The release of Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition was accompanied by all kinds of emotions. First of all – incredible excitement, because three absolutely great video games have not only become available to a new generation of players, but also, supposedly, more beautiful than ever. Allegedly.
The trilogy, which came out late last year but is only now available on Nintendo Switch on physical media, contains Grand Theft Auto III (2001), Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (2002) and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (2004).
If you’ve been avoiding any industry news all this time, my introduction may seem a little strange to you, especially since I’ve always tried to stay optimistic and look at games in a positive way. I’ll try to do the same today, as much as possible.
So, let’s start with the good: the trilogy, as it promises, opens access to three games of perhaps the most critically acclaimed and player-favorite series in history. Everyone has their favorites, but most of all we love the last two parts. And to get such a great thing on a portable console is a dream for many. The good news is that these are still great video games. The bad news is that not only have they not improved, they’ve even been tampered with.
The developer claims to have released a remaster. What constitutes a “good remaster” is a complicated question, and everyone will tell you differently. Someone will say it means to release the game as untouched as possible, but with adapted controls and compatibility. Some will say that it’s a completely transformed video game with tweaked graphics and modern enhancements. I, on the other hand, believe that the main thing is to bring the game as close to modern player requirements as possible, so that even a novice can get the hang of it. An example of a weak port is what Ampyr is doing with the Jedi Knight series. I appreciated those games quite a bit, but ruined how the controls were completely unchanged, and the first-person pointing aid didn’t even appear on consoles.
Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition is similar in many ways, but its problems are unique. The fact is that we were promised not just a transfer to modern platforms (which is especially relevant to console players), but all sorts of visual improvements. Lifted textures, improved faces, more modern lighting. On paper – really useful bonuses to games that are still good to this day. In reality, unnecessary patches that somewhere made the original much worse than it was.
I’m not going to spell out what got worse and what got better. I’ll just say that I liked the lighting (in places) and didn’t like the faces and, often, the textures, which were obviously handled either by the AI or by very weak developers. The latter is readily believable: instead of working on their own offspring, Rockstar gave the project to some third-party company with no experience and no particular desire (budget) to do the job in good faith.
In general, all three games of the trilogy suffer from numerous problems and bugs – including bugs that we know from our childhood! It’s even a chip in some ways, but hardly intentional. We waited over a month for patches to come out, and now the trilogy is really playable. Whether you have to is up to you. I find that the mere fact that the games are available on a handheld outweighs the problem of the releases themselves – at least for me. But keep in mind that I only recommend the release to those with nostalgia. I don’t recommend it at all to those who want to play for the first time. You just don’t understand what it’s all about. And there’s the matter of both what was done and what wasn’t done. Age does take its toll, after all, and it’s not just about the picture, it’s also about the controls. Sometimes vintage GTAs are work, not fun.
Verdict .
Every month the games get more accessible and better conditioned. The woeful developer is somehow, but trying to pull them up. And they work. In a portable! Nowhere is the sparkling humor or the utter chaos. Overlapping all the brilliance of the originals didn’t work. But Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition doesn’t live up to its name after all. It’s a “trilogy,” yes. But there’s nothing definitive about it.