A pal and I were able to suss out how the sprites are stored in SEGA's arcade games, and unearthed a bunch of unused sprites in SegaSonic the Hedgehog, including all of the SatAM Robotnik graphics! Eggman also has a bunch more animations, featuring him with a remote control and riding the Egg-o-Matic, seemingly for a hands-on boss battle. I've a rough page documenting them here, and the full sheets can be found on The Spriters Resource. I only just scratched the surface but I''m keen to dig deeper - given how extensive they are, I wouldn't be surprised if there's a working dipswitch to activate the SatAM graphics hidden somewhere inside.
You're doing great work! This game probably has the best sprite animations out of any Sonic game aside from maybe Sonic Mania. EDIT: Also omg
Wonderful. I really wished we gotten a port of Sega Sonic to the western, I'm really liking the Robotnik Satam, plus looking at the sheet, it's awkward that some of Robotnik sprites in the sheet doesn't have his yellow cape. I guess those are additional frames possibly maybe still in development
IIRC it was like that in the cartoon and comics too. American Robotnik only sometimes had a cape. Other times he didn't. It was really left up to the artist at hand.
Nice! That will be amazing if you find a working dip switch to get the US version working. I hope there's more stuff to be found.
Always loved the sprite work in SegaSonic, great to see more of it! Interesting to see how far along the localisation was. I wonder if they ever had plans to replace Mighty and Ray with SATAM or general Sonic characters like Tails? Would have been too much effort really.
I knew there'd be more buried in that game - like Chaotix it's been tough to get people interested (although in that case, those prototypes helped). Needless to say I was hoping for a full set of SegaSonic Arcade sprite rips... nearly fifteen years ago. Better late than never I guess! (p.s. put this info on the wiki)
It's awesome that stuff like this is still being found. I must say they're good SatAM Doctor Robotonic sprites, but I find the original Eggman design much more pleasing. Maybe it's because I didn't watch SatAM as a kid but I find the original character design has much more room for expression since it isn't fully concentrating on being "evil". So possibly an odd question, but is SegaSonic actually a decent 'game'? It's one of the few Sonic titles I've never bothered with, although I love the art style. My issue with arcade games is often that they're too hard for home play, but being able to press a button at any point to insert a coin strips them of all difficulty. Is the same true of SegaSonic Arcade, or should I get round to checking it out?
If you are after a Mega Drive style Sonic game, then you'll be hugely disappointed. SSA is very simplistic and the game automatically scrolls forwards, so there's actually little to do other than dodge the current obstacle. But SSA was never intended to be in the style of the classic games. It's supposed to be a quick thrills arcade game and in that context, it's actually decent. Although the design is simplistic, the obstacles are very creative (even though they get a bit repetitive). It's worth checking out, provided you aren't expecting a traditional Sonic experience.
If only the controls could actually emulate well, then it might be kinda fun to play. But unless you have a trackball of some kind you're out of luck, and will likely only get wonky analog controls at best. I do love the sprites in this game though. I'd love to see them thrown into Sonic 3D Blast or something (and Mighty and Ray could replace Knuckles and Tails)
It plays pretty well with a traditional controller, if you tweak the analog sensitivity right. I honestly love this game.
I've managed to control it using netbook's touchpad, but I have to admit that using analog sticks is way easier. Also, in this shitty netbook sound lags like hell.
Honestly, I think it is an awesome game. In terms of it's difficulty, it definitely has the arcade style difficulty down to a tee. You will burn through a few credits. The game is really simple but very effective; it is a frantic run, jump and dodge type deal. Quite fast paced and feels faster because you are constantly under threat from environmental hazards. There aren't really any enemies in the traditional sense. The animation/art is absolutely stunning, really makes fantastic use of the 32bit hardware and its cool scaling ability. The characters are brimming with personality and have lots of quirky animations. The game is really short, maybe 15-20mins long, but it is a wonderful game regardless. Great music too and the characters are voiced, and coupled with their designs and animations, they each feel unique, even though they play the same. Anyway, this is really cool that there are alternate Robotnik sprites within the game. I never realised that they had thought about localising this game at any point.