Jon: "A remaster of XIII came out a few years ago, and it was terrible." Me: "How bad could it be?" Jon: "Well, in this remake, the walls are walls and the controls work, so it's instantly better than the remaster." Me: "...Oh."
@@dem0nfr0g39 I feel watching it after is more fun because then we first see Jon's apoplectic talks BEFORE we go back and see what he is talking about for real.
It’s what I did too when I found the classic version was simply on steam. You can even find the PS2 version of this game for an extremely cheap price for the most part.
"Seriously, whose footprints are these?!" Those are Jesus's footprints, I assume. They're going away, because the Grace of God has abandoned this reremake.
It feels weird not to hear the outro. Jon said "bye" in the same way you do when you're kicking someone out of your home for breaking your favourite stuff. Which, I suppose, isn't that inaccurate here...
I'm waiting for the remaster of the homage, of the remaster, of the remaster, of the original. But I'm not confident they will get it right, clearly too busy trying to be Borderlands.
The previous 'remaster', he was just really dissapointed and irked over. This? Just British anger. Angrier than, "writing a stern letter" to the developers. It is so odd to hear this from him, but you're right. It's interesting to hear him angry. Hell, he found some good to say about New World. This?
You know what Jon, I want you to know that after the video where you covered the first remake I took your suggestion and bought the original XIII on steam. I hadn't played the original when it first came out. I remember seeing it around, but just never got it. And while the game is very much of it's time, got a few rough edges, I honestly had an absolute blast with it! So take some consolation from the fact that while these remakes are terrible, they have at least caused people to look at the original. Also, as an extra thought, why don't you do the original XIII as a livestream one time? It's not a huge game and you could easily get through it in a single session. Might be fun to see how your style has changed compared to your original playthrough.
We’re you able to play with controller? My partner bought the original on steam in 2020 when remake 1.0 was such shit but never was able to get a controller to work.
@@ThtOtherJess For controller useage on non-controller computer games i use the xpadder app. Here you can bind keys and mouse to your gamepad. Worked really fine for Return to Castle Wolfenstein...
Honestly, with recent game announcements, I'm really really happy with stuff like Kirby, and Yakuza. And here I watch Jon just suffering from a remake of his game.
"But Developer, why is it when I am at my lowest there is only one set of foot prints. Did you abandon me in my time of need?" "No my player, those are the times when the script bugged out and made the foot print path several yards too long."
Having done some very cursory digging, it seems pretty clear how this all managed to happen - the rights to the IP were at some point in the last decade or so acquired by a new publisher (one Microids, a studio/publisher who's nearly 40 years of what I would call "prolific mediocrity" looks like an ill omen) who decided to remake the original in the presumable hopes of cashing in on its cult classic status. This project was contracted out to PlayMagic, a studio with, as far as I can tell, no actual games to their name over a decade of operation - contrast this with the developers of the original, Ubisoft Paris, a AAA studio that shouldn't need any introduction. The fact that the remake was a total garbage fire should really come as no surprise from that alone, given the competence of the average indie studio in the modern game dev scene. As for why this newest version looks like the original remake with a bad cell-shaded filter and some bug fixes, that's probably exactly what it is. This is an update patch make by a different studio, not a total rebuild, so one can only assume they used the same assets and code base. Said new studio at least has the courage to put their names on their website, and they appear to have made at least two games that aren't total garbage fires, but the fact that the first thing I see on their site is "Artisan Game Studio" followed by a description of how hip their location is (rather than, I don't know, some information on the games they've made) doesn't exactly fill me with optimism. Add to that the fact that their 15-person team somehow needs to include separate Creative, Technical, and Art Directors, plus an Executive Producer, and I'm quite confident that this will not be the studio to give XIII the remake it deserves, nor is Microids likely to be the publisher. Oh well, maybe next decade.
I was actually ecstatic to learn about the first remake because it reignited the possibility of a sequel. I even preordered the special edition...on the Switch version that ended up getting delayed two years beyond its original release date while the other consoles came out on time, giving me ample time to cancel after I found out how badly the game was mutilated. And now this. Congratulations, you have finally made a functional game. At the expense of all of its charm. If this game is what is now considered acceptable, then I have no hope for the industry.
The sad part is, im sure that there are some dedicated XIII fans who would have loved the opportunity to remaster/remake the game. Sadly thats never gonna happen now.
I guess you never made it to that level but the intro cutscene still has my favorite weird mistake from the remaster: the FBI building being inexplicably filled with flags for the state of Missouri and the city of St. Louis when it's stated outright to be in I think Brooklyn?
I get your frustration. And I at the same time applaud your dedication and worry for your sanity, as the frustration was so great you actually cut together side by side comparisons. You went the extra mile to warn us about this game.
One night I dreamed a dream. As I was walking along the beach with my Lord. Across the dark sky flashed scenes from my life. For each scene, I noticed two sets of footprints in the sand, One belonging to me and one to my Lord. I noticed that at many times along the path of my life, especially at the very lowest and saddest times, there was only one set of footprints. This really troubled me, so I asked the Lord about it. "Lord, you said once I decided to follow you, You'd walk with me all the way. But I noticed that during the saddest and most troublesome times of my life, there was only one set of footprints. I don't understand why, when I needed You the most, You would leave me." He whispered, "My precious child, I love you and will never leave you Never, ever, during your trials and testings. When you saw only one set of footprints, It was then that I carried you." "But Lord, why are they backwards?" I asked, looking at the confusing footprints. "Don't worry about it. Also, you owe me money."
To be fair: It is quite conceivable that other humans have walked on that beach. And i'm sure they deliver throwing knifes and more multiplayer mode in a few DLC....
Here we go again. It's like I'm remembering a fugue state from years ago binging the XIII BDs I found in my fathers collection. What an awesome series. both XIII and Largo winch from Jean van Hamme.
When will people who remaster games realise it's not just about amping up the graphics, preserving the charm is also as important. The main goal should be get it to a state where it will run on modern hardware, then leave it the hell alone!
So, Jon, I'm not trying to break your sanity, but a side-by-side series of this vs the original would be a keystone resource for people fighting to preserve digital art.
"Whose footsteps are these why do they go behind me?" When you saw only one set of footsteps that was when I fucked off out of here for there are places my grace doesn't reach- God
Love the comparison to the original. Just shows that this game didn't need a remake/remaster at all! It's still great and the cell shading style still looks good!
The PC version of the original has some UI scaling issues at higher resolutions and if you want to use a controller you'll need a map it to keyboard controls (Steam's built-in configuration works great for this). Other than that the gameplay and visuals hold up great even today. It's currently on sale for $1.50 on Steam, compared to $30 for the remake. Just buy the original for you and nineteen of your friends instead of the remake.
Thanks MATN! Because of you, I finally picked up XIII for the first time! And I made the educated decision based on your videos to exclusively buy the precursor to the remake of the remaster!
As of the day of commenting this, XIII is on sale and I picked it up for R13.00 which feels quite appropriate. It also works. I did want to see here though if the rpg still fired itself or if they remembered to add the person holding it but we didn't get that far sadly. As such, I choose to think that it's still broken because that cutscene and Jon's reaction to it still brings me joy to this day.
I agree with Jon in a lot of the stuff he's said in this video, but I can't help but think that the flashbacks missing the blur filter and the menu looking more menu-y may actually have something to do with accessibility, which is a big thing in modern games compared to two decades back. Not saying this is the case, of course, but it's something to consider.
Just a thought on this matter as far as accessibility is concerned (if this was the case), they could add an option for it as in a tick-box for personal preference. They went to all the effort to remove features they must have surely had some spare time to actually add a few.
I wondered about the accessibility of the blur filter too, but the greyscale they're using still has kind of poor contrast, which is an even more basic accessibility issue. If they didn't want to do a full-screen blur, I wonder if they could have used a vignette or something like that. I've definitely also seen some games where you can turn off or turn down some visual effects too.
I'd never heard of XIII before, so at the very least this got me interested in the original. I love finding good games from that era that I missed out on back in those days.
Played it a lot last year. You’re going to have an amazing time. I highly recommend going into the multiplayer game mode called The Hunt with some bots. You won’t regret it!
XIII was the first game I ever played online. It's good to check back in with old friends to find what's left of their rotting corpses still doing big things.
I've watched many of your playthroughs and seeing you review an favorite while giving honest feedback along with a side-by-side comparison of the original is very nice. Hoping the next version of the Remastered: Remake will be better.
The problems of most remake are different team that fails to understand the charm of original and lack of attention to detail. Advanced graphic means nothing to me if it can't capture the feels and deliver full contents. It's hard to replicate every aspect in different engine, but it's not impossible if developers actually put effort and passion into their project.
If you want to play this game, get the original, get the community Patch from modb for widescreen and high resolution support and have fun. Fuck this "remaster"
I'm pretty sure what happened is: The first remaster was made on a different engine (Unity instead of Unreal Engine 2) and the port went through dev hell, hence all the bugs. Also, the new engine didn't do the cell-shaded visuals, so they did the plastic 3d instead. Now this remake of the remaster (which technically isn't even something new, it's just a massive patch for the first remaster, done by another studio which may explain why Tower Five doesn't list it - they made a patch for a product and not the actual product...) fixed the technical bugs and tried to "fix" the 3d visuals with filters, which made them even worse while not mending all the other things the remaster broke. And the dudes doing the patch probably never got anything from the original game, which may be why they couldn't fix all those design differences along the way. And the reason? Well, the original game is on sale for 1.20$, so you can't rake in money with it. The remaster was likely intended to justify a renewed high sales price to milk the fans of the original a bit longer but failed so bad they had to try again.
Okay, when you first cut to the original I thought for a second "Oh, maybe this game doesn't look so bad after all." Then I realized I was looking at the original game. Oops. Well, if anything, you've got me really interested in the original XIII so well done, sir, I suppose.
I think they attempted to remake the remaster rather than the original, so its become a game of telephone, where each remake gets a little further from the original each time
And the "designers" of the remake of the remaster are probably patting themselves on the back. You are truly right: The new game is HORRIBLE compared to the original!!!!! Who hires these people???? (PS: I haven't even made it through the whole video yet, or even tried the remake of the remaster.) For the designers/authors involved in this atrocity: When the content of a game changes by adding and removing things/characters/modes, the game is not the original remade. It is the original completely changed. This remake obviously looks as if it was done by some very lazy people. I feel bad for the programmers that were told to do this to the game.
Back in the day, I had a blast with the original XIII, when the remaster was announced I was excited and replayed the original. It's still an alright game, but it has a few issues. Then I read the comics and was completely baffled about how terrible they were adapted. About half the game makes little to no sense when you've read the comic.
I remember buying this like a month after it came out. It was the steel tin edition that came with some kind of post card type things. The steel tin was actually incredibly cheap with all of its contents inside of it and I’ve only played it for roughly 10 mins. 2 months after that. I buy a laptop and get the original version on steam being more expensive than the remake. I instantly had way more fun for the sole reason that I could play The Hunt. Easily the best game mode ever introduced to a PS2 game.
As the old proverb goes "Don't fix what ain't broke!" And now they've done it twice. Then again, that is the schtick of the remake/remaster gimmick, so...
XIII is still a good game, there's like one very outdated and uncomfortable gay cop stereotype who tries to rape you... but everything else holds up SOOO well.
Got the original XIII on GoG for less than a coffee a year or two ago... It's brilliant! Works on a potato, feels great, looks great stylistically buut not aged brilliantly, sounds could be a bet better. For me, all that would have needed to be done would be new sounds and just make the resolution cleaner at 2K. Wouldn't need to be a TES III & IV, Fallout 3 & 4 or the S.T.A.L.K.E.R.s type graphical ENB mods.
its absolutely undeniable that xiii is one of the best looking, most stylish games of its generation. even now, 20 years later the original game still looks absolutely fantastic and holds up perfectly well. i dont know why anybody even thought remaking it was a good idea in the first place, from what ive seen of both if these remasters they were a huge waste of the developers time
Most likely in the hopes that a lot of the people who liked the original will buy the remaster on impulse. Then they've just made a ton of cash for very little effort. It's not like they give two farts if people have fun playing the remaster or not when they have already bought it.
I'm surprised I made it to the end of the video if I'm honest. I had to look away both at the start of the game and the start of the flashback because the wibbly side to side movement was making me feel motion sick and I had the video on the middle size. Then that feeling got made worse by what I can only describe as "the pulsating effect at the edge of the screen" during the black and white flashback before you start moving. The worse part of that is Its also only in the re-remaster. The original game being and its framerate being as smooth as it was actually helped put things back to normal again. If thats not a horrible sign I don't know what is.
Idk anything about XIII but I do think that the original (probably draw distance related) foggy look of the lighthouse is definitely aesthetically better.
I can’t decide what Simpson’s quote to go with: Stop! Stop! It’s already dead! Or: I’d say the devs cracked under the pressure to make a better game than last time, but what pressure?
I think this is the first time in the many years I have been watching Jon that a game was so horribly done, that it did not even get a half-assed outro. Jon straight up spit on this game.
In all honesty, what I saw *was* an improvement on the Remaster, and while the cel-shader layer makes things look exceptionally *busy* it's kind of nice (in my opinion). But... I didn't play the original, but I can believe both the first remaster and this remade remaster were blindingly outshone by the original XIII. It would've been better and cheaper to just let the remaster die.
I got an ad just after his angry rant about not deserving an outro. It opened with the Lich King (from World of Warcraft) shouting "Go now!". Sometimes ads aren't so bad after all.
Jon: "A remaster of XIII came out a few years ago, and it was terrible."
Me: "How bad could it be?"
Jon: "Well, in this remake, the walls are walls and the controls work, so it's instantly better than the remaster."
Me: "...Oh."
I rewatched the original remaster video ahead of this, I recommend giving it a watch, its great
@@dem0nfr0g39 I feel watching it after is more fun because then we first see Jon's apoplectic talks BEFORE we go back and see what he is talking about for real.
it was so bad, and it was the most disapointed, and upset I've ever seen Jon, his outro for that one, kinda scared me too...
it was more weighted.
Imagine if there's 13 remake attempts of XIII, all just getting progressively worse until the 13th is just a post it note saying, "Fine, we're done."
The 13th would have bloodstains on it, and the note would read "it's fine. They're done"
Plot twist: the 13th remake never releases to the public, because they fucked up the Roman numerals and called the game 9/11
Or the 13th remake is actually just the original game so it's just one massive joke played on us.
But you still need to pay $50 to access the post-it note
20 worsening remake attempts, from XX to I. When we get to I, the world ends.
I love that Jon just gives up and starts playing the old game
It’s what I did too when I found the classic version was simply on steam. You can even find the PS2 version of this game for an extremely cheap price for the most part.
"Seriously, whose footprints are these?!"
Those are Jesus's footprints, I assume. They're going away, because the Grace of God has abandoned this reremake.
Either that or an easter egg of the devs walking away after 5 mins work.
Jesus buried the Throwing Knives there and then ascended
He's sounds like an MGS1 guard who's had enough of Snake's shit
Underrated comment
The sand people walk single file to hide their numbers...
It feels weird not to hear the outro. Jon said "bye" in the same way you do when you're kicking someone out of your home for breaking your favourite stuff. Which, I suppose, isn't that inaccurate here...
The videos where the games are bad have this no"outro".
Can't wait to see the remaster of a remake of this remaster.
The reboot of the remake of the remaster of the reimagining of the restart.
XIII: The Definitive Edition
I'm waiting for the remaster of the homage, of the remaster, of the remaster, of the original. But I'm not confident they will get it right, clearly too busy trying to be Borderlands.
The pure salt in that "Bye!"
I agree, Jon. Undeserving of an Outro.
Agreed. 😆
So strange to hear Jon angry for the first time...so refreshing as well :D Yet - the anger is fully undestandable in this case
The previous 'remaster', he was just really dissapointed and irked over. This? Just British anger. Angrier than, "writing a stern letter" to the developers.
It is so odd to hear this from him, but you're right. It's interesting to hear him angry. Hell, he found some good to say about New World. This?
It has happened before, but that was so long ago I don't remember which game it was about.
Watch his Homefront video! It’s marvelous when he loses his temper on a bad game. LMAO
Wait... A British type is angrier than "stern letter writing" angry?!
Dear god... We're doomed... TO THE BUNKERS! EVERY MAN FOR HIMSELF!!!!!!
@@philllyfanatic54 Ah! THAT'S the other one that gets to him! TY!
You know what Jon, I want you to know that after the video where you covered the first remake I took your suggestion and bought the original XIII on steam. I hadn't played the original when it first came out. I remember seeing it around, but just never got it. And while the game is very much of it's time, got a few rough edges, I honestly had an absolute blast with it!
So take some consolation from the fact that while these remakes are terrible, they have at least caused people to look at the original.
Also, as an extra thought, why don't you do the original XIII as a livestream one time? It's not a huge game and you could easily get through it in a single session. Might be fun to see how your style has changed compared to your original playthrough.
We’re you able to play with controller? My partner bought the original on steam in 2020 when remake 1.0 was such shit but never was able to get a controller to work.
@@ThtOtherJess Sorry no, I played Keyboard & Mouse.
"A product of it's time" feels more like something to be said about the remaster/remake rather than the original .
@@ThtOtherJess For controller useage on non-controller computer games i use the xpadder app. Here you can bind keys and mouse to your gamepad. Worked really fine for Return to Castle Wolfenstein...
Dear devs: You tried your best, and you've failed miserabley. The lesson is, never try.
Two separate dev teams have now failed. I am begging the publisher to not send in a third.
@@ManyATrueNerd third time is a charm! maybe then they will actually get close to a game that released almost 20 years ago!
To quote the Simpsons, “Stop! Stop! He’s Already Dead!”
@@ManyATrueNerd but Jon, maybe they will get it right? Third time's the charm?
What about Nightdive they're pretty good at remaking stuff
Honestly, with recent game announcements, I'm really really happy with stuff like Kirby, and Yakuza.
And here I watch Jon just suffering from a remake of his game.
Oh boy, the dead horse is getting beaten again.
It’s not Jon’s fault, the horse is being parade as if it’s alive.
I can't wait for Dead Horse Beater III
The last XIII video was already one of the shortest most negative videos Jon has ever done.
And this one's _shorter_
Not that it matters for the most part, but it’s XIII. You’re missing that last one!
@@aHumanBeing97 ssshhhh
No idea what you're talking about
@@Zorya306 your write, Mai mistook.
I remember the first video on this game. The fact that it’s getting a second video fills me with dread…
well its technically a new game again this time, they remade the shitty remaster...
They removed throwing knives but they decided to make it part of the menu at 11:59
The "Bye" at the end killed me! though i would love to see Jon do a full playthrough of the original Xiii to showcase how amazing it was
"But Developer, why is it when I am at my lowest there is only one set of foot prints. Did you abandon me in my time of need?"
"No my player, those are the times when the script bugged out and made the foot print path several yards too long."
the bar for fixing the remaster was so low you could dig over it yet they still managed to trip over it and fall flat on their face
Having done some very cursory digging, it seems pretty clear how this all managed to happen - the rights to the IP were at some point in the last decade or so acquired by a new publisher (one Microids, a studio/publisher who's nearly 40 years of what I would call "prolific mediocrity" looks like an ill omen) who decided to remake the original in the presumable hopes of cashing in on its cult classic status. This project was contracted out to PlayMagic, a studio with, as far as I can tell, no actual games to their name over a decade of operation - contrast this with the developers of the original, Ubisoft Paris, a AAA studio that shouldn't need any introduction. The fact that the remake was a total garbage fire should really come as no surprise from that alone, given the competence of the average indie studio in the modern game dev scene.
As for why this newest version looks like the original remake with a bad cell-shaded filter and some bug fixes, that's probably exactly what it is. This is an update patch make by a different studio, not a total rebuild, so one can only assume they used the same assets and code base. Said new studio at least has the courage to put their names on their website, and they appear to have made at least two games that aren't total garbage fires, but the fact that the first thing I see on their site is "Artisan Game Studio" followed by a description of how hip their location is (rather than, I don't know, some information on the games they've made) doesn't exactly fill me with optimism. Add to that the fact that their 15-person team somehow needs to include separate Creative, Technical, and Art Directors, plus an Executive Producer, and I'm quite confident that this will not be the studio to give XIII the remake it deserves, nor is Microids likely to be the publisher. Oh well, maybe next decade.
An 18 minute video? Jon must *really* love this one.
I was actually ecstatic to learn about the first remake because it reignited the possibility of a sequel. I even preordered the special edition...on the Switch version that ended up getting delayed two years beyond its original release date while the other consoles came out on time, giving me ample time to cancel after I found out how badly the game was mutilated.
And now this.
Congratulations, you have finally made a functional game. At the expense of all of its charm.
If this game is what is now considered acceptable, then I have no hope for the industry.
The sad part is, im sure that there are some dedicated XIII fans who would have loved the opportunity to remaster/remake the game. Sadly thats never gonna happen now.
Such a wonderful game when it first came out...now, it is just a botched corpse developers do not allow to die peacefully for some reason...saddening
Well now I want a split screen of all three versions for comparison. LOL
I guess you never made it to that level but the intro cutscene still has my favorite weird mistake from the remaster: the FBI building being inexplicably filled with flags for the state of Missouri and the city of St. Louis when it's stated outright to be in I think Brooklyn?
I get your frustration.
And I at the same time applaud your dedication and worry for your sanity, as the frustration was so great you actually cut together side by side comparisons. You went the extra mile to warn us about this game.
One night I dreamed a dream.
As I was walking along the beach with my Lord.
Across the dark sky flashed scenes from my life.
For each scene, I noticed two sets of footprints in the sand,
One belonging to me and one to my Lord.
I noticed that at many times along the path of my life,
especially at the very lowest and saddest times,
there was only one set of footprints.
This really troubled me, so I asked the Lord about it.
"Lord, you said once I decided to follow you,
You'd walk with me all the way.
But I noticed that during the saddest and most troublesome times of my life,
there was only one set of footprints.
I don't understand why, when I needed You the most, You would leave me."
He whispered, "My precious child, I love you and will never leave you
Never, ever, during your trials and testings.
When you saw only one set of footprints,
It was then that I carried you."
"But Lord, why are they backwards?" I asked, looking at the confusing footprints.
"Don't worry about it. Also, you owe me money."
To be fair: It is quite conceivable that other humans have walked on that beach.
And i'm sure they deliver throwing knifes and more multiplayer mode in a few DLC....
See you in two years for the reboot
Here we go again. It's like I'm remembering a fugue state from years ago binging the XIII BDs I found in my fathers collection. What an awesome series. both XIII and Largo winch from Jean van Hamme.
Please Jon remake a full playthrough of my most nostalgia game on the old version. Please please please
To quote Revolver Ocelot,
"I never trust a Frenchman."
The XIII remaster was so bad that even Jon couldn't say anything nice about.
I remember Jon playing the remaster a few years ago. Wonder how much of a disaster this re-remake is going to be.
Turns out "a few years ago" was in fact last year. Pandemic time dilation! 😆
@@bibeau756 I was not ready for his XIII video to be "a few years ago" lol, pandemic time dilation is real
When will people who remaster games realise it's not just about amping up the graphics, preserving the charm is also as important. The main goal should be get it to a state where it will run on modern hardware, then leave it the hell alone!
Less than 20 minutes. I can hear the heartbreak already
So, Jon, I'm not trying to break your sanity, but a side-by-side series of this vs the original would be a keystone resource for people fighting to preserve digital art.
"Whose footsteps are these why do they go behind me?"
When you saw only one set of footsteps that was when I fucked off out of here for there are places my grace doesn't reach- God
Hearing a video not end with the normal outro is SO jarring, but SO DESERVED
On the boat, the walls may now be walls, but the doors are on upside down :') incredible
Oh god, when Jons review is so devastating for a game we both loved in its original...
Love the comparison to the original. Just shows that this game didn't need a remake/remaster at all! It's still great and the cell shading style still looks good!
The PC version of the original has some UI scaling issues at higher resolutions and if you want to use a controller you'll need a map it to keyboard controls (Steam's built-in configuration works great for this). Other than that the gameplay and visuals hold up great even today. It's currently on sale for $1.50 on Steam, compared to $30 for the remake. Just buy the original for you and nineteen of your friends instead of the remake.
Thanks MATN! Because of you, I finally picked up XIII for the first time! And I made the educated decision based on your videos to exclusively buy the precursor to the remake of the remaster!
As of the day of commenting this, XIII is on sale and I picked it up for R13.00 which feels quite appropriate. It also works.
I did want to see here though if the rpg still fired itself or if they remembered to add the person holding it but we didn't get that far sadly. As such, I choose to think that it's still broken because that cutscene and Jon's reaction to it still brings me joy to this day.
I agree with Jon in a lot of the stuff he's said in this video, but I can't help but think that the flashbacks missing the blur filter and the menu looking more menu-y may actually have something to do with accessibility, which is a big thing in modern games compared to two decades back. Not saying this is the case, of course, but it's something to consider.
Just a thought on this matter as far as accessibility is concerned (if this was the case), they could add an option for it as in a tick-box for personal preference. They went to all the effort to remove features they must have surely had some spare time to actually add a few.
I wondered about the accessibility of the blur filter too, but the greyscale they're using still has kind of poor contrast, which is an even more basic accessibility issue. If they didn't want to do a full-screen blur, I wonder if they could have used a vignette or something like that. I've definitely also seen some games where you can turn off or turn down some visual effects too.
Got some good responses here! Thanks, people!
I'd never heard of XIII before, so at the very least this got me interested in the original. I love finding good games from that era that I missed out on back in those days.
Stop,Stop! It´s already dead!
Oh god, why and how is the cell shading effect making it even worse?
If nothing else Jon, you convinced me to buy the original on steam. Thank you!
Played it a lot as a kid it was great
Played it a lot last year. You’re going to have an amazing time.
I highly recommend going into the multiplayer game mode called The Hunt with some bots. You won’t regret it!
Wow i dont remember the last time jon was this passionate about something. But im here for it
XIII was the first game I ever played online. It's good to check back in with old friends to find what's left of their rotting corpses still doing big things.
I've watched many of your playthroughs and seeing you review an favorite while giving honest feedback along with a side-by-side comparison of the original is very nice. Hoping the next version of the Remastered: Remake will be better.
Never have I seen the future of a cult classic game been so throughly thrashed and beaten into the dirt.
I offer my condolences to your sanity, which I feel was severly wounded by this remake of a remaster.
The problems of most remake are different team that fails to understand the charm of original and lack of attention to detail. Advanced graphic means nothing to me if it can't capture the feels and deliver full contents. It's hard to replicate every aspect in different engine, but it's not impossible if developers actually put effort and passion into their project.
If you want to play this game, get the original, get the community Patch from modb for widescreen and high resolution support and have fun. Fuck this "remaster"
I'm pretty sure what happened is:
The first remaster was made on a different engine (Unity instead of Unreal Engine 2) and the port went through dev hell, hence all the bugs. Also, the new engine didn't do the cell-shaded visuals, so they did the plastic 3d instead.
Now this remake of the remaster (which technically isn't even something new, it's just a massive patch for the first remaster, done by another studio which may explain why Tower Five doesn't list it - they made a patch for a product and not the actual product...) fixed the technical bugs and tried to "fix" the 3d visuals with filters, which made them even worse while not mending all the other things the remaster broke. And the dudes doing the patch probably never got anything from the original game, which may be why they couldn't fix all those design differences along the way.
And the reason? Well, the original game is on sale for 1.20$, so you can't rake in money with it. The remaster was likely intended to justify a renewed high sales price to milk the fans of the original a bit longer but failed so bad they had to try again.
Okay, when you first cut to the original I thought for a second "Oh, maybe this game doesn't look so bad after all." Then I realized I was looking at the original game. Oops.
Well, if anything, you've got me really interested in the original XIII so well done, sir, I suppose.
Saaame
I hope Microsoft makes the original available on Game Pass. That will probably give XIII the justice it deserves.
I was wondering if it would earn an outro this time. I don’t need to wonder any longer.
They even removed the knifes from the first level? It feels weird having played the original that they are missing.
At 18:00 as Jon turns left, look at how the first light on the right side behaves.
Jon, please do a play through of the original
It's like one of first videos on the channel
I think they attempted to remake the remaster rather than the original, so its become a game of telephone, where each remake gets a little further from the original each time
And the "designers" of the remake of the remaster are probably patting themselves on the back. You are truly right: The new game is HORRIBLE compared to the original!!!!! Who hires these people???? (PS: I haven't even made it through the whole video yet, or even tried the remake of the remaster.)
For the designers/authors involved in this atrocity: When the content of a game changes by adding and removing things/characters/modes, the game is not the original remade. It is the original completely changed. This remake obviously looks as if it was done by some very lazy people. I feel bad for the programmers that were told to do this to the game.
Eighteen minutes. This is going to be a treat.
Back in the day, I had a blast with the original XIII, when the remaster was announced I was excited and replayed the original. It's still an alright game, but it has a few issues. Then I read the comics and was completely baffled about how terrible they were adapted. About half the game makes little to no sense when you've read the comic.
I remember buying this like a month after it came out. It was the steel tin edition that came with some kind of post card type things. The steel tin was actually incredibly cheap with all of its contents inside of it and I’ve only played it for roughly 10 mins. 2 months after that. I buy a laptop and get the original version on steam being more expensive than the remake. I instantly had way more fun for the sole reason that I could play The Hunt. Easily the best game mode ever introduced to a PS2 game.
As the old proverb goes "Don't fix what ain't broke!" And now they've done it twice. Then again, that is the schtick of the remake/remaster gimmick, so...
XIII is still a good game, there's like one very outdated and uncomfortable gay cop stereotype who tries to rape you... but everything else holds up SOOO well.
Let's play XIII the remake! On second thought, let's play the original instead! Absolute gold!
Got the original XIII on GoG for less than a coffee a year or two ago... It's brilliant! Works on a potato, feels great, looks great stylistically buut not aged brilliantly, sounds could be a bet better.
For me, all that would have needed to be done would be new sounds and just make the resolution cleaner at 2K. Wouldn't need to be a TES III & IV, Fallout 3 & 4 or the S.T.A.L.K.E.R.s type graphical ENB mods.
The problem with the cut scenes is they were probably pre-rendered and they didn't have the ability to redo them in the cell shade
its absolutely undeniable that xiii is one of the best looking, most stylish games of its generation. even now, 20 years later the original game still looks absolutely fantastic and holds up perfectly well. i dont know why anybody even thought remaking it was a good idea in the first place, from what ive seen of both if these remasters they were a huge waste of the developers time
Yeah, it's confusing why you'd want to "remaster" a cel-shaded game when the entire point of a cel-shaded game is that it can look timeless.
Most likely in the hopes that a lot of the people who liked the original will buy the remaster on impulse.
Then they've just made a ton of cash for very little effort. It's not like they give two farts if people have fun playing the remaster or not when they have already bought it.
I am sorry for what they did to your nostalgia Jon. RIP.
Jon’s outro was like he cut the computer off in disgust. 😄
I'm surprised I made it to the end of the video if I'm honest. I had to look away both at the start of the game and the start of the flashback because the wibbly side to side movement was making me feel motion sick and I had the video on the middle size. Then that feeling got made worse by what I can only describe as "the pulsating effect at the edge of the screen" during the black and white flashback before you start moving. The worse part of that is Its also only in the re-remaster. The original game being and its framerate being as smooth as it was actually helped put things back to normal again. If thats not a horrible sign I don't know what is.
Idk anything about XIII but I do think that the original (probably draw distance related) foggy look of the lighthouse is definitely aesthetically better.
Check if there are mods for the original version to update textures, overhaul the UI and make it widescreen?
The visuals look pretty good, actually
The first level in the remake has very bizarre lighting. The sky looks to be overcast but everything is lit like the sun just exploded.
I can’t decide what Simpson’s quote to go with: Stop! Stop! It’s already dead! Or: I’d say the devs cracked under the pressure to make a better game than last time, but what pressure?
I can't wait until I hear Jon's reaction to XIV: Remastered: The Remake
Please do a full playthrough of the original
This isn't a remake of XIII, it's a remake of the XIII remaster
Can we see you do a playthrough of the original XIII?
Interesting bug in the original at 8:42 Jon fails to mention lol
I don't see anything what is it?
@@PlaidSuitPinstripeWorld Enemy running off the platform
Come on Jon, give us what we all really want.... It was your first cocking video.... We need a full playthrough of the original game!
oh wow I can't believe it's been nearly two years since the review of the original remaster, and it's only gotten worse D:
Great thumbnail for this video - so fitting!
I think this is the first time in the many years I have been watching Jon that a game was so horribly done, that it did not even get a half-assed outro. Jon straight up spit on this game.
Not done with the video, but I’m already convinced to get the original. In fact I just did.
This is the MATN equivalent of, "Aw fuck, I can't believe you've done this." with the remake - remaster serving as the punch.
In all honesty, what I saw *was* an improvement on the Remaster, and while the cel-shader layer makes things look exceptionally *busy* it's kind of nice (in my opinion).
But... I didn't play the original, but I can believe both the first remaster and this remade remaster were blindingly outshone by the original XIII. It would've been better and cheaper to just let the remaster die.
I got an ad just after his angry rant about not deserving an outro. It opened with the Lich King (from World of Warcraft) shouting "Go now!". Sometimes ads aren't so bad after all.
I fail to understand how one manages to fumble this hard.. the game was already made!
*This is Why Emulation Is A Big Deal. Its the only way to preserve old games*
The comics itself is actually pretty good
Damn know Jon’s mad when there’s no outro
Jons emotions getting in the way of his pun game. My disappointment is immeasurable, and my day is ruined.
TheReportoftheWeek
The bar was on the floor, and they tripped on it.