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Grandia HD Collection coming soon UPDATE: RPGSite Hands on impressions and interview with GungHo, $39.99

dock

dock

Game Designer
Verified
Nov 5, 2017
1,367
Ouch! I was a keen Saturn fan and spent years pouring over screens, and I remember the PS1 port being such a downgrade. I held out until the death of Saturn, and never did play the PS1 version (I bought it on PS3).

Really disappointed with how this turned out. I would have preferred it to be very expensive but actually good.
 
Hucast

Hucast

alt account
Banned
Mar 25, 2019
3,598
Day one for that price. Without hesitation. Revisiting my childhood greatest experience tomorrow
 
Kattbuss

Kattbuss

Member
Oct 27, 2017
541
Sweden
While I understand the disappointment for people who has experience with the Saturn version, as someone who only played it on PS1, I'm looking forward to getting this as soon as I'm done with Fire Emblem.
 
Blade24070

Blade24070

Member
Oct 26, 2017
6,991
The price would be fine if I didn't just want Grandia 2. Wish they would have a separate purchase option. As it stands, I'll have to wait for a 50% sale.
 
WarpSpeedMolasses

WarpSpeedMolasses

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,396
Maybe they can patch the filter out?? I can't believe this collection might be ruined because of something like this.

Maybe someone more techy than me can explain, why are filters like these used? Would the original sprites look bad in HD? (And don't say it's an aesthetic preference cause I refuse to believe that. )
 
sir_crocodile

sir_crocodile

Member
Oct 25, 2017
23,482
WarpSpeedMolasses said:
Maybe someone more techy than me can explain, why are filters like these used? Would the original sprites look bad in HD?
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They look great to me on emulators and the FPGA consoles with simple scaling.

WarpSpeedMolasses said:
(And don't say it's an aesthetic preference cause I refuse to believe that. )
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You'd be surprised:


With that notion of user feedback in mind, I brought up the iOS and Steam versions of Final Fantasy V and Final Fantasy VI, which are, to put it delicately, not pretty. Although Japanese players seem fine with the games' new art, North American fans have complained that there is no feasible way to play the better SNES or GBA versions of FFV and FFVI on today's consoles. I asked if Kitase would consider putting the original versions of both games on modern platforms, and he appeared surprised at the request.

"I am actually curious to know — I believe the port version, the one you can get right now, does use the more brushed up artwork that's a little bit more refined," Kitase said. "Do fans want to see the older version that's not as refined? Is that the sentiment?"

"Yes," I said, explaining that North American gamers have not reacted positively to the iOS and Steam versions of Final Fantasy V and Final Fantasy VI.

"Understood," Kitase said. "I'll keep that in mind."
 
Jazzem

Jazzem

Member
Feb 2, 2018
2,680
Man I can't wait for official remasters to start using ESRGAN and other AI upscaling techniques for textures, hoping sooner rather than later
 
werezompire

werezompire

Zeboyd Games
Verified
Oct 26, 2017
11,322
Hucast said:
No one experienced the saturn version
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The Saturn version was literally the first way I played through the game.

I love the Grandia series and I'll probably be skipping this one since I already have Grandia 1 on my Vita and Grandia 2 on my PC and it doesn't look like this collection is worth a double-dip. It's good that these great games are going to be available to more people, but I really wish they had gone all-out in creating the best possible version of them. I would have totally double-dipped if they had added new difficulty options to Grandia 1 (like they did with Grandia 2) or if Grandia 1 had other major improvements over the original.
 
julian

julian

Member
Oct 27, 2017
16,760
Hucast said:
No one experienced the saturn version
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Speak for yourself? Saturn had a pretty good import market where I grew up. I even got a map and some pamphlet with a mini cd when I got Grandia. One of my favorite games and can't wait to play it in English for the first time....though sounds like I might just want to use the fan translation patch on my Saturn.
 
Worldshaker

Worldshaker

Member
Oct 28, 2017
3,933
Michigan
Hucast said:
No one experienced the saturn version
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I first experienced the Saturn version at my local import game store. The owner showed me the game when it came out, and we played the first several hours together. I never fully played it myself until the PS1 version came out, but I noticed the downgrade at age 13. When GungHo said this was based off of that version I got pretty excited and I was hoping to be able to relive that memory from my childhood.

Either way I'm just glad this game is coming out again for new players to experience.

I would pay $60 for the Saturn version with the "Digital Museum" expansion included. That'll never happen unfortunately.
 

MJKbillabo

Member
Jun 13, 2019
47
There is no way anybody can say this screenshot looks worse than the original game (saturn or ps1). Have any of you tried to play the original game on a modern HDTV? It needed some filtering, or a complete re-do.

Switch_GRANDIAHDCollection_05.jpg


Hopefully the collection is a present surprise. Everybody is jumping to conclusions WAAYYY too fast.

Also, for all the people saying they are only interested in Grandia 2-- Why? Have you played the first? I find it so much better to level up three different weapon types that also attribute to your stats then acquiring "magic coins" to spend and unlock skills. Also, Grandia 1 has a much less-cliche story than Grandia 2. So i genuinely ask, why are you just interested in the second?
 
Edge

Edge

A King's Landing
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
21,012
Celle, Germany
MJKbillabo said:
There is no way anybody can say this screenshot looks worse than the original game (saturn or ps1). Have any of you tried to play the original game on a modern HDTV? It needed some filtering, or a complete re-do.

Switch_GRANDIAHDCollection_05.jpg


Hopefully the collection is a present surprise. Everybody is jumping to conclusions WAAYYY too fast.

Also, for all the people saying they are only interested in Grandia 2-- Why? Have you played the first? I find it so much better to level up three different weapon types that also attribute to your stats then acquiring "magic coins" to spend and unlock skills. Also, Grandia 1 has a much less-cliche story than Grandia 2. So i genuinely ask, why are you just interested in the second?
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I really like what they did here. I, personally, think the effects looks great on the characters and the world in general, gives it a kinda PS2 look. The only thing I don't like are the battle areas, they are a bit too filtered, at least in what we saw, but rest looks great.

Sure I would also like to just have the OG game in native res and full native pixel optic, but this isn't too bad, this feels like they did a lot of changes per hand instead of just using a filter, so that's probably why we can't just simply switch to the old graphics and that does give me a feel of a real remaster, so I understand it, but I can completely understand the other side here too.
 
LordGorchnik

LordGorchnik

Member
Oct 30, 2017
3,283
Finishing Three Houses and then going to wait for Astral Chains but then this will probably be the next game I play on the Switch. I never experienced the entirety of 1 and its been way too long since I played 2.
 
Piggychan

Piggychan

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,848
MJKbillabo said:
There is no way anybody can say this screenshot looks worse than the original game (saturn or ps1). Have any of you tried to play the original game on a modern HDTV? It needed some filtering, or a complete re-do.

Switch_GRANDIAHDCollection_05.jpg


Hopefully the collection is a present surprise. Everybody is jumping to conclusions WAAYYY too fast.

Also, for all the people saying they are only interested in Grandia 2-- Why? Have you played the first? I find it so much better to level up three different weapon types that also attribute to your stats then acquiring "magic coins" to spend and unlock skills. Also, Grandia 1 has a much less-cliche story than Grandia 2. So i genuinely ask, why are you just interested in the second?
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Looks nice and sharp. Below is Saturn pic from real hardware
F4BzJZy.png
 
bxsonic

bxsonic

Member
Oct 30, 2017
1,224
Sigh. Might pick this up when it's on sale or something. Not too happy about the Grandia 1 port but Grandia 2 seems to be fine. Haven't played these games in years.
 
Piggychan

Piggychan

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,848
jhawk6 said:
Wow remaster looks way better than that!
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Well I don't have doubt that it will look better but since it's using PS1 assets I am wondering whether they will put back some of the missing things from the Saturn version into this.

One of them will be near towards the end which will be very telling..

Playstation ver.
DgdmxCN.gif


Saturn ver.
0TAXmtV.gif
 
Hobbun

Hobbun

Member
Oct 27, 2017
4,394
Piggychan said:
Well I don't have doubt that it will look better but since it's using PS1 assets I am wondering whether they will put back some of the missing things from the Saturn version into this.

One of them will be near towards the end which will be very telling..

Playstation ver.
DgdmxCN.gif


Saturn ver.
0TAXmtV.gif
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Oh yeah, see your point. Showing the 'spirits' in the Saturn version definitely adds a lot in what they are looking at. I really hope they added things like that in the remaster.
 
Hucast

Hucast

alt account
Banned
Mar 25, 2019
3,598
MJKbillabo said:
There is no way anybody can say this screenshot looks worse than the original game (saturn or ps1). Have any of you tried to play the original game on a modern HDTV? It needed some filtering, or a complete re-do.

Switch_GRANDIAHDCollection_05.jpg


Hopefully the collection is a present surprise. Everybody is jumping to conclusions WAAYYY too fast.

Also, for all the people saying they are only interested in Grandia 2-- Why? Have you played the first? I find it so much better to level up three different weapon types that also attribute to your stats then acquiring "magic coins" to spend and unlock skills. Also, Grandia 1 has a much less-cliche story than Grandia 2. So i genuinely ask, why are you just interested in the second?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Piggychan said:
Looks nice and sharp. Below is Saturn pic from real hardware
F4BzJZy.png
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

jhawk6 said:
Wow remaster looks way better than that!
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entrydenied said:
Yikes the filter... Disappointing...
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uhuh
 
Łazy

Łazy

Member
Nov 1, 2017
5,249
The remaster looks much better for me.

Only question is,when can I buy it : ( ?
It's not either on Europe or Japan eshop...
MJKbillabo said:
Also, for all the people saying they are only interested in Grandia 2-- Why? Have you played the first? I find it so much better to level up three different weapon types that also attribute to your stats then acquiring "magic coins" to spend and unlock skills. Also, Grandia 1 has a much less-cliche story than Grandia 2. So i genuinely ask, why are you just interested in the second?
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I was wondering the exact same thing.

Grandia 1 remade (but keeping its own gameplay) looking like 3 would be amazing.
 
eddiemunstr

eddiemunstr

Member
Jan 20, 2019
1,531
Ill probably end up getting it, but it really looks like someone just loaded up the game in epsxe raised the resolution and turned on a smoothing filter and called it a day.

Just out of curiosity is there any footage or screenshots of someone running the game in epsxe at higher resolution but no smoothing filter on? I did a quick search but most people had the smoothing filter on.
 
Piggychan

Piggychan

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,848
Hero of Legend said:
They should hook up with NISA for retail releases. Their line-up fits them very well and NISA already published a number of western digital-only Switch titles to retail, such as Neo Atlas and the Psikyo collections.

Also here's the NA page:

www.nintendo.com

GRANDIA HD Collection for Nintendo Switch - Nintendo Official Site

Buy GRANDIA HD Collection and shop other great Nintendo products online at the official My Nintendo Store.
www.nintendo.com www.nintendo.com


Switch_GRANDIAHDCollection_06.jpg


Umm, Grandia 1 looks damn fine to me. This is no simple remaster, looks like an outright remake. O_o
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edit

bottom ver is Saturn
mFZaZCE.png
 

cecilpaladin32

Member
Apr 24, 2018
3,605
splash wave said:
Yeah, I was quite young when I first played it, but even I remember being kind of put off by the look. I think I'd be more receptive to it now, though.
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That's good. I'm not sure where I'd stand replaying games of that era. In general, I loved the SNES and have no problem revisiting those games, but N64/PS1 games I pretty much never go back to. The first Grandia just so happens to be an exception and a game that I'd love to go back to. Lots of fond memories.
werezompire said:
Really? I think it's one of the PS1 RPGs that has aged the best visually.
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Can't speak to what I think it looks like now relative to other PS1 games of the time, but back as a kid, I remember it wasn't as "smooth" looking as I'd like. Don't get me wrong, I loved the art style of the game. It's the quality/sharpness of the images that I remember not liking (if I remember correctly, it's one of the few games form back then that actually made my eyes hurt after playing for a while).
 
Valcrist

Valcrist

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Member
Oct 25, 2017
9,692
People in here seem confused. I can take some off screen pictures with a camera if y'all want to see what it looks like on real hardware. I've seen some poorly representing pictures here.
 
asmith906

asmith906

Member
Oct 27, 2017
27,361
I wish this game had a completed translation on the Saturn. I actually own both the ps1 and Saturn versions but it's hard to play through rpg's not being able to read the text.

(someone for the love of god please translate Tengai Makyou: The Apocalypse IV)
 
sir_crocodile

sir_crocodile

Member
Oct 25, 2017
23,482
asmith906 said:
I wish this game had a completed translation on the Saturn. I actually own both the ps1 and Saturn versions but it's hard to play through rpg's not being able to read the text.

(someone for the love of god please translate Tengai Makyou: The Apocalypse IV)
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The Grandia saturn english patch is pretty far along now:


It's possible that it's completely playable, but I don't know if anyone has gone through the whole of disc 2 yet.
 
Danthrax

Danthrax

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Oct 25, 2017
2,467
Northeast Ohio
Hucast said:
No one experienced the saturn version
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I imported Grandia for Saturn a couple months ago because so much progress is being made on the fan-made English translation patch. I wanted to try out the disc on its own, though, so I popped it into my Saturn and used the Google Translate app to muddle my way through the first couple hours. It's the first time I've ever played a Grandia game in any capacity. (And it was pretty cool.)
 
Hobbun

Hobbun

Member
Oct 27, 2017
4,394
Well, "I" haven't played the Saturn version, and the filtering is fine to me. I am excited in playing not only Grandia 1 again, but Grandia 2.
 
Nanashrew

Nanashrew

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
6,328
If this is coming out in Japan, I wonder how they'll take the changes. The Saturn version was the best selling version of the game, and one of the best selling games of the Saturn as well. The PS1 version came out 2 years later and did as one can expect of a late port.
 

Deleted member 4090

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
9,053
I know I complained earlier, but for $40 is a pretty good price for two long, meaty RPGs with competent remasters. The lack of it being based on the Saturn version is a tertiary problem for me, with the two bigger hurdles being...

1) No way to get Grandia 1 separately without paying full price for a remaster that's been out for four years (that I already own).
2) Grandia 1 HD not having a hard mode added like Grandia 2 does. Was the feature not popular in the remaster of 2? Seems weird that they didn't go that far this time around.
 
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