Final Fantasy 8 Remastered vs Original Comparison - The Definitive Version?

[@xxnike0629xx]

Even if they didn't upgrade the backgrounds, I think they should at least patch in analog controls and fix the FPS issues.

[@JDelwynn]

FFIX doesn't have analog controls either, I'd rather wait for the modding community to do a better version than Square ever will.

[@Bristecom]

Seriously, the lack of analog controls is unacceptable. Hopefully they patch it and the rumble in soon.

[@xxnike0629xx]

@@Bristecom If they can at least fix the FPS and patch in analog control support, for all of the FF games, I'd be happy.

[@Vaegir808]

analog control? Ive been using analog on my X1 controller for PC, and PS4 controller on PS4. Edit: I take back what i said, I got up to that point of the video when the explained it.

[@chrisc767]

@@JDelwynn it does thou!

[@jeffcarrier9808]

My heart broke when i discovered the lack of analogue... it was the first game in the series to use it, and it was a HUGE deal at the time... and many environments and paths are curved to make great use of it... it really feels annoying to play when you still have such fond memories of how good it felt back then :(

[@stevenlornie1261]

your heart broke? Good god. Sad.

[@jeffcarrier9808]

@stevenlornie1261 it's called hyperbole

[@MetalArcade]

I guess they patched it cause I just started playing it on PS5 and the analog works

[@jeffcarrier9808]

@@MetalArcade MGS1??

[@jeffcarrier9808]

@@MetalArcade hmm I never finished my playthrough. I need to check! I hear MGS1 was patched as well.

[@aznbreakerboi51o]

When I die, I want Square Enid to lower my coffin to the ground so that they can let me down one more time.

[@IAMNOTRANA]

Oh my god lol that made me laugh harder than It should.

[@churichurinfunflais5269]

Wtf

[@deprimat666]

Lmfao

[@JimBob-vg2og]

😂

[@s0lgewds0lgewd16]

Oh man you got me with that one, good on you lmao

[@SirJonSoda]

I actually like the PS1 dithering and the the original low resolution matched the background's. The higher resolution does absolutely no favor to those low res textures and I think the characters and other objects look out of place and simply don't go well together. I'd definitely emulate the original over this one.

[@Bahaumt86]

I'm going to wait until the modders fix this "remaster". God bless those people.

[@Phantron]

rather just get the original Steam version and mod that one. it's cheaper and already is modded

[@Bahaumt86]

@@Phantron Well, I do like the new character-models.

[@Phantron]

can be modded in the original too.

[@Bahaumt86]

@@Phantron I'm still going to wait for a while and see what happens.

[@porsupollo9349]

​@@Phantron really? damn that's cool, no need to buy this version then, anyway i always thought the should have given it for free on pc since we already paid for the base version and this new version doesn't seem that big of an improvement.

[@KyoshoLP]

Really wish Square-Enix actually gave a F about their remasters.

[@Revz8bit]

The only remaster worth getting imo was XII since we never got that version in the US

[@TheFeezy777]

@@Revz8bit FF 10 remaster was worth it too. We never got that version as well.

[@cosmosofinfinity]

@@Revz8bit Zodiac Age even offer gameplay improves beyond the original Japanese zodiac job version. Even more now with the Switch and Xbox One versions.

[@Revz8bit]

@@TheFeezy777 very true X and XII were great remasters that actually took effort. Remastered VII, VIII and IX look like garbage cash grabs imo.

[@Goshorai]

They didn't give an F during the remastering process and came out with a grade F product.

[@Y0URGRANDMA]

Clearly most of the very low res textures were never meant to be filtered and details are lost when done so, they look so much worse then the original.

[@SonicSP]

If you mean the ones in the video, I thought they looked better. Not as good as the characters though obviously.

[@d4t6ix]

@ Yourgrandma; I agree; Those filtered textures lost every detail they ever had; I'll stick with the PS1 version;

[@LiquidSnake1988]

THAN*

[@Lord_Deimos]

When you finally are the best looking guy in the room after 20 years.

[@noorarchery1355]

@John Smith Finally I can see Squall and Rinoa clearly

[@Switch72nd]

John Smith the room always looked like shit. You just notice more now with the updated models.

[@noorarchery1355]

@@Switch72nd atleast I can see the characters now more HUMANLY.. I m glad I am still breathing to see this! *crying*

[@wiceorc5105]

Laughts in cynical depression..

[@natdomo]

I wanted to buy remastered so i was looking for a review video and i expected this comment AHAHAHAHAH

[@DrGamelove]

One extra frame per second in battle!! Take my money Square!!!

[@angelovercellini7937]

Don't forget the 44 fps lost in battle menus though

[@geminirebirth]

They'd have to rewrite quite a lot of the engine's internals to do so. They could possibly fake it like on PlayStation, where regions of the screen are frame grabbed once every four vblank refreshes and draw faster hud elements independently.

[@mrtomas621]

16 fps looks worse than 15 because of uneven timing.

[@MrSapps]

@@geminirebirth Its not "faked" on playstation, you can run things at diff timings by hanging "threads" off the vblank

[@geminirebirth]

It's actually rendering stuff separately, just like FF7 or Chrono Cross, but there's no threading, alleged of fake, in action. You simply have two drawing lists, one for 3D that updates every 4 frames, while 2D works in 30 fps.

[@andrewkos5560]

"The Definitive Version?" lol it's Square Enix, you already know the answer

[@kinami37]

FF 8 on steam + mods = Definitive Version

[@oasisbeyond]

Definitive version was to play it day one on launch, it's just not that great now.

[@bergrocks5424]

@@kinami37 With ERSGAN Definitive and ultimate edition.

[@lilrice7865]

It's square enix not capcom

[@GrammerPancreas]

@@kinami37 Nah, that still has a lot of the issues brought up in this video (crappy backgrounds, and no, applying shitty filters does not count; and also no analog controls, and the framerate's still fucked). But I guess there's just no 'perfect' way to play this game. I'd rather play the original PS1 version than the butchered mess that FF8 looks like with PC mods, though.

[@RyanGatts]

This texture filtering looks really really bad. I would rather run the game with totally unfiltered blocky textures that less gratuitously expose the uv seams than "nicely filtered" blurry textures. The texture filtering lowers the contrast by a lot and the removal of the dithering removes a lot of the high frequency detail. The road out of Balamb Garden shows this really clearly. In the original it seems to be a rough paved surface with white markings on the edges. In the remastered version, it just looks like an untextured polygon strip. Saying that they "are as on ps1" grossly misrepresents what has happened to the art by changing the texture filtering and dithering. The water has lost all the "sparkling" it used to do due to the new filtering blurring background textures and the up-res of the art cutting down local contrast, the snow does not appear to be white anymore, the greenery on the cliffs has been reinterpreted as a gradient rather than a speckeled distribution of small plants, the fx textures have gotten smaller and dimmer losing much of the in-texture bloom they had. They look colossally different. Even without the assets to do a rerender, I would rather the textures of the game be left totally unfiltered.

[@jimechols4347]

I agree, the filtering makes it look like a blurry N64 game.

[@magreger]

You nailed it.

[@buzzlopavich]

Why bother remastering these games if you arent going to go through the effort to rebuild them? Squares attitude towards their own legacy is kind of insulting

[@skullofrebellion6653]

Its the lack of the source code, they'd have to remake everything which I'd rather like. It'd be nice to have FF8 remade completely like 7, but with how 7 is going its going to take up most of their time for the next few years

[@blankanonymous5214]

It's all about the money.

[@maxinehell1394]

rebuild? you talking about remake then not remaster, its 2 different thing....

[@williamwen3477]

Yea square enix is sucks now...their golden age is long long gone

[@buzzlopavich]

@@maxinehell1394 this barely qualifies as a remaster though, it's just a port of pc with new models. I'm not asking for a remake, just a bit of respect. And if they don't have the source code they need, or source art - don't do it.

[@rezinmage]

Low res backgrounds look like ass. They should have done something to improve that. It's definitely disappointing.

[@guspaz]

They could have dragged and dropped the artwork into waifu2x or some other AI-based upscaler, or even just used a sharper interpolation algorithm, but no... bilinear or bust, apparently.

[@SamuraiFanoCat]

I personally don’t mind it, actually. Gives it that oldschool and familiar feeling of 20 years ago. They could have (and should have) done better with the frame rate and 360 movement, though.

[@godzilla2k26]

@@SamuraiFanoCat not how it looked 20 years ago.

[@justanotheryoutubechannel]

Stefano Christiano But that’s the worst bit of these crappy remasters, the game didn’t look this bad 20 years ago, in fact the backgrounds were indistinguishable to the 3D for the most part, as the game ran in 240p. One downside is that everything looks so res, and it’s really hard to see details on characters, fine detail is often invisible. Curves and smooth edges are impossible, leading to pixelated, jaggedy edges.

[@Zipzeolocke]

I am in the minority when I say it's my favorite Final Fantasy in the entire series, but I'm obviously biased considering I was 12 at the time, I was a hopeless romantic and became a sucker for the meeting a girl who gets a reclusive guy to open up and share his feelings with others he cares about. So yeah the game got me pretty good. I didn't really mind the draw system, I understand people are not as patient as I am though, I do understand their frustration but I think that's been rectified with this remaster considering it gives you a button to fast-forward the gameplay x3. BUT even on the huge fan I honestly don't believe this remaster is priced fairly. I'm rather disappointed with the result. I understand they didn't have the source material but that just means they cobbled together a very lazy version instead of taking the time to replace a lot of the textures with higher res versions. They could've taken a little time to create identical images. There are thousands of fans that would've gladly sent in high-quality art to be used to replace the background images. It could look so much better than what we got and I don't think it's worth the price. I think what we got is more like $10. I think everyone agrees that Triple Triad pretty awesome though :P

[@Genghiskoz]

To me this is da best one alot of people say 7 but I think da story and character's are superior

[@JesseSwaney]

I was right there with you brother. I was born in 84, so whatever age that makes me when I was playing FFVIII. I remember bringing my PS1 to school to show people the intro scene graphics. I absolutely loved this game!

[@legionbowen1292]

Ff 8 is my favorite when I became a ff fan and it's really my 1st ff I played the demo back when demo disc where a thing and was hooked. I think might have played them on snes but I was way too young then to know anything about video games I was one of those kids who button mashed on street fighter and mortal kombat

[@rianlynn3854]

the first part of this, I never thought of that. This was my all time favorite game ever, and Im getting the switch just for it. (easier than finding a working ps1 and ff8 game disk. Mine was scratched and froze on ifrit decades ago. this came out when i was nine.) I'm literally buying the switch for this game. Sure they could have revved up the graphics but I think its more nostalgic to keep them. Im sure they will come out with an updated version for the people who want the crazy graphics. Imma be living in this game at that point XD. I just love it so so much.

[@jcardboard]

Square always seem to ruin ports and remasters of these games by silly corner cutting. A pity. Put some effort in.

[@OwtDaftUK]

They all have faults that make me prefer the orignals.

[@reyunityone5111]

Put some effort in? Dude they had to re write the code cause they didn’t archive it

[@toxicavenger6172]

Do you not realize they probably didn't pay these guys a ton of money to Port the game over to console? It's being sold for $20. Plus I think squaresoft probably wants the remasters to be more close to the originals versus completely remastering every aspect of the game. It looks to me like their goal is preservation and not glorification.

[@JMyers1990]

@@toxicavenger6172 I mean if they wanted it close to the originals why didnt the add full analog movement and rumble?

[@toxicavenger6172]

@@JMyers1990 the game was ported from the PC version which is probably at least part of why it didn't have full motion analog. Plus the current gen hardware all has digital analog and porting old school analog controls makes it feel weird. Check out the crash remaster and you might understand what I mean by that. The analog stick is very weird in that remaster.

[@AlexMoenR]

I'll keep playing my PS1 version, and I honestly think there are no downsides to it. Everything upscaled/filtered/remodelled in HD just adds to the sense of mismatch between the assets. I am happy there's a version available out there for people who don't have old hardware, though.

[@strangevision99]

I own the PS1 version and this remaster, I'd say both have certain advantages, there isn't a definitive edition yet unfortunately but both are good all the same. Modding the PC version will give the best version overall.

[@Joe02TheCuBOYd]

I've got all the old hardware and I'm keen to play it. I'm going to pick up the PS1 version, it's so much more charming I think! can't wait!

[@angelovercellini7937]

>The Definitive Version? No. Not by a long shot.

[@GeordiLaForgery]

I know the game has it's fans but I was always overwhelmed by the layers of binding GF and all that jazz.

[@tricknick9211]

​@@GeordiLaForgery your not the only one. I REALLY hate that system. I like final fantasy 8, but i hate it's leveling system in general.

[@GeordiLaForgery]

@@tricknick9211 Glad to hear I'm not the only one!

[@madfinntech]

And they don't even talk about the censorship here. Pair the original PlayStation with a CRT and there's your definitive edition.

[@angelovercellini7937]

I never liked the game and I think it's one of the weaker entries in the franchise but putting all that aside this is a lazy and rushed remastering and the problems highlighted in DF's video are just the tip of the iceberg as there are things not mentioned such as the botched translation (which were never great to begin with, but they made them even worse) and the fact that in some scenes there are still some secondary/background characters retaining their old low-res model ALONG with the new ones, and that really sticks out, especially when paired with the old backdrops. Just google it and you'll find some examples, there is one where Squall and Quistis are talking to Cid in Balamb Garden and all of them have their updated model but when the camera cuts and zooms out Cid reverts back to his old model and he's almost blending in with the background. Honestly with all the promotion this game has had and the fact it costs almost double compared to the already existing FFVIII Steam port I'd say Dotemu and Square have kinda dropped the ball on this one

[@jeromemartizano5942]

I'm currently downloading this game on Nintendo Switch. It's my first Final Fantasy game. So excited to play it.

[@ALeaud]

You commented a year ago. Did you end up playing it? What did you think?

[@mihailcirlig8187]

@@ALeaud he died

[@ALeaud]

@@mihailcirlig8187 I'm guessing Ultima Weapon took him out. RIP.

[@fido9745]

Aww.. enjoy 🙂

[@Khaostheory1980]

This has got to be one of the laziest 'HD remasters' I have ever seen! You can do better with a PS1 emulator on a phone!

[@ArtilleryCrusader]

But then you'd have to play a game on a phone when I can just play a game on a not-phone.

[@Bigdaddymittens]

Lazy? No game developer is lazy. Stop being so entitled. It's likely that they were limited by time and budget.

[@strangevision99]

@Aaron Smith And on Android it has a softlock bug, that instead of fixing, they just warn you about in the Google Play store.

[@strangevision99]

@@Bigdaddymittens Yeah, the developers probably aren't to blame, it's the people who decide that the games will have 2 people working for a weekend to get these things done.

[@Khaostheory1980]

@@Bigdaddymittens I never said the dev was lazy I said the port is lazy, and it is. Stop trying to be an edge lord throwing the entitled moniker about when you're clueless to its meaning.

[@omegaweapon116]

I've hated this game for the past 20 years. I finally decided to give it another shot with the remaster and now I think it's one of the best FF games if not one of the best RPG's I've ever played. Everything that I used to hate like the junction system and drawing magic is actually why I like it now. I think a lot of it has to do with the ability to use 3x fast forward to get through the game a little quicker and draw magic super fast.

[@rianlynn3854]

I was 9 when this first came out, literally had over 100 hours of gametime. Every moment I could escape to it. Idk about the drawbacks, its such a beautiful game with a wonderfully lovely story, and some crazy foreshadowing that I, having found this out tonight, yes I live under a rock, am buying a switch just for this game.

[@mendoncapais6033]

it should be remake

[@Eheth1958]

It’s my favorite. Good music and story and epic ending.

[@rikiki]

I hated the game because of the drawing system, I played the pc version, and it lags like hell because my PC was not the highest spec(playing ff7 was fine btw) , and ff8 was like cutting edge graphics that time but I still wanted to play it, drawing become of a hell job bcause of the sluggishness. Now with faster PCs, it actually feels good to play now.

[@lokibau]

lets admit it, magic draw is a cool concept but its tedious as hell. Still one of my favourite games of all times, but boy if its boring drawing all magic. For the smartasses lurking around i know perfectly well that there is refine, its just another slightly more convenient chore, they could just let you always draw 9 (or more) magic per time and it would have mitigated the boredom of the process.

[@ivarandresosorio6461]

Better off playing the original on emulation, or with a PS1 and a crt TV, if you have the setup.

[@kintypoo121]

It looks and plays pretty well on the Vita too. That OLED screen (of the original model) really helps those old PS1 games pop!

[@vivilover9409]

I'd rather be able to play on my switch

[@jimechols4347]

Yes using PSX beetle Mednafen emulator with the CRT looks just like the original hardware.

[@TofuSG98]

@@kintypoo121 Vita POPS is the best way to play on handheld for sure

[@natdomo]

But i want to be best looking guy in the room :(

[@EumelaninKnight]

Low effort remaster? Not worth buying a third time in my life. Or maybe I'll get the remake in 2034.

[@wakeinjunenrico]

XGAD remastered the cgi? Are you kidding me ahah?? Looks like they recorded them from an old tv

[@EumelaninKnight]

@@Coldsilfur4 Did you watch the whole video? The character models look great and all, but the rest of the game that needed "remastering" is either unchanged or worse.

[@samuel-7496]

I think you should hold on to 2049 when 50th anniversary edition comes...

[@williamwen3477]

Low effort lol I agree 4:3 in 2019? Damn lazy port / remastered

[@SoundwormBite]

I personally don´t care about the backgrounds much but the removal of the analog controls is really disappointing not gonna lie.

[@strangevision99]

They did the same thing with FF9, I knew they'd do it again.

[@mikeruiger7174]

I agree, no one actually cares about the backgrounds. People just arnt happy unless they can complain about something. Look at youtube hateful comments outnumber good 9 times out of 10

[@Tenpouin]

I actually care about the backgrounds. In fact I think it's pretty one of the most important issues if you are going to remaster games like these to HD. It's very jarring to have HD models with blurred backgrounds

[@Bdashrock187]

I personally love it in spite of the flaws. This was always my favorite FF

[@paolocosejo4202]

I'll take the PS1 version. That looks like a great looking game of the era. This remaster looks like disparate assets mashed together.

[@thkarape]

It's legal to play games you own on emulators. Do that if you want the extra resolution.

[@OilFreeFeathers]

The ironic thing is that the PS1 version doesn't even look as bad as what's in this video. He was running an emulated port on a flat screen. The original release on a CRT Television looks much better than the blocky mess displayed here.

[@PlasticCogLiquid]

@@OilFreeFeathers I still think it looks better in the PS1 version. The clarity of high resolution and the smoothing of the textures wasn't how it was intended to be seen and it shows. The game appears to have more detail in the old low resolution + dithering + CRT. Just looking at them side by side I'm like "Damn." the PS1 version looks way more appealing besides the chunky pixels.

[@loweloking88]

I personally think the higher resolution models look beautiful and higher resolution backgrounds. They upgraded the pure original game unlike Resident Evil 1 which remasters to a new game essentially. It could’ve did better on the world map but when you see the higher resolution models actually in game on a big screen, they look amazing. Shiva is beautiful in the remaster

[@JutifiedGamma]

I might be in the minority here, but I'm glad they didn't graphically upscale everything. They simply cleaned up the elements that aged badly (like the heavily-pixelated character models) and preserved everything else so that it still has that nostalgic feel.

[@lokibau]

however some ai upscale of the backgrounds wouldn't hurt

[@carrefamily01]

nobody at square enix thought it was a good idea to burn a backup of the source to a cd to their multi million dollar game?

[@DijaVlogsGames]

Yeah, because CDs can’t break or get lost. Losing a source code, especially in a big company, is easier than you think. That being said, they should have had more backups, you‘re right.

[@ChaosBahamut]

At the time FFVIII was made, VERY FEW companies kept their games' source code backed up. I'm not defending it, that's just how it was.

[@Mogura87]

I'll stick to my original PS1 copy and play it on a CRT, thank you very much.

[@GeordiLaForgery]

lol ;-)

[@dookie_12]

CRT Master Race

[@__-tz6xx]

There is a CRT mod that I saw for the Steam version.

[@DrLilo]

Through RGB on a PVM the PS1 version looks absolutely stunning. Don't let that dithered low res footage fool you.

[@Mogura87]

@@DrLilo Yes that's mostly how I play my PS1 and PS2 games, RGB on PVM. You can still see the dithering somewhat on a lot of PS1 games with either S-Video or RGB but it isn't nearly as bad as direct capture on an LCD. The CRT handles the native output resolution of the console perfectly, resolves motion cleanly and adds no display lag. You'd think there would be a "better" way to play FFVIII after 20 years but ironically the technology available at the time arguably still offer the best way to play the game. I want none of that garish contrast between clean, touched up low poly models on top of blurry pre-rendered backgrounds, it all blends so much better on the PS1.

[@Evolution_Kills]

Well, looks like my personal 'definitive' version of Final Fantasy VIII will continue to be the one I have on my homebrew PSP.

[@Fernando_Ribeiro]

It looks awesome on the Vita!!!

[@AbrahamZX1]

Will play it on the Vita.

[@kinabalucat]

@@AbrahamZX1 wait for ff viii remstaster steam get fan mod

[@robertlawrence9000]

They should have asked fans to help on this remaster. There are people who could have helped give us better backgrounds. Also the censoring is annoying too. What a missed opportunity.

[@NintendoJimmy]

Square Enix is now officially infamous for bad remaster and ports...

[@chocobillysranch9205]

Infamous for outsourcing

[@datbitchkeepingitreal6712]

NintendoJimmy Save your money it’s Censored by Woke Enix New self department while also Locked at 30fps Background is still blurry Just other Cash grab

[@prophane3330]

And bad games in general. Haven't made a good game since the ps2 days.

[@datbitchkeepingitreal6712]

Prophane I thought NIER automata was good and that’s about it. Onto FF7 Remake

[@prophane3330]

@jvalex18 Tomb raider games were made by crystal dynamics and based on the sales of the recent games not many people liked them. Hitman was so bad SE had to drop the franchise, no longer theirs. Nier was made my platinum and the mmos are overpriced trash.

[@jaimegriffith8882]

Thank you, DF for all you do. I was just going to buy this blindly assuming it had to be at least as good as the original. You informed me that I was wrong. Thanks for saving me money!

[@Chocoburger]

I'll be replaying this game on my SD CRT, with my PS1 using HD Retrovision component cables. The true 'definitive edition', released all the way back in 1999! I got every Triple Triad Card back then, and I'm damn sure I'll do it again!

[@Clipper_Damez]

I've been "umm"ing and "ahh"ing over whether to get the remastered version for months now. Thanks to your descriptive, informative and comprehensive comparison, I've decided it's not worth my time or money buying the new version. If even only for nostalgia's sake, I'll stick with the original. Thank you so much for this video.

[@taidusthealien]

Anyone remember 4 discs came to play the full game when it first came out I miss those days' "Please Insert Disc 2" ....Loading

[@Zipzeolocke]

I can't wait to see what the mod community does with this remaster. I hope they make it look like something that came out in 2019, give it a huge makeover! Every texture in the game updated to something smooth and believable. I believe the most talented mod developers who work out of passion to make things look incredible

[@Punisher6791]

Ill stick to the ps1 version.

[@Mangzorz]

Lol same..

[@scooter_b123]

Ok but it's only 20 bucks and the characters and the GFs look fantastic. Its definitely worth another play through on a newer console.

[@demonheist666]

I like the original faces compared to the remastered one. :(

[@SETSUNAFSEIEI885]

Same

[@milesb.7910]

@@demonheist666 do you have glaucoma?

[@peter-r3o3v]

no, i dont want the backgrounds updated. I like that feel of walking around on a movie set, it adds a certain unexpected level of artistry that may or may not have been intended

[@noenken]

"Minimum Effort Edition"

[@uhu4677]

On point! 😩

[@yagokain4189]

The minimum effort wouldve been to port this, but these clowns actually fucked up a lot of things with this version

[@Caydiem]

@@yagokain4189 As usual then. I'm still waiting for the Final Fantasy 9 UI update which PS4 users apparently got 2 years ago. Square is just severely incompetent when it comes to remasters. I think big part of the reason is that they're constantly outsourcing them to people who have no fucking clue how to do a remaster.

[@Federelli1]

So either wait for an update to fix those issues, or buy when it's 5usd or less

[@imveryangryitsnotbutter]

I'd buy it for no more than $2.99, and only because I don't own any other PC versions.

[@prophane3330]

Or never buy anything from squareenix since they can't make good games anymore.

[@strangevision99]

Square won't fix it, all these issues are in FF7, FF9 and the earlier version of FF8 on PC. Square don't fix these things in their games, they leave that up to mods.

[@Cornyassjohnny]

Is it just me or is Squall's character model the same one from Dissidia on psp?

[@bes5164]

It was based on that Dissidia model, but I have actually no ide why since this is Final Fantasy VIII and not Dissidia...

[@OilFreeFeathers]

Yes Squall is using a Dissidia model.

[@andyhoov]

I can't wait for the full remake they'll eventually make! At this rate we should have it in... let's see... given the development time for the FF7 remake... maybe 40 years?

[@Final7111]

Thank you for this video. I love FF8, but after watching this the remaster for me is a hard pass.

[@ChrisKadaver]

It looks really odd with the sharp high-res character models and blurry backgrounds. So much I actually prefer the pixelated consistent look of the original PS1. I played this game about 6 months ago and I think the sweetspot for me was to use the smoothing filter the PS2 can enable in PS1 games. I agree that a upscaling the pre-rendered backgrounds to let say 4K with machine learning would be an upgrade. This is just a cheap way to re-release an already good enough looking game.

[@PietroYT]

This Game deserve a much better work.

[@simonvolle]

This is a very good comparison! - I watched too many videos the last few days and none of them even mentioned the fps-issues and such. So thanks for the clear explanation and comparison footage! Unfortunately I already bought this new version and I was super disappointed after playing it only for a few minutes. Well, time to wait another 20 years and MAYBE we'll get finally a new version, which comes close to the original game.

[@tigerheaddude]

Would be interesting comparing it to the emulated PS1 version, with all the bells and whistles

[@MrHakubi]

No point. That version doesn’t have any of these issues.

[@BlazeHedgehog]

I wish the remaster had an option to disable texture filtering. A lot of these textures weren't meant to be filtered, and they look better as raw pixels.

[@AnimeT0getherEU]

The original seems so much more natural. Also i wish that there was a Terranigma Remastered. : *(

[@weakneerose7614]

I was wondering why I was missing my Renzokuken timing on remastered, I never missed it on PS1 but feel like it only works 60% of time.

[@Spokker]

It's about what I expected. The new models are nice though. The whole package could have been better.

[@mortimermouse]

I think the original looks better. Chunky pixels is a visual language (i.e. retrogaming) but soft polygons with “oily” backgrounds are not.

[@mikeruiger7174]

This makes no sense the chunky pixels do not look nice, you can say you like the look of a retro look but not that it looks better. It’s nonsense

[@purpledawn2727]

@@mikeruiger7174 it's all up to taste. I kind of like that chunky look. No one can really say that one is better than the other, that depends solely on what you see as the ultimate answer. If you see realism as the definitive answer, then the remaster looks better. But if you don't think of it like that, the old version may look the best. There's not a textbook answer to this really. There's no rules to video game graphics. It's like saying bananas are better than apples. There's no proof of that, only opinions. It's the same with ff8.

[@mortimermouse]

Mike Ruiger As you already said. I can say things and I did. Makes no sense to you. You know, YOU.

[@NotOrdinaryInGames]

Hot take: a fan retranslator patch for the NTSC PS1 version is a better way to play the game.

[@LeeZard27]

I'd personally love to see an eventual complete Remake (à la FFVII).

[@armyofninjas9055]

7 isn't really a remake. It's just what they could slap together without the original assets. Making a turnbased game an action game isn't a remake.

[@FelixS.]

@@armyofninjas9055 VII wasn´t ever turn based. Menu based combat =/= turn based. ATB isn´t turn based. VII "Remake" isn´t no Remake for mechanical reasons only but especially for narrative reasons. It is a sequel, period.

[@lionheart4424]

What a great review! Certainly it hurts that we don't get a Remaster with all improvements it should have for the time. But well, at least it is still very enjoyable for fans, and the bossters are really great for cutting the grind.

[@DMitr0]

Can't wait until modders pic up squares slack by properly using ai learning upscaling to give us fiting backrounds

[@Kerrogann]

Already did it with the original version that is also available on Steam

[@DMitr0]

@@Kerrogann i even own that one, is there also comparable high poly models?

[@HoobriBoobri]

This is our only hope, except FF8 remake in 2024.

[@Johnnybomb1]

@@Kerrogann I thought that project was dead ? The mod author doesn't seem to have any plans on finishing it as of this date.

[@Brunn0121]

am i the only one who prefers low poly pixelated graphics over the ultimate hd remaster?

[@ToTheNines87368]

Brunn0121 right now the HD assets are novel to me. But I might revert back to preferring the old eventually.

[@davidosullivan9817]

The only one??, no one is saying its better...

[@backslashio]

Those blurry backgrounds are super distracting, characters don't look like they're part of the world. If they fixed that with some smart AI bg magic and fixed the battle framerate + added analogue stick support I'd buy it straight away

[@PrickSlickfield]

Pretty sure all these shortcomings can be remedied via beetle hw libretro core in retroarch. They give us no incentive to purchase this.

[@TorgoHiggins]

All of those shortcomings are okay in my book except for the menu fps. That matters in a tangible way the player can feel, especially if you like to play with the ATB set to active and the battle speed cranked up.

[@abhitron]

Playing the original version on original hardware through a CRT is the definitive way.

[@atlas8827]

hahahaha take a load of this guy

[@UttRConcrete]

I bought the OG version on psone off the square Enix store brand new

[@espartano3018]

No for the PAL version...

[@abhitron]

@@atlas8827 ;)

[@abhitron]

@@UttRConcrete Nice, enjoy :)

[@Poki3]

I thought 30 FPS menus in FF7 ports were bad, but 16? Come on :(

[@crashbandicoot5636]

The definitive version is everything and anything the modders will do to improve this game.

[@ABaumstumpf]

The textures are NOT from the PS1 version - the remaster took most things from the old steam-release, which was based on the original PC-release, which in turn had problems with the textures. That is the origin of why Balamb-Garden and other places look so bad.

[@Ingel_Riday6690]

Hm, so save the $19.99 and just play my old digital PS1 copy on my PS3? Got it. :-P Seriously though, what a disappointment. This is one of their crown jewels and they left the twenty year old backgrounds in, kept the battle frames per second to 15 FPS (!?!?!), censored several characters to placate their Western-oriented puritanical "ethics department," and effectively just re-released their buggy PC version with improved character models. If I didn't know any better, I'd think Square Enix doesn't value their own back-catalog and is just churning out subpar versions of their previous masterworks for some quick bucks... and that's depressing. Say what you will about the company, but I expected much better treatment of this franchise than what I'm seeing.

[@strangevision99]

Hey, they didn't care with FF7 or FF9, why would they start caring now? FF7 still has a music reset glitch on PS4, 4 years after release.

[@williamwen3477]

Square enix sucks dude You know it

[@Ingel_Riday6690]

@@williamwen3477 Haha, I do now! :-D Jeez, 16 frames per second during battles on a 20 year old game. That takes some doing. I've got nothing over here to defend them with.

[@Amir_97]

@Ellwood Riesing as far as I know they recreated ff8 just like ff9 was recreated with the unity engine. Also 60fps on a turn based game would look like its sped up. If you try out 60fps on the emulator then you will notice. And it looks kinda weird.

[@supersentaipepsi3736]

Only real censorship is Sirens bush, but what makes this dissapointing for me is that it's locked at 30 fps, blurry, and no new modes. Save your money and wait for Star Ocean First Departure R.

[@senateboy0909]

3:19 Oh, god that funny caterpillar.

[@JaronActual]

This is one of the reasons I still have my Voodoo2 Win98 box with Yamaha MIDI table synth.

[@SianaGearz]

OMG

[@troyBORG]

What about the Xbox One and One X, is it 1080p as well or does OneX get 4k? I'm happy with the version we got though. I remember playing the PC demo back in the day, and as I didn't have a Playstation I never got to play the game. I was able to borrow someones PS1, and game, but there Disc 2 give me many read errors, and I was only able to get to disc 3 before having to return the system so I never got to finish it. And its been so long I don't remember much about it. I do use the 3x speed alot during times when waiting for GF to summon and during there drawn out animation. I do remember turning off rumblle in the PS1 version as the amount of rumble during GF animations got quite annoying.

[@GameMasterpg]

What about the Xbox & Switch versions?

[@silentfanatic]

The analog sticks work on Xbox One X. Kind of strange to hear they don't on PS4.

[@Supersayainpikmin]

Jason X They work on PS4, too. (And Switch, I imagine). The problem is that despite a stick having 360 degrees of movement, the FF8 remaster on all systems only uses 8 directions. Mario 3D World only had 8 degrees of movement while Mario Odyssey has 360.

[@silentfanatic]

@@Supersayainpikmin Considering it's a JRPG from 1999, I can't think of many instances where it would require fine control. Granted it would be better if the sticks worked as they did on PS1, but perhaps this and rumble will be fixed later on down the line.

[@strangevision99]

Xbox, PS4, Switch are all the same. PC is too, except it has a few more cheats.

[@SolidMGSnake]

The midi music glitched into my game after I reloaded my Dollet SeeD mission save 😆.. thankfully it cleared up after the next cutscene. Also the Dolby surround track on the ps1 version sounds waay better on my 5.1 system than the remaster. No rumble..no 60 fps on the renzokuken bar..man little things like that just ruin the experience. Ah well..the 3x speed boost is nice..

[@neonfatum]

As expected, the original is still the best and only good version, just like with FFVII and IX and all the other remasters they've done. Emulate and increase internal resolution, and you have the best-looking version of those games you will ever get. And there's turbo mode and cheats too. It literally will never get better than that. Remasters, ports, and graphical mods are all trash and a waste of time and money, not to mention an utter disgrace to the legacy of these masterworks.

[@mitchlindgren]

What FFVII Remaster are you talking about? It was mentioned in the video too, but I can't find any evidence that any such thing ever existed.

[@waljaber]

DF thank you for the hard work, I appreciate every video u make, u help me lot in decisions.

[@Chimpy_Mc_Gibbon]

11:53 Squall's hand is on the wrong way around lol

[@MrEvodio65]

Wow

[@Jack-zt1sr]

Nah, he rotates his hand, that's the back of his hand facing us, so the thumb is on the right side, it's just really hard to tell.

[@escapee909909]

9-9-99 I'm in the store at 6am to grab this game straight out of the shipping boxes - this game's release was so hype, especially after playing the demo over and over for however long it was. Still own the game and the very CRT I played it on back then. S-Video was good enough for me then, and still is when it comes to "reliving" the experience. Maybe one day S-E can get something right and change my mind.

[@Yura-Sensei]

If they are not willing to redo the backgrounds, they should have just made a realistic CRT filter, maintain the original resolution and call it. Same with ff7. Looks worse than originals. How can you call yourself a professional dev and think that hd models and low resolution, blurred backgrounds is not a problem

[@nuprahtor]

CRT filter is a must when playing PSX games with pre-rendered backgrounds on non-CRT displays. I remember way back then when I first tried FF8 on PC and I thought that the game aged poorly - all the 3d models poped out of the backgrounds, the world didn't feel alive at all, it was just 3d models running on a flat plane with painted locations on it. I thought it's because I remembered the game when I was playing as a kid, and the game didn't actually look that good, but recently I tried CRT effects in RetroArch on the original PSX games and I felt like I was a kid playing PSX games for the first time again. CRT effect is really important. Final Fantasy games, Resident Evil games - I replayed every game with pre-rendered backgrounds with this effect and it really made a difference. Which makes sense - these games were made with CRT in mind, so the dithering was used, because CRT will blur out the checkered dots and make smooth looking gradients and such. I'm willing to say that the original PSX version of the game with the right CRT filters (CRT filter is not just scanlines and screen blur, it's a pretty complex thing that can be taxing on your hardware) will look infinitely better than the mish-mash of upscaled backgrounds with retouched main characters's models Kingdom Hearts-style. Though, there are no boosters in the original game, I'll give the remastered version that.

[@wedasantika6079]

Just like FF9 remaster

[@revolutionuk]

This is a great game, REGARDLESS of aspect ratio/texture issues. Whether you're a newcomer or someone who has played it before, it's an amazing experience.

[@IvanSantanaEu]

lol 15fps Congratulation, Square Enix.

[@jared1932]

The battle command speed input is wrong running only at 15fps (massive delay)while the original PS1 runs smoother than this (shown in this video), it gives me a headache and I literally throw my Xbox 360 controller because of this. The gamers that use 3x speed will not notice this. But whenever Squall uses Renzokuken, it will dial back to 15fps and that is where the player will notice it. Square Enix WTF this is my favorite Final Fantasy!

[@KaizerNYC]

Never got to beat this game when I was a kid. The highest point in the game I got to was like right after you get Irvine and then you switch to the second disc or something I think, then I'd got stuck because my disc was messed up lol and would just glitch and not work anymore. I was always extremely disappointed about this because FF7 became one of my favorite games of all time and I always had it in my heart to add FF8 to my catalog. I never got the chance to see through to whether it would go among my favorite games of all time alongside FF7 or not. One of these days, I'm gonna finally beat it tho and find out. Same thing with FF9.

[@EllaViewD]

even in 2119 square enix will still be remastering the FF games from ten years ago

[@frankiejramone]

Before narration started, I guessed Tom. Was not disappointed.

[@demonclaws3000]

Thanks for the video, didn't know that they took away the possibility for analogue movement. It's a dealbreaker for me, too bad...

[@strangevision99]

It's not quite as bad as it seems but it does suck. They did the same with FF9 though, so I'm not surprised.

[@Bynk333]

They dont took that away, they only reuse it from PC port. The full 360°directions are only on original version an PS3 port.

[@StarDragonJP]

I could be remembering wrong, but didn't it have the midi soundtrack at launch & they had to patch in the original music later?

[@irishxero]

Maybe it's just me but while playing the game during the garden invasion the game uses the midi version of the soundtrack

[@omegaweaponredux]

happens in a few places if you save, quit out and reload save. really just confirms that this a mod pack over the top of the old pc version.

[@jenniferlees6965]

What do you mean no rumble or analogue control? I’ve been playing the PS4 version since release and I’ve been using both features just fine.

[@Demoerda]

Great Video as always Tom! Will you have a chance to have a look at Fire Emblem Three Houses?

[@madfinntech]

9:20 Indeed. The 15 fps in battles in these games back in the day wasn't never a problem because the important part, navigating the battle menus were always 60 fps. Now they are 16 fps in this, EPIC FAIL!

[@dontpokethebear3893]

You guys must be busy - looking forward to Gears 5 and Divinity OS II on Switch videos!!!!!

[@dontpokethebear3893]

@@troy1993 (Gears 5) and (Divinity OS II on Switch) videos!

[@HarrisonPoindexter1]

Trovinizard Why would Gears 5 be on Switch ?? Are you serious ?

[@felipemachado7976]

I notice that the most of the background scenes in the game are a Litle bit streched from the original.. maybe to prevent flickering or just to have a wider image..

[@xmaverickhunterkx]

Thank you so much. I am so disappointed I might skip this. This is one of my favorite games of all time and I don't want to play it broken. I'd rather emulate the original and play it in HD that way.

[@rodoromero]

I'm enjoying the game a lot, but I had't played it again since the PS1 days; that said, something felt a little off from what I remember, which after seeing this video the reasons became clear: the lack of analog control and the lower framerate of the menus. This is a shame, as I can understand now being able to increase the resolution of the background images, but having less framerate for menus and losing analog controls which the PS1 version had is a little absurd. Thankfully the model updates are very nice, the gameplay is just as good, and the soundtrack hasn't lost any of its charm!

[@NightWanderer31415]

How can performance be *worse* than on PS1! It's 2019 FFS.

[@XxLiLZombyxX]

It was a excellent surprise to hear and see that there is a remaster of final fantasy 8 right after I began to play he game again on Playstation portable.

[@ismejks]

no wide screen, blurry background after 20 years.. this is lazy remaster cash grab

[@vic2rvic]

I can tolerate that, and that. But no analog controls? Come on...

[@Dex99SS]

Really great coverage... Excellent freakin job.

[@CaptainKenway]

A typically cheap and lazy "remaster" from Squenix. It's genuinely impressive that they managed to make it run worse than the PS1 version. Even the new character models are absolute trash. They look like they belong in Kingdom Hearts rather than a Final Fantasy game. Still, at least they found the time to censor Siren's model. Priorities, right?

[@DougMarv]

It makes sense, since KH graphics have a good base on FF8, u can note specially by the avatars its quite the same design.

[@Narokath]

What are the FPS and Frame Times in 3X Speed mode?

[@ThoughTMusic]

Ah DF, you know just where to tickle to make me happy. As for the remaster, how freaking hard is it to run these backgrounds through an AI upscaling program?!

[@ScoopsMG]

I'd love to see this game remade like the Final Fantasy VII remake.

[@cannabiscovepnw]

Just now picking up the game after decades ago from middle school. Comfortable w/ remastered, and at price marked down for holiday sale was exceptional. Cant wait for Triple Triad 🤣

[@phantom8906]

You're a fool

[@trigunlegato8236]

You got scammed cause you put no effort in your research before you decided to pick this up. Oh well, another few dollars wasted.

[@skippertheeyechild6621]

​@trigunlegato8236 Its worth is deemed by the person who purchased it. So if he liked it, no.

[@mother3crazy]

The FF8 remaster may suck, but at least Digital Foundry is as amazing as ever. Probably my favourite channel on KZbin now. It’s nice listening to actual experts who so clearly know their stuff.