Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1+2 is a fantastic return to form for the skateboarding genre. Vicarious Visions was as faithful as possible to the original Neversoft titles, updating them for a new generation to enjoy. With the double remake's success, many fans have started speculating that the third and fourth games in the Pro Skater series could eventually get the same treatment. However, there's a different duo of Tony Hawk skateboarding games that deserves a remake first.
Tony Hawk's Underground and Tony Hawk's Underground 2 are fondly remembered by fans as the best of the free-roam Tony Hawk era. Released in 2003 and 2004 respectively, the Underground series is well loved by fans due to how they revolutionized the series. But these two games deserve remakes not just because they're beloved, but also because of how well they'd pair together.
Though Pro Skater 4 was the first to ditch the arcade-style race against time gameplay of the previous entries, THUG was the game that took the next step. It provided fans with a story following a rookie skateboarder doing anything to become a pro. Instead of collecting S-K-A-T-E or nailing a high combo, players were performing complex moves to impress tourists in Hawaii, leaping over helicopters and trying to get the attention of several skateboarding legends. These missions felt like a natural fit with the game's story and helped to vary up past games' formulaic gameplay.
THUG 2 did much of the same as its predecessor. The player character is the same, but this time they're abducted by Tony Hawk and Bam Margera to compete in a "World Destruction Tour." The missions of this game were a comfortable middle ground between THUG and the Pro Skater series, with each area having a pool of goals. The timer was still absent, but this allowed Neversoft to instead focus on making each goal unique.
A major addition in the Underground games was the parkour system. With the player able to get off their board, climb ladders and shimmy across ledges, Neversoft created levels that felt more natural to navigate. Instead of just grinding a rail or airing up to reach some ramps on top of a building, players could instead just grab a nearby ledge and pull themselves up. This also made levels feel larger, like the multiple story Hawaiian hotel roofs that required a massive ladder or an elevator to reach.
A remake of THUG and THUG 2 could iron out some of the less than stellar portions of the original games. THUG had a strange amount of driving challenges and stealth sections that felt clunky and half-baked. The latter could be fixed with a rework of the parkour system. While the return of the driving sections would be faithful to the original, fan would likely be fine with these being reworked to use the "skitchin" move added in THPS4, seeing them removed altogether.
Some fans are holding out for a remake of Pro Skater 3 thanks to that game's iconic levels, which would look fantastic in HD. But classic levels like Airport, Tokyo, Los Angeles and Canada could easily be included via THUG 2's classic mode, which combined THUG 2 levels and Pro Skater levels and created arcade-style goals for them. Some levels from Pro Skater 4 could also return for the first time, since the only time a THPS 4 level was ported to another Tony Hawk game was when Alcatraz was featured in the PSP version of American Wasteland.
The Underground games revolutionized the series, opening up new ways to navigate levels and play missions. Not only that, but THUG 1 and 2 are often considered some of the best of the free-roam Tony Hawk games. With how well-received THPS 1+2 was and with revived interest in the skateboarding genre, now is a perfect time for a remake of the Underground games.