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Square Enix's track record of re-releasing classic Final Fantasy games hasn't been the greatest in recent years. However, the company hopes to change that with Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster, a set of updated versions of each of the first six Final Fantasy titles. The first three Final Fantasy entries have been revealed to launch at the end of this month--Final Fantasy I, II, and III will all be available on PC and mobile on July 28th. IV through VI will be launching later this year, though they lack a solid release date.

Additionally, the current Steam and mobile versions of Final Fantasy I, II, V and VI will be delisted on July 27th, as to not confuse buyers. These versions launched in 2015, and featured completely redone character portraits and new stylized graphics, which were controversial at the time.

The original FINAL FANTASY comes to life with completely new graphics and audio as a 2D pixel remaster!

A remodeled 2D take on the first game in the world-renowned FINAL FANTASY series! Enjoy the timeless story told through charming retro graphics. All the magic of the original, with improved ease of play.

Earth, fire, water, wind... The light that once shone within the four Crystals was lost. Darkness covered the land, until the only hope for humanity rested in legends past. Become the Warriors of Light and embark on your own journey to restore power to the Crystals and save the world.

Switch between classes to improve your characters. Traverse the wide world with your airship and other vessels. Return to the game that started it all.

KEY FEATURES:

• Universally updated 2D pixel graphics, including the iconic FINAL FANTASY character designs created by Kazuko Shibuya, the original artist and current collaborator.
  
• Beautifully rearranged soundtrack in a faithful FINAL FANTASY style, overseen by original composer Nobuo Uematsu.
  
• Improved gameplay, including modernized UI, auto-battle options, and more!
  
• Dive into the world of the game with supplemental extras like the bestiary, illustration gallery, and music player.

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As to what you can expect from Pixel Remaster, Square Enix claims that these graphics are "completely updated", with designs done by the original character designer and artist, and will include rearranged versions of Nobuo Uematsu's soundtrack. Gameplay-wise, the games will have modernized UI, auto battle options, and new extras such as a music player and bestiary.

Source

 

[Cyan]

What is those patches on gba version you and Cyan are talking?

I'm using 2 different patches :
There's a color patch. the GBA didn't have retro light, so they compensated the darker screen by making all the color lighter. the patch correct the color, so it appears correctly when played on an emulator.

The second patch I'm using is the music restoration patch. the GBA is Mono, so they removed a channel, and used a lower res audio. the patch restores the stereo, AND the audio sounds like their original SNES musics.
At least for the music, because some sound effect, wind, sea waves, birds, are still not perfect (or it's the emulator's issue maybe).

PLUS, fixing the audio made the ROM smaller instead of bigger, resulting in enough free space to fit real singer's dubbed song in the game (I'm not telling where, in case you didn't play, so no spoil )

 

[the_randomizer]

I'm using 2 different patches :
There's a color patch. the GBA didn't have retro light, so they compensated the darker screen by making all the color lighter. the patch correct the color, so it appears correctly when played on an emulator.

The second patch I'm using is the music restoration patch. the GBA is Mono, so they removed a channel, and used a lower res audio. the patch restores the stereo, AND the audio sounds like their original SNES musics.
At least for the music, because some sound effect, wind, sea waves, birds, are still not perfect (or it's the emulator's issue maybe).

PLUS, fixing the audio made the ROM smaller instead of bigger, resulting in enough free space to fit real singer's dubbed song in the game (I'm not telling where, in case you didn't play, so no spoil )

The GBA port's sound effects (inc wind) really do sound like hot garbage on real hardware, not the fault of the emulator. FF5A audio restoration is also fantastic and sounds really close to the Snes version, I think it's the best way to play. Only issue is some dungeons have reverb and the patch conflicts with the music on those maps.

 

[smf]

come on.. You seriously think they would take 34-35 year old NES code and somehow get that code updated so much that it would look like this and run on modern hardware? The same company that are famous for not saving sourcecode for their games...

I think not

It would be easier and faster for them to just remake the games.

If your intent is to have the game exactly the same then it would be far easier to go from he original code, you don't even need the source.

The reverse engineered gta3 & mario 64 proves it can be done.

Loads of 8 and 16 bit remasters are from the original roms, not the source code. You can statically recompile the 6502 to c++ and then stick a custom renderer onto it (this is how some ports to the GBA were done ....)

 

[DaniPoo]

If your intent is to have the game exactly the same then it would be far easier to go from he original code, you don't even need the source.

The reverse engineered gta3 & mario 64 proves it can be done.

Loads of 8 and 16 bit remasters are from the original roms, not the source code. You can statically recompile the 6502 to c++ and then stick a custom renderer onto it (this is how some ports to the GBA were done ....)

Wait a minute... this makes absolutely no sense at all when it comes to this, just look at it!
Could you even imagine the kind of work and time it would take to not only reversing the original games but then to update the generated sourcecode to have many new features and GUI and not only for 1 game but for six games from 2 different systems.

What would make sense is that they built a little engine that makes recreating these games fast and easy and then all six are running the same engine, that would explain the similarities between them.

 

[smf]

Wait a minute... this makes absolutely no sense at all when it comes to this, just look at it!
Could you even imagine the kind of work and time it would take to not only reversing the original games but then to update the generated sourcecode to have many new features and GUI and not only for 1 game but for six games from 2 different systems.

What would make sense is that they built a little engine that makes recreating these games fast and easy and then all six are running the same engine, that would explain the similarities between them.

Could you even imagine the kind of work and time it would take to reverse engineer all of the original games?

If you port the original 6502 code over then you don't need to reverse engineer the entire game, only the bits you want to change.

But really this is how some SNES to GBA conversions were done, I believe how sega did some of their 3ds ports & it's how I'd do it.

It depends on how the game was written though, I don't think anything that early had the entire game in scripts that could easily be ported over without the engine. Even in the PS1 era the plot would be split between scripts and hard coded.

 

[DaniPoo]

Could you even imagine the kind of work and time it would take to reverse engineer all of the original games?

If you port the original 6502 code over then you don't need to reverse engineer the entire game, only the bits you want to change.

But really this is how some SNES to GBA conversions were done & it's how I'd do it.

Please explain how you would "recompile 6502 to C++"
You don't compile machinecode to a programming language, it's the other way around.
And gta3 & mario 64 where reverse engineered, and that took a lot of time and work I imagine.

And I totally agree that the GBA ports was most likely achieved using the SNES games.
I totally believe they decompiled the snes games and the recompiled them to run on the GBA (After adding features, modifying graphics and sound as well as giving the games better translations)
But I don't think this was something that was easy to do and that it was quick.
It probably took them a lot of time for these three games, and I am not even sure that FF4 and FF5 was achieved the same way as FF6.

What usually makes a project like this stand out is how similar it is to the original game.

Here is one such project:
https://github.com/zeldaret/oot

"This is a WIP decompilation of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. The purpose of the project is to recreate a source code base for the game from scratch, using information found inside the game along with static and/or dynamic analysis. The only build currently supported is Master Quest (Debug), but other versions are planned to be supported."

Decompilation is the result of their reverseengineering effort. This project have been very active for over a year and they are still not done. And when they are done they will only be able to create a 1 to 1 copy of the original rom. To get it running on other hardware the sourcecode will need to be modified and the compiled for target hardware which also takes time. And then the game will run om other hardware but it will not have any new features or improved graphics, that would require even more work which would take even more time.

So what you are suggesting, doing this for 6 games simultaniously sounds unfeasible to say the least.

Now these new versions don't look like they are using the original code at all.
And why would they? Square Enix would be far better off using the Wonderswan source again with heavier modifications, atleast for 1,2, 3. They have that sourcecode.
But it looks like these are built in a different engine altoghether.

My guess is that SE has and engine that are capable enough that they can use it to recreate all 6 games relatively easy. and they probably have documentation for have 1-6 are supposed to work.
I mean these are games that have been remade many times before.

 

[Plazorn]

get the GBA versions, they already have all the "new" features Square Enix speaks of, and they are not $60 each (unless you count the phsical version)

 

[the_randomizer]

get the GBA versions, they already have all the "new" features Square Enix speaks of, and they are not $60 each (unless you count the phsical version)

And you have shitty audio quality and slowdown. No thanks.

 

[AttackOtter]

Whether they use any of the original code or not, these are definitely being made in Unity.

FF5 and 6 mobile were done in Unity. Chrono Trigger was done in Unity. 8's console ports and all of 9's ports were done in Unity too. It's Square's de facto means of porting older games to new systems.

They've already remade and ported these six games to different systems multiple times, so reverse engineering the originals is kind of pointless at this point when they have newer versions to build off of.

 

[Bladexdsl]

And you have shitty audio quality and slowdown. No thanks.

that's what emulators and patches are for

 

[tabzer]

that's what emulators and patches are for

Still a shittier version.

 

[tabzer]

All 3 of the FFVI re-releases were worse compared to the SNES version, despite translation and glitch issues.

PS - slow loading times with little more to compensate.

GBA - Even with the sound patch, the sound isn't great and then you have the censorship. The color restoration would be good. GBA version is only better in some ways, but worse in others.

Smartphone/PC - hahaha

 

[the_randomizer]

that's what emulators and patches are for

A turd polished in gold is still a turd

Edit: The Snes versions with the GBA translations and other QOL hacks are superior.

 

[Gozaburo]

I would love to play all of these games but they have to be in one collection for Nintendo Switch.
I don't like playing any game on my pc or phone. I hate it when companies only focus on the Asian market

 

[Missing Number]

Eh stopped reading a few pages back, much argue!

IMHO i don't think this is gonna be the perfect one, in a few years we'll get a perfecter one and a few years after a more perfecter one. Its all money to em lol.

If they dropped a game at $10 100% original version, and then released mods for it that let u hotswap various areas of "perfection" then maybe people will be happy.

BGM : 1990
Overworld : 2000
Battle background : 2000
Character sprites : 1990
Town/dungeon : 2020
Battle music : 2010

Blah blah blah.

Then dissidia that and let u go into further detail. Want weird hair cecil? White? Long? How about color customization. Today cecil will be a rocking pink locks.

But somehow even that won't be enough lol

I must say tho, more than graphics, I'd like QOL stuff like organized spells and stuff, tied up plot threads, mod support, multiplayer modes like... in ff6 when we have split parties... each person controlling their own group.

But a dreamers gotta dream.

 

[ZachariasBarnham]

I just find it strange that this isn't being ported to every console known to man. I'd pass on it either way since I have other ways of playing them, but options would be nice.

But why would they tout a Bestiary and Music Player as new features? I am confused by this. Those are not new, they were in almost every version of the game. The only way I'd consider these games is if they at least had all of the GBA content. PSP content would be nice but I don't expect much from this release.

 

[Lunos]

There's no reason why the games in this collection shouldn't come out on PlayStation, Xbox and Switch too.
There's also no reason for them to miss the contents added in each game's GBA and/or PSP versions.
These are visually better than the older mobile/PC ports, in my opinion, but they're still not as good as they should be. Hard pass.

 

[mightymuffy]

Well I didn't watch their e3 - rather spend that time having a wank or similar, so this thread is the first time I've seen screens... they wanna charge how much for this?! And here we've got some geezer showing us the new pics of FFVI, which look almost as butchered as the mobile version, while trying to tell us it looks better - haha, yeah I'm gonna pass on this one! Terra looks like they've took the mobile version, presumably thinking that's the one we wanna see, and pixelated it ...just wtf...)
PS1 for I & II, and pretty much original versions for the rest (VI especially: why they treat such an all time classic in almost the same way they treat Secret of Mana I'll never know.. SNES with QOL's all the way there!)

 

[smf]

Please explain how you would "recompile 6502 to C++"
You don't compile machinecode to a programming language, it's the other way around.

Recompilers take machine code as their input.

https://www.pagetable.com/?p=48

My understanding of some of the snes to gba and some of the sega conversions is they use a static translation of the original code into something that runs directly on the target. Without anyone having to reverse engineer the game.

And why would they? Square Enix would be far better off using the Wonderswan source again with heavier modifications, atleast for 1,2, 3. They have that sourcecode.
But it looks like these are built in a different engine altoghether.

What do you mean "looks like"?

My guess is that SE has and engine that are capable enough that they can use it to recreate all 6 games relatively easy. and they probably have documentation for have 1-6 are supposed to work.
I mean these are games that have been remade many times before.

That is also possible. What you can't say is that it has to have been done that way.
It wouldn't take long to take the nes code, turn it into c++ and reskin it (similar to how emudx did it http://www.excellentcontent.com/emuzone/ez119.htm for emulation).

 

[vincentx77]

Recompilers take machine code as their input.

https://www.pagetable.com/?p=48

My understanding of some of the snes to gba and some of the sega conversions is they use a static translation of the original code into something that runs directly on the target. Without anyone having to reverse engineer the game.



What do you mean "looks like"?



That is also possible. What you can't say is that it has to have been done that way.
It wouldn't take long to take the nes code, turn it into c++ and reskin it (similar to how emudx did it http://www.excellentcontent.com/emuzone/ez119.htm for emulation).

FFS, they are not using NES code. It would be a colossal waste of time given how often all of those games (except FF3) have been ported, it would be far easier to use one of the newer versions as a code base or just to start from scratch. FF1 would let party members target dead enemies. Also, FF3 isn't even that complicated, and in order to make it feel more current with QoL upgrades, it'd be easier just to script it fresh. All they really need are the formulas for the stats/damage calculations and everything else is plug and play at this point. With that foreknowledge, a team of professionals could remake these titles in their sleep (and based on the way some of these new sprites look, that's exactly what they're doing). Why they didn't use the PSP versions as a starting basis for how the graphics should look, I'll never understand. Then again, it's Square. The better it's received, the more they want to fuck it up.