Re: KH 1.5 ReMix Trailer Released!
While a lot of people (probably most) don't mind one way or the other, altering a work's aspect ratio is objectively a bad thing. It destroys the intended composition of the shot by the director. Rather than cutting off the top and bottom of the picture, I would have preferred having the 4:3 image "extended" (not stretched) to 16:9 during gameplay with black bars appearing on the left and right during cutscenes. So no, I am not happy about the cropping.
However, since this is a video game and not a movie, a perfect image isn't my top priority. My main concern is gameplay, and if this gets an American release*, the actual new content provided by KHFM is more than enough to sell me on it. Plus, as has been pointed out, while we may not be getting the whole picture, the portion we are getting will be considerably clearer.
Here's some math for you: The native resolution of KH is 512x447. They are cutting off the top and bottom eighths (1/4 total) of this image. The resulting image is roughly 512x335. Now, we don't know what the resolution of this ReMix will be, since not all games for a particular system have the same rez. However, let's assume that Square is being truthful and the product is truly HD. For a 16:9 picture, that means a minimum resolution of 1280x720 for the same area as the aforementioned 512x335 image. That's 2.5 times the horizontal rez and about 2.15 times the vertical rez. This basically means the amount of detail is increased by a factor of nearly 5.4. Full 1080p has six times the resolution of NTSC 480p, so (at appropriate seating distances) the difference between the this ReMix and the original will be comparable to the difference between an average Blu-ray and an average NTSC DVD. I am greatly pleased with this.
*I will be absolutely furious if we miss out again. I know life isn't fair and stuff, but is it really too much to ask for some equal treatment, Square?
