Agayek said:
I'm only a couple hours in, so take this with a grain of salt, but here goes:
Personally, it's a pretty good port overall. The keyboard controls I find to be rather clunky and unintuitive, but it works just fine with my Xbox 360 controller, so I can't really complain there. Other than that, mechanically it works pretty good. I've had no technical issues with it or any real problems. The sound isn't really bad, but it is the same files the PSX used, and that much is clear. You're not going to be hearing any sweeping scores from The Black Mages or whatever here, just the old PSX chiptunes. I find it to be charmingly retro, but your mileage may vary.
When it comes to the graphics though, it definitely doesn't run at 1080p. If you set it to that (which I do), you'll get black bars on either side and a very small bar on the bottom. It looks fine and works, but it's not really 1080p.
That's a shame about the bars, especially for things like combat where they could have easily just opened up the screen to show the rest of the rendered bits (though I can totally understand it on the Pre-rendered backgrounds where the sides might just cut off, not that there isn't a way around that through programming...).
And, yeah, as much as I love Keyboard and mouse for most games, for console games I always just use my DualShock3 (which usually just emulates a 360 controller when using it with my PC), so that won't be an issue.
Side note: I love chiptunes.
CrystalShadow said:
Ugh. If it's midi, then it's highly dependent on the synthesiser on your computer.
And... Unfortunately, since few people use midi anymore, the synthesisers on most people's computers are terrible.
Back in the day (of windows 98) I used the Yamaha S-YXG 120 software synthesizer (The original PC port of Final Fantasy 8 even contains specific extension for Yamaha software synthesisers).
Now, trust me when I tell you that the sound quality of even the low end yamaha S-YXG 50 software synthesiser is miles ahead of the Rolan GM/GS synth that is included with windows.
Best of all, you can improve the audio quality of ALL programs that use midi just by getting a better midi synthesiser on your computer.
Unfortunately... The drop in popularity of midi has meant such synthesisers are hard to come by.
The Yamaha software synths are no longer sold, and the last ever version released runs on windows XP, but nothing more recent.
To top it off, sound cards with decent midi hardware are almost as rare these days...
All that leaves for midi playback on modern systems is that same old legacy Roland GM/GS synth microsoft has included with windows since the days of windows 95. And that really is pretty awful overall.
So I find all this very interesting because I'm actually an electronic music producer and sound engineer, so my computer is actually loaded with quality softsynths and has a studio quality sound card, though after a bit of checking it's clear Windows 7 isn't smart enough to use any of them. It can however use my audio-card's MIDI using a user made control panel, but honestly I'm not wowed by it so I'm looking in to this: http://coolsoft.altervista.org/en/virtualmidisynth
Looks promising, and I'll be playing around with it and Doom for a bit to find a quality synth, and based on your comments very natural rage against the Roland GS I'd suggest you check it out too.
So, as OP, I feel the need to come to a conclusion, and based on what everyone is saying I'm probably just fine sticking to ePSXe, however based on what I've seen the graphics do come off as better, and with the possibility of mods around the corner that enhance the game even further, and the fact that my only other real concern of the music is something highly flexible I think I might just go ahead and throw a bit more of my money at Square (here's hoping it reminds them to go back to making good games instead of mildly interactive CG movies).
That said, I think I'm buying it more to tinker with it and examine how it looks, and for other users I'd suggest waiting for a Steam sale, because you know there will be one (and know that I'll see that sale, and be like "UGG, why didn't I wait?!", haha).
One final note, more in the hopes that some SquareEnix guy will see it by some chance: I'm not keen on SquareEnix's new love for DRM, and if anything were to stop me from giving them money in the future it would be that. I'll never forget the time I tried to play Chrono Trigger on my tablet while on a train only to find the DRM wouldn't allow such a thing.