This seems to be a semi-common occurrence with HD facelifts. The characters get more detailed but lose the ability to emote.

This is the new Fatal Frame remaster. Wii above, PS/Xbox/Switch/PC below

    • TheronGuard [he/him]
      hexagon
      ·
      1 year ago

      Haven't played it myself yet, but the lighting and colors seem off to me. From what I've seen the Wii original was fairly similar looking in terms of aesthetics to the PS2 trilogy in that it was fairly monochrome, grainy and desaturated, but the new lighting looks to be very blue and full of bloom.

      It kind of resembles the WiiU game that got rereleased on all platforms in 2021 in its overall look.

      Guess that and more polygons just means better to most game reviewers judging from reviews :vivian-shrug:

    • space_wizard [any]
      ·
      1 year ago

      I haven't experienced a remaster I actually thought was worthwhile. They either completely miss the original artistic intent, ruining lighting and atmosphere, or they introduce massive game breaking bugs. Usually both. No exceptions so far.

      • Farman [any]
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        The age of empires 2 remaster is really good. Lots of things were improved. Civs were aded new animations textures engine improvment. In game zoom. Much better ai. The only problem is they removed lan.

        The starctaft remastered is also ok. Even if it is half assed there is lan and it is very tricky to get the original to work in windows 7 and up.

        The homeworld remaster also fixed some engine isues but they half asses it so there is still a lot of problems with the engine not being able to use modern pc specs. But overal i say it good.

        Of course i pirate all these.

        • space_wizard [any]
          ·
          1 year ago

          The homeworld remaster also fixed some engine isues but they half asses it so there is still a lot of problems with the engine not being able to use modern pc specs. But overal i say it good.

          Did you play Homeworld Remastered closer to release? It was so broken that you couldn't actually complete the tutorial. Even after years of patching I still ended up going to the original, as the remastered merged mechanics of both 1&2 in a way that kind of ruined campaign balance.

          • Farman [any]
            ·
            1 year ago

            I didnt play until the comunity patch mostly because i had an older pc back then. But i can beleve it was broken. The homeworld 2 that they pack in the remastered is still broken in so many ways. Now i mostly play complex mod. And my bigest frustration is the cap for 2..5 gigs of video memory. And some problems with processor optimization.

            Homeworld 1 had a much beter engine than 2. And the remastered using the homeworld 2 engine is bullshit. So that is why i spesified h2 remastered. That being said i like the h1 mechanics imported in 2.

      • LaGG_3 [he/him, comrade/them]
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        Baldur's Gate, BG2, Icewind Dale, and Planescape Torment: Enhanced Editions are all pretty swell. They didn't really fuck with the graphics, but they made it compatible with modern computers/monitors and sanded off some of the UI edges.

        Edit: Baldur's Gate 1 + 2 EE has some extra characters that feel like late-era Bioware in an early-era Bioware game. Kinda weird, but easy to ignore if it's not your thing.

      • thethirdgracchi [he/him, they/them]
        ·
        1 year ago

        I wish there were more remasters like Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes. Accept that you can't recreate lightning in a bottle and just "remake" the game without it trying to be a 1:1 remake. Embrace diversified storytelling and retell it in a fun way. Change it up while respecting the source. But that of course requires artistry and effort, entirely outside the point of these money-grabbing HD remasters.

        • 7bicycles [he/him]
          ·
          1 year ago

          I wish there were more remasters like Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes

          what the fuck man

        • neo [he/him]
          ·
          1 year ago

          I don't think Twin Snakes respected the source at all, but if you pretend it's actually titled "Michael Bay Presents: The Twin Snakes" then you can have fun with that idea.

        • doublepepperoni [none/use name]
          ·
          edit-2
          1 year ago

          Interesting choice since I understand the MGS fanbase kinda detests the changes the Twin Snakes made, and from what I've seen I'm not too hot on it either. Then there's the 1:1 remakes with a modern artstyle like the Crash Bandicoot remakes or the Halo 1 and 2 Anniversary approach of overlaying a toggleable new graphics engine over an old game.

          • thethirdgracchi [he/him, they/them]
            ·
            1 year ago

            I've always appreciated it because it's not exactly trying to be a perfect remake. It's honest about its intentions, and doesn't like ruin the original or disrespect it.

      • TheronGuard [he/him]
        hexagon
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        I don't want to have to emulate a janky Wii game on a controller :kitty-cri:

        Why can't they get these right, playing the PS2 trilogy on PCSX2 I wished we'd get native widescreen 60fps ports some day but not if it's Fatal Frame: Yassified Bad Lighting Edition

  • ssjmarx [he/him]
    ·
    1 year ago

    I'm guessing this happens because devs can't just import new faces on top of the old rigs, so they either have to severely limit the scope of the remaster to keep it compatible or completely re-do the face rigs which would be expensive (and the whole point of 99% of HD remasters is to make a quick buck).

    Sure would be nice if they brought in modern facial capture tech and re-recorded all the scenes with actors though.

    • save_vs_death [they/them]
      ·
      1 year ago

      more often than not, the original rigs and models are lost and they remake these things from scratch, which is why they usually get more triangles in the models but half-ass the rigging

    • TheronGuard [he/him]
      hexagon
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      I guess at that point you might as well remake the whole game from scratch instead of upscaling some textures, replacing character models and adding ReShade.

      I wonder if it isn't an aesthetic choice. The game after this went for a more anime doll look and it could be that's just the series' style now

    • robot_dog_with_gun [they/them]
      ·
      1 year ago

      yeah, i remember a friend who does mods for dead or alive saying that importing faces is a huge nightmare. I'd guess the old face models don't have nearly enough bones for whatever engine "improvements" have been made and doing something about that is too much dev time for a remaster cashgrab.

  • mittens [he/him]
    ·
    1 year ago

    Probably because expressions are made with some unholy combo of texture and normal mapping work, which would look outdated in a remaster, so they settle for some slapdash animation rig.

  • Ericthescruffy [he/him]
    ·
    1 year ago

    "Remastering" is such a weird thing to even call a lot of these HD rereleased. Remastering for film or music is largely concerned with recapturing the original sound or appearance of something that has been degraded due to limitations in either recording or storage technology (or both in many cases).

    Game remasters though....in many cases these aren't even the assets used in the original production. They share more in common with film colorization than with film restoration.

    Just imagine "remastering" super Mario bros.

        • Ericthescruffy [he/him]
          ·
          1 year ago

          I never played all stars, but it wouldn't shock me if that's true. This is a common thing that happens in these situations because the underlying engine driving everything ultimately just isn't the same. One of the more infamous examples is the 3DS remake of Majora's Mask. The animation and physics systems in the remake were basically rebuilt from the ground up and they actually broke a ton of "advanced" movement options the player can do with some of their transformations. Again...kinda goes back to why I dislike the term "remasters" for a lot of these things.

          • Ericthescruffy [he/him]
            ·
            edit-2
            1 year ago

            Lol, I'm being mostly facetious.

            It kinda gets to my point though. All stars isn't really a remaster, anymore than a 3d version made in mario maker engine would be a remaster. It's a remake. An incredibly close and true to the original remake, but still a remake in the same way a shot for shot remake of a movie would be.

            • doublepepperoni [none/use name]
              ·
              edit-2
              1 year ago

              Some releases definitely do fit the bill of a remaster, but unfortunately both publishers and games media have muddied the waters by throwing around the terms remaster and remake haphazardly.

              The MGS HD Collection released back in 2011? Definitely a remaster- it was just the original three games uhh, I mean 2, 3 and Peace Walker in HD (sidenote: I hate incomplete video game "collections" that have giant obvious gaps in them :guts-rage: ).

              I think this Project Zero remaster falls mostly in line with other remasters like the 2016 Resident Evil 1 Remake and Zero remasters.

  • UlyssesT [he/him]
    ·
    1 year ago

    :freeze-gamer: hated this and got feral about it like they did with Dead Space and Last of Us remasters, right? :padme:

    • TheronGuard [he/him]
      hexagon
      ·
      1 year ago

      While some people did note and were worried about the botoxed faces prior to launch, capital G gamers were indtead pre-emptively losing their shit about possible censorship on the Steam forums from the moment the remaster was announced. There's an insane thread where they look at the new character models and compare every square millimeter of exposed cleavage between versions.

      Unlike the following game which leaned heavily on weird Japan shit, like having one character be both the product of ghost incest and work as an underage swimsuit model which resulted in some outfits and cutscenes being removed from every release after the original Japanese WiiU launch, Mask of the Lunar Eclipse never had such issues to begin with, nor was the series known for titillation prior to the fifth game. You still have fake fans on Steam saying they only play these games for fanservice which is just... I don't get it

      • UlyssesT [he/him]
        ·
        1 year ago

        The implication is that it's only changed in a bad way if it's even slightly less Dead or Alive Beach Volleyball levels of tacky science-fantasy levels of bouncy :awooga: .

        Unlike the following game which leaned heavily on weird Japan shit, like having one character be both the product of ghost incest and work as an underage swimsuit model which resulted in some outfits and cutscenes being removed from every release after the original Japanese WiiU launch

        :miyazaki-laugh: "I warned you about otakus. I told you, dog."

        • TheronGuard [he/him]
          hexagon
          ·
          edit-2
          1 year ago

          I have no clue why they made the fifth game so weird compared to the rest of the series. Just so much eyebrow raising stuff like this

          https://hexbear.net/post/253786

          Also here's that steam thread. I guess the dedication put into sussing out the exact amount of exposed cleavage is commendable

          https://steamcommunity.com/app/2130460/discussions/0/3790380616225137515/