Can we talk about The Wonderful 101 laughable Demaster?

[Vodacixi]

RolStoppable said:

Vodacixi said:

If framerate is constantly going up and down, it doesn't matter if its above 30fps. It's inconsistent, noticeable and for many people, annoying. And that is not good in any scenario. Especially when we are talking about a "remastered" product. It should be better, not worse. And if the machine is several times more powerful, it should be a flawless experience. You not caring is a non factor. 

Even if they did the Kickstarter as a preorder campaign, it's still shameful that with the amount of money they made they were not up to the ask of making this game at least run better than Wii U on Switch and flawlessly on PS4/PC. The fact is they have done a bad port of a Wii U game and they lied to people calling it something that it's not.

When someone tries to sell a bad product, and especially when they go out there crying because the game deserves a second chance, yes, I hope it performs bad. It's not being a snob, it's being a consumer who wants a decent product that corresponds whith what is called. This is not a remaster, yet it's falsely called "remastered"

The term 'Definitive Edition' leaves a lot less room for interpretation than 'Remastered', but even so, something like Dragon Quest XI S didn't cause an uproar.

That's because DQXI S is, indeed, the definitive version of the game. It has more content (a lot more content), it has better and improved gameplay, and it has a better soundtrack. While it's true that the visuals are inferior to the PS4 and PC, it still looks good on Switch. Therefore, the best way to play the game, the "Definitive" version, is the Switch version.

But a remaster is not the same as a "definitive" version. A remaster is about improving the audiovisual quality of a product, and in the case of videogames, the gameplay as well. The end product has to be an overall improvement. The Wonderful 101 improves the resolution, yes. But in the case of the Switch version not only it's a meaningless change due to the fact that no AA is in play, but this improvement is at the cost of framerate. You improve one thing (barely) to get another one worse in the process. Meanwhile, the PS4 version is far more powerful than Wii U and it still shows some framerate drops. To be exact, when Wii U/Switch get in the 40s, PS4 gets in the 50s. That shows that the "remastering" process was done poorly. The PS4 should be able to run this at 1080p/60fps with the tip of its dick. And the PC version exhibits frame pacing issues even on high end PCs.

Also, I remind you that besides resolution, the game is exactly the same as it was on Wii U. Shadows, textures, lightning, depth of field... every asset of this game is a 1:1 match of those found on the Wii U. A remaster usually improves assets as well, just to remind you. Some does a more extensive work than others, but that's how it usually works.

And we haven't even talked about how they translated the Wii U Gamepad features into other consoles. Instead of having a second screen that shows certain areas and information, they slapped said screen onto the main screen, getting in the way of the action or in the "best" case, reducing the size of the main screen (killing any improvement in resolution that you might have). Honestly, I think they have offered a very lazy solution to this gameplay aspect and it ends up doing more harm than good.

It's lazy, in some platforms runs worse than the original, in others could obviously run better and it even plays worse. At best, it's an awful remaster. At worst, is a horrible port that is mistakenly called "remaster". It's a bad situation either way.

Last edited by Vodacixi - on 17 May 2020