[boomlinde]

Minor correction, the C64 does frame buffering. Timing and accuracy is still a major concern for all these platforms, though (especially the 2600, where even horizontal sprite positioning is based on the relative speeds of the pixel clock and the CPU).

For a platform that doesn't quite viciously depend on perfect timing (or some of the simpler NES and C64 games), say like the MSX, the concept of sprites and tiles could instead be a very useful abstraction for this kind of remake. No need to deeply examine the code; just capture VRAM and video register writes.

[royjacobs]

Sorry, I should have been more accurate. I was indeed trying to refer to all the crazy raster-level tricks that people would do, to multiplex sprites, change palettes, etc

[TheZenPsycho]

not to mention things like hblank interrupt based parallax scrolling!