Resident Evil 2 - Nintendo 64 version

[Det. Beauregard]

Does anyone else really like the randomizer option in this version? I wish all the old RE's had that... gives the game higher replay value.

[OKeijiDragon]

I see this is starting to become a weekly thing. The commentary for Part 10 has been completed, and it's a shorter part this time around! Wait till Part 11 for some crazy commentary shit!

But also...

A lot of sources suggests that Angel Studios originally wanted to do Final Fantasy VII for SquareSoft, but Square supposedly rejected the idea as it'd reflect badly on them if a 3 disc game was fit on a tiny cartridge (in all honesty, FFVII would've probably been an equal challenge to RE2... if not even easier. The amount of duplicate data between each disc in FFVII is ridiculous.)

Do there exists any sources for that? I included this fact in the commentary for Part 10, sounded too interesting and entertaining to pass off easily. Don't get me wrong, I'd take your word for it but I think some good internet sources would suffice as well.

Tried to Google "Final Fantasy VII port for Nintendo 64" and such but no luck.

[Carnivol]

And what exactly was that? I'm curious now. Did they actually went and recompressed the master BG images or something? I ask cause I remember the BGs actually looking better in some places than in the PSX version.

Haven't bothered checking how the backgrounds are stored. Never really done any comparisons either to see which ones look the cleanest. It's of course very possible that they might've used higher quality master renders (or re-renders) for the N64 version, but it's worth noting that the PS1 version at least uses a shitty old video codec for storage of its background renders (and, if memory serves me right all the way, the way it stores them makes them always take a certain amount of disc space, regardless of whether or not all the space is actually needed for them.)

Well if you can fit RE1 in a DS game card, than surely RE2 is possible then right?

Funny thing there is that the NDS version of Resident Evil 1 is roughly twice the size of Resident Evil 2 for the N64.

[OKeijiDragon]

After SO MUCH real life responsibilities, I've finally finished the commentary for Part 9! The weekend is coming for us and now I gonna start doing Part 10! I'm definitely not gonna stop at this run anytime soon, so check back and see me some time!

Don't think there's ever been any extensive in-depth talk on the subject. A lot of sources suggests that Angel Studios originally wanted to do Final Fantasy VII for SquareSoft, but Square supposedly rejected the idea as it'd reflect badly on them if a 3 disc game was fit on a tiny cartridge (in all honesty, FFVII would've probably been an equal challenge to RE2... if not even easier. The amount of duplicate data between each disc in FFVII is ridiculous.)

That is definitely interesting. I actually read a Square official somewhere that if FFVII was released on the N64, it would have come in about an absurd amount of cartridges.

some sort of improved compression routine is probably applied to the backgrounds (so they no longer rely on the use of a basic 1994 video compression routine),

And what exactly was that? I'm curious now. Did they actually went and recompressed the master BG images or something? I ask cause I remember the BGs actually looking better in some places than in the PSX version.

With today's tech and software, you could probably achieve a much better result on the same amount of space.

Well if you can fit RE1 in a DS game card, than surely RE2 is possible then right?

[Carnivol]

@MarkGrass There are many (perfectly good) reasons for using containers in the way Resident Evil does. The main reason is loading and seek time and the secondary reason is just to keep things slightly more organized (since, although RE is not the prime sample of it, building massive folder trees is just stupid). On a horrible disc based system like the PS1, you'd much rather use the disc space to duplicate data several times to decrease seek time than add unnecessary loading time by having the game fetch "some here and some there." Even if they're assets that should always be in memory and only fetched once.

Another thing about recycling assets and all that is disc layout. I don't really think many companies had their own in-house experts on this subject back then (and some don't do to this date either... stupidly enough), but you can see how important the file layout on a disc is by comparing the original release of Front Mission 2nd with the re-prints (Front Mission History and the latest wave of budget re-releases). The original release pretty much looks like a copy and paste of everything the game needs, while the re-release has the files arranged in a very specific order, which significantly decreases the absurd load times the game was infamous for having.


Also, I don't think it was a PR stunt of any kind the way they did RE2, but the 2 disc thing surely is a selling point. Sort of. But if you check the disc IDs for the US version of the game, you'll see that the game obviously wasn't meant to be two discs in the first place. Probably a minor 1.5 left-over (where I guess the game did indeed only sport one disc, while RE2 expands it to two discs, mainly 'cause of its heavy amount of FMVs).

The way they split the game on two discs makes sense from a design perspective. Obviously the game wasn't gonna get infinite development time either, and I don't think anyone would be able to come up with the wizardry needed to pull off the game on one disc and still reach a reasonable deadline for a game that'd already been scrapped once. If you wanna see something that blatantly doesn't utilize its space, at all, I suggest looking at Lost Odyssey. It is on 4 discs, but could've been just 3 (which they could've easily pulled off... amazingly enough, for a JRPG with over a handful of audio languages and lots of FMVs. Kinda puts the disaster of a 360 port that FFXIII got into a new perspective too, doesn't it?)


As for Final Fantasy VII and its use of duped data on all discs?
The entire game is present on all 3 discs and the only major difference between each is a tiny fracture of story related FMVs. If a game was slapped on multiple discs just for the heck of selling it on as many discs as humanly possible, it was probably FFVII. I'm sure that if you even sit down and make a study out of it, fitting it on 2 discs shouldn't be too much of a problem. (A single disc would be a piece of cake if you were allowed to change the formats used for things too.)

The PS1 sure suffered a lot of wasted space thanks to developers' reliance on creepy ass 1994 formats all the way till the end. Fortunately, by the next console generation, other options/codecs and middleware started to pop up. <3

[Enrico Marini]

Maybe the RE engine wasn't very good at multiple fetch commands or it was just pure lazyness on the part of the coders, if you dump everything you need into the RDT it won't be missing anything.

To be fair a lot of progress was made between the PS1 and PS2 era, the games industry was still in early development during the PS1 era that they probably didn't have the cream of the crop when it came to programmers. Not like today where 3d Games Artist and Game Programmer are "viable" career paths.

[MeganGrass]

It's always nice to see you crawl out of your hole for a one-liner, Prime. Still trying to give it to people when they least expect it... some things, indeed, never change. ;)

That's a pretty expensive press stunt, then.

It's proven that all data combined will fit onto a single disc, and given the hype people used to give multi-disc games, it's not entirely out of the question.

Maybe I jumped the gun by saying "firmly believe", but the fact still reamins -- had the developers put duplicated files into folders, there would not have been the need for a second disc.

Expensive mistake, or intentional campaign? Either way, it's still absurd.

I firmly believe that the use of 2 discs for BH/RE 2 was absurd, and nothing more than a press stunt.

That's a pretty expensive press stunt, then. ;)

[doomed]

Did Angel Studios offered any commentary about how they put two 600MB+ CD's full of redundant data into a N64 Game Pak, how they worked with Capcom, the EX files, etc? I'd love to know.

The videos were encoded at a very low resolution (I think it was 160x100), the audio was heavily compressed and resampled and all the duplicate data (audio, video, backgrounds, etc - which are many, basically the PSX version is like having the same game on 2 different CDs!) were stored only once.

I can remember that something similar - to an extend - has happened to other games as well.

Baldur's Gate was originally a 5-CD game, and it was later rereleased as a 3-CD game by using better compression.

The same with Planescape Torment that was a 4-CD game and later it was rereleased as a 2-CD game by using better compression and storing only once all the duplicate data.

The Longest Journey that was a 4-CD game was later rereleased as a 2-CD game by using better audio & video compression (different codec, no quality loss).

Looking back the PSX version sure is bloated (by today's standards).

[MeganGrass]

Did Angel Studios offered any commentary about how they put two 600MB+ CD's full of redundant data into a N64 Game Pak, how they worked with Capcom, the EX files, etc? I'd love to know.

... this is an interesting read :

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3148/postmortem_angel_studios_.php

The amount of duplicate data between each disc in FFVII is ridiculous.

The same can be said for the PSX version of BH/RE 2.

RDT archives are, by far, the worst example, as they contain sound files (PSX-ADPCM), textures (PSX-TIM) and misc. data that's duplicated and stored in other RDT files. The only data in RDTs that isn't redundant, besides camera info, are scripts (for scenario events), but even then, the largest script i've found barely spilled-over 10Kb.

The background music scheme is almost as bad, but not quite -- PSX-ADPCM samples are duplicated and stored in various BGM files.

When it comes 'right down to it', the only issue would have been the videos (PSX-STR)... but, there are so many duplicates, I sincerely doubt it would have presented a real problem.

Although, reaching a deadline may have played a role (retail date), I firmly believe that the use of 2 discs for BH/RE 2 was absurd, and nothing more than a press stunt. CAPCOM could have easily fit the game onto a single disc and had tens, if not, hundreds of MBs to spare. Even BH1 and BH3 fall victim to the misuse of file containers (RDT, BGM, etc) -- a problem that wouldn't exist had the developers simply placed the data onto the disc in a global file structure.

Of all three games for the PSone (BH1, 2 and 3), BioHazard 3 is the [absolute] worst -- the ARD file continer scheme is downright hideous to conceptualize, and the game's ISO really shouldn't have surpassed 300-500Mb.

[Carnivol]

Don't think there's ever been any extensive in-depth talk on the subject. A lot of sources suggests that Angel Studios originally wanted to do Final Fantasy VII for SquareSoft, but Square supposedly rejected the idea as it'd reflect badly on them if a 3 disc game was fit on a tiny cartridge (in all honesty, FFVII would've probably been an equal challenge to RE2... if not even easier. The amount of duplicate data between each disc in FFVII is ridiculous.)


Anyway, the task of putting it all on an N64 cart isn't that absurdly amazing. The FMV framerate is bumped from 15 FPS to 12 FPS (iirc), duplicate FMVs are removed, the codec for speech (Factor 5's MP3/MusyX, iirc) is replacing the dreadful XA stream format of the PS1, some sort of improved compression routine is probably applied to the backgrounds (so they no longer rely on the use of a basic 1994 video compression routine), some textures are dumbed down ('cause the N64 unfortunately sucks at texturing anyway), etc...

With today's tech and software, you could probably achieve a much better result on the same amount of space.

No clue on the EX files, but I guess they were probably handled in coordination with someone involved with Resident Evil Ø.

[OKeijiDragon]

So... I've been a bit behind on the run and the commentary, but I've finally finished Part 8. Yay. Part 12 w/o commentary is also uploaded.

Fraid to say that they did. The RE2 N64 models are of a lower Poly count/Texture size vs the original PSX version. Its just Angel Studios just put more effort into lowering the texture sizes and model size whilst keeping as much quality as possible.



*note* the N64 textures were split up into many smaller images, Claire's head is split because the n64 texture was split.

The N64 version was good for what they had to work with.

Interesting. I haven't played the PS version since last summer, but I actually didn't see any noticeable differences in the models sans anti-aliasing.

Did Angel Studios offered any commentary about how they put two 600MB+ CD's full of redundant data into a N64 Game Pak, how they worked with Capcom, the EX files, etc? I'd love to know.

[Enrico Marini]

Unlike the Saturn port of RE1, Capcom didn't bother to redo the character models to work with the console RE2 was ported to.

Fraid to say that they did. The RE2 N64 models are of a lower Poly count/Texture size vs the original PSX version. Its just Angel Studios just put more effort into lowering the texture sizes and model size whilst keeping as much quality as possible.



*note* the N64 textures were split up into many smaller images, claire's head is split because the n64 texture was split.

The N64 version was good for what they had to work with.

[BrionIrons]

So just last month, I got Resident Evil 2 - N64 version for dirt cheap on eBay for $4.25, and so far I feel that I've got my money's worth.

Recently, I thought that I might as well record myself playing through it and offer my commentary on ii just for the heck of it in the best possible quality presented, with the Expansion Pak and recorded through S-Video!

In this playthrough, I beat Claire A / Leon B scenario with both A ranking, no spray-cans, no saving, with a time of "03:03:30" & "03:43:57", respectfully. In this same run, I happened to unlock 4th Survivor. There is however, a chance that I'll redo the entire Leon B scenario again from the ground up.

I understand that there exist a LOT of Resident Evil 2 playthroughs and videos, but at the same time there's not a lot of good quality videos of the N64 version. I'm adding commentary to this video run. Not the spoken kind of commentary (thank god for us all), but more like annotations that will consist of nerd trivia, jokes, personal reflection on certain parts, pointing out oddities, opinions, and more!

So far I've already gotten to Part 11 of my run, but the commentary up until Part 8 is completed.
Without further adieu, I'd like to present seven parts starting from Part 0 through Part 7!

Claire A:
Part 0 - Leon A Failure
Part 1 - Restart: Claire A - Robert Kendo
Part 2 - Claire A - Wounded Cop & Licker
Part 3 - Claire A - Brad & the Special Key
Part 4 - Claire A - Library + Outdoors
Part 5 - Claire A - Running for Herbs & Keys
Part 6 - Claire A - N64 Costume + Marvin Dies
Part 7 - Claire A - Chief Irons + Sherry Birkin

Part 8 is in development right now. I'll be putting up more Parts as I complete them.

Leon B:
Coming Soon!

Also, PEMNAS stands for "PLEASE EXCUSE MY NOOB ASS SKILLS". I invented the term myself.

--Now about the N64 version--

The Nintendo 64 version is known for, at the time, its technological breakthrough in inserting two 600+MB PlayStation CDs worth of (redundant) data in a 512Mbit/64MB cartridge. This port, done by Angel Studios, also features some additional exclusive content, including a new control scheme (dubbed "First Person Controls") an Item Randomizer, a Violence Adjuster, and Blood Color Adjuster. But of course, for the last two you would always want the maximum amount of violence and pure red blood in any horror game, right? Other features include new costumes made by Angel Studios, the developer that ported RE2 to N64 alongside Capcom, and the new, detailed EX Files.

The graphics actually look somewhat better than the PS version, there is very little clipping on the character models and they're smooth and feature no blocky-ness. Unlike the Saturn port of RE1, Capcom didn't bother to redo the character models to work with the console RE2 was ported to. Doing would have ruined the look of the characters, much like the butt-ugly models of RE1 SAT.

Anyone have a copy of this game? I think this is overall the best port of the game I've played yet. I wanted to get the GameCube port, but 1) It's overpriced a bit 2) It doesn't have the features that the N64 version has 3) The controls for that port kinda suck from what I read.

Anyways, I will be updating this thread whenever I get more videos done. Stay Tuned!

Did you know that Angel Studios is now Rockstar Games?I do miss playing the N64 version and GoldenEye 007.Best games ever.

[OKeijiDragon]

Well, I just got Part 7 done already. Part 8's commentary is in development as you read this.

But anyways...

Glad I'm not the only one who dislikes the N64 controller. It's a reason I don't have my N64 hooked up. And it has two of my favorite video games port RE2 and MK Trilogy.

:/

I actually enjoy the N64 controller for what it is. It's very accessible for some of the game made for it, including SM64, the Zelda series, Star Fox, GoldenEye (In particular, I love that game and how it controls) Pokemon Snap, Banjo-Kazooie, Perfect Dark, etc. Yeah those are all Nintendo-published/related games but the point is that it's very fun and function to play with.

For this run, I mostly played using the directional pad on the N64 controller, which plays surprisingly well considering that most of the earlier RE titles had you control the characters using the D-Pad to rotate. I always found controlling RE1, RE2, RE3, and RE:CV with analog sticks to be disorienting and confusing. I can't imagine playing Zero and REmake with an analog stick without screwing up. At least to me, the D-Pad is the way to go!

(Hey, I just thought of new commentary for later parts!)

Yeah, RE for Saturn is pretty damn good. It was my first RE game I played. I own the US copy and Jap copy.

Is there a distinct difference between the two region versions of the Saturn port? I heard about the Japanese version having less censorship or something to that extent. When I get a copy of the game for Saturn, I'll make video run of it someday, hopefully.

One thing I dislike about the N64 version of RE2 is there doesn't seem to be a way to delete save files. One copy I have has everything unlocked already

My used-bought copy is exactly that when I first booted up the game. It had almost everything unlocked sans Hunk and Tufu modes. Good deal for $4.25, I guess. =P