GTA: The Trilogy - Definitive Edition

[Andrew NDB]

I'll be trying this out tonight.



So it's not as HUGE of a remaster as I'd prefer, but it looks dramatically better in many ways. People actually having fingers is a big boon.

[Leo656]

Hey, that looks pretty neat.

[CyberCubed]

It's coming out on Switch too. Ironic Nintendo is finally getting all the franchises it missed out on back in the day (GTA, Final Fantasy 7 and all the others, Devil May Cry, all the other Resident Evils, Crash 1-3, Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2, etc)

Yes it's all 20 years late, but better than nothing I suppose.

[Leo656]

Any word on how bad the soundtrack is butchered for any/all of the included games? That was one of my favorite things about those older games, and as I understand it, a huge sticking point in why they weren't re-released sooner and/or more often, the music rights being all kinds of complicated.

I guess at the end of the day it's not THE most important thing but a lot of my fondest memories of those games is still the music.

As for the graphical quality, there's only so much you can do without re-animating the entire game. You can add more detail to things on a surface level but the animation is what it is, and there's only so much you can do to improve that without re-doing the entire game(s) from scratch. I don't think that was ever in the cards.

I read a little bit and it seems like they added mission checkpoints. Hopefully lots of them. That's like the BIGGEST thing that keeps me from playing some of the older GTA games again. Especially that final mission in Vice City.

[Andrew NDB]

Jeeze... it's been so many years since I played until where I got stuck in all 3 games (different spots in each... definitely I got the furthest into San Andreas) I couldn't even say what the original songs were. I think "Country Roads" was in San Andreas, though. I believe the version I originally played of San Andreas was on X-Box for some reason. I remember back then and only on X-Box there was like a custom music station to where you could upload music to your X-Box and it would play it. Similar to the Smackdown games of the time, you could upload your own entrance music. I think this option fell off, though.

Starting to play the new GTA3 now. I'd already started playing the PS4 updated version of GTA3 that had been available for a few years now... yeah, didn't play for very long. Graphics sharpened to 1080p, but somehow this made everything look and play much worse. But THIS? This is very good. Driving around it kind of feels like the engine itself is a little dated and the AI of pedestrians and other cars is still stupid, but it graphically looks great and handles like GTA5.

[shredder orokusaki]

Are the graphics as good as most current games at maxed settings 2560x1440? or is it alittle improvement since it says that it is not a full remake? I dont want to be dissapointed to run a game with such bad graphics now!

[AquaParade]

Missing songs are a huge deal to me, but it's been long enough that I'm excited to go back and play one of these again anyway.

The double-edged sword is the fact that Rockstar's mission design has hardly evolved in two decades, so going back shouldn't be too hard. If you can play through RDR2, you can play these. RDR2 had an utterly great story though.

[Leo656]

The final mission in Vice City has always been the main reason I haven't gone back to it in ages. Too long, no checkpoints, and worst of all, random car AI where you could conceivably fail the mission dozens of times in a row due to sudden obstructions in the final race coming out of nowhere, forcing you to play the entire mission over from the beginning until every single thing goes perfectly your way and the game "allows" you to win.

I loved that game and played it to death, but that final mission broke me and once I beat it I never went back to it. Everything else in the game, I could deal with no problem. But THAT sucked. Some time later I read an interview with one of the developers and they admitted that mission was broken. Like "Yeah, sometimes cars will just randomly smash into you during the final racing section and you can't win, it's all pretty random and you can do everything right and still lose. We probably should've fixed that."

If they tightened up THAT whole thing, or at the least added a bunch of checkpoints to that one and some of the other mission, I'd love that.

[AquaParade]

Apparently the game is riddled with bugs and odd art design choices. Shame.
Rockstar seems to be going down a dark path. The Housers left the company, they've been relying on GTA online for way too long, and now they release these games with a ton of issues and missing songs which they could easily afford to pay for. Time for a new champion.

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by Leo656

The final mission in Vice City has always been the main reason I haven't gone back to it in ages. Too long, no checkpoints, and worst of all, random car AI where you could conceivably fail the mission dozens of times in a row due to sudden obstructions in the final race coming out of nowhere, forcing you to play the entire mission over from the beginning until every single thing goes perfectly your way and the game "allows" you to win.

I loved that game and played it to death, but that final mission broke me and once I beat it I never went back to it. Everything else in the game, I could deal with no problem. But THAT sucked. Some time later I read an interview with one of the developers and they admitted that mission was broken. Like "Yeah, sometimes cars will just randomly smash into you during the final racing section and you can't win, it's all pretty random and you can do everything right and still lose. We probably should've fixed that."

If they tightened up THAT whole thing, or at the least added a bunch of checkpoints to that one and some of the other mission, I'd love that.

There are lots of new checkpoints and the ability to immediately resume a mission instead of restarting, so you might be happy.

And man, I HATE racing missions. I really do. I'm terrible at them and they really aggravate me. I was happy that GTA5 made them all perfectly optional but I'm not looking forward to the mandatory ones in these, as I'm sure they still are.

Playing a lot of San Andreas today within this. I'm happy to say it really does provide the same kind of experience as when I did years ago, just updated to not feel SUPER dated. It works. Beyond dumb AI, the only things I find myself missing is tiny things from GTA4 and 5. But it handles like them now, for the most part, and looks fine on my 4K 70" in ways that all of the previously remastered ones for PS4 did not, or were made to look worse in.

[Leo656]

I'm not great at racing missions myself, but for some reason find them fun anyway.

My wife always really liked the gameplay of San Andreas, but she can't handle being assaulted with the N-word every two seconds. We can't remember if she ever finished it; I know I didn't get around to it.

[Andrew NDB]

Sure enough, I think I found exactly where I left off the first time. A mandatory racing mission in the countryside, one of Cesar's missions. It's virtually impossible. The car just slips and slides all over the dirt roads and I can barely come in third every time.

[Leo656]

I'm seeing tons of negative feedback for this. People are saying it's gonna need to be patched to hell and that everyone should just wait a few months until it's "fixed". Also that the disc release is going to be cheaper than the digital, but that even that release will also need a lot of patches. So basically, anyone Right Now is paying an inflated price to play the worst possible version of this game. Most of the complaints seem to center around San Andreas, specifically, but apparently they all have problems.

And supposedly all the original songs are in the code, but "locked" so they can't be accessed, and people are furious about that as well. Also something about needing to be online to play, which nobody likes or understands since these are single-player games from two decades ago.

Consensus seems to be that the graphics are prettier and the checkpoints make it easier overall, but otherwise it's got tons of bugs and glitches and frame rate issues and other wacky stuff. Like some things like bushes that you could just drive through in the originals are solid objects, now, which actively hurts some of the missions by eliminating a bunch of shortcuts people used to commonly use, just for one example.

I'm actually seeing a LOT of people saying "I don't care this much about the graphics, I'm just gonna hook up my PS2 and play these games properly." Ouch!

[Andrew NDB]

I can attest to the glitches. It's kicked me out about 15 times so far at various points and allowed me to send a bug report. However! When you resume the game, it sends you right back to the spot you were in before the glitch/bug. Like a secondary autosave. With load times being virtually 0 on PS5 it's only really a minor inconvenience so far.

Haven't seen any frame rate issues at all.

[Leo656]

I think calling it "The Definitive Edition" was a bit of a mistake. There's less content and everything besides the graphics is apparently only marginally better OR actively worse, depending.

We're gonna wait a few months and see what happens with it. My wife's annoyed but glad she didn't rush into buying it in its current state.

[Andrew NDB]

For me personally... unlike the PS4 remaster, it enables me to look at it for more than 20 minutes and not revulse away. Maybe a couple of songs are gone... I don't care. I'm having a great time so far.

But again. There is so many little things they could fix or improve but didn't. Like... they couldn't just add the ability to buy ammo and not just guns? Keep the clothes you buy at your house? Slightly better AI, at least? But it's fine.

[Leo656]

I've noticed that you seem to be, like, SUPER into graphics, though, just as an observation.

It seems like 99% of the effort went into making it look pretty, then they added a few checkpoints and called it a day. It seems like most people aren't satisfied with that, in and of itself.

More work was needed here, if the general feedback is any indication. I confess, the sheer number of "I'd just rather play this on PS2 again" comments I'm seeing is a bit surprising, but it would appear that a fresh coat of paint - no matter how slick - isn't the main draw for most people. They were hoping it lived up to its title in regard to more than just visuals. At least, that's what they say.

I don't think anyone expected a ground-up do-over, but the lack of more substantial improvements AND some things actually being worse, or removed (like the "cinematic" camera from San Andreas) has a lot of people upset. I think, that Rockstar thought, that just polishing the graphics would be good enough but it seems that's not the case for a lot of people.

Kinda sucks that buying any game on Day One nowadays is basically just you (the player) paying money to beta-test it. This obviously isn't the first time but it's a really lousy industry standard.

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by Leo656

I've noticed that you seem to be, like, SUPER into graphics, though, just as an observation.

Not really. Most of my enjoyment in general in video games can be summed up in "lost in the experience," and it is like on a sliding scale of graphics, SFX, acting (if applicable), and music. Like, the Final Fantasy series for example. Like, the SNES ones. I would be perfectly OK playing into infinity new FF games that look exactly like FF IV-VI (vs. everything after, which largely puts you on a rail and TELLS you what to feel). Maybe bigger, with more worlds to explore, bigger customizations, but that'd be fine. Ultima? I was perfectly happy with VII: The Black Gate. I'd love to see more in that vein forevermore.

It seems like 99% of the effort went into making it look pretty, then they added a few checkpoints and called it a day. It seems like most people aren't satisfied with that, in and of itself.

I suspect they will address these things one by one. I doubt Rockstar likes being embarrassed in this way. And you're probably right in that early players like me are "beta testing" this in some ways. But that's OK.

[Leo656]

Oh, definitely, patches galore will fix a ton of the issues I'm sure. I just wish this weren't the default state of gaming, now. I haven't played a game on launch day in ages, anyway, but more and more it looks like I never will again. Everything ships unfinished! Lame.

I saw a few people say the Switch version is barely playable, with horrible framerate issues, but I don't see why anyone would want to play this on that system, anyway. Still... Nintendo's career-long "streak" of having the worst version of any multi-platform game continues!

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by Leo656

Oh, definitely, patches galore will fix a ton of the issues I'm sure. I just wish this weren't the default state of gaming, now. I haven't played a game on launch day in ages, anyway, but more and more it looks like I never will again. Everything ships unfinished! Lame.

The argument the other way would be that this is awesome. Imagine all the sh***y unfinished (or like... close to decent) games we would buy on cartridge or CD way back. Now any game we buy is possibly redeemable via downloads. Or continues to get breathed into it new life.

Like "Animal Crossing: New Horizons." There was a just a big update after like a year or two. Now my daughter is suddenly sucked back into it as a result.

Though maybe that's a bad example, as that is literal new content. Bug fixes, improvements. That's the name of the game.

I saw a few people say the Switch version is barely playable, with horrible framerate issues, but I don't see why anyone would want to play this on that system, anyway. Still... Nintendo's career-long "streak" of having the worst version of any multi-platform game continues!

As with any Nintendo port of any "big" game that isn't a Nintendo game... I don't know why anyone would make a Nintendo system be their go to for it. Since always. Like a few years back, maybe during the PS3/Wii days. There'd be the PS3 version of a game, an X-Box 360 version of a game... then you'd have the dumbed down Wii version. I just know if I was a kid again and we were living in the PS3/360/Wii era, kids would be laughing at you for playing the Wii version of any game that wasn't like a Nintendo exclusive anything.

*edit: uh oh. They've zeroed in on this, too. Just read this "review":

"In contrast to those confusing changes, Rockstar decided to leave a GTA San Andreas mission where a character tasks you with hunting down an apparent gay man to hide a prior relationship with him, completely intact. It's not a good look for a remastered game in 2021."

No, it's a completely fine look for a remastered game in 2021, or 2584. It is set in the 1990s. But even beyond that... bad people do bad things. Always. In any year. Letting bad people do bad things isn't an endorsement of that behavior. F***ing stop it.