Raise your hand if you forgot that the PlayStation 4 remake of XIII was coming out this week. Now, raise your hand if you forgot it even existed. We're willing to bet a large chunk of you would look pretty silly right now if your boss caught you on webcam via a Zoom call. Yes, the PS4 remake of XIII launched yesterday, and besides the fact it has fallen very much under the radar, it appears to be a bit of a disaster. As detailed by Twitter posts over the past 24 hours, you could hardly call this is a remake as it in the first place completely ditches the comic-book art style for something that resembles Fortnite.
But the disappointment doesn't stop there as glitches and a general lack of polish make a mockery of any quality the title could have. Check out the Twitter video below and don't forget that the remake was initially planned to release last year. Just imagine what sort of state it was in back then.
Did you buy XIII on PS4? What do you make of the changes to its art style and have you encountered any of these glitches? Share your report in the comments below.
[source twitter.com]
Comments 38
If they weren't maintaining the art style, what was even the point of remaking it. XIII is basically known for that art style.
I didnt forget and i was looking forward to it lol however Microids badly need a QA team after this and Blacksad
I was actually looking forward to this title.
What was even the point?. If the graphics and gameplay of a 17 year old game is going to be better than your new remake effort, don't bother.
A remaster may have been preferable.
By removing the cel shading or at least greatly lessening it, this game literally loses all of its artistic identity.
Still looks better than the Prince of Persia remake (which isn't a compliment by any account!).
I do not mind the new art style the original does not stand up well now but was good at the time. Not excuses for glitches and lack of polish though.
At least the shooting looks amazing and there are little ‘pew pew’ bubbles.
Youtuber Gmanlives did a great review on what makes this a terrible remake,
It really saddens me to see an artstyle massacred when the original managed to capture so perfectly the original bande dessinée (that's comics in French).
It reminds me of the attrocious Jump force artstyle that has nothing to do with animes.
That’s a shame, I’ve got fond memories of the original and was hoping the new game would be one of those “looks as good as you remember” ones even though it would in fact look much better. So... disappointment all round on that front.
Eh, the graphics are a total over reaction. It's about what I would expect from a remake of an old cell-shaded game, maybe it's because I was never a fan of that style that I don't care about that, but the latest cell-shaded style is Borderlands 3 and that is very toned down from the previous games, too. The rest looks trash, though. Focus on the right thing, people... Or perhaps I should say the things that are actually wrong.
A worrying trend...........just stick to making remakes like Hawks 1 and 2. It was the artwork that made 13 so special.
Am I crazy? I'm not really seeing much wrong here. I never played the original so maybe I need to look at comparisons, but nothing I've seen bothers me.
EDIT: I also really like the goofy death animations. The way the guard just slowly slumps onto the floor after being hit with the throwing knife.
And when it fails i guess there is no interest in the game. I think if its this bad you better cancel it the gameplay looks horrible. And those glitches bad animations ouch.
@AK4tywill Did you watch the gameplay? The insane amount of glitches?
"What would XIII look like if it were made in the Fortnite art style?"
This is a question the world does not need answered.
And it's £44.99 on PSN haha
I bought it and played it last night for around 4 hours. As a huge fan of the original I was excited for this and tbh I wasn't that disappointed. The graphic style is almost the same they haven't ditched the cel shading they have just modernised it and it looks good imo. I have noticed a couple of glitches but nothing major that I haven't seen in nearly every other game on day 1. The changes made to the controls and keeping the original audio and dialogue make this a good buy if you loved the original game but if you didn't play the original game you might want to avoid this one.
And it still has Adam West in it which is a bonus
Is that Patrick Swayze?
@Jayofmaya One of the reasons people love the game so much is its art style and visuals, removing and downgrading them takes away one of its biggest things.
@Jayofmaya The artstyle feeds in to the gameplay. You have visualised sound effects and a very comic book aesthetic. The cell shading helped immerse you in that experience. Trying to change the artstyle to a cartoony look, sounds very immersion breaking, and quite frankly, a complete misunderstanding of the artistial direction of the original game.
I liked the original, with its cool and quirky artwork, but am not going to buy this. It looks painfully awful.
@Steelhead my exact thoughts
Also was really, really, really looking forward to this game coming out. Never played the origional but have seen it and digged the art style massively. I cant believe they dropped it for this mess. One of the biggest disappointments of the year for me.
This game was on my buy list. Never played the PS3 version but the OG graphics looked cool. So the remaster took my interest. Not at £45 though!
So far the reviews seem negative, though is this mainly due to removing the cel shaded art style? You’d think they’d give you options to play the game in cel shaded or the modernised look they’ve gone for.
Are pushsquare intending on reviewing this?
Edit: Just watched gmanlives review on YouTube. Yeah this remake is terrible. Bugs, glitches removal of the comic book aspects (frames / panels) this game isn’t worth £45 or worth playing by the looks of it. A real Shame.
I remember being very excited for the original, but was sorely disappointed by the flimsy shooting and stealth mechanics. The comic panels were also just a gimmick and rarely enhanced the gameplay. French games in general feel very lackluster, but there is lots of potential.
@WallyWest To me, it doesn't look like a down grade in the character models. Different, definitely, but there are more details in the new ones.
@Richnj Fair enough. I vaguely remember playing a demo on one of those old ps2 magazine demo discs, but that's about all, just thought I'd say that there is quite a bit of detail in the models, so to say they look worse is something more subjective.
This looks somewhat worse than the original lol
Just because it was remastered doesn't mean they had to try to "pretty" up the artstyle. That'd be like Nintendo re-releasing wind waker, but it looking like skyward sword, basically changing one of the game's core identifying features.
@Jayofmaya No, the models aren't objectively worse, or bad. Just like I said, artistically and aesthetically, the cell shading did bring something to the table.
Looks like gta san andreas artstyle got changed to fortnite artstyle lol
I knew this would be dog.
@NEStalgia Indeed. Any interest I had in this was killed off completely. The art style is what caught my eye. It's gone now, and the world already has more than enough fortnight.
Looks like something I'd find on Itch.io for $2.
Also people were saying the Demon's Souls Remake is a worse remake that's a disservice to the original than this? Bruh.
Its a real shame. I imagine the fans of the original were happy hear the news it was getting a upgrade and brought to modern consoles so they would off been the buyers of the game but they seem to have forgotten the fans. The cel shade is what made it stand out from the crowd and without that it gets lost especially when surrounded by much better games
Do you remember how cool cel shading was? wtf happened to make the game industry despise it so much that now even a XIII remake doesn't really have it. All those Bandai Namco Shonen Jump games should be cel shaded and so few of them are.
Makes me so sad.
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