When you say “the team” are you referring to Sega/Sonic Team or Headcanon? Like if there are folks with connections to Headcanon I guess it wouldn’t hurt to say anything but honestly I’m just hoping they are getting the time they need to make bug fixes… if they’re involved
This is almost definitely not developed by Sonic Team. Whether or not it's actually the S3K remaster team is up for debate, but it mostly likely is considering they're implementing a new character into 3 different versions of the Retro Engine. If that is the case, they probably got the go-ahead to make changes to the other games, considering how upset Stealth was at the state of the game's release. I'm interested to see what exactly has been fixed.
I said FanDevs specifically, as in anyone Headcannon brought onboard (though some contractors don't work directly for him, so it varied)
It could explain why RSDK scaling issues and presumably unchanged S3&K music is still there, as being stuff still handled by Sonic Team's integration of the remaster content rather than whoever's adding Amy and Knuckles? Stealth did explain on Twitter they handled the music portion of S3&K for them.
I really don't think it's necessary to reach out to them. Given their previous public comments and public grievances with the releases, they're more than aware of any issues. It's not like we're talking about some random literally who developer here that has never touched a Sonic game in their life. If they can fix it, it'll be attended to, but they do have milestones and deadlines to hit under the watchful eye of a publisher.
honestly, my Pies in the Sky in regards to that are A. Make the “No Super Music” option a Hub-Menu-level toggle B. Run Jun’s recording through someone who actually knows what Genesis Music sounded like for a second draft, because as much as I love Jun’s compositions (even this theme is salvagable imo) the man does not know what to do with that chip
Origins Plus is a physical game so development will probably be wrapping up by April in order to be ready in discs and carts by June. Easy stuff like this gets done by a single person in mere hours, so if the music was to be mastered they'd be ready for months now. The fact they didn't touch them up, even if JUST for Frontiers - when the songs would be put up against other CD-quality songs, simply means they think they all sound fine to SOJ. The chance they'll be mastering them for Origins Plus is very low. The Mega Drive renders stuff in real time. You can't get 1:1 recordings even if you use the same machine. A note will always hit some miliseconds later or early due to the driver or the Z80 not keeping up perfectly and that's noticeable only when comparing the waveforms. Or do you think you can notice how Green Hill sounds different everytime you play it (spoiler: it IS different every time but it sounds the same since the differences are so small).
Has anyone who played the Blue Sphere modes (both original and new) noticed that in the original mode, it plays the new Super Sonic theme composed by Senoue when getting a perfect in a stage? I know that SEGA mainly handled the music for all the games, but it’s pretty strange they used that as opposed to the regular invincibility theme.
I still feel a bit sad SEGA didn't revamp Westside Island's design to accomodate the zones better, possibly using the proto-design along the way... ^^" They did that for South Island, when the island was only known through Sonic1 8-bit. South & Angel Island share a design aesthetic while each of them keeps their thematic identity. It's refreshing, I like them better precisely due to that.
I only want them to fix terrible audio compression in Sonic 3 & Knuckles, or is this patched already? Couldn't care less for Amy. Knuckles should have been in CD from the start. GG games are a nice bonus, even if the SMS versions are superior I hope some features are still kept secret. Metal Nightmare with a playable Metal Sonic and a new boss fight or two would be nice.
Basically the idea is that since Frontiers is still using the muffled tracks in a recent music DLC patch, they didn't bother fixing it. I'm guessing there could be smaller additions as part of a free QoL patch coming alongside the paid DLC (maybe a few more cheat codes, Max Control in all games, etc.), but I don't really think they're hiding anything advertisable with the paid DLC and I'd assume another huge addition of strong effort would probably already be made part of it.
I'm not expecting it to happen, but I hope they restore the ability to play as Super Sonic in 2PVS. This was possible in the Mega Drive original. And with the teleporter, Tails could 'steal' the Super Sonic powers, allowing for a neat game of 'tag': Sadly, the Chaos Emeralds cheat doesn't work in 2PVS in Origins. As discussed before, it would be neat if they put all the cheats in Toggle menus (as entering sound test codes is annoyingly cumbersome) and made that menu available in 2PVS too.
I really wish Competition mode had an alternative ruleset that simply makes it a race to the finish. None of the monitor hunting or enemy killing or ring gathering.
In an ideal world, Sonic Origins would have been made entirely in the Retro Engine. Having Amy being implemented is neat. Having Knuckles in CD is something that should have been there day one. But throwing in the Game Gear games does beg the question why we aren't getting more emulated titles, if that is now on the table. Even if 32X emulation is somehow impossible for Sega to achieve (which. I mean. It shouldn't but ok), there are other games just being left out for no good reason. It's strange for a collection to acknowledge other games but keep them at arms length. If it was a case of "quality over quantity," Sonic Blast would not be in Origins Plus. But there it is! Besides, even the "worst game" is someone's favorite. I'm secretly hoping for some new behind-the-scenes content, or just added context for what is already there, but who knows if that will happen. I did write about that on the front page before this announcement, so I don't need to get into it here. I'm glad that certain things were in the collection from the get-go, I'm glad that they're adding more. But I have this feeling it's still going to fall short of what a definitive Sonic the Hedgehog collection should be. + - (a definitive collection would be released in three volumes: 1991-1997, 1998-2007, 2008-2017?) As an addendum, since there's been some speculation on Stealth/Headcannon's role in the update. When Origins was properly revealed on April 20th of last year, Headcannon very quickly made it known they were involved. Now here we are, dealing with an update, but everyone is v. quiet. If Stealth was involved, you'd think he'd say something at this point, because they were allowed last time. I mean, it's entirely possible he is part of it and has been instructed to keep his mouth shut, but. I dunno. It's not inconceivable to think a small, internal group within Sega is trying to force these things in without knowing all the particulars of how the Retro Engine works. I'm hoping I'm wrong and that the Headcannon team is involved to some degree, but I have to wonder. Edit: HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO KNOW STEALTH WOULD POST TODAY but hey that's cool Though I'm curious about the wording of the tweets.
I could very well see Sega telling Stealth to not post anything after last time… but that said it would be bizarre to bring Stealth back and not mention that since it would be an easy way to (re)gain goodwill with fans. For that reason it’s very plausible that Headcanon is not involved. I’m not trying to doom-say. I could honestly see it going either way. Stealth could be involved but is still working on Origins and doesn’t want to post about it until it’s done. But I think fans should prepare for the possibility that Headcanon wasn’t brought back.
