If thereвЂ™s anyone to blame here, itвЂ™s Microsoft. Given this complete mess, the developers werenвЂ™t able to do much besides upscaling the gameвЂ™s resolution and, well, adding god damn microtransactions to it (I still canвЂ™t believe they actually did this).Д«efore you rush to the comment section and slam yours truly for unfairly bashing the poor developers, I know itвЂ™s not their fault. And that was yet another problem: the remaster was announced without the developers being able to actually access the gameвЂ™s original source code, therefore they had to hack it and reverse engineer it, just like people do with illegal ROMs in emulation websites, in order to be able to take a look at the assets and data files. Microsoft didnвЂ™t give up on trying to bring Phantom Dust back from the dead, though, and decided to announce a remaster of the game, instead of a remake, after the original cancellation.

As it seemed, Microsoft kept asking for more and more features to be added to the reboot, while maintaining the original budget, not adding a single cent, which made the game development nearly impossible. Microsoft eventually decided to cancel the project, a decision that resulted in the closure of the developer working on the game. It was originally planned as a full-fledged remake/reboot of the franchise, a way to bring back this older franchise from the glorious OG Xbox into the current generation of gaming, as well as using its multiplayer component as a way to take advantage of the growing eSports scene. Yes, we all know the story behind the failed attempt to actually remake Phantom Dust. Granted, the gameplay is interesting, but it doesnвЂ™t hold up to nowadays standardsвЂ¦ Granted, you can get abilities as good as those being sold during the single-player campaign, but for crying out loud, this just feels wrong. Microtransactions for a game from 2004? Who the hell thought that was a good idea? Sure, we are getting the game for free, but adding paid DLC for a game that was complete content-wise back when it was first released is, for lack of a better word, insulting. Excuse me for a second, I need to use the toiletвЂ¦ Everything that was wrong with the game 13 years ago is still here, and given how far weвЂ™ve come in terms of gaming, some of those issues are even more apparent this time around.Дid the developers add anything to this new version? Yes they did. Gameplay-wise, the game still maintains everything I mentioned in the previous paragraph. No new lighting effects, no improved texturing, no new shadow effects, not a single framerate improvement.

This version is nothing more than a direct port, with no visual improvements other than its new resolution during normal gameplay, as the FMVs are still in the original resolution, looking quite ugly in the process.

To put in simple terms, the Xbox One version of Phantom Dust isnвЂ™t a remaster, like Microsoft is trying to convince you in the Xbox Live store. CouldnвЂ™t even be bothered to upscale the FMVs?

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