I believe this as well. In fact, Masa probably submitted his work when the time travel concept was still on the table. Welcome to the modern gaming landscape, where gamers are supposed to feel grateful when a company does literally anything and jump to said company's defense when any criticism is thrown their way.
Sporting a massive throb-on at the thought of a fully realised R2 and Final Fever. They could have all my life savings rings if they made a lost-levels dlc for Origins, as opposed to the zero rings I'm currently prepared to offer for Origins as is.
I don’t understand why Sega just didn’t reach out to a creator of one of the many fan mods that have already added Knuckles to Sonic CD. Here's hoping they do make an Origins Plus DLC where they get Headcanon to add all the things they would have done if they had been involved in the other games. Knuckles in Sonic CD, Buddy Mode from Mania, Ray and Mighty, and maybe extra 2P VS split-screen levels for Sonic 1 & Sonic CD would make an enticing DLC package.
We really really don't need Mighty and Ray or encore Mode for Sonic 1-3 guys. They were created with Mania in mind and would be a lot harder to adapt back. Knuckles in CD would only be rounding things up and making the overall experience more consistent
They could've asked Andy (A+Start) to do it. They had him create all the new sprites for Sonic 3 already...
Presumably, the redone proto tracks are going to be distributed as recordings and not as SMPS or VGM. So I'm wondering, will anyone who's capable make an accurate SMPS replica? Would be great for hacks.
You're being weird, y'all. I'm not defending Sonic Team's decision at all, I'm trying to express that pixel art, especially pixel art trying to fit in with existing art some other art team made nearly thirty years ago, is a niche of artistry that the vast majority of longstanding game development companies stopped caring about having any on-hand skill with decades ago. If Sonic Team wanted to have work done to get Knuckles playable in CD without it looking wonky as hell or taking too much of their own development time due to trying to do work they have little skill in, they absolutely would've had to outsource it, and I definitely don't care for their choice not to do that. But so many people in this thread talk about adding characters to a game they weren't in, among other art-intensive projects like making entirely new zones, like it's nothing.
And if A+'s work on 3&K's remaster is anything to go by from the snippets we've seen so far, they have to make all of this effort from scratch where asset reuse in-house can't cut it. So they can't go the route of using fan project assets and probably don't even know how to internally grab Chaotix sprites since they likely don't use places like Spriter's Resource or anything and aren't gonna rip them from the rom themselves.
For those who haven't seen it yet, here's a solid Knuckles in Sonic CD play-through from the existing mod. Well worth a look if you want an idea of how he handles in the game. The mod team already adapted all his new sprites over a year ago, but the fan sprites may or may not be up to Sega's own standards, so I wouldn't necessarily expect them to just straight up take these if they wanted official implementation. Just as I'm sure Stealth's S3&K and S3AIR will end up having subtle differences despite being based on the same project pitch. I think it should also be noted that Sega previously denied Taxman from adding R2 and R9 into the game even when he started the work with his own team directly, so they just might not want Knuckles or Super Forms in Sonic CD officially for whatever reasons. Again, this is why modding the games on PC is so important to me. I doubt other little S3AIR/CDRestored quality of life fixes like early time travel physics or Tails' flight cancel ability will ever make it into an official Sega game, and we already know music mods will be required day 1 for some players.
That's the boss my aunt wasn't able to beat on her own, doc is quite safe as long as Sonic doesn't get it. But a boss down a slope damaged by the stuff Robotnik throws at the end of a lava-themed level... Which zone I'm talking about?
Instead of music and what's missing for once, I do wonder what might be tweaked. We keep seeing a lot of small little detail alterations here and there so far, so it makes me wonder if certain routes got tweaked, or whether the transition from Launch Base to Mushroom Hill was modified and so forth.
I hope Sonic will have a falling animation every time Knuckles destroys a bridge. It's a small detail, but I really appreciate it.
Yeah a guy with a ant sized sense of humour here. But I get ya. :P I think missed potential was giving Sonic reaction animations to Knuckles, like maybe a proper knocked out animation like Knuckles had in their fight, so Sonic isn't just standing there smirking while Knuckles takes his emeralds in the intro, or something like his 'WTF is this asshole?' look during the Knuckles fight in Advance 1. It almost seems to be a trend that Sonic just blanks Knuckles in the 2D games. Like he's super expressive in Mania in most of the transitions, and yet doesn't respond at all to Knuckles seemingly falling to his death in Mirage Saloon. :P We don't NEED them, though it is a nice idea to think about. Similar to Amy who would likely require even MORE programming. Likely not happening but would still love it. I'm also all for a 3-4 player mode in Sonic 2 VS mode. :P I do admit I like the idea of adding an 'arrange mode' to the games to spice up a replay. Heck I'd argue if they ever decided to remake Chaotix that would be the ideal way to get round making the level design GOOD. Same. In fact while I was at it... OH GOODNESS, I DROPPED IT ON HERE, I SURE HOPE NO ONE TAKES IT....
I don't think the reason for not including x character is because they don't want to make sprites for it. In all likelihood it's because Knuckles in CD for example could cause bugs and other issues when interacting with stuff that's in CD but not the other games. Even the mod, good as it is, has problems. Metal Sonic is a nightmare as Knuckles, and the way that gliding and climbing makes some slopes and objects act is jank. That doesn't make it a good excuse, but for the intentions of this collection I do get why they'd not include him. Hopefully the mods translate just as well for this game as they did for the decomps anyway.
Tbh the only way I've ever imagined 4-player working in a Sonic game is if it was online, a la Super Mario 3D World (Switch edition). The split screens would just be so so tiny on a normal monitor, would that even be fun anymore? I'm super glad they've reworked the Competition Mode sprites to make full-scale 2p possible to begin with.
Mania had a three-four player version of Sonic 2/3's racing, and while it does rely on a fairly big monitor and occasional squinting, it's not too difficult to play. I know because I regular race with my brothers and they in all likeliness would love to do so in the classic games too. This was obviously added in the Plus DLC after Mighty and Ray brought up the character count. In vanilla Mania it was just two players.
Why no Super Sonic in Sonic CD? Canonicity, the Time Stones are not Chaos Emeralds, not to mention that lots of Sonic CD is already hell as-is with the normal speed cap. Why no Knuckles in CD? honestly, he'd be even less canon than Tails, a character you can only unlock after you beat the game to begin with. Also, re: the mention of Metal Sonic being hell for Knuckles above, Metal Sonic and Amy are removed from a Tails playthrough entirely, so it was more than just redrawing sprites and adding in his abilities - it was also level changes. You know, on top of this circle we keep going around in this topic about cost vs benefit, the legalities of potentially using something from someone's fan mod, the logistics of outsourcing to more people or putting even more of a workload on Stealth and co, etc..
Yeah I always felt like the Mania split screen gets a little too small. To be fair it's probably a lot better on one of those gigantic 4-8k TV monitors, but that's a luxury that me and my 28" monitor do not have I'm surprised people can still see that, but then again I can't see much of anything
