Sad day. Sorry for your loss, I do not look forward to the day that I will understand what you are going through, sounds like you look up to your dad just as much as I do. Dads do not get enough credit here, only crappy ties on Father’s Day; unequal to their awesomeness of “we drink we know things, and now I’m going to teach you about cars”
Remako 2.0 is the dream we all want to wake up to: HD REMASTER
I would gladly invest another 9999 hours into an HD REMASTER,
Overall, Remako > Remake; I don’t have anything nice to say about the remake; I could continue and illustrate a side by side comparison why I enjoy Remako > Remake but from this point on I will keep that to myself unless there is a following for this narrative, seems to be the unpopular conversation whenever I bring that opinion because then all of a sudden I am the [PG] asparagus-hole 🕳
Thank you for all of your hard work, and don’t be to hard on yourself. Don’t know what your Remako $ budget was but I am most certain it pales in comparison to Square Enix FF7 original million budget;
Goes to show that SE should have lent their resources towards this fan made creation < > AS THERE IS A HUGE DEMAND FOR HD REMASTER > or = to REMAKE.
It's a shame no one has commented on this post yet so I'll go ahead and be the first to do so. I just want to thank you for the work you did on this and all the updates you put out. After playing FFVII Remake I decided I wanted to give the original a go but learned of your mods, bookmarked this site, and have been waiting for a final release since. I decided to pop in tonight to find out the progress and it's unfortunate to see it cancelled, but taking care of yourself, your mental health, and watching out for you matters more than any needs of faceless internet posters.
I do hope someone, someday takes your source files and does something with them, but in the meantime I just wanted to let you know there are people out there that are grateful for the progress you made. Thank you.
First off, based on what you have written and my own experience staying involved in projects far long after I lost interest, I think you have absolutely done the right thing here.
Second, I will just say that Remako 1.0 was already an amazing achievement and a near masterpiece on its own. I played through Midgar and a bit further on the mod, and you breathed new life into the game for me, in ways that even the subsequent FF7 Remake could not fulfill. The lack of high-quality pre-rendered backgrounds has always been a *massive shame, given the rumor that all of the original high resolution graphics were lost during one of the corporate mergers at Square / Squaresoft / Square-Enix.
Your goals for 2.0 were impressive. But as in every project, the next iteration will always come with diminishing returns, and in this case you made the right call.
Bad news but after reading the post I am sure you did the right thing cancelling it. I want you to know that you did a really good job. Thank you for your hard work and I wish you the best of luck in your next projects! See you around!!!
Came to see if there is a update for the project and honestly, I'm glad. After seeing Sephiroth in Smash I was looking for 2.0 to drop to finally have my first playthrough of the game, but I was so anxious that I played with the current version anyway, it was so great that it didn't felt like it was missing something, you managed to improve in the most important things. You made the right choice, no one would want for you to continue the mod knowing what you've been going through, thank you for giving us an update about it. Thank you for your effort and this ambitious mod. :)
I think this is probably a good choice, when pressure becomes a factor in a hobby that requires a large deal of passion (and time)...it's just a recipe for trouble. At least this way you are free to possibly come back to it at a better time & work on your own terms.
Also, rest in peace to your Dad. Looks like he was a cool dude, very understandable that it would affect you, I know one day I'll have to go through that as well, it terrifies me. Really sorry for your loss.
Dude I am so sorry about your dad. If you need this to let this go for your peace of mind, then please do it man. No one should make a hobby a chore. Take it easy, if you wanna come back later, you can. If not, that's totally ok. Remember this, your mental health, state of being, take top priority. You don't owe anybody anything. Stay safe man and take care.
April 13, 2021 at 12:18 PM
[Image]Remako is cancelledIt is with great sadness that I have to tell you that I have decided to cancel Remako 2.0 and cease development of the mod entirely. I am pulling the plug on this project for various reasons, which I will detail in the rest of this blog post.For those wondering what will happen to everything I made for the Remako 2.0 patch, please see the end of this post.Why am I cancelling the mod?While I finally decided about a week ago that I wanted to do this, I've been think about quitting Remako for a while now. This mod hasn't given me real joy in a long time. When I was working on it, it got frustrating very quickly and during the long stretches when I wasn't working on it due to demotivation, the prospect of having to finish this mod loomed over me.A mod is never something you should torture yourself or feel unhappy about. And I don't want to lead you guys on forever, hoping that someday I will feel better about it and finish it. So by cancelling it I'm hoping to set you guys and myself free, so that we can move onto other/better things. No one is served by making this never-ending vaporware.Developing and maintaining a mod like this requires a passion and dedication to the game, that I never had. That's why I recommend a mod like the Satsuki Yatoshi Mod. Their creator breathes Final Fantasy 7 and has created a complete and very impressive mod.A rough pathOn January 28th, 2019 I released the Remako beta. Things were exciting and manageable back then. I hadn't necessarily committed to redoing all graphics. I just wanted to do the pre-rendered backgrounds and maybe the world, battle textures and the FMVs. Remako had gone viral, it was getting a lot of attention and I was one of the first people to make a mod like this. I was at the top of the game.After the release of 1.0 in May 2019 I got burned out on Remako for a bit. So I looked at other games. I developed WIP versions of a Half-Life: Source upscale (this turned into Half-Life: ReSrced), a Half-Life 2 upscale mod and looked a lot of other games too.I'd always looked back at Remako from time to time as fans wanted more and I thought I wanted to provide that too them. That's how Remako 2.0 got announced. That was a mistake. The textures I had upscaled up to that point were relatively easy (definitely due to the 4xCut tool by Satsuki). After that came more complex magic textures, HUD textures, etc.When I announced all the features for 2.0, I never imagined how much work those would be. Redoing the HUD basically means redoing everything by hand. That's not something that gave me energy. I should've just let it be the basic mod it started out as and let others do the other stuff.So I got in a cycle of working on it for a few nights, releasing an update to let people know about that and then getting frustrated by something or another and then not working on it for months. I also lost files on multiple occasions (such as the magic textures, which I worked on for three separate occasions).Combined with personal issues in the past 2 years/some on-going made development for Remako irritating and never-ending. That's why it's time to end it.In dedication to my dadOne of the reasons why I had such a hard time ending the Remako project had to do with my father's death a year ago. I finally told my dad about Remako in his final days. I've been pretty private about my mod/my YouTube channel but I didn't want him to go without knowing about that part of my life. I told him that I was going to dedicate my next update (2.0) to him. That promise is why I've been so hesitant to let go of Remako, even though it's given me little happy moments in the year since his death. I didn't want to break my promise and disappoint his memory. Recently I realized that I had started to hate the Remako mod. The realization that all the frustration, stress, etc. over not getting close to finishing my mod is not something my dad would've wanted. He'd just want me to be happy, even if a promise didn't come to a fruition. Sometimes you just need to let something go. Even though this memoriam is not the mod as intended, I am retroactively dedicating Remako to the memory of my father. Love you, Dad![Image]Remako 2.0 source filesEven though this mod isn't finished and some files were lost over time and not recreated yet (magic textures), if someone could use (parts of) this mod it'd be a shame if they were gathering dust on my computer somewhere. So I'm releasing the source files that I could find. You can download all source files here:https://www.moddb.com/mods/remako-hd-graphics-mod/downloads/remako-2-0-files-part-1https://www.moddb.com/mods/remako-hd-graphics-mod/downloads/remako-2-0-files-part-2 This contains all raw graphics, unscrambled field backgrounds, Photoshops PSDs with in progress textures (with layers), etc. Things like the FMVs were not changed from Remako 1.1 so you can just get those from the regular 1.1 download that's still up:https://www.moddb.com/mods/remako-hd-graphics-mod/downloads/remako-hd-graphics-mod-v10-complete-download-battle-menu-field-char Remako did not really have a defined user license when I released it. Retroactively all files on Remako's MODDB page are now part of the public domain and can be used as anyone wishes. This includes the name of the mod as well.What's next for meI can understand if you are disappointed with me for cancelling Remako. For me this however, this feels like a weight off my shoulders. It's giving me more peace of mind to do the things that do give me energy.I don't think I will be making any mods anymore. This takes a lot of energy and they need to be maintained and I'm at a point in my life that I really can't find that energy/time (which is why Remako had to be cancelled)I will however continue to make AI upscaling/sci-fi related videos on my YouTube channel. A video is a more self-contained thing, instead of a big project like a mod, with few if any expectations from the audience. While I do have plans for a regular schedule, if I feel like daily videos one week and no videos another week I can do that if I want to. That's the freedom I need from my creative outlet right now.This blog really only existed for this mod and Half-Life ReSrced. So I'll let it stay up, but I don't think I'll be updating any more. The Moddb page will also stay up, but won't be maintained. If you want to follow my exploits, I recommend you subscribe to my YouTube channel.Thank you for everything. Making Remako and the accompanying moment going viral is not something I will ever forget.
"Remako is cancelled, and here's why..."
9 Comments -
Sad day. Sorry for your loss, I do not look forward to the day that I will understand what you are going through, sounds like you look up to your dad just as much as I do. Dads do not get enough credit here, only crappy ties on Father’s Day; unequal to their awesomeness of “we drink we know things, and now I’m going to teach you about cars”
Remako 2.0 is the dream we all want to wake up to: HD REMASTER
I would gladly invest another 9999 hours into an HD REMASTER,
Overall, Remako > Remake; I don’t have anything nice to say about the remake; I could continue and illustrate a side by side comparison why I enjoy Remako > Remake but from this point on I will keep that to myself unless there is a following for this narrative, seems to be the unpopular conversation whenever I bring that opinion because then all of a sudden I am the [PG] asparagus-hole 🕳
Thank you for all of your hard work, and don’t be to hard on yourself. Don’t know what your Remako $ budget was but I am most certain it
pales in comparison to Square Enix FF7 original million budget;
Goes to show that SE should have lent their resources towards this fan made creation < > AS THERE IS A HUGE DEMAND FOR HD REMASTER > or = to REMAKE.
End of rant
March 2, 2021 at 7:39 AM
I've enjoyed your fine mod. You've done well so far. Thanks.
March 12, 2021 at 8:09 AM
It's a shame no one has commented on this post yet so I'll go ahead and be the first to do so. I just want to thank you for the work you did on this and all the updates you put out. After playing FFVII Remake I decided I wanted to give the original a go but learned of your mods, bookmarked this site, and have been waiting for a final release since. I decided to pop in tonight to find out the progress and it's unfortunate to see it cancelled, but taking care of yourself, your mental health, and watching out for you matters more than any needs of faceless internet posters.
I do hope someone, someday takes your source files and does something with them, but in the meantime I just wanted to let you know there are people out there that are grateful for the progress you made. Thank you.
March 15, 2021 at 8:02 AM
First off, based on what you have written and my own experience staying involved in projects far long after I lost interest, I think you have absolutely done the right thing here.
Second, I will just say that Remako 1.0 was already an amazing achievement and a near masterpiece on its own. I played through Midgar and a bit further on the mod, and you breathed new life into the game for me, in ways that even the subsequent FF7 Remake could not fulfill. The lack of high-quality pre-rendered backgrounds has always been a *massive shame, given the rumor that all of the original high resolution graphics were lost during one of the corporate mergers at Square / Squaresoft / Square-Enix.
Your goals for 2.0 were impressive. But as in every project, the next iteration will always come with diminishing returns, and in this case you made the right call.
March 19, 2021 at 3:36 PM
Bad news but after reading the post I am sure you did the right thing cancelling it. I want you to know that you did a really good job. Thank you for your hard work and I wish you the best of luck in your next projects! See you around!!!
March 19, 2021 at 10:58 PM
Thanks for your hard work man, good choice, if it's not bringing you any happiness then walk away :) Take care of yourself!
March 21, 2021 at 1:28 AM
Came to see if there is a update for the project and honestly, I'm glad.
After seeing Sephiroth in Smash I was looking for 2.0 to drop to finally have my first playthrough of the game, but I was so anxious that I played with the current version anyway, it was so great that it didn't felt like it was missing something, you managed to improve in the most important things.
You made the right choice, no one would want for you to continue the mod knowing what you've been going through, thank you for giving us an update about it.
Thank you for your effort and this ambitious mod. :)
March 23, 2021 at 1:20 AM
I think this is probably a good choice, when pressure becomes a factor in a hobby that requires a large deal of passion (and time)...it's just a recipe for trouble. At least this way you are free to possibly come back to it at a better time & work on your own terms.
Also, rest in peace to your Dad. Looks like he was a cool dude, very understandable that it would affect you, I know one day I'll have to go through that as well, it terrifies me. Really sorry for your loss.
April 9, 2021 at 2:25 AM
Dude I am so sorry about your dad. If you need this to let this go for your peace of mind, then please do it man. No one should make a hobby a chore. Take it easy, if you wanna come back later, you can. If not, that's totally ok. Remember this, your mental health, state of being, take top priority. You don't owe anybody anything. Stay safe man and take care.
April 13, 2021 at 12:18 PM