Sonic and Sega Retro Message Board: Jayextee - Viewing Profile - Sonic and Sega Retro Message Board

Alright, I'm sick to death of being tripped up at every turn with Sonic hacking and I want to make a Sonic game. Want to. I can write music, draw pixel arts, animate, make levels that don't suck. I should be making a kickass Sonic game.

Instead, I'm having to learn all about the bizarre ways in which graphics are handled/split/stored, music is converted, and various snippets of ASM can and will make life totally and utterly fucking nightmarish. I don't have time to learn all this, I want to knock together graphics in a graphic format, music in a music format, and cobble them all together with a tool made for it. Also, a free one if at all possible because I don't have the money either.

Now, I reckon there should be a topic on here dicussing engines. I DON'T SEE ONE. So help me out here. What's out there, and what are the pros and cons?

I'll start off (kinda) by telling how I've been looking at E02 by Stealth.

To be honest, I was kinda impressed when I played around with the template Sonic game. It handles right, and good, and fast. It has perfect physics, and I have no problem with that. It exports for Wii and PSP (amongst others) which is a plus, too. Seems to be badass-scriptable, which is only ever good if there are decent examples - which the template game is. Whee, awesome.

Except it only supports 256 colours (not such a bad thing really) and I can't actually make head nor tail of where I'm supposed to be starting with this thing; which surprises me, because I thought I knew my way around SonEd2.

Of course this is just my limited experience dicking around for two hours without a clue, and I'm known to be an idiot who wants results NOW rather than pecking slowly at a "hello world" until I've grown a beard and FINALLY made a purple Sonic with an air-dash. I do want to know which engine is for me however, because I'll settle for a little less on the physics end if it means I can throw my existing skills into the mix instead of getting frustrated that they're not relevant yet. But I don't know jack about fangame engines, and I bet I'm not the only one.

You guys do; so if you would, pros and cons of your chosen engines, please.

(Note to mods: I thought long and hard about this topic, decided it would be helpful in the long run if it meets its desired purpose. However, feel free to chuck it in the trash at your discretion. It's all cool, brah.)

Apologies if this topic has been covered before (a forum search yielded no results for me) or if it's just plain dumb and ill-advised. To cut a long story short, I saw a comment on a YouTube vid somewhere that listed equivalents between the 8-bit Sonic 2 and the JP Sonic CD soundtracks. I can't find it again. Given the composers, it doesn't seem such a leap to me.

The two I remember the most were Aqua Lake Zone -> Wacky Workbench (dat bassline) and the obvious-and-classic Green Hills Zone -> You Can Do Anything (AKA Toot Toot Sonic Warrior). But apparently all of them share motifs from one to the other.

Can anyone shed light on this, one way or another? Alternatively, is this worth further discussion?

If this is stupid, mods feel free to trash. But I'm curious.

#SonicRetro on deviantART

So, as the recent Needlemouse badnik thread has shown (amongst other things) that we've got some talent here. Various flavours of which. Since most of us are actually on deviantART, I thought it would be a great thing to get us a presence there.

It's early days yet (I literally just created the group) but to kick it off (and whilst I slowly set it up), I'm offering a small contest: THE GROUP NEEDS AN ICON -- a 100x50 image that will reflect the classiness that (hopefully) the group will have. That's not a lot of pixels admittedly, but this sorta does make it totally in the spirit of trying to cram something into the small sizes of the retro Sonic games' sprites. I'll see if I can rope ScarredSun and Tweaker into judging the results, just keep it 100x50 and CLASSY. Deadling is Feb. 13th -- the day before Valentine's Day.

Again, your link: #SonicRetro on deviantART
I'm also looking for someone interested in co-adminning this group with me

I drew a stupid thing in celebration.

Guys, pay tribute in your own way

Well, there's a lot of negativity in Member's Lounge about how things suck/are not as good as they used to be, and instead of waxing lyrical about how that, too fellates ungulates I decided to praise an Underrated Thing ™.

Sonic Spinball

(Yeah Jay, we can read the topic title. Get on with it, fgt)

What can I say? The game gets a lot of hate, and although the game isn't one of my favourites by far, I love finding positive things about the underdog. Let's go.

Graphics
Although Sonic is a little ugly, he's seldom seen as anything but a ball (which will do; aside from the fact that when he's spinning VERY FAST, I can make out a blue 'X' shape in the middle of him which is an area of pixels that never change colour. Anyone else fixated/distracted by that? =P) but the rest of the sprites are excellent; real chunky and appealing, they look every bit the part -- especially the badniks -- and are as dark in tone as the cartoon this is partially based on (Sonic SatAM, for those not in the know there).

The real star of the show is the levels, though. Toxic Caves is pretty damned sublime: totally inkeeping with the tone of the cartoon (again), and varied, the only criticism I could possibly level is that it's probably a little too good at being what it is - Sonic games traditionally start with a twee and bright opening level. Bonus points for the changing palette being put to clever use, giving the bottom level the water floor to coincide with the ocean entrance portrayed in the introduction sequence.

Lava Powerhouse (my favourite) wouldn't look out of place in any Sonic game as far as I'm concerned, the designers certainly hit the nail on the head with this one. Detailed yet vibrant and dynamic, this manages to portray the titular powerhouse without looking too dismal. The Machine, reportedly using leftover Cyber ("Genocide") City graphics, wouldn't look out of place in early Sonic with it's sleek, uncluttered design. Showdown is typical last-level stuff, and as far as I'm concerned, the weak link in the chain. But all-in-all, the level art is very strong.

Bonus rounds look like a completely different game altogether, and are very neat indeed. The perspective works better than a lot of attempts on the Megadrive, and the fact that Sonic's reflection in the windows will follow the ball (and his hands operate the flippers) is such classy attention-to-detail, I couldn't help but love it.

Sounds
Another real strong area. Okay, out with the bad stuff; Sonic's sounds are just shit. Spindash is fucked, rig collection is anally-raped with chili as lube: even the fucking jumping isn't anywhere close to what it should be.

But, I'd argue the rest more than makes up for it generally, impacts have this nice bass-filled chunkiness to them which makes destroying even the most insignificant badnik satisfying; and the various pinball minutiae just sound right - I would argue the bumper sound in Spinball to be far superior to the stock one found in the Sonic trilogy - and there are all the requisite jingles you'd expect from a pinball game.

Music
This area doesn't let down, either. Admittedly, there are some very nasty FM guitars (options screen and boss themes, as well as Showdown).

Toxic Caves' theme is chunky, funky and downright hummable. From the off we've got the amount of charm one would expect from a Sonic game, even if it is a thouroughly different type of charm. The FM bass used is perfect, and really holds this together. Lava Powerhouse is even better (I recently mentioned it in the "Two tracks..." thread as one of my choices), sounding every bit like both a videogame tune, a cartoon tune and incidental music to an industrial complex -- I totally love when the tune goes all "Popcorn" at around 0:39. Perfect.

The other two BGM are less strong, I feel. Though The Machine's soundtrack is atmospheric enough, it just isn't as catchy as what has came before. All things considered, I guess this pretty much covers the end of a long "second act" (I'm a complete fag for three-act-structure storytelling. Even in videogames) and allows something for the third act to escalate from. Speaking of which, Showdown's background music is pretty intense; even though it has one of those abrasive FM distortion guitars that never sounded good, the discord actually enhances the atmosphere -- as the top of Robotnik's fortress isn't even completed yet by the seems, it would be a little rough around the edges. Still not catchy enough, though.

I must also mention the amazing serendipity that is the title screen music. Apparently knocked up in half an hour after being informed that Sega forgot to clear use of the Sonic the Hedgehog title music, it's actually awesome -- and a lot better than the intended Sonic theme I've heard.

Special mention goes to the highscore/options theme which, FM guitar aside, sounds like the Munsters after a cocaine binge. I like this.

Gameplay
It's neither Sonic, nor is it pinball. The physics aren't really too good, let's not beat around the bush. Sonic moves like he's wading through vomit, and as a pinball he ricochets wildly off things in a most unbelievable fashion; it's only the best thing that he can be 'steered', then. It's responsive enough, but a little muddy.

But, for what the control lacks, it's wrapped up in a pretty neat package. Levels are expansive, but with memorable enough layouts (owing to a certain amount of symmetry, one would add. Usually a bad thing, but it works here), and there are enough objectives to keep a play very busy. But, get this; in the spirit of the early Sonic games, there's an amazing amount of non-linearity here - emeralds can (with few exceptions) be collected in whichever order one pleases, removing at least a little of the tedium playing such large levels can sometimes bring.

On the subject of the size of levels, it's about right. Although I personally would have included an extra first level; possibly containing only one emerald, and in the "green and happy" cliche the series is so proud of (Knothole, then? :D); they're about right. The tasks within the levels are great, too -- aside from Showdown's, which are way too repetetive by far, a stupid excess of blocks guarding switches that grant access to higher parts of the level. And don't even get me started on the insane amount of work required to even hit Robotnik himself. I know last levels have got to escalate somehow, but come on! This is silly.

Bonus games are, AGAIN, the shining star. The pinball physics are much better than the main game, and the tasks required of the player simple enough to understand, but not a cakewalk to complete. It's totally worth completing a level just to get the next one; and, as bonus rounds, failure isn't fatal. These are just 100% pleasant. <3

Overall
I like it. Not a lot, but I like it nonetheless. In my eyes, this set a precedent which a lot of Sonic spinoffs have followed, being an interesting diversion on it's own merits, but nothing to challenge the main series (hands up, who's loved an iteration of Mario Kart more than the actual Mario games on a format? I'm calling a non-zero figure there =P). It's good. Just not amazingly so.

And most definitely not bad enough to deserve a lot of the bashing I see it get. So, who else likes (and not hates) this game?