Final Fantasy IX coming to PC and mobile... finally.

[Ragna]

That's a really strange change, considering they didn't do any model updates for any other FF game on Steam. Not that I mind it here, but I'm really confused why they've clearly put so much more effort into FF9 than into fan-favorites like FF6 or FF7.

I bet they either used the battle models, or just had the slightly higher polycount models from the very beginning at the time of development but lowered them a bit for PlayStation rendering.
Field backgrounds however do seem the same, except they look worse, and even have buggy effects/animations at times (like the path to Memoria scene at the trailer at minute 1:01).
The FMVs are clearly the same just with a very nice filter pre-applied to them, and not original higher-res version (unlike what you could find for FF7 in the 1997 special DVD).

It is nice they're doing this, but... unless they improve the backgrounds with at least some well-thought method... it will still be better to play this on the original console or an accurate emulator.

 

[-Ric-]

Most of you have probably already seen this but for those who haven't, seems like this is gonna be the new menu interface:

Looks quite cool to be honest and it looks like it can easily work for both PC and Phone versions of the game, Eiko's avatar looks so much better than the original, love it.

 

[Ragna]

Most of you have probably already seen this but for those who haven't, seems like this is gonna be the new menu interface:

Looks quite cool to be honest and it looks like it can easily work for both PC and Phone versions of the game, Eiko's avatar looks so much better than the original, love it.

Seems mostly okay to me, just the same good old layout with some unnecessary spacing on menu commands though (I wonder what use is there for that lower "help" part, have they changed the usual moguri? Noo! Kupó!!! :'().
But seriously, is it really needed the explicit label over the time and gil icons? Aren't the icons already quite clear to people? Come on! :-o

I wonder what Sakaguchi might be thinking of SE porting his precious diamond to mobile/Windows... : "Better they don't mess up! :x", at least!

 

[olearyf2525]

I actually never finished this game. Last I remember was being defeated in rainy Burmecia and ending disc 1. This ought to be a fun one to pick up

The first two discs are fantastic, like REALLY good. Unfortunately from the third disc onward you have good sidequests but almost no new main towns are introduced to break up the grinding, you travel to a new continent but it's deserted and you grind, then there's a puzzle area where you grind, then some more grinding. Basically the third and fourth discs are "find all these new depopulated areas where you can grind at", or do our fun sidequests. Oh then a random final boss comes out of nowhere and the two guys who should be the final boss, Kuja mostly, or maybe Garland is way too easy mainly because you spent the last disc and a half grinding.

 

[Fischkopf]

Seems mostly okay to me, just the same good old layout with some unnecessary spacing on menu commands though

The spacing is probably due to the fact that the game is also coming to phones, so you can navigate the menus even with the biggest sausage fingers... I've seen worse examples than this, I think it's still acceptable.

 

[gjoerulv]

Noice!

Let's just hope they throw away the obsolete battle system with a more action oriented approach. Giving Zidane a Kamehameha would be cewl to see. Also, I hope they change the script.  8)

Nah, really I'm glad to see 9 get some attention finally. Looks all good to me.

 

[olearyf2525]

Noice!

Let's just hope they throw away the obsolete battle system with a more action oriented approach. Giving Zidane a Kamehameha would be cewl to see. Also, I hope they change the script.  8)

Nah, really I'm glad to see 9 get some attention finally. Looks all good to me.

Lots of grunting, something we can probably expect? We'll call it the Final Flash Final Fantasy, kids love catchy names.

 

[nfitc1]

Just saw the teaser on Steam. It looks like a true HD remake of the original. Which is exactly what I wanted!

Of course it just gave the vague "Coming soon" line at the end. Until there's a release date you can't pre-order.

Man, I'm stoked! It feels like all my PC gaming time has built up to this. I don't think I've ever looked forward to a game more than this.

 

[Ragna]

It looks like a true HD remake of the original.

Gotta be kidding, right? ???

This is just a half-decent port, until you see the lazy work on implementing the background scenes even with visual glitches/bugs (teaser minute 1:01) and also seems to lack antialiasing on 3D models (FXAA at least as an option, Square Enix...).
Who knows what they've done to the OST, also.

May they polish it some more before release, please!

 

[olearyf2525]

Gotta be kidding, right? ???

This is just a half-decent port, until you see the lazy work on implementing the background scenes even with visual glitches/bugs (teaser minute 1:01) and also seems to lack antialiasing on 3D models (FXAA at least as an option, Square Enix...).
Who knows what they've done to the OST, also.

May they polish it some more before release, please!

Not sure what you're looking at in reddit /final fantasy a guy had screenshot comparison from the video to the ps1 to an emulator. There was a significant improvement on the models, on the cutscenes, and some improvement on the fields, though I wouldn't say significant. Then again it's just a trailer, maybe they did some video editing magic or something, but I doubt it, people would be pissed.

 

[Ragna]

Not sure what you're looking at in reddit /final fantasy a guy had screenshot comparison from the video to the ps1 to an emulator. There was a significant improvement on the models, on the cutscenes, and some improvement on the fields, though I wouldn't say significant. Then again it's just a trailer, maybe they did some video editing magic or something, but I doubt it, people would be pissed.

I only saw the teaser:
[OK] FMVs? The same originals with some nice pre-applied filter.
[OK] 3D Models? I doubt they have touched them now, it's way more probable they just had them from the very beginning in the PlayStation era (but ended up being polycount reduced).
[OK] Textures? Same as original, just with anisotropic filtering, probably.
[BAD] 2D Backgrounds? Same as original low res, except implemented poorly with visual glitches and of course, no image filtering.
[? ? ?] Audio.

In no way one can call that a "true HD Remake" like NFITC1 said.

 

[olearyf2525]

I only saw the teaser:
[OK] FMVs? The same originals with some nice pre-applied filter.
[OK] 3D Models? I doubt they have touched them now, it's way more probable they just had them from the very beginning in the PlayStation era (but ended up being polycount reduced).
[OK] Textures? Same as original, just with anisotropic filtering, probably.
[BAD] 2D Backgrounds? Same as original low res, except implemented poorly with visual glitches and off course, no image filtering.
[? ? ?] Audio.

In no way one can call that a "true HD Remake" like NFITC1 said.

Can't post this image with the img tags for some reason. Here is the link. Two photo comparisons of in game and then a video of the fmv comparison.
http://imgur.com/a/TE26t

Here is a video where he shows the fmvs comparison at the start but actually syncs up and compares an emulated ff9 to this new one, there is a huge difference in the player models, the font looks crisper and hd, and the backgrounds look a bit less blurry.

 

[Ragna]

Can't post this image with the img tags for some reason. Here is the link. Two photo comparisons of in game and then a video of the fmv comparison.
http://imgur.com/a/TE26t

Here is a video where he shows the fmvs comparison at the start but actually syncs up and compares an emulated ff9 to this new one, there is a huge difference in the player models, the font looks crisper and hd, and the backgrounds look a bit less blurry.

And all that agrees & aligns with what I said.

 

[nfitc1]

[OK] FMVs? The same originals with some nice pre-applied filter.

Pre-applied filters look like trash. It's like the originals either A) rendered without compression B) rendered in a higher res. From what I've seen it's like A. The teaser (keep in mind, it's just a teaser so it's all subject to change) is taking crisper looking original source. Still lots of upscaling artifacts in the teaser.

[OK] 3D Models? I doubt they have touched them now, it's way more probable they just had them from the very beginning in the PlayStation era (but ended up being polycount reduced).

That I'm going to disagree with. The image olearyf linked to cleary shows higher polycount models. How is it "more probable" that they had higher polycount models since the beginning?

[OK] Textures? Same as original, just with anisotropic filtering, probably.

Not with what we saw. Again, referencing the image that you say "agrees & aligns with what [you] said", the collar on Zidane's chest is NOT the result of some stock filter. The ruffles have a different shape.

[BAD] 2D Backgrounds? Same as original low res, except implemented poorly with visual glitches and off course, no image filtering.

OK, yeah. Backgrounds look like trash. I'm hoping it was just because they wanted this teaser out and just used hastily rendered/filtered original material.

[? ? ?] Audio.

Can't really comment on this, of course.

For a teaser weeks after the announcement it looks like work's being done to move the game to a higher resolution. That's HD remake. I'm not going to say it's 1:1 with the original, but the Zidane model is definitely different.

 

[gjoerulv]

The pre-rendered backgrounds is the only gripe I have with this one. Like NFITC1 I hope it's a work in progress. I don't demand much to begin with, as the game looks pretty good even on the PS1. At the same time I understand that they can't release it as is for the kids who demands HD graphics.

 

[obesebear]

The pre-rendered backgrounds is the only gripe I have with this one. Like NFITC1 I hope it's a work in progress.

I've been pretty impressed with how well the waifu2x rendering worked for some of the textures.  Hopefully it can be used to good effect on these backgrounds too

 

[KaidenJames]

IMO this looks quite a bit better than the original. I fired up epsxe last night with opengl2 shaders and sweetfx and although it looks great, i'm excited for this version to come out. Here's a couple screens of my epsxe set up.

 

[Ragna]

Pre-applied filters look like trash. It's like the originals either A) rendered without compression B) rendered in a higher res.
From what I've seen it's like A. The teaser (keep in mind, it's just a teaser so it's all subject to change) is taking crisper looking original source. Still lots of upscaling artifacts in the teaser.

If you look closely you will see the traces left by the FMV super heavy upscaler (you'd be surprised by the quality produced by offline super scalers).
They might have used slightly higher res versions, but it doesn't seem like the source used is even DVD quality.
And it seems they've trimmed the upper and lower sides to make them 16:9.

That I'm going to disagree with. The image olearyf linked to cleary shows higher polycount models.
How is it "more probable" that they had higher polycount models since the beginning?

At the time the game was developed, it was usual to have reduced quality assets as the end product for a game.
So there is a high chance they had slightly higher quality models and textures during development.

Not with what we saw. Again, referencing the image that you say "agrees & aligns with what [you] said",
the collar on Zidane's chest is NOT the result of some stock filter. The ruffles have a different shape.

See point above.

OK, yeah. Backgrounds look like trash. I'm hoping it was just because they wanted this teaser out and just used hastily rendered/filtered original material.

I hope so too. I wish they surprise us with the original source backgrounds, but the chance is... near zero.

For a teaser weeks after the announcement it looks like work's being done to move the game to a higher resolution.
That's HD remake. I'm not going to say it's 1:1 with the original, but the Zidane model is definitely different.

Clearly what you mean to say with the word "remake" is remaster. It is not a remake. Which is what I was trying to convey the first time.

By the way, I want this remastered half-decent (until they fix gackgrounds) port to be awesome and polished, since FF9 is my favourite FF along with 6 and 7 (though I've never been able to put those three competing in a ranking since they're different enough).

Now let's just hope they don't mess up with audio quality. Should be lossless, ideally.

PS: Comparing screenshots from a seemingly half-remastered port with a glitchy and inaccurate emulator's barely enhanced output is... silly.
Example: super blurry or badly filtered output against crispy looking images.

 

[nfitc1]

If you look closely you will see the traces left by the FMV super heavy upscaler (you'd be surprised by the quality produced by offline super scalers).
They might have used slightly higher res versions, but it doesn't seem like the source used is even DVD quality.
And it seems they've trimmed the upper and lower sides to make them 16:9.

Yes I noticed all this. What I thought you were saying is that the original FMVs (the ones from the disc) were upscaled. I'm basing all MY argument on what was done with the Steam release of FF7. It was all done with the final assets from the PSX and PC games. Upscaling those awful 240p videos is vomit worthy. And that's considering the original PC vids were worse! That's exactly the opposite of how I want this port to end up.

At the time the game was developed, it was usual to have reduced quality assets as the end product for a game.
So there is a high chance they had slightly higher quality models and textures during development.

Was it? I'm not going to say you're wrong since I have no idea. But these clearly higher poly models/higher res textures don't directly scale down to what we ended up with. Regardless of if they had them before or not they are clearly better quality than what was on the original game.

Clearly what you mean to say with the word "remake" is remaster. It is not a remake. Which is what I was trying to convey the first time.

I suppose you're right. I tend to get those confused. The upcoming FF7 is a remake while the recent PS3 FFX compilation is a remaster and that's throwing me off.

Now let's just hope they don't mess up with audio quality. Should be lossless, ideally.

It needs to be at least as good as it was and preferably better (though that's always subjective).

 

[-Ric-]

If they mess up with the audio i'm gonna be pissed... While i did love the new updated graphics on the PS3 version of Final Fantasy X, their "remastered" audio was simply distasteful... Lets hope 9 won't go down the same path and IF it does, let's hope there's at least an option to switch  between "original" and "remastered".