When Lack Of Pixelation Leads To Consternation

Thanks to GameSpy for its 'Pixel' column discussing the problems inherent in translating classic remakes to modern consoles. The author argues plaintively: "For reasons both technical and probably cultural, most video game companies not giving their reissued classics the polished, flawless presentations that they deserve." He explains of Mega Man 2 from the forthcoming Mega Man Anniversary Collection for PlayStation 2: "The low-res, 256x224 graphics of the original NES game have been line-doubled for display on the PS2, are run in an interlaced (flickery) screen mode." He also laments: "Believe it or not, things were a good deal better back on the original PlayStation and Saturn... Looking back, the 32-bit era was a golden age of classic game reissues, with great products like Irem's R-Types, the Namco Museum line and the Capcom Generations series offering 99% accurate renditions of dozens upon dozens of classic video games", although it's suggested "the 32-bit renaissance was more likely due to technical limitations than actual care on the part of the developers."

Comments

Re:What about the Gamecube?

[Bloomy]

If Capcom or Atomic Planet had used Nintendo's emulator, I'm sure similiar complaints would be made. From what I've read, Nintendo's emulator for the Gamecube might emulate the NES too perfectly, down to the scanline flicker when too many sprites are at the same vertical line on the screen. The easiest example of this is the graveyard in the original Zelda, let out as many ghosts as possible. I haven't played it yet on my Zelda Collection disc, and I haven't cracked Animal Crossing to unlock it, but I've seen it mentioned enough to give it some credence.

According to the IGN review, "slowdown and flicker from the original cart versions have been almost entirely eliminated (it's still in there, but it's only noticeable a few times per game)". IGN didn't do separate reviews for the GC and PS2 versions, and the person that reviewed it is one of their PS2 people.

Re:What I don't understand...

[Thedalek]

Why isn't there a moderation option for "blatantly false?"

No, The PS1 re-releases in Final Fantasy Origins and Chronicles were not emulations of the SNES originals. Yes, Chrono Trigger (and possibly some of the FF series) included the SNES original on the disc. However, this was used only for retrieving sprite graphics. This was demonstrated by the fact that, back before Square announced that they were going to release the re-issues in English speaking parts of the world, many rom-hackers tried inserting English-translated snes roms into the disc image. This resulted in nothing noticably different occuring. All text was still in Japanese.

Simply put, at 2 megabytes, the PS1 didn't have enough RAM to successfully emulate the SNES. True, the SNES didn't have all that much RAM itself, but the contents of the cartridges themselves were locations in memory. Final Fantasy III and Chrono Trigger both exceed this limitation.

And no, you couldn't stream the data. Not without putting your framerate in the toilet.