Mafia II: Definitive Edition - one of the parts of Mafia: Trilogy compilation, which also includes Mafia III re-release and the upcoming remake of the first Mafia - was released on May 19th. We decided to compare the remaster and the original Mafia II from 2010 by studio Friv2Online. And unexpectedly we came across the problems that haunted us in both versions. We tell you more in the review.
Mafia II did not become as iconic as the first part of the series, but nevertheless it gained a certain status in the gamer community, and the famous "Joe wasn't part of the deal" is known even to those who are not familiar with the friv game.
Before us is the story of Vito Scaletta, an Italian who emigrated to the USA with his parents as a child. In the game Vito appears as an adult, war-hardened man who wants to get rich, but does not want to do it the honest way - realizing that big money is not "clean", the hero joins the criminal life of the city of Empire Bay.
The storyline of the friv game is exciting, the events are interesting to follow, and the atmosphere is immersive, but if you are familiar with the original, you won't learn anything new from the remaster. The developers didn't touch the classic story: missions, dialogs, characters - everything remained the same. The voice acting and music are also the same. The only innovation - now the closet has clothes of Lincoln Clay, the protagonist of Mafia III, and in the garage there is a guest from the future, a 60's masl-car, which looks alien in the America of 40's, but allows you to quickly travel between the districts of the city.
Remaster status implies, first of all, improvement of graphics, so we decided to compare "vanilla" Mafia II and Definitive Edition "head-to-head". I wanted to play each version for several hours, but technical problems interfered with these plans: first, in the original friv game Vito refused to lie down on the couch in Joe's apartment, after which the client simply froze, and then in the remaster there was a bug that does not allow you to activate the story trigger. Of course, these problems are "cured" by restarting the friv game, but ideally they should not be at all.
However, the time spent in both "Mafia" was enough to draw conclusions. The first one is that the changes are a bit small. The authors tightened textures, improved lighting and quality of cut-scenes, added support for 4K-resolution and... everything. Drawing distance, on the contrary, as if decreased: in the new version objects often appear from the air right in front of the car. At the same time, the re-release "weighs" five times more than the original. Definitely, there are visual changes, but not so serious to cause admiration.
In Steam, Definitive Edition gets "mixed" evaluations: users scold the friv game for bugs, problems with language selection, deleting saves and lack of realistic physics. I encountered Vito's aforementioned reluctance to perform actions to progress through the story, but otherwise no major problems were noticed.
The second conclusion is that over the past 10 years, Mafia II has become slightly outdated gameplay-wise. Time does not spare many classic games, and today the project with mechanics of ten years ago is not surprising. Good physics of cars pleases, but weak shooting and not always correct hitboxes of opponents disappoint, and uneven structure of the narrative causes a desire to skip boring episodes. We can only hope that the remake of the first "Mafia" will refresh not only the graphics, but also the gameplay, making it more consistent with modern demands. Judging by the promises of the authors, this is likely to be the case.
Finally, the last conclusion: Mafia II: Definitive Edition is not for MS players. They have the original friv game, on which you can install mods, making it more beautiful and interesting. However, the remaster is available on MS for free for all owners of the "vanilla" version, so it will not make you regret the money spent. But on PS4 and Xbox One consoles, the updated edition will be a great opportunity to touch the classics for those who have not yet done so for some reason, and will fuel anticipation for Mafia: Definitive Edition coming out this August.