I wouldn't know I've never tried to fly in Competition Mode. I wonder if it would be an unfair advantage after all.
I struggled with the balloons in Balloon Park as a kid, and Tails' flight removed all that challenge. Knuckles plays identically to Sonic in competition mode though, despite competition mode sprite data existing for gliding and climbing.
I admit Competition Mode feels like the biggest loose end of S3K. It felt like it should have got an extension via Sonic and Knuckles as well. Add Knuckles' signature abilities at the very least (the sprites are already made). I would love if they added more levels too since a minigame-esque mode like Competition generally thrives on having as many stages as possible, but generally adding new levels to the old games is a no-no for SEGA unless there's some legacy involved like HPZ.
It's very weird honestly the Competition Mode stages looks better than some S3&K stages. That's the impression I get, at least. I think the comparasion between Carnival Night and Balloon Park may be a good example (not saying Carnival Night looks bad visually though).
Would be so cool if Tyson's team did some animation shorts for 1, 2, CD and 3K which you could perhaps unlock when completing each game. I'd like to be able to play 3K's zones in competition mode using Sonic 2's two player vs rules because S2 two player mode is a lot more fun than Sonic 3's.
You know that feeling when you hear an idea that never occurred to you and you're all "YES HOLY SHIT I NEED THIS IN MY LIFE!!!"? I'm imagining a Sonic CD-like credits montage of shots of each level. 3K's could end with a wushu-esque rendition of the Sonic vs Knuckles fight. It's not happening, but it'd be awesome.
I think this is going to be an unpopular opinion, but does anyone else kinda hope the games are emulations, albeit with decent bug fixes? Whilst I absolutely love the work Taxman has done, especially Mania, playing through Sonic 1 yesterday reminded me that there are quite a few minor differences with the original engine which always catch me out. For me I think the ideal situation would be the authentic original engine with all its little quirks, but with obvious bugs polished away (plus widescreen obviously). The problem is, I wouldn't really trust Sega to actually produce something polished. I think that's partly why Taxman's versions are so well loved - because he actually polishes his games and gives a shit about the same stuff as us.
Not gonna tell you you're wrong, but I'd be extremely disappointed if they were emulations. If they included emulations as an extra "Original Recipe" kinda deal, then OK, but they need to be updated.
My only question to emulation is why would SEGA do that when the remastered versions are literally right there? The hard work has already been completed on 3 out of 4 games. I doubt there is an issue with porting them over to modern platforms and I don’t trust them when it comes to porting or emulating their own games in-house (Sonic 1 GBA and the sound emulation issues in Mega Collection immediately come to mind)
Being mere tweaked emulations would incredibly devalue the collection in the eyes of many, and the AGES ports already fill that authenticity niche. I for one would not like having the risk of clipping into the floor easily from "engine quirks" or what have you.
I'm calling it now. The "big enhancements" will be similar to Nintendo's SNES and NES stuff on the switch. Savestages and rewind, along with online play with Sonic 2/3. If I recall correctly a long time ago someone did a POC of an emulator that could do widescreen on certain games for the genesis, so I know that is possible. Although the tax ports exist, it's still so much easier and safer for them to make emulators work a bit better than it is to try and get taxmans ports working absolutely perfect on every platform. At the end of the day they're still a company and will do the least amount of effort for the most amount of profit. For anyone arguing it'd be just as easy for them to take tax's ports -- it wouldn't. On top of making sure they absolutely work perfectly on each console, they would also have to pay a team to redo S3k. The S3k port would then need to be thoroughly tested, adding even more costs. Although it sounds easy, it still is a cost. That cost eats into profits. Now that I've said that...I AM a Sonic fan so of course even though the logic in me says what I said above, I still secretly am hoping that it's going to be so much more.
Don't those widescreen hacks introduce a lot of bugs, let you see areas of the level that you aren't supposed to see, and cause issues with boss areas designed for the smaller screen? I honestly can't imagine they would go through all that trouble to fix all that, especially considering they supposedly don't have the original source code anymore. They couldn't even properly add the spindash to Sonic 1.
Mania itself ran perfectly on XbOne+PS4, only having some small frame dips on Switch (during the fully 3D Special Stages) until a patch made it run perfectly as well... and the previous CD+1+2 Retro Engine versions seem to have been successfully ported to the New 3DS of all things. I doubt any of those are more resource intensive than Mania itself was.
I think part of it for me is that we didn't get a Sonic 3 port for years before now, and I believe at least a little that we wouldn't be getting it if fans hadn't directly asked the devs in-person for a Sonic 3 port. The fact that releasing the Retro engine ports was asked in the same way at the same events suggests to me that they'd either do both things or neither, and I definitely believed that S1 and 2 would get ports before 3 got any rerelease. As for the work of porting them...I dunno, I always thought the Retro engine was designed to be pretty versatile from the start. It certainly hasn't been a huge roadblock in fans throwing the Decompilations on a whole bunch of different platforms, which suggests to me that professionals with all of the source files wouldn't struggle particularly hard. Obviously uneducated opinions from a dude who definitely wants the best of both worlds here, but I think the best of both worlds is not too much to ask.
I don't think I could disagree with you much more. We have countless emulated versions of the games available, officially or otherwise. We don't need any more. If enhancements are being made, then the best course of action is to go all out with them. You get some inaccuracies in the remade versions, like smooth rotation in S1's Special Stages changing how they play, but the cons such as that are totally dwarfed by the pros. Much more can be done to enhance or add to full remakes than can be done for emulations, and it's typically easier as well. When looking at the remade versions of S1, S2 and SCD there are several little things that could be fixed up to closer resemble the original games. I remember that in there SCD remake there were layering issues with some sprites. And there were a few physics quirks. Things like that can always get fixed. And in the grand scheme of it, they were insignificant. Not to mention totally unnoticed by a solid 99% of players. I'd always take a full blown remake/remaster that doesn't suffer from the old hardware limitations than yet another emulation. One of my favourite things about the remakes is that they don't have slowdown. The minor differences all add up to make an ultimately better experience. Emulations would just be a waste. Even widescreen and otherwise enhanced emulations would fall short of remake potential by a mile. You want emulated games? Take your pick; S1 and S2 are available on almost every system, past and present. You're not even that strapped for choice when it comes to S3K. CD is the only exception to the role here, and that's still available (albeit with new bugs) on Gems Collection. I just can't get behind the argument for faithful emulations or even enhanced emulations at all.
Clearly we want Taxman Ports, but with high-quality hand-drawn graphics akin to Sonic the Hedgehog 2 HD replacing the original sprites and pixels for 1080p/4K resolution. It's the only true way to play the games!
I don't mind emulation so long as it isn't lazy 'as is' emulation. I want some extra QOL stuff after having these games rereleased so many times before. Sonic 1 and 2 are already available in TWO different forms on the Switch. Port or emulation, you're gonna have to add something to them otherwise that's half the collection dispensible. M2 I think has shown the ability to expand on the game still using emulation, but I think they've only dipped their toe into what it can do.
