Capcom: Treasure Island Z

Yes, that's dithering. You don't see it on any machine since last gen other than Nintendo's though, because when you can display 24 bit images, you don't need dithering. Well, you do, but when done you can't see it. Nintendo's hardware has a 16 bit mode, with 32,000 colours that has to use dithering to approximate in-between colours, and to provide transparency. If you look at this picture you'll see it very clearly.
zack-wiki-quest-for-barbaros-treasure-20071018102509393.jpg



You won't have seen that sort of rendering on a machine for years! (unless you had a GC!)
 
I always thought these machines from N64 and up displays 16.7 million colors.

You won't have seen that sort of rendering on a machine for years! (unless you had a GC!)
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Really? The GC used a lot of dithering as well? That's weird. I never noticed in the screens or in the games. It's just now with the Wii screens that I noticed it. It's only noticeable on some games.
 
Shifty Geezer said:
Yes, it's in game. You don't see that sort of mass dithering on other JPEG's across the web!
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Here's a question. Why would they use 16bit colour? The game seems to run very well, and it's not exactly a fast paced game that requires twitch skills. Is it a technical limitation in the way they're doing their cell shading, a smaller performance hit using 16bit with cell shading, or is it just cheaper to do the textures etc?

Still, even with the dithering, the game looks great. Maybe not technically amazing, but the art direction makes the game look pretty good from what I've seen.
 
As I understand it, though I'm very far from being a GC hardware expert, a limit of the hardware meant using 24bits per pixel for RGB and alpha. My above post was wrong, it's 6 bits per channel, 262k colours. I can't remember what the limit was. It may be enabling the AA. I'm really not the one to ask!
 
Sales could be better, it's only at place 29 in Japan. That should be around 5000 units in its first week. I hope it does better in the west, I really loved all the Gobliiins games...
 
The GC could also forgo destination alpha, using 24-bit RGB, 8 bits per channel. The 6:6:6:6 mode resulted in rather awful banding in the games that I know for sure used it (Prince of Persia, RE4), so I don't think that's what Zack & Wiki is doing. Maybe it's using 8:8:8 color and then using some other method to draw effects on the screen that's low-precision enough to require dithering.

Anecdotal reports suggest that Capcom hasn't actually shipped that many units, but that retailers are selling out over here. So I guess retailers underestimated demand.
 
Great game. I wouldn't pass it up if you own a Wii. If you're not big into puzzle games, I'd pick it up used, but don't skip it.
 
Well, at least Capcom has it figured out. Between Zack and Wiki, Resident Evil 4 and Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles, they've done pretty well. Not so sure about Harvey Birdman ...
 
Johnny Awesome said:
It's not a myth, but a reality. 300k for a critically acclaimed game on a system with 20 million users? That's nothing but shocklingly bad.
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I don't think you can really look at it that way. Zack and Wiki is a very unpopular genre of game. It doesn't have guns, blood or any kind of sport simulation. If you look at the top tens regularly, it's pretty obvious that those are big selling points.
 
Johnny Awesome said:
It's not a myth, but a reality. 300k for a critically acclaimed game on a system with 20 million users? That's nothing but shocklingly bad.
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Really? You were shocked? I have a hard time believing that you expected a new franchise with an awkward name, a very "kiddy anime" appearance, no marketing push, released around the same time as juggernauts like Halo 3, and not fitting in any popular genre to sell millions of units, because you've never struck me as completely out of touch with reality. 8.7 on MC isn't "critically acclaimed" enough to guarantee 3m sales. The past is littered with 8.7 games that never broke 1m.

*snip*

Edit: What was your expectation when this game was announced? Can you say without lying that you actually expected Z&W to sell a million units out of the gate, or that similarly left-field titles with similar lack of marketing would regularly breaking 1m on the Xbox 360?
 
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joker454 said:
Now that's a bold statement considering that Monkey Island is one of the greatest games ever made! Good to see a 3rd party Wii game get a good review for a change.
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From what I remember of those kind of games, they were more loved for their story and atmosphere than engaging gameplay. Most puzzles consisted of nothing more than randomly clicking and trying things.
 
Johnny Awesome said:
This is the Wii were talking about. A game like this is a perfect fit for its audience. 300k is pretty bad.
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I wasn't aware that Wii's target audience was accustomed to buying point-and-click adventures with unknown, non-licensed cartoon characters, and buying them by the millions at that. What sort of market data were you following that gave you that impression?

Seriously, when Z&W launched, what were your expectations? 1m? 2m? 5m? I want to know what you genuinely thought it would sell. My expectation was that it would be like Beyond Good & Evil, a great game that simply lacked the image, marketing, exposure, or consumer perception to do well. And being on one platform awash in a sea of crap, one where Godfather: Blackhand Edition tanked, I expected no more than 200K sales, probably less than 100K. I wouldn't be surprised at this point if Zack & Wiki end up getting over 400K.
 
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