Port Report: Just shy of great.

[big nyine nyine]

I just finished stage 1 and I'll give my initial impressions here. Perhaps they'll change once I get further but here we go:

This is the full blown GC experience, graphics-wise. None of the RE4 lazy port of the PS2 business here. Spent magazines and shell casings are here, as well as the higher detail models and bullet impact effects. Performance also seems solid.

The choice to force a 4:3 aspect ratio is a nice touch, for those who want to maintain the original presentation. The anti-aliasing gets the job done as well. Also appreciate the ability to open up the config tool from within the game.

The treatment of 2D assets to make them more presentable in HD seems quite competent. Some people might have issues with the smoothing job, but I think it's fine.

The mouse and keyboard controls are almost perfect! I have some issues with the mouse aim which I'll describe later, but this game is totally playable without a controller! The menus are all fully mouse controlled, there are hotkeys for Smith switching and using health items; you can even control the menus used for choosing your movement route with the mouse which is just slick as hell. Full rebinding of all of these as well!

The 60FPS conversion seems to have been seamless. My only issue so far is that the "reloading while standing idle" animation appears to be 30FPS. It seems similar to the issue with RE4 where reloading the Bolt-Action Rifle is also 30FPS.

The FMV cutscenes appear to be properly cropped to fit 16:9 mode, as they were letterboxed in the original releases, if I remember correctly.

As for the bad:

The mouse aim feels kinda wonky. Like a thumbstick emulation, rather than raw input. It's certainly still far more accurate than a thumbstick ever will be, but I don't think it will ever feel comfortable unless changes are made.

The audio seems... strange. The quality sounds fine, maybe a little worse in some sections. Might be a placebo on that one though. However, the positional audio is definitely strange. The sounds of incoming Smiles doesn't "move" with your change to first person view. So a Smile that's coming from the left in third person will still fill your left earphone with his footsteps even though he's right in front of you in first person. I don't remember if this was the behavior on GC, but I think something should be done about it.

Unless I'm missing something, it doesn't appear like you can change the resolution the game runs at. Maybe switching into Windowed Mode lets you adjust it, but in fullscreen mode, it will run at your native resolution and there's nothing you can do about it.

But yeah, this port is actually much better than I was expecting, aside from these minor issues. Congratulations to the team for pulling it off, just promise me you won't leave before looking at some of this stuff, yeah?

[big nyine nyine]

Aha, NIS_Justin actually covered a few of these in that News post I missed. I dunno if that means I'm very or not very observant.

[YinYin]

Mouse actually is raw. But depending on your dpi and sensitivity it actually won't be as "accurate" as the stick, since that one has a maximum turn rate fine tuned for the game (and thus more resolution on small movements).

Great writeup otherwise - should post it as a review as well

[big nyine nyine]

Originally posted by YinYin:

Mouse actually is raw. But depending on your dpi and sensitivity it actually won't be as "accurate" as the stick, since that one has a maximum turn rate fine tuned for the game (and thus more resolution on small movements).

Great writeup otherwise - should post it as a review as well :latch:

Yeah, the DPI and Sens thing sounds right, actually. I'll have to give it a test, but the way it kinda jitters when I make small movements does make that a plausible explanation. Thanks for the tip.

Edit: Also worth a mention is that the FOV can feel a little tight in 16:9 in certain camera angles. Not all of them though, it seems very selective.

Since the game does have internal handling of general dialogue subtitles for the other language options, perhaps English subtitles could be made at some point as well? If not by the port team, perhaps as a mod? Would be a nice addition!

[Raiden_chino]

Can you select resolution?
And how is the FMV quality? I still have my GameCube copy and I remember the video compression was quite bad even back then. I don't know if the PS2 version had better video quality, but if it does, I hope they used that one as the source.

[big nyine nyine]

Originally posted by Raiden_chino:

Can you select resolution?
And how is the FMV quality? I still have my GameCube copy and I remember the video compression was quite bad even back then. I don't know if the PS2 version had better video quality, but if it does, I hope they used that one as the source.

The FMVs appear to be the same quality. Maybe some effort went into smoothing them out, but I can't know for sure without a side-by-side. Without access to the original project files, they can't really be a higher quality than the GC, unfortunately. As for the resolution switching, it does not appear to be possible.

[Zeikar]

Originally posted by ;3374780959381389622:

Originally posted by Raiden_chino:

Can you select resolution?
And how is the FMV quality? I still have my GameCube copy and I remember the video compression was quite bad even back then. I don't know if the PS2 version had better video quality, but if it does, I hope they used that one as the source.

The FMVs appear to be the same quality. Maybe some effort went into smoothing them out, but I can't know for sure without a side-by-side. Without access to the original project files, they can't really be a higher quality than the GC, unfortunately. As for the resolution switching, it does not appear to be possible.

Resolution is whatever your desktop resolution is or resizable window

[big nyine nyine]

Originally posted by Zeikar:

Resolution is whatever your desktop resolution is or resizable window

Yeah, this is correct. Not really an elegant solution, but I guess it works? Still, a choice in the launcher would make people happy.

[Raiden_chino]

Thanks for the replies.

So, not a good port. If a 3D PC game doesn't even let you change the resolution that's not "shy of great" is just poor.
I will wait until GeDoSaTo or someone else mod it or they patch it.

[big nyine nyine]

Originally posted by Raiden_chino:

Thanks for the replies.

So, not a good port. If a 3D PC game doesn't even let you change the resolution that's not "shy of great" is just poor.
I will wait until GeDoSaTo or someone else mod it or they patch it.

I mean, the game doesn't run at GC resolution or anything. It looks perfectly acceptable running in fullscreen on my old 1920x1080 monitor. As far as presentation goes, the game is flawless in regards to the resolution change. Lacking a choice is certainly a knock against the game but it doesn't hurt it's playability at all. Unless of course, you have a 4k monitor and lack the hardware power to play the game at that resolution.

[Catbus]

My only gripe is that the 'turn around' button is by default mapped to B on a 360 pad. It feels much more natural mapped to the X button, and I can't believe the porting team didn't realize this. Also, the game automatically choosing your desktop resolution is a bit annoying if you'd like to use DSR.