[Stealth]

Ok, since my original post on the subject seems to have been largely ignored, I'm going to try again:

There really doesn't seem to be a whole lot of structure here. I'm seeing alot of ideas flying around in all directions, but there isn't a well-defined outline for acceptable styles of submission, or any real moderation or significant implementational discussion of submitted concepts and work. This is probably why there also isn't anything particularly solid in relation to the project as a whole yet. Before anything else is done, there are some important things that need to be established to determine how exactly to move forward. Ignoring that fact is just going to lead to a whole lot of wasted time and effort. Take a step back, and consider these things:

Take these, and rank them in order of most important, to least important. Be very specific about why, and before posting, read any other posts that have already been made for better perspective. If you're unsure, wait for more posts to come in and read all arguments to better determine your own position

- Faithfulness in technical design - The game has to be reproduceable on the Genesis. The graphics must conform to the 4bpp 64-color palette nature of the Genesis VDP. Graphical tricks must be limited to that which could be performed on the Genesis with some skill. On-screen objects must not excede the Genesis sprite limit, and objects and gimmicks may only appear to be complex in such a way that they can still be produced within the original game without noticeable slowdown. It will take thought and work, but good things can happen

- Faithfulness in spirit - The game must play exactly like a Genesis Sonic game, but must conform to limitations only of the target platform, not necessarily the Genesis. Suitable art, "story", and gameplay mechanics must be created based on progression or the original series

- Something new - Any significant deviation from any of the original concept for the sake of "improvement". Any idea that you think may be "pushing it" in terms of following the same basic formula probably is. Radical changes aren't really necessary to make a good game, but there may be merit in well-thought ideas. This heading should also include the prospect of using any post-S3K concepts, since the project is seemingly already based largely on the original Genesis series

- Accessibility - Unfortunately, there are many different platforms that not everyone has access to, and some of them are ridiculously variant within their own category (PC..). It's not any one person's fault, or the project's fault, so it shouldn't necessarily "suffer" in some way for that fact, but at this point, it's not impossible to take measures to maximize the number of end-users. Weigh the pros and cons of determination of platform based on accessibility concerns

- Development time - What will get this project completed faster? Determine how to manage contributors and development platform such that they will have an easier time developming quality material more quickly. That doesn't necessarily mean "what's easy for absolutely everyone to do", because there are people that have little-to-no trouble with "more complicated" tasks, who could be beneficial to the quality of the project. When determining how best to manage this aspect, consider the other factors, and search for available, skilled people

As of this posting, E02 was chosen as the target platform, but that may or may not change based on the discussion of the above aspects. Given your stand, rank these options in order of most preferred, to least, and explain:

- Genesis - This is the system for which the series this project is based on was developed. Development for this platform won't directly influence the style of this project to follow the originals more closely, but it could be a great way to pay homage. The limitations likely will prevent the style from appearing too "grandiose", and will help keep developers from getting TOO terribly carried away with gimmicks. One of the things that progressed throughout the series' development was Sonic Team's attempt to push the hardware limits, and without limits, anything particularly fancy may lose some of it's substance. There are, however, few people that can really do good work with this platform, but there might be others who are willing to learn. This platform is also "portable" in that it's emulated on many different systems

- E02 - E02, in combination with "Mettrix Engine", is capable of creating any Sonic game that could be developed on the Genesis, but also has additional features, such as a larger, 8bpp (as opposed to Genesis' 4bpp) color palette. It's structure and it's nature as a PC program also allow for more complicated gimmicks, enemies, obstacles, etc. It's script system will take some reading to understand, but whether it's any "simpler" for anyone than another language is entirely dependant on that person. It's not without it's own limits, though, which is basically anything that is NOT listed in the current documentation. The documentation IS incomplete, but all unlisted enhancements to the current release are made relatively obvious by playing the current demo and reading the current scripts. As stated above, E02 and "Mettrix Engine" are two separate items that work together. E02 is developed for general-purpose and not anything too terribly specific, least of all this project. The current version and any future versions are available for use, but I will not make any special modifications for the sole benefit of a single project. I don't accept feature requests, and I don't discuss release timetables. Any mention of such generally only makes me angry - that's just how it works. Also, E02 is only available natively for PC (Windows DirectX 7 and DOS). I do not have the equipment to create "ports" for any other system, and I am not willing to have them done for me. If the group finds it important enough to fund my acquisition of such equipment, SOME systems may be viable, however, I would find myself under obligation ONLY to ATTEMPT any such port, in my own (reasonable) timetable, and would NOT find myself obligated to change my policies on feature requests, timetables, or source codes. Choices of target platform are subject to limitations of running such a complicated system

- Custom engine - This is the possibility of finding anyone willing to create a new engine from the ground up, custom-tailored specifically for this project, and, presumeably, completely portable. The person is not inherently under any obligation to open sourcecode to peer review and alteration, but taking that subject into account is a possibility

- Other - There may be other options. Suggest and discuss

These matters impact in a very direct way how project content submissions should be handled, so discuss thoroughly, and take the results into account when making or moderating any further submissions. Also, this is not to imply that I am currently capable of taking any significant role in leading this project, in case it seemed so

[Jordanime]

My thoughts are that it should have a faithfulness in spirit, but not necessarily limited to what the Genesis could do. There's no reason for a cool game design idea to get the axe because the Genesis couldn't do it. There's also no reason to set up a bunch of technical roadblocks to achieve something that could be done much more easily. The game should be a reasonable projection of what Sonic 4 would be, and each Sonic iteration contained major visual, game design, and cinematic improvements over the last. I'd like to see are visual story telling—no dialog scenes or anything, just simple, concise visual sequences to move the story along. I think seamless act transistions are key as well, as well as differences between acts, for instance during the Carnival Zone, Act 1 can consist of moving through the Circus with a big tent and roller coaster in the background, and act 2 can be running on the roller coaster.

As for time and development structure, assign leaders based on leadership abilities and qualifications for department, and they can chose people to work underneath them, have an over all leader/director set up deadlines and move along. The main problem with all fan projects are that they aren't paid positions so the main problem with be dedication and motivation, so it's important that if even a dozen people flake out, they can either be replaced or done without.

That's my two cents.

[Stealth]

Jordanime, on Nov 20 2008, 07:52 PM, said:

The game should be a reasonable projection of what Sonic 4 would be

This statement once again ignores pretty much the totality of what I said in my original post. "Sonic Crackers" was going to be "Sonic 4" during it's time, and there's only a small margine for discussion as to whether Sonic Adventure or Sonic Advance was the actual "Sonic 4". There's no denying that it's already happened, which is why thorough discussion of these issues is even more necessary

I also find the ranking that I proposed to be important to the discussion, and some real thought into each listed factor. I'm unsure how exactly to say that I don't feel satisfied with the scope of your post, but I don't believe that it was entirely appropriate for the kind of discussion I'm hoping will start. It seems "limited", I guess

[Jordanime]

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This statement once again ignores pretty much the totality of what I said in my original post. "Sonic Crackers" was going to be "Sonic 4" during it's time, and there's only a small margine for discussion as to whether Sonic Adventure or Sonic Advance was the actual "Sonic 4". There's no denying that it's already happened, which is why thorough discussion of these issues is even more necessary

Sonic Crackers never came out, Sonic Adventure is Sonic Adventure and Sonic Advance is Sonic Advance. Sonic 4 never came out and, as it stands, never will come out. If we want to make a game in the style of what a fourth Sonic game should be we should take it from the mindset that the future Sonic projects don't "really exist" and make it in the spirit of the original titles, of course we can never nullify the fact that other Sonic games were made, we can do our best to ignore them.

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O also find the ranking that I proposed to be important to the discussion, and some real thought into each listed factor. I'm unsure how exactly to say that I don't feel satisfied with the scope of your post, but I don't believe that it was entirely appropriate for the kind of discussion I'm hoping will start. It seems "limited", I guess

I wanted to get the ball rolling with discussion, to be honest I have no idea how the development of the game would be best suited, but it seems like it's in dire need of some direction.

This post has been edited by Jordanime: 20 November 2008 - 11:24 PM

[Stealth]

Jordanime, on Nov 20 2008, 08:23 PM, said:

Sonic Crackers never came out, Sonic Adventure is Sonic Adventure and Sonic Advance is Sonic Advance. Sonic 4 never came out and, as it stands, never will come out. If we want to make a game in the style of what a fourth Sonic game should be we should take it from the mindset that the future Sonic projects don't "really exist" and make it in the spirit of the original titles, of course we can never nullify the fact that other Sonic games were made, we can do our best to ignore them.

I refer you once again to PART of my original post:

Stealth, on Nov 17 2008, 06:51 PM, said:

(...) One thing that really stands out to me is how much some of the conversation was based on "what if". I know that a major development point is that the project is trying to go back to a time before Sonic Adventure, and I think that there may have been actual use of the word "natural", but there's really nothing "unnatural" about what actually happened to Sonic's development. The points about this project's need for progression of art style and such because of the changes between the Genesis games certainly serves only to justify other forms of progress, such as Sega's natural evolution as a business, and their transition to the Saturn and Dreamcast, including even the gradual loss of each of the original team members. In that sense, we can never really create "the true Sonic 4" or anything like that, since everything that happened within the company did happen, and always would have happened. That doesn't mean you can't create something "in the spirit of the original games", but really, I don't think that the "what if" really stands up as much of a valid argument in terms of controlling the direction of the game. No matter how you try and spin it, this really is a "fan game", for better or worse. I think that needs to be accepted as fact, then the group can go on to make something great to spite that fact. There's nothing wrong with ambition, as long as you don't get "too big for your britches"(...)

Furthermore-

Stealth, on Nov 18 2008, 06:23 PM, said:

(...) Well, as I intended to say originally, Chaotix was supposed to be "Sonic 4", and in reality, that's what Sonic Adventure is :P I also think that's what they were going for with the Advance series, so, it's kinda not exactly like that hasn't already happened. (...)

They didn't name it "Sonic 4", but "Sonic 4" did happen, regardless of what games we choose to ignore while developing this project

[Jordanime]

A fourth iteration of the main, numbered Sonic franchises for the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive was never released. Stop trying to undermine my point with unreleased games and discussion of the evolution of Sonic Team. This community isn't Sonic Team and it's not 1995. Now instead of arguing technicalities maybe you can argue the points I made about the game's direction.

[DimensionWarped]

I don't think the game being reproduceable on the Genesis should be that much of an issue. Personally, I wouldn't mind seeing some processor heavy tasks going on ranging from visual distortion to particle systems... so long as the look is consistent with the rest of the art style chosen. That is to say, if you are working with a limited pallet, stick with the limited pallet regardless of effects, don't do any really bizarre stuff that wouldn't look at home on a Genesis with a better processor. I don't believe sticking to sprite limits is particularly important in any aspect... not to say that Sonic had an unforgiving sprite limit or anything.

As far as I'm concerned, what I'd like to see most out of this project is something that takes the foundation left by the three Genesis Sonic titles and then builds a sequel that is basically the same level of change as Sonic 2 is to Sonic 3.

Things that do irk me would be failure to adhere to a Sonic-styled level design, a regression to the style of Sonic 1, recycling almost any content between stages be them gimmicks, enemies, or art, and progression styles through levels.

One thing however I find a little odd is the rigidity of the Sonic, Tails, Knuckles lockdown. Going from Sonic 1 to Sonic 2 you got a new character, and the same happened from Sonic 2 to Sonic 3. Taking that logically, a fourth playable character would essentially have been the norm rather than simply using the S3K roster. Now, the obvious problem with that is that a fan character would be fucking stupid and every one of those games also set a precedent of making the character for that game be the debut. That is pretty much a paradox that has to be dealt with by ignoring one of those precedents... Either introducing a character that had been introduced in another game or not introducing a new character at all.

Or you could always do one of the following: Hunt for scrapped character designs by Oshima, Yuda, whoever or perhaps follow the rule that nothing after Sonic and Knuckles exists to open up future character designs such as one of the Chaotix characters... characters who really aren't at all offensive to the style of the Genesis games in their own right.

Something new, I think is basically mandatory. Both sequels did bring in new mechanics afterall. Sonic 2 brought the spindash which was probably the single most important mechanic introduced in the series... at least until more recent games made it obsolete. Sonic 3 gave the characters all double jump abilities. I believe that if a Sonic 4 had been made, something new would have come. The question is simply what it would have been. Now, thats a hard thing to figure out... but you can't really have a spiritual sequel without it. Otherwise it's just Sonic 3 with new levels and a new way of getting chaos emeralds. And don't get me wrong, thats not a bad thing... but I don't believe it's the stated goal of the project.

Anyway, that's my take on it all. Feel free to defer.

[Stealth]

The issue with "Sonic 4" is that people, like you, say "what would have happened", when NOTHING was prevented from happening. It DID happen, so just get off this "Sonic 4" crap and start trying to make a decent game rather than strutting around an ego, trying to wedge something into the middle of what the actual developers of the series did and say that it belongs there

Quote

This community isn't Sonic Team and it's not 1995.

You're right, and that's the point. I don't see what the hell you're talking about

Quote

Now instead of arguing technicalities maybe you can argue the points I made about the game's direction.

You made no points worth arguing. How about you try and do that rather than getting bitchy with me because I realize that it's utterly impossible in more ways than one to be "the real Sonic 4" and ending up contradicting yourself? MY point is that there's absolutely NO sense in saying "Sonic 4" when trying to direct the project. This is why it HAS NO MEANING. Say something MEANINGFUL.

[muteKi]

I agree with everything that DimensionWarped said, and agree that adhering to Genesis graphical limits is unnecessary and probably not something that a general direct sequel to Sonic 3 the way it was to Sonic 2 as it was to Sonic 1 blah blah would even do if Sega was in charge of it because the development platform of choice would be the Saturn. I accept the Saturn graphical limitations as the minimum for this project, though I don't think it should be developed for Saturn because nobody really ever was any good at that.

As such any wild gimmick that takes over the entire gameplay the way that the ring energy band did for Chaotix is probably not a good idea because a direct sequel to Sonic 3 probably wouldn't have added one, any more than it added overarching gameplay gimmicks from Sonic 2.

I'm okay I guess with adding new things but at the same time most of the new ideas for gameplay modes (like the bonus stages) that I've seen so far don't really mesh in with the standard Sonic style in my mind, and are both too slow and don't really involve the player as Sonic which are two issues that I have with the wheel of fortune bonus for example.

[Jordanime]

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I agree with everything that DimensionWarped said, and agree that adhering to Genesis graphical limits is unnecessary and probably not something that a general direct sequel to Sonic 3 the way it was to Sonic 2 as it was to Sonic 1 blah blah would even do if Sega was in charge of it because the development platform of choice would be the Saturn. I accept the Saturn graphical limitations as the minimum for this project, though I don't think it should be developed for Saturn because nobody really ever was any good at that.

I don't think we should look at it through the lens of what platform would this be developed for. The project is "Sonic Retro", and I think most of us will agree, well maybe not Stealth because he seems to create delusions that Sonic 4 really exists, much like how Sonic Heroes is really Sonic Adventure 3 and Super Mario World is really Super Mario Bros. 4. that Sonic stopped being Retro after Sonic and Knuckles completed Sonic 3. So if the project is going to be a representation of a Sonic 4(not the Sonic 4 because there was never released a real Sonic 4) in the minds of us fans, than it should meet a visual style set up by the Genesis, but not bogged down by the platforms limitations.

An overriding gimmick is, necessary, as is a new character and also opens up a lot of developmental issues. Sonic, Tails and Knuckles both have defined gameplay attributes, why complicate things by adding a fourth?

[CyclopsCaveman]

In terms of how this project should go, I think we should strive to, most importantly, do new things rather than buil upon old concepts too much. We should only use some of the foundation from the old Sonic games, rather than all of it.

Besides, there's a lot of fun stuff we can do with this game, but we're not accepting it because we think that this MUST be a Sonic 4 or RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAEGG.

I can name three things off the top of my head that would be a fun new twist to a Sonic game, and all three can come from concepts already laid out in this forum.

1. Unlockable mode where you play as Fang/Nack in some sort of Gunstar Heroes mode, where you play through all the levels as if they were GH. We could change around the badniks so that Fang can run around and have a shoot 'em up fest and we can make it work so it clearly is not part of the continuity.

2. Zone specific graphical effects. Maybe a light rain in the tropical zone, a soft mist in the ruins zone, a murky background in the underground zone. Something to provide depth.

3. Fun, challenging and epic bosses. We could do so much if we talked more about having epic bosses. If we let our ideas flow around, we can push out some crazy fun bosses. We could have, say, a two screen tall boss at the end of the first zone that you have to use the trees to get up to his weak point. In the Underground zone, we could have a boss that's a giant, aquatic tentacle monster robot that you have to destroy all or most of the tentacles before being able to reach the weak point. Something challenging but not unfair. If we let the bosses be as epic as they can be, we can make the game more epic as a whole, and maybe even better for it in the long run, too.

Another thing to think about would be accessibility. I would mind not playing something I was a part of, since I'm on a PPC Mac and I can't really do shit, unless this game can work in DOSbox.

Spirit to the original games should've mostly been abandoned a long time ago.

As for development time . . .

How about "When it's done."?

[Stealth]

DimensionWarped, on Nov 20 2008, 08:46 PM, said:

I don't think the game being reproduceable on the Genesis should be that much of an issue. Personally, I wouldn't mind seeing some processor heavy tasks going on ranging from visual distortion to particle systems... so long as the look is consistent with the rest of the art style chosen. That is to say, if you are working with a limited pallet, stick with the limited pallet regardless of effects, don't do any really bizarre stuff that wouldn't look at home on a Genesis with a better processor. I don't believe sticking to sprite limits is particularly important in any aspect... not to say that Sonic had an unforgiving sprite limit or anything.

That's pretty much what I'd like to see, myself. Though, the Genesis only allowed 80 on-screen hardware sprites (one object often used more than one) at a time, only so many could be visible on one line, and the Sonic 1 SST only allowed for 128 objects to be actively processing at once. You could do plenty with it, but I imagine there are enough people that are like "WHAT"

DimensionWarped, on Nov 20 2008, 08:46 PM, said:

As far as I'm concerned, what I'd like to see most out of this project is something that takes the foundation left by the three Genesis Sonic titles and then builds a sequel that is basically the same level of change as Sonic 2 is to Sonic 3.

That is a very good way to put it. I'm definitely not against that idea

DimensionWarped, on Nov 20 2008, 08:46 PM, said:

Things that do irk me would be failure to adhere to a Sonic-styled level design, a regression to the style of Sonic 1, recycling almost any content between stages be them gimmicks, enemies, or art, and progression styles through levels.

.
I wouldn't be entirely against a slight "regression" in, say, art style, myself, as long as the style was consistent throughout the entire game, but that's part of establishing the aim. Some nice, colorful, detailed art certainly wouldn't be bad, but, I really wouldn't enjoy too much detail and too much shine, personally, but that's basically what you said. "Keep with 'Sonic' style"

DimensionWarped, on Nov 20 2008, 08:46 PM, said:

One thing however I find a little odd is the rigidity of the Sonic, Tails, Knuckles lockdown. Going from Sonic 1 to Sonic 2 you got a new character, and the same happened from Sonic 2 to Sonic 3. Taking that logically, a fourth playable character would essentially have been the norm rather than simply using the S3K roster. Now, the obvious problem with that is that a fan character would be fucking stupid and every one of those games also set a precedent of making the character for that game be the debut. That is pretty much a paradox that has to be dealt with by ignoring one of those precedents... Either introducing a character that had been introduced in another game or not introducing a new character at all.

I'm pretty well against the idea of coming up with a fancharacter. Most Sonic games have added new characters as the series went on, but one factor is, as (I think it was) Naka pointed out in an interview a bit ago, they have constant pressure from media sources and such to add really flashy new things, and new characters. I don't really see too many new characters as a good thing, and by now, there are loads of them. Even they may have stopped at some point, I would hope.. though, I'm not really against using Nack, as brought up in some other discussion. Just not playable, he's not the type of character that can be properly integrated as a playable in a normal Sonic game without making tons of strange tweaks

DimensionWarped, on Nov 20 2008, 08:46 PM, said:

Something new, I think is basically mandatory. Both sequels did bring in new mechanics afterall. Sonic 2 brought the spindash which was probably the single most important mechanic introduced in the series... at least until more recent games made it obsolete. Sonic 3 gave the characters all double jump abilities. I believe that if a Sonic 4 had been made, something new would have come. The question is simply what it would have been. Now, thats a hard thing to figure out... but you can't really have a spiritual sequel without it. Otherwise it's just Sonic 3 with new levels and a new way of getting chaos emeralds. And don't get me wrong, thats not a bad thing... but I don't believe it's the stated goal of the project.

Well, again, "Sonic 4" was made. Sonic Adventure was made by the same team that made the original three, and roughly at the appropriate time. Among the things it introduced was 3D gameplay. Also, it brought about the split character storyline, Big, Gamma, minigames... It was "the next Sonic game", and those were it's "things", as "drastic" of a change as some of them were. Asside from the 3D games, there was the Sonic Advance games, which brought things like the tricks system, which it seems alot of people aren't happy with. I'm personally not sure what else could be done for this project in that way, really

muteKi, on Nov 20 2008, 08:59 PM, said:

I agree with everything that DimensionWarped said, and agree that adhering to Genesis graphical limits is unnecessary and probably not something that a general direct sequel to Sonic 3 the way it was to Sonic 2 as it was to Sonic 1 blah blah would even do if Sega was in charge of it because the development platform of choice would be the Saturn. I accept the Saturn graphical limitations as the minimum for this project, though I don't think it should be developed for Saturn because nobody really ever was any good at that.

So, would you have a Saturn example that you think should be used as a basis? Or are you saying rather that there should just be no color/sprite/layout limitation as long as the style stayed within reason?

muteKi, on Nov 20 2008, 08:59 PM, said:

As such any wild gimmick that takes over the entire gameplay the way that the ring energy band did for Chaotix is probably not a good idea because a direct sequel to Sonic 3 probably wouldn't have added one, any more than it added overarching gameplay gimmicks from Sonic 2.

Well, that's exactly what they were going for, basically, until they decided last-minute to release it as a "spinoff" for Knuckles instead, but I agree with this

muteKi, on Nov 20 2008, 08:59 PM, said:

I'm okay I guess with adding new things but at the same time most of the new ideas for gameplay modes (like the bonus stages) that I've seen so far don't really mesh in with the standard Sonic style in my mind, and are both too slow and don't really involve the player as Sonic which are two issues that I have with the wheel of fortune bonus for example.

Another thing I agree with.. I think all gameplay modes should involve nearly the same degree of activity as normal level gameplay

[Tweaker]

Jordanime, on Nov 21 2008, 12:08 AM, said:

I don't think we should look at it through the lens of what platform would this be developed for. The project is "Sonic Retro", and I think most of us will agree, well maybe not Stealth because he seems to create delusions that Sonic 4 really exists, much like how Sonic Heroes is really Sonic Adventure 3 and Super Mario World is really Super Mario Bros. 4. that Sonic stopped being Retro after Sonic and Knuckles completed Sonic 3. So if the project is going to be a representation of a Sonic 4(not the Sonic 4 because there was never released a real Sonic 4) in the minds of us fans, than it should meet a visual style set up by the Genesis, but not bogged down by the platforms limitations.

That was completely unnecessary. You have totally misinterpreted Stealth's point, which is that you don't want to create a "Sonic 4"; Sonic 4 as a concept was what Sonic had eventually evolved into, which is Sonic Adventure and its following sequels. That is Sonic 4, in terms of being the latest evolution of the Sonic franchise with new concepts, characters, and level environments being introduced. "Sonic 4" was never guarenteed to be in the exact spirit of the Genesis games, which is why using such a term is very shaky and open to more interpretation than it's worth. "Sonic 4" is a wrong term to use in general, and we should avoid it at all costs.

In this sense, yes, Super Mario World is a "Super Mario Bros. 4" as much as the series could have possibly evolved in that particular direction. It's not exactly like the old games, but that's where the series evolved, and that's what happened to it. It just happens to also have the advantage of being a spiritual successor to SMB3 in a very appropriate sense.

What we want to do, and what Stealth is proposing, is to create a game in the style and spirit of the classic games, without attaching arbitrarily interpreted titles such as "Sonic 4." That's why this project was named Sonic Retro—we want to take the aspects of the classic Genesis Sonic games and create a spiritual sequel, not a literal one. I know this is what people mean when they say "Sonic 4," but I think that term is too broad to accurately represent our goal. This is going to represent what Sonic was really about—lush, surreal environments, creative level gimmicks, upbeat, environmental music in the style of early 90s pop/elevator music... the works! Come on, we all know what made classic Sonic great, don't we? That's what we're after.

This is why I think we need to use this topic to sort out our priorities, our ultimate direction, our platform, everything; it obviously hasn't been clarified well enough to this point, so let's sort it out now so we can make some real progress.

[Jordanime]

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That was completely unnecessary. You have totally misinterpreted Stealth's point, which is that you don't want to create a "Sonic 4"; Sonic 4 as a concept was what Sonic had eventually evolved into, which is Sonic Adventure and its following sequels. That is Sonic 4, in terms of being the latest evolution of the Sonic franchise with new concepts, characters, and level environments being introduced. "Sonic 4" was never guarenteed to be in the exact spirit of the Genesis games, which is why using such a term is very shaky and open to more interpretation than it's worth. "Sonic 4" is a wrong term to use in general, and we should avoid it at all costs.

Well I understand your point but I respectfully disagree with the reasoning. If the idea is to create another Sonic title in the style of the Genesis titles, then I don't think it's that much of a stretch to call it Sonic 4, as it would be the fourth Sonic in that line...well at least that's what I'd like to see.

[muteKi]

Well, in terms of graphical capabilities, I'd like to see fairly light color restrictions in the game -- I'm not sure how many colors the Saturn could produce at a time, but I think that artistic thematic unity and direction should end up being a limiting factor in terms of how much is on screen at any one time rather than trying to impose artificial hardware restrictions; I don't want my eyes bleeding, but I don't want excess dithering where there doesn't have to be.

Similarly I'd love to have more than one background layer. I guess if I had to make any sort of statement on what I'm looking at in terms of quality I'd have to say that it would be something like the Saturn/PSX version of EWJ2: http://www.youtube.c...h?v=SxNRyXrvi8s
I think that the game could afford to be more colorful than that, though.