The good: 12 unit selection, more resolution/zoom options, better group hotkeys, and basic standard functionality with right-click for War 1. The mid: Graphics are meh (but can always use the old sprites), no balance changes (for better or worse). The bad: New campaign load screens feel soulless compared to the originals; Still no online play for War 1, and War 2 online play and editor is super bare-bones. Hmm... I own War 1+2 on GoG and never bought Reforged (owned the OG on disk) so these would be full price for me. At that price I'm gonna have to pass. Thanks for the review though! I haven't been paying any attention to Blizzard's recent news so I totally missed this even being a thing.
I don't think increasing unit selection is good. It doesn't feel the soul of WC and is not true to the original. The improvement should have been through the use of hotkeys (though I think they should remove unit limit for the original Starcraft, that's a whole different concept of gameplay, and there shouldn't be a unit select limit in Starcraft 1, but in WC it's completely different, different type of gameplay design. A player selects a small unit group and controls it as a small squad separately)...
Its always a thing to consider they do this to mostly maintain IP rights and less to release a product that makes the original products better and share the experience with new audiences. I think in reality its always gonna be the modders that will make it better. This will probably just help bridge the gap by giving modders more tools.
I wouldn't be that cynical about it, they don't need to release these to maintain IP rights to Warcraft. There probably is a group within Blizzard that did want to remaster these titles, but weren't given a lot of resources or time to do so. What we've gotten is decent, especially the quality of life improvements in WC1, and they didn't remove the original WC2BNE like they did with WC3.
@Infernal_Puppet If true I hope it does get further patches down the line and not a one and done release. As admiral mentioned hope they add more graphical unique stuff like the upgraded units having different graphics. Improving the AI,etc.
Brother that makes no sense wow and hearthstone constantly get new content, you don't lose the right to parts of the IP if you don't use them you just need to be using it to keep it
As the other guy said, your take is way too cynical, lol. I for one thought this as new-management Blizz, under MS, trying to revitalize interest on their games. Maybe even trying to be on the good side of the players. My focus was more on HotS (stil not given hope that MS might do something about it), but taking a step back, OW classic also comes into picture (heard it's lackluster, but that is besides the point, regarding Blizz's or MS' intention).
Wargus Warcraft II (v3.3.2) mod differences for comparison: Pros: -Better pathfinding overall - units won't stop when there's a large forest(s) in the way -Larger control groups (9->18, the GUI still shows 9 at most per group though) -Rally points (including rallying peons to gold or wood from the town halls) -Training queues - queue up 6 units to train at a production building (can't do it with upgrades however) -Can queue up multiple buildings for a peon to build in sequence with shift+click (can also queue up spells) -Can cast spells with a group of spellcasters of the same type and it doesn't waste more MP than necessary if you for example use 8 paladins to heal 1 paladin (can also click on the portraits in a control group to cast spells on those units) -New enemy AI options and the normal difficulty AI is smarter - you can set the difficulty per mission in SP too -Shows your idle worker count in the top right -Shows your damaged buildings as red on the mini-map -Higher res options -Workers accumulate wood immediately when starting to chop it, which also solves the issue of two workers chopping the same tree tile (1-2 trees) and one worker's work being wasted when the tree tile disappears -Can now sort all players into up to 4 teams in MP before starting a match, including computer players -Option to show the map layout completely or the terrain under fog of war during skirmish games -Other gameplay options that I'm not sure what they do Cons: -Transporter pathfinding seems a bit worse -Crashes fairly often when going to the next mission in SP, forcing the use of cheats to get to the next one (I played on Windows 11) -Sometimes no icon indicating invisibility on units -A bit easier final Tides of Darkness level as Humans on Normal (no dragons are sent to harass, instead you have to fight a bunch of them later on) -If griffons attack a unit and it runs away far enough, they'll just forget about its existence. I don't think this happened in the original -I was not able to play a LAN MP game, or via the wargus client with a friend going online via the same network. Maybe there's an easy fix though, I don't know
I think you hit the nail on the head. These remasters are absolutely worth the money and I am surprised they did them at all, but if they were going to do remasters I don't see why these couldn't have had more features. Even barring that, why are a bunch of things that used to be animated just static pngs now? I'm super excited because I love these games and Blizzard giving them any attention is more than I was expecting, but you're right, it could have been a game changer, and instead it's just good.
absolutely agree I can only imagine the potential if they gave a little more effort. Yet we still have this and its the best way to experience both games now so maybe they will add more at some point! I shall remain positive haha thanks for watching!
Warcraf 1 is squashed by 20%! It makes the graphics look off. They They did Warcraft 1 dirty. They did not compensate for the tall pixel effect. Games were strached by 20% on the monitors in the past. The GOG versions has the correction.
@Admiral_Iddy For the "Age of" remakes, Microsoft recruited a team who had already created an impressive expansion-sized fan mod for AoE2 called Forgotten Empires, and then basically gave them funding and let them cook. It was a perfect confluence of talent and actually good management decisions that I wish was more common in the games industry.
@BenSmith-qw4kd well microsoft owns blizzard now dont they? Mayhaps they will give some love? Ahha doubtful but hey 2 days ago i didnt know war1&2 remastered would exist and here we are lets hope!
I second AoM Retold. The WC remasters are not worth it considering you can get the originals for half the prince on GOG when not on sale and there's already a fan-made program that enables right-click to move and marquee selection in WC1. Yeah, you can't select more than 4 units, but it doesn't matter as much as people make it out to, especially with the lack of multiplayer. These remasters are the lowest effort AI slop Blizzard could've excreted out of their behind.
@@Admiral_Iddy I get a feeling only reason why we got these remasters was becouse of Microsoft > they have good experience with age of empires series and this was them testing waters. Personaly I bought them, only had 15 € to pay 😂 cuz I was one of shmucks who bought deforged spoils of war.
Man I'm in disbelief at how ddooggsshhiitt the remastered graphics are. It's really tempting to think they used AI, or at the very least some beginners in pixel art from some obscure forums. There is no way an actual artist sat down and produced those, mangling the actual style of the originals, with that new grotesque black hard pixel contour coming out of nowhere. And if you look particularly at the new tree sprites it looks exactly like AI hallucinating random patterns not understanding those should depict trees.
Seems are are kindred souls, Admiral. Grew up with WC1 and WC2 as well. You even think that it looks like a mobile game, just like I did... you truly are a friend of my soul.
re: possible AI art The WC2 art in the trailer set off tons of AI upscaled alarm bells in my head, but I'm not getting any of the same feeling in videos I've watched of the release. Maybe they had an artist give it another pass between recording footage for the trailer and releasing the game Maybe it was some funky artifacts happening as part of video compression, I doubt we'll find out for sure, but I'm relieved the art isn't as bad as I feared. Do wish the buildings in the new WC1 art didn't look like stickers though. that's probably the worst part.
stickers! thats a good way to describe it. I agree with you though I dont like saying its AI this or AI that because maybe it was just a particular artists rendition but war1 especially just seemed off, maybe they will patch the choppy chopping animations. War2 overall looks good though. Heres hoping they continue to monitor this project and not just abandon it
Also additional note: The fact that there are "any" downgrades in terms of graphics in the remaster makes me realize there is no appreciation for the original. I cant believe nobody said something when these new sprites or the new briefing room has been shown. How did somebody wave that briefing room through with no animation? There was so much potential for actually putting some "soul" into this remaster but instead it is the bare minimum and sometimes even less.
I think your review was pretty fair. At the end of the day getting 3 games with at least a full port, graphic spitshine and some quality of life updates, that the average player will sink likely 100-150 hours into campaign runs alone, for $60 isn't a bad deal.
Love your review ❤ It had all I look for in reviews. It shows what is to be shown, the good, the bad, the ugly, tells about technical stuff and gives a personal opinion that is clearly stated as such, so I as a viewer can tell when you're talking objectively and when subjectively. I would love to see more of that from you. ❤
100% agreed I much preferred the tone to the originals like remember those manual concept arts? people getting beheaded and naked maidens being kidnapped by dragons,those books were metal as hell!
Warcraft > Starcraft in aesthetics and worldbuilding for me. I always loved the aesthetics of wc2 over the other two, though i can acknowledge that wc3 maybe struck the perfect balance between a cartoonish style for an action oriented hero focused narrative RTS and the broodish, unsettling stlye of the older games.
My biggest takeaway from this is that those apparently WEREN'T eyes on the original water elemental sprite... I can't believe that slipped past me for this long.
5:25 - I'm sorry, what? They didn't have the Sourcecode of StarCraft so SC:R *is* a different game. Oh sure it's, _mostly_ the same, but something about that game throws me off every time I play it. 8:22 - If you can play Wc1R with og graphics, that seems like the better choice. Otherwise I'd personally, stay with the og game overall. 10:40 - Not worth it. 11:00 - I had no idea! 13:25 - Yeah, I remember a bit of it. 16:00 - But then, it's not a _Remaster_, it's a *Reimagining* . Good video
Thanks for the review and the lengthy stream on release day. Good to get some details early…and i agree, these are fine but the gameplay upgrades make them worth the price.
Part of me wonders if they still got PTSD from the Reforged trailer where people were annoyed at the changes so the byword for the Remasters is "Change as little as possible" Still, NGL having WC1 be playable at all is nice.
Yet another Remaster that basically comes down to "They were so close...." WC1: Lack of multiplayer. Like come on....its not like the original didnt have it. The graphics are total ass but at least the pixelart still looks good and you can switch to it. WC2: Lack of models for upgraded units or heroes like you said. Most of the new art looks good though. Mapeditor not having ANY improvements also sucks...i mean the big thing that make SC take off was the ability to make scenarios of your own. We dont need the WC3 level of "i write script to make a map" but even simple stat tweaking and basic triggers for making scenarios would have been wonderful. Both: Lack of AI improvements. Were talking about some of the earliest AI controlled RTS games not being improved at all. As a kid i remember the only reason i beat the computer was because i figured out how to cheese them.
100% agreed this stopped JUST short of the finish line. If AGE 2 can add coop, campaigns, entire games to their engine why not give a hood to the archers like the mod for the original they just painted the elves hair the same color as the player to make it look like a hood! I wonder if modding will be easier with the remaster?
Good video however: I saw the WC2 MP having a little frame breakdown in U8s stream yesterday. And constantly new people were tunning in and seeing that. It was funny :D
I don't think its AI upscaled. I think that this is from the very tail end of a paper to sprite design era. The War1 art was gonna be made by hand drawing the sprites small scale then a pixel artist would transfer the data off the paper into the computer maybe they would have had a primitive sprite editor but the modern way we would think of sprites being done where you refer to a painted picture/model and then draw that onto the computer screen was still very new at the time. I have a feeling that they still have that original drawing work that was used to make the original sprites and that was what they used for the upres. This is in stark contrast to what they did with the starcraft remaster. Original starcraft used 3ds studio models rendered to very small sprites then touched up in a sprite editor. Instead of rendering those models higher res they redid all the models from scratch to fit a higher resolution aspect ratio. The aliasing of the sprites being so low res would have hid imperfections in the original models and touchups would have hidden even more so its probable that either they didn't have those model files or that they were much crustier than we'd imagine.
These hames did not need a visual overhaul. They only needed updated display, ballance, controls, ui, ai, pathfinding and quality of life improvements. Well, we got display and some qoa but overal this is one lazy remaster.
'Why modders can make these extra things like the huge rich company can't?' Easy answer. Modders make things because they love it. Game devs don't, its just a paycheck. Great video, waiting for the no no death remaster run later.
8:27 Reforged models weren't really that much of a problem, most people did not mind them since apparently they were only outsourced part of Reforged so they somehow came out decent Problem was everything else, we lost clans, 90% of all custom maps were nuked, stability on launch was such disaster that they had to go back to classic during DreamHack, some people reported that map editor BLUESCREENS THEM, and many, MANY more problems Incidentally, 2.0 update brought some of that issues back so yay for modern blizzard
Great review. I see some good things and also a bit of a reality check that it’s not let’s buy right now! I’ll continue the war2 expansion from the battlenet version and hope this gets ported to steam soon
It's not you, the sprites are suffering from the lack of knowledge and talent of the people making them. What they don't understand is that 'readability' isn't achieved by outlining every object in the game in black and giving them exaggerated heads. You do it with colour choice and model design so it stands out in a more natural and pleasing way. This was made by mobile game fans.
funny you should mention the outlines because that stood out to me as well. The ogres in the og didnt have a big black drawn outline which maybe made them fit into the world more than kind of plopped on top.
@@Admiral_Iddy They also made the buildings with a brighter color palette then the ground which is why they don't blend. Buildings, especially medieval need earthy muted tones, like the original did. Have a good day.
That's a joke! I awaited a video game with a true remake, with well done cinematics, but instead it's just War 1 and 2 with slighly better graphics! A joke!!!
Personally I dont play Warcraft2 anymore because I want a competitive experience (12units, group hotkeys etc.) but want to experience it how it was back then with modern resolution support and the awesome widescreen mod does exactly that. So as someone who owns WC2 already I still prefer old graphics + modern resolution support, over the remaster.
Here is my thing if you don't own warcraft 1 or 2 it's diffenly worth. since you get the original one + remastered if you took the battlechest. that said if you do own the original then it's gets a tough question. Like you can mod it but in the end blizzard owns the source code, so by saying it all depends how they do their work to improve the bad points of what people in the comment said. Since microsoft got activision it really depends if they change to be more customer friendly but we will still have to see it. It's the right direction, because remember before they did said it was a waste of money to do remasterd on war1 / war2. So you gotta keep that in mind aswell. now for the next is even though no multiplayer on such a game. I'm guessing they need to refigure the network problably still way to outdated. I guess they told themselves not worth the time if i was on their feet. But hey that's just my opinion. You agree or disagree to this opinion, it's all fine.
I'm glad to see these aren't as disastrous as Reforged, though sadly it's been years since I resolved not to give any more money to the shambling zombie wearing Blizzard's skin as a mask, so I'm afraid I won't be playing them. The me of ten years ago would have been ecstatic to see this.
Yeah your review is fair. Its mid. No matter how much it I want to love it, there is substance missing. My hope Is that they listen to it and fix it. Let's be honest the anniversary was probably the thing that pushed it out. You can see a level of love for certain things and high effort and then rapidly low effort. That or mod tools are released.
As someone who never played Warcraft 1 or 2, this remake does not motivate me to start now. I think the thing that gets me is the doofy helmets that human units have in the first game. They look stupid on their own, but we have unit portraits to show what they're supposed to look like. The fact that they're so wildly different means whoever did the art direction for this remake genuinely did not care. Which means whoever managed the art director also didn't care. So if Blizzard doesn't care, why should I?
I agree with everything you said in your review. I want to add that the french voices are gone in the remaster even when selecting "francais" in the bnet app for text and voice, and i suppose it's the same for other localisations too. Sad, as the french voiceover was at time more over the top than the english one. Or you couldn't understand a thing like wth was the axethrower saying ? Anyway at least i can easily play with my cousin now so i'm glad.
I never even considered that! I kind of want to hear all the different languages renditions of the voices haha like how do the french actors do Daboo and Zug Zug?
I'm legitimately excited about these remasters, but I have to agree that it's just downright disappointing that Blizzard doesn't put love and passion into their projects anymore. It seems like it's only about the money for them. Also, I won't lie, I welcome the pants on the gryphon riders. I remember thinking the old style was kinda cringe.
aha agreed, I want pants on my ogres too it always fascinated me that those sprites got past the beta stage. Lets just have a big fat naked skin coloured dude who dies face forward ass out to the player lol
@@Admiral_Iddy I agree. I always disliked seeing the ogre's butts. That said, I actually can't really see them wearing pants. I guess a loincloth would work, though.
@@Admiral_Iddy The question is not why are they not wearing pants...the question is why SHOULD they wear pants. When your naked body provides you the same protection as steel armor, why should you even bother. Like, also, you are also totally projecting your own cultural sensitivities onto a giant two-headed mountain of muscle. When you can already run as fast as a war-horse by yourself, pants will only slow you down.
I agree with pretty much everything. I didnt mind the sprites as much, except for the building sprites are pretty crappy. The extra detail is nice, but like you said they look separated from the background instead of padt of the world.
Well, they already tried to do Definitive Edition of one game, which is WarCraft 3, but would cost too much money and resources that Activision would allow...
I think expecting actual ai enhancement for the remaster was a folly and not even a good idea. People don't like mechanical changes for remasters overall, they want a palatable experience of what they are familiar with. WC3 reforged for example has bunch of redone maps and a lot of it does not feel good to have it exist. Part of SC remaster being so liked was because it kept the jank of the classic.
I see Blizzard is up to their usual antics with selling the same stuff over and over while putting in the least effort required. Nostalgia is tempting me, but I think I've become too spiteful towards them to give them any more money.
Nah, texture updates are fine. And not so much AI as you may think. Yes, style decisions are questionable but not in their majority. Games look as I remember them from the old days.
I refunded these games right away. Low effort for Warcraft 2 multiplayer. Spent 3 hours and only one game loaded that entire time. How can you mess it up that bad when the battle net edition from 25 years ago got it right?
Was hoping it would have gotten the passion of SC1 remastered. Seems half-baked so I'll guess I also will skip it for now and stick to modded GOG one as you said the mods seems to have done more work on it.
I am actually glad because I would feel bad for the artist if everyone hated their work. Having said that maybe they will grow on me and im just still wearing nostalgia glasses, the wood chopping animation though needs a lil love
The reason why Blizzard is doing the bare minimum? They still have their really bad workplace culture AND Activizion (a gaming company as evil as EA) still holds the purse strings.
Saying that its worth it only to later say that they haven't done the majority of what they should have done i. e. like porting wc1 to wc2 engine. etc, also I had a different vision for it and they screwed resolution etc.
These are objectively better versions which you should buy for the best experience if you didn't already have the old versions He's just pointing out they could have done more to give players something new then just make the same old stuff better
Thanks for the quick review. For me this is not worth it, specially at the price they are charging for it, unless they add some QoL and more features. I understand they tried following the same conservative remastering philosophy of Brood War, but this is not conservative, it's just bare-bones and undercooked. I will not buy it.
I dunno but this feels like a slap in the face of every wc1+2 fan. Blizzard put in minimal effort, as usually, just so they can cash in. Also no more water elemental tiddies? Pass.
Menu looks great but game sprites looks like cheap AI upscale. I prefer old graphics. It's a shame they always have to change something and can't be happy with original style - like this outline or adding pants to gryphon or even small things like level 1 mission needs you to build 3 farms instead of 4. I mean I would happily buy those remasters if they were good but I just can't accept the fact that those artists always have to get creative with something - if it ain't broken don't fix it, as simple as that.
Hopes were high for the remaster of wc2 I hoped they would improve gameplay like come on this ain't 1995 anymore having factions being copy paste of each other is unacceptable , the level of polish in wc2 is a bit meh orc heroes can't regain health , you also don't control orc heroes all that much the lack of unique models for rangers palas etc hurts the game readability. Wc2 is outdated in terms of gameplay every single RTS out there after 1995 plays and handles gameplay better than wc2. For wc1 idk man I didn't get to play it.
I don't want to give Blizzard more money unless the product is really high quality, thanks for this informative review.
@@morfy42 glad I could help!
I don't give them more money. Period.
More should do the same.
The good: 12 unit selection, more resolution/zoom options, better group hotkeys, and basic standard functionality with right-click for War 1.
The mid: Graphics are meh (but can always use the old sprites), no balance changes (for better or worse).
The bad: New campaign load screens feel soulless compared to the originals; Still no online play for War 1, and War 2 online play and editor is super bare-bones.
Hmm... I own War 1+2 on GoG and never bought Reforged (owned the OG on disk) so these would be full price for me. At that price I'm gonna have to pass. Thanks for the review though! I haven't been paying any attention to Blizzard's recent news so I totally missed this even being a thing.
I think if you still have OG Warcraft 3 CD or CD-key you can claim Reforged for free on BattleNet
I don't think increasing unit selection is good. It doesn't feel the soul of WC and is not true to the original. The improvement should have been through the use of hotkeys (though I think they should remove unit limit for the original Starcraft, that's a whole different concept of gameplay, and there shouldn't be a unit select limit in Starcraft 1, but in WC it's completely different, different type of gameplay design. A player selects a small unit group and controls it as a small squad separately)...
@@korana6308This
Basically, the good things are something that exists with mods already. Alltogether with animated campaign screens...
Its always a thing to consider they do this to mostly maintain IP rights and less to release a product that makes the original products better and share the experience with new audiences.
I think in reality its always gonna be the modders that will make it better. This will probably just help bridge the gap by giving modders more tools.
I wouldn't be that cynical about it, they don't need to release these to maintain IP rights to Warcraft. There probably is a group within Blizzard that did want to remaster these titles, but weren't given a lot of resources or time to do so. What we've gotten is decent, especially the quality of life improvements in WC1, and they didn't remove the original WC2BNE like they did with WC3.
@Infernal_Puppet If true I hope it does get further patches down the line and not a one and done release. As admiral mentioned hope they add more graphical unique stuff like the upgraded units having different graphics. Improving the AI,etc.
Brother that makes no sense wow and hearthstone constantly get new content, you don't lose the right to parts of the IP if you don't use them you just need to be using it to keep it
As the other guy said, your take is way too cynical, lol. I for one thought this as new-management Blizz, under MS, trying to revitalize interest on their games. Maybe even trying to be on the good side of the players.
My focus was more on HotS (stil not given hope that MS might do something about it), but taking a step back, OW classic also comes into picture (heard it's lackluster, but that is besides the point, regarding Blizz's or MS' intention).
Wargus Warcraft II (v3.3.2) mod differences for comparison:
Pros:
-Better pathfinding overall - units won't stop when there's a large forest(s) in the way
-Larger control groups (9->18, the GUI still shows 9 at most per group though)
-Rally points (including rallying peons to gold or wood from the town halls)
-Training queues - queue up 6 units to train at a production building (can't do it with upgrades however)
-Can queue up multiple buildings for a peon to build in sequence with shift+click (can also queue up spells)
-Can cast spells with a group of spellcasters of the same type and it doesn't waste more MP than necessary if you for example use 8 paladins to heal 1 paladin (can also click on the portraits in a control group to cast spells on those units)
-New enemy AI options and the normal difficulty AI is smarter - you can set the difficulty per mission in SP too
-Shows your idle worker count in the top right
-Shows your damaged buildings as red on the mini-map
-Higher res options
-Workers accumulate wood immediately when starting to chop it, which also solves the issue of two workers chopping the same tree tile (1-2 trees) and one worker's work being wasted when the tree tile disappears
-Can now sort all players into up to 4 teams in MP before starting a match, including computer players
-Option to show the map layout completely or the terrain under fog of war during skirmish games
-Other gameplay options that I'm not sure what they do
Cons:
-Transporter pathfinding seems a bit worse
-Crashes fairly often when going to the next mission in SP, forcing the use of cheats to get to the next one (I played on Windows 11)
-Sometimes no icon indicating invisibility on units
-A bit easier final Tides of Darkness level as Humans on Normal (no dragons are sent to harass, instead you have to fight a bunch of them later on)
-If griffons attack a unit and it runs away far enough, they'll just forget about its existence. I don't think this happened in the original
-I was not able to play a LAN MP game, or via the wargus client with a friend going online via the same network. Maybe there's an easy fix though, I don't know
I think you hit the nail on the head. These remasters are absolutely worth the money and I am surprised they did them at all, but if they were going to do remasters I don't see why these couldn't have had more features. Even barring that, why are a bunch of things that used to be animated just static pngs now? I'm super excited because I love these games and Blizzard giving them any attention is more than I was expecting, but you're right, it could have been a game changer, and instead it's just good.
absolutely agree I can only imagine the potential if they gave a little more effort. Yet we still have this and its the best way to experience both games now so maybe they will add more at some point! I shall remain positive haha thanks for watching!
These were totally made by 1 old Blizzard employee in his evenings over a week or tewo
Warcraf 1 is squashed by 20%! It makes the graphics look off. They They did Warcraft 1 dirty. They did not compensate for the tall pixel effect. Games were strached by 20% on the monitors in the past. The GOG versions has the correction.
You did really, really well on your review, good sir!
Here's hoping you do more and more! Great content!
The crossbowmen of WarCraft 1 always looked like they had huge arms. Of all the human units being redid I found them the least jarring.
I mean, so did everyone.
It's not as disastrous as Warcraft 3 Reforged but if you want a great early 2000's RTS Remaster in 2024 just buy Age of Mythology Retold
@@vjbd2757 they definitely played it too safe and simple aom retold was amazing dam how come warcraft couldnt get the same love n care
@Admiral_Iddy For the "Age of" remakes, Microsoft recruited a team who had already created an impressive expansion-sized fan mod for AoE2 called Forgotten Empires, and then basically gave them funding and let them cook. It was a perfect confluence of talent and actually good management decisions that I wish was more common in the games industry.
@BenSmith-qw4kd well microsoft owns blizzard now dont they? Mayhaps they will give some love? Ahha doubtful but hey 2 days ago i didnt know war1&2 remastered would exist and here we are lets hope!
I second AoM Retold. The WC remasters are not worth it considering you can get the originals for half the prince on GOG when not on sale and there's already a fan-made program that enables right-click to move and marquee selection in WC1. Yeah, you can't select more than 4 units, but it doesn't matter as much as people make it out to, especially with the lack of multiplayer. These remasters are the lowest effort AI slop Blizzard could've excreted out of their behind.
@@Admiral_Iddy I get a feeling only reason why we got these remasters was becouse of Microsoft > they have good experience with age of empires series and this was them testing waters.
Personaly I bought them, only had 15 € to pay 😂 cuz I was one of shmucks who bought deforged spoils of war.
I think they mistyped "Necrolyte".
oh definitely although Necroylte has a ring to it, maybe a metal band name haha
Man I'm in disbelief at how ddooggsshhiitt the remastered graphics are. It's really tempting to think they used AI, or at the very least some beginners in pixel art from some obscure forums. There is no way an actual artist sat down and produced those, mangling the actual style of the originals, with that new grotesque black hard pixel contour coming out of nowhere. And if you look particularly at the new tree sprites it looks exactly like AI hallucinating random patterns not understanding those should depict trees.
im a W3 baby im still burned by refunded and the fact that my OG game that i paid its unable unless i pirate it
Seems are are kindred souls, Admiral. Grew up with WC1 and WC2 as well. You even think that it looks like a mobile game, just like I did... you truly are a friend of my soul.
re: possible AI art
The WC2 art in the trailer set off tons of AI upscaled alarm bells in my head, but I'm not getting any of the same feeling in videos I've watched of the release.
Maybe they had an artist give it another pass between recording footage for the trailer and releasing the game
Maybe it was some funky artifacts happening as part of video compression, I doubt we'll find out for sure, but I'm relieved the art isn't as bad as I feared.
Do wish the buildings in the new WC1 art didn't look like stickers though. that's probably the worst part.
stickers! thats a good way to describe it. I agree with you though I dont like saying its AI this or AI that because maybe it was just a particular artists rendition but war1 especially just seemed off, maybe they will patch the choppy chopping animations. War2 overall looks good though. Heres hoping they continue to monitor this project and not just abandon it
Also additional note: The fact that there are "any" downgrades in terms of graphics in the remaster makes me realize there is no appreciation for the original. I cant believe nobody said something when these new sprites or the new briefing room has been shown. How did somebody wave that briefing room through with no animation? There was so much potential for actually putting some "soul" into this remaster but instead it is the bare minimum and sometimes even less.
I think your review was pretty fair. At the end of the day getting 3 games with at least a full port, graphic spitshine and some quality of life updates, that the average player will sink likely 100-150 hours into campaign runs alone, for $60 isn't a bad deal.
Love your review ❤
It had all I look for in reviews. It shows what is to be shown, the good, the bad, the ugly, tells about technical stuff and gives a personal opinion that is clearly stated as such, so I as a viewer can tell when you're talking objectively and when subjectively.
I would love to see more of that from you. ❤
Watertas being removed is a crime. Blizzard doesnt know whats breast for their games.
Starcraft gets all the love and its sad because I love warcraft so much more. Though I dont like how cartoony it got after WC3.
100% agreed I much preferred the tone to the originals like remember those manual concept arts? people getting beheaded and naked maidens being kidnapped by dragons,those books were metal as hell!
Warcraft > Starcraft in aesthetics and worldbuilding for me.
I always loved the aesthetics of wc2 over the other two, though i can acknowledge that wc3 maybe struck the perfect balance between a cartoonish style for an action oriented hero focused narrative RTS and the broodish, unsettling stlye of the older games.
My biggest takeaway from this is that those apparently WEREN'T eyes on the original water elemental sprite... I can't believe that slipped past me for this long.
12 units selection is a HUGE balance change, especially against AI.
hopefully we'll get a future patch for these
5:25 - I'm sorry, what? They didn't have the Sourcecode of StarCraft so SC:R *is* a different game. Oh sure it's, _mostly_ the same, but something about that game throws me off every time I play it.
8:22 - If you can play Wc1R with og graphics, that seems like the better choice.
Otherwise I'd personally, stay with the og game overall.
10:40 - Not worth it.
11:00 - I had no idea!
13:25 - Yeah, I remember a bit of it.
16:00 - But then, it's not a _Remaster_, it's a *Reimagining* .
Good video
Thanks for the review and the lengthy stream on release day. Good to get some details early…and i agree, these are fine but the gameplay upgrades make them worth the price.
As a fan of all 3 original games I'm really glad to see a review from someone who truly knows the source material. Thanks!
Part of me wonders if they still got PTSD from the Reforged trailer where people were annoyed at the changes so the byword for the Remasters is "Change as little as possible"
Still, NGL having WC1 be playable at all is nice.
Yet another Remaster that basically comes down to "They were so close...."
WC1: Lack of multiplayer. Like come on....its not like the original didnt have it. The graphics are total ass but at least the pixelart still looks good and you can switch to it.
WC2: Lack of models for upgraded units or heroes like you said. Most of the new art looks good though. Mapeditor not having ANY improvements also sucks...i mean the big thing that make SC take off was the ability to make scenarios of your own. We dont need the WC3 level of "i write script to make a map" but even simple stat tweaking and basic triggers for making scenarios would have been wonderful.
Both: Lack of AI improvements. Were talking about some of the earliest AI controlled RTS games not being improved at all. As a kid i remember the only reason i beat the computer was because i figured out how to cheese them.
100% agreed this stopped JUST short of the finish line. If AGE 2 can add coop, campaigns, entire games to their engine why not give a hood to the archers like the mod for the original they just painted the elves hair the same color as the player to make it look like a hood! I wonder if modding will be easier with the remaster?
Good video however:
I saw the WC2 MP having a little frame breakdown in U8s stream yesterday.
And constantly new people were tunning in and seeing that. It was funny :D
I don't think its AI upscaled. I think that this is from the very tail end of a paper to sprite design era. The War1 art was gonna be made by hand drawing the sprites small scale then a pixel artist would transfer the data off the paper into the computer maybe they would have had a primitive sprite editor but the modern way we would think of sprites being done where you refer to a painted picture/model and then draw that onto the computer screen was still very new at the time. I have a feeling that they still have that original drawing work that was used to make the original sprites and that was what they used for the upres.
This is in stark contrast to what they did with the starcraft remaster. Original starcraft used 3ds studio models rendered to very small sprites then touched up in a sprite editor. Instead of rendering those models higher res they redid all the models from scratch to fit a higher resolution aspect ratio. The aliasing of the sprites being so low res would have hid imperfections in the original models and touchups would have hidden even more so its probable that either they didn't have those model files or that they were much crustier than we'd imagine.
Thank you for review. Was curious
These hames did not need a visual overhaul. They only needed updated display, ballance, controls, ui, ai, pathfinding and quality of life improvements. Well, we got display and some qoa but overal this is one lazy remaster.
'Why modders can make these extra things like the huge rich company can't?'
Easy answer. Modders make things because they love it. Game devs don't, its just a paycheck.
Great video, waiting for the no no death remaster run later.
"looks like a crappy mobile game" was my very first thought when I have seen the trailer (and wrote it off as another neoBlizz moneygrab).
My first experience was Warcraft 2 The Dark Saga on PS1. Crazy to think that PS1 had a RTS.
Oh score! Thanks Admiral
8:27 Reforged models weren't really that much of a problem, most people did not mind them since apparently they were only outsourced part of Reforged so they somehow came out decent
Problem was everything else, we lost clans, 90% of all custom maps were nuked, stability on launch was such disaster that they had to go back to classic during DreamHack, some people reported that map editor BLUESCREENS THEM, and many, MANY more problems
Incidentally, 2.0 update brought some of that issues back so yay for modern blizzard
Great review. I see some good things and also a bit of a reality check that it’s not let’s buy right now! I’ll continue the war2 expansion from the battlenet version and hope this gets ported to steam soon
I think they were balancing keeping the old games in tact and giving them modern quality of life changes.
Y'all got scammed over there, in the U.S. it was only 15 dollars (yes ik about conversion rates but it still costs much more)
haha our canadian money aint doing too hot over here but I at least got it at a discount ;)
I miss the tall pixels from og Warcraft 1
We can’t expect Blizzard to put in the effort, they are but a small indie company.
It's not you, the sprites are suffering from the lack of knowledge and talent of the people making them. What they don't understand is that 'readability' isn't achieved by outlining every object in the game in black and giving them exaggerated heads. You do it with colour choice and model design so it stands out in a more natural and pleasing way. This was made by mobile game fans.
funny you should mention the outlines because that stood out to me as well. The ogres in the og didnt have a big black drawn outline which maybe made them fit into the world more than kind of plopped on top.
@@Admiral_Iddy They also made the buildings with a brighter color palette then the ground which is why they don't blend. Buildings, especially medieval need earthy muted tones, like the original did. Have a good day.
Is giving blizzard any money worth it? No. I was getting robbed for almost 13 years now.
That's a joke! I awaited a video game with a true remake, with well done cinematics, but instead it's just War 1 and 2 with slighly better graphics! A joke!!!
Actually, worse graphics. Only added feature is adding right click. Everything else is a downgrade.
I couldn’t get the remasters to work. After several re-installs I ultimately had to request a refund.
I was wondering about these and you seem to be the person to ask. So ty for the info :)
Personally I dont play Warcraft2 anymore because I want a competitive experience (12units, group hotkeys etc.) but want to experience it how it was back then with modern resolution support and the awesome widescreen mod does exactly that. So as someone who owns WC2 already I still prefer old graphics + modern resolution support, over the remaster.
Here is my thing if you don't own warcraft 1 or 2 it's diffenly worth. since you get the original one + remastered if you took the battlechest. that said if you do own the original then it's gets a tough question. Like you can mod it but in the end blizzard owns the source code, so by saying it all depends how they do their work to improve the bad points of what people in the comment said. Since microsoft got activision it really depends if they change to be more customer friendly but we will still have to see it. It's the right direction, because remember before they did said it was a waste of money to do remasterd on war1 / war2. So you gotta keep that in mind aswell. now for the next is even though no multiplayer on such a game. I'm guessing they need to refigure the network problably still way to outdated. I guess they told themselves not worth the time if i was on their feet. But hey that's just my opinion. You agree or disagree to this opinion, it's all fine.
I'm glad to see these aren't as disastrous as Reforged, though sadly it's been years since I resolved not to give any more money to the shambling zombie wearing Blizzard's skin as a mask, so I'm afraid I won't be playing them. The me of ten years ago would have been ecstatic to see this.
To be fair: If orange is labeled as "Alliance Traitor" it doesn´t make that much of a difference :P 14:29
Yeah your review is fair. Its mid. No matter how much it I want to love it, there is substance missing. My hope Is that they listen to it and fix it. Let's be honest the anniversary was probably the thing that pushed it out. You can see a level of love for certain things and high effort and then rapidly low effort. That or mod tools are released.
mod tools would be a perfect solution, Bethesda realized that the fans will fix their games for them so if Blizz is feeling lazy let us do it!
@@Admiral_Iddy well they both got the same parent company now so hopefully that trickles around
I remember midi music being reeeealy good. Is the new music better then MT-32 one?
Great review! It’s a nice remaster, but it could've been better indeed.
Thanks for the comprehensive review. I agree they could have done many more improvements to WCII.
First. Great vid.
it looks fairly low effort unfortunately.
As someone who never played Warcraft 1 or 2, this remake does not motivate me to start now. I think the thing that gets me is the doofy helmets that human units have in the first game. They look stupid on their own, but we have unit portraits to show what they're supposed to look like. The fact that they're so wildly different means whoever did the art direction for this remake genuinely did not care. Which means whoever managed the art director also didn't care.
So if Blizzard doesn't care, why should I?
I own it on GOG as well as the physical CDs, are those safe if I get the remakes?
you can still replay the originals on gog no problemo I did to get footage for this video so its not a reforged mandatory update.
Blizzard came in with a flamethrower and burned my house down. While a Nintendo lawyer was punching me in the face for complaints.
Those cinematics in 1 and 2 are 100% AI upscaled.
I agree with everything you said in your review. I want to add that the french voices are gone in the remaster even when selecting "francais" in the bnet app for text and voice, and i suppose it's the same for other localisations too. Sad, as the french voiceover was at time more over the top than the english one. Or you couldn't understand a thing like wth was the axethrower saying ? Anyway at least i can easily play with my cousin now so i'm glad.
I never even considered that! I kind of want to hear all the different languages renditions of the voices haha like how do the french actors do Daboo and Zug Zug?
Minimal effort in wc2 and 1, they need to do better.
Do you know if those support ultrawide resolution ?
Wish you played the WC1 remastered music for comparison. Great review overall!
I'm legitimately excited about these remasters, but I have to agree that it's just downright disappointing that Blizzard doesn't put love and passion into their projects anymore. It seems like it's only about the money for them.
Also, I won't lie, I welcome the pants on the gryphon riders. I remember thinking the old style was kinda cringe.
aha agreed, I want pants on my ogres too it always fascinated me that those sprites got past the beta stage. Lets just have a big fat naked skin coloured dude who dies face forward ass out to the player lol
@@Admiral_Iddy
I agree. I always disliked seeing the ogre's butts.
That said, I actually can't really see them wearing pants. I guess a loincloth would work, though.
@@Admiral_Iddy The question is not why are they not wearing pants...the question is why SHOULD they wear pants. When your naked body provides you the same protection as steel armor, why should you even bother.
Like, also, you are also totally projecting your own cultural sensitivities onto a giant two-headed mountain of muscle. When you can already run as fast as a war-horse by yourself, pants will only slow you down.
@@warrioroflight6872 dude cant handle an ogre butt, in a game where units die ending up as a puddle of blood and bones slowly decaying away
I agree with pretty much everything. I didnt mind the sprites as much, except for the building sprites are pretty crappy. The extra detail is nice, but like you said they look separated from the background instead of padt of the world.
Well, they already tried to do Definitive Edition of one game, which is WarCraft 3, but would cost too much money and resources that Activision would allow...
I think expecting actual ai enhancement for the remaster was a folly and not even a good idea. People don't like mechanical changes for remasters overall, they want a palatable experience of what they are familiar with.
WC3 reforged for example has bunch of redone maps and a lot of it does not feel good to have it exist. Part of SC remaster being so liked was because it kept the jank of the classic.
I think they should've done more with wc1. It was always annoying to be able build just one town hall for example.
Great reviews!!!
Good review!
War1/2 look great on my Ultrawide monitor! I can see soooo much more now haha
Orcs and Humans art lift looks way out of place. War2's fits a lot better. War1 looks like it went through an upscaling filter on DOSBox.
I see Blizzard is up to their usual antics with selling the same stuff over and over while putting in the least effort required. Nostalgia is tempting me, but I think I've become too spiteful towards them to give them any more money.
This is a type of video where I first subscribe, and then like.
Nah, texture updates are fine. And not so much AI as you may think. Yes, style decisions are questionable but not in their majority.
Games look as I remember them from the old days.
Thanks for the quick review. The new graphics are awful, but the quality of life changes seem pretty good
Upcoming videos: Can you beat Warcraft 1 and 2 Remastered deathless?
They may actually be easier now with the modern controls and group sizes lol!
just refunded :-( cant save/load and war2 pause itself randomly
3:10 that's definitely not an overlay, it's just drawn that way.
Almost like today Blizzard and old Blizzard are two diffrent blizzards. Huh.
You didn't mention it, so maybe you missed that part - i think part of the problems with art is everything has a black outline now.
The water elementas never had boobies, it was always eyes (You can see the full art on the War1 manual).
You wrong! Google "Water Elemental (Warcraft I)" in wowpedia fandom there is a conceptart from manual. It's a clearly a water woman.
I refunded these games right away. Low effort for Warcraft 2 multiplayer. Spent 3 hours and only one game loaded that entire time. How can you mess it up that bad when the battle net edition from 25 years ago got it right?
waste of a great potential "hey ciri, can you upscale these 50MB of sprites?" Yeah, 60 bucks for that. fuck blizzard, im angry
Thanks for the review - Got to say I'm not at all impressed with these remasters. :/ but I was expecting that. Certainly not for the price tag either.
I agree it's lazy. MP, editor, rebalance would make W1 worth it. Ladder, some rebalance would make W2 worth it.
Was hoping it would have gotten the passion of SC1 remastered. Seems half-baked so I'll guess I also will skip it for now and stick to modded GOG one as you said the mods seems to have done more work on it.
I actually quite like the new graphics for WC1 personally.
I am actually glad because I would feel bad for the artist if everyone hated their work. Having said that maybe they will grow on me and im just still wearing nostalgia glasses, the wood chopping animation though needs a lil love
It makes me mad that they squished the graphics by 20%. They did not account for the tall pixels at the time.
Pay $50 for a low-effort, minimal "remaster" ? No thanks.
when's grunts only challenge of wc1?
@@newfacepaula it might actually be viable now with the remaster 😂
The reason why Blizzard is doing the bare minimum? They still have their really bad workplace culture AND Activizion (a gaming company as evil as EA) still holds the purse strings.
Saying that its worth it only to later say that they haven't done the majority of what they should have done i. e. like porting wc1 to wc2 engine. etc, also I had a different vision for it and they screwed resolution etc.
These are objectively better versions which you should buy for the best experience if you didn't already have the old versions
He's just pointing out they could have done more to give players something new then just make the same old stuff better
Thanks for the quick review.
For me this is not worth it, specially at the price they are charging for it, unless they add some QoL and more features. I understand they tried following the same conservative remastering philosophy of Brood War, but this is not conservative, it's just bare-bones and undercooked.
I will not buy it.
This whole thing is just cheap ai enhanced garbage. For all the titles.
The art was never designed for this.
Ok, its not exactly BAD, but in the world of AoE 1/2 Definitive and Tides of Darkness mod....well...yeah
16:19 what sorcery... i mean game is it?
I dunno but this feels like a slap in the face of every wc1+2 fan. Blizzard put in minimal effort, as usually, just so they can cash in. Also no more water elemental tiddies? Pass.
Menu looks great but game sprites looks like cheap AI upscale. I prefer old graphics. It's a shame they always have to change something and can't be happy with original style - like this outline or adding pants to gryphon or even small things like level 1 mission needs you to build 3 farms instead of 4. I mean I would happily buy those remasters if they were good but I just can't accept the fact that those artists always have to get creative with something - if it ain't broken don't fix it, as simple as that.
💯
Hopes were high for the remaster of wc2 I hoped they would improve gameplay like come on this ain't 1995 anymore having factions being copy paste of each other is unacceptable , the level of polish in wc2 is a bit meh orc heroes can't regain health , you also don't control orc heroes all that much the lack of unique models for rangers palas etc hurts the game readability.
Wc2 is outdated in terms of gameplay every single RTS out there after 1995 plays and handles gameplay better than wc2.
For wc1 idk man I didn't get to play it.