I think you're just fishing for a bigger reaction out of me even though I've said dev teams are well experienced to where it's pretty easy for them to remaster especially coming from the main source.
That's the funny part: it seems like the rumors about the dev teams having access to the "main source" of the Metal Gear games might actually be true, especially given the 2026 MGS2 source code leak. The leak apparently contains every version of the game, from the 2012 PS Vita release all the way back to the original 2001 PS2 version. And yet, despite all of that, the Master Collection ports (excl. MGS4) overall are still mediocre imo [unless you're on a PC platform in 2026].
If you are not bothered by the quality of a video game port (specifically console-to-PC), especially in terms of how accurately these remasters / ports faithfully preserve the visuals of their source (aka. original version) without butchering it while further improving beyond the original such as introducing resolution bumps and higher framerates for newer platforms (i.e. 2014 TLoU Remastered for the PS4 then enhanced to 4K for PS5, the 2016 DeadRising 1 port), then this whole ass essay rant won't apply to you and I deeply envy you.
The argument that "[insert console game] was primarily developed on a PC anyway, so porting it shouldn't be that difficult" would've made a lot more sense if we had gotten great PC ports of Halo 1 and 2 back in the early 2010s. Those games were primarily worked on a PC development environment in the first place, yet it still took roughly two decades for a PC port (2019 MCC) to be 1:1 with the Xbox originals, not to mention that the 2003 Halo 1 PC port butchered many aspects that weren't present in the Xbox original to the point it just screams "history revisionism" in a bad way - good thing it was heavily carried by its online multiplayer features.
Even though these dev teams are "alleged" to be blessed with Konami's source code archive of some Metal Gear games, I'm starting to believe that this dev team [
Rocket Studio, Inc.] is either understaffed (due to the inconsistent patch updates for Vol. 1 since they were also simultaneously working on the Peace Walker HD port for Vol. 2, hell the "MGS3 4K texture pack" from the latest update was allegedly outsourced to one modder), underpaid, or unexperienced because holy shit I've been too lenient with their output.
I'm very thankful for the
MGSHDFix team, as they've been
hard-carrying these mediocre ports (specifically the PS2 games) on the PC platform as of recently [post 4.0.0]. Their work has gotten to the point where Vol. 1 MGS2 / MGS3 with MGSHDFix is arguably the "definitive" way to play these games to the point that it competes with PCSX2 in terms of visual accuracy to the original game on real hardware. Otherwise, I probably would've gone back to PCSX2 (or the 2002 Subsistence PC port) by now. Unfortunately, nobody is interested in pushing these mods to hacked consoles.
I'm excited for their venture on Vol. 2
MGSPatriotFix, especially how Vol. 2 handled the Peace Walker HD port (the only good thing about it is that they retained the online/multiplayer features).
The MGS4 port from Master Collection Vol. 2 set the bar high imo considering how mediocre all of its ports were (i.e MGS4 on the Switch 1 runs MUCH BETTER than ANY port from the Master Collection Vol. 1 & 2). My only concern is whether they kept the gyro gimmick features from the PS3 version or not since the Vol. 2 port also needs to account for the Xbox version and XInput as both lack gyro features.
I want to apologize to Virtuos for calling them dogshit for doing the bare minimum in porting Dark Souls Remastered to the Switch 1 (I just didn't see their vision when it came out, but as of recently I learned that this version is the only "modern" port of the original DS1 with DS:R QoL features), as their work on MGS4 exceeded my expectations.
SOURCE: GBAtemp Inbox
