Saturday!
https://youtu.be/5DDHtLi3mHg
We all remember the most freaking awesome game from “back in the day”. Whether it be something like Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past or Banjo-Kazooie or Chronotrigger or what have you (seriously, what game should I have put here instead?) and I’m certain we’ve all said something like “man, I wish that they’d remake (example) and only just update the graphics for the modern era”.
Now, of course, there are games where doing this sort of thing gilds the lily. Arkanoid, for example, is not significantly improved by giving it the most modern 3D textures. Bejeweled (or any match 3 game, really), similarly, hits the point of diminishing returns exceptionally quickly.
But what about stuff like (and here’s the example friggin’ everybody gives) Final Fantasy VII? Wouldn’t it be awesome to play FFVII on the PS4 with updated graphics?
And now we’re in a place where Playstation is doing stuff like releasing the Uncharted games in a new remastered collection or The Last Of Us remastered or Borderlands or Final Fantasy X (WHERE’S MY FINAL FANTASY VII???) and I’m stuck here looking at the rest of the newly released catalog and saying something to the effect of “they’re only doing this because they don’t have anything else to release”.
We’ve finally reached the point where they say something like “yeah, you know what? We should remaster that for the current console” but it’s not because the game in question is so very awesome (though it likely is) but it’s because they haven’t yet come up with anything else.
I always wanted to be here… just not for this reason.
So… what are you playing?
(Picture is “Untitled” by our very own Will Truman. Used with permission.)
Betrayal at Krondor. Best RPG of my that-age life and sounded amazing (at the time)Report
I recall that one. Solid game. You could just point Gorath at something and intone “GORATH! KILL!” and it’d go down. 🙂
I still remember some of the spells (Despair Thy Eyes was a cheap but quite potent one).
Return to Krondor wasn’t too bad (the wonky camera was a real problem). but Betrayal was special. I’d love to see that one remastered.Report
Did you not know that the FFVII remake is in already in the works? Although it’s apparently a major overhaul, with more action-oriented combat, and broken up into three full-sized games.Report
I had *NOT* seen that!Report
You better not be fooling me….:)Report
I finished my DLC-playthough of Dragon Age Inqusition, and I have come to the following conclusions:
1) I really don’t like playing a fighter in Dragon Age games.
2) The Jaws of Hakkon and The Descent DLC were just more stuff to do in a game that doesn’t really need any more stuff to do.
3) The Tresspasser DLC is a “bridging” DLC – they’re setting up connecting plot between Inquisition and Dragon Age 4, whenever that comes out. It also has a lot of good setting details in it, so it might be worth it for that alone, if you big into setting like I am.
At the moment I am between games, waiting for Stellaris to come out on Tuesday. I might write up a review once I’ve had a few days to play it.Report
I’m finishing up the Ori and the Blind Forest Definitive Edition. The extra two areas were well worth the extra $5 I had to pay over the original edition (I think it’s $20 otherwise.) Definitely a great Metroidvania style game if you haven’t played it. It’s also got beautiful graphics and music, and if the story doesn’t bring a tear to your eye, you’re a monster. My only complaint is these annoying “speed runner” areas where you essentially have to die over and over until you can memorize all the obstacles that will fly in your way.Report
Wow. You hit like 4 of my top 7 games there.Report
You have a n3DS, right?Report
The game I’d most like to see remastered is “Interstate ’76”. The “Fury Road” game is in the same general area, but the franchise doesn’t have the same “Car Wars” vibe to me – a muscle car with a V-8 motor under the hood and twin 30-caliber machine guns in a roof mount. And South American druglords, corrupt sheriff’s departments, worrying about whether to mount disc or drum brakes out of the scrap you’ve salvaged, and a partner who’s a cool cat that will compose an impromptu poem over the CB radio and drives a white Lincoln Continental.
But the original is from back in the bad era before graphics standards like DirectX, so all the high-res modes are tied to what was then the cutting edge of accelerator cards. So today it can only be run in software graphics mode, and the programmers never conceived of a time when their rendering engine might be asked for a resolution of 1024×768 or more on a PC capable of processing it in real time. So it looks like a product of the early 90s.Report
I’ve never even heard of that.
I’ll have to research it.Report
There’s a sequel called “Interstate ’82” – do not accept imitations… They simplified the “Car Wars” feel, it doesn’t have as strong an overarching mission arc (in fact, from what I understand, it doesn’t actually know what it is and as a result doesn’t do anything particularly well), and Taurus (the partner/sidekick) is the focus character, and he works better as a supporting cast member.Report
Sad to be responding to my own comment, it’s the second sign of senility…
I just did a quick google, and from the comments it’s possible that the Good Old Games version of I76 actually allows access to the higher-res version of graphics. I still have the original, and as a result was too cheap to re-purchase and test…
And even if it doesn’t, as long as you accept it going in, the software rendered version is perfectly playable and still has the entire experience of the campaign, just a bit… pixilated.Report
Looking it up on GoG, I remember it!
I had just thought that it was something vaguely like Twisted Metal rather than like Car Wars.
I *LOVED* Car Wars.Report
Doing my Survival runthrough of Fallout 4.
I can’t kill the danged Deathclaw. So I’ve decided to wander around close to Sanctuary and go up a couple more levels and said “hell with it, maybe drugs will help” and, so far, the Deathclaw is still killing me.
I have high hopes, though.
Playing on survival has made the game fun again. Except for the Deathclaw.Report
Killed the Deathclaw.
As the realization that I don’t have one tenth of the skills I had learned to rely upon on my previous playthrough sinks in, I’m frustrated that there are *SO* many things that I need before I can do anything that I am pretty much used to doing… and worse than that, every single skill feels like a 2nd tier skill that I can put off until I get a more important one under my belt… which leaves me feeling disappointed no matter what skill I pick when I go up a level.Report
I’m not really that big on remakes that just overhaul the graphics without adding anything new. Maybe it’s just the nostalgia goggles, but I’m pretty fond of the bright palette and graphical style of the EGA days. Really, I’d say that for a lot of games the mechanics have aged worse than the graphics. Final Fantasy VII, is a notable exception; those gouraud-shaded models were just ugly, IMO. Should have stuck with sprites. Morrowind, too. The environments were fine, but those faces were hideous.
There are a lot of franchises I’d like to see come back with new games, though. In related news, apparently they’re making a new Ultima Underworld game.Report
Playing Crusader Kings II… pretty fun game but brutally difficult to learn.Report
I have that same problem. I really want to get into it, but just can’t. (The fact that the tutorial kept crashing on me didn’t help the learning curve).
Instead I tried Hearthstone again. I can assure you, power creep is a thing.Report