-
Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
PANZER DRAGOON: Remake |OT| Same Tower, New Power
- Thread starter SirNinja
- Start date
It's a solid 6/10 for me. Zwei is one of my favorite games of all time, but the core gameplay satisfaction of hurling lasers towards painted enemies just lacks the visual and auditory punch of the classic games. Everyone's already has an opinion regarding that aspect, but the big detail I think a lot are missing on is the insane input delay. Easily a 1/3rd of a second delay on all reticle movement really makes it difficult to want to play over and over. When you do a camera turn or spin, it possible takes even longer. It's extremely delayed.
Still, enjoyed the cutscenes and liked the environments more than the original. I hope they add a classic sound FX option for lock on, lasers and shots.
Still, enjoyed the cutscenes and liked the environments more than the original. I hope they add a classic sound FX option for lock on, lasers and shots.
This sounds disappointing. Oh well. I've been hoping for a collection all with PD, Zwei, Orta, and Saga in one package. Some day.
Thats...actually a nuanced and detailed take with a good conclusion at the end, and without a score. =O
Panzer Dragoon's PC port is available in Panzer Dragoon Orta, which is BC on XBone.
you can play the PC version of Panzer Dragoon very easily on a modern system, it supports Direct X. It's the version that all subsequent ports come from. Looking on ebay, there is one selling for $5.99 in the UK with international shipping.
If you have an Xbox, Xbox 360, or Xbox One, Panzer Dragoon Orta is fully BC and contains the entirety of the PC Port of Panzer Dragoon. Orta is worth getting regardless of its inclusion of Panzer Dragoon, tbh.
Finally, if you have a Playstation 3, you can still buy the Panzer Dragoon Sega Ages 2500 remake from the PS2 through the JPN store:
The PS2 remake is much more faithful to the original than the current remake. Without causing a stir, outside of graphics, I'd say the PS2 sega ages remake is a much better package than the current remake. It also includes much, much more content.
EDIT: Actually went and checked, sadly the Panzer Dragoon remake is not one of the PS2 sega ages titles offered on PSN, what a bummer.
Last edited:
I tried zooming out but once he gets really close to me and is on my left side, no matter where I'm going, he still hits me. I got pretty good at avoiding the attacks where he throws the shield at me, though. I guess I need more practice with the fight in the remake, as I got pretty good at it in the original at some point.
Of course outsourced 2d games are going to eventually turn out good, with so many indie developers around specializing in metroidvania platformers and 8/16 bit retro-inspired productions.
Trying to do the same thing with bigger, 3d based properties is starting to look like a terrible idea though.
Let's not forget that Sega also asked some unknown European tiny studio to freaking remake the two Shenmue games from the ground up, and they barely managed to come up with a couple of barebone, bug-ridden remasters.
Now a less-than average no-name developer is supposed to handle the full remakes of two of their most hystorical series.
At this point Sega is just giving away their ips like valueless pieces of shit. They have no pride nor self respect whatsoever.
Moreso that SEGA has a long history of mistreating the Panzer Dragoon series i.e. losing Saga's code, the PAL port of Orta, this remake releasing in a seemingly rushed state (patching in the new soundtrack), Panzer Dragoon Mini and so on. That's the only interesting thing i've found about this remake since, while it's bad, it's not an especially interesting bad. Visuals are oversaturated, the target reticle's size makes it more difficult to hit your target and the inability to play the original a la Orta just makes a stronger case for porting the latter to PC instead of picking this up. If this is supposed to be the quality expected of a Zwei or Saga remake, then it bodes poorly for the series should its future hinge on this mediocre mess's success.
The future doesn't hinge on this at all. They've already announced a brand new Panzer Dragoon game, Panzer Dragoon VR, being made by a completely different studio.
I completely forgot that got announced, it was only a few weeks ago.
So basically this remake just exists in a state where its significance is how not good it is in a series of generally good games (aside from Mini) plagued by neglect and bad luck.
I'm honestly pretty fine with Sega licensing out IP that they 100% aren't going to do shit with on their own. If the worst thing to come of that is a decent, if flawed (but plenty playable) remake, that's not too bad in my books.
Much prefer something like this as opposed to say, Altered Beast PS2 or Golden Axe: Beast Rider.
Much prefer something like this as opposed to say, Altered Beast PS2 or Golden Axe: Beast Rider.
I think I just need some time to play while the wife is busy and the kids are sleeping. Abd maybe easy mode too :P
Played for a few more hours last night. The controls still don't feel right, but I think I've adjusted to them now. As I no longer have a means of playing the original, I don't have an immediate point of reference, but as a minimum, they really need to sort out the camera. My tactics have naturally adapted to the point where I'll happily take the odd hit from a blindside to avoid having to slug through the camera rotation.
Having now seen all the levels:
- The colours are too saturated. Colourful and vibrant can be done without going full cartoon (see PD Orta).
- That being said, I did quite like the additional colour they added to Level 4.
- Graphics are actually quite nice. The models are good and the environments are fine.
- I don't have full confidence in the reticule. Sometimes, I feel like I'm painting a target but it isn't registering.
- Loading is horrendous and not being able to adjust reticule sensitivity from the in-game pause menu is an unfortunate situation.
- I like the mini-intros that usher in the boss fights. Short and sweet. Enough to set the stage.
All that being said, I do come away with the impression that the devs genuinely respect the source material, even if they have made choices I don't personally fully agree with. The menus and 2D art are nice. The original OST is still excellent and the promise of a Kobayashi version is very exciting. And most importantly, I'm enjoying the game enough to keep coming back for more.
Will buy again when it inevitably lands on the other consoles, hopefully with 60 fps. I really need to play this with the DS4 too, not a huge fan of the Switch Pro controller.
I think there's enough here to remain cautiously optimistic about Zwei, providing they take careful note of fan feedback.
Having now seen all the levels:
- The colours are too saturated. Colourful and vibrant can be done without going full cartoon (see PD Orta).
- That being said, I did quite like the additional colour they added to Level 4.
- Graphics are actually quite nice. The models are good and the environments are fine.
- I don't have full confidence in the reticule. Sometimes, I feel like I'm painting a target but it isn't registering.
- Loading is horrendous and not being able to adjust reticule sensitivity from the in-game pause menu is an unfortunate situation.
- I like the mini-intros that usher in the boss fights. Short and sweet. Enough to set the stage.
All that being said, I do come away with the impression that the devs genuinely respect the source material, even if they have made choices I don't personally fully agree with. The menus and 2D art are nice. The original OST is still excellent and the promise of a Kobayashi version is very exciting. And most importantly, I'm enjoying the game enough to keep coming back for more.
Will buy again when it inevitably lands on the other consoles, hopefully with 60 fps. I really need to play this with the DS4 too, not a huge fan of the Switch Pro controller.
I think there's enough here to remain cautiously optimistic about Zwei, providing they take careful note of fan feedback.
You are seriously undervaluing the incredible work that went into projects like Sonic Mania, Streets of Rage 4, The Dragon's Trap remake, Monster Boy and the like by saying of course they would just be fine. Bad 2D indie games are released all of the time. Look how hit or miss WayForward's games can be, and they are a genuine legacy developer at this point!
The full Shenmue remakes were never greenlit, it was something the devs looked into doing, but it never went far. Shenmue I & II were handled extremely well all things considered I think (though released a bit sooner than they should have). Just look back a few years to Sonic Adventure DX or Crazy Taxi on XBL/PSN to see how far they have come in terms of quality control. Hell, it still absolutely blows my mind that we got a physical release of Shenmue I & II. Not many publishers do this kind of thing with legacy titles.
"Giving away their IPs like valueless pieces of shit"? You honestly could not sound more bitter. I sort of understand because I think Panzer Dragoon is an especially artistic game that should be handled carefully, but your overreaction here is severe. In just the case of Streets of Rage 4 they have pushed against at least half a dozen if not more attempts at that game in the past. They are not letting just anyone tackle these projects, otherwise we would be seeing followups to their stuff way more often. Look how many games that are inspired by Jet Set Radio, Monkey Ball, Shining Force, their arcade racers and the like popping up in recent years. If they were just letting anyone have their IP these would be licensed too.
Replayed the game again. If nothing else, its damn addictive. I'd love a level select so I could hit up those later levels again without having to replay them all. I'll have to give hard mode a shot next.
Only point in the game I feel is truly messed up is stage 4's boss, those side attacks seem bizarrely hard to dodge. I just tank the damage now and try to finish him off fast.
Its definitely an imperfect remake, but its still nice to have it on the Switch. If they can improve it with a couple of patches I'll be very happy.
Only point in the game I feel is truly messed up is stage 4's boss, those side attacks seem bizarrely hard to dodge. I just tank the damage now and try to finish him off fast.
Its definitely an imperfect remake, but its still nice to have it on the Switch. If they can improve it with a couple of patches I'll be very happy.
So, on the subject of Shenmue I and II, those games were coded with ridiculous SH4 optimization. It appears that Yu Suzuki's team did not use the Ninja graphics library that comes with the Katana SDK, but rather wrote their own technology from scratch. The Dreamcast's design is essoteric, it uses a tile-based deferred renderer, not a conventional forward renderer like today's equipment. This was basically a dead end technology as nobody adopted it. The Dreamcast also has a ton of weird quirks about how it handles texel fetching. The Dreamcast has no math coprocessor, it doesn't have a GPU, all vertex calculations are handled in the CPU. Sega would provide a hardware abstraction layer in the Katana SDK, which amounted to some C-style preprocessor macros to map to various SH4 inline assembly, but it was rote. Shenmue doesn't use these kinds of macros, there are large sections of how it work written in pure SH4 assembly. When you write in SH4 assembly on the dreamcast, you find all sorts of "undocumented" features that the official Katana SDK lacks. The Dreamcast, for example, can perform SIMD calculations on vertices in the SH4. It does this by providing a pair of custom register sets, each 16 floating point registers big, called MTRX and XMTRX (matrix, and backmatrix). Through assembly, you can manually load up these registers and tread the back matrix as four 4-element vectors, allowing you to transform four times as many vertices in one call. The Katana SDK also generally doesn't take advantage of the Dreamcast's direct mapped cache, so cache misses are more common with code written with the Katana SDK. Using assembly like Shenmue does gives you much more granular control of your memory and lets you more fully take advantage of how it caches. There are way more tricks the Dreamcast can use that, without a doubt, Shenmue also used, like the ability to write directly from a cached buffer to the PVR core by overwriting tile accelerator cache area (things that emulators have trouble with). There's a feature of the SH4 as well called a store queue which lets it send 32-bytes of data to anywhere in VRAM at an incredible speed. All these are things that, even if you had experience making dreamcast games in the past, you might not be familiar with if presented to you in raw SH4 inline assembly.
What I'm saying is that Shenmue was not coded like most dreamcast games, it's a unique beast. Finding people in 2020 who have A) Dreamcast development experience, B) low level dreamcast development expirence, and C) the unique skillset needed to port retro titles (which the dreamcast is much different than, say, an Xbox port) is very hard.
Implying that the people who handle these kinds of ports are incompetent or sub standard is armchair developing. There are many reasons a project could go south, and without being there watching it unfold, you can't tell. It's not accurate to judge the quality of a developer by a port like shenmue, or even these panzer dragoon games. There's always more to the story, stuff that usually can't be told because it's incredibly technical in detail.
About Sega's process for these kinds of ports -- they actually work very closely with passionate fan communities to get them. These people might sound unknown to you, and I'll admit I don't know these devs, but they assuredly were plucked from the most hardcore retro gaming dev boards, because those are the only kind of people who have these skills today in the first place. For example, I know the administrator from Sonic Retro well and have for many years, and she has for a long time had a connection to Sega. I remember as far back as like 2011 her saying that she could arrange pitch meetings with Sega through PMs. I personally applaud their process, I wish more game companies would tap hobbyist circles like that.
If you don't like the panzer dragoon remake, you shouldn't be so miserable. I'm personally disappointed, but slinging insults at people just makes people look bad. At the bare minimum, at least there are eyes on the series right now. There are more games on the horizon, hopefully they take feedback and make them as best they can.
What I'm saying is that Shenmue was not coded like most dreamcast games, it's a unique beast. Finding people in 2020 who have A) Dreamcast development experience, B) low level dreamcast development expirence, and C) the unique skillset needed to port retro titles (which the dreamcast is much different than, say, an Xbox port) is very hard.
Implying that the people who handle these kinds of ports are incompetent or sub standard is armchair developing. There are many reasons a project could go south, and without being there watching it unfold, you can't tell. It's not accurate to judge the quality of a developer by a port like shenmue, or even these panzer dragoon games. There's always more to the story, stuff that usually can't be told because it's incredibly technical in detail.
About Sega's process for these kinds of ports -- they actually work very closely with passionate fan communities to get them. These people might sound unknown to you, and I'll admit I don't know these devs, but they assuredly were plucked from the most hardcore retro gaming dev boards, because those are the only kind of people who have these skills today in the first place. For example, I know the administrator from Sonic Retro well and have for many years, and she has for a long time had a connection to Sega. I remember as far back as like 2011 her saying that she could arrange pitch meetings with Sega through PMs. I personally applaud their process, I wish more game companies would tap hobbyist circles like that.
If you don't like the panzer dragoon remake, you shouldn't be so miserable. I'm personally disappointed, but slinging insults at people just makes people look bad. At the bare minimum, at least there are eyes on the series right now. There are more games on the horizon, hopefully they take feedback and make them as best they can.
I'd be happy with better gameplay through tweaks like this, yes. Maybe change the lock on reticle so that you paint with the large square, not the small square at the tip, to give a larger collision box. Definitely fix the weird delay issues with the control, adjust the firing rate so the gun shoots quicker. These changes would go a very long way towards making this a better port.
Just the first. Saga will take nothing shy of a miracle to recreate, since no source code from the past and all that. But a remake of 2 IS in the works, it seems.
Precisely. Issues with aiming aside, which I believe will be fixed shortly as the guys at MegaPixel have been very responsive, with a couple of devs jumping on the Forever Entertainment discord to hash out some outstanding issues with players.
People forget that the Panzer had been deader than dead since Futatsugi left SOJ for Konami, almost two decades ago. With Phantasy Star Online 2 recently out in the West and Shenmue III now a reality (though SEGA was barely involved), PD was probably the only major SEGA franchise which hadn't seen the light of day in ages! Even Sakura Taisen is getting a new game this year, after 15 years.
As someone who still plays my Saturn to this day, I often find that people's recollections of playing the first Panzer often don't line up with how the game really plays. PD1 is the weakest title in the series - an incredible artistic achievement by what was a dream team, with Yoshitaka Azuma composing the sublime soundtrack, Moebius handling some of the concept art and Manabu Kasunoki (who's now working with Sakaguchi on TerraBattle) as chief designer, but, as a game, it was pretty bare bones.
Honestly? If they can fix the few glaring issues with a couple of patches? (Putting the cursor back in front of the dragon, instead of behind it, will go a long way for instance). This will end up being a very solid remake of the original game.
There doesn't seem to be anything majorly wrong with it that can't be fixed without too much trouble, just a few small issues that are currently adding up. They've done a great job here! They've even properly remade the intro and ending! To think that this is (basically) a fan project? This is an incredible piece of work!
There doesn't seem to be anything majorly wrong with it that can't be fixed without too much trouble, just a few small issues that are currently adding up. They've done a great job here! They've even properly remade the intro and ending! To think that this is (basically) a fan project? This is an incredible piece of work!
Looking at all the youtube footage, it's a big old MEH of a reboot: 30fps, visible draw in distance fade in, weird dragon animation, terrible character model for Keil, lame ass 2D aiming reticle cursor. All a big fat MEH.
Panzer Dragoon deserves better. In Fact, It WAS better on OG XBox with Orta. Just play Orta on XBox One X at 4K 60fps and save $25. It's like $7 at MS store if you don't own it already.
www.youtube.com
Panzer Dragoon deserves better. In Fact, It WAS better on OG XBox with Orta. Just play Orta on XBox One X at 4K 60fps and save $25. It's like $7 at MS store if you don't own it already.
Panzer Dragoon Orta - 4K Gameplay #2 (Xbox One X Enhanced) @ UHD (60ᶠᵖˢ) ✔
►► Select 2160p HD for Best Quality ◄◄ Panzer Dragoon Orta gameplay in 4K (game is 1920p) on the Xbox One X (Xbox One X Enhanced)Panzer Dragoon Orta was rele...
www.youtube.com
I don't know, i don't think that "at least it exists and it kinda works" should be considered good enough for Shenmue.
Also i loved Sonic Mania, but the only entirely new game so far has been Monster Boy, and while it turned out pretty good on its own (in its first half at least) it felt like it lacked the soul of the original games to me.
Same thing for SOR4, it's probably going to be good as well, but being decent and having a licensed ip it's not good enough to me if the artstyle does not respect the series at all and not even the
original composers (usually the facade-keeping factor in these kind of operations) are actually on board. Meanwhile Ancient is still around doing nothing.
I mean, just because Ninja Theory was a good developer and DmC eventually turned out worthwile but subpar-ish it doesn't mean they should've made a new Devil May Cry game.
I know we're basically in "better than nothing" territory but Panzer Dragoon deserved more than a sub-par remake that twisted its original artstyle for dubious commercial reasons and straight up botched the freaking gameplay. But who cares, it has shiny new graphics and they'll eventually nail the controls within the next four or five patches, so its all good i guess?
It feels like Sega it's starting to try the same thing they did with their 2d properties with the 3d ones, and i don't think this is going to turn out a good idea.
I hope we're not going to end up with outsourced western-made JSR games or stuff like that, but i think there's a serious risk at this point.
Anyway, i'm not insulting anyone, i'm just saying that no-name indie studios might not be exactly up to the task of handling historical legendary series.
The D3t guys might be the most hardcore developers in the world but they still managed to come up with a disastrously input-lag and stutter ridden Mega Drive Collection, for example.
woha, the ps3 port looks almost like i would expect it to. not quite as dreamy as the original, but still close enough.
First: absolutely, the developers have done what they could. Insulting and harassing is never ok.
But: what does that have to do with the way shenmue was developed?
Its not even a port,its a remake. No need to use obscure tech for that. Its not like there is only one way to program the same behavior (and even then, it is not the same).
What im a bit dissapointed: if the game is not a 1:1 remake (feels different, artstyle changes)... why not just make it more different? a reimagining, or even a new entrie? if you keep to close to the original, but dont make it an 1:1 upgrade,you almost always loose, dont use the potential of new ideas/developments, and also dont do the original justice.
(Also im a firm believer that every remake should com with an emulated version of the original, for preservation and historical context sake, like nintendo did with metroid zero mission, or the PSP Rondo of blood remake.
And at last: if they improve this game with patches, and take the criticism into acount for zwei, it couldcome out great.
For some this is good. I, instead, would wish to make the old ones available on modern platforms (sega ages...), and make NEW entries, that try to take what made these games great, and translate it into modern times with new twists.
Its subjective, i know. But "making small scale projects for old fans" diesnt seem like a viable strategy in the long run. neither for sega, nor for the franchises. Sometimes, shure, but it feels like thats all sega is doing woth their old IPs.
First: absolutely, the developers have done what they could. Insulting and harassing is never ok.
But: what does that have to do with the way shenmue was developed?
Its not even a port,its a remake. No need to use obscure tech for that. Its not like there is only one way to program the same behavior (and even then, it is not the same).
What im a bit dissapointed: if the game is not a 1:1 remake (feels different, artstyle changes)... why not just make it more different? a reimagining, or even a new entrie? if you keep to close to the original, but dont make it an 1:1 upgrade,you almost always loose, dont use the potential of new ideas/developments, and also dont do the original justice.
(Also im a firm believer that every remake should com with an emulated version of the original, for preservation and historical context sake, like nintendo did with metroid zero mission, or the PSP Rondo of blood remake.
And at last: if they improve this game with patches, and take the criticism into acount for zwei, it couldcome out great.
while i get the sentiment ("Its small teams of fans, and the games they made are great and hard work"), it also to the detrement: the aim is to produce small scale products for the fans of back then.
For some this is good. I, instead, would wish to make the old ones available on modern platforms (sega ages...), and make NEW entries, that try to take what made these games great, and translate it into modern times with new twists.
Its subjective, i know. But "making small scale projects for old fans" diesnt seem like a viable strategy in the long run. neither for sega, nor for the franchises. Sometimes, shure, but it feels like thats all sega is doing woth their old IPs.
Last edited:
No it wasn't. Hence my post outlining the types of difficulties they faced.
Whell then this was just stupid. If i want to rehaul the whole game, and change even the game feel...why not just make a remake? in this case it should have been easier.
This seems more in the vain of OoT 3D, where they used the original code as a base?
With todays engines and tools, developing a on rail shooter from scratch should be easyer than reverse engineering the game from an old code base with probably lacking documentation (like almost every software project).
I've been there, mostly on small scale, but sometimes scraping code and starting from scratch is just faster, easier, and safer ( working on code you dont understand 100% usually leads to security risks...ok, less so for games)
So you understand: im not saying they are stupid, lazy, or that someone should harass them. Im just doubting that the decision to port and adapt was that reasonable in hindsight.
I think my post might have confused you as we've changed subjects a few time, admittedly my fault for being meandering. To clarify, in case I misunderstood your last post, you were saying shenmue wasn't a port, but a remake? That's not quite right, it wasn't a remake.
Panzer Dragoon? It IS a remake, from the ground up.
Ah, okay. Yeah, i was confused what shenmues has to do with this port, and then asumed you were talking about PD when you said it was a port. Good that it was clarified.
Shenmue is a whole different beast...they left the story open, had a distinct look, and wanted to return to the point where they left of: early 00. A modern shenmou would have looked a lot more like yakuza, the gameplay would have to be modernized, and the story would need a restart, because the first 2 are to far back and most people wouldnot have known it.
So they decided to make a faithfull product, for the fans of back then. -> this will never be mainstream.
With other ips, there are better chances to make entries for new audiences. But it diesnt seem like sega is interested in that.
I looked the developer up...no page on the web, not much info. The game was pushed back 6-9 months.
There only prior work is... a port of Agony to the switch. I get the feeling this is more a "3-4 guys working from home" team than a "small studio". How long are the credits?
And i think they did byte of too much. PD, PDZ, House of the Dead 1 & 2...
and the first one they had to push back6 months for a...flawed game.
man for everything this game gets right it gets something else gravely wrong
I was legitimately impressed by their version of the art style in level 4. That is a tough level to capture. Admittedly it's a hard level with their lock on system and the boss takes a couple of tries, but all in all, that is a very defining visual level in that game and it was way better than I expected it to be.
Then I got to level 5. I... can't believe a game released in 2020 looking like this. I have never seen a screen so completely filled with flickering foliage shadows. I'm not a stickler for graphics and I can still happily play the original today with the knowledge of the hardware limitations in mind, but I don't understand how they thought this would be ok. Hopefully they can improve this with the patch.
I think they also did Fear Effect Sedna, which... wasn't very well received.
But they do have a web page.
I was legitimately impressed by their version of the art style in level 4. That is a tough level to capture. Admittedly it's a hard level with their lock on system and the boss takes a couple of tries, but all in all, that is a very defining visual level in that game and it was way better than I expected it to be.
Then I got to level 5. I... can't believe a game released in 2020 looking like this. I have never seen a screen so completely filled with flickering foliage shadows. I'm not a stickler for graphics and I can still happily play the original today with the knowledge of the hardware limitations in mind, but I don't understand how they thought this would be ok. Hopefully they can improve this with the patch.
I think they also did Fear Effect Sedna, which... wasn't very well received.
But they do have a web page.
ports are not normally handled by studios, ports a normally done by smaller teams like the size you assume ported Shenmue. That's actually a super normal thing.
You can't really judge the talent which works on something by the company they are employed at. I'll give an example with a friend of mine:
Look at this company's credits. Would you trust this company to pull of a competent port of something? They've only released one game. It's a cell phone dungeon crawler (a really good one, I'll add).
Oh, except that studio is run by Eric Kinkead, an extremely well regarded developer in the industry with tons of ports under his belt, as well as working on games like Mortal Kombat II and NBA Jam. Who started programming back on the Atari 800 in microprocessor assembly. There's an adage that you can't judge a book by its cover.
The entire reason I relayed that shenmue story was because of an earlier post above which said Sega was treating their IPs like shit or something else similarly harsh, claiming they licensed it out to "below average" developers. That's a poor reading of the situation, and understanding more the difficulty in finding anybody with expertise to handle the situation is daunting. I wrote a book on dreamcast development, yet I very much doubt I would have been much if any help to said port.
Wikipedia says Sushee, but i have seen the interview by a french guy (the studsio is french and polish? confusing) that they did that as a team.
Exclusive: Panzer Dragoon Remake interview with Producer Benjamin Anseaume
For over a year, we’ve been anticipating each bit of word, footage, and image of MegaPixel, Foreve…
segabits.com
I asume, they handled the port of Fear Effect to the switch or something like that. Or the team was a different studio prior to this.
In the end, the team does not seem to have to much credibility, so it does not make me faithfull that the next games will be great, seing that they have another 3 on the table in the forseable future, and dont have the resources to add an emulated port of the original (according to the interview)... maybe they will make great games, and patch this one up. but at the moment, the situation does not look too encouraging.
Yeah, shure, developer quality != company, actually, developer quality != stuff they produce. I know some developers that are hugely talented and inteligent developers... on a technical level. I would gove them every port job. But developing something new? with users in mind? reinterpreting old stuff for remakes? well...not so much. There are a lot of roles and decisions in a game making process, and the team needs to handle all of them good, either with key players for each role and good communication, or just multitalented people.ports are not normally handled by studios, ports a normally done by smaller teams like the size you assume ported Shenmue. That's actually a super normal thing.
You can't really judge the talent which works on something by the company they are employed at. I'll give an example with a friend of mine:
Look at this company's credits. Would you trust this company to pull of a competent port of something? They've only released one game. It's a cell phone dungeon crawler (a really good one, I'll add).
Oh, except that studio is run by Eric Kinkead, an extremely well regarded developer in the industry with tons of ports under his belt, as well as working on games like Mortal Kombat II and NBA Jam. Who started programming back on the Atari 800 in microprocessor assembly. There's an adage that you can't judge a book by its cover.
The entire reason I relayed that shenmue story was because of an earlier post above which said Sega was treating their IPs like shit or something else similarly harsh, claiming they licensed it out to "below average" developers. That's a poor reading of the situation, and understanding more the difficulty in finding anybody with expertise to handle the situation is daunting. I wrote a book on dreamcast development, yet I very much doubt I would have been much if any help to said port.
Im not judging them just by the company, but by what they produced till now, and 2-3 games, and nothing great, and a delay, just does not inflame confidence. I would really like to be genuinely suprised.
But i got the feeling these projects are only greenlit because the budget is so low, while being a known ip. the Developers can be masters in game development/design, if they dont have the funds, then only so much is possible.
"to below average developers" yeah, thats just not fair. The developers are pasioned for the ips, and trying to do them justice.
I just think sega is not involved enough. Not in funding, not in feedback, etc. As far as i know, they show them some stuff from the initial development, have a meeting with the original guys...and leave the development to its own after that.
Edit: just looked up the games the publisher released...yeah... definetly more "quantity over qualty", most of them are really often @sale on the eshop...and are just... yeah. Its not pure junk, but i get the feeling if youre a developer who somehow made a competent (even if boring / unremarkable) game, they will publish it. PD looks like on of their higher profile releases.
Last edited:
Sega is clearly wining something here. Maybe its lions share of the sales or just testing the market with no costs.
In the process we get some good games if we have lucky
I like Sega Lord X content and this review is on point
I don't like new visuals as much as he did but I wonder if it's for the sub hd resolution and 30 fps on the Switch. Looking forward for the forward compatible PS4 version
Last edited:
They never needed the source code, rather porting Saturn games just requires a ton of work. Alot of the time, a ground up remake almost makes more sense.
Looking at the credits, it seems the original developers (now at Grounding Inc. and Land Ho. Inc., rather than Sega) were definitely involved. A lower level programmer at the time of PD was a permanent supervisor.
Not that it means much - the original devs worked on Crimson Dragon. And the remake is at least better than that.
A lot of the things people are asking them to fix--the finicky reticule, the camera, the slow button response, the annoying flapping, the awful soun ddesign, etc--are things that were complained about at length whenever they showed the game off and yet they persisted through every single build and into the final product, so either they can't adequately address those issues or they simply don't consider them issues worth addressing (or they need tens of thousands of complaints to hammer the issue home, as if that's any better).
Yeah Grounding Inc.'s next game is the SWERY game The Good Life and they just released Space Channel 5 VR last month.
IIRC the only other members of Team Andromeda not at either of those companies that are still at SEGA, are part of Nagoshi's dev team (Yakuza devs) or left also and are at Q Games (Art Director of Zwei, for example).
I know, just wanted to let people know that it's likely not lost anymore, because people still talk about it regularly.
I don't know that there's any indication these developers don't have passion for the series. If anything, some of the art - level 4 for instance - suggests that they do really "get" certain aspects of the world (though I agree level 1 calls that into question). The oversaturated colors and contrasty look might just be trying to appeal to modern audiences.
The control issues might simply be that game development is hard and they didn't nail it, not necessarily through lack of effort. Hopefully they're reading this and they continue to iterate it. As has been mentioned here, NiGHTS HD launched with really horrendous control issues - digital eight way directional input as opposed to analog for a game that literally shipped with it's own analog controller - but that was patched because the developers were reading posts like these.
This is interesting, didn't realize this.
The people still at Sega don't have much authority on Panzer because they worked on lower positions in the food ladder at the time.
Sega has alot of respect for the original developers for alot of their games. Sega is well aware of their old IP and which creator is behind it and where they are now. In order to bring out the best out of the Sega Ages games for example, M2 often has to dig in deep, and Sega has the connections to their old creators if they need them.
When this remake was pitched to them, Sega likely directed them to the whereabouts of the original devs in Japan rather than them giving them feedback themselfes.
This topic is getting really gross. The game is solid. It needs a few tweaks. The devs are extremely receptive and already have firm promises for some of these tweaks in two upcoming patches. It's not like it's unplayable, and it's not like they dumped it on the market and went radio silent.