I honestly want to know. Is the remake any good?
From my perspective (which is limited to screenshots and videos) it seems like they recreated the original game, almost verbatim, only with half the original game's budget.
Nothing about it looks like an improvement, outside of running at a higher resolution...though with shoddy new artwork.

Though maybe I'm wrong! I haven't played the remake, so I'd like to ask fans of the original game; is this remake really a good "update" to the original?

I think it is a lot better than I hoped it would be. I was "very scared" before the game was released, because I read previous games (okay I guess there is only Moebius) from Phoenix Online had, for one, horrible wooden animations for all characters and the like and I really didn't want that for Gabriel Knight. It was later stated that they used MoCap for GK, but my fears were only put to rest when I started playing it. The animations are actually quite good. Characters can pick up all kinds of objects or even hand them to another character and it looks at least as good as in other current adventure games (think e.g. Broken Sword 5). Definitely nothing someone could complain about (okay, this is the Internet so I guess I only have to give it some time :D). I also never had this glitch where Gabriel putting on his coat is a clipping nightmare (some tester demonstrated this before the game's release), it works flawless on my PC, so I'm thinking they clearly improved the game since the preview builds.
Another worry for me was, that I'm a huge fan of the original voice cast (I later learned there are people who actually hate Tim Curry...), I thought it was mostly brilliant and hard to top and I also don't like to change such things.
So I knew right away that different voices were another point that would be hard to swallow for me, but I survived that as well. It's impossible to overhear how much they tried to get voices which would sound at least similar to the originals and that shows how much work was put into it. It's professional, no doubt about it. One of the voices is even the original voice, I'm pretty sure. Desk Seargant Frick sounds as if they managed to get the actual person who voiced him 21 years ago.
I'm "only" on Day 7, so I haven't seen everything yet, but so far they really nailed all the art. The locations are pretty and other than in the original they are also animated now. Candles will produce smoke, stuff like that. It's great. Places like the Voodoo Museum look so much better because of it. I especially like the way the bookstore looks now, which was a very good call, because this is probably the central location of the game the player will see more often. Some of the places have a more sterile, cold 2D rendered look (the cemetery) I don't like that much, but even that is no problem. It's still okay and looks as detailed as those high res screens can.
Oh, another huge doubt I had before playing the game, was that the original had all these options like look, open/close, move, use... and lots of them didn't work most of the time of course, BUT they still prompted Gabriel or the narrator to state funny things. With the "easier" interfaces all new adventure games have, I thought they might remove those parts that really added flavor to the game, most others of this type have always lacked. To my delight they didn't, most of these lines are still in. In these cases there are just the extra options that don't really make sense, but were kept to not remove the funny lines.
A new feature I like a lot, is that you can now access interviews, concept art [...] for pretty much every location. Also for both the original and the remake. Honestly, they could have added a lot more commentary than they did. There is a 2 part voice interview with Jane Jensen and I would have liked commentary for each screen and maybe even from other people who worked on the project. They should have tried harder to include anyone who had anything interesting to say about this game. Both original and remake. But that is only a very minor regret for me and absolutely irrelevant for everyone who doesn't listen to such commentaries anyway.
There are some minor changes to some puzzles and I like them all, so far every change I noticed, made the game better, they really thought about that stuff and it's now even more palpable. For example there's this scene with the priest's collar and in the remake there's actually a nice little puzzle involved in getting it, instead of just taking it from the room, which was how the original handled it. Another good example for an improved scene is how they gave the player now a reason to visit the tomb of Gabriel's family. In the original the player could just skip this part altogether. It feels like it already should have been this way in the original. The changes have been made in very good taste.

So all in all, pretty much nothing I feared might suck in this remake actually does. It's overall a lot better than I thought it would be and I'm very happy playing it. It's so good that I'm not sure I will fire up the original again, whenever I want to replay Gabriel Knight.

I don't think anyone is going to have a problem with this game, unless they are so in love with the original voice work, that they absolutely can't accept other (similar sounding) voices even though the rest of the game is good.

Oh, the Gabriel Knight comic is now a part of the game too and can be read directly from the main menu.

They also already have a first patch out (not yet available on GOG) http://www.postudios.com/blog/forum/index.php?topic=14170.0

I'm enjoying it.

However, its a very linear compared to the original. The day when you first visit locations have been moved, and this has affected several puzzles, which have been simplified. The notebook puzzle (since you can't visit Granny on Day I) or Willy Jr for example (since you can't visit Moonbeam). This is in part apparently because they were toying with selling the game in 'episodes'.


The new art style goes for 'realism' at the expense of the original game's Graphic Novel atmosphere. Gone are the cold blues (and dark mistyness) and hot reds that were found throughout the original's artwork (and in the cutscenes), instead for something much more colorful.

The updated cutscenes however pull directly from the original, kept the graphic novel style and coloring, and these are very well done. That was the art design that the locations should have been influenced by, like the original.

Also unfortunately most of the incidental animation was removed from the game. The mundane things going on the backgrounds, by various extras. Presumably for budget reasons? Lots of extras, tourists, etc removed from various scenes. So in some ways the new areas seem lifeless and unlived in.

The music is however a highlight, and the designer notes are a nice feature as well.

The voice acting? not as good as the original, and somewhat hammier (at least for particular characters). But some of the cast are better than others, but nothing as good as the original (with its high budget triple AAA cast) IMO.

But my opinion? The original is overall the better game, and was a high budget peace of art. The new one has some cool bits, and ideas, but seems as if it was hindered by its budget, and possibly by artists that didn't understand the atmospheric feel or the symbolism in the original.

P.S. I've apparently been blocked by the Day 3 bug, and will have to wait for a patch... :P

I mean this is probably just a misunderstanding on my part, but I feel exactly the other way around. I can't think of any animations they removed. I feel like they added lots of that stuff. In both objects on the screen (smoking candles) and also people. They even added people that weren't in the original, for example the girls in front of the police station.
Maybe there was someone in Jackson Square who's now gone? Most locations never had many people, often it's only Gabriel and whoever he's talking to. Think the Voodoo Museum or Magenta Moonbeams place...

Santiago, just for a number of animations removed. Just from the first 2 days.

Gabriel doesn't climb the ladder like he could in the original. He doesn't sit down to use the type writer. Majority of the tourists in Jackson Square are gone. One band is gone, and the other two bands are missing at least 1-2 band members each.

The majority of the random uniformed officers in the police station are missing. The only one left, just stands there, and doesn't go about his business.

At the crime scene about 2-3 uniformed officers are removed, in the original they were doing things about the crime scene like checking the ground, taking photos, taking notes etc.

The body is completely covered in the original, and Mosely would bend down and uncover it to show Gabriel. Now in the new one the body is uncovered throughout the entire discussion, and is covered and taken away offscreen (or rather in a cutscene).

On Day 2 the 'electrician' doesn't show up in the police station. Again the various random tourists don't show up. This includes a woman and son, an old man, red-haired woman, jogger, etc. The jugglar doesn't show up on later days.

Obviously since you can't get into the voodoo place on day 1, the 'girl' volunteer who runs the shop on day 1 is not in the new game.

http://gabrielknight.wikia.com/wiki/The_Girl

Also note almost every new close up scene in the remake, replaces what were represented by a number of different character animations in the original. For example all the books in the bookshop were scattered in different sections of the store, and there was an animation for each one, either Gabriel stretching to reach high ones, or bending over to reach ones on a lower shelf. But since it goes to a close up there are no animations whatsoever. They moved all the books to a single spot (this also removes a number of descriptions that were originally found in the book store as well).

This is not a review. But I've been playing both the original and the new one side by side making a list of as many of the changes from day to day. Including list of characters, that show up, and incidental animations.

[url=http://gabrielknight.wikia.com/wiki/Gabriel_Knight_I:_Comparisions_between_the_original,_20th_Anniversary,_and_the_Novel#20th_Anniversary_Edition]http://gabrielknight.wikia.com/wiki/Gabriel_Knight_I:_Comparisions_between_the_original,_20th_Anniversary,_and_the_Novel#20th_Anniversary_Edition[/url]

As for anyone interested in general comparison of each screen, the new in-game behind the scenes offer that feature. You'll notice most of the old games went more for a dark cold look, while the new game went for bright and sunny.

A couple of reviews that covers many of the games weaknesses compared to the originals (including atmosphere, and missing assets) can be found here;

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2014/10/15/wot-i-think-gabriel-knight-20th-anniversary/

http://www.hardcoregamer.com/2014/10/15/review-gabriel-knight-sins-of-the-fathers-20th-anniversary-edition/111907/

Another major weakness compared to the original is that in the original you could could look at a dozen or so items on the screen and get a description and there were many more extra ways to interact with the things on screen with the games many different command icons. However, the remake removes most of the extra commands, and limits which ones you can use on any 'hotspot'. Each room is has been limited to a few hotspots on screen, maybe 1/2 to 2/3s of what could be interacted with originally. Some of the descriptions are completely missing, or replaced with descriptions of something entirely different. Or completely wrong, Cazanough's house for example a painting on the left wall of the remake mentions it being a portrait of a woman in old style clothes, but if you look at the actual image in the game, its actually a scenic painting. However, in the original game it was a woman in old style clothes (so the description in the new game would actually fit the old game, but not what actually appears on screen). Some of the best descriptions from the original are simply missing. Also many of the things you could look at in the original, have been simply removed from the scenes altogether, for example the mess of Mardi Gras beads in Gabriel's bedroom, which leaves the new scenes looking a whole lot cleaner than in the original, than the cluttered mess. But also less interesting in the process since there are fewer things to look at.

Also keep in mind I don't think the new game is 'terrible', it just suffers from weaknesses compared to the original IMO. It is overall a 'good' game. I just consider the original better, and a true classic.

Its incidental trivia, but I also came across an odd continuity error in the cash register in the book shop, the money is of the 1999-2003 'fat' historical figures, rather than the older style money that was actually used in 1993.

That's a really wonderful posting you've made here, thank you for that!

I have to say, for the most part they left this stuff out very elegantly. Except for Jackson Square and Gabriel not sitting down at the typewriter, I hardly noticed these things (I clicked on the typewriter several times because at first I thought I was doing something wrong). They certainly lowered their costs there by removing some flavor. But to be fair they also added new screens and riddles, so...

One thing I noticed on Grandma Knight's attic, is that there is a wooden wheel on the wall ( http://i.imgur.com/EnuswmJ.jpg ), but the description says bike tire. :D I remember there actually was a bike tire there in the original.

I think all this stuff is really interesting to hardcore fans of the original, but doesn't really weigh down the game, especially not to new players.

I'm not particularly interested in playing it, but I'm tempted to buy it anyway. Why? Because I would absolutely love to see this style of remake for GK2, and if this one sells enough, they might do just that.

I was never all that attached to the cast of GK2, and I really wasn't big on the FMV thing.

Something that bugged me was that the two cops that you overhear on the radio are both male in the remake. (The cop giving the directions was female in the original, and the other cop called her Molly.) But one of the cops still calls the other Molly in the remake; an odd name for a man...

One thing Jane points out in an interview you can access in game she has no interest in making GK2 in this style ,mshe feels it would ruin the atmosphere she was going for and the way puzzles are completed. In fact she said she'd rather do GK4 if she could get the license for it. Right now she only was given license for GK1' and that was out of almost luck. The trouble was convincing activision's lawyers they wouldn't lose money.

Well the new confessional screen is kinda bland compared to the nook/closet in the original games cathedral, which was a very beautiful screen with lots of things to look at. The new confessional is more or less a mirrored image of the other confessional in the game . There are a couple of humorous conversations with the new puzzle in the confessionals though.

Yes, like others already said, this remake is the last chance for a GK4 ever happening, if this doesn't sell, it's buried forever.

Interesting posts Baggins and Santiago! Exactly the type of indepth opinion pieces I wanted to hear :) I personally would rather see a remastered version of the game, essentially just improving the FMV quality.
Would be cool to see that game the way it looked prior to getting compressed to hell.

I'd like to see some sort of GK2 (remake, remaster, whatever) in which Gabriel actually sounds like Gabriel. Dean Erickson's voice was way too tenor.

A DVD/Blue Ray-quality version of GK2 would be awesome. Unfortunately I doubt anyone has the original video masters... Just like they lost the masters for voice work for GK1.

They'd probably have to completely refilm the game from scratch with alternative actors.

Jackson Square also looks a lot smaller. That may be one reason why characters were removed.

In the original game, Jackson Square looked a lot more "zoomed out". That revealed more area in the square (thus allowing more characters), and made the characters look smaller.

I wonder if the remake's game engine has trouble making characters smaller. Does anyone notice the characters look roughly the same size in all the scenes?

You do have a point. Thr perspective is out of wack. In older Sierra games character sprites would grow or shrink depending on their position on screen to give a sense of perspective. Not sure if original GK did this though or in every screen. It it perhaps looks even stranger when 3d models do not change size based on perspective.