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Sonic CD's uneven usage of its four time periods.

Discussion in 'General Sonic Discussion' started by Frostav, Mar 18, 2021.

  1. Palas

    Palas

    Don't lose your temper so quickly. Member
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    It doesn't have to. You sometimes need to explore just so you can finish the game.

    This whole thread is coming from the perspective of seasoned players, which tends to be the case in Sonic discussion boards. Back when I first played Sonic CD, I didn't know there was such thing as a good ending. I just wanted to finish the game and I liked going to the bad future better than going to the past simply because the past has more enemies, is sometimes more complex to navigate and I'm sure all hazards work. In the bad future, some badniks are broken and I simply may not find as many obstacles, given the same path (EDIT: except for Tidal Tempest, which is super cruel on bad future). So if I died nonstop, either in the present or in the past, I'd simply go to the bad future to make the game easier -- but that required me to explore.

    That, or consider how you'll sometimes just... wind up in a different time, and that'll make you reconsider everything about the stage you're in there and then. It adds depth to the game from a survival standpoint, which it should it it's your first time playing. Being careless may get you somewhere you just don't know, and so the game will keep you on your toes.

    And that's very important, I think, because it made Sonic CD not just worth playing a second time, but also made it completely different once I learned I could, and I should, find and break all transporters. Yet, it was the same game.

    EDIT: also, from what standpoint would Sonic CD even need to use its time periods evenly anyway?
     
    Last edited: Apr 4, 2021
  2. I know that CD is more difficult to mod because of each level having the entire engine separately coded for it (Seriously, why was this a necessity again? Would it be possible to make a version that works like a normal game with all the levels using the same instance of the engine? It would potentially let us mod CD like any other Classic game, and if you remove the time-travel gimmick, that's a TON of levels to make a long-ass game out of), but would it be too difficult to...

    1: Start each level in the Bad Future
    2: Remove the goalposts from every time-zone except the Good Future, replacing them with something like a Reset Monitor to warp to the current time-zone's starting point and restoring all the monitors in the current time-zone
    3: Optionally replace all the Time Travel posts with instant Time Travel monitors like that Sonic 2 CD Edition hack (These are what point 2 would be restoring, to prevent getting trapped

    Gameplay would change to: Start in Bad Future, travel to the Past, destroy the Generator, travel to Good Future, complete the level. True, each level would have much more of a Metroid-vania feel since you're required to do a lot of exploration per-level, but it would make each time period required to be seen in each level. Yes, you'd essentially be removing the bad ending, unless you changed the requirement from destroying each Generator to destroying each Metal Sonic projector in each level.

    You'd probably want to remove the 10-minute time limit, or make it a huge point bonus to clear the level in under 10 minutes, because I'm not entirely certain that each level would be possible under that time-frame. It might, but you'd have to know the levels pretty damned well to get through them in time. (Potentially leaving the time limit in could make a pretty good challenge hack)
     
  3. Brainulator

    Brainulator

    Regular garden-variety member Member
    I think that problem is a matter of technical limitations on the side of the Sega CD. @Fred put it better than I could when discussing a suggested move of Sonic 3 Complete to the Sega CD (emphasis in original, underlining added for visibility in quotation mode):
     
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  4. Forte

    Forte

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    I've always wanted to love Sonic CD, but the 10-minute limit per zone made it impossible for me.

    it is strange that this concept never appeared in any game after that. A solid platformer a'la Sonic Adventure with the concept of time travel could be really interesting to play.
     
  5. Beamer the Meep

    Beamer the Meep

    Better than Sonic Genesis... Member
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    Honestly, with mods to improve the time travel and a code to turn off the time limit, CD is actually pretty fun to play.
     
  6. Antheraea

    Antheraea

    Bug Hunter Member
    what the hell is that.

    do ALL mega CD games do that or just Sonic CD? wtf
     
  7. XCubed

    XCubed

    Will Someday Own a Rent-A-Center Oldbie
    That is innovative, yet oh so clumsy! Luckily the CD/DVD/BlueRay gimmick is pretty much dead. Who knew that in the 80s/90s the cart format just needed a little more development and was the superior product the whole time? (As in solid state)
     
  8. Does anybody know of any specific games that did that? How do they work if you try to emulate them? Is it one ROM/ISO that contains both sets of data, or do you load two separate files into an emulator?

    We've seen a partial port of Sonic 1 to the CD, and Megamix was originally a Genesis game that was ported to the CD. Other than the difficulty of the initial "port", what keeps us from making a "Modder's Edition" that has the engine itself as cartridge data and the many levels as CD data? (Obviously, "us" meaning the Sonic community in general and the people with the know-how to do that. I would have zero idea myself how to do something like this, myself. Hence, the questions.)
     
  9. Palas

    Palas

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  10. Only for viewing

    Only for viewing

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    ...Is everyone in the ongoing conversation aware that we can fully modify the 2011 remake of Sonic CD? And that there is in fact a mod that improves the time travel mechanic?
     
  11. Beamer the Meep

    Beamer the Meep

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    Acutely, it's the reason I actually started playing CD.
     
  12. Laura

    Laura

    Brightened Eyes Member
    I agree with the general sentiment of your post Palas, I just don't think Sonic CD is really difficult enough to require exploration. You can get through most of the game just fine by inching along. Aside from the bosses, but they don't reward exploration obviously.

    This is why I think Sonic 1 handles exploration better than most of the classics, because the game is genuinely hard enough to warrant looking for extra lives, shields, and shortcuts.
     
  13. Palas

    Palas

    Don't lose your temper so quickly. Member
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    Fair, and I agree that Sonic 1 handles it better than most classics - in fact i'd say all of them. Could just be nostalgia on my part etc.
     
  14. XCubed

    XCubed

    Will Someday Own a Rent-A-Center Oldbie
    Well I’ll be damned!

     
  15. Overlord

    Overlord

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    Who as a result, had a system that sold less because they stuck to far more expensive than the competition carts (the N64), lower sales because of a system that, while technically more powerful, had storage restrictions (GameCube), was panned for being underpowered compared to the competition (Wii, not that it really mattered here given the massive casual uptake; WiiU), and looped back around to storage restrictions again resulting in games that don't fit on the storage media (Switch).

    I like all those systems (ehhh, maybe not N64 so much and the WiiU is largely redundant these days) but let's not pretend Nintendo had a grand plan and was right all along here.
     
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  16. Palas

    Palas

    Don't lose your temper so quickly. Member
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    I may have been less serious in my post than you may have gathered, but these are fair points nevertheless
     
    Last edited: Apr 6, 2021
  17. Chibisteven

    Chibisteven

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    Regardless of how serious you were, I wouldn't call it a gimmick but more a very versatile and much more affordable product of it's time. Hard drives are mechanical and found in many computers, they certainly were a step up from the floppy discs some old computers used to boot from and CDs at one time stored more than hard drives. Never did understand why some tech geeks have it so hard on for optical discs to die off really quick when the discs themselves were some of the most versatile mass produced physical formats ever used in both tech and entertainment spaces for quite a long time.

    The future is mostly distribution via the internet unless something *really* changes because that's the direction everything is currently going. And yes, solid states are slowly replacing hard drives and games will certainly take advantage of that more and more. New computers are shipping with less and less mechanical storage devices but more powerful computers actually need mechanical parts like fans unless something changes with how we keep our computers and game consoles from overheating.
     
    Last edited: Apr 7, 2021
  18. Yeah, I had to replace my aging laptop since parts like the Wi-Fi adapter were failing (Kind of important for college classes, especially with everything using Zoom and online lectures these days). The only two things I wanted for the new laptop was a traditional mechanical hard-drive for the storage space, and a touchscreen since I like using art programs and I wanted to try and see how a touchscreen compares to an expensive art tablet. Well, I got the touchscreen, and a Windows Ink stylus, so the art programs I use can tell the difference between the touch of the pen and my fingers, which was actually a neat surprise on my end. However, Best Buy didn't have anything with a mechanical hard-drive that was in my budget and not a multiple-thousand dollar gaming laptop.

    So, my new laptop has less than half of the storage space of my old one. I ended up having to buy a massive MicroSD card and just keep it permanently in the slot to act as a secondary storage space. I put a shortcut to it on the desktop, and swapped the icon so it looks more like a normal folder icon that's used for shortcuts to folders on the hard-drive. It's still a bit smaller than the old laptop's storage space, though. I also still have to be careful how I arrange the programs and files on it, since I'm pretty sure that I can't fully-install non-portable programs to the MicroSD, even if I never intend to remove it.

    Kind of wish that the mechanical hard drives were still an option as far as cheap laptops go. I don't mind the added weight and slower boot times, if you've never used a solid-state drive, you don't notice them as missing features since you're only used to things already like that to begin with. I kind of prefer having the larger storage space over the smaller size, anyways. Besides, a larger laptop means a larger screen.
     
  19. Xiao Hayes

    Xiao Hayes

    Classic Eggman art Member
    I only find SSDs good for a job of "boot partition", not just because of the prize vs size thing, but also because recovering lost files from an SSD if you have any issue with it is nearly impossible, and I'm not a secret agent that needs to destroy his deleted stuff so efficiently.

    To stay on topic, I'm eager to see the release of Sonic SSD as a sequel to the original. :V