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The Nintendo Thread of Existential Doom

Regulus

Regulus

Sir Knightbot
As I recall, a lot of the source assets for the PS1 Final Fantasy games were simply lost, and it would be prohibitively expensive to recreate them. Fans have recently stepped in and used AI-based upscaling to improve the backgrounds in the Steam ports, and it appears that Square Enix may be trying their hand at the same now. Unless they just happened to have SaGa and Mana assets lying around, I guess.
 
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WisteriaHysteria

WisteriaHysteria

balder the brave said:
I don’t understand your point. They’re all PS1 games.
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People's god damned watches these days have more computational power than a PS1. Asking the PS1 to emulate SNES wasn't hard per say, but also wasn't remotely optimal. Meanwhile you're comparing an SNES port on PS1 to games developed natively for the PS1, they're not exactly comparable?
balder the brave said:
FF Tactics, Grandia, etc. had portraits. I feel like this lesson was learned in the PS1 generation.
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Octopath felt like it was trying to be a 16-bit game on purpose, which most of those kinds lacked character portraits during dialog. You're citing 32-bit games, which I agree were great and preference for emulation, but it wasn't exactly what Octopath was going for imo.
 
Issun

Issun

Chumpy
(He/Him)
I'm really hoping Chrono Cross and Threads of Fate get remasters, too. Do the whole Summer of Adventure!

And, dare I hope, a Xenogears remaster? Pweassse?
 
Sarge

Sarge

hardcore retro gamin'
I assume balder is talking about the PSX games (i.e. FF7-9) and not the emulated Final Fantasy games on PS1. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.
 
nataeryn

nataeryn

Discovered Construction
(he/him)
I'm so excited they are HD-ifying Skyward Sword, which is one of my favorite Zelda games that has controls that are at least frustrating. I'm totally down for control choices that will allow people to play SS that couldn't or didn't like the previous control scheme.
 
Sarge

Sarge

hardcore retro gamin'
I'm just bummed that it's gonna be the full $60. :( I'll be waiting on a special/Black Friday deal.
 
WisteriaHysteria

WisteriaHysteria

Sarge said:
I assume balder is talking about the PSX games (i.e. FF7-9) and not the emulated Final Fantasy games on PS1. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.
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That would make a lot more sense. I'd chalk up the differences to 2D games being a lot easier to tweak sans the source code, and also just the nature of those 2D games surviving an up-resing a lot more gracefully. If I'm not mistaken as well, the FF7-9 ports were also based on the old PC versions of those games as well? Which were never good ports to begin with. (Not sure on this last part, but I vaguely remember that being the case.)

Sarge said:
I'm just bummed that it's gonna be the full $60. :( I'll be waiting on a special/Black Friday deal.
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I would have paid $180 for this, so $60 feels like a steal to me. But I assume I just adore this game more than most. Also good luck waiting on a
Nintendo game to go on sale.
 
Patrick

Patrick

Magic-User
(He/Him)
WisteriaHysteria said:
Also good luck waiting on a
Nintendo game to go on sale.
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Yeah, really. I picked up Mario 3D Land at launch because I knew the price would never drop. I want Mass Effect Legendary Edition too, but I’ll probably wait on that one since it’ll be $20 within a year.
 
MetManMas

MetManMas

Me and My Bestie
(He, him)
When I played Skyward Sword on Wii, I lost interest shortly after getting the bow and spending the time upgrading it. Just felt like I'd seen everything (tools-wise) the game had to offer and I wasn't looking forward to more faffing about the empty sky up above or the three heavily gated regions down below.

I can wait on getting this, money is still fairly tight with the pandemic around and there's other first party games I'd like to get.
 
Violentvixen

Violentvixen

(She/Her)
I had a meeting at 2:30 so watched the beginning, had no idea who Pyra was and closed it. Just watched the rest now. This Direct had a lot great stuff for me.

- Legend of Mana?! Being able to turn off encounters?! New arrangements of one of my all-time favourite game soundtracks!? A weird-VMU-looking thing the US never got before?!
- I put a LOT of time into MiiTopia on 3DS. I might buy it again and put in some new Miis for fun? It was a really fun game.
- There will be a video game that is FFT + Octopath + Three Houses? I am downloading the demo but just inject it into my veins please.
- More Calamity Warriors stuff! Yay!
- Okay yes we all knew the Mario stuff was coming to AC this March but WARP PIPES?! Epic.
- I look forward to continuing to be awful at Splatoon games but not giving a shit and still having tons of fun. Very excited for a bow-type weapon, and curious what the salmon buddy does.

I don't know what Fallguys is but it looks very cute, Mario Golf isn't for me but looks neat, Capcom Arcade sounds worth a look and I like the idea of the Famicom detective remakes just because it implies they're taking a deep look at older games. I didn't 100% understand what was going on in Knockout City or Neon White but they both look interesting.
 
Juno

Juno

The DRKest Roe
(He, Him)
I played an hour of the Triangle Strategy demo and generally liked it. Will definitely be interested to see how it delivers on its promise of branching paths.
 
MetManMas

MetManMas

Me and My Bestie
(He, him)
I saw the trailer for that ball game and was like "Is this supposed to be some kinda Fortnite thing?" Sure seemed like the kinda crowd they were trying to appeal to with the garish purple background the bad video game character expys were on and pulling out a frickin' glider at one point.
 
q 3

q 3

here to eat fish and erase the universe
(they/them)
I'm already disappointed that Triangle Tactics uses a square grid, come on it's right there in the title and would actually be innovative. Also maybe taking a break from my third Three Houses playthrough to try the demo wasn't a great idea, I'm not really in the mood right now for Generic SRPG Premise and the patented Tactics Dance of walking behind the enemy to strike, then they walk behind you, etc. etc.

I will say the female characters all have pretty rad designs so far, despite their lack of prominence.

maybe the reason Square-Enix hasn't remade Live-A-Live yet is it'll be a 4k Switch Pro launch exclusive
 
R.R. Bigman

R.R. Bigman

Coolest Guy
I‘m growing more concerned that most of the big Switch games that were announced years ago now like Bayo 3, Prime 4, SMT V and BoTW 2 have been missing in action for so long. At least No More Heroes 3 is coming this Summer, but from the looks of that trailer, maybe it should spend more time in the oven?
 
Ludendorkk

Ludendorkk

(he/him)
R.R. Bigman said:
I‘m growing more concerned that most of the big Switch games that were announced years ago now like Bayo 3, Prime 4, SMT V and BoTW 2 have been missing in action for so long. At least No More Heroes 3 is coming this Summer, but from the looks of that trailer, maybe it should spend more time in the oven?
Click to expand...

SMTV got a trailer in the fall and is scheduled for this year, Prime 4 very publically got rebooted, and BOTW2 is probably doing fine. The only game that's had truly weird radio silence is Bayo 3.
 
Violentvixen

Violentvixen

(She/Her)
q 3 said:
I'm already disappointed that Triangle Tactics uses a square grid, come on it's right there in the title and would actually be innovative.
Click to expand...
Oooh I've never thought of this but this would be a really cool way to set up the battlefield. Dang.
 
Mightyblue

Mightyblue

aggro table, shmaggro table
(He/Him/His)
Oddly enough, triangles have too few angles to represent 'whole' bits of real estate in visual shorthand (at least to me). I think that's why wargaming and general strategy type stuff likes to use hexes or squares/rectangles instead.
 
RT-55J

RT-55J

space hero for hire
(He/Him + RT/artee)
I would not expect Prime 4 to come out before 2023 tbqh, though in the mean time I feel reasonably confident that we'll see a new 2D Metroid before then.
 
fanboymaster

fanboymaster

(He/Him)
There was already an abortive attempt to do triangles in that kickstarted FF Tactics homage Unsung Story, it was in Yasumi Matsuno's design document but ultimately thrown out because it was complicated and added nothing compared to using hexes which already introduce more complexity than squares. That game's not out yet and who knows how much to trust that developer, but the reasoning was pretty sound as I recall.

For those curious https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/littleorbit/unsung-story-tale-of-the-guardians/posts/2060679
 
Phantoon

Phantoon

I cuss you bad
Ludendorkk said:
SMTV got a trailer in the fall and is scheduled for this year, Prime 4 very publically got rebooted, and BOTW2 is probably doing fine. The only game that's had truly weird radio silence is Bayo 3.
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And Kamiya says that's because he hasn't been given permission to say anything
 
Peklo

Peklo

Oh! Create!
(they/them, she/her)
Regulus said:
As I recall, a lot of the source assets for the PS1 Final Fantasy games were simply lost, and it would be prohibitively expensive to recreate them. Fans have recently stepped in and used AI-based upscaling to improve the backgrounds in the Steam ports, and it appears that Square Enix may be trying their hand at the same now. Unless they just happened to have SaGa and Mana assets lying around, I guess.
Click to expand...

I think the SaGa Frontier remaster when announced definitely showcased that happening, but Legend of Mana has a lot of fine detailing in the remaster's footage that seems beyond the capabilities of any AI algorithm on its own--perhaps it's a combination of that and manual redrawing of scenes. It wouldn't really surprise me since the Romancing SaGa 2 and 3 mobile ports that spearheaded this modern, more painstaking remaster effort for the company come off similarly in the end results: higher-resolution backgrounds newly drawn, while the original character sprites are retained unfiltered. SaGa Frontier's remaster is kind of the inverse with newly redrawn character sprites to support modern resolutions, which shows they're always considering which elements benefit the most from added attention on a contextual basis.
 
Phantoon

Phantoon

I cuss you bad
Also the AI based upscaling wasn't any good at the point that the Final Fantasy remasters were being made. It's possible that if they come out on the PS5 and X Box Series they'll be prettified.
 
Positronic Brain

Positronic Brain

Out Of Warranty
(He/him)
The bad news re: Legend of Mana HD is that this means they are not doing a Summer of Adventure Retro Collection - but I hope Square re-releasing PS1 titles in Switch means we can get a Chrono Cross HD with high-res assets in the future. Or, dare I dream, a Xenogears port with a fast-forward option for the dialogue scenes?
 
YangusKhan

YangusKhan

does the Underpants Dance
(He/Him/His)
fanboymaster said:
There was already an abortive attempt to do triangles in that kickstarted FF Tactics homage Unsung Story, it was in Yasumi Matsuno's design document but ultimately thrown out because it was complicated and added nothing compared to using hexes which already introduce more complexity than squares. That game's not out yet and who knows how much to trust that developer, but the reasoning was pretty sound as I recall.

For those curious https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/littleorbit/unsung-story-tale-of-the-guardians/posts/2060679
Click to expand...
This game actually is out... on Steam Early Access.
 
Violentvixen

Violentvixen

(She/Her)
fanboymaster said:
There was already an abortive attempt to do triangles in that kickstarted FF Tactics homage Unsung Story, it was in Yasumi Matsuno's design document but ultimately thrown out because it was complicated and added nothing compared to using hexes which already introduce more complexity than squares. That game's not out yet and who knows how much to trust that developer, but the reasoning was pretty sound as I recall.

For those curious https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/littleorbit/unsung-story-tale-of-the-guardians/posts/2060679
Click to expand...

YangusKhan said:
This game actually is out... on Steam Early Access.
Click to expand...

This was really interesting to read and I've wishlisted that game, thank you both!
 
Sprite

Sprite

(He/Him/His)
Oh right, I kickstarted Unsung Story and can play the prototype now. I should probably... do that.
 
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