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Tentalus talks about Skyward Sword "HD" development "challenges" / a rant about Nintendo Zelda remasters

Dampf

Member
CEO Tom Crago, latest episode of Fragments of Silicon podcast.
"It was difficult. Increasing the frame rate, boosting the resolution – these were significant technical challenges. In doing that, you've also got to upres the great majority of the textures in the game, so we spent a big chunk of time on art. That was a significant component. When you take a very old game and try to bring it to a new platform – even where a new platform is more powerful – it introduces almost line-by-line technical challenges that need to be resolved. It was a complex project."

Oh, poor Tentalus. It seems like the barebones "HD" remaster was sooo difficult to develop. They even had to upscale aaalll of the textures, imagine how much work that was for a 60 dollar cashgrab!

But seriously, this gets my blood boiling. Other remaster studios like Bluepoint remake the games from scratch with entirely new textures, PBR lighting, dynamic shadows, much higher polygon count and other modern rendering features FOR LESS MONEY. And here we are with this bare minimum remaster just increasing framerate, resolution and some minor tweaks for 60 dollars. And they seriously have the nerve to brag about how difficult it was to remaster Skyward Sword.

Nintendo should be ashamed of how they handle Zelda remasters and should give them the budget they deserve to look like modern games.

Rant over.
 
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Banjo64

cumsessed
ps4 playstation GIF
crash bandicoot loop GIF


Set the benchmark - Ninty can fuck themselves in the ass
 

Astral Dog

Member
Wind Waker HD was still the best 3D Zelda remaster they made, and the only one Nintendo worked on internally, (though the 3DS Zeldas and Links Awakening by Grezzo were lovely and closer to full Remakes.)

The thing is Nintendo doesn't give much thought about remasters, because they would rather use those resources to make a brand new sequel with new gameplay ideas.they would never put the main Zelda(or Mario) team to work on a full remake of an old game like Capcom or Sony does. Skyward Sword HD works fine as it is, just the price is a little high(depending on who you ask, it still sold well for a Wii game).

The Mario HD rereleases are more concerning, but at least that was 3 games bundled i suppose
 
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Quasicat

Member
I listened to it and the part I am most interested in is that they have not yet been contacted to do a Twilight Princess port to Switch. Hopefully, that and Wind Waker HD are getting ported by Nintendo internally. It is literally the only reason why I have my WiiU still hooked up!
 

Skifi28

Member
Step 1) Press button that recompiles code for new hardware
Step 2) Wait for the recompile to finish
Step 3) ??????
Step 4) Profit 60 dollur from suckers


Starting my own porting studio, I'll be a millionaire within a week.
 
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Filben

Member
Is it as bad as the GTA remasters though?
A "barebone" port like Skyward Sword of the GTA games would have been upgrade over the remasters we got. Just watched the DF video on what has changed since the release. It's better but there are still so many issues present.

In case of GTA they should have taken the Xbox version, clean it up a bit, allow 60fps, and 1080p with a nice filter (old textures and meshes don't hold up well at 4k) and modernise the shooter gameplay which was the most important part IMO because despite looking dated they are still atmospheric and immersive because visuals are consistent.

No, Skyward Sword is not as bad as the GTA remasters because they stick close to the original game and art and didn't try to improve on something that didn't need improvement (within the scope of a remaster/port and not a remake, that is).
 

Kataploom

Gold Member
Wind Waker HD was still the best 3D Zelda remaster they made, and the only one Nintendo worked on internally, (though the 3DS Zeldas and Links Awakening by Grezzo were lovely and closer to full Remakes.)

The thing is Nintendo doesn't give much thought about remasters, because they would rather use those resources to make a brand new sequel with new gameplay ideas.they would never put the main Zelda(or Mario) team to work on a full remake of an old game like Capcom or Sony does. Skyward Sword HD works fine as it is, just the price is a little high(depending on who you ask, it still sold well for a Wii game).

The Mario HD rereleases are more concerning, but at least that was 3 games bundled i suppose
It looks horrible to me with the overblown bloom on daytime, I'd rather take a port like SSHD with 60 fps and upressed IQ than another WWHD... I learned that day that I don't want graphical "improvements" if they'll look much worst than the original games
 

Panajev2001a

GAF's Pleasant Genius
It looks horrible to me with the overblown bloom on daytime, I'd rather take a port like SSHD with 60 fps and upressed IQ than another WWHD... I learned that day that I don't want graphical "improvements" if they'll look much worst than the original games
On some cases they can indeed. SMS on Switch got a high resolution treatment that did not extend in revamping how some effects were realised like heat haze which are not looking considerably worse than they did on GCN (mismatch).
 

Rykan

Member
No offense, but the OP reads almost like you think they’d be able to go into the settings of the game on a PC and up the resolution to ‘High’ and then be done with it.
GAF is absolutely filled to the brim with people who have extremely strong opinions about game development and game developers yet have never spend a day in their lives actually working in this industry.
 
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Dampf

Member
No offense, but the OP reads almost like you think they’d be able to go into the settings of the game on a PC and up the resolution to ‘High’ and then be done with it.
Nope, never said this.

I was comparing it to the efforts of other remasters and remakes for less money.
 
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Astral Dog

Member
It looks horrible to me with the overblown bloom on daytime, I'd rather take a port like SSHD with 60 fps and upressed IQ than another WWHD... I learned that day that I don't want graphical "improvements" if they'll look much worst than the original games
I thought it looked very pretty, different but pretty cool, like say OoT/MM 3D that fans complained didn't looked exactly like the N64 versions. 🤷🏻‍♂️

but YMMV, Nintendo either changes too much or too little with remasters
 
Unfortunately, the way the initial post is written is so melodramatic that you'd think the OP is in a Shakespearean play, not a video game forum. And now it's blowing up in the OP's face -- to some extent, deservedly so.

BUT, beneath all the sobbing telenovela-levels of melodrama, there are a couple of valid points to discuss:
- Was Skyward Sword more difficult to remaster than other remasters? If so, why?
- Does the team that remastered SS have a good track record?
- Given recent remasters like Skyward Sword and the Mario 3D Collection, is Nintendo getting careless/sloppy with the way they handle their top two premium properties, and the care they usually get?
- Was the resulting product worth $60? How do you price remasters anyway?
 

KungFucius

King Snowflake
A project can have challenges and require work without being as challenging or requiring as much work as other projects. You are the one making comparisons to other projects not him.
Right. And the project likely had very strict requirements on cost. But hey, it's easy to point fingers and cry whatabout ____ when you have no clue about the details and are just trying to be critical and insulting.
 

kruis

Exposing the sinister cartel of retailers who allow companies to pay for advertising space.
Porting games isn't easy and anyone who believes it is knows nothing about videogames development.

Step 1) Press button that recompiles code for new hardware
Step 2) Wait for the recompile to finish
Step 3) ??????
Step 4) Profit 60 dollur from suckers


Starting my own porting studio, I'll be a millionaire within a week.
 
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