No. The original is worse in every aspect except the VA for certain characters, like Dr Kyne. His original VA is perfect, the remake's ... just doesn't gel. Other than that, DS Remake has much better visuals, a HELLUVA lot better shading and lighting and makes the Ishimura look TRULY hostile, much more fluid and satisfying combat mechanics, better feel of peeling of Necromorph flesh, more content, 3D audio, non-mute Isaac ...
Little of what you describe as better in the remake translates directly to
better horror. 3D audio? Nice technology but who gives a shit when the impact of the SFX itself is butchered.
Here is the infamous BART train room in the original:
The game goes from the empty silence of space to the most ear wrenching noise imaginable. Metal grinding on metal, rising in crescendo as if something terrible is about to happen. The shadows in the room violently shaking all over the place. You want to get out the room as fast as humanly possible.
Now here is the remake's sad interpretation:
All impact lost. Just sounds like a diesel engine room in a big boat. Doesn't built to anything. Lighting is not nearly as intense either.
But let's not also overlook the design intent of this original room. In the original director's words, this room was an exercise in "how do we scare people just with sound, no monsters, no nothing?":
What do EA Motive decide to do? Gorsh, this room is really boring now we've fucked with the original so much - we need to add in a big monster blob to shoot at to make it interesting again. So I guess they failed that exercise...
Ironically the original BART room was one of the safest rooms in the game where absolutely nothing happens, yet it's regarded as one of the scariest. And all you needed for that was a good stereo sound mix.
Kendra not being a complete bitch to Hammond in the remake makes sense, considering, and Hammond NOT acting like he wants to repair the Ishimura after being assaulted by alien zombies fixes one of his stupidest character traits in the original. "Your lack of trust in me, IS dully noted, Miss Daniels, but I have a mission to complete and I'm going to do it with or without you." Dude, you just discovered an alien species which has overrun an entire spaceship and killed half your squad within five minutes. What the fuck are you talking about? This isn't a repair mission anymore. This isn't remotely by the book, and you acting like it is makes you look fucking insane. it was the stupidest scene in the original and I'm happy they did away with it.
Kendra's attitude in the original added to the conflict of the game. Seeing the personality clash between her and Hammond provided a ton of drama right from the start. The dynamic of Hammond, the authoritative captain struggling to maintain control while the mission crumbles around him, versus Kendra, the person who is questioning basically every decision he makes (while having her own ulterior motive), was fantastically well executed.
The "your lack of trust in me" scene at the start of the game is emotionally believable if you have ever met anyone who insists on being right. People are not always rational - even the cold and calculating types like Hammond. Put that in a horror setting and that is where all the drama (and the fun) comes from. Nobody wants autistics in horror, they want the cheerleader who decides to go back in the house.
My opinion of Peter Mensah's performance is that it's a top five in a videogame. You don't sacrifice performances like that on the alter of making the plot make slightly more sense. Lore nerds might be able to argue that in the remake this or that made more sense, was more developed, more believable - blah blah blah - but the end result was flat performances which lost all the teeth that the original had.
