It also now has a smoothly scrolling mini map, instead of the original which scrolled an entire tile at a time. The Status Bar style HUD option now supports all zoom modes. Text now extends to the screen edge, allowing for more to be displayed (and fewer presses to read it all). Speech bubbles and tutorial text now display transparently over of the play area (no more black bars or boxes covering the background). The HUD and UI have been reworked to more naturally fit your screen, whatever size or aspect ratio it might be. Many character sprites and dialogue portraits also now sport more than the 3-4 colors of strict NES limitations, giving them more unique appearances, and making them easier to spot among a busy screen of tiny sprites. To present things closer to how you remember NES games looking, rather that how they actually looked.
However, for those on board for the full experience, I decided to bend the NES limitations just a bit more, and take the rose-tinted glasses approach. Granted, I might’ve gotten a little carried away in a few instances, when I kept saying “add more hair!”, just so there’d be more goofy bits bouncing around while the character’s talking… but that’s my style! If a character’s dialogue portrait alone can make me laugh, we’re hitting the the right mark.įor purists, the game still includes the “8-Bit Mode” option to render the game using more NES-like visuals. Their cartoonish rubbery faces, bouncy hair, and other silly accessories, truly bring them to life. More than just moving lips, each animation evokes the character’s personality. When it comes to dialogue sequences, we now have fully animated character portraits.
What you see on screen now is finally what I saw in my imagination! It’s something I wanted to do 8 years ago, but the budget and schedule were just too tight back then. Gone are the static images! Now, The Player walks into the frame, with his legs! He speaks, with his mouth! In all seriousness though, the new animation really gives it an extra ‘oomph’. Right off the bat, you’ll notice the shiny new animated cutscenes.