The technical aspects of this game are shocking. I expected either one or the other of dated rendering quality or bad performance, but to get bad performance even _with_ the lackluster visuals is a bit unbelievable.
Some of the extracted 3D models of bosses and other enemies have literally millions of triangles, so it's no wonder why this game is an unoptimized mess.
@@AgsmaJustAgsma not an expert by any means -- but doesn't modeling software have retopology tools that can at least do some of this work with little effort? op is right tho -- getting unreal 3 looking graphics with sluggish performance on gen 9 consoles is kind of impressive
It still isn't feel good. Vss IMO is decent in games above 60 fps or in the 60 to 55 range but drops below that are still felt and it can't fix the loading or other microstutters this game seems to have.
I laughed well when I saw the framerates wobble between 20 and 60 all the time. It's what Richard would call "all over the place". Catastrophic technical performance.
One day PS3-era graphics are going to be en vogue like PS1-era graphics are now, and we'll all look back at how Stranger of Paradise was ahead of the curve.
I wonder why the released it like this. Does it take a lot of work to make the low poly versions? Or did they not know they were supposed to do that? (I seriously doubt it's the latter)
@@giannis_tar yeah making low poly models is an optimisation step takes a good amount of time so that the models still look good. As you can see in the series s environment models in the video they didn't bother to do it well and relied on same low poly models made for last gen.
@@GAGPaliathere's plenty of middleware to autogenerate the lower quality with generally somewhat adequate results. A further pass is required to polish at that point. If your starting mesh is quads, you should be using a tesselation modifier during the modeling/sculpting, and have a low poly essentially for free though. Zbrush, Maya, 3ds max, blender, softimage, etc, the standard workflow gives you a great starting point for the low poly and have tools to simplify polygon reduction.
really hope for more coverage of the game, especially on PC! the port leaves me absolutely baffled, some explanation of the ports issues would be great. how such a port was acceptable in modern times is unbelievable to me
When a game has graphics and tech implementation that dates back to 7th gen consoles... you'd expect the PC system requirements to be low. But that's not the case here..
@@khaledm.1476 They also have the balls to charge higher prices for their garbage PC ports and also making them exclusive to a store that hardly anyone likes. SE absolutely need to get their collective shit together.
This game was most likelly made for the newer gen, but in the very early development someone said this must run on previous machines. And we have this mess
I dunno, but it seems japanese devs are simply behind the times, they were great during the ps2 era, but for some unknown reason they don't follow latest tech achievements
@@misha90two I disagree Capcom and Kojima are keeping up. Team Ninja just sucks and hasn't made a good game since Ninja Gaiden Black on the original Xbox.
I love the combat, and actual difficulty options. I also literally have had to walk closer to my TV to make out whether there's a door or other opening in a dungeon.
I would love an even deeper dive into the graphics techniques used in this game, because based on watching this, it sounds like the first game in literal years to use such obviously 2 gen old graphics techniques. It'd be interesting to see a deeper dive to see how this shit is even possible lol. Didn't they make Nioh 2? If so, did they not use better tech in it? If yes, how the fk do they downgrade their game so much in the interim? Was it being developed before even Nioh 1 or something? None of it makes sense.
My theory is this was an abandoned game by SE around 2013 and they asked team ninja to finish the game for them since they are known for doing good combat.
People who think this looks worse than the Nioh games and like PS3 games, have delusion issues. Look at actual PS3 games. It doesn't look like this lmao. Nioh games look like trash compared to this. All the environments in Nioh look abysmal.
I wonder how much the character models were downgraded for last-gen... you'd think they could leave the environments as-is if they lowered the character detail enough. They could literally reduce the geometric complexity by 99%, and it could still look fine in all but extreme close-ups. (18K for a boss, 3K for small enemies, and what, 10K for a protagonist?)
What must development arrangement between Team Ninja and Square have looked like? Square sends TN their impossibly high-poly meshes, having learned nothing from FFXIV 1.0, and TN tries in vain to get them to pare back the detail?
I just finished Horizon: Forbidden West and its hard to believe these games came out on the same generation, with that said, its still a lot of fun. The job system and affinities are pretty cool systems
Such a fun game but it really feel like should have come 1 or 2 generations ago. Combat is exceptional, Team Ninja's strong suit. However, this is certainly their worst performing game given the hardware they were working with.
I got my ps5 when this was out as a demo and I decided to download it. The image quality was to poor that I thought the demo was streamed to me via cloud. It's so unbelievable how bad this game looks.
I know exactly what you’re saying. I just played the game for the first time today and literally spent the whole evening testing whether either my TV or my PS5 had malfunctions. But no, it’s just the game 😵💫
Bruh the series S version is absolutely unacceptable. I play on that console and definitely won't be picking up this game. There is zero excuses for the texture quality to look straight out of an xbox 360 game (a console with only 512mb of ram!!!)
@@JudeTheRU-vidPoopersubscribe Yeah, Series S graphics are horrible with this game. What makes it worse is that it’s actually a really good game from a gameplay and combat point of view 😣
The current Team Ninja is a far cry from the original Team Ninja. Back then, the original team's games were state of the art on every single game they made. I miss you so much Itagaki and team!
nostalgia is a hell of a drug. Ninja Gaiden 2 in particular stairway of FPS death says hello. Im sure your Itagaki love also made you run out and buy Devils Third day 1. state of the art KEKW indeed.
@@deebee3867 If you even remotely knew what happened during NG2 development, you would've understood the situation at hand and why it turned out unpolished for the first time in his career. And for Devil's Third, he had no fund backing of a publisher like Tecmo and the game had to switch engines multiple times. What did you expect?! If you look pass the surface, you'd see a fun multiplayer game within. So yes, I did enjoy the multiplayer on the Wii U.
@@SuperPatinator Just because they are in the same universe as Ninja Gaiden doesn't make them better. I did play them. In fact. II play everything made by both old and new Team Ninja, including this Final Fantasy Origins, which is based off of a modified Nioh combat system. Some design choices of these games, both visually and gameplay wise make me roll my eyes. I'm not going to go into details. If you're a Team Ninja fan since the very beginning, you can easily identify the problems with these games.
this game makes me appreciate how much of nioh 1 + 2 "dialog" boils down to an akward stare, a grunt, and a head nod, where most actual talking is just someone telling the main character a recounting of offscreen events.
They purposefully simplified the story from Nioh 1 I think, that's why the dialog is like that in Nioh 2. Dark Souls doesn't even have dialogue, as long as the gameplay is solid it is better to have a simpler story. Doom 2016 is also praised more than Doom Eternal because many argue that simpler story fits Doom games better.
I got shocked when I saw no mention of what's wrong with the cutscenes and some npcs causing that to happen in this video, and if DF can somehow explain that, I'd love to see it.
@@LSK2K Why shouldn't he worry about both? He's not receiving this game as a present, he's paying for it and if a company gives a defective, disappointing or underachieving product compared to others on the market for a similar amount of money then he should speak up.
It's sorta sad how Team Ninja used to be at the very forefront of rendering. Dead or Alive 1-3 and Ninja Gaiden on OG Xbox were absolutely stunning games, and honestly NG and DoA3 look fantastic to this day. But then the PS3/360 gen came around and they just couldn't keep up
Ninja Gaiden 2 looks pretty stellar though. Still looks great today when played in 4K on the Xbox One X / Series X. Anyhow, Team Ninja has been on a fail streak ever since Itagaki & company left Team Ninja. I don't even care about the graphics, the gameplay just isn't quite there. Even Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 feels less responsive to control than the original Ninja Gaiden 2 and that's outside of the fact that they made the Sigma 2 version signifiantly worse in most ways. Hayashi, the new director, seems to love his 1-hit-kills. Make 1 little mistake and you're dead, that philosphy is in nearly every game they make. Meanwhile Itagaki's vision still allowed players to recover from mistakes like that. Ninja Gaiden 2 for the Xbox 360 on Master Ninja is still harder than the Sigma 2 version, without the cheap 1-hit-deaths. The Sigma 2 version feels like you're playing on normal... except enemies have a lot more health and you'll die in 1 grab or projectile attack.
@@thenonexistinghero Sigma 2 is a travesty and certainly made me skeptical of Team Ninja and Hayashi's chops after Itagaki left. But I really like Nioh, I think it's a shame to dismiss it just cause it's not like Ninja Gaiden.
This is straight up embarassing. Square are probably getting used to being a meme at this point, but it's sad to see Team Ninja struggling this badly. And this is a game with FINAL FANTASY in the title. They really didn't give a sh!t, did they.
Weirdest thing is, if the image quality were better, I'd say there was merit to capitalizing on techniques from gen 7. There's some unique merits to those less realistic rendering techniques if you bump up the quality. But as it is... it's just so artefact-ey...
They licensed My Way, it's pretty clear the game had at least some budget if the devs were able to convince SQEX to shell out for what must be one of the most expensive songs to license. It seems more likely that no one really managed the funds very well - plenty was clearly spent on marketing the game as well. I mean, we got a sick ass camp experience out of it so I'm entirely satisfied, but it does feel a little ridiculous that they couldn't get it running well.
While it definitely had technical issues, I found the game fun enough that I was able to overlook them and have a really good time with it personally speaking, really enjoyed the combat.
I’m kinda tired of giving games a free pass for being “fun enough.” I agree, the game is fun, but technical shortcomings are becoming way too common/frequent in recent releases.
@@teddyholiday8038 I totally get that. The idea that Elden Ring will probably never be fixed because it's already successful infuriates me. But I also remember a lot of games that looked great and weren't fun, and I regretted those purchases more.
Koei Techmo is a Japanese company that has old gaming business models "If we have an old engine that we can still use just use it." The only thing they work on is combat and models. But their models seemingly came right out of blender with millions of triangles. a huge oversight that is killing the performance
I think the graphical and performance issues were on purpose, just to be consistent with the chaos theme they have within the game. But seriously the only positive things about this technical chaos, is that makes a hell of interesting video and perhaps gave Digital foundry a fun Field Day, into looking at the technical side of things.
While the game is technically disappointing, it is actually pretty fun and the setup is interesting. I'm about 30 hours in on ps5 and while I wish it looked better, I'd have to admit I'm enjoying it a lot all the same.
Who would have known that graphics aren't everything in a game, and that enjoyment (gameplay, etc) is the important thing? Current gen of gamers think its all about graphics.
@@Bahamut998 yea, except this was made by a aaa studio not an indie developer. To present their product like this is a no-no especially on the current gen.
A lot of times people say "oh that looks like a ps2 game" and it is usually exaggeration. This looks like a ps3/360 game, and it actually looks quite a bit like one. I still havent gotten to playing this game(i intend to because I enjoy FF in general) but i cant deny the look of the game isnt a bit disappointing.
What is most bizarre is I thought I already saw a DF tech review of this game. To think this isn't even in the launch version, but a version with a patch or two applied.
So my take away from this video: PS5 got the PS3 version, Xbox Series X got the Xbox 360 version, and Xbox Series S got the PS2/Original Xbox version. If I were Team Ninja I would seriously be embarrassed by this game.
The technical aspects of this game are quite surprising. I expected either one or the other of dated rendering quality or bad performance, but to get bad performance even with the lackluster visuals is a bit shocking.
The game is fun with a very enjoyable gameplay and it is a love letter to Final Fantasy fans in references. That said, it really technicaly poor. I've been playing on PS5 1080p mode because for me it the one with the better graphics / performance ratio. The forest level is specially poor, it hurts the eyes to see.
@@kylerobinson6102 I mean besides the disappointing visuals and performance, the game is great. Has a pretty compelling story that really ramps up near the end, some loving tributes to previous Final Fantasy games, and a phenomenal and deep battle system. So I think the reviews it got were very fair.
@@dominicsawicki6943 I’m gonna have to buy a copy of it when I can afford to work one into the budget. It’s certainly got a couple of issues, but overall it does look fun. I love Team Ninja.
to make things even worse this game has 70+ GB file size which was also unfortunately the case with Nioh and Nioh 2. Team Ninja really sucks at the technical aspects of their games
I haven't seen a game with anywhere near as bad textures as this on series S. Man go have a look at forza horizon 5 every single texture looks fantastic.
Honestly most of the game looks great on Series S, I played it on XSS and never really stopped to think "Gosh that looks bad!", I even had to boot up the game and go check out the pillar and lamp post for myself because I was like "wait what?" so it's honestly pretty easy to miss the poor textures if you're having fun with the game, and as there's no footage here from beyond the first third of the game, I wonder where else later on there's textures that are that starkly bad. The XSS version absolutely doesn't need to have textures that low quality, but I didn't even notice them, so unless you walk at the slowest pace you can throughout the game, the game does great at putting you into the feel of the areas and not having the low quality of the textures get in the way.
The game is a ton of fun but I have to say I was really disappointed when the ps5 visual issues didn't get patched on day 1 of release following the early access period. I'm holding out hope, so I've decided to put the game down for now, see if there's any additional visual flare to enjoy alongside the title and if it doesn't come within the next month I suppose Ill just keep playing it. Awesome breakdown btw DF
I recommend start watching from 15:06 to have a better understanding, the analysis video was a mess like the game itself between so many consoles and modes that I lost track of everything and I got confused.
His analysis isn't even accurate and leaves out several measurable facts like simple saying *"both PS5 & XSX target 4k"* ? The VG TECH channel also notes that the resolution does not change on the Series X when switching to Quality mode. It drops to the same ~1652p as the Performance mode, while on the PS5 it drops to at least 1944p (but very rarely drops to this value and stays at 2160p).
I was really looking forward to this as I still have my NES copy of FF1 and have played every version of that entry released in the west (Origins PSX, Dawn of souls GBA and the anniversary edition on PSP). After playing the demo on my PS5 I was shocked at how outdated every part of the game was, my spouse looked up at one point from a book and asked what PS3 game I was playing now! I had been replaying Resistance 2 and Demons Souls on PS3 at the time so she simply presumed this was another PS3 title from my back catalogue. Honestly the game looks like a poorly upscaled PS3 or even PSP title at times with certain textures and background elements. Add to that the fact that there are no towns or world map to explore and the town npc's seem to just be place holders to infer more depth that isn't delivered on in any way. This is a pathetic outing for Team Ninja and really doesn't deserve to be considered a reimagining of a beloved classic like Final Fantasy 1. If only this had been done with the same engine and care as the FF7 Remake. Personally I'll continue to go back to PSP turn based iteration of FF1 whenever I desire a dose of nostalgia regarding the beginning of one of my favorite franchises. Currently I'm playing through FF2 on PSP which is the best version as they fixed the ridiculous de-leveling of stats and most of the wild imbalances from previous versions, honestly a great options if you're looking for a charming and rather beautiful pixel art style turn based JRPG.
Its not a reimagining of FF1. Its a prequel to FF1. That doesnt excuse how poor this game looks and performs but its not a remake or reimagining. Its not supposed to be the new version of something that already exists. Its a new game that exists on its own. Yes Performance and Graphics suck but you won't get the "story" or experience in another game. Its this one alone sadly.
Its probably already mentioned in the comments but HDR cant be disabled ingame on the PC version like it can on the console ports, exacerbating the lighting issues in some areas like the crystal tower
It's definitely procedurally optimized for lower spec systems. You can tell. Probably Simplygon or InstaLOD with very aggressive percentage optimization settings.
Love the content. Can’t wait to see Skywalker saga coverage. Hoping to see you circle back to dying light 2 with its updated 1440p 60fps Xbox series x and 60 fps series s version.
Yeah id like to see an updated look at dying light 2. On series S there is a weird problem in the 60fps mode where if kill and loot bodies the game will judder and drop to the mid 40s for a second then suddenly bounce back to 60fps. Doesn't always happen but its very noticeable when it does. Seems to get worse after 2 hours of play.
The edges around the characters hair shimmer and blur and look runny if that makes sense? how can I fix that? this is during the cutscenes, is 4k mode better than performance mode?
I am absolutely baffled by this release. Especially the fact the PS4 Performance-Mode favours 720p. That's a resolution I've last seen in active use back on the PS3...
Also with HDR off game looks way better on resolution not quite much under performance hope they can get some of those small technical issues resolve by 1st DLC
I honestly think it might be locales. I love the Nioh series a lot (especially Nioh 2) but the levels are literally nothing but Japanese buildings and caves. The one stone and castle level in Nioh (the first level) honestly looks like ass but most people don't think much about it because you see it 1 time unless you're a hardcore player doing everything in the game. I legit just don't think their engine can handle more exotic models and such. Personally the only level in Stranger that didn't strain my eyes was the FFX level, but, it's literally just a snowy mountain path so about as simple as it gets. Compare that to the FF9 level which is a very fairy tale looking forest with big bright flowers, thorn walls, and such... It literally gave me a headache. And I say all that is someone who greatly enjoyed the game. It's a damn good more casual spin on the Nioh formula.
The VG TECH channel also notes that the resolution does not change on the Series X when switching to Quality mode. It drops to the same ~1652p as the Performance mode, while on the PS5 it drops to at least 1944p (but very rarely drops to this value and stays at 2160p). Obviously, this game is much better optimized on the PS5 than on the Series. But yesterday I saw a test of one game - a new Lego game, and there is exactly the opposite situation - it is much better optimized on Series X than PS5 😂
I remember when team Ninja was kind of the bee's knees in the Xbox original generation in terms of graphics. Heck Ninja gaiden black held up, in my opinion, well into the PS3 360 era. It feels like they never really got past that phase of technical prowess with only minor updating since then. You hate to see it. I think it might be time for them to just abandon whatever they use internally and take a hyper light jump using another engine and then customizing it to their needs. (Said this about a lot of studios lately. Proprietary engines are becoming too much of a hassle it would seem.)
I’m upset I bought this game for my series S with screens that look good and state it’s 4K 60fps only to get nasty models blurry backgrounds and crappy grainy textures… this game is a technical nightmare to look at
All the time, assuming "the baby" is "Chaos". Hey, someone should do a face-off video comparing the environment geometry and texture resolutions of this game to Metroid: Other M!
A game that looks this bad has no excuse for running like garbage. Spider man can run at 60 fps on PS5 with more advanced graphics. I'm not gonna excuse this for a final fantasy game. This is amateur given the studio and the money to develop this game. They can do better.
Could you guys please cover The Skywalker Saga? I can't remember a Lego analysis on DF and this is such a good occasion to do so. You could look at the original games as well ^^
Btw, Lego Skywalker Saga was probably best optimized game I played in last 2 years on pc. It looks amazing, no frame drops and not even make my gpu fan works on ultra.
I literally said this looks like a PS3 era game asside from the fx work and people were like just wait its still in development dont judge it yet etc..come on its piss poor on the technical aspects asside from geometric detail and barely even holds a candle to PS4 games let alone PS5.
Thank you Oliver. This is a very thorough and balanced analysis of the technical aspect of this game. I really like how you explored all the hidden modes and options here! Core DF team suggested that there could be no hidden performance modes on ps5 (similar to PS4 pro in 1080p resolution )and that the image will just get downscaled from the rendering or output resolution. But you proved them wrong😀
The VG TECH channel also notes that the resolution does not change on the Series X when switching to Quality mode. It drops to the same ~1652p as the Performance mode, while on the PS5 it drops to at least 1944p (but very rarely drops to this value and stays at 2160p).
Gotta appreciate how much time and effort is needed for such a video! Oliver and Tom are my favourite DF crew members now: always to the point, less blah-blah and don’t make huge mistakes and errors like *some* members
How does it look so bad on Series S? I know that console isn’t as powerful as the others, but usually a resolution drop and maybe a few other things are more than enough to get it to work using the same assets, not tanking the detail
Looks to me like they started development for last gen, due to the whole "we've sold all our consoles! ..But only sold 10,000 games globally" scalper debacle, and then someone somewhere decided to just say "hey, ok how about we make this for next gen after all?" and just kept going.
I don’t know what all the criticism is about. This is one of the best last gen PS3/360 ports I’ve seen. Wait, this is a new game developed for current gen?
I got to a dungeon where I couldn't see SHIT! It's all dark. I saw this in Ninja Gaiden 3 - the collectors edition. I couldn't tell the difference between performance and quality. It was all dark.
Dynamic framerate full blast ! With (litterally) cutted edge LODs and light(ing). But more seriously, I'm shocked how they managed to release the game in that state.. they really need to work on technical and art aspect of their titles. Unless the engine is their ultimate nemesis, 'chao'tic to work with.
I actually quite like this 'dated' look, there's no reason why modern games have to chase realistic-looking lighting. I think it has a dream-like quality, though that's definitely influenced by my nostalgia for that generation of games. This reminds me a lot of Lost Odyssey (now there's a game that deserves a re-release...) in terms of visuals. That said, there's no excuse for that asset quality on the previous gen consoles or that performance on the current gen.
I played the demo of this game and it screamed JANK to me. I could not quite put my finger on why it felt so bad but this video just pointed everything out and I was like "Yep, that was it"
This game seems to be the perfect example of "a dead engine walking" as it seems underfunded, technically 10 years past it's prime and still horrendously demanding. Nothing is even remotely modern on the tech side, most of it looks ouright ancient while not designed around those limitations at all (there are many good-looking PS2 titles that far surpass Stranger of Paradise in the art department as those games were designed with technical limitations in mind). And while people call it a PS3 look, for me it looks far worse, especially on Series S, where it looks just unfinished, with textures basically not even rendering past their alpha model states. The game should NOT have been released this way!
It’s amazing to me that they somehow managed to tax a console that is more than 5 times the power of a ps4 yet looks like a ps3 game. It’s hard to forgive the visuals when so many games look better from the last gen.
I know it's been a few months already but I noticed you guys haven't covered World War Z's Switch port. It'd be great if y'all could take a look at it, its definitely the most ambitious port on the portable so far.
