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Grandia 2 Anniversary Edition on August 24, $20 (25% off sale at launch)

E

EndMerit

Member
I was cautiously excited about this release, and with this new info, I still am. With essentially nothing new added, I can see how somebody wouldn't want to double-dip, but I've never played Grandia II, so PC port of original version is fine with me.

That one glitch doesn't sound too bad IMO, but maybe I'll wait for tomorrow to get first player impressions before final decision.
 
O

OverQ

Member
I'm fine with a solid Dreamcast port with minor improvements. Obviously that bug needs to be fixed as soon as possible though.

Now, let the modding begin! Durante and GeDoSaTo will hopefully have a few things to say.
 
T

toythatkills

Member
People seem to have been expecting an incredible amount for what is a $15 PC port of a Dreamcast game. It's not like they were going to re-build it from the ground up. All I want it for is to play Grandia II again, as long as it doesn't run like shit, which it doesn't sound like it does, then I don't see why anyone's put off a purchase based on Seda's impressions. You want Grandia II, you're getting Grandia II.

The bug sounds a bit silly but also totally avoidable.
 
V

Valkerionseven

Member
bede-x said:
Anyone remember? Many games were 60fps on the Dreamcast, but I can't remember if Grandia 2 was one of them. If it was 60fps in the original and 30fps here that would be a dealbreaker to me.
Click to expand...

curious too, I cant remember it being too 60fps (maybe in battle?) but towns and everything else seemed like 30 if memory serves.

Either way though, a no frills port is a bit disappointing but I think we can all agree its not the worst thing thats ever happened lol. Some people need to take a step back and wonder what they are so angry about. The time frame from announcement and release was pretty telling of what this would be.

Personally think it looks great from those screenshots. Sure it would have been nice to see some assets redone/filtered but its what I was hoping for visually and performance wise. aka it works.

Maybe its just because I never got to play this game much and hated the terrible PS2 port. I just want to actually play this thing for the story, I don't need bells and whistles for this type of thing but do hope and fully expect those who wanted them will get them asap through patches or mods, never a reason to not enhance the user experience.
 
Tizoc

Tizoc

Member
toythatkills said:
People seem to have been expecting an incredible amount for what is a $15 PC port of a Dreamcast game. It's not like they were going to re-build it from the ground up. All I want it for is to play Grandia II again, as long as it doesn't run like shit, which it doesn't sound like it does, then I don't see why anyone's put off a purchase based on Seda's impressions. You want Grandia II, you're getting Grandia II.

The bug sounds a bit silly but also totally avoidable.
Click to expand...

Durante will save us.
I'm buying this once it's up on Steam.
 
S

Shinjica

Member
Seda said:
The RPG Site piece is mine, actually. I can answer some questions if you have them. I should mention I'm no PC guru or anything like that.

But right, gist of it is that I was surprised my laptop, which can play early HD-era games pretty readily, struggled with this at 720p or higher. The game is 4:3, 30fps, no support for Nvidia DSR for resolutions above 1080p.

It's mostly a sharpened port but it mostly works well (on a GTX 780) otherwise. As someone who played the PS2 version a few years ago, it's much, much better than that. No chugging every time the camera pans around a city for each new place you visit.

The glitch I encountered was amusing, but I figure it can be fixed.

I'll post a short video or two (including that amusing glitch) probably today sometime.
Click to expand...

Lazy port? Lazy port
 
F

Falk

that puzzling face
agJxL3U.png


<insert one of 200 skeleton waiting meme images here>
 
N

Neoweee

Member
Falk said:
Second time I'm bringing up Valkyria Chronicles PC in this thread but yeah



Old PC version and PS2 versions were a mess. The old PC version would outright crash on some skills due to shenanigans with the FMV.

I can't say what this port is like, but the fact that it's based off the Dreamcast version and is advertised as such is already a good sign. (We'll see, etc)

People in this thread saying they're better off playing the old PC port or PS2 version is typical internet hyperbole. Maybe that's true, but it's too early to tell, and many of the problems of those two versions aren't related to visual specifications.



It's only a funny joke till it happens...
Click to expand...


Seda said:
The RPG Site piece is mine, actually. I can answer some questions if you have them. I should mention I'm no PC guru or anything like that.

But right, gist of it is that I was surprised my laptop, which can play early HD-era games pretty readily, struggled with this at 720p or higher. The game is 4:3, 30fps, no support for Nvidia DSR for resolutions above 1080p.

It's mostly a sharpened port but it mostly works well (on a GTX 780) otherwise. As someone who played the PS2 version a few years ago, it's much, much better than that. No chugging every time the camera pans around a city for each new place you visit.

The glitch I encountered was amusing, but I figure it can be fixed.

I'll post a short video or two (including that amusing glitch) probably today sometime.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the info. This will definitely be the version I support, but I do wish they spent a bit more time on the Hard mode. Resolution and framerate are understandable shortcomings, but 20% boost to HP is, like, sub-Atlus levels of difficulty laziness.
 
P

Pie and Beans

Look for me on the local news, I'll be the guy arrested for trying to burn down a Nintendo exec's house.
No widescreen is baffling. Being behind emulators is not a good look for an official port.
 
U

uncredited male

Member
These resolutions are supported, then, but there is a catch - Grandia II Anniversary does not support native widescreen. If you untick 'Keep Aspect Ratio', you will get a stretched image for selected widescreen resolutions. Otherwise, a resolution like 1920x1080 will actually be a 1440x1080 image with black borders, for example.
Click to expand...

A day-old port with access to the game's source code has less robust widescreen support than an emulator from years ago does.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7dwnBiFg3g
 
S

Sinatar

Official GAF Bottom Feeder
Sir_Crocodile said:
So, hard mode is just monster's HP increased by 20%, you can potentially miss out on coins, the frame rate is locked to 30fps and it is indeed 4:3 only. :(

Well, at least its dual audio and I no longer have to dig out my DC anymore.
Click to expand...

Welp, I guess I'll wait for this one to go cheap.
 
A

Aeana

Member
Neoweee said:
Do emulators really allow full screen, non-stretched, for games outside of their aspect ratio?

There is an option in the menu to do full-screen with the fucked ratio, but I don't expect people to use that.
Click to expand...
Yes, emulators like PCSX2 and Dolphin can do that.
 
N

Neoweee

Member
Aeana said:
Yes, emulators like PCSX2 and Dolphin can do that.
Click to expand...

I've been away from emulators for too long. I really should try to use more recent ones. Never really done much emulation for 32-bit and beyond.

The video posted above is kind of funny with how it deals with the FMV spell effects. Hopefully the shortcomings with this version are easily fixable. I'm really conflicted about supporting PC ports but not wanting to support bad ports, especially ones that seem to be missing features that were in the earlier PC port.
 
ss_lemonade

ss_lemonade

Member
bede-x said:
Anyone remember? Many games were 60fps on the Dreamcast, but I can't remember if Grandia 2 was one of them. If it was 60fps in the original and 30fps here that would be a dealbreaker to me.
Click to expand...
It wasn't, 30fps everywhere. The original pc version had 60fps battles though.
 
F

Falk

that puzzling face
Neoweee said:
Do emulators really allow full screen, non-stretched, for games outside of their aspect ratio?
Click to expand...

Yes, and in many cases it works beautifully. From what I remember of Grandia 2 PS2 running on PCSX2 the skill FMVs would simply just cover the middle of the screen, but it was otherwise functional.

edit: Beaten by Aena, beaten by subsequent reply, and pre-beaten by video link hahahaha.

edit2: Actually looking at the video again, I think in most cases you could have scaled the spell FMVs, cropping off the top and bottom, and literally no one would have been the wiser without a 1:1 comparison.

Of course, that's just going off the few in that video. Maybe there are more esoteric ones that rely on the 4:3 framing to look functional. I dunno.
 
N

Neoweee

Member
Falk said:
Yes, and in many cases it works beautifully. From what I remember of Grandia 2 PS2 running on PCSX2 the skill FMVs would simply just cover the middle of the screen, but it was otherwise functional.

edit: Beaten by Aena, beaten by subsequent reply, and pre-beaten by video link hahahaha.

edit2: Actually looking at the video again, I think in most cases you could have scaled the spell FMVs, cropping off the top and bottom, and literally no one would have been the wiser without a 1:1 comparison.

Of course, that's just going off the few in that video. Maybe there are more esoteric ones that rely on the 4:3 framing to look functional. I dunno.
Click to expand...

I don't think any of the spell effects ever looked particularly good, at any resolution, so they could do whatever they want and nobody would know the difference.
 
P

potatohead

Member
The FMVs on Grandia II PS2 through PCSX2 are a bit messed up, but otherwise the game works great.

The Dreamcast version works excellent through DEmul.

Both versions you can manipulate the internal resolution and aspect ratio to whatever suits you best.
 
F

Falk

that puzzling face
Neoweee said:
I don't think any of the spell effects ever looked particularly good, at any resolution.
Click to expand...

No, what I meant is, the emulators are already scaling the spell effects anyway since the emulation isn't running at 480p. If there was some kind of intercept to scale all FMVs another further 33% (The difference between 4:3 and 16:9) it would have been a simple fix for the spell FMVs not covering the entire screen. It would make the emulation deviate from the original, but eh, like I said, I honestly doubt anyone would notice if some ice shards hitting your party were 33% bigger.

Nothing to do with this official port.
 
M

Mman235

Member
I think the original PC release ran at 30FPS outside of battle and 60FPS in them. At the least it definitely ran at 60 in battles, but, while I never tracked it and it was ages ago I recall a certain lack of smoothness outside of them comparatively, so I'm pretty sure it was 30 elsewhere. I might be wrong and it was always 60 though.

If this ran at 30 all the time it would actually be worse than the original port in that regard.
 
N

Neoweee

Member
Falk said:
No, what I meant is, the emulators are already scaling the spell effects anyway since the emulation isn't running at 480p. If there was some kind of intercept to scale all FMVs another further 33% (The difference between 4:3 and 16:9) it would have been a simple fix for the spell FMVs not covering the entire screen. It would make the emulation deviate from the original, but eh, like I said, I honestly doubt anyone would notice if some ice shards hitting your party were 33% bigger.

Nothing to do with this official port.
Click to expand...

Ah, I wasn't clear in what I meant. I meant that they were so ugly that they could apply any kind of scaling, and nobody would really notice the difference, because it will look like a blurry mess one way or another.

On a side emulation question, how much of that above video is generic emulator settings, and how much of that is custom tuned and settings for that specific game? The interface looks really damn nice.
 
F

Falk

that puzzling face
Depends what you mean by custom tuned. By its very nature most widescreen hacks need a little tweaking to not look ass. I didn't recall needing to do a lot more for Grandia 2 specifically, but this was years ago. I gave up because it kept crashing.
 
S

spoonztt

Member
Seda said:
The RPG Site piece is mine, actually. I can answer some questions if you have them. I should mention I'm no PC guru or anything like that.
Click to expand...

How were the FMV sequences and spell effects that involved video overlays handled? Were they at the same low resolution or were they upscaled/remastered?
 
F

Falk

that puzzling face
spoonztt said:
How were the FMV sequences and spell effects that involved video overlays handled? Were they at the same low resolution or were they upscaled/remastered?
Click to expand...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Dp102nHsO4

edit@Seda: Man, when you said quickly I thought you meant Compile Heart-level skip-everything-and-battle-is-done-in-2-secs fast. This looks a lot more... normal-paced. Considering how much I button mash to get through dialogue boxes I think this glitch is gonna be painful hahahaha.
 
S

Seda

Member
Oh you found the video already.

By 'quickly', I meant it seems the battle has to be cleared in a few moves.

Uploading a short 5 minute vid too.
 
F

Falk

that puzzling face
I'm a pro stalker

spoonztt said:
How were the FMV sequences and spell effects that involved video overlays handled? Were they at the same low resolution or were they upscaled/remastered?
Click to expand...

To answer question:

G2A_Aug242015_C21.jpg


Doesn't look remastered to me (No, seriously, what were you expecting)
 
A

Ampsicora

Member
* Visual upgrades to textures, lighting, and shadows
* Original Japanese voice option
* Additional difficulty level
* Gamepad support
* Steam Trading Cards
* Steam Achievements
* Steam Cloud Save Support
* Selectable Video Options
* Remapable Keyboard & Gamepad Support
* 100 Save File Slots
* Dreamcast VMS Save File Support
Click to expand...

What?
 
P

Parsnip

Member
"Dreamcast VMS Save File Support"

Hmm. Please someone tell me it's not just a dreamcast emulator wrapped in an executable.

Also, SkyBox Labs is listed as a second developer.
 
C

Caspel

Business & Marketing Manager @ GungHo
GhostTrick said:
Eh, why releasing it so stealthily ? :"o
Anyway, bought !
Click to expand...

Stealth? Not sure I would call all of the announcements the past 3 months a stealth release. GOG is livestreaming it in two hours, it's on their front page, it will be on the front page of Humble, etc. I think your definition of stealth is a bit off.
 
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