I keep going back and forth on this game on how much I want it to resemble the original. If it's too close it might not feel I'm playing a new game, but I also don't want it to be so different that it loses what I enjoyed so much about the first one.

I think that's the issue with this "janky" games. There are obvious problems with the game, but it's very easy to lose the positives when you are attempting to smooth out the rough edges.