Have you played that YouTube game, where you scan through endless videos of the original Crystal Chronicles on GameCube, clicking and holding the TV remote buttons, dragging back and forth, trying to work out what exactly had changed in the opening level River Belle Path? It’s good fun!
You have to get used to the quick acceleration of that scanning pimple along the time bar, but once you’ve got it down it feels good, and the buttons on my Sony remote have a pleasingly matte and rubbery top-feel, then a satisfyingly crisp click to them. Click-and-hold, then a quick release! This time, on a good comparison video of the newly released remastered Crystal Chronicles. And I knew it. Not only does the GameCube one have darker, richer cloud shadows that dapple and drift across the landscape, but it also has a whole layer of smudgy shadow cast by its trees and paths and walls. The atmosphere’s all changed. In the waterfall clearing where you fight the crab boss, originally it was moodily half-eclipsed in a darkness cast by the surrounding trees, whereas in the remaster it’s all just limply even. I think the lighting in general is different, the whole thing a little paler, maybe a little cooler? Username ‘Rami’ in the YouTube comments agrees!:
the PS4 version looks nice, but the lighting is a lot cooler than the GameCube. If it were tinted with more of a greenish-yellow, just slightly, I think it would be quite perfect. (o^^o).
