With full talkie, HD graphics... It would be amazing!
I think it's a sure bet Lucasarts will do it because they can't leave the best one without speech. And I'm pretty sure the remake of TSOMI will be a success.
I just wonder how would they make the iMuse sound system work as well with digital sound.
Please, don't let them do it. In my opinion SMISE looked very... Ugly. I just have to say it. I just didn't find it Aesthetically pleasing AT ALL. While technically the original looks worse, it's just so pixelated that there's so much left to your imagination that it even begins to look a little better. So I really, REALLY hope Lucasarts does MI2:SE more like CMI. Because I honestly got a little depressed after seeing what SMI:SE looks like. Screenshots of the game look like bad Photoshop quickies. I don't know if anyone else thinks this way, but this is just my opinion. Please leave the flamethrower alone.
Please, don't let them do it. In my opinion SMISE looked very... Ugly. I just have to say it. I just didn't find it Aesthetically pleasing AT ALL. While technically the original looks worse, it's just so pixelated that there's so much left to your imagination that it even begins to look a little better. So I really, REALLY hope Lucasarts does MI2:SE more like CMI. Because I honestly got a little depressed after seeing what SMI:SE looks like. Screenshots of the game look like bad Photoshop quickies. I don't know if anyone else thinks this way, but this is just my opinion. Please leave the flamethrower alone.
I have to admit that I do not like the character design choices in SE.
Guybrush looks like an idiot, and so does pretty much everyone else.
For my tastes at least.
If SMI:SE looked like that concept art picture (?) from MI above, then it would be a lot better, and I really hope that MI2:SE if it every gets made looks a bit more like its original counterpart, style-wise.
While technically the original looks worse, it's just so pixelated that there's so much left to your imagination that it even begins to look a little better.
So, the special edition looks worse because you can pretend the original looks better?
...
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go blast off into space with my cardboard box. It's so much better than anything NASA could churn out, lazy bastards.
^What I'm saying is I prefer the original.
Though most of the backgrounds were pretty good, and some were pretty much perfect. It looked like a collage. And I have no idea why they would pre render Guybrush - Where they short on time? Honestly, I'm no Bill Tiller, but I bet I could paint a better Guybrush. It looked hurried. The only character that looked good was the grumpy store owner. In my opinion, instead of shading the characters, they should have just painted little shadows where appropriate.
I think making a special edition of MI2 may prove to be much more difficult that it seems. The picture in this thread might look nice right know but how about in 1680x1050 widescreen resolution?...I don't think so.
Even if the original drawings where available and rescanned to much bigger resolutions I'm not sure they would still be as good as people are expecting them to be. The artists who painted them were aware that they would be scanned in 320x200 resolution so I'm sure they weren't really painting details that would not show up anyway. But this lack of detail will certainly be noticeable in higher resolutions.
MI1 graphics were drawn mainly with a paint software (afaik) and lacked the amount of detail MI2 graphics had. The artists that repainted them had much more freedom and it was much easier to make them look better. MI2 on the other hand has a very distinct visual style which was captured by the original designers and it would take much more effort to redesign them faithfully and even then I don't know if they would stand up to the originals. I really hope Lucas Arts attempts to make a MI2 special edition and finds a way to have the best result possible.
Given time SMI:SE will be near universally accepted much like CMI was despite the initial fan hatred of the style.
Hm I don't know...
My main issue is with Guybrush. He looks kinda like the cliché idiot from a sitcom, with a stupid expression. And don't mention the hair >_<
What I mean is, look for example at Elaine:
She looks fairly intelligent and Elaine-y, even in that style, so it's not that I don't like the style, I just think they messed up Guybrush horribly.
I think a certain level of intelligence or wit should be visible on someone's facial expression, especially when it's a character like Guybrush who likes to throw clever punchlines and is able to solve puzzles like using a monkey wrench to turn off a waterfall.
To be honest, the main downside of SOMI:SE is the character designs, I love the music and backgrounds and the voices!
Have to agree with this, I didn't hate the characters, but I think they could have been done better. Something closer to the style of MI3 would have been perfect.
Here's a few thoughts after really thinking about it.
The art style is pretty suited to SMI. Yeah, they messed up Guybrush (Which I blame pre rendering him for). They should n't have made the characters contrast from the background so much. It makes them look like they were pasted on top - And the fact that the animation frame rates are low make it look stop motion-y... I don't know... I'm not gonna say that it takes away from the feel of the game, because I don't really know if it does. I WILL say that the shading on some of the characters is very messed up (ex. Map guy). The backgrounds were good, but you can see that they were a little hurried here and there. Not bad, but could be better. What would I use for MI2, though?
Honestly, the feel of the game is much too different from that of SMI... So I would say that if they took the same route with MI2, it could end up looking sort of weird. How about hand painted backgrounds? But please, no pre rendered sprites, they look horrid. I don't really think they'd need to edit the backgrounds much - If you look carefully, they are slightly cartoony. Some people say that the style of MI2 is very realistic, well, to be honest, you can't really tell. The cover is realistic, but it still has a little of that cartoony charm. So I think they shouldn't take too much into their hands as far as the backgrounds go...
Have to agree with this, I didn't hate the characters, but I think they could have been done better. Something closer to the style of MI3 would have been perfect.
Please dont, I still cannot get used to the beanpole guybrush from part 3.
I think from all later monkey islands the fourth part had the best resemblance to the early guybrushes, despite the 3d induced limitations.
Well, I'd love to try and update the music for Monkey Island 2. I thought some of SMI:SE's tracks were a little too hollow though the the instrument quality was perfect.
This is what I would try with this swamp location.
Well, I'd love to try and update the music for Monkey Island 2. I thought some of SMI:SE's tracks were a little too hollow though the the instrument quality was perfect.
This is what I would try with this swamp location.
I agree that Guybrush in TSOMI SE doesn't look that great, especially because of the haircut, but you don't care too much after a while. The backdrops look like Flsh animations, but they are quite good nonetheless, even more if you compare them with the originals.
What I'm trying to show here is that MI2 SE would and should look much, much better. They must use hand painted art and if it is not exactly the same art as the one I show here, maybe they could hand paint even more beautiful backgrounds, maybe a little more realistic in style, but dark and moody.
And I would like Guybrush look like this one which I took from the scene in the dock in Phatt Island which shows a bigger and more detailed character, which I think along with Steve Purcell cover art for MI2 IS the definitive look of Guybrush and one that TOMI seems heavily inspired on.
I still like mine more though. Lol. You can see I added the blurry effect in close objects. And I like this Guybrush the best. I remind you that it's not my design. It's from MI2 original game. Strangely they used that Guybrush close-up to just one scene. They could have used it more.
I also read an interview from Ron Gilbert where he says he had to cut about 5 close up animations so he could fit the game in a reasonable number of floppy disks. I wonder if that extra stuff could made it to the Special Edition.
And, this thread is better, because it is in this lovely site! lol :-D
By the way here is an extract from an interview with Bill Tiller, the brilliant artist who made the original backgrounds from MI2:
<Zaarin> Monkey Island with those high-res scans they showed on the site a while ago would be nice.. )
<Bill Tiller> I did rescan MI marker backgrounds in high res and they actaully didn't look good at all belive it or not
<Bill Tiller> the problem was that all the flaws and mistakes and rough marker lines showed up in highres and it made it look noisey and messy
<Bill Tiller> I think they look good in low res because all those rough elements don't show up or get blurred out
<Bill Tiller> Monkey Island 2 was all marker
<Bill Tiller> Monkey Island 1 was done with dpaint and amouse
<Bill Tiller> Monkey Island 2 was markers on marker paper with some dpaint touch up
<manny_c44> Were those about the size of a postcard...or am I imagining that?
<Bill Tiller> no they were a bit bigger than that
<Bill Tiller> about 8 inches across and five high
<Bill Tiller> they look great in real life but the scanns just picked up alll the rough flaws
<Bill Tiller> I think they did the art based on the fact it was going to be low res so that is whay they wouldn't look good in highres
<Bill Tiller> I think if they were going to do it high res they would have done it on bigger paper
<Udvarnoky> Still though those original paintings look fantastic.
<Bill Tiller> steve and Peter chan did an awesome job, in fact I thought that for Monkey Island 3 we would just copy that style
As you can read maybe the original artwork wouldn't work at all. I always thought that it was made in watercolour painting. It would look amazing that way in high-res!
^ Agreed. Scans of the old art-work would look awful in high-res and widescreen. They would need to remake them in the old style, but perhaps with similar shading to the background in COMI.
I like that first image, very nice indeed... much better than the Guybrush they did for SOMI:SE... he's too tall and arched-backed in that. I guess they were trying to make it more consistent because he's been taller in the last three games but it just made him look weird!
I do not hate it. But I do think they did a sloppy job on a lot of the art.. I wouldn't expect that from professionals... BUT its not like its the ugliest game ever made either...
Here's a few thoughts after really thinking about it.
The art style is pretty suited to SMI. Yeah, they messed up Guybrush (Which I blame pre rendering him for). They should n't have made the characters contrast from the background so much. It makes them look like they were pasted on top - And the fact that the animation frame rates are low make it look stop motion-y... I don't know... I'm not gonna say that it takes away from the feel of the game, because I don't really know if it does. I WILL say that the shading on some of the characters is very messed up (ex. Map guy). The backgrounds were good, but you can see that they were a little hurried here and there. Not bad, but could be better. What would I use for MI2, though?
Honestly, the feel of the game is much too different from that of SMI... So I would say that if they took the same route with MI2, it could end up looking sort of weird. How about hand painted backgrounds? But please, no pre rendered sprites, they look horrid. I don't really think they'd need to edit the backgrounds much - If you look carefully, they are slightly cartoony. Some people say that the style of MI2 is very realistic, well, to be honest, you can't really tell. The cover is realistic, but it still has a little of that cartoony charm. So I think they shouldn't take too much into their hands as far as the backgrounds go...
The backgrounds in the SE are beautiful... that and the fact that it's full-talkie are the only really great things about it. I'd like to be able to have the speech with the original graphics... that'd be FANTASTIC.
I really like this mockup; it's pretty much how I would see the Special Edition looking. Though I wonder how they really would handle it. With SMI: SE it was easy to make it a bit pixelly and vectorish, but the painted style in MI2 is famous. I wonder if they would advocate updated painted backgrounds.
Basically, I think the background drawings of MI:SE look very good. What disturbs the most of all MI1/2 fans is the portrait look of most characters, in particular Guybrush.
I hope, they will allow a modding of these things and some cool coders (from scummvm?) can organise this. Or why not Telltale remodel it in 3D with their engine?
I don't like either mock-ups, but the latter is better. I think you need to take some liberties with the original sprite to make it look good at such high resolutions. I'm thinking that, should a LeChuck's Revenge come out, it would lean more towards the Tales version of the character. With the longer coat of LeChuck's Revenge and a more subdued head, but far closer to what you see there than on here.
This concept art from the "behind the scenes" video kind of falls in line with what I expect.
What I'm most worried about in a Monkey Island 2 remake is the music. It's the first to implement iMUSE, and to great effect. How would they be able to simulate this with live or sampled instruments?
I aint an artist but from a gamers point of view, if they made it like the pictures people have posted here, it would be waaaaay different than the art shown in the 1st game and it would threw me off. I wouldnt like it, because it wouldnt feel the same as the 1st game. One thing that i liked a lot about MI2, was that it felt like an extension of the 1st game. For a Special Ed. they would have to do exactly the same for me.
I would prefer they stick with the same guybrush now, not changed it. Also the guybrush in MI2 does some facial expression which its very important for me to convey and dramatize. I would be more worried about that. So even though i disliked the guybrush drawn in SE, i would prefer they made it the same style and more easier to animate in the facial expresions.
Rather Dashing - iMuse could definately be recreated - Considering what (amazing) softwares like Reaktor (and most of the stuff by Native Instruments) and Guitar Pro can do with a MIDI interface, I don't think that even iMuse 2.0 would be very far off. Though I bet it would suck up RAM like all hell...
Well, they should have been more careful when altering the look of a legend! It's not horrible but visually I think he has a lot less personality in the SE.
Well, they should have been more careful when altering the look of a legend! It's not horrible but visually I think he has a lot less personality in the SE.
It looks to me like he has *exactly* the same amount of personality as in Curse of Monkey Island. Granted it's a bit of a step down, but still.
(Note that this is referring to the character sprite/model/whatever and animation, *NOT* Dominic Armato's excellent voice work.)
It looks to me like he has *exactly* the same amount of personality as in Curse of Monkey Island. Granted it's a bit of a step down, but still.
(Note that this is referring to the character sprite/model/whatever and animation, *NOT* Dominic Armato's excellent voice work.)
Fair point
Regardless of what I think of the characters though I'm really glad they've done the SE and as you can access the original graphics the only real complaint should be directed at the fact that you can't have the voice acting with those classic graphics.
Comments
I think it's a sure bet Lucasarts will do it because they can't leave the best one without speech. And I'm pretty sure the remake of TSOMI will be a success.
I just wonder how would they make the iMuse sound system work as well with digital sound.
I have to admit that I do not like the character design choices in SE.
Guybrush looks like an idiot, and so does pretty much everyone else.
For my tastes at least.
If SMI:SE looked like that concept art picture (?) from MI above, then it would be a lot better, and I really hope that MI2:SE if it every gets made looks a bit more like its original counterpart, style-wise.
...
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go blast off into space with my cardboard box. It's so much better than anything NASA could churn out, lazy bastards.
Though most of the backgrounds were pretty good, and some were pretty much perfect. It looked like a collage. And I have no idea why they would pre render Guybrush - Where they short on time? Honestly, I'm no Bill Tiller, but I bet I could paint a better Guybrush. It looked hurried. The only character that looked good was the grumpy store owner. In my opinion, instead of shading the characters, they should have just painted little shadows where appropriate.
Even if the original drawings where available and rescanned to much bigger resolutions I'm not sure they would still be as good as people are expecting them to be. The artists who painted them were aware that they would be scanned in 320x200 resolution so I'm sure they weren't really painting details that would not show up anyway. But this lack of detail will certainly be noticeable in higher resolutions.
MI1 graphics were drawn mainly with a paint software (afaik) and lacked the amount of detail MI2 graphics had. The artists that repainted them had much more freedom and it was much easier to make them look better. MI2 on the other hand has a very distinct visual style which was captured by the original designers and it would take much more effort to redesign them faithfully and even then I don't know if they would stand up to the originals. I really hope Lucas Arts attempts to make a MI2 special edition and finds a way to have the best result possible.
Hm I don't know...
My main issue is with Guybrush. He looks kinda like the cliché idiot from a sitcom, with a stupid expression. And don't mention the hair >_<
What I mean is, look for example at Elaine:
She looks fairly intelligent and Elaine-y, even in that style, so it's not that I don't like the style, I just think they messed up Guybrush horribly.
I think a certain level of intelligence or wit should be visible on someone's facial expression, especially when it's a character like Guybrush who likes to throw clever punchlines and is able to solve puzzles like using a monkey wrench to turn off a waterfall.
Have to agree with this, I didn't hate the characters, but I think they could have been done better. Something closer to the style of MI3 would have been perfect.
The art style is pretty suited to SMI. Yeah, they messed up Guybrush (Which I blame pre rendering him for). They should n't have made the characters contrast from the background so much. It makes them look like they were pasted on top - And the fact that the animation frame rates are low make it look stop motion-y... I don't know... I'm not gonna say that it takes away from the feel of the game, because I don't really know if it does. I WILL say that the shading on some of the characters is very messed up (ex. Map guy). The backgrounds were good, but you can see that they were a little hurried here and there. Not bad, but could be better. What would I use for MI2, though?
Honestly, the feel of the game is much too different from that of SMI... So I would say that if they took the same route with MI2, it could end up looking sort of weird. How about hand painted backgrounds? But please, no pre rendered sprites, they look horrid. I don't really think they'd need to edit the backgrounds much - If you look carefully, they are slightly cartoony. Some people say that the style of MI2 is very realistic, well, to be honest, you can't really tell. The cover is realistic, but it still has a little of that cartoony charm. So I think they shouldn't take too much into their hands as far as the backgrounds go...
Please dont, I still cannot get used to the beanpole guybrush from part 3.
I think from all later monkey islands the fourth part had the best resemblance to the early guybrushes, despite the 3d induced limitations.
This is what I would try with this swamp location.
this was the original:
The Swamp Orig.
And this is the remake I tried:
The Swamp New
I tried to make it more like CMI... Sounds a little better.
Wow, this sounds really good.
What I'm trying to show here is that MI2 SE would and should look much, much better. They must use hand painted art and if it is not exactly the same art as the one I show here, maybe they could hand paint even more beautiful backgrounds, maybe a little more realistic in style, but dark and moody.
And I would like Guybrush look like this one which I took from the scene in the dock in Phatt Island which shows a bigger and more detailed character, which I think along with Steve Purcell cover art for MI2 IS the definitive look of Guybrush and one that TOMI seems heavily inspired on.
http://www.lucasforums.com/showthread.php?t=199144
Wow! Great. Thanks.
I still like mine more though. Lol. You can see I added the blurry effect in close objects. And I like this Guybrush the best. I remind you that it's not my design. It's from MI2 original game. Strangely they used that Guybrush close-up to just one scene. They could have used it more.
I also read an interview from Ron Gilbert where he says he had to cut about 5 close up animations so he could fit the game in a reasonable number of floppy disks. I wonder if that extra stuff could made it to the Special Edition.
And, this thread is better, because it is in this lovely site! lol :-D
<Zaarin> Monkey Island with those high-res scans they showed on the site a while ago would be nice.. )
<Bill Tiller> I did rescan MI marker backgrounds in high res and they actaully didn't look good at all belive it or not
<Bill Tiller> the problem was that all the flaws and mistakes and rough marker lines showed up in highres and it made it look noisey and messy
<Bill Tiller> I think they look good in low res because all those rough elements don't show up or get blurred out
<Bill Tiller> Monkey Island 2 was all marker
<Bill Tiller> Monkey Island 1 was done with dpaint and amouse
<Bill Tiller> Monkey Island 2 was markers on marker paper with some dpaint touch up
<manny_c44> Were those about the size of a postcard...or am I imagining that?
<Bill Tiller> no they were a bit bigger than that
<Bill Tiller> about 8 inches across and five high
<Bill Tiller> they look great in real life but the scanns just picked up alll the rough flaws
<Bill Tiller> I think they did the art based on the fact it was going to be low res so that is whay they wouldn't look good in highres
<Bill Tiller> I think if they were going to do it high res they would have done it on bigger paper
<Udvarnoky> Still though those original paintings look fantastic.
<Bill Tiller> steve and Peter chan did an awesome job, in fact I thought that for Monkey Island 3 we would just copy that style
As you can read maybe the original artwork wouldn't work at all. I always thought that it was made in watercolour painting. It would look amazing that way in high-res!
Bill Tiller didn't do the art on MI2 he did MI3
Oops. Then who did it? Steve Purcell? Whoever it was a great artist. MI2 looks incredibly even today if it wasn't for the limited resolution.
And sadly no more, Tiller's art style was awesome but now only appears in Autumn Moon games
Steve Purcell and Peter chan.
I do not hate it. But I do think they did a sloppy job on a lot of the art.. I wouldn't expect that from professionals... BUT its not like its the ugliest game ever made either...
The backgrounds in the SE are beautiful... that and the fact that it's full-talkie are the only really great things about it. I'd like to be able to have the speech with the original graphics... that'd be FANTASTIC.
I really like this mockup; it's pretty much how I would see the Special Edition looking. Though I wonder how they really would handle it. With SMI: SE it was easy to make it a bit pixelly and vectorish, but the painted style in MI2 is famous. I wonder if they would advocate updated painted backgrounds.
I think he's supposed to be a lil more squat...
I hope, they will allow a modding of these things and some cool coders (from scummvm?) can organise this. Or why not Telltale remodel it in 3D with their engine?
Best,
ret-law
This concept art from the "behind the scenes" video kind of falls in line with what I expect.
What I'm most worried about in a Monkey Island 2 remake is the music. It's the first to implement iMUSE, and to great effect. How would they be able to simulate this with live or sampled instruments?
I would prefer they stick with the same guybrush now, not changed it. Also the guybrush in MI2 does some facial expression which its very important for me to convey and dramatize. I would be more worried about that. So even though i disliked the guybrush drawn in SE, i would prefer they made it the same style and more easier to animate in the facial expresions.
Well, they should have been more careful when altering the look of a legend! It's not horrible but visually I think he has a lot less personality in the SE.
(Note that this is referring to the character sprite/model/whatever and animation, *NOT* Dominic Armato's excellent voice work.)
Fair point
Regardless of what I think of the characters though I'm really glad they've done the SE and as you can access the original graphics the only real complaint should be directed at the fact that you can't have the voice acting with those classic graphics.