It’s kinda sad that PlayStation kind of screwed up with Backwards comparability after the original fat ps3. They have allowed us to play ps4 games on ps5 but that’s really all
The original launch PS3 remains as my dream console. I've always wanted to own one but unfortunately it stands as a bit of a luxury product that's not really necessary anymore. Maybe if I had the expendable income I would procure a refurbished unit and then commission to have it serviced with new thermal paste, replaced capacitors, a Frankenstein CPU swap, and other cosmetic touchups just to make the system future proof for decades to come............................... ............................ or I can just play with Duckstation and PCSX2 since really they're more than functional to play PS1/PS2 games. But Sony was pretty mental to have that kind of robust BC that's only rivaled by Wii's GCN BC, and the Wii U's Wii BC. For future consoles though I feel emulation would probably be the smartest BC solution which is why Xbox's BC is so acclaimed.
All the jak games are available including psp and Daxter on ps5. It gradually gets better, though I know people are diehards for this and don't want GOG despite their preservation vows to even make mortal kombat trilogy playable (with help in a vid). Then of course this month had rocket knight resparked and announcements from nintendo direct like marvel vs capcom arcade collection
A friend of mine sold his PS3 to buy a PS4 at launch CONVINCED it was retro-compatible. He was flabbergasted that it wasn't. It just the most logical thing, it SHOULD be.
@MediaPromedia you have to read though, I mean ps3 slim and that later model omitted ps2 backwards compatibility. It isn't cheap like now where both are like $100. PS3 can also play audio cds that neither the ps4 nor ps5 can do. Anyway for preservation, limited run (you're safe with digital) showcased a lot like gex, bubsy, tomba, fear effect, fighting force, etc to make a lot of this vid even more obsolete. Feels like the star wars/marvel is woke/dead channels at this point that never wanna show good stuff in books nor the star wars video games (dark forces is gonna be remastered from that LRG showcase and marvel vs capcom collection which includes punisher and xmen children of the atom/marvel super heroes fighting games).
@@MrVariant I know that the PS3 fat had basically a PS2 built inside, and I get that it wasn't cheap, but it shouldn't be conceived with the past generation architecture in mind. MS and even Nintendo (somewhat) do that, so there should be no excuse. It feels like a scam to be buying the same game over and over again just, or paying a freaking subscription, just because, let's say, the PS4/PS5/Switch can't download the games I bought on PS3/Wii/Wii U. I don't know what has to do the fact that PS3 plays audio CDs while PS4 and PS5 don't, but ok I guess (?) and the precedent set but Ubisoft shows us that digital media can't be fully trusted. The last part of your comment about Marvel stuff I sincerely didn't understand so... good for you if it is good I guess (and if it's bad I sorry??)
@@leonidasvonsparta "and also in the future there are ppl who will do it." Only ONE person in the entire world is capable of cracking new versions of Denuvo And she only just recently returned (hasn't cracked any games in a while though)
nice points being discussed here, agree with everything basically. Absolutely relate with this kind of "academic thinking" around videogame. Like, isnt just about preserve the >software/code< objectively, but also the context around, how it was outputted, the feeling of hardware and media, cultural impact, etc etc. All of those little details that is the reason of why i just love deal videogames like if was a semiotic/artistic academic research. Anyway, awesome video!
This is such a comprehensive analysis of game preservation. You really go in-depth and approach the subject from practically every angle. Amazing work. Definitely looking forward to more of your videos.
I would say that I agree with your video almost entirely. Especially the ending I wish more people would stress-- supporting the games that you enjoy as much as possible. In an age with hundreds of examples of developers closing their doors, companies shutting down, great games being commercial failures, and then seeing the shocked look on gamers faces as they admit they never bought or supported games in the first place, it's such an important point to make. This topic is difficult to ever have a discussion about, largely due to the opposition to discussing the negative effects that piracy can have and never wanting to acknowledge it. I have a background in game development, and a degree in the industry as well (not that that's needed for talking about it, but to add context to where my confliction comes from), and it's shocking how much pushback you get when you even try to mention that uncomfortable part. That discourse really affected my view of the issue dramatically and I have to catch myself too because of it. The discourse I mention above is whenever I see bad actors latch onto preservation as a cover or excuse for them just wanting to get free games and acting like piracy has never caused any sort of issue in the industry. I know it's all anecdotal and Twitter and UA-cam aren't the majority, but it's so difficult to make that separation. Interviews with devs how their games are just pirated and they lose money or their livelihoods due to it (I've seen indie devs literally begging for people to purchase their games with how overwhelmingly popular piracy today is). OUYA being a complete failure due to lack of anyone buying anything and it being entirely a piracy machine. Sony constantly referring to piracy being what killed their handhelds and drove away developers. Hell, ROM sites themselves posting how many currently-available games are pirated daily shows how dishonest so many are when it comes to piracy. But it's because of my background and those interactions that makes me have to catch myself constantly from just wanting to push back on those cases. It's so annoying seeing people just mass pirate games or "piracy is always okay" on every game even new releases, and then in the same breath argue what should be exceptions and not see the hypocrisy. Piracy does have its place, especially for games that are no longer accessible or sold. On top of that, such creative and fun unique ways to experience games in new lights-- Ocarina of Time completely revived interest to me with the Multiworld Randomizer projects out there. They're so much fun. Another way is fan translations. In an industry where localizations can alter a game so significantly that the game is essentially a completely different game, piracy is the only way for gamers to experience a game as it was originally intended. It was how I was able to enjoy Pokemon TCG 2 for Gameboy Color, or Radical Dreamers for SNES Satellaview. But it's just so frustrating how there can't be a middle ground on this topic, it feels like. It's important I remind myself that this kind of thing could be applied to any topic or community though. That piracy is a tool, and any tool can and will be taken advantage of or used in a way that you might find distasteful. This little spiel was just me typing as I was thinking, and probably didn't put my thoughts too well or organized, but I guess my tl;dr was that this video is one of the best essays on piracy that I can remember, and was appreciated to see the balanced and nuance the topic deserved. It was basically how I view piracy myself, and because of that, made me really lament how terrible my experiences with discussing the topic has been through my life.
I love your nuanced take on piracy and I completely agree with what you are saying. I feel like piracy can be used in a good way to save media from being gone from existence, but some corrupt people just want to get games without paying and commit borderline theft. I constantly see people on Twitter posting the meme "you can always pirate newly released Nintendo games, it's always morally correct" which is plain wrong, most of these people don't ever realize that there are tons of artists and developers who work at these companies who need to get paid. Some people think it's okay to pirate newly released titles because they hate a certain company which is ridiculous. I support piracy to obtain a game only in these specific circumstances. 1. if it's an older game that is no longer sold or out of print such as GameCube or PS2 games or even more recent stuff like Wii U and 3DS games because of the eShop closing, those consoles are basically dead now. I would fully support piracy now for those consoles Now but not back when they were still in production. 2. If you want to play the original release of a game instead of their HD remaster or remake (i.e. playing the original PS2 release of Kingdom Hearts instead of Final Mix or playing the Original GameCube version of Wind Waker or Metroid Prime instead of the HD remaster. While I love when games get ported or remade, there might be some differences which makes me still want to keep the original versions. Pirating newly released Switch or PS5 games is completely off limits in my opinion.
@@megapokesonicx it really made me sad when people started pirating metroid dread, pokemon SV, and TOTK when they got leaked and started posting about it, bragging and despite me not using that app anymore I heard SMT vengeance was the next victim, and people wonder why emulators and such get shut down, it'll break my heart the day the emulation scene just pools away because people can't just keep these things to themselves
I mean, a GOOD and HIGH QUALITY PC port pretty easily keeps games preserved almost indefinitely. With Microsoft running Windows into the ground year by year, Linux is slowly picking up the slack. But overall it's a very good solution for most games. Though it's up to the publisher and developer to even make a good port, or make any port at all. For now we're kinda relying on pirates keeping games from vanishing forever lol.
@@anonanonymous9670oh hey bot, i've seen you on every comment and i know i shouldn't interact. DRM Cracking has exsisted since the begining of gaming, with large groups backing them. There isnt just "one guy" out there that cracks all the games
@@subjectnether959 You do not know what you're talking about There is only ONE person in the entire world right now that can crack new versions of Denuvo, they go by the name EMPRESS (they did return recently but still hasn't cracked any games)
Also the extent of it; for example, could it be considered legal to pirate the original 1986 translation of Zelda 1? the "Gannon stole the triforce with power" one, considering that one is out of print for decades? Or should we just settle with the 2003 re-translation and remove the 1986 one out of existence? I would have loved if the NES NSO app had a "version select" where you can choose several iterations of the same game.
gosh this is the video on the topic I've wished existed for so long, you covered a lot of stuff that I never found addressed in other videos in the subject A thing I wanna add is that some of the stuff lost in translation when remastering a game is just as likely to happen if it was getting ported too. There's legal reasons like you mention, but also the task of taking a game made for one piece of hardware and moving it to another and having it run and look the exact same as before is not a easy thing to do, even if it's on a more powerful hardware, the difference in architecture means it's never gonna be as easy as changing a few lines of code. That can be see in the ports made with decomps too, for one the decompilation by itself doesn't immediately lead to a pc port, that takes a extra while (and interest too, Paper Mario has been fully decompiled for a year, but no pc port has been in the works), and ports for other (particularly 6th and 7th gen) platforms do have certain quirks in its visuals And then on PC and Mobile, this ends up affecting same version of a game due to newer hardware and operating systems, and updates made to fix those issues can also lead to details being lost labels like port, remaster and remakes, as they are used by game companies, fluctuate a lot in meaning, and at times might just be treated like marketing buzzwords, but the process in making them tend to overlap more than its led to believe
On the thing with revisions of games, the first version of Castlevania 1 has a gamebreaking glitch where it can spawn too many sprites for the console to handle and causes it to freeze. The Castlevania legacy collection uses the first version so your options for dealing with for, example, the hallway before the death boss are a lot more limited. As always, emulating or using OG hardware + flashcart is more worthwhile
Game preservation is Vital to our history. Emulation and privacy is not wrong, it’s just…Logical. A friend of mine told me she was scared of getting arrested because she had old game roms on her computer for emulation, I told her No…you’re perfectly fine, you won’t get arrested just because you’re emulating games. It really upsets me when companies like Nintendo Say emulation is piracy, Like…No…it’s not, We are just preserving YOUR games that YOU fail to keep preserved. If I had the power to open up a video game archives (Like a real life library for gaming) then i absolutely would do that. Make it available for everyone to play retro games.
I’ve been preserving my GameCube games and are on my PC to be played on emulators and I do agree that physical media can be better than digital. I support gaming preservation and will do to this day.
18:00 on top of these controllers you mentioned, i think a perfect example is dreamcast. the vmu is not only super charming but also a necessity for certain games, such as re code veronica and sonic shuffle. its really hard to recreate playing dreamcast thru emulation imo
I didn’t even watch the video and I had to like it bc omg this topic needs to be talked about more, please guys y’all need to buy more physical copies, even if it’s through eBay or Amazon
25:54 the new PS2 emulator for PS4/5 actually just launched with a couple games last week. It’s pretty barebones but upscales resolution, and had rewind and save states which is nice.
I may be stupid but were there emulators on the ps4 for the ps2 and ps1 as well? Asking because I bought parappa the rapper 2 for ps5 (ps4 version) and I’m not sure if it’s emulation or a port
10:25 since you mentioned Resident Evil 5....RE5's PC version actually has the same PS Move Controls Scheme available for Keyboard/Mouse users. (you'll lose out on QTE Waggle, tho) potentially: you could create a Keyboard/Mouse config with your Input Remapper of choice with any controller with Motion Sensor functionality and it can play 1:1 to the PS Move Controls scheme. I know this; *because I've done it before* . Even made a entire video (now a bit outdated) and a guide that teaches you how to get that desire.
I've scene your stuff. You've commented on one of my past videos about Resident Evil 5 with motion controls. I've tried it myself and no config was satisfactory for me. My best setup used mode shifting so that I can keep most normal controller functions while delegating keyboard/mouse for aiming only. It works well enough and the cursor does control amazing with gyro. But there are too many issues I still have that get in the way. Capcom could have brought the cursor controls to Switch and I'd be all for that but no.
I think Capcom has done the best out of all gaming companies when It comes down to game preservation. Many companies should start doing what they do. I hope many companies make their classic games easy to find and play on modern gaming consoles and just to buy in general. There are so many great games stuck on original hardware and in the future It might still be like this unless gaming companies do their best to keep them on modern hardware or just do collection editions with many games in 1. Cool video. ^_^
The release of every MvC game all in one collection was certainly a gigachad move on Capcoms part. Love to see it. Still waiting on a classic Resident Evil collection. Crime that the latest console that can play them is the PS3.
I wish the video game industry starts a preservation effort for old games and port them (de/recomp or using existing source code) to current platforms. They can still make money from past games and it will be a win-win for everyone.
27:45 Oh shit, It's that image I made. Wasn't expecting to see that. Looking back, I feel like I could've done a much better job with that image, and I regret the usage of the terms "mistake" and "replacement", especially the latter since it implied the original versions of these games could or should be replaced, which was not my intent. Anyways, very good and interesting video. I will say, the topic of licenses and legal issues preventing games from getting official rereleases reminded me of how fucked the Pac-Man series is in this regard. Bandai Namco not having the full rights to Ms. Pac-Man, one of the franchise's most prominent and iconic characters, has resulted in the majority of the games in the first 3 decades of the franchise's history being in limbo, unable to be rereleased unless alterations are made to remove Ms. Pac-Man. This isn't too hard for some games like Pac-Land, which require simple sprite edits, something they've already done for Arcade Archives and Pac-Man Museum+. But what about games that have Ms. Pac-Man in a more prominent role, with more elaborate sprites, or 3D models, or appearances in pre-rendered FMVs? Bandai Namco probably won't want to go through all that effort and would rather just remake the game from scratch, like they did with Pac-Man World, or forget about it, leaving it alone and not rereleased. This would already suck if it were just a game or two like with Sonic 3, but like I said, this one issues effects the majority of games in Pac-Man's back catalogue, *especially* the games from the 2000s, which also happen to be some of the most beloved in the series. It really sucks.
Oh hey! I actually like the idea of being able to categorize how to view/judge remakes. It's why I like Exoparadigmgamers Remake or Rebreak series. The discussion gets so muddy though when devs approach a remake in a million different ways. Even one as 1:1 as The Last of Us Part 1 got scrutinized as it ultimately felt like wasted dev time on a graphical upgrade that really wasn't necessary. Otherwise I'd like to say it's still the best way to play The Last of Us for those who haven't already. Tbh I never had much of an issue with your original image since I knew what you were getting at. I didn't see the "mistake" section as "it's a bad game now", rather "it's too different to faithfully represent the original". My ultimate take away is that no matter how faithful/different a remake is, it's more content to play. A "Holy shit two cakes!!" scenario if you will.
@@Mr.Welbig My mindset when making that was, "Imagine you have a friend who is interested in playing a certain game, which happens to have a remake. Ignoring external factors like availability, consoles, price, etc., which version would you recommend they play first?" Unfortunately a lot of people interpreted it as being "remakes should replace the original" and screamed at me about how Mario 64 DS is a good game (which I personally disagree with but that's not the entire reason I placed it where I did) Another issue is that I felt there was a lack of variety in the games I selected, since I just went with games I was familiar with, and with all except one were games I had at least played either the original or remake to some degree. The one exception was Metroid: Zero Mission, which I hadn't played either the original or the remake. I included it because whenever I would hear anyone talk about Metroid 1, I would ALWAYS hear people talk about how Zero Mission is such a vast improvement that there's practically no reason to play the NES version. I thought I could have it at the top of the "replacement" tier and not be controversial, but I guess I was wrong. That's one lesson learned I guess. I was also hoping people would edit my image and add more games onto it so it could be more broad, but very few people actually did this, unfortunately.
13:13 I agree, I've met many people who have played dragon Valor from PS1 and loved it and wanted to buy but they don't sell it anymore, hell it's hard to find a used copy of the game. Thankfully I had a "friend" who broke back in the day my kingdom hearts DVD and from that day and on I converted the games I bought to ensure that I'll have them longer but many people didn't do that and lost their games due to disc rot
I’ve been wanting THQNordic to re release the Tak and the Power of Juju trilogy (Tak and the Power of Juju, Tak 2 the Staff of Dreams and Tak the Great Juju Challenge) fans want them but THQNordic is just doing nothing with the license, it’s frustrating I’m lucky to still have the GameCube games but not everyone does
Great video. I really liked how you looked at all sides of presentation. As especially videos from the "muh original hardware" crowd they really often downplay how good emulation is and overblow the experience of OG hardware. One question, how good would you consider Halo MCC as a form of presentation?
Heading the sonic mega collection music takes me back to the mid 2000s in the afternoon sun is setting my Ps2 running and my room door open light pouring in my dad in the next room on his Mac computer playing music off iTunes. Me right up in front of my tv going through the menus with my younger brother beside me or playing die the first time sonic 3 and just falling in love with the music of angel island act 2 and astounded by the level changing mid act with the forest on fire. This takes me back and since we haven’t really had a collection that can capture that same feeling don’t think we ever will nostalgia plays a big part but man I miss those days. Also is there anyway to play a lot of the Mario’s/zelda or Metroid games on none Nintendo consoles I’ve only ever had PlayStation with the occasional Xbox consoles so I’m guessing no but I figure I still ask?
I used separate emulators for everything except 8-16 bit consoles and some 32 (well, Saturn mostly). because I use cheats with older games (sue me) and shaders which are usually morr easily accessible through retroarch, which once you learn how to use the important settings, gets things pretty automated. Also, some consoles like PC Engine/Turbografx 16 no longer have a reliable and usable emulator on windows, so I use the retroarch core which is super convenient. Also, if you're reading this comment and play on your PC through your tv, always use the xmb menu on retroarch for anything. I also use a frontend called "Playnite" which I liked more than Launchbox/Bigbox and updates all the extensions and everything automatically. Everything is seamless with it and I love it.
4:32 The fact that so many people consider this as something that has to be (making every single console have only really small library of backwards compatibility) is sad to think about because on the PC you can just download the game through something like Steam (if they don't have denuvo), GOG, Itch or by piracy and copy them elsewhere and play it for many years to come. We need it when a game isn't sold anymore for it to be in the public domain and open sourced (That's at least me trying to be more realistically hopeful then the copyright law being abolished).
7:46 I will give you an even better reason as to why the Zelda Collector's edition is important: It is the ONLY official way to play those four games in PAL territories at their correct speed, as they work only at 60hz instead of 50hz. This is doubly important for Majora's Mask, as the European release comes with several languages. Never after that has Nintendo provided a way to play that N64 version again. There's so much that would be lost if it were left on the hands of corporations to salvage or preserve the culture that videogames are...
Piracy and emulation helps preserve retro games. Those old copies of retro games that are being sold on eBay are NOT Preservation because those copies are being rotted away from the INSANE prices they are being listed and sold for.
One thing thats never talked about is the importance in teaching newer developers about the past. As there are some great gameplay ideas stuck on old machines. And with the rise of homebrew development. Its more important than ever to get the emulation and games represented properly. As even something simple like how colors bleed can make or break a homebrew project if left inaccurate. Heck I had to use my GBA sp to test my game on for specifically the stretch that you can enable only on original GBA hardware. As i want to design a mode that can take advantage of the odd stretching.
I've heard of that. Pretty scary honestly to think discs can straight up rot over a small period of time. From what understand it's mostly an issue with CDI, Sega CD, and early PlayStation games. I like to think CD based console from Xbox/PS2/GCN and onward would last far longer.
what never gets talked about within this topic is the impossibility of preserving dying live service titles as well as phone ports for stuff like old iOS versions.
Games with licensing issues are my biggest fear and worry, I'm worried about Smash Ultimate having potential licensing issues in the future preventing it from getting rereleased because of the shit ton of characters and music (Disney is a risky ass company for licensing characters) guest characters in games or licensed cameos will be hell for game preservation, unless there is something in the contract to cover future releases.
Official decompilations actually exists, when Kingdom Hearts 1 was remastered to the PS3 they had to reverse engineer the game because they lost the source, it's also how they added enhancements like skippable cutscene and the reaction command. I heard FFVIII was also decompiled when they made the remaster
The thought not to be able to play older games because the physical device isn't working anymore and can't be repaired scares me.. I still have my game boy advance and a good collection of ps1-ps2 games, damn I am old 😢. If I could afford it I'd buy a PC and a monitor from the early 2000s to play games from the 90-early 2000 just for the feeling. These old pcs are more expensive than a good gaming PC. Tomb raider 1-3 remastered is awesome you have the option to switch between the OG graphics and the remaster one. Even though Dragon Age Origins isn't that old it's a struggle on new PC Hardware, it crashes way too often, it gets better if you play it on medium, I don't want to play it on medium on my rtx 2080, my Ryzen 7 5700, 32gb ram 😅. I want to mod the game from hell to heaven and back. Played the game since 2009 way too many times and if we don't get a remaster version, I want to at least make it look as good as possible.
I have 4 CRTs and I assure you the filters are that good. I didn't bother with any direct comparisons because I cannot capture a CRT display proper. You need a macro lens to show off the slot mask or aperture grill. If you want a proper comparison I'd recommend this video: ua-cam.com/video/3ZmPkozY6Cg/v-deo.html
@@Mr.Welbig I wasn't saying for our eyes to see and I wasn't asking for proof of anything, I'm just talking in general for those who might be reading this. Also both display need proper calibration to get the best accuracy, also for example a CRT brightness is at max 100 nits. Don't get me wrong... I tried using filters as well and I also have a CRT TV to use as a reference.
A company could just sell the roms in their website. The buyers (us) could use any fan created emulator to run them. Of course Nintendo would never do that, but there so many others that could.
I collect gamecube and ps2 physical games, but now I’m worried about consoles’ longevity. I already had to swap out the internals for my gamecube, and my ps2 now struggles to read ps1 games and blue disc ps2 games. It’s why i emulate them, to spare my physical games
My PS2s the same way. Can’t even read PS1 games. Thought about adjusting the potentiometer on the disc drive but I hear that’s not advisable. Figure I’ll wait till it can’t play DVDs to swap the entire drive. I think my GameCubes disk reader is going bad but I’m not sure. Luckily that new flippy drive looks hella neat so I may settle with that instead.
Hell yeah, love to see a gamer on youtube promoting piracy. Really confuses me when I see nitro rad say "it's on ebay" at the end of the video. like bro what??? I swear, either people are just basing their moral compass on what the law says, or they are cowards.
Dude this video is so good. You nonchalantly say so many things that, like, MOST gamers are unable to wrap their heads around. Very levelheaded, very human, and still very logical.
In this overpriced retro market that’s been going on, it’s better to do that than buy some expensive overpriced copy, and even then you’d want to back the game up anyway since the disc drives and the game discs won’t last forever, it’s aging hardware.
37:05 You have no idea how much I was pissed off about playing Resident Evil 5 on the Microsoft Xbox 360 after years of playing Resident Evil 4 on the Nintendo Wii Going from the Crosshair from the Wii Remote to the Lazer with Right Analog Stick was sad No offense to the Right Analog Stick on itself it works perfectly My Problem is with the fucking Red Lazer that blands in the Background with anything except with Enemys in Melee Distance No Wonder the only Weapons I was using was the 3 Sniper Rifles because They use Scopes rather than Lazer to Aim
Without piracy, projects like RVGL would be impossible. A game from a long-dead studio had its sourcecode leak, and the community took it upon themselves to update the game to run natively on the new generations of computer hardware, and even add new, all-original maps, cars and even game modes for people to play. Not to mention creating an online mode, and keeping said online mode alive for far longer than any for-profit corporation ever could. However, the RVGL website directly distributes every piece of the puzzle necessary to run it. No part of the original disc is required, the new version doesn't even test its original DRM. It doesn't matter how much of a mess it causes, the laws will never change. Same as with the climate. The corporate world would rather die. Since they made their choice, join in the rebellion, for the sake of future generations!
I had a collection of all Nintendo Console and Handheld also all of Sony Consoles but I sold all of it in 2019, why? Because I can't keep up maintenance on keeping them working especially the handhelds because of LCD Burn... What happened to the money I got in 2019? I bought something that can preserve the Gaming History...It's called PC...
Remakes point is also to introduce mordern cancer such as microtransactions while not living up to the standards of the original game since there is no frame of reference for most people buying the remake and they definetly will not care about either of these things or them being something that will dominate the rest of the remakes and new games based on said remakes.
I never owned a Gameboy Advance growing up. I now own a modded GBA and saving up for a Everdrive so I can play games and I don’t have to sell a kidney to buy a handful of games
My only problem with your thinking, how come fan decompilations can act as a full replacement for the original but remasters can’t? They’re both a different, enhanced version of the game’s source running on different hardware. By your logic they are both distinct versions of the original.
It's mostly because every decomp/recomp i've tried lets you disable every enhancement provided. Letting the game function identically to the original. I've been playing the Ship of Harkinian Ocarina of Time decomp and it's really cool with loads of enhancements. But what I really appreciate is you can revert the game back to just how it was on an original N64, 20fps and all. Which I think is important for those who want to experience it that way. Remasters can potentially suffer from missing effects, graphic bugs, gameplay glitches, odd artistic changes, and inferior reworked controls. Which are issues I've yet to run into with decomps/recomps. Don't get me wrong there are still plenty of remasters that I'll hold above an original. But decomps let you have your cake and eat it too. The evolution to emulation imho.
A really bad one you didn't mention, the faces in Final Fantasy X were ruined. They look so ugly in the HD remasters compared to the original PS2 version.
@user-in8qh3zf9d id software did while Carmack was at the helm. Result: all of their games up to Doom 3 are playable in basically anything that is able to run them.
cave story to me is the biggest offender of locking content behind a specific console version. almost every version has an entirely new and unique feature that isn't in any previous or new version. every console generation nicalis just gets to make absolutely sure that there will never be a true definitive version of the game
also, the death of physical media on pc is so obnoxious. optical media specifically may not be great, but ANY physical media is better than none at all
Nicalis gets a lot of shit and rightfully so. Cave Story is one of my favorite games of all time and I'm very upset with its current distribution. I'll say out of complete fairness I do think the Switch version is the best overall version. But it's so overpriced and even if it was cheap I cannot condone supporting Nicalis in any financial way. Luckily the original Freeware version is always up and available and most die hard Cave Story fans would probably direct most people to just play that version.
I agree with a lot of the sentiments here. If there were such a thing as a perfect preservation, I would say it would be along the lines of a universal automatic decompilation tool, but such a project is not only wildly infeasible but it would also open Pandora’s box in terms of digital security. An aspect on this conversation of game preservation that I feel has been left in a blindspot is preservation of games outside the console space, namely PC, Browser, VR, and even Mobile. There’s an awkward era in PC history starting in the mid-90s and ending sometime in the 2010s where games made for that era were designed for hardware and OSes that are simultaneously rudimentary and near impossible to emulate, making it so that playing those games as they were intended natively on modern hardware is impossible without becoming a computer historian and borderline wizard. In such cases, fan decompilations and recreations are the only means to make these games work as intended. Browser games also have the short end of the stick since not only are they ephemeral exclusively digital, but in many cases aren’t even downloadable. Adobe’s erasure of Flash has done irreparable damage to browser game preservation and HTML5 has not filled in the void left behind. It’s fortunate we have projects like Flashpoint, but I don’t think people have really considered how much of browser game history has gone down the drain. I won’t rant much about VR game preservation because I’m genuinely not sure why it’s in such a bad state as it is, but Mobile preservation has always stuck out to me as an absolute nightmare. Not only are they digital storefront exclusive, not only are some games stuck on obscure and outdated hardware, but in Apple’s case they will literally make applications unusable if they’re delisted off the storefront but you’ve still downloaded them. I’ve lost so many of my iPod Touch games that I genuinely can’t remember the names of some, and this is an issue I don’t have for any other platform I’ve ever played on. It blows my mind that Mobile is still the most profitable sector of the gaming industry when its preservation is an unmitigated disaster.
Reproduction copies not official aren’t legal anyway. Even if those games cost $1, there factually isn’t enough stock for everyone who wants to legally play them.
Taking pictures of older artwork and sharing them for preservation is fine, but the same isn't true for video games that are no longer being sold? There is nothing wrong with ''piracy'' in this case, copyright law should be updated to reflect this. Video games are art and they deserve to be enjoyed by later generations as much as paintings or books do
Funny you say that since Nintendo has also been taking down sites with old Nintendo Power scans. Seems like the most pointless thing to protect outdated and irrelevant game magazines but hey everything is fair game for Nintendo to C&D.
This is why i I'm thankful Piracy exists. I know people can be a little mixed about it, in which case i say "F\_/ck you nerd XD". It's just really great how rom sites and websites like that exist (Even if it isn't necessarily intended for Preservation but more so "Free Game go brrrrr", Cause let's be real honest, Piracy is a price issue AND service issue)
Piracy is the only real solution to preservation there is. In fact, I'd go as far as to say copyright in its latest, current form is a mistake and history will see the present time as the dark ages of digital. Actually, nevermind, that's not good enough. Intellectual property is an inherently flawed concept in itself, and should be abolished entirely.
people in 2017: man, I don't want to rebuy my virtual console games. Nintendo should make a Netflix style subscription. 2024: This is bad for preservation also I don't own the games. Gamers will never be happy
Bro I was always flabbergasted at the hate for Virtual Console. The emulation quality I understand but the inherent criticism for rebuying the games was always so strange to me, even on Wii. People felt the games were too overpriced but I personally felt it was pretty fair. $5 for NES games, $8 for SNES games, $10 for N64, and $20 for Wii. I understand games should naturally decrease in value but those prices always seemed perfectly sensible to me for anyone wanting to build up a collection of personally purchased games.
@@Mr.Welbig I remember people saying in 2016 "Nintendo sells their old games, whats the point emulation is free." and then these people start crying about game preservation in 2023 after the 3DS/WiiU e-shop closure.
I don't recall anyone saying Nintendo should make a Netflix style subscription, just that buying the game once on one console should have it be available on the others. Especially during the Wii U/3ds era when these games were on both consoles, on storefronts called the Nintendo EShop.
I've seen people say that piracy is the answer to VG Preservation BUUUUUT.... There is a massive flaw with it and it's... Denuvo (aka DRM) The only person to crack DRM is Empress and she hasn't cracked games in over a year. Any modern game with DRM is impossible to preserve unless they also have a Playstation or a Nintendo Switch port since Denuvo doesn't really exist there. (Yes Denuvo has tried making console developers use Denuvo but no one has used it yet I think)
It’s kinda sad that PlayStation kind of screwed up with Backwards comparability after the original fat ps3. They have allowed us to play ps4 games on ps5 but that’s really all
The original launch PS3 remains as my dream console. I've always wanted to own one but unfortunately it stands as a bit of a luxury product that's not really necessary anymore. Maybe if I had the expendable income I would procure a refurbished unit and then commission to have it serviced with new thermal paste, replaced capacitors, a Frankenstein CPU swap, and other cosmetic touchups just to make the system future proof for decades to come...............................
............................ or I can just play with Duckstation and PCSX2 since really they're more than functional to play PS1/PS2 games. But Sony was pretty mental to have that kind of robust BC that's only rivaled by Wii's GCN BC, and the Wii U's Wii BC. For future consoles though I feel emulation would probably be the smartest BC solution which is why Xbox's BC is so acclaimed.
All the jak games are available including psp and Daxter on ps5. It gradually gets better, though I know people are diehards for this and don't want GOG despite their preservation vows to even make mortal kombat trilogy playable (with help in a vid). Then of course this month had rocket knight resparked and announcements from nintendo direct like marvel vs capcom arcade collection
A friend of mine sold his PS3 to buy a PS4 at launch CONVINCED it was retro-compatible. He was flabbergasted that it wasn't. It just the most logical thing, it SHOULD be.
@MediaPromedia you have to read though, I mean ps3 slim and that later model omitted ps2 backwards compatibility. It isn't cheap like now where both are like $100. PS3 can also play audio cds that neither the ps4 nor ps5 can do. Anyway for preservation, limited run (you're safe with digital) showcased a lot like gex, bubsy, tomba, fear effect, fighting force, etc to make a lot of this vid even more obsolete. Feels like the star wars/marvel is woke/dead channels at this point that never wanna show good stuff in books nor the star wars video games (dark forces is gonna be remastered from that LRG showcase and marvel vs capcom collection which includes punisher and xmen children of the atom/marvel super heroes fighting games).
@@MrVariant I know that the PS3 fat had basically a PS2 built inside, and I get that it wasn't cheap, but it shouldn't be conceived with the past generation architecture in mind. MS and even Nintendo (somewhat) do that, so there should be no excuse. It feels like a scam to be buying the same game over and over again just, or paying a freaking subscription, just because, let's say, the PS4/PS5/Switch can't download the games I bought on PS3/Wii/Wii U. I don't know what has to do the fact that PS3 plays audio CDs while PS4 and PS5 don't, but ok I guess (?) and the precedent set but Ubisoft shows us that digital media can't be fully trusted. The last part of your comment about Marvel stuff I sincerely didn't understand so... good for you if it is good I guess (and if it's bad I sorry??)
Great video. The way you pronounce the word “compilation” has become a new phobia of mine.
I’ve begun to turn a blind eye or rather deaf ear to it 💀💀
"We're not letting you download games that we'll never give a re-release!" -Nintendo
As Gabe Newell once said "It's a service issue" in lue of other REASONABLE forms of purchase or ownership people look to piracy.
You can't pirate every single game, some have DRM and the only person to crack DRM hasn't cracked in over a year
He also said that's going down the shitter
@@anonanonymous9670 most games are already there as rom. and also in the future there are ppl who will do it.
@@leonidasvonsparta "and also in the future there are ppl who will do it."
Only ONE person in the entire world is capable of cracking new versions of Denuvo
And she only just recently returned (hasn't cracked any games in a while though)
I put video games in resin, that way they'll never age!
Does it work the same for people?
i will cry
nice points being discussed here, agree with everything basically.
Absolutely relate with this kind of "academic thinking" around videogame. Like, isnt just about preserve the >software/code< objectively, but also the context around, how it was outputted, the feeling of hardware and media, cultural impact, etc etc. All of those little details that is the reason of why i just love deal videogames like if was a semiotic/artistic academic research.
Anyway, awesome video!
This is such a comprehensive analysis of game preservation. You really go in-depth and approach the subject from practically every angle. Amazing work. Definitely looking forward to more of your videos.
I would say that I agree with your video almost entirely. Especially the ending I wish more people would stress-- supporting the games that you enjoy as much as possible. In an age with hundreds of examples of developers closing their doors, companies shutting down, great games being commercial failures, and then seeing the shocked look on gamers faces as they admit they never bought or supported games in the first place, it's such an important point to make.
This topic is difficult to ever have a discussion about, largely due to the opposition to discussing the negative effects that piracy can have and never wanting to acknowledge it. I have a background in game development, and a degree in the industry as well (not that that's needed for talking about it, but to add context to where my confliction comes from), and it's shocking how much pushback you get when you even try to mention that uncomfortable part. That discourse really affected my view of the issue dramatically and I have to catch myself too because of it.
The discourse I mention above is whenever I see bad actors latch onto preservation as a cover or excuse for them just wanting to get free games and acting like piracy has never caused any sort of issue in the industry. I know it's all anecdotal and Twitter and UA-cam aren't the majority, but it's so difficult to make that separation. Interviews with devs how their games are just pirated and they lose money or their livelihoods due to it (I've seen indie devs literally begging for people to purchase their games with how overwhelmingly popular piracy today is). OUYA being a complete failure due to lack of anyone buying anything and it being entirely a piracy machine. Sony constantly referring to piracy being what killed their handhelds and drove away developers. Hell, ROM sites themselves posting how many currently-available games are pirated daily shows how dishonest so many are when it comes to piracy.
But it's because of my background and those interactions that makes me have to catch myself constantly from just wanting to push back on those cases. It's so annoying seeing people just mass pirate games or "piracy is always okay" on every game even new releases, and then in the same breath argue what should be exceptions and not see the hypocrisy. Piracy does have its place, especially for games that are no longer accessible or sold. On top of that, such creative and fun unique ways to experience games in new lights-- Ocarina of Time completely revived interest to me with the Multiworld Randomizer projects out there. They're so much fun. Another way is fan translations. In an industry where localizations can alter a game so significantly that the game is essentially a completely different game, piracy is the only way for gamers to experience a game as it was originally intended. It was how I was able to enjoy Pokemon TCG 2 for Gameboy Color, or Radical Dreamers for SNES Satellaview.
But it's just so frustrating how there can't be a middle ground on this topic, it feels like. It's important I remind myself that this kind of thing could be applied to any topic or community though. That piracy is a tool, and any tool can and will be taken advantage of or used in a way that you might find distasteful. This little spiel was just me typing as I was thinking, and probably didn't put my thoughts too well or organized, but I guess my tl;dr was that this video is one of the best essays on piracy that I can remember, and was appreciated to see the balanced and nuance the topic deserved. It was basically how I view piracy myself, and because of that, made me really lament how terrible my experiences with discussing the topic has been through my life.
I love your nuanced take on piracy and I completely agree with what you are saying. I feel like piracy can be used in a good way to save media from being gone from existence, but some corrupt people just want to get games without paying and commit borderline theft. I constantly see people on Twitter posting the meme "you can always pirate newly released Nintendo games, it's always morally correct" which is plain wrong, most of these people don't ever realize that there are tons of artists and developers who work at these companies who need to get paid. Some people think it's okay to pirate newly released titles because they hate a certain company which is ridiculous.
I support piracy to obtain a game only in these specific circumstances.
1. if it's an older game that is no longer sold or out of print such as GameCube or PS2 games or even more recent stuff like Wii U and 3DS games because of the eShop closing, those consoles are basically dead now. I would fully support piracy now for those consoles Now but not back when they were still in production.
2. If you want to play the original release of a game instead of their HD remaster or remake (i.e. playing the original PS2 release of Kingdom Hearts instead of Final Mix or playing the Original GameCube version of Wind Waker or Metroid Prime instead of the HD remaster. While I love when games get ported or remade, there might be some differences which makes me still want to keep the original versions.
Pirating newly released Switch or PS5 games is completely off limits in my opinion.
@@megapokesonicx it really made me sad when people started pirating metroid dread, pokemon SV, and TOTK when they got leaked and started posting about it, bragging and despite me not using that app anymore I heard SMT vengeance was the next victim, and people wonder why emulators and such get shut down, it'll break my heart the day the emulation scene just pools away because people can't just keep these things to themselves
@@Urastinker To be fair fuck Scarlet and Violet those games are a dumpster fire.
I mean, a GOOD and HIGH QUALITY PC port pretty easily keeps games preserved almost indefinitely. With Microsoft running Windows into the ground year by year, Linux is slowly picking up the slack. But overall it's a very good solution for most games. Though it's up to the publisher and developer to even make a good port, or make any port at all. For now we're kinda relying on pirates keeping games from vanishing forever lol.
Exactly. I see so many people not capable of understanding a lot of games are impossible to play without piracy.
You can't pirate every single game, some have DRM and the only person to crack DRM hasn't cracked in over a year
@@anonanonymous9670oh hey bot, i've seen you on every comment and i know i shouldn't interact. DRM Cracking has exsisted since the begining of gaming, with large groups backing them. There isnt just "one guy" out there that cracks all the games
@@subjectnether959 You do not know what you're talking about
There is only ONE person in the entire world right now that can crack new versions of Denuvo, they go by the name EMPRESS (they did return recently but still hasn't cracked any games)
@@anonanonymous9670 You do realize that anyone can learn to crack a game right?
@@ProjectionProjects2.7182 So if it's simple & easy then why is EMPRESS the only person to crack new games....?
Perhaps we should reconsider what constitutes "piracy" regarding software that is no longer being produced, or made accessible.
Also the extent of it; for example, could it be considered legal to pirate the original 1986 translation of Zelda 1? the "Gannon stole the triforce with power" one, considering that one is out of print for decades? Or should we just settle with the 2003 re-translation and remove the 1986 one out of existence?
I would have loved if the NES NSO app had a "version select" where you can choose several iterations of the same game.
Watching this with all of the miiverse stamps I collected in Twilight Princess HD 😅
gosh this is the video on the topic I've wished existed for so long, you covered a lot of stuff that I never found addressed in other videos in the subject
A thing I wanna add is that some of the stuff lost in translation when remastering a game is just as likely to happen if it was getting ported too. There's legal reasons like you mention, but also the task of taking a game made for one piece of hardware and moving it to another and having it run and look the exact same as before is not a easy thing to do, even if it's on a more powerful hardware, the difference in architecture means it's never gonna be as easy as changing a few lines of code.
That can be see in the ports made with decomps too, for one the decompilation by itself doesn't immediately lead to a pc port, that takes a extra while (and interest too, Paper Mario has been fully decompiled for a year, but no pc port has been in the works), and ports for other (particularly 6th and 7th gen) platforms do have certain quirks in its visuals
And then on PC and Mobile, this ends up affecting same version of a game due to newer hardware and operating systems, and updates made to fix those issues can also lead to details being lost
labels like port, remaster and remakes, as they are used by game companies, fluctuate a lot in meaning, and at times might just be treated like marketing buzzwords, but the process in making them tend to overlap more than its led to believe
On the thing with revisions of games, the first version of Castlevania 1 has a gamebreaking glitch where it can spawn too many sprites for the console to handle and causes it to freeze. The Castlevania legacy collection uses the first version so your options for dealing with for, example, the hallway before the death boss are a lot more limited. As always, emulating or using OG hardware + flashcart is more worthwhile
Fantastic video! I also like the long form content too. Very excited for the next video!
Excellent analysis! You didn't senselessly ramble one bit. As someone who's been emulating for 17+ years, this was well worth a watch.
Really awesome video, never knew about the planets remake that looks super cool!
The algorithm hit on this one. This was a good watch
saw the post, couldnt wait to get home to watch!
Game preservation is Vital to our history. Emulation and privacy is not wrong, it’s just…Logical.
A friend of mine told me she was scared of getting arrested because she had old game roms on her computer for emulation, I told her No…you’re perfectly fine, you won’t get arrested just because you’re emulating games. It really upsets me when companies like Nintendo Say emulation is piracy, Like…No…it’s not, We are just preserving YOUR games that YOU fail to keep preserved. If I had the power to open up a video game archives (Like a real life library for gaming) then i absolutely would do that. Make it available for everyone to play retro games.
I’ve been preserving my GameCube games and are on my PC to be played on emulators and I do agree that physical media can be better than digital.
I support gaming preservation and will do to this day.
Heyo I know you from Twitter lmao
@@megapokesonicxhey what’s up I know you from Twitter too lol
Another stellar video 👍
18:00 on top of these controllers you mentioned, i think a perfect example is dreamcast. the vmu is not only super charming but also a necessity for certain games, such as re code veronica and sonic shuffle. its really hard to recreate playing dreamcast thru emulation imo
I didn’t even watch the video and I had to like it bc omg this topic needs to be talked about more, please guys y’all need to buy more physical copies, even if it’s through eBay or Amazon
25:54 the new PS2 emulator for PS4/5 actually just launched with a couple games last week. It’s pretty barebones but upscales resolution, and had rewind and save states which is nice.
I may be stupid but were there emulators on the ps4 for the ps2 and ps1 as well? Asking because I bought parappa the rapper 2 for ps5 (ps4 version) and I’m not sure if it’s emulation or a port
10:57 shovel knight dx is aiming to rectify this by being the ultimate version even including stereoscopic 3d
I personally would love for criterion to rerelease the old burnout games for pc, I would personally buy them.
It’d be awesome if companies would either openly support or at least allow emulators and rom sites for games they no longer sell.
10:25 since you mentioned Resident Evil 5....RE5's PC version actually has the same PS Move Controls Scheme available for Keyboard/Mouse users. (you'll lose out on QTE Waggle, tho)
potentially: you could create a Keyboard/Mouse config with your Input Remapper of choice with any controller with Motion Sensor functionality and it can play 1:1 to the PS Move Controls scheme. I know this; *because I've done it before* . Even made a entire video (now a bit outdated) and a guide that teaches you how to get that desire.
I've scene your stuff. You've commented on one of my past videos about Resident Evil 5 with motion controls. I've tried it myself and no config was satisfactory for me. My best setup used mode shifting so that I can keep most normal controller functions while delegating keyboard/mouse for aiming only. It works well enough and the cursor does control amazing with gyro. But there are too many issues I still have that get in the way.
Capcom could have brought the cursor controls to Switch and I'd be all for that but no.
I think Capcom has done the best out of all gaming companies when It comes down to game preservation. Many companies should start doing what they do. I hope many companies make their classic games easy to find and play on modern gaming consoles and just to buy in general. There are so many great games stuck on original hardware and in the future It might still be like this unless gaming companies do their best to keep them on modern hardware or just do collection editions with many games in 1. Cool video. ^_^
The release of every MvC game all in one collection was certainly a gigachad move on Capcoms part. Love to see it.
Still waiting on a classic Resident Evil collection. Crime that the latest console that can play them is the PS3.
@@Mr.Welbig The PlayStation 3 still has a strong community. It's fun to go on the PS3 It's full of players still. ^_^
I wish the video game industry starts a preservation effort for old games and port them (de/recomp or using existing source code) to current platforms. They can still make money from past games and it will be a win-win for everyone.
27:45 Oh shit, It's that image I made. Wasn't expecting to see that. Looking back, I feel like I could've done a much better job with that image, and I regret the usage of the terms "mistake" and "replacement", especially the latter since it implied the original versions of these games could or should be replaced, which was not my intent.
Anyways, very good and interesting video. I will say, the topic of licenses and legal issues preventing games from getting official rereleases reminded me of how fucked the Pac-Man series is in this regard. Bandai Namco not having the full rights to Ms. Pac-Man, one of the franchise's most prominent and iconic characters, has resulted in the majority of the games in the first 3 decades of the franchise's history being in limbo, unable to be rereleased unless alterations are made to remove Ms. Pac-Man. This isn't too hard for some games like Pac-Land, which require simple sprite edits, something they've already done for Arcade Archives and Pac-Man Museum+. But what about games that have Ms. Pac-Man in a more prominent role, with more elaborate sprites, or 3D models, or appearances in pre-rendered FMVs? Bandai Namco probably won't want to go through all that effort and would rather just remake the game from scratch, like they did with Pac-Man World, or forget about it, leaving it alone and not rereleased. This would already suck if it were just a game or two like with Sonic 3, but like I said, this one issues effects the majority of games in Pac-Man's back catalogue, *especially* the games from the 2000s, which also happen to be some of the most beloved in the series. It really sucks.
Oh hey! I actually like the idea of being able to categorize how to view/judge remakes. It's why I like Exoparadigmgamers Remake or Rebreak series. The discussion gets so muddy though when devs approach a remake in a million different ways. Even one as 1:1 as The Last of Us Part 1 got scrutinized as it ultimately felt like wasted dev time on a graphical upgrade that really wasn't necessary. Otherwise I'd like to say it's still the best way to play The Last of Us for those who haven't already.
Tbh I never had much of an issue with your original image since I knew what you were getting at. I didn't see the "mistake" section as "it's a bad game now", rather "it's too different to faithfully represent the original". My ultimate take away is that no matter how faithful/different a remake is, it's more content to play. A "Holy shit two cakes!!" scenario if you will.
@@Mr.Welbig My mindset when making that was, "Imagine you have a friend who is interested in playing a certain game, which happens to have a remake. Ignoring external factors like availability, consoles, price, etc., which version would you recommend they play first?"
Unfortunately a lot of people interpreted it as being "remakes should replace the original" and screamed at me about how Mario 64 DS is a good game (which I personally disagree with but that's not the entire reason I placed it where I did)
Another issue is that I felt there was a lack of variety in the games I selected, since I just went with games I was familiar with, and with all except one were games I had at least played either the original or remake to some degree. The one exception was Metroid: Zero Mission, which I hadn't played either the original or the remake. I included it because whenever I would hear anyone talk about Metroid 1, I would ALWAYS hear people talk about how Zero Mission is such a vast improvement that there's practically no reason to play the NES version. I thought I could have it at the top of the "replacement" tier and not be controversial, but I guess I was wrong. That's one lesson learned I guess. I was also hoping people would edit my image and add more games onto it so it could be more broad, but very few people actually did this, unfortunately.
13:13 I agree, I've met many people who have played dragon Valor from PS1 and loved it and wanted to buy but they don't sell it anymore, hell it's hard to find a used copy of the game. Thankfully I had a "friend" who broke back in the day my kingdom hearts DVD and from that day and on I converted the games I bought to ensure that I'll have them longer but many people didn't do that and lost their games due to disc rot
great music selection!
I’ve been wanting THQNordic to re release the Tak and the Power of Juju trilogy (Tak and the Power of Juju, Tak 2 the Staff of Dreams and Tak the Great Juju Challenge) fans want them but THQNordic is just doing nothing with the license, it’s frustrating I’m lucky to still have the GameCube games but not everyone does
Once again, Ross Scott becomes extremely relevant to the conversation.
Aye aye captain 🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️
Great video. I really liked how you looked at all sides of presentation.
As especially videos from the "muh original hardware" crowd they really often downplay how good emulation is and overblow the experience of OG hardware.
One question, how good would you consider Halo MCC as a form of presentation?
The one reason piracy is good 👍
Piracy is the only assured way to preserve art.
You can't pirate every single game, some have DRM and the only person to crack DRM hasn't cracked in over a year
Yeah. And also the free stuff.
Heading the sonic mega collection music takes me back to the mid 2000s in the afternoon sun is setting my Ps2 running and my room door open light pouring in my dad in the next room on his Mac computer playing music off iTunes. Me right up in front of my tv going through the menus with my younger brother beside me or playing die the first time sonic 3 and just falling in love with the music of angel island act 2 and astounded by the level changing mid act with the forest on fire. This takes me back and since we haven’t really had a collection that can capture that same feeling don’t think we ever will nostalgia plays a big part but man I miss those days. Also is there anyway to play a lot of the Mario’s/zelda or Metroid games on none Nintendo consoles I’ve only ever had PlayStation with the occasional Xbox consoles so I’m guessing no but I figure I still ask?
alright boys, how long should we let him get into the video before someone tells him how to pronounce "compilation?"
YES
You can use Wii remotes on emulators??? My copy of sport resort broke a decade ago and I've been wanting to replay it so bad.
37:19 The only thing you need to apologize for is how you pronounce compilation. Other than that this was an awesome video! :D
I used separate emulators for everything except 8-16 bit consoles and some 32 (well, Saturn mostly). because I use cheats with older games (sue me) and shaders which are usually morr easily accessible through retroarch, which once you learn how to use the important settings, gets things pretty automated. Also, some consoles like PC Engine/Turbografx 16 no longer have a reliable and usable emulator on windows, so I use the retroarch core which is super convenient.
Also, if you're reading this comment and play on your PC through your tv, always use the xmb menu on retroarch for anything.
I also use a frontend called "Playnite" which I liked more than Launchbox/Bigbox and updates all the extensions and everything automatically. Everything is seamless with it and I love it.
4:32 The fact that so many people consider this as something that has to be (making every single console have only really small library of backwards compatibility) is sad to think about because on the PC you can just download the game through something like Steam (if they don't have denuvo), GOG, Itch or by piracy and copy them elsewhere and play it for many years to come.
We need it when a game isn't sold anymore for it to be in the public domain and open sourced (That's at least me trying to be more realistically hopeful then the copyright law being abolished).
Nice vid!
7:46 I will give you an even better reason as to why the Zelda Collector's edition is important: It is the ONLY official way to play those four games in PAL territories at their correct speed, as they work only at 60hz instead of 50hz. This is doubly important for Majora's Mask, as the European release comes with several languages.
Never after that has Nintendo provided a way to play that N64 version again.
There's so much that would be lost if it were left on the hands of corporations to salvage or preserve the culture that videogames are...
Piracy and emulation helps preserve retro games. Those old copies of retro games that are being sold on eBay are NOT Preservation because those copies are being rotted away from the INSANE prices they are being listed and sold for.
One thing thats never talked about is the importance in teaching newer developers about the past. As there are some great gameplay ideas stuck on old machines.
And with the rise of homebrew development. Its more important than ever to get the emulation and games represented properly. As even something simple like how colors bleed can make or break a homebrew project if left inaccurate. Heck I had to use my GBA sp to test my game on for specifically the stretch that you can enable only on original GBA hardware. As i want to design a mode that can take advantage of the odd stretching.
Disk decay is apparently a thing as well. Keeping a clean/closed physical copy won’t matter in the future
I've heard of that. Pretty scary honestly to think discs can straight up rot over a small period of time. From what understand it's mostly an issue with CDI, Sega CD, and early PlayStation games. I like to think CD based console from Xbox/PS2/GCN and onward would last far longer.
@@Mr.WelbigUnfortunately it's happened for me with Wii U discs too.
@@Mr.Welbig It happens with all disks.
new Welbig vid lets go!
Decompiles are Peak
The wallet balance flex 4:05
My man talked about fan remakes without spreading a single syllable about AM2R!
what never gets talked about within this topic is the impossibility of preserving dying live service titles as well as phone ports for stuff like old iOS versions.
Games with licensing issues are my biggest fear and worry, I'm worried about Smash Ultimate having potential licensing issues in the future preventing it from getting rereleased because of the shit ton of characters and music (Disney is a risky ass company for licensing characters)
guest characters in games or licensed cameos will be hell for game preservation, unless there is something in the contract to cover future releases.
10:47 hell yeahhhhh
Official decompilations actually exists, when Kingdom Hearts 1 was remastered to the PS3 they had to reverse engineer the game because they lost the source, it's also how they added enhancements like skippable cutscene and the reaction command. I heard FFVIII was also decompiled when they made the remaster
The thought not to be able to play older games because the physical device isn't working anymore and can't be repaired scares me..
I still have my game boy advance and a good collection of ps1-ps2 games, damn I am old 😢.
If I could afford it I'd buy a PC and a monitor from the early 2000s to play games from the 90-early 2000 just for the feeling. These old pcs are more expensive than a good gaming PC.
Tomb raider 1-3 remastered is awesome you have the option to switch between the OG graphics and the remaster one.
Even though Dragon Age Origins isn't that old it's a struggle on new PC Hardware, it crashes way too often, it gets better if you play it on medium, I don't want to play it on medium on my rtx 2080, my Ryzen 7 5700, 32gb ram 😅. I want to mod the game from hell to heaven and back.
Played the game since 2009 way too many times and if we don't get a remaster version, I want to at least make it look as good as possible.
15:01 Before you glorify filters it would be best to have a real CRT next to the display with the filter for the best comparison.
I have 4 CRTs and I assure you the filters are that good. I didn't bother with any direct comparisons because I cannot capture a CRT display proper. You need a macro lens to show off the slot mask or aperture grill.
If you want a proper comparison I'd recommend this video:
ua-cam.com/video/3ZmPkozY6Cg/v-deo.html
@@Mr.Welbig I wasn't saying for our eyes to see and I wasn't asking for proof of anything, I'm just talking in general for those who might be reading this. Also both display need proper calibration to get the best accuracy, also for example a CRT brightness is at max 100 nits.
Don't get me wrong... I tried using filters as well and I also have a CRT TV to use as a reference.
21:27 Super Mario 64 DS is the BEST videogame 🎮 remake ever made.
I’m still pissed Nintendo took down a huge amount of games off of vims lair one of the oldest rom sites
A company could just sell the roms in their website. The buyers (us) could use any fan created emulator to run them. Of course Nintendo would never do that, but there so many others that could.
I collect gamecube and ps2 physical games, but now I’m worried about consoles’ longevity. I already had to swap out the internals for my gamecube, and my ps2 now struggles to read ps1 games and blue disc ps2 games.
It’s why i emulate them, to spare my physical games
My PS2s the same way. Can’t even read PS1 games. Thought about adjusting the potentiometer on the disc drive but I hear that’s not advisable. Figure I’ll wait till it can’t play DVDs to swap the entire drive. I think my GameCubes disk reader is going bad but I’m not sure. Luckily that new flippy drive looks hella neat so I may settle with that instead.
Hell yeah, love to see a gamer on youtube promoting piracy.
Really confuses me when I see nitro rad say "it's on ebay" at the end of the video. like bro what???
I swear, either people are just basing their moral compass on what the law says, or they are cowards.
Dude this video is so good. You nonchalantly say so many things that, like, MOST gamers are unable to wrap their heads around. Very levelheaded, very human, and still very logical.
In this overpriced retro market that’s been going on, it’s better to do that than buy some expensive overpriced copy, and even then you’d want to back the game up anyway since the disc drives and the game discs won’t last forever, it’s aging hardware.
37:05 You have no idea how much I was pissed off about playing Resident Evil 5 on the Microsoft Xbox 360 after years of playing Resident Evil 4 on the Nintendo Wii
Going from the Crosshair from the Wii Remote to the Lazer with Right Analog Stick was sad
No offense to the Right Analog Stick on itself it works perfectly
My Problem is with the fucking Red Lazer that blands in the Background with anything except with Enemys in Melee Distance
No Wonder the only Weapons I was using was the 3 Sniper Rifles because They use Scopes rather than Lazer to Aim
Without piracy, projects like RVGL would be impossible. A game from a long-dead studio had its sourcecode leak, and the community took it upon themselves to update the game to run natively on the new generations of computer hardware, and even add new, all-original maps, cars and even game modes for people to play. Not to mention creating an online mode, and keeping said online mode alive for far longer than any for-profit corporation ever could. However, the RVGL website directly distributes every piece of the puzzle necessary to run it. No part of the original disc is required, the new version doesn't even test its original DRM.
It doesn't matter how much of a mess it causes, the laws will never change. Same as with the climate. The corporate world would rather die. Since they made their choice, join in the rebellion, for the sake of future generations!
I like your long videos. But if you can't keep that up for any reason, that's fine.
I had a collection of all Nintendo Console and Handheld also all of Sony Consoles but I sold all of it in 2019, why? Because I can't keep up maintenance on keeping them working especially the handhelds because of LCD Burn... What happened to the money I got in 2019? I bought something that can preserve the Gaming History...It's called PC...
21:15 You said the bad word 😲
non native speaker here, it's the first time i hear "com pile ation and decom pile ation" pronounciations. is this correct? is it more formal?
It's weird as hell and everyone keeps bullying me about it.
@@Mr.Welbig another non-native speaker here and I've always said it the same way as you lol
27:46
Nintendo is going after sheet music now.
Remakes point is also to introduce mordern cancer such as microtransactions while not living up to the standards of the original game since there is no frame of reference for most people buying the remake and they definetly will not care about either of these things or them being something that will dominate the rest of the remakes and new games based on said remakes.
I never owned a Gameboy Advance growing up. I now own a modded GBA and saving up for a Everdrive so I can play games and I don’t have to sell a kidney to buy a handful of games
My only problem with your thinking, how come fan decompilations can act as a full replacement for the original but remasters can’t? They’re both a different, enhanced version of the game’s source running on different hardware. By your logic they are both distinct versions of the original.
It's mostly because every decomp/recomp i've tried lets you disable every enhancement provided. Letting the game function identically to the original. I've been playing the Ship of Harkinian Ocarina of Time decomp and it's really cool with loads of enhancements. But what I really appreciate is you can revert the game back to just how it was on an original N64, 20fps and all. Which I think is important for those who want to experience it that way. Remasters can potentially suffer from missing effects, graphic bugs, gameplay glitches, odd artistic changes, and inferior reworked controls. Which are issues I've yet to run into with decomps/recomps. Don't get me wrong there are still plenty of remasters that I'll hold above an original. But decomps let you have your cake and eat it too. The evolution to emulation imho.
@ Good point. I hate how Klonoa 2 looks remastered and would love to revert all the graphics to how they were before
Keep it real
A really bad one you didn't mention, the faces in Final Fantasy X were ruined. They look so ugly in the HD remasters compared to the original PS2 version.
There is a perfect solution: the studio has to release the source code under MIT when software is EOL.
@user-in8qh3zf9d It wouldn't be the first time the government passed a totally unexpected law.
@user-in8qh3zf9d id software did while Carmack was at the helm. Result: all of their games up to Doom 3 are playable in basically anything that is able to run them.
I feel like this is the perfect solution but companies just have too much money and power and will do anything in their power to not do that.
"yeah, video game 'preservation', alright", says nintendo mockingly.
What's up with that awful sounding background noise?
I don't know if it's just me but there is no audio on the video
Just you
Audio is working for me
cave story to me is the biggest offender of locking content behind a specific console version. almost every version has an entirely new and unique feature that isn't in any previous or new version. every console generation nicalis just gets to make absolutely sure that there will never be a true definitive version of the game
also, the death of physical media on pc is so obnoxious. optical media specifically may not be great, but ANY physical media is better than none at all
Nicalis gets a lot of shit and rightfully so. Cave Story is one of my favorite games of all time and I'm very upset with its current distribution. I'll say out of complete fairness I do think the Switch version is the best overall version. But it's so overpriced and even if it was cheap I cannot condone supporting Nicalis in any financial way. Luckily the original Freeware version is always up and available and most die hard Cave Story fans would probably direct most people to just play that version.
I agree with a lot of the sentiments here. If there were such a thing as a perfect preservation, I would say it would be along the lines of a universal automatic decompilation tool, but such a project is not only wildly infeasible but it would also open Pandora’s box in terms of digital security.
An aspect on this conversation of game preservation that I feel has been left in a blindspot is preservation of games outside the console space, namely PC, Browser, VR, and even Mobile. There’s an awkward era in PC history starting in the mid-90s and ending sometime in the 2010s where games made for that era were designed for hardware and OSes that are simultaneously rudimentary and near impossible to emulate, making it so that playing those games as they were intended natively on modern hardware is impossible without becoming a computer historian and borderline wizard. In such cases, fan decompilations and recreations are the only means to make these games work as intended.
Browser games also have the short end of the stick since not only are they ephemeral exclusively digital, but in many cases aren’t even downloadable. Adobe’s erasure of Flash has done irreparable damage to browser game preservation and HTML5 has not filled in the void left behind. It’s fortunate we have projects like Flashpoint, but I don’t think people have really considered how much of browser game history has gone down the drain.
I won’t rant much about VR game preservation because I’m genuinely not sure why it’s in such a bad state as it is, but Mobile preservation has always stuck out to me as an absolute nightmare. Not only are they digital storefront exclusive, not only are some games stuck on obscure and outdated hardware, but in Apple’s case they will literally make applications unusable if they’re delisted off the storefront but you’ve still downloaded them. I’ve lost so many of my iPod Touch games that I genuinely can’t remember the names of some, and this is an issue I don’t have for any other platform I’ve ever played on. It blows my mind that Mobile is still the most profitable sector of the gaming industry when its preservation is an unmitigated disaster.
False. game presevation IS POSSIBLE.
@@YYYZZZ-sk3mf It is possible but not for games with DRM
@@anonanonymous9670 people have cracked it before, they will crack it again. This isn't some ancient voodoo dark magic, it's software
Cumpielations
Reproduction copies not official aren’t legal anyway.
Even if those games cost $1, there factually isn’t enough stock for everyone who wants to legally play them.
Taking pictures of older artwork and sharing them for preservation is fine, but the same isn't true for video games that are no longer being sold? There is nothing wrong with ''piracy'' in this case, copyright law should be updated to reflect this. Video games are art and they deserve to be enjoyed by later generations as much as paintings or books do
Funny you say that since Nintendo has also been taking down sites with old Nintendo Power scans. Seems like the most pointless thing to protect outdated and irrelevant game magazines but hey everything is fair game for Nintendo to C&D.
Let's finally preserve some xbox one games with this new upcoming exploit.
Xbox 360 digital store closing soon sucks
This is why i I'm thankful Piracy exists.
I know people can be a little mixed about it, in which case i say "F\_/ck you nerd XD".
It's just really great how rom sites and websites like that exist (Even if it isn't necessarily intended for Preservation but more so "Free Game go brrrrr", Cause let's be real honest, Piracy is a price issue AND service issue)
YES, wayyy too many people try to make piracy one way or the other either a price issue or service issue, but in reality it's both!
Piracy is the only real solution to preservation there is. In fact, I'd go as far as to say copyright in its latest, current form is a mistake and history will see the present time as the dark ages of digital.
Actually, nevermind, that's not good enough. Intellectual property is an inherently flawed concept in itself, and should be abolished entirely.
You can't pirate every single game, some have DRM and the only person to crack DRM hasn't cracked in over a year
Intellectual property simply needs to go. Only large corporations truly benefit from its existence.
people in 2017: man, I don't want to rebuy my virtual console games. Nintendo should make a Netflix style subscription.
2024: This is bad for preservation also I don't own the games.
Gamers will never be happy
Bro I was always flabbergasted at the hate for Virtual Console. The emulation quality I understand but the inherent criticism for rebuying the games was always so strange to me, even on Wii.
People felt the games were too overpriced but I personally felt it was pretty fair. $5 for NES games, $8 for SNES games, $10 for N64, and $20 for Wii. I understand games should naturally decrease in value but those prices always seemed perfectly sensible to me for anyone wanting to build up a collection of personally purchased games.
@@Mr.Welbig
I remember people saying in 2016 "Nintendo sells their old games, whats the point emulation is free."
and then these people start crying about game preservation in 2023 after the 3DS/WiiU e-shop closure.
I don't recall anyone saying Nintendo should make a Netflix style subscription, just that buying the game once on one console should have it be available on the others. Especially during the Wii U/3ds era when these games were on both consoles, on storefronts called the Nintendo EShop.
I've seen people say that piracy is the answer to VG Preservation BUUUUUT....
There is a massive flaw with it and it's...
Denuvo (aka DRM)
The only person to crack DRM is Empress and she hasn't cracked games in over a year.
Any modern game with DRM is impossible to preserve unless they also have a Playstation or a Nintendo Switch port since Denuvo doesn't really exist there. (Yes Denuvo has tried making console developers use Denuvo but no one has used it yet I think)
Piracy shall remain the only true way to preserve digital media
You can't pirate every single game, some have DRM and the only person to crack DRM hasn't cracked in over a year
please stop pronouncing compilation like that
the "pi" is pronounced like the "pi" in pill, not the "pi" in pie
That's not very polite :(
"It's not Marry-o, it's Mah-re-oh. IDIOT"
what can i say, People just pronounce words differently here and there from time to time!
Language naturally varies from person to person, and is largely arbitrary. So your prescriptivism is probably poorly placed. :)
honeslty the way he pronounces it sounds nicer imo