I think the idea of making both a re-release and a remake is a pretty good one, probably the best option given the circumstances. Although, I wonder if it would be viable to make some little 'quality of life' improvements that would make the re-release even better, without making any substantial change in the game? I have some suggestions:
-Adding a "battle command" button to force a random battle (like sweet scent in Pokemon), that could make grinding much faster
-Making the dungeon music not restart from the beginning after every fight: I almost never listened to some tracks in their entirety in-game because of this, which annoys me since the music is sooo good
-Making characters not being used in battle receive a fraction of XP
-Changing the auto-sort order: I personally think consumables should come before equipment, but that's very, very subjective
-Having a shared inventory for everyone: sometimes it's annoying that you want a character to use an item in-battle that you have plenty of but he/she doesn`t have it equipped
-Making all characters optional to have in the party: probably the less viable of all to implement, but it certainly isn't a big deal anyway
Since my coding knowledge is basically non-existent, I don`t have much of an idea (if any) of how viable it would be to change things like these (you already said there are annoying issues with compatibility stuff), but leaving those here is better than saying nothing, I guess?
Also, I really like the idea of adding those extras to the game. What annoyed me about the absence of a MARDEK IV was not getting to know what happens much more than not getting to play the game itself. I'm really looking forward to buy and play this re-release!
1
Tobias 1104~4Y
Some of those changes wouldn't be too big of a deal (eg the music thing), but others are much more dramatic (eg shared inventories). There are many changes like those that I'd like to make, but that's part of what the remake will be for, and I don't want to risk changing anything at all with this version even if it seems like a good idea or 'just a little change, I might as well!'. One little change might lead to another, and another, until too much is different to the original. It's best to just keep it exactly as it is.
-Adding a "battle command" button to force a random battle (like sweet scent in Pokemon), that could make grinding much faster
-Making the dungeon music not restart from the beginning after every fight: I almost never listened to some tracks in their entirety in-game because of this, which annoys me since the music is sooo good
-Making characters not being used in battle receive a fraction of XP
-Changing the auto-sort order: I personally think consumables should come before equipment, but that's very, very subjective
-Having a shared inventory for everyone: sometimes it's annoying that you want a character to use an item in-battle that you have plenty of but he/she doesn`t have it equipped
-Making all characters optional to have in the party: probably the less viable of all to implement, but it certainly isn't a big deal anyway
Since my coding knowledge is basically non-existent, I don`t have much of an idea (if any) of how viable it would be to change things like these (you already said there are annoying issues with compatibility stuff), but leaving those here is better than saying nothing, I guess?
Also, I really like the idea of adding those extras to the game. What annoyed me about the absence of a MARDEK IV was not getting to know what happens much more than not getting to play the game itself. I'm really looking forward to buy and play this re-release!