I don't know about you guys and maybe I was being a bit ambitious. But I assumed this was going to be a from the ground up remake of the game.

Instead it appears that it's more of a port with advanced lighting etc.

Anyone else have the same misconception?

^^^Here is the new gameplay to show what I mean^^^

I always assumed it was going to be a port with maybe some bonuses.

Yeah, they called it "Remaster" rather than a variation of "remake" so I don't think it was going to be anything more than what it is.

I much prefer it this way. The game looks fine even before remastering, and I don't think anyone wants any detectable changes to the texture or audio. And, hey, faster release...

i think you might be mixing up remaster with remake. a remaster like this or in the case of monkey island usually uses the same foundation (engine) either modified or emulated for the new hardware then a polishing of the graphics as best as time and money will allow so that they will play just like the old game. in the case of the master chief collection MS had the money so they redid the cut scenes with high quality cg but the games run on their old engines.

That actually looks exactly what I thought it would look like. God what an amazing game, cool unique setting with memorable fun characters and a Great story one of the best in video game history its so good!

I could see a worry that some of the charm and style might be lost in remaking everything. Im ok with this. If they want to do a sequel I would expect them to figure out how to keep the style sensibilities but make it look like a proper modern game.

Would people really want the game, made all over again? Or do they want the game they played all those years ago but just looking and running better?

Most people want the latter. They want the nostalgia and memories not something new.

Not to mention it costs much much more to remake a game from the "ground up". You're talking about a lot of work to make a game that already exists. It's much more cost effective to remaster the game.

@finaldasa: I just want it to have useable controls.

As someone that hasn't played the original game I'm glad that this is a remaster and not a remake. I want to experience it like people originally experienced it only slightly better looking obviously. Also to answer your question: No I wasn't surprised it wasn't a remake. I feel like DF was pretty honest about it being a restoration rather than a remake.

For good or for ill, much of what Grim Fandango is it tied exclusively to its aesthetics. I have no doubt in my mind that a discussion about a total remake happened, but there are a few realities that makes this the final product.

1. As beloved as Grim Fandango is (and it is) it is a niche market, it would not be viable to pump too many resources into a total redraw

2. This is very much an odd trial run to see if this sort of stuff works, sure PS has a ton of classics, but it has never tried to take in classics from other platforms and remake them.

All in all, yes this game will not be able to shirk off its 1998 look, but the beauty of Grim Fandango, and why its remembered fondly is the incredibly intelligent and creative writing, as well as a completely unique scenario not really seen until Guacamellee as far as I know.

I am content by the fact that it wont take some weird workarounds to play this wonderful game, and that is all I can ask for.

Much of the charm of the game comes from the blocky characters. Somebody on the chat said they wanted more polygons inserted and the first thing that came to mind is that Glottis would lose all his charm.

@tuxfool: I agree, inserting polygons would be odd.

Hence why for some reason i was expecting a full remake.

The way this was announced at E3 made me think it was a megaton.

But am I missing something, it's a port with improved lighting and textures right?

@samfo: I believe they're just now able to present the textures and audio as they were meant to be seen/heard instead of compressed versions of them that had to be used back then. The improved lighting and added commentary are the only new additions to my knowledge.

Just played it at the Playstation Experience. Indeed, the 3D models have higher resolution textures and better anti-aliasing - anything that was 2d (backgrounds, etc) are just upscaled. I have to say the new textures/etc make the game look much better on higher resolution monitors. It defaults to 4:3 with black bars, you can stretch it but it looks horrid. Cutscenes are the same (pre-rendered).

They did add some nice looking lighting effects on the 3D models as well as realtime shadows instead of a blob on the floor. And the resized backgrounds at 1080p still hold up pretty well.

You can switch anytime between the classic version and the remastered version. There is also a developer commentary by Shafer. Vita version is nice as well.

Surprisingly a lot of people were trying it out, they even had a Manny Calavera mascot who wandered around the show floor.

@mosdl: I saw a video of Schafer playing it for about 30 minutes commenting on the control scheme and little details as well as getting annoyed at tiny bugs and clipping issues - so a full commentary sounds amazing.

@mosdl: Could you tell if the re-rendered the backgrounds in a higher resolution, or that they simply upscaled the 2d image?

If they simply upscaled then the backgrounds would become a blurry nastiness. If I remember correctly the original resolution of the game was 800x600.

I figured it'd just be upressed textures.

Grim Fandango rides on its art style and voice acting so much that I don't think DF really want to change much, just make it look good in 1080p, probably put higher bitrate sound in since file size is no longer a barrier.

All I really want, tbh. Make it work without crazy windows tinkering and i'm sold on it.

I could have sworn they said " remake " when this was first announced and not " remaster. " Maybe I'm wrong, I dunno.

Anyway, I was pretty disappointed to learn it was just a remaster (and not even a great looking one tbh), but I'm still excited I'll finally be able to play this.

Disney actually let them go through the Lucas Arts vaults and find the original source files for the game. Therefore they aren't upressed but instead the original art without being compressed so it could fit on a CD in the late 90s.

No. And I am happy that it's the case, because they already said that the only thing they are touching up apart from the audio and video are the controls. I don't need full remakes for my favorite games or movies.

Especially if they are such complete shit like the Baldur's Gate Enhanced Editions.

They are getting a live orchestra to do the games originally synthesized tracks so that part is being redone.

The art style is so god damn unique I think it would have lost a lot if they would have tried to make a dramatic visual overhaul. And the new lighting effects are really nice. Looking forward to see how it's gonna run on the Vita

I never heard them claim it was a remake. I'm totally happy playing a sharper, better controlling version of the game.

99% sure it was upscaled as switching between old/new didn't affect the backgrounds. I thought the backgrounds looked pretty good upscaled though, didn't look very blurry at all.

It ran well on the Vita, even had the old/new model switching built in (I think it was the select button that switched it).

The only "issue" I ran into was going into the inventory took a bit of loading (same on the PS4 version) which was a bit jarring, but hopefully that is just a bug in that build.

Haven't been able to watch the video yet, but in the modern era, lighting is the most important upgrade you can make to a game.

Watching that trailer makes me think that is exactly how I wanted that game to look.

Remember, GF was one of the original 3D games, so you were lucky to run that game at 640x480 (pc's were probably running it at PSX resolution of 320x240). I seem to remember the engine tops out at 800x600 resolution so, even if you have a 1440p monitor, it would look like shit. Rendering the game in 1080p and adding AA options is all it would take to make me happy.

@monetarydread: nope, I had a weak ass laptop that ran it fine at 800x600.

@tuxfool: Were you running it in Software or Hardware mode? My PII 300, 64Mb Ram, and ATI Rage Pro struggled to run it at 640x480, I had an underpowered video card, but it could run Unreal and Half-Life.

@monetarydread: I was running it in software mode on a pentium 166 with with a 2Mb nameless graphics card and 32Mb of system RAM.

If you could run unreal on that computer without any issues then grim should have been no problem whatsoever. There were barely any polygons on screen and even then bink video ran fine.

I was wrong about the resolution. It does appear that the native res of grim was 640x480.

This is the argument I use against a FF7 remake. I don't want highly detailed versions of the characters looking all anime and shit with VO that doesn't sounds like how I would image it. They'd probably give Cloud diamond earnings or something!

Well, it can't be worse than how FF7 looks now. Seriously, visually that game has aged worse than most 3D games, and that's saying something.

@koolaid: the difference being that the super deformed characters in FF7 have no charm. If you want to see what high res aeris or cloud look like you need go no further than Advent Children (yes, I know).

When an album gets remastered, the band don't get back in the studio, and when a film gets remastered the cameras don't start rolling again. Same principle applies here: they're just going back to the source material and reworking it by applying modern production techniques.

I think it looks pretty sick so far.

They are doing exactly what I want with this new version. A few tweaks here and there, but mainly just a remastered version of the game.

For me, it would have been heartbreaking to see them mess with the game's original aesthetic.

Remasters are better than remakes. Let's not turn video games into the film industry.

I think part of the reason this was made was simply to allow people to play Grim Fandango. It is incredibly hard to get the original version to run on modern hardware, and it has a couple puzzle bugs due to processor speeds.

@samfo: I wanted it to be more remastered than just ported with improved technical bits because the game doesn't age well, in my opinion. I'm a stickler for old games that don't hold up. But I also don't know just how involved it would be to have remastered it, so I expected a port.

@mbradley1992: As many in the thread have stated, what they have done is a remaster. What you want is a remake. Personally I think the game holds up fine, I booted it up in ScummVM (actually ResidualVM) and apart from the blurriness the game still looks great.