Simon the Sorcerer: 25th Anniversary Edition

The publisher has taken the original game, added a horrible filter which removes all detail from the graphics, and a terrible new UI. They have also doubled the price for this privilege, and gotten GOG to remove the original version from the store (makes sense, why would anyone buy this garbage at double the price when they could have the original?). The only saving grace is the original game is available as a bonus in the gog goodies (it's "Legacy version").

Ok, first of all, yes it's a very bad upgrade.. First of all you shouldn't use "HD" graphics at all.. It's like the pixels are smeared over everywhere. It's like waterpaint. If you truly want to convert it to HD, use ScummVM and use 4x graphics resolution. It would be clearer. But of course you could try several HD filters which most of them are better than what you'll see with this version. There is also option to enable voice and text together, and someone mentioned that it was not available in the original... But with ScummVM you could also enable voice and text together, also better than this version. I watched the intro and first few scenes, and I could clearly say, sometimes when character talks again there's no text visible, and it appears later etc.. So they couldn't do this as ScummVM did.. I don't know why. For music you have 4 options: Adlib, which you shouldn't check it at all.. It's mostly blips and bloops.. General MIDI is like old sound blaster cards, if you can load a sound font to your sound card it could be useful but for generic user I don't think it's acceptable. MT-32 is better, and with that you start to feel what the music should be. But without a real MT-32 card or proper emulation it's also so so... The best thing available with this version is recorded music. Which is not with a MIDI structure but it's a record ( of MT-32 version maybe ). So you get the best music with this option which is only positive thing with this release. The original, if I remember correctly, only plays music through GM, MT-32 and Adlib interface. Now if we could have any way to merge the music from this version and others from older version we could have a superior version after all.. :) The other positive is of course when you buy this you will have the classic version also, so you could buy and forget about the "HD" version and play the classic with ScummVM! PS. I do believe that they may have hidden ScummVM engine ( badly implemented! ) in the background :)

There is no HD in this "HD-Version" I'am a bigSimon 1&2 fan and ofc. I own the original games on GoG. But another 5-10€ for these "HD-Versions" is a complete rip off. The only used an "soft Focus" on the game, wich is for example build in ScummVM, and call it an 25th Anniversary Edition. That is an missed opportunity to give an good old game the love it deserved (like ME 1&2).

Awful cash-grab. Nothing interesting in this release. If you have previous ScummVM releases, run away from this one.