The Problem With RPG Remasters

[@jarredcombs7603]

The ff6 issue comes from the GBA not being backlit so it was made brighter. All newer ones are built off of the GBA ones.

[@dansmith1661]

It was worse with the previous mobile version of that with the double-sized characters issue (all males have breasts) and half the graphics looking like it came from another game.

[@Sheikplays]

GBA's port can easily be fixed via mods to look darker and with snes music

[@jarredcombs7603]

@ I agree 100%. I don’t know why they keep the brighter color palette when clearly the original wanted a darker tone.

[@jarredcombs7603]

@ doesn’t the first iOS remake return it to the darker palette or is that a mod too?

[@VortexF]

Such a shame too, the GBA version is (imo) the definitive way to play it because of the post endgame content, if it didn't have the music and color problem, it could be so much better

[@rashrules05]

I agree, these remakes often have horribly clashing fonts, backgrounds and other assets that make them feel cheap and incohesive. People getting mad at others pointing this out saying they're nitpicking have the same energy as people who'd see that one Jesus fresca restoration meme (Ecce Homo) and think it's an improvement. If you want games to be treated like art, you can't be excusing botched restorations just because it's newer and shinier at the most surface level. P.S. Emulation is free, easy, can be done on your phone, and everyone should know how to do it.

[@mateobonavento3939]

I've never tried the mobile versions of the games, but I bet emulating SNES and GBA also consumes less battery than those. Plus the roms take much less storage space.

[@KingSpooky89]

The low IQ masses will always struggle to understand the truth. Sad stuff.

[@dansmith1661]

Another problem is they tend to update dialog for modern audiences and censor or even own the "chuds" like some community manager. No one cares about your personal problems.

[@bennyballs22]

Huh I wasn’t aware you could emulate on the phone. Thanks for the heads up

[@tylertrego1276]

Am I crazy for wishing these releases just INCLUDED the original? I don't care if it's just emulation, but let me buy the game and then choose if I want to play the original or the remaster. And let the emulation be just that. Emulation, with no blur filters, no speedhacks, or at least with the option to these on and off. It's sad when I can download a rom and an emulator and get a better playing game than official products in the span of 5 minutes.

[@dycedargselderbrother5353]

Honestly they should just include all the versions. Want to play the MSX Final Fantasy for some reason? Here you go. Never played the Wonderswan version and want to see the evolution into Origins and Dawn of Souls? Go right ahead. It feels like we're collectively laboring under the assumption that it's still the early 90s and we top out at a few megabytes.

[@tylertrego1276]

@dycedargselderbrother5353 that would be really cool.

[@joshuakoa9596]

Agree. It boggles me why the art forms clash with remasters. Keeps me from touching bad remasters. This video needs more views.

[@tamerkoh]

This is the reason why I preferred the PSP remakes of FF1, FF2 and FF4. When they worked to improve the graphics, it was all done by hand and is still natively pixel art, and looks gorgeous; everything is crisp as pixel art ought to be, and not blurry or crunchy looking cause it was run through a filter. FF4 PSP is the best that game has ever looked, and probably will ever look at this point. Just comparing the monster sprites alone shows you how far they were able to push the pixel art with the double resolution. I really, really wish we got FF3, FF5 and FF6 in that same style.

[@Sheikplays]

I like the 3D remakes for 3 and 4!

[@qwerty-tv9wc]

I actually prefer the original, more pixelated look

[@tamerkoh]

@ To each their own; the problem is we don't even get the option to switch on the fly, like say Tomb Raider Remastered. The original graphics for these games were designed around the limitations of the time; i.e. they could only be so detailed and so much resolution, because the hardware at the time couldn't support anything else. To me, copying and pasting those graphics borne out of the limitations of 30 years ago is the absolute laziest thing you can do, instead of taking advantage of the new hardware you're going to. That doesn't mean it has to be hyper-realistic 3D or anything, but the PSP remakes' graphics are exactly the bare minimum I'd expect: Faithfully try to improve the quality of the graphics while retaining whatever actual stylistic choices were not from technical limitations at the time (like the chibi characters on the overworld, and slightly less chibi in battle thing, which all the PSP remakes retain). Quality of life improvements like making the menus snappier and the game 60 FPS, etc. Otherwise, we can quite easily play the originals in some form these days, so there's no need to copy and paste them exactly as they were with no attempts at improvements.

[@everythingisterrible8862]

@@tamerkoh If you 'improve' them too much, they cease being the same game. At that point, just make a new game for crying out loud...

[@tamerkoh]

@@everythingisterrible8862 Because for the average player, if the core gameplay mechanics are virtually the same (it's still a turn-based RPG instead of action RPG), the level design is the same, the puzzles and their solutions are the same, then it is for all intents and purposes, the same game! It's not rocket science guys, there's a reason why people will generally go for definitive versions of games, and not just go play the original. The original is NOT always better, especially in the cases where they're straight up broken like FF1 NES and Pokemon Gen 1. There's very good reasoning why people consider FireRed the definitive way to play Kanto.

[@livinlicious]

The problem with these pixel style remasters or even new games, is they dont understand what the originals actually did. Think of FF6 at the time of release. Or Chrono Trigger. Back when it came out, and was displayed on CRT with the correct intended output methods, these pixel graphics looked like drawned Manga/Cartoon. The developers made the best graphics that was available to them, and it wasnt "just" pixels. It was thinking of the CRT output as well. So that it looks correct and working WITH THE LIMITATIONS OF THE TECHNOLOGY. These remakes, use the looks we have been used by EMULATION on LCD screens. We have been forcefed that this was what it looked like. Im a bigger fan of ROM Hacks that restore and fix old games. Then run them through a flashcart, or Retroarch with proper CRT scaling. Thats what these games were developed with as intended. Most remakes just make blocky pixels and tell you "this is correct". Correct is a cartoonish/mangalike look for most JRPGs from that era. Manga was ALWAYS what they wanted to archive, but the technology was limited. Look at screenshots of Chronotrigger Art from Akira Toriyama and you can see how the pixels are designed to look as much as possible like the Artwork.

[@everythingisterrible8862]

The modern CRT filters that actually recreate the three bars on a screen and their black space are so, so much better than the disgusting vaseline filters. I have no idea what kind of perverts enjoy those things. People who have a pathological hatred against colored rectangles? Then why are they playing a game made up of colored rectangles?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! question mark exclamation mark

[@hnorrstrom]

Yes, the games never looked pixelated back then they looked realistic in colours and how they blended into each other. It would actually be more correct to remake them in a higher resolution so you don't see individual pixels. Really I like to have some natural blur into my games.

[@MaximumAddition]

Funny you say that, Kazuko Shibuya went on record saying that the new sprites for the Pixel Remasters were made with LCD screens in mind hence the palette differences. She's the same artist who did the pixel art for the originals, so if anyone knows her art direction, it's probably her. She also handled the mobile ports, so for all we know the brighter look could be what she wanted out of the SNES originally and used CRTs to achieve that, while we're used to the darker emulated look with the raw colors they might've not been the actual intent

[@FarelTheGiraffe]

Fine video, but I don't feel equally negative towards all these examples and I think an important factor is often the availability of the game. To offer a different example: Romancing SaGa 2's remaster was like a slam dunk from the get go, as it was a game that couldn't even get a fan-translation for so many decades (unlike Romancing SaGa 3). FF6 being a game that was already available in English on the SNES, and had so many re-releases after to begin with creates a situation where the expectations are far higher and people tend to be far less forgiving......... which is fair, don't get me wrong! I'm not trying to defend that mess. I just wanted to make a point that players can hold different titles to different standards depending on the circumstances.

[@Frustratedartist2]

It annoys me that people are *not* annoyed with the font issues. The font is a giant red stop sign in these remasters, indicating all the other wrongs. Video games are a form of art. Every design choice matters. If an ugly modern font is inserted into a pixelated game, it's out of place, it ruins immersion, it makes you constantly remember that "this is a remake". If the corporations are not willing to put in the hours (minutes, really) to find a proper font, that will make me - as a fan for decades - not feel like I've been duped, then I'm not willing to put in hours of work to buy their half-assed remaster.

[@everythingisterrible8862]

I feel nothing but contempt for the skinny fonts. I, too, cannot understand someone who can look at the FF remakes' stat screens that are 95% empty space, where you have to use binoculars to line up a stat number with it's label. Whitespace is supposed to be *balanced*.

[@freddychopin]

But there's no Chrono Trigger remaster. There's a shitty-ass mobile port, but in no way is it a remaster. The word "remaster" is thrown around too much. We need more nuance.

[@JoshWiniberg]

Agree, and it works the other way too - games that are getting rebuilt from the ground up are also getting called remasters (like the pixel remasters, they aren't remasters at all).

[@PearOfTwos]

I really don't understand why Square has such a problem with making a proper modern remaster of FF6 or Chrono Trigger, when they're more than willing to throw so much energy at FF7.

[@cabbusses]

This might be a hot take, but I feel like this is also true of whenever a modern rerelease of a game "modernizes" the font with an HD one. (This applies to many remasters but also even to things that are supposed to be a bit more true to the original like Battle Network Legacy Collection.) Like, what's the point? It's not like the text was hard to read before. Now it's just changed to something which screws up the entire pixel art aesthetic.

[@everythingisterrible8862]

Argh, what was really crappy was the font in the Japanese re-release of the Etrian Odysseys was perfectly fine and good. But in the english version its that narrow doo-doo thing they all love to do because they're sickos. Looking at the menu screens of the FF remasters makes me feel like puking. Just massive, empty space sitting there doin' nuthin' for noone, aside from making it hard as hell when you have to crack out the binoculars to line up which number matches with the "Strength" stat or whatever.

[@xxnike0629xx]

Honestly I don't think any of these visual changes are _that_ bad. The thing is, I think it's more important that these classic JRPGs are available (digital and physical) on more modern platforms. The additions they do for things like modernization and quality of life ... I think they're a welcome thing.

[@MaximumAddition]

I'm gonna disagree on Romancing 3, it's a damn good job, the background illustrations are gorgeous, and respecting the original sprites is a great decision. I really disagree with the complaints, it works pretty damn well. Completely disagree on that. I think it's stupid to say "not much thought was put into it" when development isn't something just done on a whim, Kawazu loves his game, and that love reflects in the remasters. Completely disagree there. Edit: and regarding FFPR, the fun part is that the pixel artist... is the same as the originals, Kazuko Shibuya. She has gone on record saying the differences in sprites are mainly due to her actively working for either CRTs or LCD screens, she said the new ones are the way they are due to the new displays she's working for.

[@orangelimesky]

There's something just magical about how the earlier pixel art looked so much better because of hardware limitations, and now it looks like shit because there are no hardware limitations. What is that about huh?

[@thatdanjamesguy.330]

It’s like the original games are bursting out of its limited hardware, shouting its name through the rooftops in order to let you know it exists. The remakes are deliberately constraining themselves on capable hardware. It’s a different feel, even if the actual art is almost identical.

[@orangelimesky]

@thatdanjamesguy.330 yeah but tbh realistic graphics aren't really that impressive. Like ff7 remake for example. Is it pretty? Hell yeah but am I going to remember anything about it 20 years later? No way. But these pixel art games that were done decades ago are still so memorable. So is any game with a distinct art style. Okami from PS2 comes to mind as well so does metal gear solid. So ya today's hardware limitations seem infinite but only when it's low res but for high graphics it's still very limited but I don't think games are meant for realism

[@mightza3781]

People also gloss over that a lot of the original pixel art for these games were intended to be displayed on CRTs. Dithered waterfalls and lighting look off on modern displays, but on a CRT the pixels blend to create translucent effects. It's why GBA pixel art seems to have aged better; they were from the ground up designed for LCDs.

[@dansmith1661]

It also ran slowly and with lots of hiccuping frames. Keep those hardware limitations in the past, I want games that respect my time and not flashbang my eyes.

[@orangelimesky]

@@dansmith1661 I wasn't talking about the CPU performance I was strictly talking about the colors and art style used

[@SeraphCircle]

i super passionately love the way the romancing saga 3 remaster looks and i am defensive about it lol also, I think the OG art direction on FF6 was really spectacular and I dislike it on the Pixel Remaster, but it's clearly not shading of an "unskilled pixel artist"*, it's simply an entirely different artstyle that focuses on softness, low contrast, pastel-like palettes with universal lighting. it would work wonders on another game. it's just it's so opposed to the vibe of ff6. but i still think it's a great case study, just wish they would release the original SNES rom + emulator as a legal alternative, bundled with the game, instead of tauting it as the "definitive version" but yeah, i have to say, most of these examples are absolutely not "lack of skill", it's just an art direction, that oftentimes is clearly clashing with the ideas of the original game, but other times are just disliked due to personal taste. Once again, I think the Romancing SaGa series does spectacularly with its painterly backgrounds - they went from looking like pixel art to sort of looking like Poster Paint anime backgrounds - and the UI is cute. Unlike the UI in the Pixel Remasters, which is really bad. But, there's no inherent need to make "pixel art characters blend in with HD backgrounds", they're just different, valid mediums that can be used together, like we've been doing with mixed media in art for the better part of a century, now. In fact I think it's way worse when games use pixel assets scaled incorrectly or with clashing palettes (case in point: the godawful pixel font in the pixel remasters). If your game has a coherent internal set of rules - all characters look like this, backgrounds like that, interface like this - it'll look better than, say, soooo many indie games trying to look "retro" by imbuing pixel fonts and portraits and backgrounds and scaling everything badly with clashing palettes... *the pixel artist for the pixel remasters is Kazuko Shibuya, the woman who invented JRPG pixel art as we know today - she's the pixel artist for most of the FFs 1-6, Romancing SaGa and so many other classic Squaresoft titles. She's a boss

[@tylertrego1276]

I definitely agree, the pixel remasters just seem to be going for a different art style than the original. Moreover, I feel like they're going for a cohesive art style so that all the games will have a similar look with eachother. It's not the way I'd have gone about it but I don't think it ruins the games.

[@Aries_Aria]

Even an option to use the original character sprites would be awesome (patch the game that way). And add the bonus dungeons as DLC Considering they did that with the original OSTs

[@SeraphCircle]

@ ah yeah, that would be awesome - i think it's a wasted opportunity that they didn't expand on the gameplay in any way, and i'm hoping they revisit with that in mind after a while. In fact, I think they should make more games with the Pixel Remaster engine, starting by porting FF Dimensions and FFIV-2, then developing something original. That's how Dimensions, 4-2, 4 Heroes of Light and Bravely Default were born after all!

[@mateobonavento3939]

I don't mind the new character sprites that much, it's the clashing backgrounds, UI and horrible fonts that are the real dealbreaker for me and make me go back to the SNES/GBA versions when I replay the games. IMHO in the ones that I tried (the Final Fantasies and RS3) the only thing that needed an update was the music, everything else being the way it is due to hardware limitations aged very well. If that wasn't the case, we wouldn't have so many games trying to replicate that 90s pixel art charm.

[@nfistfu]

It's good to see someone else understands this, the term that I've been using for it is Visual Identity, and I definitely feel as though a lot of these remasters don't understand that some of these elements make a game feel how it does. It also makes me wonder about games that I've played the remake of thinking it's the "better" version and what other little details like this they missed

[@luisoncpp]

Hmm, you mentioned AI upscaling several times but I'm not sure those examples were really AI upscaling, they seem more like classic emulator filters imho. The Persona 3 drawing of Junpei doesn't seem like an upscale at all, it seems like the original drawing re-scanned with higher resolution, which sound cool but in practice it looks ugly (they did that with the original trilogy of Ace Attorney), because arists generally draw something with certain amount of detail that is meant to be displayed at certain size, but looking at it closer you start to notice low detail in certain parts, or some imperfections in individual lines.

[@funghiiii]

Finally someone is adressing this ongoing issue with remasters of old pixel art games. They are clashing styles with these ugly modern UIs and mixels. Pixel Art games are an artform, every aspect of it adds to the experience. When I see something like Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster it is headscraching to me how they ruined the perfect cohesive style. great video

[@RwnEsper]

So, last year a remaster of Wizardry 1 released. It uses literally the exact same code as the original, to the point where you can swap between the original art and the new art on the fly at any time. I'd love to see more remakes use this as a blueprint for how to "do it right".

[@VitalVampyr]

Doing it that way it wouldn't be a remake. A remake is when they make a new game based on the old game. It could be extremely similar to the original (i.e. Demon's Souls) or extremely dissimilar (i.e. Final Fantasy VII). If they take the old game and update the graphics it is a remaster. Remasters might also add stuff, fix bugs, and/or rebalance.

[@joshp082385]

Yes, Diablo 2 resurrected same as well.

[@tylertrego1276]

wonder boy and the dragon's trap on switch is one of my favorite remasters. One button and the graphics change. It's so fun to compare how they changed things up and the new art style fits the game so well, too.

[@mmpsp693]

Many games do this

[@RoninCatholic]

@@tylertrego1276 I love how for that one, the art assets guys admitted they couldn't, on their budget, do one of the things the original did: Having the character's sword and shield remain on the correct side of the sprite depending on which way you face. So instead the visual remaster mode adds a quick animation of the hero swapping his sword and shield between his hands when you change facing from left to right!

[@kleev6576]

I hate the FF Pixel Remaster sprites :( those color palettes... and the bright maps. UGH

[@Terranigma23]

So true for FFVI. Like I can't understand how the dev look at their pixel art character and said "nice job much better than the the original one" lol. Now they all look like "so white". It's so weird ahah.

[@scorpp149]

Greed killed the videogame industry, a handful of greedy cockroaches with 0 passion are the ones making those remasters, what do you expect?

[@axh2083]

It’s a crime how there aren’t more views for this channel??? Like these are high quality videos!

[@Hyreia]

Right off the bat, THANK YOU. I thought I was the only one who didn't like the way some of these remastered looked. I'll comment again after I watch the video, but my main gripe is the inconsistent mismatch of art styles. I'm not talking 2D sprites with 3D backgrounds. I'm talking these ultra high def 60fps magic spells going off on mostly untouched Yoshitaka pixel art, on a background that looks like a (static) painting. Then they decide to change the the character sprites too so that they're consistent with the art style they're doing with this remaster series. FFIV has moments where beautifully crisp water effects lap up on a overly detailed ship with 'off' character sprites. We won't even talk about the font choices. I get it, Apple made them use certain types of fonts, there's patches and updates to switch to something better now. Whatever. I just want everything in the game to look like it's from the same game. Instead of feeling like a ""remaster"" it looks more like it was assembled from various places to imitate a different game.

[@baconlabs]

Here's to hoping Locke made it off the road before the bus to Threed came barrelling through

[@pixaafterdark9915]

Dude came out wasted after he saw what the remaster looked like.

[@redtide89]

Good video! The fact that most people (not some; most) don't or can't notice a difference is what bothers me. Almost all of these remasters look like hot garbage (to me). Very, very few of them feel like an actual improvement for a perfect experience. GBA ports of many SNES titles were sometimes okay (best version of FFV, arguably), but virtually everything for steam, mobile devices, or modern consoles are simply not. GBA to maybe NDS levels of graphical fidelity for good-looking pixel art is about as good as pixel art has ever looked. Fonts, backgrounds, and even musical arrangement choices are horrendous and unprofessionally. I'd honestly like companies and people in general to take more responsibility for this level of unprofessional-ism.

[@andyblargextra]

Someday I wish to get a remake of Secret of Evermore.

[@pixaafterdark9915]

Man, I gotta review that game sometime since you mention it so much lol

[@rpm4513]

Very much agree, and it bugs me that reviewers are so lenient towards these issues. Reading Steam reviews for these games, it often seems like people played the game for an hour and then reviewed their memories of the original rather than the product they've just paid for. The bar has been set so low when it comes to remasters, publishers should be getting absolutely slammed for it.

[@MrVariant]

Lower prices and quality of life help a ton. Dq3 is overpriced for what they bastardized but PC mods undo the damage. I do miss new features but when it's cheap enough, I'll live.

[@bananonymouslastname5693]

It's probably because so few truly outstanding games come out that all these remasters seem better even with all their flaws.

[@MrVariant]

@bananonymouslastname5693 "outstanding" games are fairly common given the sheer multitude, or my astro bot profile pic 🤖. Most just need a price drop and time to cook 🍳 like fallen aces. Was glad to be a prince of persia fan last year and get 2 games that got much better with updates, and the launch wasn't abysmal. I will miss purple prince in the rogue.

[@Dbentzjr]

I feel that before making any new remasters, the new devs should have a sit and chat with the remaining old devs to discuss how to approach these new remasters. I mean, at least if they want to keep selling us this stuff at anything upwards of $20 a pop. I would not take it lightly when I shell out full price for a game to discover that it uses mobile assets, especially when the OG assetts can be used or improved upon. Other issues arise like janky screen scrolling, and disappointing text overlays on the "imporved upon" ui among other weirdness in many of these modern ports of old classics. Then theres the censorship of artwork and dialogue that changes the entire atmosphere. Teamwork makes the dream work.

[@JB-mm5ff]

With the pixel remasters I bet they finished 5 and moved on to 6 and because 5 is so bright and pastel their artists were on that tip. FF6 should be dark, with fog and metal pipes, etc. etc.

[@hnorrstrom]

Indeed. FF6 is fog, rain, steam and mist. It is always dirty and dark and blurry when I think of the world. I don't get it. Bright colours only belong to Kefkas dress the rest of the game should have natural colours that blend together.

[@riversart2030]

Ok, I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks this. I don't like the way any of the Final Fantasy games look on the Pixel Remaster thing. At first I thought it was maybe just because they looked different than the versions I grew up with but nah, seeing them side by side like this they definitely look worse. It's too bad, it would have been nice to have a way to play these games on modern hardware in HD. Oh well, thankfully I have an NES and a SNES, but for anyone who doesn't I would recommend emulation over this.

[@deatho0ne587]

I agree with you but actually have some of the same issues with SO2 remake. Mostly with character sprites vs background clashing enough (monster at 0:23 or 0:24 for example, but even happens with the characters enough for me). You are right about Pixel Remasters. Though I do like the lighting at 8:44 but that is due to the magic that is going on at that time in the game. Live A Live is still the best looking remake/remaster to me.

[@WilliamScavengerFish]

A big problem with with remasters...things that don't need fixing get fixed.

[@mielthesquid6536]

FF6 remaster is really bright indeed but the screen tearing is what killing me for me, it runs better on my snes lol.

[@tylertrego1276]

I was able to fix the screen tearing on ff1 remaster by forcing vsync in my GPU settings. Though the option really should just be available in game.

[@Aries_Aria]

the FF6 PR does have some flaws when it comes to the brightness and the Pixels themselves, but comparing it to the (god awful) Steam/iOS release, its still miles better. The SNES (and GBA) versions are still the pinnacle versions of the game however. The redone OST does have a few disappointing tracks, some of them were favorites in the original (Techno de Chocobo and Magitek Factory were REALLY noticeable to me)

[@RikoF1]

I'm going through FF VI and one of the reasons I picked the GBA version (with palette fix mod) was the sprites being like the originals. Out of all the FF PR I think I will only play the III which didn't get released for the GBA.

[@lutherh2511]

This is a good video because it talks about what many reviews gloss over as if it’s not a problem. UI is part of the graphics of every game. When that looks bad it makes the whole game look bad. And it’s a shame when remasters/remakes change/modernize it without considering how the new look blends in with the old art.

[@JeremieFriez]

It's sad that they don't always offert to option to play with the original graphics and music... I prefer to keep playing these old FF and Chrono games on my psx and my ps vita..

[@Azuris190]

Yeah, i agree, i dislike that they break the Style between Characters and Background.

[@sesamisten]

Agree with pretty much everything! I've always had a gripe with the aspect ratio in these remasters and remakes. Most games were originally made specifically for 4:3, and I feel like it generally works a lot better for framing. In a lot of these old RPGs the characters are quite small, so when you expand it out to 16:9 you end up with a lot of awkward empty space.

[@MHChrono]

Mixing pixel art resolutions never fails to look like ass. Pixel art and cel shading are style choices that age well, and I wish more remakes/remasters would value the original art more. p.s., half the time you saying 'shading' sounds like you're saying 'shiding', maybe slow down a bit and enunciate (unless this a joke about how the shading is also ass)

[@nad613]

Yeah, I modded the hell out of FFVI PR before I even booted it, it was looking rough.

[@dragtogo2735]

Almost every JRPG remaster sucks then their original counterpart. I think Lunar Collection looks really good since the sprites are the same but the backgrounds are ugly(whisper modding can fix that). Everything else needs a overhaul and boy is it need better design back to good old days or understand art visually. It's a crying shame that Japanese developers now lack art direction then in the past. Oh and RIP Akira Toriyama a truly one legend of many good examples of art directions. Welp maybe those new developers younger generations can get smarter but since it's all about money they know to choose the cheapest ones.

[@bringbackmy90s]

I only play the originals on SNES. Remasters suck

[@mielthesquid6536]

In general, SaGa games while not being perfect remaster/remakes are way beyond the quality of FF games which is surprising. I agree that those backgrounds do not match the sprites but it's the easiest good way to do it without very high budget. Pixelated backgrounds on a huge modern screen doesn't look good to a lot of people. That's why I keep playing on CRT for most of my retro games. But RS3 Remaster still looks far better than what they did for FF7 and its blurry background and sharp character models. Suikoden backgrounds looks even worse than RS3 though, very plastic looking. The upcoming Lunar remasters seems to look better at first glace, maybe because they didn't redraw the backgrounds and only added some effects on them?

[@LucasKamui]

t's a good idea to address this topic, but part of what you mentioned is something more personal, I particularly like how the scenarios in the Romancing Saga 3 Remaster are as they are now, some people think they don't match the character sprites very well, but I like it and there are certainly other people who like it too

[@n0refuge]

I really enjoy and prefer the Pixel remasters of all the classic FF games.

[@YTSMOKY]

So I'm playing Chrono Trigger on mobile, I'm buying this game since this game got a sale at that time, I can say the only thing that weird is Crono sprite characters, yeah it's looks weird now, but I don't have a problem with that, if I need to choose I'm just going to Mobile Version and Ds Version, since I don't have a PC though

[@Aries_Aria]

the Mobile version is the version they have for Steam as well. So its not like theres any real difference iirc? And those were both based on the DS release iirc? And DS version was released with the PS1 stuff

[@LordShrub]

​@@Aries_AriaThey fixed the PC version due to fan complaints. Did they also backport the fixes to the mobile version?

[@galacticwooper9060]

I hate the widescreen of the pixel remasters because it makes the enemy sprites look pathetically small

[@Teddy-k5y]

Damn I just bought the collection this week too 😭 Edit: Thanks for reinforcing my decision to try out LUNAR and get it on release.

[@RonaKurona]

I thought most of FF6 PR looked great (Zozo in particular) but the overworld did feel a bit too bright.

[@FoxFireUnlimited]

Be worried about Lunar...they're re-doing the voices, and they're not the original cast.

[@agentbuckshot4697]

Reshade is all you need; CRT shaders have come a long way in replicating the intended look of old pixel games on modern displays

[@everythingisterrible8862]

I hate most of them mostly because... what's the point? You can play the originals. If they were good then, they're still good now. It's just a massive waste of manpower: Which would I rather have? Yet ANOTHER re-re-re-release of FF 1 to 6? Or... 3 new Final Fantasy games, with a pixel artstyle? It's not even close for me, fam. There's a reason Octopath Traveler did so well. Early in a console's lifecycle, and an art style that the market is NOT serving to people. That's a reason why mobile games are so popular: I know I loved the hell out of Granblue Fantasy because everything *wasn't* an imaginary polygon floating in the middle of the air. It felt like a successor to Final Fantasy 6, from the art to the music to the airship stuff, etc. But with Final Fantasy in particular, I especially loathe there's no 'definite' version of these games. Make some new games instead, darn it. (Ugh at some of the shovelware they churned out on the DS. The SaGa 3 'remake' was NOT SaGa 3, it used their SaGa 2 remake engine and system. The Dragon Quest Monsters 'remakes' were not Dragon Quest Monsters 1+2, they were Joker games that had somewhat similar storylines of the first two games, which were the weakest aspects of those games. All of which could have been new, fresh, fun games at an equivalent amount of cost, instead of shovelware.)

[@jmarx3943]

The ff pixel remasters don't look good at all, but i do like the quality of life upgrades. Being able to gain more or less money, exp, or ap in ff6, not to mention the ability to turn off encounters is a Godsend.

[@FourthIdentity-gu2zk]

I'm not gonna lie, I have to turn the brightness up on most games I play just so I can see what I'm doing because my eyesight is just...not great. So i like the turned up brightness. That being said, I get the fans frustration too, and I definitely understand the whole ambience and atmosphere thing, so they should have given the option to adjust the brightness, or switch between the new graphics and the old

[@theincrediblegeneral5135]

Thank you so much for the ff6 spoiler warning.. I've been needing to play it and i don't want it spoiled lmao

[@jamesonwhite167]

PEAK POSTED!!!

[@RoninCatholic]

FF1's pixel remaster looks better than the GBA version if, for no other reason, than that they _didn't_ just completely throw out the Thief's aesthetic as a blue haired elf man. Why did all the previous remakes think I'd want my blue haired elf to be replaced with just some kid in a green bandana?

[@scotthughes7745]

I think they should make a law saying all remasters of old rpgs must be done in HD-2D 😂 I'm a sucker for them

[@Dug88]

Having just finished the pixel remaster of FF5 not long ago I was thinking well it didn't look that bad and then you showed the footage of FF6. Wow that's bad. I was considering playing through the pixel remaster version but after seeing that I think I'll skip it. I felt kind of mixed about the music in the FF5 remaster. Some of it I liked but some of it just didn't sound right. I'm also still not sure how I feel about their choice of adding electric guitars. They're not terrible but it just felt kind of wrong to have them there. For some reason I didn't mind them as much in the FF1 remake though. The FF1 remake killed all challenge and difficulty though even though it brought back spell slots.

[@tsunaxsawada10]

Just play through FF6 PR. They made some few graphical updates that weren't mentioned in the video for some reason.

[@animesjogoseseriesclassica8282]

We need more like the Live A Live one. Wait, that is a remake, i think.

[@StewNWT]

I think the art for the Suikoden remasters looks amazing, love the colour saturation, but MAN the generic anime-ization of the character portraits is just awful. The original SUikoden 1 had the best unique distinctive watercolour/art brush style character portraits and now the characters are all generic anime forms.

[@slarbiter]

Ff6 snes cartridge emanates a mystical aura

[@DuskusCB]

I can’t see anything past all this bloom

[@EmpHighwind]

The Pixel Remasters are the most offensive because they cut the new content from GBAver. with the excuse of being more faithful to the originals, while not being faithful at all with the whole rebalance which even alienates from the original experience, especially when you also have those cheat buttons on top of that.

[@rainyjay8156]

Good video I agree the romancing saga 3 does look a bit odd. Also agree with live a live looking good :) . This was a nice watch and so are your other videos. Keep it up:) thanks for the video

[@JamesNolasco]

This is the issue I had with the star ocean second story remaster. The environments were a lot more charming on the ps1

[@eproductions5115]

Interestimg video Hoping that rom 3 gets the 3d remake treatment soon, 2 was fantastic this year

[@Mingodough]

Thank god someone said it.

[@wizcatcheslightning]

Where are you getting these sprite backgrounds from in your transition scenes?

[@tyle111]

Bro can’t stop putting out bangers fr

[@Qvmmy]

they look like a flash games

[@alexclaton]

the pixel remasters all used ff5 sprites as a template. which is why it looks fine for 1-5 but terrible for 6.

[@Ghalta_The_Unknowable]

What's the game at 11:42? It looks awesome and I kinda want to play it

[@pixaafterdark9915]

Star Ocean the second story R

[@Ghalta_The_Unknowable]

@@pixaafterdark9915 Thanks!

[@lukeautosymbol2668]

It wasn't broke, but they went and "fixed" it anyway... Great video. I feel you on a lot of this stuff. I retro almost exclusively, so it's interesting to see what's happening with the remasters. And great editing. Although if you do content like this in the future, more examples side-by-side in the same frame/shot would help out a lot.

[@brentonbuchanan8445]

Itwas nitpicky until you got to ff6 remaster. I was not very happy about its art direction or music and i hadn’t even finished the original

[@Zarathustra-rj4yz]

Romancing saga 3 is amazing i can't wait for the 3d version

[@pixaafterdark9915]

I got romancing saga 2 3D remake and still have yet to play it. Super excited to boot it up though!

[@HPRshredder]

Great video man

[@jamessmith-ht5ce]

Umm the first one looks like the remaster is better. And just get it on sale.

[@suokkis]

If you buy pc version, these can be fixed with mods.

[@carlosnieto3042]

What's the game at 0:16?

[@pixaafterdark9915]

Live a live remaster

[@bustergundo516]

Is it on PC or any other console?​@@pixaafterdark9915

[@MrCarnage781]

What are the games at 0:17 and 0:43 ??

[@pixaafterdark9915]

First one is live a live remaster. Second is romancing saga 2 hd version.

[@BunjiKugashira1990]

Maybe don't point it out then? Find joy in simple things

[@StewNWT]

ALL the FF Pixel remasters look terrible to me, esp 4 5 and 6. The lighter characters, the lack of outlines, and the god awful font and UI choices. And yeah some of the remasters of the music isn't great

[@YamatoFukkatsu]

Nice, respect given to Streetpass Mii Plaza. Yeah, it does feel like Final Fantasy 6 lost a large part of what made it so great. On the upside, however, it's a massive improvement from that absolutely AWFUL mobile and PC version. I don't care if the sprites are based off of the instruction book artwork, their execution was just horrible, and it's especially sad to think that, prior to Pixel Remaster, that was the version being pushed on modern platforms (well, really just mobile and Steam, but still). And like you said, it's good that it's becoming more accessible again in some form...... a far from perfect form, but still far better than one of the alternatives.

[@YamatoFukkatsu]

You know, I just remembered another problem with the color choices in 6's Pixel Remaster version: Shadow. They give the guy so many bright blue parts, you'd think he has a sapphire attached to his forehead. Huge difference from his SNES sprite which, while having a bit of blue, it doesn't contrast near so much with his overall dark color scheme (one which initially fit his name quite well).

[@mxx720]

If you played JRPGs on the PS1, you were used to assets and art styles clashing. They all had blocky 3D models on top of pre-rendered backgrounds. FF7 had beautiful environments, but Cloud was made out of like 8 polygons. I get the argument for older games with pixels, but you can use mods to fix those for the most part.

[@Staff7]

This is definitely a zoomer take . Romancing saga is excellent as a remake.

[@CIA_Informant_number_8629]

... "I like the old version" ZOOMER. If you are going to say bland buzzwords, at least use them correctly. Why would it be a zoomer take to like the old version of something.

[@helloofthebeach]

10:05 I don't agree with this. You _can_ right your wrongs and undo your mistakes. All it takes is climbing into an attic and voluntarily getting killed by mutant rats after not saving for 20 hours. Something to keep in mind for climate change.

[@andrew_stamps]

Even the DQ3 remake has so many issues. The changed the sprite style, and the battle UI is always over your hero. Here a tip if your UI needs a hide UI button you've done something wrong. on top of that damage numbers appear on the right instead of where your players are. I feel like they cut corners so they wouldn't have to animate the attacks and reactions for the player sprites... So they zoom in to hide them before the action takes place. I like the remake but it really could have been better. It's not like it would've been all that expensive to add in the extra animations and better UI.

[@dansmith1661]

And heavily censored too.

[@EmpHighwind]

not only that, but for a "HD-2D" game it looks too 3D makes the overworld feels lacking of camera rotation, not a big fan of the trinkets on the overworld and I hate the dungeon that replaces the GBCver medal dungeon, and why did they remove the sugoroku board game?

[@ianbraun271]

At least the Romancing Saga 3 remaster isn't 60 like the Dragon Quest 3 remaster.

[@Aries_Aria]

DQ3 HD-2D was rebuilt from the ground up, so I can see why its $60

[@Mystwarrior1]

so better or worse graphics......some times trying to hunt down those SUPER GREAT games from yesteryear is gunna cost u about 2 full paychecks.....alternatively. remake it, slap a "new" on it, and now everyone born in 2000+ can access that game thats (now) 30+ yrs old. also im not a big fan of the ff6 design remake. but its probably cuz their entire budget went into the Opera scene. >.>

[@QMMarc]

You touched on the FFI-VI and how some of them are alright, but none of them are, imo, not for the same reasons you touched. To me, the bigger issue is the erasure of art progression and evolution. I always liked how FFI looked originally, it's quaint in a charming way, to me, I would rather it keep that look while having the QoL and Widescreen, cause, it's cool to see how shit evolved, how techniques evolved, animation too, but they made this homogenous blob that's just, idk, i'll say it, lazy. It's just trying to make it palatable for all audiences, sure, but, maybe i'm crazy, maybe i'm the only schmuck that cares, but seeing where something start to where it ends is super fun to me. Of course there are mods that kinda do it, but, its so lazy man, i know its more work, i get it, having a bunch of different looks for the games seems too much, but this is a big fucking company which is often making big fucking money, and, its not like these classic FFs are that big to make that work impossible. Fuck, there's that tech where some remasters are using where the new graphics are an overlay, making it easy to toggle between old and new, just something like that would be neat, you'd still have to get the original look to work widescreen, sure, but, its not impossible.

[@machiiiiiiiiii]

6:50 This is the sprite from the pre patched version of the game. The patched sprite looks more in line with the original with darker highlights I think it looks pretty good.

[@ryanbarlay6595]

Playing Chrono for the first time rn, stuck on that bastard with the respawning hands

[@vigo2669]

Giga Gaia? Yeah that asshole is brutal. GL to you!

[@شخصشخصاخر]

Id say that the ff4 and 5 PRs look ugly too

[@arkgaharandan5881]

as someone who has not played any of these game sand i saw screenshots, the final fantasy remasters look to me like octapath traveler, meaning that the colors are off, they have too much saturation and contrast and they are shinny and reflective, like you are using those fallout and skyrim enb mods.

[@dan47483]

FF6 pixel remaster is an absolute travesty. It looks terrible.

[@MalditoSeasEstadoDelsrael]

I despise the look of the unreal engine 2d-3d games. It's so low effort

[@chafacorpTV]

why are they selling rpgmaker slop as remasters nowadays that look significantly worse than your average kemco slop? No wonder square enix is in financial troubles right now god damn.