There aren’t that many good examples of a free game turned into a paid product I can think of from the top of the head. Can think of plenty mods turned to paid games, sure. But free games? World of Goo was made from a free Experimental Gameplay Project title that simply had the same basic mechanics and looks. Super Win the Game is more of a successor to the free You Have to Win the Game. Only La-Mulana, Spelunky and maybe Eversion feel like actual “remakes”, which follow a more or less same structure as their original free counterpart but with updates. I suppose, Cave Story can somehow fit this list too. But point is – not that many I can think of, and, interestingly, almost all of them are somewhat metroidvania-ish.
Treasure Adventure Game is a free exploration-focused platformer with Zelda and Metroid influences that was released about 6 and a half years ago. I stumbled upon it due to it being featured on GOG and had a blast playing it 6 years ago. Then about a year later a remake was announced. Treasure Adventure World is a higher resolution, higher fidelity remake, with minor updates and several pacing changes, but overall unchanged design. For better and worse.
At its core, the game retains a very strong feel of adventure. Real exploratory fun adventure across the sea and multiple islands. And this feeling is not what a lot of games, even ones that are designed all around the same concept, can do right. Treasure Adventure World, like its free predecessor nail the feeling of actually discovering things, while keeping to a guided hand-made design of a metroidvania.
After a rather quick introduction that explains all the main mechanics to you, you’re free to explore the world as you see fit. And despite the game being 2D, so your directions are mainly left or right, the world feels big and exciting, without being overwhelming. The game also retains all the little touches the original had – it has a weather system and day and night cycle, with NPCs having a (quite simple) day and night schedule (though some systems like currents and wind seem to have little effect now). It doesn’t really affect the gameplay much, apart from things that you can do only during the specific time of day, so there’s no proper system for things like in something like Breath of the Wild. But there’s just enough for things to always remain fresh and fun.
Sadly, a lot of issues from the original game remain here as well. The platforming physics and controls still feel a bit off and floaty. There are still moments where you might have no idea where to go next because you think you might not have necessary item to progress but you actually do or because some part of the game isn’t actually just scenery, while the systems existing specifically to guide you are there to guide you to things that are more obvious then not or just simple to stumble upon on accident. Most boss fights are still more about making sure you have enough health to sit their poor design through, rather than a fun challenge , despite being more puzzle based than pure action most of the time. The extremely nauseating and possibly very epilepsy inducing puzzle and platforming sections in one of the locations (and tied to one item) are still painful to look at. And the parts near the start of the game, the parts where you have least items, least health and least knowledge on where to go next are still the least fun, with game becoming truly fun after you get over a certain opening barrier. Oh and most of the remixed music while still okay in game is just so much more plain and boring compared to the originals, like listening to a good cover band doing okay covers of amazing tracks.
But it’s all worth it. I had my frustrations, I grrr’ed at the game, I was utterly confused why all the issues were left almost exactly as is from the free version instead of being improved upon all the feedback that was received from that original title. But when the game was done, I went into New Game + immediately. Because ultimately, it’s fun. It’s charming. It’s exciting. It knows how to make exploration and adventuring fun, even if it makes mistakes in other things. It even made the story, which is still less important than the exploration here, and still is as dark as it used to be originally, considerably better and removed all the silly fourth wall breaking things the ending of the original had.
Treasure Adventure World isn’t as good of a remake it could be. It left a lot of issues untouched, it has a strange resolution limit of 1080p. But it’s a lot of fun. And I highly recommend you play it if you’re into exploration and adventure games. Even if you’ve played the original game. And if you haven’t, I’d suggest checking this one over the original.