Well, if that entire post was satire, then never mind. I've seen so many unironic expressions of that same sentiment that it's difficult to tell it apart.
Yeah to be clear, while this game has some major bugs and a lot of really annoying minor glitches and oversights, I still enjoy this collection a great deal. Been playing it on Switch all week! Its nice to have the Retro Engine Sonic games in one place.
I too have been having a great time with the collection on the Switch while currently on vacation Like I said in my earlier post talking about my experiences with Origins, the things that I want fixed are minor oversights in my opinion, like the rubble in Marble Garden Act 1, Sonic 1 crashing when playing as Sonic & Tails, the consistency of the music volume for all the games, the music starting over from the beginning after collecting 1-ups, and the Blue Sphere music not speeding up. The Tails AI is the only major gripe, but aside from that, I’ve been having a lot of fun and I still consider these the definitive official versions of these games as long as it gets the well needed patch(es)
The main things I am disliking are the increased difficulty of the Sonic CD Special Stages due to apparent change in UFO flight speed and the bad physics of the Sonic 1 Special Stages.
I’m too having lots of fun with Origins. There’s definitely a strong sense of “what could have been” if Headcanon/Evening Star had been able to work on the project as a whole (and given more time). But despite the problems, I think it’s the best way to play the classic Sonic games. The bugs are sloppy and Sega needs to be called out on them. But the package at it's core is strong and enjoyable.
I also enjoy this collection. I don't really want to pick it back up until it's been patched though. I'm not expecting them to fix everything but if they address the most obvious stuff then I'm good. Replaying 1, CD and then 2 back-to-back made me realize how well CD has aged. I've cleared that game at least 30 times and I've fallen in love with it all over again. The level design is so satisfying and finding the capsules feels rewarding (although I do have the benefit of having the level layouts burned into my memory), and gosh darn does it look and sound utterly luxurious to this day. I understand it's not everyone's cup of tea, but for me CD is still peak Sonic.
Definitely also in the camp of waiting for a patch before playing any further. I did the Story Mode with all good endings and Knuckles' play through of Sonic 3 & Knuckles, so I'm content to wait before diving back in. Sonic CD has never gelled for me quite as well as the other games, but I will say playing it with the time limit removed really seems to benefit the level design. I found it much more fun hunting around the stages for the hologram projectors and badnik transporters without the threat of the looming time limit, and do wonder if in this case the already-established gameplay elements from the first game were working somewhat against what the CD team were trying to do. Since I don't know the stage designs inside out, while hunting them all down I did eclipse the usual 10 minute limit in one stage, and found it a little rubbish that after reaching 10 minutes the timer just freezes! I know they can't just have it counting up indefinitely, but considering Anniversary Mode removes the time limit you'd think they'd either increase the cap to something like 99 minutes or just remove the TIME display entirely.
One minor thing that I don't think was ever fixed in the Taxman port of CD is that in the original game, whenever you traveled through time, if your timer was over 5 minutes it resets to 5 minutes flat, giving you some time to explore the stage - and possibly buy some time if you're pushing up against 10 minutes. The thing that sucks about CD is that every zone has essentially 10 unique layouts (4 each for Acts 1 and 2, 2 for Act 3), but it's such a chore to experience most of them and the game actively discourages you from seeing the bad futures anyway. I'd love if there was a mode that let you play through all the Past, Good Future and Bad Future versions of each stage back-to-back rather than having to putz around with the time travel each time.
Interesting! Was that intended behaviour in Sonic CD 1993, or a bug? Is it mentioned in any of the manuals?
"Ah, yeah, that's how I remember these games all right" Seriously you've never had a conversation with a casual player of these games that doesn't quickly have them saying some variant of "Why do they let you go fast, then have some spikes right there for you to run into?" Ah yes, getting killed by a barrel that nobody knew about, a thing that hasn't been part of Sonic 3's reputation for basically its entire existence.
Yeah I reeeally don’t get bringing up the Barrel of Doom as a black mark against this collection “what is a kid gonna think when they get there” That it’s stupid; same as we did and always have, the difference is they’ll have a wayport to the entire collected knowledge of mankind in their left pocket to tell them that instead of the 15 time overs it took us Sure I wish they’d added an indicator (even if actual animations for looking up and down comes close) but pretending that particular obstacle is not providing the Genuine Sonic 3 Experience™ borders on revisionist
I keep my wallet in my left pocket and my phone in my right pocket. Does that mean I'm doing it wrong? :P To be entirely honest, I wish they would've just changed it so you'd jump on it repeatedly, would've been much more intuitive.
That music still makes me want to rip my ears out. P - Phenomenon of T - Terrible S - Sonic D - Death via eardrums blown out
Turns out Sonic 3 does have the Tails to Miles cheat code still active. At the title screen press up, up, up, down, down, down, up and then you get the name change.
I've been wanting this for a while as well, also so that I could avoid "accidental" time travel. I don't bother with the time travel when replaying CD, and it's obnoxious to cross a signpost at speed and not be able to slow down in time to avoid the game-interrupting warp (this happens a lot in Quartz Quadrant with the spiral tubes, to the point that I think every single playthrough of CD I've done has at least involved me visiting Quartz Quadrant Past involuntarily). A mode that turns time travel off completely would be great.
