Greetings.
While I’m currently unable to purchase and play Warcraft 1: Remastered on my own, I still wanted to see the results of Warcraft RTS Team’s and Blackbird Interactive’s work. I was able to spot several issues by viewing a few gameplay videos on YouTube and wanted to gather it all together in (hopefully) comprehensive list for developers, so they can be reminded about them yet again and properly address them. Also I’ve added in a few personal suggestions that I think will make War1R much better.
I think it’s important to catch as many flaws in a timely manner as possible, as it seems evident that Blizzard Entertainment views both Remastered as projects of a low priority like re-releases of Warcraft: Orcs & Humans, Warcraft 2: Battle.net Edition and Diablo + Digital Eclipse’s Blizzard Arcade Collection that got just one major patch two months after its release. In other words, they might call it short for an active support. So we need to make every mistake and problem within the game as known as possible to make sure they’ll be taken care of.
Everything is listed below. If you have something new to share or you would like to elaborate further on listed issue, I highly encourage you to do so and I’ll try my best to update this topic if possible:
Cinematic, Briefings, Victory/Defeat Screens and Endings.
- Introduction cinematic was poorly upscaled. → Replace it with the original pixelated version and simply increase its resolution without any filtering.
Note: Since Remastered visuals are still pixel art (just with many more pixels), it won’t look as out of place and jarring as current version of the cinematic.
- Only Remastered versions of briefings, victory/defeat screens and endings are currently present. → Add in their original versions for Classic mode.
- Lack of animated elements on characters and other elements of briefings. → Bring them back.
- Missing transition to the world map that showcased the progress of the First War in briefings. → Bring them back.
- No option to display text in briefings and endings in their original form. → Add accessibility setting that allows to turn on/off the Remastered font, mission title and darkened window text is displayed on.
- Missing animated half of endings with Orcs/Humans celebrating their victory. → Bring them back.
Note: Because there’s currently only one screen, War1R lost on a ~5 second pause between the first and second half of an ending that I would argue ruins its pace and power. In the original you have a few seconds to take in the realization that you’re the Warchief of the Orcish Clans/Defender of the Crown. Remastered endings are more like “yeah-yeah, whatever”.
You don’t have to simply take my word for it, but I also can’t put links in this post. You can look up both Orcs & Humans and Remastered version of each ending to see the differences for yourself.
- No Credits in Endings like in Orcs & Humans. → Add them back in.
- Missing slow window with animated scene for victory/defeat screen. → Rework victory/defeat screen to make it more faithful to the original game.
- Victory/defeat screen comes up with all statistics already loaded in. → Change it back.
Single Player.
- Classic & Remastered visuals are based on the wrong aspect ratio. → Rework visuals (both Classic & Remastered) with an option to switch between raw 16:10 and intended 4:3 look as an option.
Note: Initially I was skeptical of that claim from MickCraft because I was too used to seeing in-game icons in their raw 16:10 and then started overthinking Blizzard’s approach to resolutions in prior DOS releases, but one of my friends shown me that the War1’s visuals were indeed created with tall pixels in mind by demonstrating it via his authentic DOS computer.
Making it a toggleable as opposed to just changing it from one way to another seems like more more reasonable and easier way to address this crucial problem.
- No option for Remastered mode to have a small frame in upper, right and lower parts of the screen from the original game. → Add this option in settings that you can turn on/off.
- No widescreen for Classic mode. → Make Classic mode support widescreen in line with Remastered.
- Suggestion: Add additional visual “Apple” mode based on Macintosh version of Orcs & Humans that can be enabled in Options.
Note: This would be more of a fun novelty thing some players can use if they want to do so, even though essentially it’s just a filtered look for original sprites and tiles in-game.
- Remastered version of Human’s Town Hall has bushes/moss instead of shadows . → Redraw it to match Human’s Town Hall in its original form.
- Remastered version of Water Elemental doesn’t match the Classic one. → Redraw it to match the original Water Elemental.
Note: Original sprite, icon (just switch between Classic and Remastered visuals) and concept art (in the original game’s manual) for Water Elemental show a female figure, but Remastered version is more akin to its Warcraft 3 or World of Warcraft versions.
- When enabled, health bars give away the location of enemy units with Cleric’s Invisibility spell. → Enemies’ health bars shouldn’t be shown when they’re hidden by Invisibility. This should be fixed.
Note: I haven’t seen it myself, but someone told me about this bug being a thing.
- Current Options are extremely barebones. → Add more options to in-game settings like hotkey customization and expanding on existing ones such as screen resolution.
- No option for Classic controls while War2R(!) has it. → Add a setting that allows people to play Remastered with Orcs & Humans controls and limitations.
Note: At the very least, it’s weird to see War2R still have War1 Style Mouse Interface option while War1R doesn’t have it. Besides more basic mouse controls from Orcs & Humans, I would also like to have an option to play the game with four unit selection limit to have some more “challenge”.
- Suggestion: Add General MIDI version of the soundtrack alongside current Classic one, which appears to be the Sound Blaster 16 version.
Note: This could be a nice addition alongside currently present variations of the music.
- Missing “Save” option on “You are victorious!” screen. → Bring it back.
- Suggestion: Add QoL option to go to the main menu from “You are victorious!” screen.
Multiplayer.
- Lack of a multiplayer mode for two players from Orcs & Humans. → Bring back multiplayer in its original form with appropriate enhancements from War2R.
Note: Many re-releases and remasters end up cutting multiplayer component. You can argue that this missing part of the game would be mostly ignored and there’s some truth to it, but that doesn’t change the fact that just cutting it out is simply wrong.
Not only should it be brought back in its original form, but also made much easier to start a match and find opponents to play against.
- Suggestion: let players switch between red & blue colors add additional player colors specifically for Multiplayer as an option.
Main Menu.
- Lack of “Replay Introduction” option. → Bring it back.
- No Classic version of the main menu. → Add it as option players can choose.
- Suggestion: Add “Credits” button on Main Menu for easier access to them.
Note: Current version of in-game credits that uses Remastered Key Art for background could be reutilized here.
- Suggestion: Add an option to let the game automatically replay Introduction cinematic and four recorded battles from Orcs & Humans when you’re idle on Main Menu for a set amount of time.