The "HD" filter

[okcomputing]

First of all, I love that this rerelease is happening!

That said, I'm curious if there is or will be an option to disable this filter or use the original pixel graphics?

I would really, really, really prefer to see the art the way it was originally drawn. I think it already looked fantastic and I think many retro game fans will enjoy it too.*

(*Oh god, PSP/GBA really is retro now...)

[Shylaar]

I don't know why these devs think smearing oil all over their games with ugly filters does anything other than make it look utterly hideous. I get that they're working with GBA assets here but for the love of god, even the raw GBA pixel art blown up to 1080p would look better than this.

[Kaedwenii]

I know… I really think the art is more than gorgeous enough to stand on its own.

I’ve heard (and maybe someone who knows can explain better since I haven’t played them myself yet) that modders did a great job fixing visual issues in the Grandia PC ports. If we don’t get an official option to remove the filter/change the graphics, I’m hopeful that someone in the mod community would be willing to help us out!

I’m super excited to have this game on Steam, finally! But seriously, this trend of filtering over what was once gorgeous pixel art in the name of an “HD Remaster” makes me so sad.

[CheshireCat]

It's not even from GBA, the sprites kept being upscaled and smeared from the WSC version.
In the Japanese release for Switch, there's an option to make the sprites a little less/more blurry/pixelated, but it's a cosmetic change.
https://i.imgur.com/T5ixr32.png
Still, this is the first remake in which there's an option to recolor the sprites to fit the portaits' colors from the GBA/PSP. Until now they were still in the colors of portraits from the WSC version.
https://i.imgur.com/zNomJyZ.png
https://i.imgur.com/nVizzEI.png
Demons' portraits were also colored to fit the sprites for the first time.
https://i.imgur.com/xODw6XN.png
So Sting did a lot with this remake this time, considering their small staff (and much different from the "Golden Dept. Heaven Era").

[coldreactive]

Originally posted by Kaedwenii:

I know… I really think the art is more than gorgeous enough to stand on its own.

I’ve heard (and maybe someone who knows can explain better since I haven’t played them myself yet) that modders did a great job fixing visual issues in the Grandia PC ports. If we don’t get an official option to remove the filter/change the graphics, I’m hopeful that someone in the mod community would be willing to help us out!

I’m super excited to have this game on Steam, finally! But seriously, this trend of filtering over what was once gorgeous pixel art in the name of an “HD Remaster” makes me so sad.

I'm also hoping modders can fix it up so it doesn't look so smeared/etc.

[680x0]

These kind of filters are gross, thanks for speaking up you unicorns.

[Milobadger]

I'm certainly of the view it should an option. To turn on or off at the individual players preference.

[cyxceven]

100% The sprite filtering needs to be optional. Some of the screenshots on the store page look awful.

Getting flashbacks of the godawful filter-job Gungho pulled on Grandia "HD". Mods kinda helped, but those introduced more glitches that never got fixed...

[RPGLover88]

Originally posted by 680x0:

These kind of filters are gross, thanks for speaking up you unicorns.

Dunno if youre the one who gave 2 unicorns to everyone, but the last 3 replies before me (Your reply, along with Milobadger and cyxceven's replies) were missing one unicorn, so I finished the job for you and I gave you a second treasure chest and a bag of points to Shylaar while I was at it.

Only 11 hours left until the game comes out! I agree that it would be awesome if we could remove the filter, but personally, with or without the filter, Im still gonna play the hell outta this game! Its gonna be hard to fall asleep tonight! XD

[BoozeJunky]

I won't buy it if the filter isn't optional. For now it's going on my watch list.

[SethRahTV]

It's already been confirmed to be optional

https://x.com/sting_pr/status/1720368898070163769

[sumolagann]

Awesome it's optional, so many releases with ruined sprites now...

edit: looks like they're using the upscaled psp sprites to me, sad, backgrounds all blurred too. Maybe we can request original sprite work and backgrounds, just tired of this happening... it's every single sprite game

[Shylaar]

Originally posted by Seth-Rah:

It's already been confirmed to be optional

https://x.com/sting_pr/status/1720368898070163769

That's not even close to untouched.
https://www.gamerlifestore.com/cdn/shop/products/[e-mail]?v=1663392511
I guess it's like Tactics Ogre where they thought it was a good idea to redesign the base sprites themselves to look like an ugly smoothing filter. Baffling.

[okcomputing]

Should've clicked through before marking it as solved. Those "unfiltered" sprites indeed still look heavily processed.

I wonder if they can include the gba rom/psp disc image in this as a bonus. I love it when games do that.

[The_White_Wolf]

I would love the option to revert back to the original graphics as well! I think it is cool whenever games have that option.

[MARl0]

I would buy this if there was an option for the original sprites. Definitely not with this look though. It's so ugly.