Personally speaking, I think NES upgrades look best when they retain the original pixel resolution and just add more color depth. Even just doubling from 4 colors per sprite to 8 can make a huge difference without losing the simplistic charm.
I think higher res upgrades can work, it just depends on how you handle it. Like the PSP remakes of FF1, FF2 and FF4 are generally heralded as the best versions of their respective games, for instance. It just needs to be well done pixel art, rather than looking like someone ran the sprites through a filter.
@@tamerkoh: Well, yes, and I would absolutely agree that the PSP FF's are absolutely gorgeous... shame Square never ported them. Sprite work of that quality, however, tends to be beyond the scope and scale of what most armature fan mods like these are capable of delivering with consistency.
@@EmeralBookwise Yeah they're still my favourite versions to play even with the Pixel Remasters, which I find rather ugly, lol. Mostly because they have the same issues going on as some of the graphics packs here: Style clash. They've got low-res 16-bit style sprites (with low-contrast shading, so everything looks flat), higher res 32-bit style spell effects and HD fonts, and it just looks a mess. There's also way too much screen space in the battles where both players and enemies alike look too small relative to the space given. Especially bosses that would otherwise fill the screen on the GBA or PSP versions, but are just tiny in the middle of a bunch of space on the PRs, lol. Honestly, I'd love to see FF PSP style remakes of all these old 2D pixel art games. Just comparing how much Cornelia from FF1 was brought to life from NES to PSP, or FF2's Bafsk, just really makes me wanna see other game worlds brought to life similarly with that kind of pixel art quality.
@@tamerkoh I totally wish that SE would have ported these and did 3, 5, and 6 like this for the pixel remasters instead of what we got. That definitely would have been the best imo.
Man, this is a fascinating scene I'm only learning about now for the first time! It is really weird to see these in action though; so many are bringing the visuals up to 16-bit (or _Master System_ - Sega FOREVER!) standards, but the bleeps and bloops are pure 8-bit NES stuff and it just feels like a mismatch, lol. Fun as heck though, and there's no denying the passion that's gone into these things. This was a real fun video topic, St1ka!
The beautiful Zelda textures come from the Broadcast Satellite (BS) Super Famicom games where you would download a game to your SFC and play it in 4 parts across 4 weeks in real time like they were live streamed. Its nice to see these graphics on a NES rom because it takes some digging to find good dumps of BS titles. Highly recommend
I am fairly certain that the first Castlevania pack shown here is supposed to replace the music with custom OGG tracks, like the second one does. In fact, when I download the one posted in your pinned post, it does have the music. These typically have a patch that mutes the original music so the custom ones don't overlap. You can delete the "akuogg" IPS patch in the texture pack's folder and you can get the original music back.
You can also go in the folder and easily figure out how to replace the music. I did it with music from the Castlevania Arcade game from 2009 which has remixed tracks from every stage and boss fight practically.
What this project needs is artists who can draw the sprites as if they were part of a hand-drawn animated series, keeping the simplicity and (on a basic level) the style but adding more life.
I have to say, this idea of improving the visuals basically on top of the original game is exactly what I've been itching for since the SNES released. (My parents got us a Nintendo back in 1988) I may not agree with what some of these modders have done, but without them trying we wouldn't get the other beautiful examples. Thank you for giving these projects some attention.
You can only avoid most enemies or stun them with candy as Nemo. The trick is that some enemies can be tamed by feeding them the candy and they'll then give Nemo various other attacks and movement abilities.
it was surprising in Little Nemo: The Dream Master that you could not get a permanent attack item (the magic wand) until the final level. I never could quite figure out how to best use it as a kid & learning how to use it much earlier would have improved gameplay.
My favorite part of Nemo was feeding the animals knock out pills, climbing into their mouths and using them like Chibi flesh mechs. Not about the HD, I loved how bizarre the game was, that is all.
That is a real shame that the SMS hasn't seen any love in this regard. It absolutely deserves it! Can you imagine a Phantasy Star graphical overlay?? How amazing could that be!
If your want to see the original Phantasy Star with improved graphics, hunt down a copy of the PS2 remake: Phantasy Star Generation 1. There's even a full English patch for it.
Not only is this a great videos that shows our favorite games from the NES with new textures. But, I love the music in this video too. It just brings me back to that time. I call the music in this video: REAL music!
😱🤯This is soooo cool! Thanks for covering yet another awesome way to mod and play classic games. I had no idea any of this was possible or even existed!
Little Nemo is a masterpiece! You don't throw candies to beat the enemies, but to tame some especial characters. When tamed, you "vest" them, and than you have the power to navigate the environment. This game is very special, play it to the end, you'll not regret.
I second this. I unique gem I owned back in the day and probably traded with a bunch of other games for a lesser new one! Wish I still had it. I wonder how that remaster is coming….
Great video and reviews! Obrigado pela partilha :D And this is just a masterclass on why art direction and consistency is so necessary in games indeed ;D
Wow, this is SUPER cool!! Makes the NES games almost look like SNES games! I hope this grows legs & becomes a bigger thing in the future cus this is VERY freaking cool indeed! Would love to see something like this even available for things like the MISTer & more advanced FPGA based Flash carts & such in the future!
@@JamesTDG Meh, that doesn't interest me. They already have this solution for Emulation anyway. I'm not really that into Emulation. I greatly prefer to play using original hardware or an FPGA based solution.
Hard disagree on the look of that Zelda 1 texture pack, if for no other reason than that the pixel resolution on different elements aren't uniform. That's a huge pet peeve of mine with pixel art - at very best it comes off as graphically inconsistent and inauthentic. That Zelda 2 one on the other hand, looks incredibly promising.
Agree. The Zelda HD texture pack is inconsistent; it uses ALttP assets, mixed with Cadence of Hyrule assets, mixed with BS Zelda from Satellaview assets; mixing art styles that just weren't designed to be in the same game. In reality, it is a mess.
The Zelda 1 pack seems to have a mismash of elements from BS Zelda, some fangame material from the early 2000s with awkward pillow shading, and LttP. If it stuck closer to one consistent style the whole way, it'd look a lot better. And BS Zelda would probably be the easiest fit since all the art assets for that would be accounted for.
These graphical updates, and the couple Super Nintendo games that got widescreen updates, like Super Mario World are some of the most interesting updates that I have seen from emulators.
Some Morrowind mods do that also. They don't make it look super high def, to the point it'd ruin the style, and make your eyes bleed. Just slight upgrades, where it looks like the Morrowind you remembered it as.
Battle City I wouldn't quite mark as an upgrade simply because some changes actually affect gameplay. In the original you can see shots and tanks in the bushes. They're obscured, but still visible, where the as the texture pack makes things entirely unseen once they hit the bushes.
This is definitely the most exciting idea. Because yeah many gameboy games are absolutely fantastic and are just let down a bit by the graphical limitations. And there was a gameboy game that literally did this, where if you played it on a SNES super game boy, it turned it into a SNES game with preprogrammed colours and content that you can never access with just a regular gameboy. Space Invaders. The code for the SNES is just sitting there on the cartridge. I'd love to see something like Donkey Kong 94 get this treatment, as that's the best donkey Kong game by a long long way, it's got like 100 levels instead of just 4. So yeah to see it with SNES graphics would be fantastic.
@@duffman18 Someone remade Super Mario Land as a SNES game. It has the graphics style of New Super Mario Bros for DS and is called New Super Mario Land.
There was actually a Japanese-only port of the first Mega Man to the early mobile phones that also had a playable Roll, but with new stage select music and the ability to slide and use the charge buster from later games. As far as I know, it was not dumped and might never be, like the impressive port of X2 to mobile that let you fight Fake Zero and the ports of X3-X4 and MM9.
@@st1ka There's an upload of a playthrough with Roll on TH-cam, and I remember finding videos of X2 and X3 ports as well, but I think the games themselves are legitimately all lost.
Regarding Ice Climber... in the U.S., clubbing seals is frowned upon. Metroid is a game I've always wanted to get into and my only gripe is the lack of a map. Looking forward to trying this new version. Thanks for posting this video!
Oh I get the issue with ice climber, but I do admit that the famicom just makes it seem more silly, but I understand why it was removed from the western version
In fact, most Americans find the entire thing hilarious. If you're in the humorless politics part of America, though, then sure: get angry about a cartoon video game. You people are highly conformist, you regard it as your calling to police the minds of others. Fun fact: insisting that aboriginal peoples stop clubbing seals is oppressive and it's a form of colonization.
If you like Twinbee, there was a whole bunch of games made for later consoles, you got Pop n Twinbee for SNES, Twinbee for PC Engine, for the Saturn. There is a collection of the later games for the PSP, with a brand new game. I think the NES retexture looks a lot like the PSP game
@@st1ka we are long overdue for either a collection or a new game with modern graphics. My first Twinbee game was Datana! Twinbee, my elementary school in China had these Win98 computers, with those CRT monitors, and that Twinbee game was there in every computer, although some of them runs. very slowly, and some had color issues
a lot of the popular games here already have official remakes (with hacks that make their physics more authentic), but replaying ice climbers and zelda ii in 16-bit sounds fucking amazing. both are slept on af.
Man, I haven’t thought about the NES HD packs for quite some time. I forgot how cool some of them were! I actually had the idea to try and make one for Sweet Home, of the color enhancement type more than complete visual overhaul, with maybe a few additional animation frames for certain enemies, but these days I’m already bogged down with more projects than I can reasonably keep track of.
This is amazing! I need to try this out! Zelda II looks like it is going to be top tier visually when it is hopefully finished. I know that there was a PS2 Remake for it, but I would love to see a 16 bit - 32 bit version of the original Phantasy Star if someone were to do the HD texture overlay for the SEGA Master System. Btw, if you liked the Wily Wars, there is a fanmade sequel to it fittingly called Mega Man: The Sequel Wars which iirc is still a WIP.
Would LOVE to see one made for the Dragon Quest games! I mean we already have SNES assets from the SNES remakes, so that would be a FANTASTIC overlay to have! SPECIALLY if enemy battle animations could be added!
these are killer. like PC Engine/turbografx ports of NES games! as someone who grew up on Atari 7800 and NES, I wholly approve of these texture pack mods
I have seen some. Calling a improvement is highly debatable. While technicaly they are much Better than the Originals, some of them have a worst art Direction, wich make them loose the charm, minimal design and on worst case scenarios is less prátical to spot the game elements from the background. Still some of them are indeed a improvment
@@JamesDatWork NES Metroid certainly has shortcomings, but Zero Mission is too much of a GBA game and comes off too much as a Super Metroid wannabe rather than the original Metroid. You've got a giant Samus fighting giant enemies in tiny areas that had to be redesigned to fit them, with Super Metroid stuff bolted onto the whole.
@@BainesMkII that's an opinion ... I actually think Zero Mission is a better game than Super Metroid. SM still has that 'stiff' Metroid feel and personally I found the scanning and swinging mechanics annoying.
Man... this is the first time that I see one of your videos and i get it right of the bat you're from Portugal (the same country I am) btw kudos for the excelent quality of your channel!!!
Ugh, its sickening that the superior versions of the Mega Mans (no slow down or disappearing sprites) are trapped on the Mega Man Anniversary Collection on Playstation 2.
I felt exactly the same regarding Legacy Collection. They did actually update it later on though and add a "Turbo" mode which is supposed to remove slowdowns, not sure about sprite flicker reduction though. I have to hand it to Digital Eclipse for doing that, since Capcom themselves didn't bother with such a feature for any of their other in-house developed collections, such as for X1-3, afaik.
I'm honestly surprised Nintendo has never done this officially. They'd rather sell you a Super Mario All-Stars rom for some reason. Why even bother getting the physics right when you can overlay new graphics on top of the original game? Too much work I guess.
Some of these really feel like a much needed fresh coat of paint, while some are just plain uncanny valley stuff with their inconsistent style and clashing visual elements, but it is a really interesting trend to see
I was saying this was possible in internet discussions when the first emulators were around in the late '90s. I was met with lots of "yeah but how's" and I never brought it up again. I am glad I'm seeing this type of thing finally happening.
27:55 Most of the graphics are sampled from the Japan released BS Zelda, which I recommend looking up, along with zquest if you like custom adventures.
OMG, I love that title screen for the original Zelda! I pictured something like that in my mind, dreaming of a graphical remaster. To be honest, I skipped a lot of these because I thought this was all about Zelda series games, but I am excited to try the Metroid overlay, it's exactly what I want in an upgrade, not like Zero Mission, which basically ruined the original feel of the game (though it added some cool new areas). I'm also really excited for Zelda 2 to be finished, because the 16 bit parts of it look awesome. Thanks for showing these.
This is really cool! Definitely some hits and misses in the execution, but the concept itself is neat. I had no idea any of these existed! The improved Shatterhand looks like the kind of game you'd see on the Spextrum Next nowadays. Could definitely see it being an MSX or early PCE game. 😁 Same with Castlevania 30th anniversary, although I fully agree:the music is ESSENTIAL to Castlevania. Castlevania HD immediately reminded me of the Castlevania game I used to play on the PS1, and after looking at the Wikipedia entry it turns out that was actually an updated port of the Sharp X86000 game. Cool video! Will definitely give some of these a try.
Sad thing about any of these upscales that aren't specifically NES-faithful overlays is that they're _almost without question_ assuming the NES's output is _square,_ because that's what emulators default to if the user doesn't understand the topic of aspect ratios. So then if you stretch the new artwork to match the true NES aspect ratio, it's suddenly too wide.
Zelda Remastered looks like it took its most of its art from BS Zelda no Densetsu on the Super Famicom (it was an exclusive from the Japanese accessory the Satellaview).
I made a SMB1 to SM All-Stars texture pack that was almost finished. I never released it. I did some custom sprite work too for some of the SNES sprites that were too big for the NES (swimming for example, his kicking legs stick out too far in All-Stars, so I had to redraw some frames there). Other than that thank you for being honest. Some of these really suck and I'm glad somebody's acknowledging that.
Personally, I prefer the original 8-bit pixel graphics that make NES games memorable. Graphical upgrades make it look like a game from a modern console. Great content btw!
Hahahahahahahaha. Great video. When I saw the Mario game, I thought "Man, he is gonna say this is bad, right? Please, tell me it is bad", and he didn't disappoint.
Usually not a fan of this type of thing, mostly with 3D games where the hi res textures makes the low polygon count more apparent. These, on the other hand, look amazing!
"Also, this is the first time I've ever played _Little Nemo._ How the heck do you take down enemies?" The candy is for feeding certain creatures until they fall asleep, which will then allow you to either ride them... or wear them as a costume.
The Metroid NES improvements are amazing! I first played Metroid ][: The Return Of Samus on Gameboy, then played the SNES version. When I eventually went back and tried playing the NES version it felt painfully dated. The biggest problem was the lack of a map and lots of missing controls I was used to from the later titles. This solves a bunch of the issues.
Please Consider Subscribing: th-cam.com/users/st1ka
Or supporting me on Patreon: www.patreon.com/St1ka
Battle City (imkrut): www.romhacking.net/forum/index.php?topic=30639
Bomberman Remastered (imkrut): www.romhacking.net/forum/index.php?topic=30619.0
Castlevania 1 HD / SD / VK (kya): www.romhacking.net/forum/index.php?topic=28754
Castlevania 30th Anniversary Edition (kya): www.romhacking.net/forum/index.php?topic=24125.msg355609#msg355609
Contra: www.romhacking.net/forum/index.php?topic=33075.0
Donkey Kong (mkwong98): www.mediafire.com/file/5xgz6dr0tyiqm6g/Donkey_Kong_%28JU%29_HD_Pack.zip/file
Donkey Kong Jr. Remastered (imkrut): www.romhacking.net/forum/index.php?topic=30538.0
Duck Hunt Remastered (GBAGuy007, Aclectico): drive.google.com/file/d/1j4b0kousFpvSnvywld1_gHT-fUayfoXT/view?usp=sharing
Ice Climber Remastered (imkrut): www.romhacking.net/forum/index.php?topic=30581.0
Kung Fu (mkwong98): forums.nesdev.org/download/file.php?id=12070
Little Nemo Graphic Pack (Demo) (imkrut): www.romhacking.net/forum/index.php?topic=28358
Megaman: Super (AxlRocks): www.romhacking.net/forum/index.php?topic=25426.msg348677#msg348677
Metroid HD (Aclectico, kya): www.romhacking.net/forum/index.php?topic=26811.0
Ninja Gaiden 1 HD Beta 1.0 (RichterSnipes): www.romhacking.net/forum/index.php?topic=26164.0
Ninja Gaiden 2 HD Graphics Pack (RichterSnipes): www.romhacking.net/forum/index.php?topic=26164.0
Nuts and Milk (evgeny): forums.nesdev.org/download/file.php?id=12071
Pac-Man (Ed Peppe): github.com/PepCodes/HDNes-Graphics-Pac
Paper Mario Bros (mkwong98): www.romhacking.net/forum/index.php?topic=31920
Shatterhand HD Pack (mugi): drive.google.com/drive/folders/1TnyFHBrjssibSDw4aptEWawBW2iLBgkg?usp=share_link
Super Mario Bros (mkwong98): forums.nesdev.org/download/file.php?id=12073
Super Mario Bros HD (lyonhrt): drive.google.com/drive/folders/1L8JmkTgGKf7nZ-VFjjL3Zu4VXvEASGv1?usp=share_link
Twin Bee Remastered (Demo (imkrut): drive.google.com/drive/folders/1L8JmkTgGKf7nZ-VFjjL3Zu4VXvEASGv1?usp=share_link
Zelda: Remastered (Aclectico, kya): www.romhacking.net/forum/index.php?topic=31559.0
Zelda II Remastered (Demo) (Aclectico, kya): www.romhacking.net/forum/index.php?topic=33860.0
Desculpa não pode ver video mais cedo.
AI ou simples substituição das textura quando são chamada pelo emulador ??
5:21 looks like Donkey Kong if ti was on Philips CD-I.
Best video of the day April 12,2023🏆
**Me watchs the first 2 minutes of the video** (My brain: "Ferb I know what we're gonna do today")
Speaking of castlevania, why do you sound like Dracula?
Personally speaking, I think NES upgrades look best when they retain the original pixel resolution and just add more color depth. Even just doubling from 4 colors per sprite to 8 can make a huge difference without losing the simplistic charm.
understandable
I think higher res upgrades can work, it just depends on how you handle it. Like the PSP remakes of FF1, FF2 and FF4 are generally heralded as the best versions of their respective games, for instance. It just needs to be well done pixel art, rather than looking like someone ran the sprites through a filter.
@@tamerkoh: Well, yes, and I would absolutely agree that the PSP FF's are absolutely gorgeous... shame Square never ported them.
Sprite work of that quality, however, tends to be beyond the scope and scale of what most armature fan mods like these are capable of delivering with consistency.
@@EmeralBookwise Yeah they're still my favourite versions to play even with the Pixel Remasters, which I find rather ugly, lol. Mostly because they have the same issues going on as some of the graphics packs here: Style clash. They've got low-res 16-bit style sprites (with low-contrast shading, so everything looks flat), higher res 32-bit style spell effects and HD fonts, and it just looks a mess. There's also way too much screen space in the battles where both players and enemies alike look too small relative to the space given. Especially bosses that would otherwise fill the screen on the GBA or PSP versions, but are just tiny in the middle of a bunch of space on the PRs, lol.
Honestly, I'd love to see FF PSP style remakes of all these old 2D pixel art games. Just comparing how much Cornelia from FF1 was brought to life from NES to PSP, or FF2's Bafsk, just really makes me wanna see other game worlds brought to life similarly with that kind of pixel art quality.
@@tamerkoh I totally wish that SE would have ported these and did 3, 5, and 6 like this for the pixel remasters instead of what we got. That definitely would have been the best imo.
Man that Zelda II is incredibly impressive so far. Out of all the projects that's the one that wows me the most.
right?! :D
Man, this is a fascinating scene I'm only learning about now for the first time! It is really weird to see these in action though; so many are bringing the visuals up to 16-bit (or _Master System_ - Sega FOREVER!) standards, but the bleeps and bloops are pure 8-bit NES stuff and it just feels like a mismatch, lol. Fun as heck though, and there's no denying the passion that's gone into these things. This was a real fun video topic, St1ka!
right?! it's so co ool!
The beautiful Zelda textures come from the Broadcast Satellite (BS) Super Famicom games where you would download a game to your SFC and play it in 4 parts across 4 weeks in real time like they were live streamed. Its nice to see these graphics on a NES rom because it takes some digging to find good dumps of BS titles. Highly recommend
I am fairly certain that the first Castlevania pack shown here is supposed to replace the music with custom OGG tracks, like the second one does. In fact, when I download the one posted in your pinned post, it does have the music. These typically have a patch that mutes the original music so the custom ones don't overlap. You can delete the "akuogg" IPS patch in the texture pack's folder and you can get the original music back.
Yeah, it seems I installed the patch wrong. Whoops!
You can also go in the folder and easily figure out how to replace the music. I did it with music from the Castlevania Arcade game from 2009 which has remixed tracks from every stage and boss fight practically.
I think the music goes away also if you let the game into demonstration scenes before starting the game. It's a weird feature. 😅
The animations in Ice Climber look amazing! I fully agree, that is a perfect example of what we SHOULD be doing with these graphic overlays!
right?!
The link in the Zelda pack is from Cadence of Hyrule an official crossover between Crypt of the Necrodancer and The Legend of Zelda and it's amazing
aaah thank you!
Now that you mention it it totally is I was kinda thinking it was a modified version of the 4 Swords sprite at first.
I thought so. It had that idle bounce that made me recognize it.
@@st1ka yw glad I could help great video btw
yeah a lot of its assets were borrowed from or inspired by CoH. that aquamentus was definitely from bs zelda tho
I like how you overlayed the footage of both game versions. Makes it really easy to compare the quality. I need HD Zelda 2!
Yeah, I had to be sneaky to get the gameplay on both windows to match too.
@@st1ka The Sprite Is From Cadance Of Hyrule
What this project needs is artists who can draw the sprites as if they were part of a hand-drawn animated series, keeping the simplicity and (on a basic level) the style but adding more life.
oooh yes please!
I have to say, this idea of improving the visuals basically on top of the original game is exactly what I've been itching for since the SNES released. (My parents got us a Nintendo back in 1988)
I may not agree with what some of these modders have done, but without them trying we wouldn't get the other beautiful examples.
Thank you for giving these projects some attention.
You can only avoid most enemies or stun them with candy as Nemo. The trick is that some enemies can be tamed by feeding them the candy and they'll then give Nemo various other attacks and movement abilities.
it was surprising in Little Nemo: The Dream Master that you could not get a permanent attack item (the magic wand) until the final level. I never could quite figure out how to best use it as a kid & learning how to use it much earlier would have improved gameplay.
aah thank you!
My favorite part of Nemo was feeding the animals knock out pills, climbing into their mouths and using them like Chibi flesh mechs.
Not about the HD, I loved how bizarre the game was, that is all.
I love the movie, but the game is terrible. So frustrating.
There's a completely different arcade game CAPCOM made at the same time.
That is a real shame that the SMS hasn't seen any love in this regard. It absolutely deserves it! Can you imagine a Phantasy Star graphical overlay?? How amazing could that be!
If your want to see the original Phantasy Star with improved graphics, hunt down a copy of the PS2 remake: Phantasy Star Generation 1. There's even a full English patch for it.
@DoktorRockszo Oh ya, I've seen that one but haven't tried it yet. Would love to try it one day!
oh I'd love to see a 16-bit version of Phantasy Star 1
Closest thing would be Shining in the Darkness. Also the SMS Power FM hack make PS almost 16bit!
@RolandoMarreroPR The SMS power hack doesn't change the graphics in any way tho... Not sure how you figure that.
I had no idea these texture packs existed! Thanks for the video.
Yeah I just discovered these myself and I HAD to talk about them :D
That Zelda 2 remaster looks amazing, even considering all the glitches. Can't wait until it's finished
Thanks for the video Dr. Nick!
Hi Dr. Nick!
Not only is this a great videos that shows our favorite games from the NES with new textures. But, I love the music in this video too. It just brings me back to that time. I call the music in this video: REAL music!
haha thank you, but this is not the video. It's just a trailer for the full video. The full video will launch in 3 hours. :)
😱🤯This is soooo cool! Thanks for covering yet another awesome way to mod and play classic games. I had no idea any of this was possible or even existed!
I do my best ^^
The aesthetic of some of these have a TG16 vibe to them.
Yep, I agree! Hope you'll enjoy the full video when it's out today ^^
Yes... the Bomberman pack made it look like the TG16 version of that game (which was a slight improvement over the NES original).
Makes sense. TG16 was very much like an NES on steroids.
Kinda makes sense, considering the TG-16 actually used an upgraded version of the NES CPU as it's main CPU.
Making NES games look like Snes games, I love it!!
Right? :D
Little Nemo is a masterpiece! You don't throw candies to beat the enemies, but to tame some especial characters. When tamed, you "vest" them, and than you have the power to navigate the environment. This game is very special, play it to the end, you'll not regret.
ah thank you!
I second this. I unique gem I owned back in the day and probably traded with a bunch of other games for a lesser new one! Wish I still had it. I wonder how that remaster is coming….
I wonder how it's doing as well@@st1ka
Great video and reviews! Obrigado pela partilha :D And this is just a masterclass on why art direction and consistency is so necessary in games indeed ;D
Muito obrigado! :D
Wow, this is SUPER cool!! Makes the NES games almost look like SNES games!
I hope this grows legs & becomes a bigger thing in the future cus this is VERY freaking cool indeed! Would love to see something like this even available for things like the MISTer & more advanced FPGA based Flash carts & such in the future!
yeah I'd love the scene for these overlays become bigger
Or more notably, RetroArch and RetroPie, as it would be cool to see these mods run on custom consoles
@@JamesTDG Meh, that doesn't interest me. They already have this solution for Emulation anyway. I'm not really that into Emulation. I greatly prefer to play using original hardware or an FPGA based solution.
@@skins4thewin doubtful
The graphics upgrade to Ice Climber looks so damn beautiful
right?!
Thank you for the effort and time to make such a long and detailed video!
Hard disagree on the look of that Zelda 1 texture pack, if for no other reason than that the pixel resolution on different elements aren't uniform. That's a huge pet peeve of mine with pixel art - at very best it comes off as graphically inconsistent and inauthentic. That Zelda 2 one on the other hand, looks incredibly promising.
Agree. The Zelda HD texture pack is inconsistent; it uses ALttP assets, mixed with Cadence of Hyrule assets, mixed with BS Zelda from Satellaview assets; mixing art styles that just weren't designed to be in the same game. In reality, it is a mess.
The Zelda 1 pack seems to have a mismash of elements from BS Zelda, some fangame material from the early 2000s with awkward pillow shading, and LttP.
If it stuck closer to one consistent style the whole way, it'd look a lot better. And BS Zelda would probably be the easiest fit since all the art assets for that would be accounted for.
that's fair. ^_^
These graphical updates, and the couple Super Nintendo games that got widescreen updates, like Super Mario World are some of the most interesting updates that I have seen from emulators.
oh damn, that's cool as heck
@@st1ka there's a subject for a new video 😎
It's crazy what Nostalgia Goggles do. The upgrades are what I remember it looking like back in the late 80s/early 90s!
haha, understandable
#relatable
Some Morrowind mods do that also. They don't make it look super high def, to the point it'd ruin the style, and make your eyes bleed. Just slight upgrades, where it looks like the Morrowind you remembered it as.
Ah good, I'm not the only one. I was like "I don't see it. How are the graphics 'upgraded'? this is how the games looked in my memories."
Battle City I wouldn't quite mark as an upgrade simply because some changes actually affect gameplay. In the original you can see shots and tanks in the bushes. They're obscured, but still visible, where the as the texture pack makes things entirely unseen once they hit the bushes.
Yeah that's a pretty fair point ^^
Very cool of you to go through all the work of showing these packs in detail as well as providing links to where we can get all of them. Thank you.
Thank you! I try ^^
I would really love to see remasters like this for gameboy games!
This is definitely the most exciting idea. Because yeah many gameboy games are absolutely fantastic and are just let down a bit by the graphical limitations. And there was a gameboy game that literally did this, where if you played it on a SNES super game boy, it turned it into a SNES game with preprogrammed colours and content that you can never access with just a regular gameboy. Space Invaders. The code for the SNES is just sitting there on the cartridge.
I'd love to see something like Donkey Kong 94 get this treatment, as that's the best donkey Kong game by a long long way, it's got like 100 levels instead of just 4. So yeah to see it with SNES graphics would be fantastic.
@@duffman18 Someone remade Super Mario Land as a SNES game. It has the graphics style of New Super Mario Bros for DS and is called New Super Mario Land.
The Link sprite from the Zelda 1 pack is from Cadence of hyrule on the switch.
aaah thank you! ^^
There was actually a Japanese-only port of the first Mega Man to the early mobile phones that also had a playable Roll, but with new stage select music and the ability to slide and use the charge buster from later games. As far as I know, it was not dumped and might never be, like the impressive port of X2 to mobile that let you fight Fake Zero and the ports of X3-X4 and MM9.
whoa! really? That's amazing!
Lost media right here then.
@rickydo6572 yeah I've been trying to search for it but can't seem to find it
@@st1ka There's an upload of a playthrough with Roll on TH-cam, and I remember finding videos of X2 and X3 ports as well, but I think the games themselves are legitimately all lost.
@@marx4538 oooh can you link me to that video? I'd love to see it.
That Castlevania HD remake had me hooked, I had to try that immediately and I was not disappointed at all, great video showcasing all these!
man, this video really captures the same energy of good old gaming videos, and I adore it
Regarding Ice Climber... in the U.S., clubbing seals is frowned upon.
Metroid is a game I've always wanted to get into and my only gripe is the lack of a map. Looking forward to trying this new version. Thanks for posting this video!
Oh I get the issue with ice climber, but I do admit that the famicom just makes it seem more silly, but I understand why it was removed from the western version
In fact, most Americans find the entire thing hilarious. If you're in the humorless politics part of America, though, then sure: get angry about a cartoon video game. You people are highly conformist, you regard it as your calling to police the minds of others. Fun fact: insisting that aboriginal peoples stop clubbing seals is oppressive and it's a form of colonization.
Man, that Metroid upgrade is sexy as hell!
right? :D
Zelda 2 REALLY looks great! I truly hope it gets finished!
same here :D
Props to you for making the Xbox Live Leaderboard for Twinbee!!! That’s awesome! That game can be so hard at first
If you like Twinbee, there was a whole bunch of games made for later consoles, you got Pop n Twinbee for SNES, Twinbee for PC Engine, for the Saturn.
There is a collection of the later games for the PSP, with a brand new game. I think the NES retexture looks a lot like the PSP game
Oh I know. I own a few of them. I need the PSP one though xD
@@st1ka we are long overdue for either a collection or a new game with modern graphics. My first Twinbee game was Datana! Twinbee, my elementary school in China had these Win98 computers, with those CRT monitors, and that Twinbee game was there in every computer, although some of them runs. very slowly, and some had color issues
@@joshuazhao ooh started with the best one. Datana Twinbee is SO good
@@st1ka even with modern emulation technologies, I STILL can't get past level 2 😅
@@joshuazhao haha
I really hope the Zelda II one gets completed. It looks gorgeous!
a lot of the popular games here already have official remakes (with hacks that make their physics more authentic), but replaying ice climbers and zelda ii in 16-bit sounds fucking amazing. both are slept on af.
Oh yeah, i loved ice climbers!
The Megaman one is sick, my favourite of the list
it's SO cool
These are pretty cool, I'd love to see something like this for some of the rpgs like hydlide, crystalis, and final fantasy
We found the real MALKOVIC from the early JonTron episodes! Great video and nice to see the textures. Did't know this existed.
Man, I haven’t thought about the NES HD packs for quite some time. I forgot how cool some of them were!
I actually had the idea to try and make one for Sweet Home, of the color enhancement type more than complete visual overhaul, with maybe a few additional animation frames for certain enemies, but these days I’m already bogged down with more projects than I can reasonably keep track of.
oooh please make it! I'd love to check out an improved version of Sweet Home
@@st1ka Maaaaaaaybe someday, but no promises
@@spoonybard13 No pressure from me :)
Fantástico trabalho como sempre Stika. Obrigado sir.
Muito obrigado! ^^
Thanks Dr Nick!
Impressive. Might check out some of these. The _Spy vs. Spy_ NES trilogy needs something like this badly. Those games rock.
Always glad to see the packs pop up on videos, glad you liked em
oh yeah these were amazing
The nerve to rework Castlevania and remove Simon's music.
The Battle City update uses sprites from Tank Force, an official sequel for arcade. Also a very good game.
Wait... THERE'S A SEQUEL?!
Thanks for explaining texture packs to us over and over because before that we had no idea what texture packs were
Considering how many people in the comments still asked what they were, I'd say I didn't explain it enough
If you wanna see 3D instead of HD, there's the emulator 3Dsen (which is on Steam).
Yep, I interviewed the creator once.
Your impressions of what the updates look like-their hypothetical platforms, for example-are amazingly spot-on.
brb, doing HD remakes of Crystalis, The Guardian Legend, and Faxanadu with this.
These games are legendary. Crystalis for the win!
You have God-tier taste in games. I would love to play your HD texture packs for these hand-picked, exceptional games.
yes please! :D
This is amazing! I need to try this out! Zelda II looks like it is going to be top tier visually when it is hopefully finished. I know that there was a PS2 Remake for it, but I would love to see a 16 bit - 32 bit version of the original Phantasy Star if someone were to do the HD texture overlay for the SEGA Master System. Btw, if you liked the Wily Wars, there is a fanmade sequel to it fittingly called Mega Man: The Sequel Wars which iirc is still a WIP.
hope you'll enjoy it! :D
@@Hyrule452 Oh dude you're the one who worked on the Zelda 2 mod? Excellent work my friend!
@@Hyrule452 You have done a fantastic job and I hope that you get to finish it someday. I would love to help if you need it in the sound department.
Would LOVE to see one made for the Dragon Quest games!
I mean we already have SNES assets from the SNES remakes, so that would be a FANTASTIC overlay to have! SPECIALLY if enemy battle animations could be added!
oh yeah, a Dragon quest HD graphics pack would be tight!
Looks like you found yourself a little project, Skins.
@@chall6761 Lol ya right.
@@skins4thewin You've got all the assets.
@@chall6761 if ya say so 🙂
these are killer. like PC Engine/turbografx ports of NES games! as someone who grew up on Atari 7800 and NES, I wholly approve of these texture pack mods
Yeah it's awesome:D
Am I the only one how kind of liked what they did with Donkey Kong? Great Video
a few users liked it too. And hey, don't worry, in the end, my takes on each graphics pack are just my personal opinions ^_^
I have seen some. Calling a improvement is highly debatable. While technicaly they are much Better than the Originals, some of them have a worst art Direction, wich make them loose the charm, minimal design and on worst case scenarios is less prátical to spot the game elements from the background. Still some of them are indeed a improvment
It varies from game to game. Some look better, others don't. In the video I call out the ones that look worse imo
I think your spelling and grammar need a remaster more than these games
@@ShytPump English is not my native language.
The metroid one is really neat, but honestly after playing Zero Mission, I'm not sure I can ever play it again. ZM is just so perfect.
haha understandable
Original is better than Zero Mission.
No contest honestly.
@@Zeithri I couldn't disagree more, but everyone has a right to their opinion.
@@JamesDatWork NES Metroid certainly has shortcomings, but Zero Mission is too much of a GBA game and comes off too much as a Super Metroid wannabe rather than the original Metroid. You've got a giant Samus fighting giant enemies in tiny areas that had to be redesigned to fit them, with Super Metroid stuff bolted onto the whole.
@@BainesMkII that's an opinion ... I actually think Zero Mission is a better game than Super Metroid. SM still has that 'stiff' Metroid feel and personally I found the scanning and swinging mechanics annoying.
Hopefully they keep working on that Zelda 2 remaster. It's definitely glitchy and needs a lot of work but there's a lot of potential there.
right?!
28:26 Crypt of the necro dancer featuring the legend of zelda
Man... this is the first time that I see one of your videos and i get it right of the bat you're from Portugal (the same country I am) btw kudos for the excelent quality of your channel!!!
Haha obrigado
Ugh, its sickening that the superior versions of the Mega Mans (no slow down or disappearing sprites) are trapped on the Mega Man Anniversary Collection on Playstation 2.
Not to mention Mega Man Anniversary Collection never launched in Europe
I felt exactly the same regarding Legacy Collection. They did actually update it later on though and add a "Turbo" mode which is supposed to remove slowdowns, not sure about sprite flicker reduction though. I have to hand it to Digital Eclipse for doing that, since Capcom themselves didn't bother with such a feature for any of their other in-house developed collections, such as for X1-3, afaik.
I sure hope you have some links to these. I hate when people put these up Sean mom but don’t show people where they can get a hat from.
Oh crap! I was supposed to paste the links! Thank you for reminding me. I'm currently at my day job so I can't do them, but I'll do them tonight.
@@st1ka no problem. Just glad you have them. It’s so hard finding the good HD packs.
@@MatthewDaviesParker Check the pinned comment :)
@@MatthewDaviesParker Yeah that's weird. It seems youtube is now randomly unpinning the pinned comment. Try it now :)
I'm honestly surprised Nintendo has never done this officially. They'd rather sell you a Super Mario All-Stars rom for some reason. Why even bother getting the physics right when you can overlay new graphics on top of the original game? Too much work I guess.
I'm guessing Nintendo never even considered this possibility. With that said, I'd love to see Sega and Nintendo do this. It'd be amazing :P
That Zelda II pack has a Zelda CDI or SNES Mario is missing feeling.
Some of these really feel like a much needed fresh coat of paint, while some are just plain uncanny valley stuff with their inconsistent style and clashing visual elements, but it is a really interesting trend to see
Everyone still compares graphics to Flash games as a bad thing. Meanwhile, I have more nostalgia for Flash game graphics than 8-bit graphics.
It depends on the flash games. Some looked great, others seemed to have little concern for aesthetics.
In before NES purists come out and cry that we're ruining THEIR games.
Ah, I'm expecting a few comments like that yeah :P
Amazing, i love the idea of NES games having HD texture packs, thank you for showing us this.
glad I could help ^^
I was saying this was possible in internet discussions when the first emulators were around in the late '90s. I was met with lots of "yeah but how's" and I never brought it up again. I am glad I'm seeing this type of thing finally happening.
You sir, are a visionary!
What a great video! I really love this projects, and a compilation of these is really useful!
Glad I could help! ^^
27:55 Most of the graphics are sampled from the Japan released BS Zelda, which I recommend looking up, along with zquest if you like custom adventures.
yep that's true
This is so fucking cool omg! Never imagined texture packs for 8 bit games. I love it. Such a great novelty
OMG, I love that title screen for the original Zelda! I pictured something like that in my mind, dreaming of a graphical remaster. To be honest, I skipped a lot of these because I thought this was all about Zelda series games, but I am excited to try the Metroid overlay, it's exactly what I want in an upgrade, not like Zero Mission, which basically ruined the original feel of the game (though it added some cool new areas). I'm also really excited for Zelda 2 to be finished, because the 16 bit parts of it look awesome. Thanks for showing these.
Just found this. I both appreciate these and at the same time would never want to "replace" the originals.
understnadable :D
This is really cool! Definitely some hits and misses in the execution, but the concept itself is neat. I had no idea any of these existed! The improved Shatterhand looks like the kind of game you'd see on the Spextrum Next nowadays. Could definitely see it being an MSX or early PCE game. 😁 Same with Castlevania 30th anniversary, although I fully agree:the music is ESSENTIAL to Castlevania. Castlevania HD immediately reminded me of the Castlevania game I used to play on the PS1, and after looking at the Wikipedia entry it turns out that was actually an updated port of the Sharp X86000 game. Cool video! Will definitely give some of these a try.
Yeah it's awesome:D
Sad thing about any of these upscales that aren't specifically NES-faithful overlays is that they're _almost without question_ assuming the NES's output is _square,_ because that's what emulators default to if the user doesn't understand the topic of aspect ratios. So then if you stretch the new artwork to match the true NES aspect ratio, it's suddenly too wide.
Zelda Remastered looks like it took its most of its art from BS Zelda no Densetsu on the Super Famicom (it was an exclusive from the Japanese accessory the Satellaview).
Yep, some people pointed it out so you are correct :D
wow this really blew my mind! it looks completely like a different game after enabling the hd texture packs. I need to try this!
right? It's so cool!
I made a SMB1 to SM All-Stars texture pack that was almost finished. I never released it. I did some custom sprite work too for some of the SNES sprites that were too big for the NES (swimming for example, his kicking legs stick out too far in All-Stars, so I had to redraw some frames there).
Other than that thank you for being honest. Some of these really suck and I'm glad somebody's acknowledging that.
Personally, I prefer the original 8-bit pixel graphics that make NES games memorable. Graphical upgrades make it look like a game from a modern console. Great content btw!
Understandable! Glad you enjoyed it ^^
Hahahahahahahaha. Great video. When I saw the Mario game, I thought "Man, he is gonna say this is bad, right? Please, tell me it is bad", and he didn't disappoint.
You'd be surprised how much flak I got over that haha
@@st1ka man, I don't get surprised about anything anymore. Will let the cellphone down for some weeks for my mind to relax. Too much crazy people.
Damn. Doing this kind of stuff with overlays is absolutely amazing
right? :D
I had no idea you could do this on Mesen. Thanks for the info, dude
anytime! :D
Usually not a fan of this type of thing, mostly with 3D games where the hi res textures makes the low polygon count more apparent.
These, on the other hand, look amazing!
Modders are so damn awesome, always giving new life to old games.
Just discovered the channel. Thanks for the deep cuts.
haha whoops
These NES texture packs look _AMAZING!_
right?! :D
I been on a retro binge.I love going back playing them on HD
it's such a cool way of playing these classics
Zelda and castlevania look amazing. Thanks for sharing that content.
glad you liked it! :D
Oh man doing this sounds fun thanks man. I had no idea we could do this. Time to go mario kart excite bike.
hehe
This project is absolutely amazing!
Oh completely agreed! :D
Fascinating, I like this. I especially wanna see the zelda 2 texture pack finished.
this is a really cool idea I'm surprised hasn't been done sooner.
right? :D
"Also, this is the first time I've ever played _Little Nemo._ How the heck do you take down enemies?"
The candy is for feeding certain creatures until they fall asleep, which will then allow you to either ride them... or wear them as a costume.
thank you! That helps!
The Metroid NES improvements are amazing! I first played Metroid ][: The Return Of Samus on Gameboy, then played the SNES version. When I eventually went back and tried playing the NES version it felt painfully dated. The biggest problem was the lack of a map and lots of missing controls I was used to from the later titles. This solves a bunch of the issues.