Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered confirmed by ESRB rating (www.videogamer.com)
from simple@lemm.ee to games@lemmy.world on 18 Sep 10:46
https://lemm.ee/post/42599413

We have reached new levels of “remaster of game that already looks great and runs well”

#games

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GriffinClaw@lemm.ee on 18 Sep 11:27 next collapse

Its not the graphics that need a rework, its their quest syatem.

The side quests were tied to your overall level, meaning if you were overleveled, you could unlock quests to battles that were only explained way later in the main quest line. Also the Frozen Wilds expansion made more sense if you did them BEFORE the final quarter of the main story line, but the missions themselves were of a higher level than the endgame boss.

Regarding the main quest line, while its quality is noticibly much higher in Zero Dawn than the later game Forbidden West, the way they were structured meant that f you unlocked the extra dialogue (from talking to certain NPCs) out of order, the whole script felt a little jarring.

Tldr: the quest system of Zero Fawn needs a fuckton of polish, not the graphics

bassomitron@lemmy.world on 18 Sep 11:52 next collapse

Agreed. HZD always felt like a game that was built around a story premise first and foremost, which sort of makes sense as that studio had never done a game like that before.

I remember an interview where they were struggling to shift gears from Killzone and looking for new ideas from among their staff when one of their devs pitched HZD’s premise. As a result, they approached making an open world action adventure game as complete noobs. This doesn’t excuse any of the poor design decisions. I was hoping they’d learn from their mistakes in FW, but they instead made the open world part somewhat better and then forgot to keep the focus on the main quest and characters in the process.

GriffinClaw@lemm.ee on 18 Sep 12:52 collapse

This. So much this.

Also, the one incharge of side quests needs a bloody promotion. The side quests quality in Forbidden West was overall as good as the MAIN quest quality in Zero Dawn.

The quest themselves (minus a few misses), the voice acting and mocap, the POLISH. swoon

hal_5700X@sh.itjust.works on 18 Sep 12:29 next collapse

But do they have to remaster the game to fix that. No, they don’t. Just patch the game.

ShinkanTrain@lemmy.ml on 18 Sep 12:35 next collapse

Also most quests are just “talk to npc, use Batman Vision to follow a trail, kill enemy, return”

ampersandrew@lemmy.world on 18 Sep 13:49 next collapse

It’s got other strengths. Particularly the “kill enemy” part of that chain, on higher difficulties, at least.

Goronmon@lemmy.world on 18 Sep 19:05 collapse

Also most quests are just “talk to npc, use Batman Vision to follow a trail, kill enemy, return”

This applies to a lot of games, even Witcher 3.

ShinkanTrain@lemmy.ml on 18 Sep 19:24 collapse

Specially Witcher 3

GraniteM@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 16:28 collapse

I’ll be honest, I played through HZD and liked it a lot, but I came away with a list of minor improvements that could have made the game better.

If anything, Forbidden West had all of those same problems and more, and it had a less interesting story. Just to talk about the quests, for instance, I found myself running in boring laps trying to get a particular resource to upgrade a particular weapon, repeating the same battle so many times that it became truly tiresome.

Then I finally upgraded the weapon… and found that by the end of the story I had a bunch of incompletely-upgraded weapons and armor that nevertheless left me so overpowered that the final boss fight was hilariously trivial. If I’d invested the enormous amount of grind to actually max out all the top-tier equipment, then the fight would have been even easier than that.

The franchise has a lot going for it, but they need to figure out their pacing.

Edit: Also, I definitely don’t need a pointless little board game. “Hey, you want to play Strike?” “Fuck no! I’m out here trying to save the fucking world! Fuck off with your minis!”

GriffinClaw@lemm.ee on 20 Sep 02:16 collapse

Hard agree on the weqpon upgrades. Getting the perfect one, upgrading it to the nines and FEEL like it was worth it was one of the fun parts in HZD. Not so much here (Wildmaws shudders)

Regarding Strike, if they had slowed down the pace of the game, like death of the world in a few years instead of months (with hard timeskips you could gree to), and set the Strike tables in out-of-the-way corners you never have to go to without good reason, I MIGHT have felt like playing it. Deff interesting, just not part of the overall tone of the game.

GraniteM@lemmy.world on 20 Sep 02:58 collapse

With as much as they talked about the irrevocable destruction of the global ecosystem coming up in a matter of months, and then the constantly rotating day-night cycle, I imagine it would be possible to find out if your in-game time played actually was more or less than that deadline. It would be hilarious if the world was going to end in six months but then the math showed that you actually spent more than a year running around shooting the fins off of robo-pterodactyls.

GriffinClaw@lemm.ee on 20 Sep 03:51 collapse

^^^^^

penquin@lemm.ee on 18 Sep 11:27 next collapse

I’m confused, isn’t this already available on PC and PS5? Why does it need to be remastered? I thought remastering a game meant making it work on a new platform.

Zerfallen@lemmy.world on 18 Sep 12:02 next collapse

That’s a “port”.

A “remaster” is traditionally more focused on a rerelease with improved graphic fidelity - details, resolution, possibly lower-effort improvements to models and geometry, but basically the same game, slightly modernised with better modern compatibility.

A “remake” would be a complete overhaul of the modelling, QoL improvements, or reimagining some systems potentially including game engine. Eg, the FF7 remake.

ShinkanTrain@lemmy.ml on 18 Sep 12:37 collapse

That is the logical way to classify them.

Of course, the industry has been calling ports remasters for a while because it sounds like they did more work that way.

<img alt="" src="https://lemmy.ml/pictrs/image/88a6a013-cd45-4a1d-b880-935e3fe9dcbe.png">

paultimate14@lemmy.world on 18 Sep 14:18 collapse

Technically it was never released on PS5. It was released on PS4 and later received an upgrade patch for the PS4 Pro.

But yeah it works with backwards compatibility on the PS5. I would expect the PS4 Pro patch to work but I haven’t tried it myself.

caut_R@lemmy.world on 18 Sep 11:39 next collapse

Does this game really need a remaster…? It won‘t cost nothing to make so I‘m confused.

hal_5700X@sh.itjust.works on 18 Sep 11:53 next collapse

Things are getting stupid now. Remaster a game from 2017. 🤦‍♂️

Coelacanth@feddit.nu on 18 Sep 13:14 next collapse

With each lazy and unnecessary cash grab remaster we move closer to the day a remaster announcement is made at the end of a game’s release trailer.

callouscomic@lemm.ee on 18 Sep 14:28 next collapse

As a massive fan of Age of Empires since the first one, I still cannot believe they re-released them as “Definitive” editions, and then have proceeded to add new DLC to them.

I love the support and attention they’re getting, and the new content they never had before. But I cannot get over adding paid DLC’s to a DEFINITIVE EDITION OF SOMETHING!!!

Riven@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 18 Sep 22:00 collapse

Normally I would take this as a joke but they shut off concord after 10 days and that was worth 200mil. I’m surprised they didn’t give it 2 weeks at least.

echodot@feddit.uk on 19 Sep 08:06 collapse

The first time I heard about concord was when they shut it off. I don’t know how they expect a game to do well when they did absolutely zero advertising.

Riven@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 19 Sep 15:54 collapse

Yea same lul. Not sure who thought it would be a hit. It’s just overwatch but with guardian of the galaxy visuals.

paultimate14@lemmy.world on 18 Sep 14:16 next collapse

That’s over 7 years old. Roughly the length of a generation. I think re-mastering console games from 2017 is reasonable in general.

Not for HZD though. It was already one of the best-looking games on the PS4, and then they added a free upgrade for the PS4 Pro to get checkerboard 4k. Like… What’s left to improve?

Maybe upgrade from checkerboard to full 4k? The FPS seemed fine for me playing on a base PS4, but perhaps there’s room for improvement there. The initial load time to open the game is pretty bad, but if you don’t switch between games often that’s not really a problem. I haven’t tried the PC version yet, but perhaps there were some UI improvements there they could apply to consoles?

My main complaints with the game that I’d like to see fixed would probably be beyond the scope of the term “remaster”. The facial animations during dialogue were pretty uncanny in the base game, but they’re good in the DLC and sequel. Also the itemization system was clunky and felt like it was trying to be similar to an online multiplayer experience for some reason.

scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech on 18 Sep 14:49 next collapse

Nah, 2 generations minimum. Rereleasing the game so the next generation can still play it is one thing, but this is weird.

Coelacanth@feddit.nu on 18 Sep 22:46 collapse

My main complaints with the game that I’d like to see fixed would probably be beyond the scope of the term “remaster”. The facial animations during dialogue were pretty uncanny in the base game, but they’re good in the DLC and sequel.

To me this feels like perfectly within the scope of what should be the realm of “remaster”, it’s just that history teaches us to expect less.

paultimate14@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 00:10 next collapse

Redoing animations? To me, that’s definitely more than a re-master. The musical equivalent would probably be something in the mixing phase- adding or adjusting effects, changing pan, level, EQ, automation, etc.

celsiustimeline@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 19 Sep 17:17 collapse

The templated auto face animations during dialogue along with the low enthusiasm VO from half of the cast is really the only factor that keeps OG horizon from being perfect.

Pacmanlives@lemmy.world on 18 Sep 17:33 collapse

But PS5 pro support!!! /s

AFC1886VCC@reddthat.com on 18 Sep 12:17 next collapse

Lmao what a cash grab. The game already looks fantastic.

mctoasterson@reddthat.com on 18 Sep 14:42 next collapse

I bought the original on Steam sale about a year ago. Played 2-3 hours. Didn’t really feel hooked by the story or the gameplay. Graphics looked great to me on the SteamDeck.

Zahille7@lemmy.world on 18 Sep 17:35 next collapse

Same. I’ve heard others have the same complaint, but there is a point in the story where it clicks and you’re like “ooookaayyyy, I get it now,” and it makes you want to play more.

It doesn’t really help Aloy and the side characters from still feeling almost entirely wooden though.

blackris@discuss.tchncs.de on 18 Sep 19:45 collapse

After the tutorial area the game opens up and becomes really great. A bit like with The Last of Us which had some really bad first hours.

Zahille7@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 16:32 collapse

I never finished the first one because I got bored of it at the beginning

Ardyssian@sh.itjust.works on 18 Sep 20:13 collapse

I couldn’t get past the open world formula that Ubisoft is infamous for. Just put me off completely once I saw the world map with all the ? markers

Someonelol@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 18 Sep 20:29 next collapse

It helps if you barely ever play Ubisoft games to begin with. BOTW and Horizon are just about all I can take for that style of map design.

helenslunch@feddit.nl on 19 Sep 00:46 collapse

I feel like every modern game has this stuff

kandoh@reddthat.com on 18 Sep 17:45 next collapse

Worried your hundreds of millions of dollars of development costs won’t result in a hit? Just keep remaking games that were already successful over and over again.

Business is so e z

BenReilly97@lemmy.world on 18 Sep 18:49 next collapse

Why are we getting remasters for games that already look great on PS5? There are plenty of games that could actually use the touch up, and don’t run natively on current-gen at all.

It feels like Sony is sitting on a goddamn gold mine.

helenslunch@feddit.nl on 19 Sep 00:48 collapse

My guess: the “remaster” is sold as a new game with PSN linking requirement, and the old one is delisted.

Sony is looking for ways to artificially make number go up because they’re reeling from the losses from Concord. Too scared to take any risks now.

celsiustimeline@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 19 Sep 17:14 collapse

Further solidifying and justifying my decision to say fuck the 9th generation of consoles.

Evil_Shrubbery@lemm.ee on 18 Sep 20:03 next collapse

They keep remastering games I didn’t come around to play the first time. Aging sux (mine, not of the games).

lustyargonian@lemm.ee on 18 Sep 21:27 next collapse

The original looked shitty af almost like a ps2 game. Thank God it’s finally getting a proper remaster that can make it look a tad bit better.

lustyargonian@lemm.ee on 18 Sep 21:28 next collapse

Obvious sarcasm

celsiustimeline@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 19 Sep 17:15 collapse

Couldn’t even see Aloy’s beard in the first game. Bad graphics.

overload@sopuli.xyz on 19 Sep 05:54 collapse

Certainly a remaster that we needed.

Bloodborne on the other hand runs beautifully at a buttery smooth 15 - 30 fps. No need to remaster that one.

lustyargonian@lemm.ee on 19 Sep 20:30 collapse

It also features one thousand and eighty vertical pixels. That’s way too many.

Source: I know my pixels.

FeelzGoodMan420@eviltoast.org on 20 Sep 02:00 next collapse

There’s no way in hell I’d play this game again. It was fun enough to get through, but nowhere near good enough to ever play again.

FenrirIII@lemmy.world on 21 Sep 16:50 collapse

We need mod support. I want my robot dinosaurs to have massive titties.