I clicked on a trailer of the Pixel Remasters that are coming to consoles, and was surprised to find that there's a slew of new options available—not only (finally!) including a new, far more legible pixel font, but also QoL options such as 2× XP and Gil, and toggleable encounters.
Save for the font—seriously, what the hell were they thinking with that?—this was all stuff the team didn't have to implement, but did so anyway, and are very welcome additions.
And then I made the mistake of hitting up the comments section, and hearing how people are still lamenting that it isn't HD-2D.
"To those bemoaning that this collection isn't HD-2D like that Octopath Traveler and Live-A-Live: I don't think some of y'all realize just how resource-intensive creating an HD-2D game is.
"That would not only cost a lot of money to develop—and thus, would cost more—but also require a lot more time to make. We already don't know how long these remakes took to complete as is… but we do know that Square announced their HD-2D version of Dragon Quest Ⅲ back in 2021, and it's still being worked on.
"And it's not like the Pixel Remasters were shoddy new versions thrown out for a quick buck, like how the original PC and phone versions of Final Fantasy Ⅴ and Ⅵ were.
"New, updated pixel art from the original artists, fully orchestrated arrangements supervised by Uematsu himself, as well as rebalanced gameplay… and some of y'all are mad because it isn't HD-2D?
It'd be one thing if it was just a port (which would still require resources for testing and making sure everything transfers over smoothly), but new art and music? Various QoL additions? Yet they're upset the devs didn't rework the visual engine?????
But, personal taste aside, that's still asking for a lot of work. You can't just bring over the existing code for something like that, it's not a filter they slap on.
Here's what gets me, though: Okay, so we know for a fact that Square have been working on multiple HD-2D games all at once—Triangle Strategy (2022), Live-A-Live (2022), Octopath 2 (2023), and the aforementioned DQⅢ (TBA).
That's already four games that we know of, alongside whatever else is in the pot we aren't privy to yet.
Not only that, but not all of the Pixel Remaster games dropped all at once. Final Fantasy Ⅰ through Ⅲ did, but the gaps between both Ⅲ to Ⅳ, as well as Ⅳ to Ⅴ were roughly two months apart… and then it was another three months before Final Fantasy Ⅵ was released.
All in all, it took a total of eight months for the entire collection to be available at once—one an NES game that is still being worked on—and these people are asking for the same team that already had four separate projects (that we know of) to put even more on their plate‽ ಠ_ಠ
I clicked on a trailer of the Pixel Remasters that are coming to consoles, and was surprised to find that there's a slew of new options available—not only (finally!) including a new, far more legible pixel font, but also QoL options such as 2× XP and Gil, and toggleable encounters.
And then I made the mistake of hitting up the comments section, and hearing how people are still lamenting that it isn't HD-2D.
So, I left a comment of my own.
"To those bemoaning that this collection isn't HD-2D like that Octopath Traveler and Live-A-Live: I don't think some of y'all realize just how resource-intensive creating an HD-2D game is."That would not only cost a lot of money to develop—and thus, would cost more—but also require a lot more time to make. We already don't know how long these remakes took to complete as is… but we do know that Square announced their HD-2D version of Dragon Quest Ⅲ back in 2021, and it's still being worked on."And it's not like the Pixel Remasters were shoddy new versions thrown out for a quick buck, like how the original PC and phone versions of Final Fantasy Ⅴ and Ⅵ were."New, updated pixel art from the original artists, fully orchestrated arrangements supervised by Uematsu himself, as well as rebalanced gameplay… and some of y'all are mad because it isn't HD-2D?
"🔔 Shame. Shame. Shame. 🔔"
That's already four games that we know of, alongside whatever else is in the pot we aren't privy to yet.
butt mah grayfiks!