XIII Remake

Product Information

The XIII remake, when it was released in 2020, was a disaster. Players complained of poor AI, bugs, missing multiplayer and an art style that abandoned the iconic, cel-shaded look of the original. After almost two years of further work by a different developer, the remake of the XIII remake is now live.

So with the mainline series out of the way, it’s definitely plausible that we see more spin-off games make their way to the Switch in 2023 and beyond. The most likely candidate in our eyes is the Crystal Chronicles series, since we’ve already gained the first one in the form of a remaster.

Screenshots

We all know UE doesnt run well on Switch, I get why, It didnt really run well even on last generation consoles. So, if they are going this way then the Switch version can expect a lazy InstaLod middleware implementation to try deal with texture rendering and sluggish performance all round. To achieve the quality standards and offer an optimal gaming experience, Microids decided to entrust the development of XIII Remake to the French studio Tower Five ( Lornsword: Winter Chronicle ). Hard at work for more than a year on a major update for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC versions, the studio has also worked on the multiplayer content as well as the Nintendo Switch port of the game. This update, the multiplayer content and the Switch version will simultaneously be released on September 13 th . This remake shouldn’t come as a complete surprise, given XIII Remake’s extremely poor reception. Critics weren’t positive about the changes — it has a 33% average rating on Metacritic — and fans weren’t pleased either, giving it an “Overwhelmingly Negative” average review rating on Steam. On top of that, the remake was originally supposed to come out on Nintendo Switch. Big_Fudge"surely you have to take into account the work that went into the original game, not just the port" Yasuyuki Oda: “Yes, obviously if you have a Switch, you have a lot of our retro content, you can play almost all of SNK’s fighting games, and we investigated this issue even with King of Fighters XIV and even XV. One of the biggest problems with KoF is that you have three characters and you have to load all the resources between rounds and so on. It really didn’t go well with the hardware specs and the technical limitations of the Switch. It was something that really bugged us, we would love to do it and we are always thinking about it, but at the moment there are no plans."

Cult classic XIII received an HD remake in 2020 from developer PlayMagic. The project attempted to update the game for modern platforms, but it fell more than a little short. Which is why, just two years later, publisher Microids has announced that it has handed the game over to a new studio to give XIII Remake a remake of its own.

XIII News

The update also re-introduces online multiplayer for 2-13 players, a feature of the original game but not the remake. The news post on Steam also promises that the update enhances the AI, reworks the HUD and revamps the sound design of the remake.

Here's what SNK producer Yasuyuki Oda had to say in a recent interview with Gamereactor (courtesy of Google translate) - mentioning how as much as the team "would love to" release these games on the Switch, there are admittedly "no plans" right now: Paris – June 29 th 2022 – Microids is delighted to share that a major update for the game XIII Remake as well as the Nintendo Switch version of the game will be released on September 13 th 2022. As a reminder, the game is the remake of the iconic cel-shaded FPS from 2003, and is the adaptation of the 5 first volumes of the Belgian graphic novel of the same name by artist William Vance and writer Jean Van Hamme. Microids and PlayMagic apologised for the state of the game in November 2020 and said they were committed to fixing its issues. At the end of 2022, Square Enix announced that Final Fantasy PIxel Remaster, a collection composed of revamped versions of Final Fantasy I through VI, would finally be making its way to Nintendo Switch, putting to rest many months of speculation from eager fans. It’s big news, as its release means that FF-loving Switch owners will soon be able to enjoy every mainline Final Fantasy game from the very beginning of the series all the way to the 12th entry, minus MMOPRG Final Fantasy XI.Watching the trailer above, the remake does look better than it did before, although I'm still surprised that so much effort has been put into revising a remake to a game that was just-okay when it was released nearly twenty years ago. The combat system is where the game has lost people, and to be completely frank, it doesn’t get exciting until 10 hours in. That’s a long tutorial. However, it does provide a more strategic system that keeps you on your toes. Greysun Morales from Twinfinite, when I DM’ed him about why he likes Final Fantasy XIII, said, “The combat system isn’t technically amazing, per say, but it does create an inventive mechanic that keeps your team on the ropes and keeps the player thinking ahead. Instead of having those JRPG tropes such as a warrior and a healer, every character in the game was capable of pretty much taking on whichever role they needed to be, which I appreciated. You can even see these combat ideas take play in FF7 Remake too such as the staggering system.” Such a shame, I dont get why they couldnt have just embraced the original and touched it up with some nicer shaders and lighting.

We are fully aware and terribly sorry that the initial launch of XIII Remake on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC did not reach players’ expected quality standards,” Microids CEO Stéphane Longeard said in a statement. “A bit more than a year ago we took the decision to hire the studio Tower Five to finish the development of the game. Tower Five worked with us in the past, notably on the great port of Agatha Christie: The ABC Murders on Nintendo Switch. We really wanted to take the time to fix the game and offer owners of XIII Remake a free update paying the best possible tribute to the original game we all love.”

Overview

Many of SNK other fighting games such as Breakers, Fighter's History, Rage of the Dragons, Gowcaizer, Kabuki Klash, Ninja Masters, World Heroes, Last Blade, and Sengoku didn't make the cut to be in KOF. Even though there's a Hero Team, no characters from World Heroes ever appeared in the game. While the KOF series is non-canon to the mainline Fatal Fury and Art of Fighting series (as well as those other series that crossover), it is canon as its own separate series. Cel Shading, as far as I am concerned never actually reached its potential. We have had things that dabbled with perfection, but lagtely everything is about rebuild in new tech, because sales people from companies like UE, or even lower level, physics engines, like Euphoria, or PhysX, put so much focus on taking the latest iteration over actually solving problems like how to make their tech work on most systems. daveMcFlave I’m thinking XIV was more divisive as it wasn’t as fast as XIII and previous entries, they introduced a questionably designed new series protagonist, and the character modeling and lighting was not too great (poor Andy). XV definitely fixed a lot of things. Still not as fast as older titles, but the new game mechanics add a lot to the game.