Ah, thanks dude! Awesome to finally know the time. Looking forward to giving the demo a spin and reading the reactions and impressions here.
Page is up, but the download links are buggy. I even entered the page at 6:30AM GMT and it was a simple Wordpress template :P I just entered again, and the proper page was set up, but the download links go to a 404 from Mediafire. EDIT: Well, copying and pasting the link seems to fix the issue. For some reason they linked the direct location of the file in Mediafire instead of the Mediafire download page. Oh, well, I hope the game's not as buggy as the webpage. Will comment on it as soon as the download ends!
Links seem to be working for me. Used the Mediafire one. Downloading the demo now! EDIT: Here's the download page for anyone that needs it: https://sonic2hd.com/download/
You were literally right on there as it was being set up man. d: We were still testing to verify everything worked.
I imagined that, haha. I always follow the devblog, completely unaware sonic2hd.com was a thing, so I didn't know if they site was down, or was just getting set up :P Anyways, some thoughts. Spoilered because there are some small surprises that made me smile: Spoiler I may not be the correct guy to judge, I don't know Sonic's Physics with the precision of most techies here, but for me, the game feels right. I managed to control and predict Sonic's movements in the same way as Sonic Mania, so kudos to the engine dev, very well done work in that regard, if not perfect. I really enjoyed the demo! I love the new art, and the new detail thrown at it (love the moving palmtrees, the lava and HTZ caves). As I said, the game controls well, so it really feels like an authentic remaster. The added act transitions and Zone 2 music surprised me, that was a neat detail to add. Still, I don't mean any offense to the new musician, but the difference in style between the new songs and Tee's renditions is very clashing; CPZ act 2 suffers the most in this regard, I admit I don't personally like the new song, but it's too much different from Act 1, in my opinion the style doesn't fit the stage, nor the game. I encountered a few bugs, mostly camera issues. When Sonic goes at high speed, and changes vertical position quickly (most notable at CPZ) the camera does not react like in Sonic 2, it makes an abrupt movement, very disturbing to the eye. Also some terrain issues in EHZ (some surface chunks have small hills at the edge that make Sonic go in midair while running over it. Maybe I'm wrong, but this didn't happen in the original), and the classic Tails placement issues when it comes flying to you after respawing (in some occasions in CPZ he giltched through the roof). Lastly, amazing credits sequence. Blew my mind. tl;dr I enjoyed the demo a lot. Looking forward to the next release! />
Was very happy with my time playing this demo, and that's coming from someone not very fond of Sonic 2. Ran into a few little things, namely there was a strange black screen flash near the start of CPZ1 and when I ended up under one of the pipes in Act 2, jumping into it made Sonic stick to it in a strange way. Spoiler I was very fond of basically every aesthetic decision, from the new things like Sonic's top-speed animation and Act/music transitions, to just how the original things have been interpreted. I will concur LukyHRE though and say that while I really like Toni Leys as a musician I don't think he was suited to a remaster project. I'm not sure who handled EHZ2's music but I loved that; CPZ2 and HTZ2 not quite as much. I feel like Tee Lopes deserves more promotion on the site and etc even if it's only the case that you guys are re-using his tracks from the first version of S2HD. If he's actually provided new tracks, that should be doubly the case. I would say that more things needed some animation in-betweens, namely Sonic himself and the see-saws in HTZ. Compared to how fluid many of the new animations are, it's jarring to see animations snap between each other on some things. Also, small thing, but I'd recommend programming Tails to move a bit away from Sonic before performing his end-stage animation as Sonic ends up obscuring him 75% of the time.
Lags quite a bit on my laptop which can run Skyrim quite well on mid-high settings. Lots of screen tearing and input lag now and then. Playable, but not every enjoyable. Still beat the whole thing though. As for the game itself, well I'm still not a fan of the art style. Still way too much gradient use, feels like it's all pretty generic and there's no cohesive art direction. But I'm probably not the target audience, as I like my retro games just the way they are. Not to mention that the ultra low res pixel graphics are back in vogue nowadays, what with all those indie games employing that look.
Not really fond of EHZ act 2's music, or the new top-speed animation. But other than minor quibbles like that, pretty good stuff. Plays well, and I really love the changes made to the CPZ background.
You can really tell how much love and attention went into this, it gave me the exact same sense of joy that I got from Mania, where you just KNOW the whole team knew just how to push the right buttons for old-school Sonic fans, because they grew up loving the same things you did. I found a few minor physics quibbles, but I assume you guys are aware of 'em. And I found a REALLY cool thing in Chemical Plant, which I'm going to spoil. Spoiler If you'd rather go look for yourself, it's on the hidden path through the wall that lets you skip the water section in Act 2: Spoiler Just before the boss, you run through a new room where Mecha Sonic is in stasis in the background. That's the kind of love and attention to detail I was talking about. Excellent job and major props to the whole team!
I never take that path, nice! Little sections in Sonic CD where the background would line up like that were cool, glad to see more of that stuff. I personally liked the underground lava cavern effect in HTZ.
Time to reopen a huge can of worms and say that the EHZ trees were always supposed to be transparent IMO
Damnnn I need some free time. Maybe you can also search for an Emerald Hill screenshot and see what he means.
A) There is nothing to say that is EHZ B) The criss-cross dither pattern where leaves overlap in EHZ wouldn't happen that way (since the strands are vertical) unless they were trying to create a secondary transparency value (which is what it shows up as on a CRT)
Wonderful work you guys! I do however have nitpicks & comments, just general stuff, nothing too in-depth. Physics: - In general: wonderful. You guys mostly nailed it. Acceleration and handling feel good, much like Mania they feel like an improvement over the original without straying too far. - HOWEVER, Loop jumping does not seem to work here, i.e. entering a loop as a ball and then jumping out to enter run cycle. This is important in speedruns and in general Sonic movement, as well! Zone specific stuff! Emerald Hill: - Wonderful! Just as it was before. - Was pleasantly surprised seeing Act 1 smoothly bend into Act 2, though it does in some ways remind me how much shorter this makes the game due to the lack of transitional screens. Chemical Plant: - Not much to say, really well done. - The boss seems a bit more powerful in this demo than he is in SOnic 2. I think his placement is a little higher, he's harder to cheese, and he definitely drops the ooze a lot faster. No clue if this is deliberate or not. Hill Top: - I have the most nitpicks about this one and they're really not massive either. - Spike top enemies shoot their spike way fast in this. - Rolling into a spike enemy before they shoot their top shouldn't hurt Sonic. - I REALLY LIKE WHAT YOU DID TO THE ZONE OVERALL THOUGH! I must stress how well the background transferred over to HD art, I really love the perspective and everything! Also a general question: Is Knuckles a planned addition down the line or prior to release? Mostly to honor his inclusion in the lock on cart and/or every re-release of Sonic 2 that wasn't strictly emulated? I won't mind if he isn't there, but I'd really like my favorite way to play Sonic 2 in what I'd consider easily the definitive version.
Just played the demo and I have to say it does look beautiful, specially CPZ. That being said the physics while good are not perfect by any means. A couple of times I tried to do things I could do in the original that I could not do on this. It feels like the slope physics are a bit off but I'm sure it's a WIP. Overall nice going guys.
Some issue problems and thoughts: Spoiler Zone-to-zone transitions take quite a while to do the fade out thing. I love that it does that blue effect with it, though. Gamepad deadzone is just a bit too low. My controller's stick comes to rest very slighty to the left which has Sonic running left when I'm not careful. (360 controller - been that way since the beginning of having it.) Pause menu and game menu don't react consistently to controller input. I have to hit up/down at least a couple of times each for it to move once per spot, like I have to do it at the right time or it doesn't count. Unpausing with the jump button on a controller makes Sonic jump as soon as the game is going again. (I threw myself off a sliding thing in HTZ while in the middle of typing the above pause stuff up, whoops.) Not actually a problem since this is trying to be faithful to Sonic 2, but I do find myself missing Taxman version additions like the AI Tails airlifts you by doing up+jump thing and also Tails flying to start with. Tails is way too happy when Sonic dies. He just keeps that smile going while he's flying above Sonic's spot of not-alive deadness. Controller vibration could be toned down in the rising lava room. Camera shake is very disorienting there, too. I want to gush over individual details (shadows, character lighting and where it happens, etc) but there's just too many to try and list everything; I feel like I'd forget a few things I noticed and liked. Let's just say I enjoyed any and all visual-related things.
It's a cool demo! I'd like to report some issues for now if you don't mind: It seems the volume slider levels are very loud. I had to lower it to 1 bar to get it to similar volume as most of my other games, which gives me very little flexibility on tweaking it. Never a nice feeling for headphone users to get their ears blasted upon booting up the game. The screen detection does not behave very nicely with non 16:9 screen resolutions. In fact, changing to fullscreen 1920x1080 would give me something like this. However, it worked fine under starting it up again. Lots of "can't set path" or "object reference" errors when trying to mess with the options in general. Game worked fine when the only thing I did was just start playing after having configured it once in the previous run. I believe some of these are very important for first impressions, and it really brought my opinion of the demo down before starting to play it. Hopefully these won't be too hard to sort out.
Uploaded a quick playthrough. I like what I've played. Physics seem good, although definitely needs tweaking in some areas. Way better than Sonic 4's. It's a nice demo. The only disappointing thing is that Tails can't fly. Oh and that reference in CP act2's secret route is so rad: Spoiler Mecha Sonic
Has anyone brought this up yet? Just popping in because someone brought this up on Discord, but that sprite's the result of a bug in the original game. The TaxStealth remaster and Mania corrected it. (Yes I know I'm opening myself up to a wave of 'it's a feature', but I don't want to hear it. It's just an FYI.)
