Square Enix Introduces DRAGON QUEST I & II HD-2D Remake, Teaser Mentions 2025 Launch

[dyonoctis]

Yeah, kinda sad.

That's ignorance, by definition.

Welcome to the modern Square/Enix..

It's easy to forget that Japan is still a "peculiar" country even in this day and age. Their top-selling games are very different, with a large number of Japanese games, some of them not even available in the West. Some aspects of their culture just happened to do well worldwide, but they've always had a specific way of doing things, with some of them just too weird for the West.

I've been taught in uni that Japan is part of those countries where global design UI/UX rules are not always ideal. The way that they look at data is different enough for Global companies to use a different UI/UX on their domestic website. A literature teacher also warned us that Japanese literature is an acquired taste.

Square was just successful for a bit at publishing good Western games made by Westerners, but their attempt at doing Western-like games was a spectacular failure. The only slight exception was when Naoki Yoshida asked the people working on FFXIV to play Wow to get an idea of what a fun and modern MMO should be, but it's more that they took what they liked about the game and spun it with their own sauce, rather than trying to do a western MMO.

Otherwise, you end up with things like Forsaken, which cost a lot, and kinda emulates a Western vibe, but forgot the part about being a good game. (That's the biggest issue of the AAA industry, very expensive dev cost, which requires an insane number of sales to be profitable. Asian games tend to have a much lower cost, either by being technically limited or just having lower wages for the employees in the case of Wukong)

They are getting lost in the sauce by trying too hard at that. Someone at Nintendo also shares a similar sentiment :
"Keep Pursuing Things Japanese People Like" - Masahiro Sakurai On Creating Successful Games

 

[lexluthermiester]

It's easy to forget that Japan is still a "peculiar" country even in this day and age.

Been there. I've experienced first hand how very much the Japanese people are different from the rest of the world. It's part of their charm and appeal.

Their top-selling games are very different, with a large number of Japanese games, some of them not even available in the West. Some aspects of their culture just happened to do well worldwide, but they've always had a specific way of doing things, with some of them just too weird for the West.

Also true. They gave us the NES, SNES, PC Engine and that list just keeps going. They gave us Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest(Warrior) and other much loved series of games. Many of them appealed to us because they were different and we loved it all.

Square was just successful for a bit at publishing good Western games made by Westerners, but their attempt at doing Western-like games was a spectacular failure.

The stand out for them was Secret Of Evermore. It was an exceptional, if quirky, game that was not well received. Everything about that title was quality. Sadly not everyone agreed.

The problem with then and now, it that they've gone a bit wonko and they think it's a good thing. I'm all for experimentation. This is too much.

Some said something elsewhere that made me think there's a misunderstanding in this discussion. Allow me to clarify.
I don't have a problem with the Mixed 2D+3D aspect of the games. My complaint is exclusively with the high resolution HD GFX being intermixed with with low resolution character sprites.

 

[dyonoctis]

Some said something elsewhere that made be thing there's a misunderstanding in this discussion. Allow me to clarify.
I don't have a problem with the Mixed 2D+3D aspect of the games. My complaint is exclusively with the high resolution HD GFX being intermixed with with low resolution character sprites.

yhea I got that part, but that the contrast in resolution seems to be what Square is experimenting with. If you compare Live a Live with dragon quest 3, you will notice that the 3D element of LaL have a much more pronounced "pixelated" feel to it. But the sprite are also of a much lower resolution compared to dragon quest, who also happens to have fairly sharp 3D elements. Octopath traveler also used fairly pixelated 3D textures, you really see it if you play on a big screen, thumbnails tends to make the game sharper than it really is.

The OG octopath is what the style was initialy trying to be : low res everywhere, but the 3D camera and their use of perpsective meant that some elements could look more pixelated relative to their distance to the camera. Pokémon black and white had a similar things going on : as soon as the camera wasn't in a top down view, any sprite close to the camera would become really pixelated, and some 3D elements would start to stand out. You either need to have a fixed bird view camera, do like minecraft and go super blocky, or have some kind of reverse texture LOD going on if you want everything to stay consistent.

Octapth traveler II and DQ III is where they really started to use higher resolution textures for the world.

Close up of of the frst octopath:

illustration of how the camera can make distant elements appears sharper than they are :

LaL (you've got to look at them at fullsize)

DQ III (the textures here are just really clean compared to what they did before)

 

[lexluthermiester]

you will notice that the 3D element of LaL have a much more pronounced "pixelated" feel to it.

It all looks like a hodge-podge of sloppiness. Yes, the difference is lesser but still pronounced. It just doesn't stand out as much. That one is kinda halfway ok and it's playable because all the visuals at least look somewhat similar and are not a constant visual distraction, but still not desirable.

This a perfect example. The throne room in this photo is a highly detailed, well crafted 3D environment. Then we look at those characters & NPCs that seem like they were plucked straight out of the SNES version of the game without any alteration whatsoever. Not acceptable. It's not an artistic expression. It's laziness, pathetic and ugly. Not worthy of our money. When I buy a game like this I expect that everything in the game will be made with the same care, attention and detail that went into the 3D world. I'm not paying this hodge-podge of sloppiness.

 

[dyonoctis]

This a perfect example. The throne room in this photo is a highly detailed, well crafted 3D environment. Then we look at those characters & NPCs that seem like they were plucked straight out of the SNES version of the game without any alteration whatsoever. Not acceptable. It's not an artistic expression. It's laziness

The remake sprite are actually far more detailled, but I already understood that you want them to be even more detailed haha

 

[lexluthermiester]

The remake sprite are actually far more detailled, but I already understood that you want them to be even more detailed haha

Right, you understand what I meant. I don't care if there's more detail, it not the same level of detail as the rest of the game and as such is a glaring eyesore. Hell, even those character shadows are high resolution, but the characters themselves are not? No. Just no.