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I wonder what the Xenosaga Trilogy Remaster would have been like...
- Thread starter Shinobido Heart
- Start date
IMO, these games have all aged relatively well in the looks department. The only thing that looks bad now looked bad decades ago -- the dreadful fanservice shite.
OP
OP
Oh you know what, you just reminded me that some characters have alternate costumes in Episode III.
Shion and KOS-MOS have throwback costumes from Xenosaga Episode I. Let's check those out!
I'm still messing around with Reshade settings, I do feel like it might be a tad too bright but I'll keep settings the same for now.
Bonus:
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Yeah, turns out that Chico's character designs translated well to 3D unlike Kunihiko Tanaka's character designs.
All three Xeno series derive from the idea presented in Xenogears Perfect Works so don't be surprised about the thematic overlaps.
That's on Square Enix, Monolith Soft have no legal rights over Xenogears as the game was developed in-house by Square.
OP, I'm replaying these now, and I'm shocked at how well they hold up. I'm still in the firm belief that they're the best in the Xeno series, better than even Xenogears.
Horrific 3D style aside, Shion's outfit from episode 2 is actually quite lovely (funny enough I feel the opposite of both of these for Ep III).
I actually hope re-doing the graphic to a unified look. I'd argue Episode III was a good preview to how Monolith's 3D even kinda looks now.
A woman with sensible yet stylish shoes?? This does NOT adhere to character design 101! Get the focus groups on the phone asap!
OP
OP
Yeah, they hold nicely, except maybe Xenosaga II. I enjoyed them all when I first played through them, but I don't have much of a reason to go back to episode II.
The graphical style is very different compared to I and III, sound quality also seems on the low side.
To be fair, Tanaka's work translated to 3D just fine with his Xenoblade 2 contributions (plus in respect to Xenosaga, he only worked on Episode I, not II). Monolith Soft improving with 3D models over time was also a factor.
Momo is an abomnation of design, but I love this space opera shit otherwise. Wish it would get rereleased with a better momo design and an expanded card game from ep. 1.
Let's go a little further...though, this may be a bit too much.
I've added HDR this time around.
PCSX2 Shaders On + Reshade Vibrance On/SMAA On/DPX On/HDR Bloom On/HDR On/Clarity On:
Oh you know what, you just reminded me that some characters have alternate costumes in Episode III.
Shion and KOS-MOS have throwback costumes from Xenosaga Episode I. Let's check those out!
I'm still messing around with Reshade settings, I do feel like it might be a tad too bright but I'll keep settings the same for now.
Bonus:
The contrast is way too sharp with the lighting, it's making my eyes ache. You need to make it more subtle.
OP
OP
Yeah, I think I liked the settings I did the first time around.
Adding too much bloom and other things makes the menu's discolored. I'll need to keep messing around with it.
Pretty cool, but a true remaster would need to do something about the FMV cinemas. Especially Episode 1, which has like 3 hours worth of voiced cutscenes done entirely in DVD-quality FMV prerendered using the standard engine. Tweak all the settings you want, you don't be making improvements to those graphics.
Unlike, say, Kingdom Hearts where most of the voiced cutscenes are rendered real-time and thus can be improved by the emulator and/or Reshade.
Unlike, say, Kingdom Hearts where most of the voiced cutscenes are rendered real-time and thus can be improved by the emulator and/or Reshade.
OP
OP
To give a better idea on what Reshade's HDR Bloom does to the UI, let's take a look at the menu during battle.
Vanilla:
This is with PCSX2 Shaders On + the Reshade settings on the previous page:
Looks bright doesn't it? Some icons lose their details because it's so bright, like the Traps icons in the overworld view.
Let's take a more subtle approach... I'll turn off PCSX2 Shaders and HDR Bloom.
Things look darker, less bright, and more importantly, easier on the eyes and the menus.
There are other bloom options besides HDR Bloom but I felt HDR Bloom was the better looking one of them all. I probably just haven't messed with the settings enough to find that good middle ground yet.
With PCSX2 Shaders On, things look a little brighter.
It still blows me away that Reshade works on PCSX2, I didn't think I could take things further to improve visual fidelity of my PS2 games but this is a serious game changer for me.
Vanilla:
This is with PCSX2 Shaders On + the Reshade settings on the previous page:
Looks bright doesn't it? Some icons lose their details because it's so bright, like the Traps icons in the overworld view.
Let's take a more subtle approach... I'll turn off PCSX2 Shaders and HDR Bloom.
Things look darker, less bright, and more importantly, easier on the eyes and the menus.
There are other bloom options besides HDR Bloom but I felt HDR Bloom was the better looking one of them all. I probably just haven't messed with the settings enough to find that good middle ground yet.
With PCSX2 Shaders On, things look a little brighter.
It still blows me away that Reshade works on PCSX2, I didn't think I could take things further to improve visual fidelity of my PS2 games but this is a serious game changer for me.