Yoshi (2019) final product graphics don't come close to those in its reveal trailer - what actually caused this?

brainchild · Apr 22, 2019

J 0 E said:
They did it with Zelda, no less. BotW had a massive downgrade and Nintendo officially admitted it and even went so far as to "justify" it yet some fans deny it even happened.

You can't really do a fair comparison between different places/camera positions in an open world game because Level of Detail systems will change asset quality on the fly depending on the camera/player position, and considering that that exact area in the trailer doesn't exist in the final game, a like for like comparison cannot be made, unfortunately.

Serebii · Apr 22, 2019

I'm not seeing much of a downgrade after playing it through. It looks pretty much just like the reveal trailer, just with a lot less horrific depth blurring

unicornKnight · Apr 22, 2019

J 0 E said:
They did it with Zelda, no less. BotW had a massive downgrade and Nintendo officially admitted it and even went so far as to "justify" it yet some fans deny it even happened.

Not saying that it didn't happen but this image isn't really representative of the final game.

And btw Yoshi sure took a downgrade in resolution but the materials and surfaces were very flat back then and now look miles better. And since the resolution is dynamic I expect the game to look really great on the next Switch

Jonneh · Apr 22, 2019

J 0 E said:
They did it with Zelda, no less. BotW had a massive downgrade and Nintendo officially admitted it and even went so far as to "justify" it yet some fans deny it even happened.

It would be a little mad to argue Breath of the Wild wasn't downgraded but this comparison doesn't make any sense. You're comparing in-engine to in-game

AniHawk · Apr 22, 2019

i'm more disappointed that the level design was downgraded so much. it looked like they were trying for something somewhat unique and interesting before it got turned into a normal platfomer with extra padding.

Chuck · Apr 22, 2019

It's very apparent that the attempt to use UE4 on the Switch for this was a mistake. There's no reason this game should be running at near SD resolutions while docked.

And yeah, it was almost definitely a very optimistic PC build.

Deleted member 10737 · Apr 22, 2019

AniHawk said:
i'm more disappointed that the level design was downgraded so much. it looked like they were trying for something somewhat unique and interesting before it got turned into a normal platfomer with extra padding.

yeah that's a bit of a bummer. initially, it looked like you could flip the level any time you want. my guess is they couldn't get it to run decently if they gave you that option and had to render both views at once at all times.

brainchild · Apr 22, 2019

Jonneh said:
It would be a little mad to argue Breath of the Wild wasn't downgraded but this comparison doesn't make any sense. You're comparing in-engine to in-game

Yup. Of course, some people will argue that the reveal was purported to be 'in-game', but we haven't actually seen evidence of this. Even assuming it was in-game, the comparison would still be disingenuous.

J 0 E · Apr 22, 2019

AllEchse said:
There is no place as lush as the Reveal shot, but that release screenshot is really unfavorable cause it's from the distance and pointed downwards.
There are nice lush grassy fields in Zelda that come close to giving the vibe of the reveal trailer.

brainchild said:
You can't really do a fair comparison between different places/camera positions in an open world game because Level of Detail systems will change asset quality on the fly depending on the camera/player position, and considering that that exact area in the trailer doesn't exist in the final game, a like for like comparison cannot be made, unfortunately.

unicornKnight said:
Not saying that it didn't happen but this image isn't really representative of the final game.

And btw Yoshi sure took a downgrade in resolution but the materials and surfaces were very flat back then and now look miles better. And since the resolution is dynamic I expect the game to look really great on the next Switch

Jonneh said:
It would be a little mad to argue Breath of the Wild wasn't downgraded but this comparison doesn't make any sense. You're comparing in-engine to in-game

The image is a reference not a total representation, the game has been downgraded visually and that's clear even compared to the demo Aonuma played. And again, Nintendo admitted it.

brainchild · Apr 22, 2019

J 0 E said:
The image is a reference not a total representation, the game has been downgraded visually and that's clear even compared to the demo Aonuma played.

The final in-game graphics do not compare favorably to the reveal trailer, that is true. But it can be argued that the game never actually looked like that in a playable state in the first place. And no, the game was not downgraded compared to the demo (the LOD assets in the far distance of the demo were of much lower quality), so I'm not sure what gave you that impression, especially when you're comparing off-screen footage to direct feed.

Also, this is incredibly off-topic and has nothing to do with Yoshi.

Deleted member 2791 · Apr 22, 2019

J 0 E said:
And again, Nintendo admitted it.

Gonna need a source on that because I very much doubt it.

unicornKnight · Apr 22, 2019

mazi said:
yeah that's a bit of a bummer. initially, it looked like you could flip the level any time you want. my guess is they couldn't get it to run decently if they gave you that option and had to render both views at once at all times.

I don't think it works like this. I believe it was clearly a design decision, maybe testing showed that it wasn't that that fun like this or maybe too hard, I mean imagine every few steps having to flip camera to check the other side. Could be one of those things that sound good in theory and are fun for a few levels but not for the entire duration of a game.

Nuclear Muffin · Apr 22, 2019

AniHawk said:
i'm more disappointed that the level design was downgraded so much. it looked like they were trying for something somewhat unique and interesting before it got turned into a normal platfomer with extra padding.

The eariest version of the game even went for a wild concept that had two Switches lined up back to back; each representing one side of the game world!

I would've loved to have played that version! But I can totally understand why they had to abandon the concept (as well as the later flipside idea). It was just unfeasible to design a full game like that. Each level being literally two levels in one is just too difficult to design and make fun.

brainchild · Apr 22, 2019

J 0 E said:
And again, Nintendo admitted it.

tommyv2 · Apr 22, 2019

DarkLordMalik said:
The game looks super clean to me even on a 4K TV. Might be a little blurry

I wonder if some of you read the things you're writing.

Deleted member 10737 · Apr 22, 2019

brainchild said:
We've done an analysis of the final build here:

i'm surprised i missed this video in my sub box! i'll have to watch it

unicornKnight said:
I don't think it works like this. I believe it was clearly a design decision, maybe testing showed that it wasn't that that fun like this or maybe too hard, I mean imagine every few steps having to flip camera to check the other side. Could be one of those things that sound good in theory and are fun for a few levels but not for the entire duration of a game.

you're probably right. thinking about it, the initial idea probably would have been quite frustrating for the player.

J 0 E · Apr 22, 2019

brainchild said:
The final in-game graphics do not compare favorably to the reveal trailer, that is true. But it can be argued that the game never actually looked like that in a playable state in the first place. And no, the game was not downgraded compared to the demo (the LOD assets in the far distance of the demo were of much lower quality), so I'm not sure what gave you that impression, especially when you're comparing off-screen footage to direct feed.

The game looked a lot better in the 2014 demo to me specially in the lighting effects.

brainchild said:
Also, this is incredibly off-topic and has nothing to do with Yoshi.

It's a response to "Nintendo never did it"

brainchild said:

LordKano said:
Gonna need a source on that because I very much doubt it.

I posted it above.

brainchild · Apr 22, 2019

thomasjast said:
I wonder if some of you read the things you're writing.

Unfortunately, the word has evolved to mean 'nice' as well, so it's not a contradiction if the person using it isn't talking about clarity.

Deleted member 2791 · Apr 22, 2019

J 0 E said:
The game looked a lot better in the 2014 demo to me specially in the lighting effects.

It's a response to "Nintendo never did it"

I posted it above.

In no dimension does this even qualify as "nintendo admitting they downgraded the game". As expected they never said that.

Dphex · Apr 22, 2019

plusaflag said:
Now my attempt in this thread is to find out believable reasons as to why this happened. .

Oh, that is simple: Switch isn´t powerful enough

Nessus · Apr 22, 2019

plusaflag said:
Looking at it, I can't help but notice the downgrade in visuals : while the lighting seems to have only taken minor hits, the resolution and AA quality have been notched down quite a bit.

I mean, the game has noticeable slowdown as is. I would imagine any potential downgrades were to avoid even worse slowdown.

J 0 E · Apr 22, 2019

LordKano said:
In no dimension does this even qualify as "nintendo admitting they downgraded the game". As expected they never said that.

brainchild · Apr 22, 2019

mazi said:
i'm surprised i missed this video in my sub box! i'll have to watch it

Never too late to watch it! Enjoy :)

J 0 E said:
I posted it above.

They're talking about development priorities, not downgrading the game.

Deleted member 2791 · Apr 22, 2019

J 0 E said:

Guess that's the furthest you can argue ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Deleted member 32018 · Apr 22, 2019

J 0 E said:
I posted it above.

They said that they wanted to prioritize framerate over making the game prettier, that isn't an admission of downgrading the game...

steviestar3 · Apr 22, 2019

I watched the Yoshi E3 demo again right after finishing Crafted World and the final game definitely looks better. The dinosaur skull level in particular looks very flat in the E3 demo.

Tiny Chihuahueño · Apr 22, 2019

J 0 E said:
They did it with Zelda, no less. BotW had a massive downgrade and Nintendo officially admitted it and even went so far as to "justify" it yet some fans deny it even happened.

I mean, even knowing that BOTW was indeed downgraded, that comparison is completely absurd and pointless. The place on the reveal trailer doesn't even exist in the final game, so you can't compare that to this random location in the plateau.

QuiteSomething · Apr 22, 2019

Its a downgrade. Happens everytime
But as you can see above fans will eat up everything so companies will still lie to consumers

SleepSmasher · Apr 22, 2019

It almost feels like every single AA/AAA game now has a thread about graphics downgrades. OP needs an eye surgery because the game looks as good if not better than before. Internet hyperbole is just the worst.

J 0 E · Apr 22, 2019

brainchild said:
They're talking about development priorities, not downgrading the game.

LordKano said:
Guess that's the furthest you can argue ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

steviejd1 said:
They said that they wanted to prioritize framerate over making the game prettier, that isn't an admission of downgrading the game...

It's an admission to it specially regarding the downgrade the game actually had.

Tiny Chihuahueño said:
I mean, even knowing that BOTW was indeed downgraded, that comparison is completely absurd and pointless. The place on the reveal trailer doesn't even exist in the final game, so you can't compare that to this random location in the plateau.

J 0 E said:
The image is a reference not a total representation, the game has been downgraded visually and that's clear even compared to the demo Aonuma played. And again, Nintendo admitted it.

I don't want to derail the thread any longer.

Deleted member 10737 · Apr 22, 2019

not surprised this thread turned into the tired botw downgrade argument.

unicornKnight said:
I don't think it was intentional, I think the utilization of UE4 was decided after the initial reveal

clearly not, it was UE4 from the very beginning. watch the very end of the E3 2017 trailer.

Combo · Apr 22, 2019

Assenzio said:
To be fair we never saw this with a Nintendo game

First reveal of Zelda U.

Elfotografoalocado · Apr 22, 2019

thomasjast said:
I wonder if some of you read the things you're writing.

Super clean is generally used to imply it's free of jaggies and other sampling artifacts. A game can be blurry and clean, and it can be sharp and not clean. A game rendered at 1080p witn no antialiasing is sharp and shimmery, a game rendered at 1080p with heavy TAA and post-processing will probably be a lot cleaner, but also quite a bit blurrier.

brainchild · Apr 22, 2019

J 0 E said:
It's an admission to it specially regarding the downgrade the game actually had.

No matter how many times you say it, it doesn't make it true, and unless you have a quote from them saying exactly what you're inferring, I'm not really interested in your galaxy brain takes about how Nintendo meant something besides what they actually said.

Elfotografoalocado said:
Super clean is generally used to imply it's free of jaggies and other sampling artifacts. A game can be blurry and clean, and it can be sharp and not clean. A game rendered at 1080p witn no antialiasing is sharp and shimmery, a game rendered at 1080p with heavy TAA and post-processing will probably be a lot cleaner, but also quite a bit blurrier.

And here I thought they were just using vernacular. I guess I can see the logic in 'free of jaggies = clean', but it does make things confusing when 'clean' also refers to 'clarity'. Even so, the game still has jaggies; I wouldn't have been about to pixel count the internal resolution by hand without them!

Linde · Apr 22, 2019

Honestly the only compromise looks to be the resolution from what I can tell
The game is blurry at times but still looks pretty much the same

Heromanz · Apr 22, 2019

Calibro said:
Hot take: showing a slightly different game in development a considerable time before release isn't false advertising because that's how game development works.

Sure but they are also meant to sells games and many trailer don't come out and say that and when they do they usually try to hide it in small language

Deleted member 5028 · Apr 22, 2019

Didn't it switch developers mid cycle?

Deleted member 10737 · Apr 22, 2019

brainchild said:
Never too late to watch it! Enjoy :)

just did, another great video from you. when you point out all the effort that goes into making the materials have a life-like look, i too think the sacrifices to resolution were worth it cuz without having the crafts looking almost believable, the whole concept of the game wouldn't have worked as well as it did in the final product.

SlipperyFishes said:
Didn't it switch developers mid cycle?

no. there were changes to gameplay but that was it.

Sp1 · Apr 22, 2019

Assenzio said:
To be fair we never saw this with a Nintendo game

BotW's graphics were about one generation behind its first "in game" reveal teaser.

Basarili · Apr 22, 2019

I wasn't going to get it after the demo, but is it me or does the retail version look better then the demo?

unicornKnight · Apr 22, 2019

mazi said:
clearly not, it was UE4 from the very beginning. watch the very end of the E3 2017 trailer.

Hmm guess I was confused with the whole "Goodfeel is doing it. No they aren't. Yes they actually are." thing.

Basarili said:
I wasn't going to get it after the demo, but is it me or does the retail version look better then the demo?

Well the demo was a very simple level while later stages look much better. Imo they should ave included 3 levels, the one they did and two latter to better showcase it.

Deleted member 10737 · Apr 22, 2019

unicornKnight said:
Hmm guess I was confused with the whole "Goodfeel is doing it. No they aren't. Yes they actually are." thing.

there really was nothing to that, people were just making stuff up cuz the good-feel logo wasn't in the demo

unicornKnight said:
Well the demo was a very simple level while later stages look much better. Imo they should ave included 3 levels, the one they did and two latter to better showcase it.

i agree, the demo was a bit too short. if it was the first two sub worlds (3 levels) it would have done a better job at selling people on the game.

Soapbox Killer · Apr 22, 2019

I just looked at the E3 trailer again and I own the game and "doesn't come close" feels rather off base. Maybe a side by side could help but I flat out to see a big difference at all.

Phellps · Apr 22, 2019

Hitomi J-Scrub said:
Just because false advertising like this is common doesn't mean it's not worth pointing out. But I guess it was a prime opportunity for a snarky drive-by!!

Is it false advertising when all other released footage from the game showed it exactly as it currently is?

Deleted member 10737 · Apr 22, 2019

Nessus said:
I mean, the game has noticeable slowdown as is. I would imagine any potential downgrades were to avoid even worse slowdown.

are you referring to yoshi? there's practically no slowdown in yoshi, the game is running at flawless 60 fps (30 fps in the world map).

brainchild · Apr 22, 2019

mazi said:
just did, another great video from you.

Thank you! You can look forward to more technical analysis coverage from us in the future :)

mazi said:
when you point out all the effort that goes into making the materials have a life-like look, i too think the sacrifices to resolution were worth it cuz without having the crafts looking almost believable, the whole concept of the game wouldn't have worked as well as it did in the final product.

I definitely think the game's concept would've fallen a bit flat had they not made the concessions that they did, but I can see why some people are not happy with the final result of the image quality.

Deleted member 10737 · Apr 22, 2019

Ruslnis said:
But as you can see above fans will eat up everything so companies will still lie to consumers

i'm sorry but what lying? the initial video was from almost two years before the game came out. since then they have shown trailers and gameplay at several directs and previews and those looked like the final product. you would have had a point if all the way up to the release they pretended like the trailer from E3 2017 was representative of the final product, which they did not.

brainchild · Apr 22, 2019

Nessus said:
I mean, the game has noticeable slowdown as is. I would imagine any potential downgrades were to avoid even worse slowdown.

If you're talking about Yoshi's Crafted World, aside from a few hiccups here and there, we saw no evidence of sustained slowdown below the target framerate of the game. Some cutscenes do have a stop-motion like quality to them (for artistic reasons), and the world map runs at 30fps, but that isn't slowdown.

Deleted member 10737 · Apr 22, 2019

btw they didn't just show a trailer at e3 2017, they did a whole treehouse gameplay demo. the finished product looks much better visually imo, it just didn't have as good of a realistic craft look when they first revealed it.

Deleted member 249 · Apr 22, 2019

I feel like it was showcased on target hardware, and optimization in the final stage of development caused the downgrades.
It still does look gorgeous.

Yoshi (2019) final product graphics don't come close to those in its reveal trailer - what actually caused this?

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