12 people found this review helpful
Recommended
0.0 hrs last two weeks / 322.0 hrs on record
Posted: 15 Nov, 2018 @ 3:45pm
Updated: 1 Dec @ 5:57am
Product received for free

Here's the scoop: I got into closed beta testing for this because I love my original copy on Gamecube, but cannot quite enjoy it all that much today with the low resolution, frame rate, disc swapping, load times, limited save space and being boxed in on all the wide screen formats I have (no 4:3 hardware left here).

So I did not technically receive it for free. All the hours you can see here are beta testing to make sure it has the quality I want. I received/retained it as compensation.

I enjoyed every minute of it and with so much time in it learned to appreciate the very well tuned mechanics even more than before. Compared to other games they are odd, but still very good.

Now, I'm gonna assume you already know and/or can find details on the original game content itself, since this is a port.
(you'll mostly find high praise for the original)

So instead of regurgitating that here I'll just break down the significant changes/features of the port.

pros
  • original 4:3 support
  • entirely new wide screen support, this is especially juicy for the video cutscenes - but also tons of other scenes you won't ever get in wide screen from an emulator
  • 60 frames per second
  • higher texture resolutions in several places
  • fully customisable mouse/keyboard/controller bindings (you can take functions apart that are on the same button in the original)
  • mouse aiming with sensitivity setting
  • sound/cutscene/music volume settings
  • new exit game option to get back to the main menu
  • new quick heal input
  • new quick swap shortcuts to change personas without the pause menu

There a few things to watch out for as of now though:

cons
  • reload animations are still partly in 30 frames per second (more have been updated to 60 with patches though)
  • all the new settings are only available in an external configuration tool (can be launched from the game options and via F11 at any time, but you cannot operate that with a normal controller)
  • the graphics settings boil down to full screen/windowed, wide/original aspect ratio and antialiasing - the window can be resized, but there are no resolution settings for full screen, that defaults to your native resolution
  • some legacy issues with models and texturing remain unresolved

Nothing to detract from recommending it though :)

update

Patched in after release (some of these used to be cons):
  • dead zone setting for the gamepad
  • cloud saving
  • more high resolution textures
  • unofficial free aspect support (add "Force169AspectRatio = false" to the killer7.ini)
  • Japanese now uses their region specific vial maximum
  • some more animations now use the correct frame rate
  • some randomisation now works as in the original
  • the moving subtitle shadows for wide screen have been removed for better readability
  • English now has brand new optional subtitles for all cutscenes
  • the tutorial and game prompts now support custom controller and keyboard bindings
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5 Comments
YinYin 15 Nov, 2018 @ 10:38pm 
Yes, just realised of course nobody is taking screenshots of those in the other languages, so there are no subtitles on all of them ... but I thought I saw some japanese player post a fitting example.
Danny Dataly 15 Nov, 2018 @ 10:33pm 
Oh you mean the animated cutscenes, I understand, thanks for explaining it to me
YinYin 15 Nov, 2018 @ 10:27pm 
You should be able to find some samples of that in the screenshot section of the hub. Or just get to the begining of the second target :)
YinYin 15 Nov, 2018 @ 10:24pm 
I am talking specifically about the video cutscenes - not the ones rendered in 3D (which just got wider).
Danny Dataly 15 Nov, 2018 @ 10:15pm 
I have a question
You review seems to imply that the 16:9 cutscenes would remove the red bars to properly frame the cutscenes as intended (in the original version, the red bars would effectively frame every cutscene in 16:9 already), thus the comment about subtitles showing up over the cutscenes themselves
However, when I play the game, wether I turn on foreign subtitles or not, cutscenes appear like this:
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1565995982
i.e. they will show more than originally intended on the left and right sides of the screen while keeping the red bars intact.
Did I miss an option somewhere or was this changed from the beta you played to the finished game?