The game is wierd. It's not like they just ported the 2 games (at least from the start of 1), but rather they rewrote the story and changed all kinds of things. I'd never played the PS1 (had it in my backlog forever) so I did 40 mins with the PSP version and then 20 mins with the PS1 version to compare:
Spoilers from the first 20 mins of each game. If you don't want to know the very very start don't read this thread.
PS1:
--OP movie is the GamiGami guy on his ship.
--Then shows Pietro's party while having a voice-over
--Then shows Pietro on the porch
--After seeing his father go into the tower he follows.
--He then proceeds up 3 flights of stairs, pausing at the 2nd floor to look at a picture of a woman
--Then he arrives to see the king with the woman and when he tries to ask who she is...the castle is attacked
--The king's crown is stolen and the king is sick in bed
--Pietro decides to go after the GamiGami guy to get the crown back
--When he approaches the tower where the woman was sleeping a mysterious voice calls to him and a the dragon sword comes from the sky with an image of a dragon
--Then he goes to to town where 2 knights join him and as a 3 person party they head toward the forest
--Eventually you reach a house and a demon pops up and your 2 guys run away and you have to fight him.
--Stopped there.
PSP:
--OP movie is the queen telling the king she has to go and do what she is about to do. The king tries to stop her but she turns into a dragon and goes and fights a ice demon thing.
--A still shot of the battle and a voice-over about the battle saying that she was the queen and there were 4 people who summoned the ice demon king and the queen stopped her but as the demon died he pulled the queens soul down to the demon realm. Then the voice over says it's 10 years later and Pietro's party (same lines as the PS1 version)
--Then it shows the party but the camera doesn't move and there are no lines.
--Then Pietro is out on the balcony and sees his father run into the tower
--He follows him and once he enters the tower the next screen is the bedroom (no stairs or painting) and he asks the king who she is. The king says its his mother and that her soul is in the demon realm. He says no one alive has been able to go there. But there is supposed to be a book that may have a hint in the magic library. So Pietro decides to go look for it. The king tries to stop him and says "That sword you have is from your mother, if anything happened to you it would make her sad"
--The next day you walk around the castle (new room next to the bedroom that has the painting from the stairs in the PS1 game).
--Walking through town most of the insides of houses both in layout and design have completely changed. For example one of the first houses has a woman in an empty room sitting at a table. Whereas in the PS1 version the room was filled bookshelves and other objects. Another place is the inn in the 2nd town, the PSP is a bottom room for eating and a top room including a counter with a worker for sleeping. The PS1 version has 2 rooms on the bottom one being the counter with the worker and upstairs is just beds.
--There are no soldiers accompanying you so you're fighting alone.
--You have completely different spells, in the PS1 version you started with fireball and got water rain when leveling to lvl2. In the PSP version you start with nothing and at lvl2 get some kind of long range wind sword attack, lvl3 gets you no new attacks.
--You go to the 2nd town and there's a robot living there (not in the PS1 version) people are talking about the robot and the GamiGami guy.
--You go to the forest and at the same building you fought the demon at in the PS1 version...here the lead girl comes out and greets you as she lives with her sister there. The sister says you have to go to the sky and the GamiGami guy might be able to get you there so the girl joins your party and you head off. The girl starts with the water heal magic spell.
That's about all I did with both versions. Even the music for like the opening castle seemed slightly different. PS1 seemed like it had more animations, facial expressions; whereas the PSP version just looked much sharper with better color use and no pixelation when standing still. They did a good job making it not look like a '96 game. The battle system is quite different in the PSP version, much faster and a better menu system. Also the enemies were different in the two versions and the PSP one was much easier at the start. But then supposedly they are using the Popolocrois II engine for the battle system so that would make sense.
Negatives for the PSP version:
--Ghosting is insane and bad. When you move it can hurt your eyes if you try to focus, but the second you stop it looks gorgeous. Your eyes adjust but wow it's odd.
--Loading is worse than the PS1 game (loads when enemies appear, loads when moving into new screens)...but loading enemies in on the main map is still shorter than your average PS2 rpg battle loading so it's very managable.
The PSP one seems like a gem to have in your PSP collection but I'm just a little worried about all the changes. Since it seems like they had to remake EVERYTHING maybe they just decided to cut out a whole bunch of scenarios and shorten the games to save development time. Hope I'm proven wrong.
--bebpo
Spoilers from the first 20 mins of each game. If you don't want to know the very very start don't read this thread.
PS1:
--OP movie is the GamiGami guy on his ship.
--Then shows Pietro's party while having a voice-over
--Then shows Pietro on the porch
--After seeing his father go into the tower he follows.
--He then proceeds up 3 flights of stairs, pausing at the 2nd floor to look at a picture of a woman
--Then he arrives to see the king with the woman and when he tries to ask who she is...the castle is attacked
--The king's crown is stolen and the king is sick in bed
--Pietro decides to go after the GamiGami guy to get the crown back
--When he approaches the tower where the woman was sleeping a mysterious voice calls to him and a the dragon sword comes from the sky with an image of a dragon
--Then he goes to to town where 2 knights join him and as a 3 person party they head toward the forest
--Eventually you reach a house and a demon pops up and your 2 guys run away and you have to fight him.
--Stopped there.
PSP:
--OP movie is the queen telling the king she has to go and do what she is about to do. The king tries to stop her but she turns into a dragon and goes and fights a ice demon thing.
--A still shot of the battle and a voice-over about the battle saying that she was the queen and there were 4 people who summoned the ice demon king and the queen stopped her but as the demon died he pulled the queens soul down to the demon realm. Then the voice over says it's 10 years later and Pietro's party (same lines as the PS1 version)
--Then it shows the party but the camera doesn't move and there are no lines.
--Then Pietro is out on the balcony and sees his father run into the tower
--He follows him and once he enters the tower the next screen is the bedroom (no stairs or painting) and he asks the king who she is. The king says its his mother and that her soul is in the demon realm. He says no one alive has been able to go there. But there is supposed to be a book that may have a hint in the magic library. So Pietro decides to go look for it. The king tries to stop him and says "That sword you have is from your mother, if anything happened to you it would make her sad"
--The next day you walk around the castle (new room next to the bedroom that has the painting from the stairs in the PS1 game).
--Walking through town most of the insides of houses both in layout and design have completely changed. For example one of the first houses has a woman in an empty room sitting at a table. Whereas in the PS1 version the room was filled bookshelves and other objects. Another place is the inn in the 2nd town, the PSP is a bottom room for eating and a top room including a counter with a worker for sleeping. The PS1 version has 2 rooms on the bottom one being the counter with the worker and upstairs is just beds.
--There are no soldiers accompanying you so you're fighting alone.
--You have completely different spells, in the PS1 version you started with fireball and got water rain when leveling to lvl2. In the PSP version you start with nothing and at lvl2 get some kind of long range wind sword attack, lvl3 gets you no new attacks.
--You go to the 2nd town and there's a robot living there (not in the PS1 version) people are talking about the robot and the GamiGami guy.
--You go to the forest and at the same building you fought the demon at in the PS1 version...here the lead girl comes out and greets you as she lives with her sister there. The sister says you have to go to the sky and the GamiGami guy might be able to get you there so the girl joins your party and you head off. The girl starts with the water heal magic spell.
That's about all I did with both versions. Even the music for like the opening castle seemed slightly different. PS1 seemed like it had more animations, facial expressions; whereas the PSP version just looked much sharper with better color use and no pixelation when standing still. They did a good job making it not look like a '96 game. The battle system is quite different in the PSP version, much faster and a better menu system. Also the enemies were different in the two versions and the PSP one was much easier at the start. But then supposedly they are using the Popolocrois II engine for the battle system so that would make sense.
Negatives for the PSP version:
--Ghosting is insane and bad. When you move it can hurt your eyes if you try to focus, but the second you stop it looks gorgeous. Your eyes adjust but wow it's odd.
--Loading is worse than the PS1 game (loads when enemies appear, loads when moving into new screens)...but loading enemies in on the main map is still shorter than your average PS2 rpg battle loading so it's very managable.
The PSP one seems like a gem to have in your PSP collection but I'm just a little worried about all the changes. Since it seems like they had to remake EVERYTHING maybe they just decided to cut out a whole bunch of scenarios and shorten the games to save development time. Hope I'm proven wrong.
--bebpo
