r/recomps • u/_______Niko____ • 4h ago
Discussion Very dissapointed in Retro Renew's new video
Retro Renew has always been my go to channel for emulation and abandonware optimisation, alongside others and I've come to respect his dedication to making unofficial methods of playing console games easy to grasp for newcomers, but today's video felt so tonedeaf and biased, it was dissapointing to sit through the end. His blatant hatred and bias against A.I. assisted work became more and more obvious as the video went on, no matter how much he tried to hide it under the guise of" how is this for casuals'
He is entitled to his opinion and taste towards emulation and unofficial ports + re/de-comps but it was frustrating to see him grasping at straws at times to devalue them in the video.
He constantly passes unnecessary remarks about the nature of these "ports" and tries to paint them as unethically produced "slop", making an entire tier dedicated to "absolute slop" to hammer in the "a.i. slop" narrative that the anti-ai crowd loves to parrot.
I'm not a pro or anti-ai person to be clear, I believe the technology is just a tool, a means to an end and characterising it as one thing is not the wisest position to hold. Both Anti-Ai and the Pro-Ai crowds are insufferable people that don't have any room for nuance and discussion.
His verdict for the Windwaker port is just plain stupid. He turns on experimental features for increasing the framerate and then acts surprised that it broke some of the visuals, mind you it was some minor texture blinking in the distance with the ocean sprites, nothing major, and since it uses frame gen, he criticised it for introducing input lag......even tho the setting specifically warns him that the game will still run at 30fps internally and it's an experimental feature. DESPITE all of this the game is running smooth and very playable, with mod support and a crisp resolution with KBM controls and widescreen, and yet he still puts it in the "Not So Great" category just above the worst tier.
He does something similar with Ratchet and Clank, granted the port isn't the best and arguably slightly worse way to play compared to emulation, but it's still playable and looks great, but NOPE there it goes in the "Not so Great" category again.
He then blasts the Infamous Second Son port as well, which I can understand as it doesn't look very playable at all, but his comments about these ports make it so hard to take him seriously.
Its like he's not allowed to appreciate them on any level at all unless they are absolutely perfect to the point you can't lie about it, like the god of war III port.
The whole this is just from a casual player's perspective" guise is bullshit, because no casual player would jump through hoops to play the unofficial ports and then expect them to perform perfectly despite knowing these are unconventional methods, you're out of the casual space by then. And his argument that "there are better ways to play these with emulation" is stupid because he made a whole point about how these should be more accessible to newcomers than emulation (which is also stupid because emulation is also incredibly easy atp and highly accessible).
His bias becomes even more clearer during the Edge of Time section of the video where he has nothing but praises for it because it's "entirely human made" and not "A.i. slop", also mentioning how he's in touch with one of the creators.
He also has these weird tantrums about the launchers for these ports, trying to make it seem like a big deal that the launchers look vibecoded and not super unique and interesting. Its not even like the launchers look ugly and broken, they look clean and simple. At one point he even complains about how "complicated" it looks, like dude....you are the channel that's all about using complicated settings and methods to play console games on PC.
The whole video he has this agenda he wants to push that the influx of these new reverse engineered ports are "nothing special" and not as good as they look, ooooo don't trust those twitter posts guys they are lying to youuuuu, like come on bruh.....come on.
The blatant Anti-A.I. moral grandstanding is genuinely so exhausting atp, atleast the A.I. techbros mind their own business, can't say the same for the Anti-Ai crowd that seems to be on a crusade, to save the world from "slop"
There's also a point in the video where this dude acts suprised and alarmed that the "add to steam" options added the game in his steam library as a non steam game, he acts all dumb and shocked like " did it just hack my steam account"
Dude....
(Repost , because r/decomp deleted my post without providing any reason , maybe discussion is not allowed there so I'm trying here)
