SMAAAASH!!

So I got this really sweet 50″ plasma HDTV for Christmas, right? So I immediately got all the cords and cables I needed for the best picture my game consoles can spit out, with the idea to play N64 games in HD from my PC via HDMI cable, as the 64 only does RCA.

The bad news is that Paper Mario looks like trash in HD. The good news is there is a plugin for Project64 that can load external textures in place of the low-res originals. The bad news is that freaking nobody, in said plugin’s ten or so years of existence, has ever finished one of these. The worse news is that all the Paper Mario ones used The Thousand-Year Door’s sprites, and they really don’t mesh with how Paper Mario 1 animates things. At all. Seriously…

So I’m gonna do one. As much as I’d enjoy doing the entire thing from scratch, that’s not what I want to play. I want the original look, in HD. So I’m tracing the original sprites, with the original poses and the original expressions, using the original colors. Little more, no less.

I really have only just started; Bombette’s is the only sheet I’ve finished, but here’s a taste of what all it’ll be like:

The extent of the creative liberties I’ll be taking can already be seen, in the fray on Bombette’s fuse.

I’m doing this in steps that will still leave me with something finished, even if I don’t finish. Characters and enemies first–that will be something you could say is complete. Theoretically, I’ll play that and think, “the 2D parts of the environment are driving me crazy,” and I’ll do those for a second version. Then I’ll want to do the menus and items. Finally I’ll do the textures for the 3D things. So basically only the characters are really planned, and the rest are penciled in. If I DO HD up the whole game it’ll probably take a couple years. I’ll keep you posted

I don’t want help with this. I’m doin’ it myself, as practice, as a challenge, as something to do, as whatever