FFX HD Remaster for PS3 and Vita

[Argle]

That's pretty hyperbolic and not quite that true. While the plots and mostly the events of the FF series are the same each time you play it, the actual game itself is not the same every time you play through it. This is what allows people to enjoy it dozens of times through.

I've never understood the linearity vs non-linearity debate, mostly why linearity is such a distaste in the first place. I've found non-linear games tend to be formless blobs that make it more difficult to push forward when you want to. It's a matter of taste, but gamers treat it like objective flaws.

I agree, linear isn't always bad. It depends if the game is fun. I've played Chrono Trigger countless times and that is very linear. On the other hand open-world sandbox games I tend not to play more than once through, despite all of the "freedom". The ones I replay the most are like Icewind Dale, where the game is linear but party creation gives tons of replay value.

[Annie Felis]

so i forgot to get the energy blast upgrade from besaid when i left, and the two temples i didn't use the destruction sphere in were besaid and macalania. surprise, the dark aeons guard these specific areas and prevent you from getting anything from then until you fight them. the easiest, dark valefor, has 800k HP and stats in the hundreds. this means i cannot get anima (or, by extension, magus sisters) unless i spend 20 hours grinding stats in the monster center, OR spend ten hours paying yojimbo through the nose to murderface besaid island fiends to get my compatibility up. then, i have a 1/4 chance of him using zanmato on dark valefor and dark shiva.

while i like the addition of superbosses to the game (i felt there wasn't enough high-end material in the original version, although i didn't get into it), i wish that they were optional in regards to the majority of the game. right now, i'm screwed out of 25% of the summons, unless i grind everything forever and ever until my stats are triple what they are now.

if anyone hears of a trainer (my game is legit, but my PS3 can run homebrew) or anything, that'd be fantastic. don't care what it does as long as i can turn it off after disposing of those two dark aeons.

Ouch. I'd say use the overdrive -> AP leveling trick if you have Don Tonberry in the arena. If you don't, you'll gain a few levels while you catch all the Sunken Cave monsters for the arena. If course you'll need the items to make your overdrive -> AP weapons with at least double (if not triple) overdrive on them, and then enough megaphoenixes to make auto-phoenix on everbody's armor. The time to get all these items might be a long time (with all the grinding to get money to bribe), although it might be easier than grinding out levels at Omega Ruins and then Sin.

[prophetik music]

i would rather to just go through the end-game, and ignore anima completely. i'm pissed because i really like that aeon, and she's so darn good.

lesson learned: use a guide, and don't assume you remembered everything from 2005 when you played it last. i remembered about energy burst about an hour outside of besaid, but decided not to go back.

[Thin Crust]

You know, it might be faster to just restart.... then you would need to go through the laughing scene again though.

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA

[Annie Felis]

I have a save file from my PS2 copy at the beginning of the Mihen Highroad, so when I do a replay I don't have to play the crappy blitzball game agains the Luca Goers or watch that painful laughing scene. I made sure to do the same on my PS3. Sure, it means I miss the neato cutscene of Seymour using Anima, but it's an acceptable loss.

[Kanthos]

You can probably find that cutscene on youtube anyway, if you want to see it. I'd bet someone's already got it uploaded in HD too.

[Tricklozen]

Square Enix sure makes it easy for me to be negative about their products. I don't know what is wrong with reviewers these days.

So, as a remaster, this product falls hard by not reaching 60 fps, easily noticeable when panning around in cities. Most visual effects fall below 10 fps or worse.

There is no option to skip scenes!

Some of the new music, while hit and miss, adds some fresh feel to the game. The textures are, for the most part, sharp and crisp.

While not a huge fan of X or X-2, I did play through both games.

As a "remastered" game, and not a game on its own, I give it a 4/10, mostly because of Square Enix failing to take advantage of the hardware properly.

[The Legendary Zoltan]

I hear they changed Tidus's model a bit and now his face looks absolutely horrendous in some scenes. Has anyone here felt like that?

[The Derrit]

Square Enix sure makes it easy for me to be negative about their products. I don't know what is wrong with reviewers these days.

So, as a remaster, this product falls hard by not reaching 60 fps, easily noticeable when panning around in cities. Most visual effects fall below 10 fps or worse.

There is no option to skip scenes!

Some of the new music, while hit and miss, adds some fresh feel to the game. The textures are, for the most part, sharp and crisp.

While not a huge fan of X or X-2, I did play through both games.

As a "remastered" game, and not a game on its own, I give it a 4/10, mostly because of Square Enix failing to take advantage of the hardware properly.

remind yourself to never be a game reviewer. thanks

[Annie Felis]

I hear they changed Tidus's model a bit and now his face looks absolutely horrendous in some scenes. Has anyone here felt like that?

Yes, I feel it's like that for both Tidus and Yuna. Especially Yuna. It's like with the facial re-designs the rigging isn't right for the animations, so their faces are fairly expressionless and wooden. There's a scene where the two of them are talking and Tidus thinks to himself "Why is she smiling at me?", and she has almost no expression at all.

[DusK]

Square Enix sure makes it easy for me to be negative about their products. I don't know what is wrong with reviewers these days.

So, as a remaster, this product falls hard by not reaching 60 fps, easily noticeable when panning around in cities. Most visual effects fall below 10 fps or worse.

There is no option to skip scenes!

Some of the new music, while hit and miss, adds some fresh feel to the game. The textures are, for the most part, sharp and crisp.

While not a huge fan of X or X-2, I did play through both games.

As a "remastered" game, and not a game on its own, I give it a 4/10, mostly because of Square Enix failing to take advantage of the hardware properly.

This is why they do what they do professionally, and you don't.

[Tricklozen]

This is why they do what they do professionally, and you don't.

Changing the context and throwing away arguments is characteristic trolling behavior.

The game was reviewed years ago, but, that has nothing to do with the problems I list, which none of you two address, but rather try to hide away by comparing me to a professional reviewer. It's as if you stopped reading after the first sentence, and play the "authority card."

As a remastered game, it works, but it's not a good port when you get 10 fps on simple visual effects on the PS3 hardware. One might wonder what the quality control is like at Square Enix if they wanted this to slip by them. As others mentioned, there are issues with the character models as well, some of them at the seams. This doesn't destroy the game, but it is not impressing on a technical level. Most people won't care or notice.

[prophetik music]

haven't seen any of what you're talking about.

compared to other remasters - the fable and halo reworks comes to mind - this game hits the double whammy of standing up to the test of time, and also looking fairly good while doing it. the up-close scenes aren't as good as others, but comparatively speaking fable and halo look terrible, whereas this still looks pretty good (notably in battle scenes).

great idea picking the controversy score, though, that always gets people talking.

in other news, yes, it is possible to modify a save (you don't even need a hacked PS3, i could have done this on a vanilla one). it's really roundabout, and you have to use a japanese tool that no one can decipher (not even joking, i had to look at a picture to read it), but it's doable. unfortunately, the options are limited - i don't appear to be able to key up my stats for one battle (dark valefor) to get into besaid, and then drop them down again. additionally, i can spawn in besaid temple and get the sphere, but i can't leave - leaving the temple puts you out entering besaid, not in the town. the game doesn't see a difference there. and there's no way yet that i can just push a button and get all the temple treasures marked as completed (turns out i was missing zanarkand, not macalania). so the search continues.

[Tricklozen]

haven't seen any of what you're talking about.

Does that mean all or some of my statements are false?

What are you trying to communicate here?

Here's one reviewer who picked up on some of the frame-rate drops, if you are curious.

http://www.psu.com/a022826/Final-Fantasy-XX-2-HD-Remaster-Review

"On PS3, the framerate drops very briefly during strange moments, like some summoning animations."

The laughing scene is an example where there are visible, ugly seams on Tidus.

[Mirby]

You went in with a negative bias from the start and that colored your entire review. Professional reviewers (usually) review without bias. Or should, at least.

[DusK]

Changing the context and throwing away arguments is characteristic trolling behavior.

The game was reviewed years ago, but, that has nothing to do with the problems I list, which none of you two address, but rather try to hide away by comparing me to a professional reviewer. It's as if you stopped reading after the first sentence, and play the "authority card."

As a remastered game, it works, but it's not a good port when you get 10 fps on simple visual effects on the PS3 hardware. One might wonder what the quality control is like at Square Enix if they wanted this to slip by them. As others mentioned, there are issues with the character models as well, some of them at the seams. This doesn't destroy the game, but it is not impressing on a technical level. Most people won't care or notice.

You're overplaying the importance of framerate. This is a JRPG, not some twitch shooter. A constant 60 FPS is utterly irrelevant. The fact that FPS drops happen so infrequently -- at least on the PS3 -- makes that even more so. If you really believe that something that irrelevant somehow makes all of the other improvements moot, I guess that's your opinion, but like I said, there's a reason other people are doing reviews professionally and you're not, and it's laughable that you'd call those professional reviewers out on not being able to "do that right".

[SystemsReady]

IIRC, most games on consoles never even hit 60 FPS to begin with, so I think that's a rather high bar to set for graphics (cue "PC Master Race").

IMO, the biggest reason why this remaster exists (aside from "SE is hurting for money") is that the PS3 doesn't have backwards-compatibility. And even my own PS2 has died after years of repeated, loving use.

A remaster is just that...a coat of polish over a game that you can now play on a console you likely still own. Different than a remake.

Edited March 29, 2014 by SystemsReady
yay typoes

[Tricklozen]

Let me rephrase the point about the frame-rate; it's somewhat of an achievement to let the simpler PS2 effects grind the rendering pipeline of a PS3 to a halt.

It's also weird how some of the simpler scenes can go below 60 fps. You should have gotten 60 fps for free with such a simple game. The PS3 hardware is alien to most developers, so it's competency that matters.

As a side note - one developer that seems to get a lot out of the hardware is Naughty Dog. FF X would not require the amount of processing power they managed to squeeze out of it.

DusK, I criticize the implementation of the game in some areas. The numeric score is figurative of my subjective opinion on how it was implemented. You are reading too much else into it, so much so that you miss the good points, but, I'll acknowledge that the score thing should have been omitted (re: prophetik music).

[Newt]

Let me rephrase the point about the frame-rate; it's somewhat of an achievement to let the simpler PS2 effects grind the rendering pipeline of a PS3 to a halt.

It's also weird how some of the simpler scenes can go below 60 fps. You should have gotten 60 fps for free with such a simple game. The PS3 hardware is alien to most developers, so it's competency that matters.

As a side note - one developer that seems to get a lot out of the hardware is Naughty Dog. FF X would not require the amount of processing power they managed to squeeze out of it.

DusK, I criticize the implementation of the game in some areas. The numeric score is figurative of my subjective opinion on how it was implemented. You are reading too much else into it, so much so that you miss the good points, but, I'll acknowledge that the score thing should have been omitted (re: prophetik music).

The effects are not the same as they were on PS2.

Then environments are not the same as they were on PS2.

The models are not the same as they were on PS2.

The textures are not the same as they were on PS2.

The lighting is not the same as they were on PS2.

Stop trying to use that argument. It makes you look incompetent.

Naughty Dog is a first party studio, and they essentially have consultants from SCE's tech department come out to help with performance, so yes, they do that fairly well. That doesn't mean that SquareEnix is bad at it. Tech art is a hard problem, so please don't try to demean it by pretending to be an expert when you clearly are not.

[Annie Felis]

Your review doesn't look like a typical review. It looks like an opinion. You're welcome to express your opinion, I mean mine is all over this topic (I was wrong about Uematsu remixing his own songs but whoever did it fucked it up). Just keep in mind that this is a remaster, which is a fancy word for "port made prettier".

Ports usually have dumb issues like clunky load times and no bugfixes on old problems. Remember the FF6 port to Playstation? That thing still had the sketch/control game lockup bug as well as the vanish/doom exploit, paired with some pretty crap load times. The appeal was the fact that the game reached more players by coming out years later on a different system, giving some people a chance to play the game who missed out on it the first time around. It's the same with FFX and X-2. We're happy to play them on a PS3 with the international version material added because that was not made available to us before. I still would've bought it even if they didn't do any graphical upgrades or a 16:9 resolution, just to be able to fight the dark aeons and Nemesis.

[Malaki-LEGEND.sys]

Actually Annie and several others, and I'm going to take the unpopular opinion for a second, when you invoke the word "Remastered" or the term "HD Remake", there's a certain gravitas that you're implying, mainly that the game has been "HDified" and essentially prettied up to go with all the bells and whistles associated with this hardware generation. We can toss out all the apologist arguments and defenses as to the assumed lack(I haven't seen the game yet) of visual pop that people were led to believe(and there was a lot of hype over the cleaned up visuals). Different people have different standards or different preferences, so this matters to some people.

Now, does that make the game any less worth the price of admission? Well again, it's a value judgement, and I personally think it is worth it. There's nothing wrong however with saying "well yeah, the game didn't do _insert thing here_, and I'm totally fine with that. It doesn't bug me though and I don't think it should bug anyone else, either."

[Annie Felis]

Yeah it's not true HD, it's just a port made prettier. A real HD rerelease would've been nice, but what we got doesn't look too bad. I admit I'm disappointed they didn't re-dub the english actors, or fix the lip synch, or even give us a japanese voices option. But hey, FFX International is on PS3 in some form and that's good enough for me.

[Brandon Strader]

I haven't actually started playing this yet but I watched a remake scene on youtube, and I've gotta say, if you think their faces are emotionless then there's a lot of small details you are missing. It's not overly exaggerated soap opera acting on these characters, it's some of what I feel is the most "real to life" performance. And with time you can learn to pick up these small details, the little movements of the eyebrows, the eyes, small movement of the lips -- though I will admit the cheek and jaw seems to be made of clay, ain't nothing moving there. It's not PERFECT by any means but it's not as bad as people make it out to be.

[His Infinite Machine]

I'd be happier if they'd release each game separately - I have no interest in Final Fantasy Barbie Doll, and would rather not be forced to buy it.

[Jamphibious]

FFX-2 has a pretty silly story that completely goes against the tone of the first game, I'll admit, but the battles are actually really fun.

I beat FFX several months ago, and I was tempted to get this but I'm wondering if it'd be worth it. I like the idea of the new sphere grid, best part of FFX was teleporting someone like Rikku to Auron's area with a Friend Sphere and then making them super badass. I dunno, I might pick it up, extra content is nice and I did really like FFX, enough to replay it for sure.