Toki HD remake

[opt2not]

Looks pretty good! More animated, higher quality graphics, better colour schemes. 
It's being developed by the guy who did Noitu Love 2.

[RayB]

THis is official?

(what's next, Karnov?)

[opt2not]

THis is official?

(what's next, Karnov?)

heh, I think they put a pitch in to do a Joe & Mac remake... don't know where that went.

[Bender]

the animations are awesome!

[JustMichael]

I don't know maybe I'm just too old school but with that remake I would feel like I'm playing a cartoon and not a video game. 

[Turnarcades]

I don't know maybe I'm just too old school but with that remake I would feel like I'm playing a cartoon and not a video game. 

Snap. It could just be the animation style they've used or this particular game's look, but it now looks like standard animation or a hand-drawn JAVA browser-game, which kills some of it's appeal if you ask me. SF2 HD remix was the ---steaming pile of meadow muffin---, but not all games will work with this new spin on things, and personally I think they should have chosen a less 'cartoony' game or style. Donkey Kong Country updated to high-res would look awesome for example, as it would enhance the 3D modelling they tried to achieve without polygons on the SNES.

Personally I think they should go for Turtles or Simpsons, with a 'Viewtiful Joe' animation style.

[Bender]

I don't know maybe I'm just too old school but with that remake I would feel like I'm playing a cartoon and not a video game. 

god I though I was getting old...
you make me feel young again, thanks 

I dunno I kinda always though of video games as cartoons rendered on the computer technology of the time
Remember how Dragon's Lair blew everyone away with the way it looked (although the game play wasn't that great)

[opt2not]

I dunno I kinda always though of video games as cartoons rendered on the computer technology of the time
Remember how Dragon's Lair blew everyone away with the way it looked (although the game play wasn't that great)

Exactly how I feel. I really love the idea of making sprite characters more animated, and when technology got better, games did just that. Look at games like Earthworm Jim, or Aladdin for snes/genesis period.  Amazing sprite animation, so charming and life-like.

Even the animated quality between Street Fighter II and Street Fighter III can speak for itself.

Truthfully, I wasn't a fan of the Super Street Fighter II HD remake, as it just looked like they traced the old sprites without trying to clean up some of the proportion problems that you can get away with when at a lower pixel resolutions.

Remember how Dragon's Lair blew everyone away with the way it looked (although the game play wasn't that great)

Dragon's Lair was awesome, but it was purely Don Bluth animated sequences, cut together by "quick-time" moments. Not necessarily as interactive and responsive.

I like the new look of Toki. Mostly because I thought that the original Toki wasn't animated enough for my tastes. For a character that looked that full in design, be that like-able, i felt it was a shame to see him move fairly static and stiff. It was like controlling a robot monkey sometimes.

That being said, I'm also happy they didn't go the 2.5D route (3D art on a 2D plain) with this title. It worked for Bionic Commando Rearmed, and possibly going to work for the new Rush n' Attack...but for Toki, actual high quality imagery in 2D was a solid choice.

[councilface]

I would love this on my cab!

I played through it again recently, what a ---smurfette--- the end boss is!

[Bender]

I always though Dragon's Lair was one of cleverest (is that a word?) workarounds for the limited technology of the time

[Xiaou2]

If you look at the very first frames of the Video, you can see the original
Toki morphing to the new.  One thing that stands up clearly, is that the actual
main character has MORE shading on the Original that the Updated version.

 Its really odd, because they did ok on the backgrounds... yet the main game
sprites are very poorly shaded, and look like a flat cartoon.  You can see the
impact even greater... at time frame  " :36 "   Where there is a cone shaped
rock.  There is no shading to make it look like a cone.

 This is why the remake looks like a cheesy flash game,  and actually,  not as
nice as the original... which is shaded better, and has a higher contrast scheme.

 Too bad really.  Fix those issues, and even I may have bought the remake.

[Xiaou2]

Also, you cant really compare this to Dragons Lair, because with DL, it was made
at a time when no game could output so much color and so much detail.

 If the original Toki had flat characters, then people would not be as offended,
because the game would have originally looked more like a poorly drawn cartoon.
Instead, the original had a more 3d realistic look to it... much like how Marble Madness
looked more realistic than cartoonish.

 DL had no precursor, so there is no comparison to make.  However, it would be
Awesome if someone went back and re-shaded the main character animations
with actual shading...
(and then made it steroscopic on top of that   )

[opt2not]

This is why the remake looks like a cheesy flash game,  and actually,  not as
nice as the original... which is shaded better, and has a higher contrast scheme.

Yeah, I see where you're coming from. If they did fix the contrast a bit more, with the more animated characters, this game would be a beast!

Too bad really.  Fix those issues, and even I may have bought the remake.

Well, it is still a work-in-progress...perhaps someone should send them an email.  

[FrizzleFried]

X... you're just a big ole bowl full of fun aren't ya?  Do you get off on being a constant downer?


I've never played the original,  but the new version looks good from the video.  Maybe it's time to bust out some Toki on MAME....

[Bender]

I've never played the original,  but the new version looks good from the video.  Maybe it's time to bust out some Toki on MAME....

That's just what I did
Not to bad, not great, but pretty fun... till it gets to the point where you have to memorize EVERYTHING in order to progress
That gets a little frustrating for me

[opt2not]

Well, it is still a work-in-progress...perhaps someone should send them an email.  

Ok, well I figured I'd go ahead and throw an email their way. Didn't expect a reply, but low-and-behold their Business Development Director did!  Goes to show how much the independent game-developers care about their gamers, not to mention appeasing old-school'ers like us!

Anyways, really nice guy. I mentioned our forums to him and showed them the feedback this thread has generated, and he sent me a couple images to post here for you all to see.
The first is a screen-shot of their stage 2.  The other is a sprite sheet of Kalgatrobe, one of the enemies in the game. Incredible stuff! I absolutely love the animation on that character.

He wanted to point out the level of detail in their animations, as well as the contrast between background and foreground elements in their scenes. He'd like to see an example of a flash game that holds up this kind of quality, so if anyone has one, please post it.

Personally, I'm impressed with this title already, and the level of involvement the dev-team has already shown...but they had me at the trailer anyways.

[Xiaou2]

The problem isnt the animations.  In fact, they are done amazingly well.

 The problem is with the shading on the main characters... which makes them too
flat.

 Its clear they Do know how to shade, because you can see it done decently in
the backdrops.  However, the main characters being so flat, makes the game
look too much like a cartoon... and thus comparable to a flash games sprites.

[opt2not]

However, the main characters being so flat, makes the game
look too much like a cartoon... and thus comparable to a flash games sprites.

Or comparable to...a cartoon? 

[RayB]

LOL... someone complains about contrast with backgrounds and the guy's answer is to find the darkest level in the game and use that as an argument against. Way to go Business Director Dude. You winz the internet.

[Xiaou2]

Just an quick rough example of what I meant, for those who need to see to
understand.

This could be done much better with proper color shading.  I merely used black
to add more shades and thus depth.

[opt2not]

Just an quick rough example of what I meant, for those who need to see to
understand.

This could be done much better with proper color shading.  I merely used black
to add more shades and thus depth.

Yeah, I got what you're were saying. But IMO your example looks worse...messy shading...like bad photoshop colouring you see in comic books these days "trying to fake 3D". There are two fundamental problems with your example, 1. never use black for shadowing, that's painting 101. 2. your shadow ramp is way too gradual to animate. In 2D animation, animating characters with really soft, gradual shadows is ridiculously time-consuming and not really worth it because the outcome turns out to have very non-concise light direction. Everything turns out to look "soft".

I look at examples in animated movies that compare to the look they're trying to go for, and it reminds me of ghibli studio films.






These are definitely not flat. Yet they're using simple shadowing, with concise light sources. I think what would be a better solution is if they keep the 2-tone colouring, but have more shadow coverage on their characters, as well as having clearly defined light sources. Look at these three examples, see how the shadow draws closer in, and are darker shades? As if there was one light source illuminating?  That's where the contrast comes in. One tone is light, one tone is dark, not the in-between tones you've got in your example, and definitely not in the light-shading that Toki HD currently has. That's what they should do IMO: more shadow coverage, with a darker tone.
Currently the Toki characters have a thinner rim of shadowing without much difference in light-to-dark tones.

*edit:  Looking at the Turtle in that Stage 2 pictures, you can see they actually thought more about the lighting. They introduced a highlight colour along the top rim of the turtle. So a 3 step gradation, which helps with the 3D sensibility. But I still say they should have more shadow coverage.