Assessment: The Walking Dead S1 (Collection)
Changes in Episode 1: A New Day
Audio: Mostly left untouched. Some lines have been remastered or otherwise improved, most notably with Glenn. The timers have been moved in cases where dialogue previously overlapped. Music is left intact with the exception of replacing all menu music and sound effects with those from A New Frontier. Volume seems barely, if at all, adjusted for any non-remastered lines.
Text: "To be continued..." has been offset to the right, probably for dramatic effect (imo, it works). Subtitles have been centered, changed in font to fit with Season Two onwards, and possibly slightly recolored. No news yet as to what non-English languages are included. The intro text is mostly the same, but the font is different while introducing Telltale. The "You are Dead" text has been yellowed.
Choices and Retcon(s): The choice stats format is akin to newer Telltale titles, but individual choices share the same episode-based screencap. The overall episode choice list shows that the first batch of episodes are now officially called Season One collectively. A patch in previous releases removed (hid) one of the energy bars used to gain favor with the other survivors; not only has that bar been added back in, but I think I may have seen an additional bar as selectable (which would make some sense - people you can offer the bars to are Lilly, Carley, Clem, Glenn, Duck, and I think Doug).
Assets and Lighting: The more important the character model, the more improved their textures are. Named recurring characters and stock walkers have higher-resolution textures on both heads and bodies, but lesser characters/walkers (ex. Sandra, Irene) have noticeably muddier textures. Light maps have been disposed of in favor of more realistic lighting, but it looked like there were some additional lights used for mood/visibility at some cuts. The overall palettes seem consistent with the original releases. Hair planes are still there, but ink planes used to replicate a drawn feel have been replaced with Season Two and Michonne's cel shader outlines. Props have been added to the environment, notably prior to the drugstore. QTE's do not adopt any changes from later installments.
Animation: What instant transitions in character models there are are glaring, but some transitional animations have been added, eyes are refocused in some cuts, and blinks have been added where they were lacking. Lee might emote more than in previous releases at some points.
Reference used: playthrough (PS4 version) by AFGuidesHD
Comments
I forgot to mention that there aren't any previews.
Why the fuck not I wonder? Granted, we get everything at once here, but I still don't see why the menu's has changed. Is rewind deleted as well? I suspect it is.
I guess the previews are kind of pointless now given the game has been out for years. At least that's a logical explanation.
Thank you for listing the main differences for us.
A more grounded explanation is that Next Time previews are a little bit too big and they would've had to split the episode into two.
Just too much content and we need that content to be contented within one sitting of content
Thanks for the breakdown. Interesting minor differences they changed (such as "To be continued" text) I don't find the "presented by Telltale Games" font to be very appealing. That just doesn't fit with Season 1 anymore. The removal of "Next Time On" sequences are disappointing as well. Sure, it's been a long time since the game has been out.. Sure, they aren't all representative of the events that come next.. Sure, they aren't needed, but those were the parts I loved most about it. It felt like a TV Show. Felt like this was just a part in something larger, and gave me something to look forward to. Seeing it gone is sad for me.
I checked the footage you mentioned, and the quality improvements look good. Lighting is better, things look cleaner, it looks.. good. But, because of the cleaner look, it removes some of the rough comic-art style the original had and I liked that style.
I would love to see more of the menu. Just want to see how everything is structured and how everything works now. Season 2's menu was fantastic, and so was Michonne. Now, they're gone.
Reviews are starting to come out, and... they're okay? http://www.playstationlifestyle.net/2017/12/04/the-walking-dead-collection-review-clementines-journey/
They improved it, so that's a good thing. Though as I expected, Season 1 is the best. All other seasons didn't have much of an improvement. Really wish I could get S1 separately.
That, I do find odd. I'm not a trophy hunter and don't care about my trophy points and all that blah, but it sounds like a really weird structuration for those who care. "Every episode gives you the same amount of accomplishment points, regardless if you managed to make it through all seasons. There's no gradual increase in trophy value, except for the Michonne series. That one is the most special to complete.
"
This, I was hoping for. Something extra. Something that proved that this was a celebration of everything that came before it and was a love-letter to the fans. Nope. None of that is here.
For once, I'm glad for early release footage.
Turned the music completely off for A New Day and there's still several spots with music lol. Just one detail I've noticed. And the TV remote glitch still exists. I was about to tell Doug about the remote and I haven't gone into the office yet.
You've made my day!
Thank you to everyone who replied and took the time to view this thread. I'd forgotten to mention that the achievements/trophies worked differently this time around, so I'm glad to see it mentioned here. (I also forgot to mention that Duck's eyes were retconned from brown to blue to show better that he's related to Katjaa.) And so this reply isn't a total waste of time:
Short Assessment of Starved for Help/Long Road Ahead (so far): Any changes made to SfH for the prior Vita release have been kept intact. The scene with the most animation revamps that I've noticed is the Lilly-kills-determinant scene. Besides the usual edits, it looks like models have been slightly repositioned and given additional/alternate facial animations. I've only seen the Carley variant so far, but I'll keep you posted if I see one for Doug.
While I've enjoyed it so far, it does feel a bit underwhelming. I also am slightly disappointed in the fact that the original S1 runs at 60fps on my PS4 and this seems to run at 30. Maybe even less at times.
The main menu is literally ANF's. I'm forgetting other things I wanted to note.
The Who came with you? screen is intact with the exception of the text being more in line with post-S1 installments.
They removed Take Us Back from the final episode and instead play the same terrible generic anf credits music. This is easily the worst version you can play TWD on, "upped" graphics or not. I'm dreading what they've done to S2. I absolutely loved the different colour schemes, credit songs and the atmosphere of the last image from the episode.
Just compare this [skip to 1:21:38]
to this
There's no contest. Imagine if they removed 'Where Is My Mind' from the ending of Fight Club. It wouldn't have the same feel that it does now. A remaster that removes things that were good from the original games... unreal.
God, I knew they had removed the first four episodes' credit music, but I never thought they would actually replace "Take Us Back" as well.
Props on your "remaster," Telltale.
It could be due to licensing issues, but yeah, I'm not fond of that change, either.
The scene where Lee grips his hand around the glass isn't present either (when he's fighting the walkers near the Marsh House) but his hand acts as if he's holding it... did they really remove that? I hope it's just a bug.
(skip to 49:00)
In the original:
(skip to 6:00)
I have noticed when Shawn gets bitten in the remastered version, you can’t see the bite. In the original Season 1, you could see it.
Also in the original Season 1, if Lee decided to help save Lilly with Larry, he dies, Kenny kills him and blood flies on Lilly’s. In the remastered version there is no blood on her face.
Telltale need to fix stuff like this, it goes to show that they are not even ready for The Finale Season. Hope they fix all of these on the next update, hopefully. Which they probably won’t!
A lot of the random graphical oddities seem like side effects from changing to a different branch of the engine.
Some things work, some things don't. Some blood effects don't appear correctly, yet others do. For example, when Travis gets killed at the very beginning of episode 2, the zombies rip out an invisible intestine... yet when Brie dies in episode 4, the intestines properly appear. Lee's bite appears normally... but the bite on Shawn's neck seems to be all messed up.
I imagine most of these would probably be simple fixes, at least in theory. Probably just a few lines of code not working, or something like that. Most of them don't seem like intentional removals of stuff... besides some genius replacing every piece of credits music with that ANF track
What happened to the glass shard in the walker herd scene?
Do you think there will be an update for this?
Wow I didn't get there yet but excluding Take us Back is a sin and they should be embarrassed. I can see past a lot of flaws but come on, there should be an explanation as to why you completely omitted that in favor of the generic credits song. I hope there's an update soon to fix the issues.
P.S.: You can find a fourth energy bar behind Carley now. In my original PS4 and PS3 versions you could not grab that one so I ended up giving it to Carley.
Since it seems like people just started using this thread to leave impressions, we might as well just make this the de facto discussion/assessment thread for the collection. Hopefully you don't mind me editing the thread title and stuff.
And to celebrate the thread's newly found purpose, here's a collection of various S1 screenshots
I understand why the Glass shard was removed. They changed those combat prompts to R2 specifically. Just one button to push. I remember in the original scene, you had your normal cursor (Up/Down/Left/Right on the D-pad, usual "action prompts" used Down) there was prompt Left and Right, one for the Butcher Knife takedown, the other for the Glass Shard. But now you can't do that with this control scheme.
They removed the "Previously On" segments as well? COME ON.
They also replaced "Take Us Back", or any other credit song with a single track??!
Man, this sucks. Removing or changing negative things in a remaster is fine. Removing practical or otherwise enjoyable things in a remaster is not what you want to do. For shame, Telltale.
I don't mind; I'm honored, actually.
I'm very upset about the songs in the credits being removed, and while honestly the removal of the glass shard isn't too bothersome for me since I prefer to cut off the arm, they were super lazy with the fact they just kept the animation with Lee walking into the herd with his hand clenched AS IF he's holding the glass shard.
the lack of blood stains sometimes is sort of ehhh as well, just noticed the cleaver Lee holds is perfectly clean as he approaches the herd in No Time Left.
No actually! I'm not sure how but someone had this menu (which looks like clementines house) :
Overall I like it. The environments are awesome and I like the more defined lines(like S2). However, some of the character models are a little iffy. And the fact that they removed the awesome credits songs is a crime. Seriously, what the hell?
TFW the original has less fuckups than the remastered, so the original is the remastered of the remastered.
Lazy tale strikes again/
Honestly can it be anymore obvious that this was one gigantic cash grab?
No.
Been playing through quite a bit and have found numerous things missing. Not sure is intentional or glitched. I could not have the conversation with Christa in EP3 that later lets Lee bond with Omid over history, in fact- I couldn't talk to Christa at all there.
In Episode Four, Molly talks about how people that couldn't pull their own weight were kicked out of Crawford. Normally, Clementine would ask what ''pull their own weight'' meant. In the Collection version however, Clementine does not ask and instead there's a weird silence before Molly and Lee continue speaking.
I will keep mentioning little differences like this as I find them, and there is the possibility these are glitches, which would still be pretty iffy since that never happened in the original version.
They are so many missing, dialogue, textures and animations and even items in The Collection. The fans and myself spot these missing things before the company do, this goes to show they really are not ready for The Final Season.
So essentially the remaster is buggier and has less content than the original copies. What the hell lol. This doesn't make me feel good about s4.
In my game, Lilly shot Carley in Season 1. In the flashback in No Going Back, whilst in the RV, Clementine says “Why did Lilly do that to Doug?” to Lee, even though Lilly shot Carley. Has anyone else had this problem? Also I had the Jane ending and the story gave the alone ending
Now, this isn't necessarily in defense of any of these bugs/glitches (they should be fixed, no doubt about it), but I imagine most of these are simply side effects to basically porting the entire game over to a new version of the engine.
Despite common belief, ports aren't usually as simple as "move all the game content from here to there". In fact, it's rare you'll see an engine malleable enough to handle a port without random bits and pieces not working correctly. If you went on youtube or something and searched around for various video game ports, you'd probably see a fair amount of nightmare fuel along the way. Remasters are a bit of a different beast than ports, but they both involve a change to their game's foundation-- the engine it runs on.
It's not so much that it's missing content. The content is still there. I imagine almost every graphical/art asset was indeed updated, and all the code bases for various scenes/elements should still be in the files. The problem is that something is stopping these elements from appearing/playing correctly. Base case scenario, it's a few lines of code using the wrong names or something like that. Worst case scenario, it's tied to a system that is no longer properly supported by the current version of the engine... say for example, the way the game renders a shadow or a particle effect. Game development is a very iterative process, and things can go out of date quicker than you'd imagine. And it's been 5 years since this game originally released (S1, at least). It's not out the question that they could have moved to a more efficient method that achieves the same result as an older method. Telltale's engine is... relatively outdated compared to where most software is as of today (and yes, I'm mincing my words here), but that doesn't mean improvements and changes aren't being made. Pretty much every developer will look for ways to improve their development pipeline, no matter the circumstances.
Now look, it would have been great if they put in extra effort to track down some of these issues. I don't deny that. But what they did do with this collection is still a relatively heavy undertaking, all things considered. You know how many textures and models and such are in this game? An upwards of 30 GBs worth across all available seasons. Around 4-5 of those gigs are dedicated to S1, and that's only the textures. Going through and upscaling and retouching most-- if not all-- of those assets? Well, let's just say it's not exactly a task that is easy to half-ass. Could they have done more? Sure. But it's not like they did nothing, either. Especially if you take some of the things they mentioned in that blog post a few weeks back. Making high poly versions of pretty much every character model, relighting almost all scenes throughout the series... to do any of that to begin with is commendable on at least some level. And all of that is besides the big change at play-- consolidating all games onto the same version of the engine. My point here is that yes, there's a lot of faults here that are worth calling out and things that should be fixed... but we can't act like that means there was no effort/dedication put into this at all. It just simply isn't the case. It sucks to see certain things that were changed, and I'm not exactly happy about certain things either (coughcough credit music), but the presence of those issues doesn't immediately erase the positive changes/updates that were made.
On a much more positive note though; if it's any consolation to you or anyone else in this thread, I put together and sent a list of bugs/glitches to staff a while back. There's probably a few lingering things that I missed, but I'm fairly certain I got a majority of them. At the very least, all of the major things. So, hopefully we'll see an update in the near future. With that said though, keep in mind that I'm just a volunteer, not staff, so whatever they end up doing is up to them.
I have the exact same issue clem even said in season 2 ep 3 that someone shot a women in the group (lilly shooting Carley) but in the flashback in ep 5 she still said:"why did Lilly do that to Doug".
I had the same
What's the fucking point of a remaster if there are already hd 60FPS games on next gen consoles?
The new engine is so shit and I hate it. I can't play ANF or Batman or anything properly because of the frame rate which is 30fps and with frequent lag. So why do they make this? To make some more cash? It's not worth the non-apparent effort. There are so many problems with this collection.
I appreciate you doing that regardless if they make actual changes or not but I'd hope so. So thank you.