I can understand people not being too impressed with Green Hill Zone, but Studiopolis Zone looks amazing and is 99% new art assets. If anyone can point out a Sonic fan game as visually accomplished as Studiopolis Zone, I'd love to see it. Moving on from that, I have to admit that I miss the Red Star Rings. Hunting them down added a lot of replay value to Sonic Colours and Sonic Generations (as did the Star Coins in the New Super Mario Bros series). Maybe Sonic Mania could keep track of how many giant rings you've found in each Act?
In fairness it only really looks like a fan game because ones in the Sonic community have gotten so blatantly advanced and professional looking in the recent decade. Stuff like Megamix and S2HD would be considered official quality for a downloadable game if it were for any other franchise.
Motherfucking truth. If 2D Sonic without the fans is Sonic 4 and 2D Sonic with the fans is Sonic Mania, that's not even a decision now is it? Incidentally, when the new Doom was made and the developers; none of which were the original id Software; said they were all 'big fans' of the original Doom, did that make the 2016 version a fangame? Oh hey what.
I think I might actually be a bit jealous, but not in the "It should be me and no you" kind of way. It's honestly inspiring what you and Taxman (and the Pagoda West guys) have accomplished. I remember making crappy little fangames when I was little (back in the Games Factory/Game Maker days) and dreaming of making a real game at some point. It's really cool to see you guys actually do it - and do it so well. Kudos!
Anybody calling this a fangame is letting their dunning kruger effect show. Ignore the buzzing of flies, they do not know that they do not know. The GHZ assets aren't recycled, though. They're redrawn from scratch. I have to say I'm surprised at how often I've seen people say that GHZ looks recycled - the new assets seem obvious to me.
lol, but there is a difference between "psh, I could do that" and noticing that everything is different. GHZ honestly looks pretty different if you really look at it. There is so much more detail than in Sonic 1. FWIW, anybody who ever says "psh, I could do that" is 99.999% of the time full of shit. If you want to show that you can do it, then do it. Actions, not words.
The fangame commentary should be ignored. If Sega delivered a Yasuhara designed classic Sonic game, and Sonic Adventure 3, there would be someone crying about Sonic 4 Episode 3 not being unveiled. I am so unbelievably stoked for Sonic Mania, I can hardly stand it. I'm as excited as my 10 year old self was with his Genesis
Funnily enough, I think I'm more intrigued by the remixed stages than the original ones. I've been wishing for Taxman's non-CD exploits to come to non-mobile platforms for some time, so Mania including new takes on classic Genesis stages will probably be the next best thing. :v:
That it's from "fans" is precisely why I'm so excited. I don't trust anyone in the world with Classic Sonic today than Tax and Stealth. If you gave me free reign to put together a team to work on it, it would have looked exactly like what Sega put together. Tax + Stealth + Sonic 2HD Team Spoiler although, if I could have made one small change, I would have tried to get DRX involved somehow FWIW I'm not saying there aren't other capable fans here - the freedom planet team can could probably create an excellent Sonic game. But there is a difference between people competent enough to follow the physics guide, and the people who actually wrote the book.
It's weird my dream has finally come true after 22 long years. You would think I would have a lot to say but I don't. Only thing I can do is wait.
Imagine how cool it would be if some of the remixed zones were some of the "cut" zones from Sonic's past? Like have a Hill Top Zone slowly turn into Wood Zone for its Act 2, or Quartz Quadrant mixed with Desert Dazzle? I swore Taxman said that Green Hill would be the tamest of the remakes, and with things like the swirlier run animation from the Sonic 2 Beta and Sonic's win pose jump get in, they're certainly not adverse to putting cut content back.
I totally agree. I'm not sure why everyone isn't excited by a proven team of fan developers doing something that seems impossible by conventional means (Sonic 4 = conventional attempt) Sega should really be praised for it but a lot of people are using it as a basis of a cheap joke that Sega is talentless or something. Kind of bewilders me because I view it as an extremely innovative way of listening to your fans
I think this is the coolest things Sega has ever done, and they're a company with a lot of cool moments in their history. Actually the last few years, they've been pretty awesome with how relaxed they've been. Letting Yu Suzuki use the Shenmue IP is awesome. Allowing Genesis game mods on Steam is awesome. The hands-off, do your own thing way they treat their PC companies and Atlus is pretty awesome. And this is the cherry on the cake. Go back 10 years ago and it would have seemed completely impossible for Sega to be listening this closely. Shit, mania has been basically the dream of this community for 20 damn years. I don't think many other companies could have pulled this off. It takes really, really good communication and feedback for Tax to have gotten their attention with his Retro Engine pitch all those years ago (I wish those videos were still around, btw). Spoiler They need to port Fantasy Zone II DX to Steam, though
The funny thing is that, somehow, when someone says that "it looks like a fangame" it sounds like a demerit, when it isn't. I mean, there are several types of fangames - and here I speak not only of Sonic games, but virtually any existing game or series. There are even some fangames (and mods) which in many respects are superior to the original. In fact, the main (and sometimes only) factor that causes many fangames to not reach the level of a "real" game is simply a lack of time/money. Sonic 2 HD is beautiful, but so far, we have only a single level - it's not a game, at most it's a demo, no matter how well done it is. The same applies to 90% of fangames: great concepts, but it is all that most of them are - just concepts. Saying that the point is that "it proves that it can be done by anyone" is a superficial and empty rhetoric - almost everything "can be done by anyone". The point is that they just don't do it. Lack of money. Lack of time. Lack of direction. Because other more important things appeared in your life. By infighting that ends up separating the group. Etc. Perhaps the only important difference between an amateur work (made "by fans") and a professional work is that the latter has a far greater chance of being done simply because the daily life of the individual depends on it. When you depend on your game being released to buy food and pay your bills it's easier to find the necessary motivation to complete it and face all the setbacks no matter what. And a fangame that is "completely finished", with all features implemented, a satisfactory duration, new music, well-designed graphics... It's essentially and intrinsically indistinguishable from a "non-fangame". No, more than that, they're really one and the same. (Well, except the fact of it being or not part of the official canon of the series, of course.) I actually would prefer the graphics of Sonic Mania to follow the visual style of Sonic 2 HD - it would be glorious to see the Green Hill Zone in high definition because, really, we've seen countless variations of it in various official and unofficial games. It's already somewhat beaten, to say the least. But if I'm not mistaken, someone (from the team) commented on another forum that the fact that the game is made in pixel art wasn't merely artistic decision, but also related to the game's engine, and the fact that if it was made in high definition they couldn't "make all the content that they wished/planned to add to it in the timeframe they have" (or something in this sense). So, well, within this context, I feel satisfied. I hope then that the success of Sonic Mania may open the door for the future, and then other game can be developed that will finally show all the potential that a Sonic game can reach when you have the gameplay faithful to the roots and beautiful graphics in high definition. What, to me, is something that would never happen, but today I already can feel some hope that this day might come.
No, more than that, and both Stealth and Jman touched up on this - a professional game has standards that must be adhered to. This means things must be approved by higher ups, and also plenty of Q&A feedback and testing. Even the best, most widely-played fan games don't have the feedback a professional company can provide. I don't think this is going to feel like a fan game at all. Taxman's Sonic CD and Sonic 1 and Sonic 2 ports all feel way, way different than his old Retro Sonic releases, and not just because of content. They feel like polished, professional products. I fully expect this to feel like a professional product too, not something some guys could fart out in their free time simply with dedication. When people call efforts like this, "fan game efforts" they are doing two things - they are overselling the degree of polish that fan products have, even at their best, and they are also simultaneously underselling those same qualities in professional products. Even the turdiest professional games have a professional quality about them that good fan games lack. Such is the reality when you have a budget attached to your development. It really is just the good old fashioned Dunning Kruger effect in work.
I posted pretty much the same sentiment on GAF, and I completely agree except with underlined. I've seen legitimate turds get shipped because there was a deadline. This isn't often the case, but there you have it.
While this is true, and I agree, the point I wanted to make was more in the other direction - to that games are games. They can be fan-games, indie-games, AAA-games, but in the end, in essence are the same thing. A fangame is technically an indie game. It's a game made by one individual (or more) without the support of a publisher. And there are countless examples of indies games of undeniable quality: Cave Story, Spelunky, Minecraft, FTL, Underrail... The difference between them is that a fan game is using an existing franchise, so in essence, it cannot have the status of being something official. But this says nothing about the nature of the game, its quality and/or characteristics. We have terrible games launched by publishers and absurdly well built indie games. And again, they're all just games, its nature is essentially the same. What changes, in many cases, is just a matter of status. When a game is launched by the original producer (even if done by other team), it becomes part of the original series. It's simple as that. Sonic 4 will always be Sonic 4, even if it was done by Dimps and only have 4 levels that are nothing more than remakes of classic ones. So why can anyone call this a fangame if it's also being made with the endorsement of Sega? After all, quality-wise, it's way above any 2D Sonic made in years. For me, this only shows that there's a mental block that arises from stereotypical notions created by the person when they analyze the game, as I've seen several people criticize other games by saying that they "appear to be made in flash" which, first, isn't a defect in itself, and secondly, in most cases isn't even true at all. It's the same here.
You also have to understand that that's not the sentiment that a large fraction of people have when they're saying "lol fan game" in this specific context. Spoiler Escalario what are you doing
