halo die-hards can get straight to wiping out Covenant scum. This is scene select in its purest sense, but 343 took it a step further by creating playlists that arrange different levels from the four campaigns into digestible experiences.

Games with more blurred chapter divisions, like RPGs, are also compatible with scene select, but require some creative implementation. Pokémon, a franchise about to receive its third set of HD remakes, could lift mechanics from the Stadium spinoffs and its recent demo for Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire. Players would be given their choice of a starter Pokémon and a team to rent, just like they are in the Stadium games. Chapters would begin at any of the games’ defining moments: gym battles, Elite Four fights, Team Rocket/Magma/Flare bases, etc. The Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire demo recently experimented with this abbreviated chapter format to positive results – it gave players a solid taste of the Pokémon experience without tying them down to grinding for a whole afternoon. 

I know it’s too late for the Kingdom Hearts remakes. Kingdom Hearts HD 2.5 Remix is just around the corner, and although its chock full of features, Square Enix has not touted the inclusion of a chapter selection function for Kingdom Hearts II or Birth By Sleep. But if the Master Chief Collection and the Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire demo are proof of anything, it’s that we’re likely to see developers experiment more with variations of scene select in their HD remakes. Who knows, maybe I’ll even luck out in 20 years with the KH 3 remaster.