I was playing Dead or Alive 2 on PCSX2 again and kept getting distracted just by how much of a jaggy mess the game was even when upscaled. I assumed it had something to do with interlacing, but even with the deinterlacing patch applied or trying out PCSX2’s various deinterlacing options the very noticeable stair-stepping remained. I chalk it up to just some weird early PS2 jank since I had similar problems with the first Onimusha where I just couldn’t get the 3D to look clean.
It bugged me enough that I had to check out the DC version, so one download of Flycast later I was surprised by how much less aliasing was noticeable at 1080p and how much crisper the overall look of the game was.
While the DC version lacks the “next-gen” lighting from the PS2 version, I’m not actually sure if it’s a detriment. On DC, the colours on the characters just pop more whereas the PS2 version can look a little washed out. The lighting is simpler on DC, sure, but at least in the stages I played it feels like the original lighting system is what the game’s assets were designed for, and the PS2 port just slathered everything in fancy next-gen Emotion Engine sauce.
It’s kind of hard to pick between the two since the PS2 has more content but kind of fucked controls, but on the other hand the DC only has two shoulder buttons for macros.
As a bonus, enjoy the weirdly different PS2 and DC iterations of the same cutscene and leave your best argument as to whether this makes the PS2 version censored/woke 🤔
In this case it’s interesting how the PS2 has “better” or at least fancier graphics but the added effects and lighting look kind of slapped on. The colour palette in the Xbox DOA games resembles the DC version of DOA2 more than it does the PS2 which makes me think the DC version is how the game was intended to look
Edit: The PS2 version also has the weird aliasing but I assume it didn’t really come into play as much played on CRTs with original hardware