Unkillable Cat
LEST WE FORGET
- Joined
- May 13, 2009
- Messages
- 28,476
Alright, finished the game...two more times. Once for the feel, and again to hear the commentary and re-check some stuff. (The game is really short when you know what you're doing.)
# The spinning vortex spins a little bit faster in the original graphics, but it's still much slower than it spun originally back in 1993. The commentary mentions that the vortex is created using color cycling, and is not an actual full-screen animated background (as those were nearly impossible to do back then). Still doesn't explain how they managed to break the effect in this version.
# Speaking of the commentary...how come it has so many typos? 'Upset' becomes 'upsite' and another word ending in '-ution' comes out as '-uiton', just to name a couple of early-game examples.
# The point I mentioned a couple of posts ago about Dr. Fred only being off to the side instead of off-screen is true: He's off-screen in the original 4:3 aspect, but in the 16:9/16:10 aspect he's still visible. That location is the only time something like this happens, though.
# I've been paying more attention to the music - it's just flat. It's like hearing the elevator muzak version of the DoTT theme at times. The commentary touches on this, including complaints about how they needed to scale back the music at points ("It's 32 kilobytes! That's too big!") but it makes me wonder why they didn't do more for the music.
# Besides the music, the sound in general is top notch. This is probably one of the highpoints of the Remastered edition.
# While the game has tons of options available, one notable absence is text speed. This means that there come times when a monologue is cut off abruptly while the text catches up, like Purple Tentacle's 'I'll get you meddlin' kids for foiling my plans!'-speech at the end. It breaks the flow of things a bit.
# As for puzzles, there are two problematic ones (IMO). The first one is finding the keys. The only way to find them is to be really observant of the background, then interacting with an object to bring them better into view. Considering almost every other puzzle in DoTT has plenty of hints for it, this one sticks out a little.
# The second (and more problematic) puzzle is the VCR. The idea is that you record Dr. Fred opening the safe, then rewind the tape and play it back in slow-motion to see the safe combination. All of this is done with a panel of VCR-buttons. First problem? Good luck for anyone under the age of 25 to solve this puzzle as VCRs became obsolete around the turn of the century. Second problem? The button symbols are wrong. Repeat after me: STOP is a square, REC is a red circle, to point out the fact that it will erase anything previously on the tape. In DoTT the buttons have the wrong symbols, REC has the square and STOP has the circle. This screwed up everything for me and I kept pushing the wrong button. This is also the case in the original graphics, making the problem even worse. If there's anything in DoTT that needed to be changed in a Remastered edition, this is it.
# One thing that did get changed is the letter Bernard receives from Green Tentacle in the intro. In original DoTT it's just some squiggly lines, in the Remastered version you can read the letter.
# Another small thing that got changed - remember the DoTT screenshot earlier in this thread that shows the laundry room and I commented on that one note on the wall? They changed that, now it's a "Cats 4 Sale" poster.
# Maniac Mansion is included, and it's the original release. I don't know how they're emulating the PC Speaker in that game (or the game itself for that matter) but it also sounds off.
Overall, this is about 95-99% faithful remastering of the game. If you haven't played DoTT and don't own the original release, then this is a solid buy.
# The spinning vortex spins a little bit faster in the original graphics, but it's still much slower than it spun originally back in 1993. The commentary mentions that the vortex is created using color cycling, and is not an actual full-screen animated background (as those were nearly impossible to do back then). Still doesn't explain how they managed to break the effect in this version.
# Speaking of the commentary...how come it has so many typos? 'Upset' becomes 'upsite' and another word ending in '-ution' comes out as '-uiton', just to name a couple of early-game examples.
# The point I mentioned a couple of posts ago about Dr. Fred only being off to the side instead of off-screen is true: He's off-screen in the original 4:3 aspect, but in the 16:9/16:10 aspect he's still visible. That location is the only time something like this happens, though.
# I've been paying more attention to the music - it's just flat. It's like hearing the elevator muzak version of the DoTT theme at times. The commentary touches on this, including complaints about how they needed to scale back the music at points ("It's 32 kilobytes! That's too big!") but it makes me wonder why they didn't do more for the music.
# Besides the music, the sound in general is top notch. This is probably one of the highpoints of the Remastered edition.
# While the game has tons of options available, one notable absence is text speed. This means that there come times when a monologue is cut off abruptly while the text catches up, like Purple Tentacle's 'I'll get you meddlin' kids for foiling my plans!'-speech at the end. It breaks the flow of things a bit.
# As for puzzles, there are two problematic ones (IMO). The first one is finding the keys. The only way to find them is to be really observant of the background, then interacting with an object to bring them better into view. Considering almost every other puzzle in DoTT has plenty of hints for it, this one sticks out a little.
# The second (and more problematic) puzzle is the VCR. The idea is that you record Dr. Fred opening the safe, then rewind the tape and play it back in slow-motion to see the safe combination. All of this is done with a panel of VCR-buttons. First problem? Good luck for anyone under the age of 25 to solve this puzzle as VCRs became obsolete around the turn of the century. Second problem? The button symbols are wrong. Repeat after me: STOP is a square, REC is a red circle, to point out the fact that it will erase anything previously on the tape. In DoTT the buttons have the wrong symbols, REC has the square and STOP has the circle. This screwed up everything for me and I kept pushing the wrong button. This is also the case in the original graphics, making the problem even worse. If there's anything in DoTT that needed to be changed in a Remastered edition, this is it.
# One thing that did get changed is the letter Bernard receives from Green Tentacle in the intro. In original DoTT it's just some squiggly lines, in the Remastered version you can read the letter.
# Another small thing that got changed - remember the DoTT screenshot earlier in this thread that shows the laundry room and I commented on that one note on the wall? They changed that, now it's a "Cats 4 Sale" poster.
# Maniac Mansion is included, and it's the original release. I don't know how they're emulating the PC Speaker in that game (or the game itself for that matter) but it also sounds off.
Overall, this is about 95-99% faithful remastering of the game. If you haven't played DoTT and don't own the original release, then this is a solid buy.
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