The site appears to be a Sega Saturn fansite, so obviously they have a slight bent towards playing it on the Saturn.

But for anyone else who's interested in trying the game, the PS1 version was fine, and is more readily available on modern consoles.

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wffurr 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

They really didn't cover at all why this game is better specifically on Saturn than PS1 or any modern remake / emulator.

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deaddodo 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

The game was built for the Saturn and ported to PS1 (versus being built independently for it). During that process, graphical fidelity and effects were lost and audio transcoded in a lossy manner. Sprites were lower quality, the water effects were worse, textures were downgraded, shadows were lost, etc.

This is a pretty bad demonstration since they took literally zero effort in syncing the two side-by-side til the end, but gives you an idea:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UL6Z9xvt7h0

That being said, it's not so much worse that PS1 is unplayable. It's just that if you had the choice between the two, the Saturn version is slightly more pleasant to look at and listen to.

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yesb 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

IIRC it was originally built for Saturn and there were a number of graphical downgrades in the conversion to PS1 along with reduced sound quality. Loss of shadows on 3d buildings, loss of various 2d effects, issues with textures, less stable frame-rate, maybe more that super fans have documented online. It also came with a couple minor upgrades e.g. better video bitrate. Nothing is different enough to affect playing the game. The completion of the English patch is relatively recent so that probably explains the renewed interest in the Saturn version.

The HD version spruces up the PS1 version but didn't go as far as restoring everything lost from the Saturn one.

So none are really definitive but the Saturn version is usually said to be the best. The PS1 has the advantage of greater availability and can be emulated on a potato. And the HD one is on sale for modern consoles.

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zoeysmithe 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Shrug, if I blog about the joys of driving down route 66 in a '57 Chevy, I really dont have any obligation to give equal time to what its like in a '57 Packard. Its a Saturn fan site, so its just going to be Saturn-centric.

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rendaw 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

Immediately after mentioning the Playstation port, the article explicitly states (in bold, on a line on its own)

> Grandia is Best on Saturn.

If you specifically blog about how driving down route 66 in a '57 Chevy is better than driving down it in a '57 Packard, I think you have some responsibility to try to justify your claims. Otherwise it's just trolling.

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wffurr 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

You could spend a little time singing the praises of your '57 Chevy and what makes it particularly joyful to you.

	▲	hnlmorg 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		...which almost always ends in flamewars with people arguing over something that's entirely down to nostalgia and personal preference.

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grimgrin 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

in that vein, https://www.nintendo.com/us/store/products/grandia-hd-collec...

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qingcharles 3 days ago | parent [-]

It's bad though, isn't it? I saw some videos saying they did a really low effort job on it.

	▲	grimgrin 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		maybe, but the blog post mentions it, sorta: "Additionally, the first Grandia was recently remade for modern consoles with the release of the Grandia HD Collection."

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snvzz 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

For modern options, miSTer's saturn core is known to be very accurate.