Can't see where the problem with the screenshots is. That is provided if you played the game of course. It looks like the same game upscaled with some edge blending plus high res HUD. There's not much else they could have done with it, especially if you consider that it didn't even look good for the time of its release in 1996.

AWESOOOOOME indeed. One of my fav saturn games *wet pants* but wait....damn those screenshots they look like ass lol I'll get it nonetheless...

Photoshop filters anyone?

I love my Saturn and I still buy games for it (currently aiming to collect all 240 UK releases) but I never liked this game at all. Which is a pain in the arse, because it costs a lot now and I'm going to have to buy a copy at some point.

I always loved the original and am excited to think that Sega realizes the potential of this "franchise" but man, it looks pretty damn ugly. Maybe it will be alright in motion but these screenshots do little for me.

AMAZING!! instant buy!! i cant wait!!!!!

i like the new pencil hatching, looks good! can't wait! not sure what people are seeing but what i see looks grrreeeaaatt.

As long as they allow the game to be played with it's original blocky Saturn assets, then I won't mind too much.

It's great to see so many Treasure games on XBLA (Radiant Silvergun is coming soon too of course), but a bit of a shame they haven't given them a proper HD re-do.

I don't get it...I too thought AWESOME when I first saw the headline and after looking at the pics, I still think it. It looks just like the Saturn version which still looks great to me. Considering I just sold a mint US Saturn version on Amazon just a few months ago, its great to see I can still play it in HD on Xbox over Live with 4 players. Great news Sega! First day sale here...now we need Astal and the Panzer Dragoon series!

Sega have already confirmed that you can turn the filter off and have the original graphics.

You know, SEGA really loves when people says stuff like this, as it means they do not remember the games that well at all, and SEGA can continue doing the bare minimum in remaking these games for current-gen consoles. So as someone who has recently been replaying the original (I cannot believe that my old Commodore 1702 monitor still works after all these years - Saturn looks great on one of these under S-video), and who is even right now sitting with his April 1996 (Volume 4, Issue 4) issue of Gamefan in hand, let me tell what is terribly wrong with these screens.

For starters, the developer (whomever they are) did not bother to redraw any of these sprites in a higher definition, they simply just took the original artwork from the original game, and scaled it from 320 resolution, to HD resolutions. Now in and of itself, this creates a bit of a problem. The original already had a pixel edge issue whenever sprites were scaled, and just merely upscaling all the sprites and backgrounds tp HD would have made a total mess of things. So the developer applied an excessive amount of AA to hide the fact that all they did was scale 320 graphics to HD. What this does is create a serious mud effect over the visuals, and completely destroys the the sharp graphical presentation of the original game. So in the background of all these shots (for example take the first screenshot), in the original, you can actually make out all the individual trees. In the remake, it is all just one, near featureless, green mess. And even character facial expression which you could make out quite clearly in the original, are almost completely obscured in the remake. The overall effect of so much AA, is like taking a picture drawn with craypas, and then smearing it over with vinegar (remember when you used to do that shit in grade school arts and crafts), to create a muddied, blurry rendition of the original.

But the developers did not stop there. For some reason (which I am not quite sure why), the ran a secondary filter over the top of the AA smear, that made everything in the game darker . . . I mean seriously, this game is a shit load darker than the original. Even in the original, dark areas like the graveyard, are actually quite bright. What they have done here is placed a 60% to 80% dark tint over the entire game, the result being that not only is the game darker than a night out in the middle of the Texas panhandle, but all the bright, vibrant colors of the original game, are washed and/or muted.

The end result, is that we have a extremely dark and blurry version, with tons of missing details, and colors that are drab in comparison to the original. In may respects, this port is the exact opposite of one of the key elements that made the original (and gaming in general from the time) so special in the first place, as none of the graphics pop any longer. Saturn emulators are extremely rare, but looking at the images, many elements of this game are clearly running on an emulator, with filtering done over the top to disguise that fact.

SEGA could have redone all the art and created a proper port of this classic into HD - you know, shown it the kind of love that Capcom had shown to SSF2HD Remix. But instead, SEGA chose once again to go the cheapest route they could take, and you wind up with this gloomy mess trying to pass itself off as one of Treasures greatest games. And because people's memories are rubbish, SEGA is getting away with yet another raping of our misspent youth. Now that we know the graphics are a complete bust, hopefully they did not screw up the audio tracks and the soundtracks (common issues when running emulated games) or the gameplay. When I read the announcement this morning this game was being ported, my opinion was this would be a day one purchase. But after actually seeing the screen shots, I am so on the fence that it is not even funny. Why can't someone who actually cares about the customer, and cares about games in general own SEGA. Why does it have to be a bunch of douches who only care about exploiting the good will and over eagerness of SEGA fans, who run the company?

I totally agree with this tl;dr. I'd write it myself if I wasn't lazy. Anyway it looks horrible. Fortunately I still have my Sega Saturn with RGB cable and GH looks great on a standard tv. Still, it would've been nice if they did a proper hd release of Panzer Dragoon Saga, the game is just too expensive to get for the original Saturn.

probably looks alot better in motion...

Sega tweeted that the filter is optional

Still a less than stellar port. So you have the option of playing the game with shitty filters over the gorgeous graphics, or you have the option of playing the game trying up upconvert 320 resolution graphics to 1080p. No matter how you stack that, it's still the typical SEGA, bare minimum shitty port. You would think if they went through all the effort of adding online, and new modes, they'd have gone the extra mile and just redrew all the sprites and backgrounds in HD - heck, they could have just resampled the original hand drawn artwork into HD and still gotten far better results than either option they are offering us. I swear sometimes, dealing with SEGA is like putting up with George Lucas' stupid ass. Long time fans just can't catch a break no matter how politely we ask.

I don't mind for huge set of graphics, anti-aliasing, blah, blah, but man, this game's ugly. Even after these years, it stills look ugly.

Well, since I don't own a HD TV, it will look the same to me. :D