[Mr Lange]

Part of me says, I'll enjoy it for the hell of it as long as the engine is solid and the game is completed, regardless of the (very) amateur graphics.
Another part of me says that, since this thing is actually being made, a hell of a lot more could and should be done with it. Adding on to "reimagine, not remake", consider a lot of what Sonic Generations did. They didn't rehash the same background elements as 3d or higher res ones, but added all new dimensions to what it could have been. Green Hill Zone had interleaving bridgeways and loops, for example, with the mountains and lakes arranged in many different ways. Not that this needs that kind of elaboration, but you are working with a custom engine here. You could go the extra mile with those background valleys and trees and vines and all kinds of things. I think the 3ds version of Generations speaks for me very well. Now just extrapolate that kind of spirit for every stage in S3&K.

[Scarred Sun]

Well, this is pretty much shit on a shingle.

Not only did you decide to take the worst part of S2HD's direction, it's not even implemented with the technical art precision that Sonic 2 HD's newest incarnation has. I really don't even understand why this project exists, as it's a simulacrum of a simulacrum.

[Tweaker]

Ritz, on 26 December 2011 - 01:13 PM, said:

That said, I very much appreciate that it only took these two guys three months to reach the level of polish S2HD had with a whole fucking year of dev time. That's very amusing.

This notion is frustrating and completely wrong. Sonic 2 HD has taken longer than it should have, yes, but the difference in quality, talent and actual direction is staggering. Maybe this point doesn't reach home for everyone else because I've seen and heard more resources than most of the people here, but I can assure you that despite whatever problems S2HD has, the difference in quality isn't even comparable. The notion that it does come close to being a basis of comparison is, frankly, insulting.

Mind you, this is coming from someone who's always been fairly critical of S2HD, so this should be saying something.

[Clutch]

Ritz, on 26 December 2011 - 01:13 PM, said:

These HD remakes are a waste of time from the word go when the people involved are always convinced that topping the source material is even a remote possibility without some degree of artistic skill. Reinterpret, don't ever recreate.

Namo, on 26 December 2011 - 05:55 PM, said:

Trunks, on 26 December 2011 - 05:32 PM, said:

Just a side note, I'd prefer to see stylized new art instead of redrawn old art.

Agreed. For example I think that vine thing Sonic runs on (the thing in the above screenshot) could benefit from looking like thick, intertwining vines instead.

Pretty much. Deliberately sticking to perspective/shading/animation flaws in the original artwork and refusing to deviate from design/color choices obviously made because the original platform couldn't handle them always bothered me. I'd like to see people redrawing things as if they were for an absurdly high-budget animated film rather than as if the hq2x filter didn't suck.

[dsrb]

Re the video two [edit: you people are fast!] a bunch of posts above: it had totally slipped my mind! Now that I would play.

If I didn't elaborate on my bare-bones opinion earlier, it's because (1) I lack the artistic, design, etc. know-how to go into detail; and (2) there are only so many words one can use to say "If I personally, IMHO, etc. must wait to play the same game again, I want it to at least look significantly different, rather than just larger and more shiny".

I appreciate that people with the appropriate experience, knowledge, and/or eyes are offering opinions. Still, mine and others' articulation of the above kind of sentiment weren't equivalent to saying "wahhh graphics suck" or whatever wintermesshell [olol] tried to oversimplify it as. Waving it away like that is as unconstructive as if we had said that.

This post has been edited by dsrb: 26 December 2011 - 08:33 PM

[Steven M]

Am I the only person bothered by the backwards logic of taking a series that always tried to push the boundaries of the system and its art direction (going with 3D-esque sprites and a new style from Sonic 3 onward, the FMV in Sonic CD, the attempt at the third dimension with Sonic 3D - particularly the Saturn version - Sonic Adventure, etc etc) - you take one of the earliest games in the series that used creativity to give the progressive 'wow' factor using the limited hardware of the time, and you have the benefits of unlimited modern technology with which to basically mimic the original but with more shitty gradients? This isn't fucking Sonic CD where a fan bends over backwards to add cool features to a faithful remake of the original game, this project (along with Sonic 2 HD) looks and feels cheap, sterile, lazy, and makes their foundations look bad by association.

[Dude]

I found this little problem, I don't remember exactly how I got here but some tiles are missing:

[Chimera]

Dude: I noticed this before you did and I never even played this game

Azu, on 26 December 2011 - 04:42 PM, said:

Note the grass. Then look below it.

Anyway, geez. I can't believe what's going on right now. This is just a little coat-of-paint makeover of the original S3NK. Aside from the accuracy to the originals' physics, this is essentially Sonic 2 HD in a different art style, say what you want about that. Yes, there have been graphical improvements to S2HD, but this looks, to me at least, very similar to the original S2HD art. To call these people talentless because their art isn't up to par with what you'd expect is fairly harsh IMO, especially when you praise/critique but not utterly bash the same thing with a different title and a longer legacy to it. In fact, I'd call that being biased tbh but meh, you have your reasons. You guys are just coming across as harsh, that's all.

I mean, no, this project is definitely no...



But certainly it's nothing like this...



In fact, while searching for that image, I came across this page. It had a very interesting and insightful quote in the description:

Quote

But I'm getting off on a tangent here, the point of this comic is to tell all of us that Sonic Generations' quality is NOT determined by the inclusion of some past incarnation that SEGA threw in to shut up half the fanbase. No, it's determined by how it PLAYS. Heck, SEGA knows how the Classic Fans work. It doesn't matter at all how the game is as a whole, just as long as we get "THE REAL SONIC!!11!" they'll be happy. Just look at Sonic 2 HD. It's a just a rehash of Sonic 2 with smoother sprite graphics and extra beats in the music. And they eat that stuff up. Don't get me started on Sonic Fan Remix.

While Fan Remix shakes things up a bit by making new level layouts, like how Generations does it, I have yet to see any actual gameplay deviation in level layout between Sonic 2 HD and the original, so if there is none, Sonic 2 HD, like this game, is essentially the same thing with a new coat of paint. If someone can correct me on this, by all means. If I'm right about this though, then I just find it unfair how these guys get ridiculed for making "shit art" when in fact it's not shit. There's worse material produced out there, and this looks very much like Sonic 2 HD beta art, mind you all (granted that was met with HEAVY criticism, explaining the overhaul that's taking its sweet-ass time)

[Ritz]

Tweaker, on 26 December 2011 - 08:08 PM, said:

This notion is frustrating and completely wrong. Sonic 2 HD has taken longer than it should have, yes, but the difference in quality, talent and actual direction is staggering. Maybe this point doesn't reach home for everyone else because I've seen and heard more resources than most of the people here, but I can assure you that despite whatever problems S2HD has, the difference in quality isn't even comparable. The notion that it does come close to being a basis of comparison is, frankly, insulting.

Within the first year. Feel free to dig up some old mockups from that era to dispute this if you can, but I distinctly recall S2HD looking a lot like this at that point! This would've taken a year too had he paid such slavish attention to detail instead of opting for tacky image hose tiles for the foliage, but he was smart and didn't. Absolutely nothing was lost for it, it still reads like airbrushed garbage.

S2HD looks competent now. It still isn't at all worth the the time or effort.

[dsrb]

Chimera:

Most of the people criticising this also criticised S2HD—albeit whilst acknowledging that it was doing a bit better at…whatever it's doing—so your point isn't as stunning as you seem to think. Then again, I can't really make out what you're saying in that meandering wall of text.

This post has been edited by dsrb: 26 December 2011 - 10:08 PM

[Falk]

Well, I pretty much was on the fence but this is just plain bad. I can't even describe how bad the vine/smaller vines are.

1) the joint is really obvious
2) On the straight piece, most noticably where it intersects the tree trunk, the absolute bottom has a lighter shade
3) It reeks of 'lighter if it's closer' syndrome which absolutely goes against the shading/lighting of the other elements, most notably the grass (lighter on top) and the tree trunk which implies light is coming from an angle behind the plane of play. As a bonus the shading doesn't change at all even when the vine swoops down 90'
4) Shading on the smaller vines. Wow. They absolutely make the entire thing look like painted pieces of paper glued on another piece of paper. It's like LBP, just less charming.
5) The smaller vines end right on the edges of the big vine in many cases. Now it doesn't just look like painted pieces of paper glued to another piece of paper, it looks like painted pieces of paper glued to another piece of paper before the entire Papier-mâché was cut with a pair of scissors.

In regards to 2 and how "BUT THAT'S HOW THE ORIGINAL GAME WAS SHADED", I draw your attention to the fact that retro graphics demanded retro shading in some respects, and like I pointed out S3&K relied on a heavily contrasted style. Coming into a 'HD' context, it doesn't work nearly as well.

I draw your attention to this and the different lighting that was ultimately applied to it.

Quite frankly I've never really seen the point of S2HD either, with the only thing going for it in my book was the project giving Tee's music the exposure it deserves. I'll have to agree with Tweaker though that it's not really possible to compare the art of the two projects in terms of polish (if not direction/style)

edit: And I don't mean to come off as a technical, nitpicky geek, but HD implies 720p or 1080p (which are the HD standards) and is generally widescreen. The fact that this isn't actually widescreen nor one of those two industry HD standards to begin with really makes it look like you're throwing the HD jargon (as opposed to the dozens of other 'high quality' synonyms) around for the heck of it.

This post has been edited by Falk: 26 December 2011 - 10:28 PM

[BlazeHedgehog]

I think this is a solid foundation for something great. It's obviously rough around the edges, but it's also obviously not complete. The amount of work it must've taken to get this much done is impressive and I hope to see this blossom in to something great.

[Covarr]

BlazeHedgehog, on 26 December 2011 - 10:25 PM, said:

I think this is a solid foundation for something great. It's obviously rough around the edges, but it's also obviously not complete. The amount of work it must've taken to get this much done is impressive and I hope to see this blossom in to something great.

Pretty much sums up my feelings on it. Personally I wouldn't have posted it yet if it were up to me, instead waiting until it's much more polished.

[Icewarrior]

Ritz, on 26 December 2011 - 01:13 PM, said:

Tweaker, on 26 December 2011 - 07:17 AM, said:

I thought this project was ridiculous, pretentious and talentless when I first saw people trying to get validated with it as a "free pass" and it hasn't gotten any better since then. You have no direction or solid talent backing your game; it feels like you rushed this demo out just so you could post it here and try and recruit more staff despite having no standalone merit whatsoever. I've half a mind to just trash the thread outright, frankly, but I want to see what other people think first before I do anything. Needless to say, though, I'm not impressed. You guys are lame.

Wow! I've never seen a project trounced so inappropriately! It's like coding and redrawing all this shit from scratch isn't even something that requires effort. Why don't all these Sonic Worlds projects with all the recycled and thoughtlessly rearranged art ever get threatened with thread locks?

Not to suggest that this is worth playing or anything. These HD remakes are a waste of time from the word go when the people involved are always convinced that topping the source material is even a remote possibility without some degree of artistic skill. Reinterpret, don't ever recreate. That said, I very much appreciate that it only took these two guys three months to reach the level of polish S2HD had with a whole fucking year of dev time. That's very amusing.

THIS!
The pre-demo certainly isn't something polished or flawless but that's what it is, a pre-demo or basically the earliest build you could have of this thing. And it took them 3 months to realize it (I'm not going to mention Sonic2HD, the point has already been argued).

Also, how exactly is the project pretentious? Unless Relick declared somewhere "this is the best fangame evar, periodz lulz!!1!!1!1", I see nothing pretentious in there, the guy said his project would consist of a full HD Remake of Sonic 3 & Knuckles and that at the moment not all the art or the programming is complete and that's pretty much what we can see so far.
Would the guy be all show and talk, I'd understand the trashtalking but there, it's quite frankly over the top. I thought constructive feedbacks was the way to go when you want to have a respectable fangaming scene.

This post has been edited by Icewarrior: 26 December 2011 - 10:55 PM

[Yuzoboy]

Found some footage of the game.


I actually like this game and can understand its a little buggy and rough in its physics, but this has potential to become a great remake if its going to faithfully represent the Sonic gameplay and art.

This post has been edited by Yuzoboy: 26 December 2011 - 11:05 PM