When Grand Theft Auto The Trilogy: The Definitive Edition was announced, fans were excited. We were finally getting remasters of the 3D era trilogy and they were going to be vastly improved in every way. And then the collection was released and what we were given by Rockstar and Grove Street Games was not what was advertised.
How did this happen? How did they take a sure-fire hit and turn it into something so utterly disastrous that it has taken the place of Warcraft III Reforged as the most hated game in many players’ eyes?
The new remasters have new visual designs which should be good, but the new visual designs clash with the intended look of the original game creating a horrific blend. Several character models are destroyed with some looking nothing like the originals others that end up looking disturbingly unrealistic. To make matters worse, in some areas, the games actually look worse than in the PS2 originals.
A major problem with these games is that the draw distance looks off, with low detail models being more apparent now. Combined with the new look of the game, this causes the GTA trilogy to fall headfirst into the uncanny valley and we end up with instances of the games having numerous visual glitches akin to a bad PS1 game. It all feels so rushed like the devs were just pumping this out fast to meet a deadline without any care for the quality.
Other issues include the games having typos galore, including font changes, and errors clearly made by AI algorithms. These have started to be rectified by patches, but some issues are still there. Jokes have been ruined by this and it feels like a low effort porting job and textures are not scaled properly.
The ports are based on the mobile versions of the trilogy, which were also made by Grove Street Games, and it shows. It shows because bugs from the mobile version appear in these versions as well, such as the jetpack from San Andreas being left in the air, frame rate problems while swimming and so on. This isn’t even getting into the character models having their body structures looks like their bones are mishappened and their bodies warped, such as having hot dog like fingers
There are numerous other graphic and physics issues as well, such as the fact that the first-person gameplay is extremely disturbing when driving should the player look around. The rain in the games does not look like rain either but rather like thick milk is dropping down from the skies and in some cases is too thick to see through. These issues are also present in cutscenes, in which numerous errors show up that ruin the immersion of the player.
Over 20 songs were removed, and while that can be explained away by licensing issues, the code for the songs is still in the games, and the infamous hot coffee code was still in San Andreas at the time of release. A lot of these issues actually caused the game to be broken for players on some platforms, necessitating removal from the storefronts. Numerous cheat codes were also removed or simply do not work right in the games either, leading to an ill-fated experience.
But what about the Switch version in particular? Well, the Switch version has horrific frame rate problems with lots of screen tearing and stuttering and the games struggling to maintain 20 fps at times. The cutscenes are worse here with horrific character models present in them on the switch. What is worse though is the fade-in of cars when driving that can happen within mere inches from the player’s car.
There are other problems as well, such as the horrific smear effect that attempts to create a bloom effect. Disturbingly butchered audio and horrific collision detection also create problems as does the fact that the games, Vice City in particular visually resemble an N64 game.
The versions on Switch look worse than the original PS2 games, handle like garbage especially when driving and running animations reduce the framerate all the way to 10 fps. When games like Dying Light and World War Z and Metro Redux were ported well to switch, and with games like Alien Isolation actually running and looking better than the PS4 version in some respects, these GTA ports are unacceptable. Basic things like enemy detection and the police, a key part of the game do not work right, and make this a mess that should not have been, especially when a game like Saint’s Row 4 runs much better on Switch.
Avoid Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy Definitive Edition as it is not worth the time to play. There are much better games to try on all platforms that deserve the money. All that is left here is the inevitable What Happened? Episode from Matt McMuscles.
Disclaimer: A review key was provided