Final Fantasy VII Echo-S mod demo released (unofficial remake)

[Sigourn]

I personally don't see the need. In a way, it's almost like thinking old black and white or silent films should be colorized and added dialogue into.

No. A quite ridiculous comparison.

I'd say it is pretty fitting. Both were a product of the time. You can't claim Final Fantasy VII looks bad just because you don't play it on a CRT. It's what it was designed for. When you increase the screen resolution to ridiculous amounts, any games will look bad.

Black and White movies do not look worse because of the current technology. They look the same, and some even better in HD.

They do look worse because of degradation. Funnily enough silent films were accompanied with live music, so while they were silent the showing itself wasn't.

It's not even the old 2D charm, it's an aggregate of color blur, giant pixelization and eye bleeds.

These are games with very low resolutions that had a "dedicated" monitor (a CRT). What's next? "GameBoy games look like shit because they look blocky on my 4K monitor"?

Even SNES games look awful when played at fullscreen in modern monitors, which is why I also use a CRT filter on them that makes the pixels less blocky.

 

[Transfiguring Roar]

is that treasure hunter g? i never played it.

Nah, different game. What blew me away about Rudra were the enemy sprites - they're animated.

Take a look (enemies at 33:40, boss at 39:00):



Edit:

The structure of the game is pretty interesting too. The story takes place over 15 days. There are three different parties you can play that run you through the story from a different perspective (you can select which party you would like to continue on with whenever you start the game up), and there's a fourth unlockable party.

The magic system is different too. You find syllables, if I remember correctly, around the gameworld, and you create spells/mantras by combining syllables.

I never finished the game, but it wasn't bad, if not quite FF6 quality.

Here's a two-part playthrough if you want to see more:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAe8Gbq4SZ8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVtz_F7Mfzs

 

[Sigourn]

Codexers will prosper but I like it like this.

 

[Jinn]

Hey, I know this is mainly a thread about aesthetic mods for FFVII, but I was wondering if anyone knew a good difficulty mod for FFVII PC they could recommend me. I know about New Threat, but it seems to go a little overboard with some of the changes. Anyone here try any difficulty mods out?

 

[aweigh]

Codexers will prosper but I like it like this.

Funny, my CRT TVs never showed any black lines like that. I've always wondered why CRT filters look nothing like what real CRT screens looked like. Why is that? I know professional CRT PVMs do show black lines like that but normal CRT TVs, which is what 99% of people used, didn't show them like in these screenshots.

 

[Steamboat Willie]

Funny, my CRT TVs never showed any black lines like that. I've always wondered why CRT filters look nothing like what real CRT screens looked like. Why is that? I know professional CRT PVMs do show black lines like that but normal CRT TVs, which is what 99% of people used, didn't show them like in these screenshots.

I agree. A lot of them think darkening the screen by covering up half of it with black lines = CRT, when they don't really look like that at all.

Big discussion on this: https://forums.libretro.com/t/crt-shader-debate/19513/15

 

[Goi~Yaas~Dinn]

Funny, my CRT TVs never showed any black lines like that. I've always wondered why CRT filters look nothing like what real CRT screens looked like. Why is that? I know professional CRT PVMs do show black lines like that but normal CRT TVs, which is what 99% of people used, didn't show them like in these screenshots.

Even the best CRT filter will look like shit if it's being used incorrectly. Like the one posted by Sigourn. Because he's a filthy post-millennial.

 

[aweigh]

H-O-L-Y S-H-I-T

comparison shot using the settings I posted above.

This shot is from the article HunterK posted above. (https://vgdensetsu.tumblr.com/post/179656817318/designing-2d-graphics-in-the-japanese-industry 7). This is the Famicom version of Wizardry, displayed on a CRT using composite video. Notice how the composite artifacts actually alter the pixel colors and add more detail to the image.

This next image is an emulated image using the settings I posted. Although you lose some of the detail resulting from composite artifacts, the image is much sharper, cleaner, and the colors are much better. It’s a trade-off, but one that is well worth it, IMO. It’s sort of a happy medium between composite video and raw pixels on an LCD. (As always, click once to open image, right click and select view image, then click once to zoom to full size). Display backlight will need to be increased for the second image (I have my backlight set to 100%).




wizardycomparison.png1536x1120 7.34 KB

UNBELIEVABLE!!! I never imagined so much detail was lost when going "raw pixel", in this case going from composite (as originally intended in this image) to going to a "clean" output. WOW. I'm quite taken aback. It's not that composite is better, obviously, it's that the original art was designed with the way composite presented the pixels, so when using a different king of output IN THIS SPECIFIC EXAMPLE a ton of detail is lost. Look especially at the brown robes! It's a COMPLETELY different image!

This guy, Nesguy, really knows his stuff. His filter is amazing! The 2nd picture show, as he says in the quote, is of the NES version of Wizardry using his custom filter that's meant to recreate how the game looked on CRT screens via composite. It looks fucking amazing, a perfect blend of CRT presentation and modern sharpness. Just fantastic.

EDIT: BTW, this also goes to show that using a filter that simply adds black lines all across the screen is completely worthless. It does nothing to recreate the original artwork.

 

[Goi~Yaas~Dinn]

H-O-L-Y S-H-I-T

comparison shot using the settings I posted above.

This shot is from the article HunterK posted above. (https://vgdensetsu.tumblr.com/post/179656817318/designing-2d-graphics-in-the-japanese-industry 7). This is the Famicom version of Wizardry, displayed on a CRT using composite video. Notice how the composite artifacts actually alter the pixel colors and add more detail to the image.

This next image is an emulated image using the settings I posted. Although you lose some of the detail resulting from composite artifacts, the image is much sharper, cleaner, and the colors are much better. It’s a trade-off, but one that is well worth it, IMO. It’s sort of a happy medium between composite video and raw pixels on an LCD. (As always, click once to open image, right click and select view image, then click once to zoom to full size). Display backlight will need to be increased for the second image (I have my backlight set to 100%).




wizardycomparison.png1536x1120 7.34 KB

UNBELIEVABLE!!! I never imagined so much detail was lost when going "raw pixel", in this case going from composite (as originally intended in this image) to going to a "clean" output.

WOW. I'm quite taken aback. It's not that composite is better, obviously, it's that the original art was designed with the way composite presented the pixels, so when using a different king of output IN THIS SPECIFIC EXAMPLE a ton of detail is lost. Look especially at the brown robes! It's a COMPLETELY different image!

This guy, Nesguy, really knows his stuff. His filter is amazing!

EDIT: BTW, this also goes to show that using a filter that adds black lines all across the screen is completely worthless. It does nothing to recreate the original artwork. I can also guarantee you that a game like FF7 won't benefit from some black line filter.

The waterfalls in Sonic 2 will blow you away then. Or the "magma haze" of Earthworm Jim. Now you know why people like taxalot sound so foolish when they say CRTs never mattered: on the contrary, proper display of some graphical effects lives or dies by recreating their artifacts (so you don't have to deal with the agony of some fuckheavy box).

 

[aweigh]

Yeah I saw the Sonic waterfalls in some Digital Foundry videos. I learned there what dithering finally was, as I've wondered what the fuck dithering was ever since the days of playing BG2 and messing with the options.

I'd never seen something as crazy as the way those brown robes changed from CRT/composite to how they looked in HD. With the waterfalls you can still tell that it's just a missing graphical effect, and the waterfall itself still presents just fine, you still know exactly what it's supposed to be, however with the robes they literally go from "these are robes" to what in HD looks like "this is an 8bit representation of some robes".

EDIT: The fact that it was a Wizardry example also helped sell it to me hehe.

 

[aweigh]

Is that Nesguy's filter only available on RetroArch?

 

[Goi~Yaas~Dinn]

Yeah I saw the Sonic waterfalls in some Digital Foundry videos. I learned there what dithering finally was, as I've wondered what the fuck dithering was ever since the days of playing BG2 and messing with the options.

I'd never seen something as crazy as the way those brown robes changed from CRT/composite to how they looked in HD. With the waterfalls you can still tell that it's just a missing graphical effect, and the waterfall itself still presents just fine, you still know exactly what it's supposed to be, however with the robes they literally go from "these are robes" to what in HD looks like "this is an 8bit representation of some robes".

EDIT: The fact that it was a Wizardry example also helped sell it to me hehe.

I see in your post edit you also picked up on another fundamental: avoiding the amateurish mistake of overdoing scanlines and shadow mask. I've seen more screenshots ruined by that kind of bullshit than you'd believe; a good rule-of-thumb is "if you can notice either in the middle of a playthrough, they are TOO DAMN HIGH". Both should be extremely light-touch effects that you have to literally stop play and stare at the screen for a second to discern. If you can notice them any quicker or easier, you've fucked it up.

 

[aweigh]

Just saying that I never once remember seeing black lines over the screen while playing gamez on my TV.

EDIT: Yeah seems like that guy's filter is for RetroArch only. It's called zfast+nomask.

 

[Goi~Yaas~Dinn]

Is that Nesguy's filter only available on RetroArch?

It wouldn't surprise me, filtering of that kind (practical instead of horrible bullshit like SuperEagle or HQ4x or whatever abomination is popular for maiming pixels this year) is one area where RA is truly ahead of the curve. It's the one thing I honestly can't criticize them on: they have active members who know their shit on this. Another area that's seen astronomical amounts of weaponized autism brought to bear is developing a "canonical" NES color palette (it's fuckloads more complex than you'd think, and very obviously matters since we're talking about how every damn color in a game is rendered).

 

[aweigh]

Yeah i saw the importance of the NES palette in some My Life In Gaming video. The debate between what color Mario's skies should be was quite enlightening.

Hey, Great Deceiver , what's your go-to CRT filter options and/or what's your opinion on that Nesguy's filter as shown in the comparison screenshot I quoted, of the NES Wizardry sprites?

EDIT: Man, seems I'll have to use RetroArch if I want to use filters like the one from that Nesguy. I've avoided having to use RetroArch for a long, long time now... was hoping I'd never have to use it.

 

[Goi~Yaas~Dinn]

is that treasure hunter g? i never played it.

Nah, different game. What blew me away about Rudra were the enemy sprites - they're animated.

Take a look (enemies at 33:40, boss at 39:00):



Edit:

The structure of the game is pretty interesting too. The story takes place over 15 days. There are three different parties you can play that run you through the story from a different perspective (you can select which party you would like to continue on with whenever you start the game up), and there's a fourth unlockable party.

The magic system is different too. You find syllables, if I remember correctly, around the gameworld, and you create spells/mantras by combining syllables.

I never finished the game, but it wasn't bad, if not quite FF6 quality.

Here's a two-part playthrough if you want to see more:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAe8Gbq4SZ8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVtz_F7Mfzs

An important caveat: the most often used translation patch for that by Gideon Zhi has a gaping bug that bends the game's mantra damage formula over a table and practically assrapes it incontinent. You may want to try the unfinished beta update on the dude's website he never got around to releasing (I don't think it ever got uploaded to RHN as a consequence of this status, either). It was going to specifically address this.

 

[aweigh]

Because it's impossible to replicate a CRT on an LCD. A pixel on my LCD is one color. A pixel on my CRT is composed of three colors, which means a single pixel on my CRT has more detail that would need to be replicated on my LCD. crt-royale tries to fake this, but even the alleged RGB that forms a single pixel is composed of multiple pixels on the shader.

i just spent the last hour or so reading thru CRT shader threads in that libretro forum and it seems even more daunting than before.

i did learn one thing though: a lot of the more popular shaders from retroArch have been ported over to ReShade, which means I can go on a bit longer without having to use RA.

I still think your screenshots of FF7 look wrong though, those two shots just look like normal Ff7 with a black matrice of lines overlayed on top. However a lot of the screenshots in this thread ( https://forums.libretro.com/t/please-show-off-what-crt-shaders-can-do/19193/31 ) look amazing:

Great_DragonMember
Dec '18
Recent changes for Beetle PSX which brought Super Sampling have fixed a lot of issues with inconsistent resolution and bad mixing of 3D and 2D objects.

But I would like to showcase you how well 3D and 2D objects can be merged just by using a shader preset without losing details. This is my shader chain for PSX I presented previously with some minor adjustments:

ia_black_level = "0.100000"
ia_R = "1.050000"
OverlayMix = "0.500000"

Final Fantasy VII (USA) (Disc 1)-181218-212623.jpg1600x1200 1.08 MB

Final Fantasy VII (USA) (Disc 1)-181214-010642.jpg1440x1080 920 KB

Resident Evil - Director's Cut - Dual Shock Ver. (USA)-181218-212549.jpg1600x1200 1000 KB

Resident Evil - Director's Cut - Dual Shock Ver. (USA)-181218-212445.jpg1600x1200 1.11 MB

These shots of FF7 and RE1 look amazing. Maybe a bit too blurry, I would sharpen them up a bit, but most importantly they look like CRT without having visible black lines. The blending of the 2d and 3d is fantastic.

 

[Sigourn]

This is a long discussion, but whatever.

It seems that most shaders are created by either looking at photos of CRTs or by looking at a CRT in person and trying to “eyeball” it. While the latter approach is superior to the former, it’s still inferior to an approach that starts with a sound conceptual understanding of what a CRT screen is actually doing to the image, objectively, along with an understanding of what it is about CRT screens that enhance the objective image quality for 240p content.

I can agree with this.

Yes, I understand that maybe your crappy low quality TV from the early 90s may have, in some ways, resembled these shaders. The question is, why are you trying to replicate a crappy TV from the 90s instead of a high quality CRT from that era?

I cannot agree with this. And that is because Nesguy is literally contradicting himself in just two paragraphs.

• If we agree that looking at a CRT is objectively the better approach over watching a picture... then how the hell would I know what a high quality CRT from the era looks like, short of having one around myself? Because I know pictures are a mistaken representation: taking a screenshot from my CRT and taking a screenshot from my LCD emulating Vagrant Story and using crt-royale actually gives me a very similar image.

He then rants about nostalgia, but ultimately it's less about nostalgia and more about what feels true to us. To me, a lot of CRT shaders I've tried feel extemely fake because mine doesn't look like that. Or better said: I don't like them because they look like shit, whereas my CRT is very pleasant and so are those crt-royale pictures (well, as pleasant as they can reasonably be unless someone comes up with a better shader).

I've taken the trouble of grabbing some high quality photographs of my CRT and my LCD. They show a fundamental difference: the pixel size. Note that these pictures have been taken from the same distance.

Look at the size of the pixels on my CRT compared to my LCD. Note, also, the size of the pixels in my FFVII screenshot opened in paint (second picture), it's the huge black square. The pixels are trying to fake the CRT phosphors, but there's no subtitution for the real thing.

As for what you posted aweigh;
I have a CRT sitting right next to me. If you ask me, that Wizardry screenshot with a shader looks nothing like my CRT. It is how it is: I don't claim crt-royale is a perfectly accurate representation of a CRT, just something I like (I like it much more than that Nesguy's shaders, to be frank, which I think look like crap, and RetroArch has equivalent shaders I don't use for that exact reason). I will tell you my CRT doesn't look anywhere like that because I don't see individual pixels in my CRT, I see one continous, seamless image.

 

[Sigourn]

Also people who post on that thread without posting the shader they use should literally kill themselves, they are worse than those who ask the solution for a technical problem and they reply themselves saying "nvm fixed it".

Like I said earlier though, it ultimately boils down to personal taste. There's no one "correct" CRT look.

 

[Rahdulan]

More likely than you think. Apparently releasing in 5+ days.
https://www.tsunamods.com/echo-s-7/

 

[Ash]

Voicing Cloud? Removing the original soundtrack by Nobuo Uematsu?

That's a yikes from me

All optional pretty much, so you can select what you like. And you can pick the remaster of the original.

But then what is the point of the mod?

not forcing you to install it. Also just spreading the word. It ain't my work or whatever.
Remade models,enhanced music and in improved background art is for me already a win.

If these modders think that the original music needs to, or ought to be replaced, then they have no business touching the original work at all. What other things have they touched, I wonder.

The only thing this game needs is hi res backgrounds, aspect ratio/resolution support, and bug-fixing.

Regarding music: obviously Uematsu's talent is irreplaceable and you gotta be out of your mind to think doing so is a good idea. HOWEVER, there is one exception in all FF games: the goddamn battle music. Sure it's fine in each game, catchy even, but it is repetitive as fuck, and that's a fact. It's a stain one of the strongest aspects of this series. But it shouldn't be replaced, just a bit more diversity added, by using unused tracks or recycling other music in the game for consistency, as long as it fits and isn't overdone.

As for what the game "needs", lol it needs a difficulty boost. I will never stop recommending the FF7 Hardtype romhack as the only mod to bother with (which itself includes a few bugfixes).

As for the trailer above....lol comedy genius. Better than the voices in FF7Remake at least. Doesn't have the constant anime grunting for one.

 

[coldcrow]

My mod list:

 

[OracleX]

no Ninostyle models?
Also I would recommend these WIP Field textures:
https://finalfantasy.german-syslinux-blog.de/FF7/

My modlist:
# 60/30 FPS Gameplay
# [Tsunamods] Finishing Touch
# Cosmos FMV (30 fps)
# [Tsunamods] Wizard Staff
# Cetra Project Enemy models
# [Tsunamods] Cetra Project - The Weapons
# Battle Textures Tsunamods Avalanche Arisen 1k Battle Scenes 1.0
# [Tsunamods] SYW V5 Battle Textures
# Final Fantasy VII HD Field Scenes - DDS Files
# [Tsunamods] SYW V5 Field Textures
# [Tsunamods] Enhanced Stock UI
# ESUI Controller Addon
# Gameplay - Qhimm Catalog
# [Tsunamods] SYW V5 Minigames Textures
# Minigames - Qhimm Catalog
# [Tsunamods] SYW V5 Spell Textures
# [Tsunamods] Bonez' Avatars
# Borderless FF7
# APZ Cloud Fix
# Field Models - Non Player Characters NinoStyle compatible
# Ninostyle - Battle Models
# Ninostyle - Chibi Field Models
# Ninostyle - HD Field Models
# Ninostyle - minigames
# NinoStyle - Vehicles
# Ninostyle - World Models
# Symphonic Remasters: Redux
# [Tsunamods] SYW V5 Worldmap Textures

I wont be using Echo-S tho, I care not for the added voices, but kuddos to their team.

 

[coldcrow]

I didn't dive too deep into ff7 mods, so I used the ones the 7thheaven tool was offering, plus symphonic remaster, which is bonkers.

 

[Gilius Thunderhead]

More likely than you think. Apparently releasing in 5+ days.
https://www.tsunamods.com/echo-s-7/

Everyone involved in this should be euthanized.