Sonic Origins Collection - General Thread

They could expand Competition Mode to compensate.

 

So aside from the 3&K music situation, CD’s JP vocals situation, and what is being done with multiplayer, is there anything major about Origins that hasn’t been addressed yet that everyone is really wondering about?

 

The S3 competition zones becoming full-blown stages (even just an act each) is my dream feature for this collection. Would definitely scratch the Mania 2 itch.

 

I would assume the only chance at that would be if that was already a planned feature in Taxman's 3&K remaster, which isn't impossible, but I'm not sure how likely. Hidden Palace inspires some hope on that front.

 

It's definitely something Stealth wanted to do, but I wouldn't put it past Sega to shitcan the idea. Was there a big deal made about Hidden Palace in the run up to Sonic 2 2013? Or was it a surprise upon release? Anyway, considering we've had 5 new classic zones in the 28 years since Sonic 3, I don't think new zones is too much to ask - the robbing bastards!

 

IIRC Hidden Palace being included in Sonic 2 2013 was pretty much kept under wraps until a day or two before release.

 

Well in that case, I'll hold out some hope.

 

At least if Sega is handling the advertising of this thing and prominently highlighted the Hidden Palace content twice now, they don't mind it at all.

 

Honestly, I'm mostly expecting new content and surprises for Sonic 3 & Knuckles.

 

If there is new content then I suspect 3K will be the only game to have it (since Headcanon has stated they did not do additional work on the prior games)

 

I'd love for Stealth's plans to do proper single-act Zones based on the Competition stages to come to fruition - depends whether SEGA allowed it within the scope of the project, as it would admittedly be a fairly major change. My ideal implementation would be to take slight inspiration from the 2013 Sonic 2 and have them as secret alternate stages at certain points:

Azure Lake - jump off the bridge Knuckles collapses at the end of Angel Island Act 2 and fly up to his platform for an alternate exit. Skips Hydrocity and connects to Marble Garden on completion.
Balloon Park - new alternate path in Carnival Night Act 1 which runs above the miniboss shaft. Connects to Chrome Gadget on completion.
Chrome Gadget - connects Balloon Park to Launch Base. Leads the player to a new alternate start point in Launch Base Act 1.
Desert Palace - new alternate path in Sandopolis Act 1 which stays above ground rather than leading to the pyramid. Leads to Endless Mine on completion.
Endless Mine - connects Desert Palace and Lava Reef. Leads the player to Lava Reef Act 2.

This way the stages could be integrated into the stage roster while still allowing the original stage order to be played, and without interfering with any of the major plot points.

 

I kinda see Endless Mine as an alternate Lava Reef 2, actually. Hell, I have to wonder if Endless Mine took inspiration from an earlier version of Lava Reef 2...

Also we've never had a horizontally looping stage before, so having Endless Mine be it could be fun - make it feel truly endless while having an exit - perhaps an exit to Hidden Palace.

 

Interesting - personally I always saw Endless Mine as more similar to Lava Reef 1 minus the lava, hence my placement for it. It's all pretty subjective though - I'm sure there are other placements that'd work just as well. I was also trying to maintain the current order for the Competition stages when working out my placements - if you mixed them up further I'm sure there are lots of other ways they could be slotted in.

On a completely unrelated note - I hope little tweaks like adding an adapted version of Knuckles' intro cutscene from Sonic & Knuckles are allowed - a proper intro cutscene for Tails would be great too, where he lands the plane on the beach and jumps out or similar. I'd also love to see a proper stage intro for Flying Battery - it seems weird to me that it's the only stage transition with an animation out from the previous stage but no corresponding animation in at the start. Even just having Sonic jump down from hanging onto the wall above the starting platform would help better connect it to the transition out from Mushroom Hill.

 

Four possible work arounds:

1. Have the parts of the Zone be pre-transitioned. So in AIZ1 you exit the hollow tree and then the next part of the stage is already on fire. There’s no transition to trigger it. Or in CNZ2 the dark part is already dark and flooded. There’s no transition trigger and the whole stage isn’t affected.
2. Whichever player reaches the transition triggers it first and it affects the whole zone even if the other player hasn’t caught up.
3. Give each player their own instance of the stage. So transitions only effect their screen when they trigger it. But their character sprites still appear on both screens to create the illusion of racing.
4. Split the Zones into smaller separate stages. The transition bits could be the start of the smaller split stages.

It’s been a while since I played Sonic 2 mobile 2P VS. How did that handle Hill Top and the section where the lava is triggered?
(And yeah probably setting up for disappointment by expecting Sonic 3 split screen but it’s nice to think about how these things would work)

I’d like to see the element shields in 1/2/CD, ideally in save mode without having to mess around with cheats. Although because those games are being handled by Sega’s internal team it’s probably expecting too much.

 

I'm expecting Sonic 3K to be extremely vanilla as added content would raise questions on why there aren't additions in the other games.

As it'd be honestly easier to implement Wood Zone in Sonic 2 or Desert Dazzle in Sonic CD than to create a full zone based in a half resolution competition stage (and also produce an act 2 remix).

Let's not forget these levels don't have badniks or real gimmicks. Considering how sega asked CW to include many speed bosting items in Sonic 2's Hidden Palace I bet you wouldn't like the layouts so much anyway.

 

They won't add Wood Zone because you'd have to remake the graphics from scratch anyway. Its bizarre wallpaper trees are unusable.

 

We can't say it was. The text on Stealth's blog mentions lots of ideas of things they could add to the game and says they would be interested in the idea of expanding the 2P stages into single-act zones. It doesn't mean they actually pitched that to SEGA since no level select mockup they featured on the page has the 2p zones listed.

Again, I'm prepared for a vanilla S3K. On Twitter he says the team "worked really hard to build this up to quality in the time they were given".

Making art for 4 new zones seems a bit too much to expect for a project with a tight deadline.

 

I'm truthfully not expecting a lot for S3K, though not just down to Origins' limitations and more simply because the game already met a rather complete level of quality. It basically used Sonic and Knuckles' later segmentation from base Sonic 3 to add anything that might have not made the original cut.

The only thing that could seriously use a tune up is Competition Mode itself, which is pretty small and didn't get any updates via S+K lock on (most glaringly Knuckles not getting his trademark moveset).

Sonic 1/2/CD are also great games but are also infamous for the amount of content that didn't make the cut and the occasional 'early instalment weirdness' in terms of mechanics, so even without the acknowledgment of the previous remakes, it makes sense they get the most enhancements.