There is always that one game. It is the game that you loved and played constantly, the game that enthralled you, that made you say “Wow, this is awesome”. That feeling of joy when you play that game is hard to recapture for multiple reasons, and chief among them is that your memories make the game seem better than it really was. This often leads to remasters that go overboard in updating a game’s look, only to make the game look less like the memories and more like a modern game. It is for this reason, I was nervous when I heard Blizzard would be remastering StarCraft 1. I was worried that too much would be changed and it would defeat the purpose. I am happy to say that I was wrong in that regard.
StarCraft Remastered actually managed to take the game and redo the art in a way that doesn’t betray the original game and does feel like a big improvement. The sprite based artwork has been redone with a heavy emphasis on detail and you can see the textures and amazing artwork much better. It even manages to give the game’s sprites the illusion of 3D at times. This is aided by a zoom in feature that has been added to the game which, when used on units and areas, shows just how much work went into every last part of the game. I am absolutely amazed at the excellent job done with this, and Blizzard’s team did great work. The new lighting effects really make things pop, and it just brings me so much joy to play this.
Other changes to the game include missions being preceded by new 3D talking portraits in the ready rooms. The ready rooms have also received an awesome makeover, which helps keep things fresh. As well, ranked multiplayer has a ranked Elo number that reflects wins and losses, with matchmaking working extremely well in this version. Best of all is that most of the custom maps are still here.
Now for the bad part ( for some). Some of the game’s features are very dated in terms of mechanics, due to not updating things such as unit pathfinding. This can create some annoyances, and there is an adjustment back to how things were played before, but to be honest it feels right that the gameplay was left this way. It may be alienating to some more casual players, but it is how StarCraft was meant to be played, and fits with this game being StarCraft as you remembered it.
In the end, I had a blast with this remaster and truly appreciate what Blizzard did. I must fully recommend this game to everyone.