I was screwing around with Fireball Dash, a mission in Sonic 3 and Knuckles, and they had those lovely gray blocks setup to block you off from the stage... but you can clear it with the right spindash. And there you are playing snippets of Mushroom Hill with actual level layouts, different enemies, etc. And you finally get to a sign post that's placed very oddly, and once you pass that, then you fail the mission (since you didn't autogenerate the sign post drop by completing the mission parameters) Mission mode has been pretty fun so far though. They can sell me a $5 Mission Mode DLC pack if they want.
Stealth (and his team) had like only one year (I assume so) to work with this version of Sonic 3, right? Boy...
After trying out some Boss Rush stuff, why yes, of course there are even more audio inconsistencies! Why not? From what I've played thus far... Gameplay wise they mostly begin as expected, in the first Zone in a place just before the first boss (Except Sonic 3 & Knuckles which skips the Act 1 bosses for some reason?), however the music selection is a mixed bag. Green Hill Zone and Palmtree Panic Zone both player their respective level tracks just before their bosses, however Angel Island Zone plays Death Egg Zone: Act 1 and Emerald Hill Zone plays Sonic 2's Death Egg Zone before their bosses. After that however, Marble Garden Zone and Chemical Plant Zone play their respective level tracks before their bosses. Oh yeah, the Hydrocity Zone boss begins immediately in the boss area, which I don't have any big issue with, but what I do have an issue with is the fact that after it starts the boss music it fades out after a few seconds or so and then immediately restarts again! Edit: After a bit of testing, it turns out that the boss music restarts when the actual boss area is engaged with. I guess that the level starts with the boss music playing as a level track per se, and then entering the actual boss arena to the right of it triggers the boss itself and the boss area's track, causing a music restart. Audio design in this game is all over the shop, just... Why? As for Boss Rush mode gameplay itself, I'm annoyed by some bosses providing rings while others don't. This makes the difficulty inconsistent in a bad way, and feels like rushed / afterthought design.
Interesting to see that people are giving Headcannon the benefit of the doubt (as they rightfully should) and nobody else.
Look, I don't say this lightly, but there is a major difference in the physics and hitboxes for Sonic 3. I was being generous when I said the speedrunners bit, but in truth I think a lot of people will pick up on how off this all is in 48 hours. There are numerous repeatable examples. Just off the top of my head... 1. Enemies in death egg have much different hitboxes. 2. when Knuckles bounces up the tree in angel island and through the other side of the root, he now dashes at top speed to the mini-boss cutscene. There's no speecap there and it's wildly different. 3. Tails flight moves upwards at a much faster rate than before, making his flight now a bit harder to control in general. Want an easy example? Try to fly in the knuckles boss fight. He'll rocket right to the top of the screen in only 2 taps, which is not how it was before at all. Not even close. 4. Try to catch the emerald from eggman at the end of Death Egg. You If you hit him in just the slightly wrong spot, it's now very, very easy to lose momentum and die in the pit during the collapsing floor chase. I've never had this happen in 25 years of playing this game before and yet it already happened twice within 30 minutes. 5. The Death Egg Robo's laser now has a much smaller hitbox and is easier to avoid. 6. Characters accelerate faster than before, which can throw your timing way off in a lot of runs. Again, the retro engine had some small differences in the S1/2/CD ports, but these aren't even close. Play more and you'll notice it. Plus there are other more direct signs that the Sonic 3 port was heavily rushed, or awkwardly handled. 1. 2P stages at full resolution are not only clearly upscaled (they look decent, but it doesn't seem to be a full redrawing), the 2P physics upscale with it. Forget about the lack of abilities for any character, the physics themselves are wild/laughable in full size, I suppose to preserve the original competition gameplay, but it could be worse than that. 2. Level select is easy to get (thank goodness), but Knuckles can't access death egg/doomsday, tails/sonic can't access Sky Sanctuary 2 anymore. Bummer. 3. The Knuckles Intro is literally just the S&K one in Mushroom hill... but then he starts in Angel Island! In the original proposal, Stealth created an entirely new intro in Angel Island for him, and S3AIR not only did this, but gave him a whole new pathway too! More obvious signs of being rushed to drop something that they had already made once before. 4. There are very few items in debug mode now, so no real surprises unlike in S1-2. 5. No new paths anywhere that I've seen/tested. This is something else that AIR added. 6. No Tails+Knuckles mode in Sonic 1 or 3 at all, despite it being right there in Sonic 2 as a selectable option!? 7. Everyone knows about the music already... 8. There are a lot of wild physics glitches, and they're easy to encounter in normal gameplay. I'm shocked right now, honestly.
The Premium Collection songs are literally entirely Sonic Generations tracks besides one or two exceptions. I don't get the point of having this soundtrack playlist thing for any version but the Switch (and maybe Steam Deck) given the lack of ability to do much with it - and with the whole audio side of things being hijacked by Hedgehog Engine, it makes me wonder why they don't let you reassign audio tracks freely? Like, both the S&K and Sonic 3 tracks besides the obvious suspects are all there in the soundtrack lists, there's technically only effort stopping people from swapping the themes they want.
Adding onto this: Running out of lives in Boss Rush for Sonic 1, Sonic 2 and Sonic CD results in their respective Game Over tracks playing, however Sonic 3 & Knuckles carries on playing the boss track instead! Another one to add on top of the audio inconsistencies pile.
Sonic never jumps off the stage if you idle for too long in Sonic CD, and they replaced his 1up line. Sucks.
https://twitter.com/SonicOfficialJP/status/1539624752033239040?s=20&t=IPAkWidGfHRvQQkBQjY33g New release trailer.
Just loaded up S3K. S3 music on title screen. WTAF. Yet Knuckles music from S3K plays. What is this mish mash? Since when was the S3K main theme music a music issue?! I am only 30 seconds into the game and I am already reeling. I didn't know something as simple as title screen music would be a huge deal for me.
It's not a music issue, the S&K invincibility is there and the theme serves the basis of Jun's new "interpretation" of a Super theme, plus the songs not used are in the museum soundtrack stuff. It's just a creative decision thing, and since Sega hijacked all the audio away from the Retro Engine, one can only assume a Sega decision at that.
Man, speaking of physics, I can't wait to see everyone's faces after they finish Doomsday Zone. I cracked up hard.
Cool, sounds like i've got a goal now! Also, has anyone else seen this yet? https://twitter.com/Axanery/status/1539791434370486272/ Pretty cool stuff for this game and for Mania - really hoping it gets backported...
Okay, so I know in original Sonic 3 & Knuckles for the Hydrocity Zone: Act 1 boss, if you time spin dashing correctly, it is possible to get your character stuck standing on the extreme tips of the left and right inclines in their win pose during the results sequence. In Origins, it seems characters are now also able to remain stuck well above the inclines and entirely off-screen during the results sequence! Sonic dropped down afterwards and Act 2 proceeded as normal. Got a good chuckle out of me.
Man, it's at times like these where I really miss being able to react with the funny emote. Don't think this was an issue in Mania either, funnily enough.
Is it me or are the Sonic 1 special stage physics completely broken? Like, Sonic is shooting across the jumps, getting stuck on things abnormally, and occasionally acting like he hit invisible bumpers. Something isn't quite right.
Oh, important tip for those of you yet to start the Super Emerald hunt in 3K. Be VERY careful when you move around the area. If you touch the red gem in the middle of the room where you warp in, you WILL be warped back out without being able to select an emerald and the ring will be permanently gone that playthrough.
Just opened the game, and checked the museum. They didn't even bother to clean up Chaotix EU box art, and put the wrong track for the Final Boss in the Museum. (These two next might be just my personal nitpicks) Sonic CD giving me US CD soundtrack and art as default when I'm in Europe (Sonic Generations didn't have such regional issues in the PS3 version with the Mega Drive/Genesis naming, i remember well) And an "Genesis Bezel" with Mega Drive logos. This is so unpolished...
