Modders here is a resource. Not loud enough? Try this. Use with care. Hate the sample rate and bit depth for some reason of sorts.
I never liked the prototype tracks and thought they didn't fit the levels' aesthetics (no matter how often I listened to them, I couldn't get a sense of the mood of these songs), but THIS I need to check out for myself. Telling from the videos, it got a bit better in Origins (LBZ Act 2 sounds a bit like early Phantasy Star music, the credits theme isn't bad either), but man, were they lucky to get Brad Buxer and his cues on board, haha. They 'fixed' some stuff, but everything else (besides the original base games and museum mode) seems to lack personality, which I think is the biggest offender. It's ultimately not Jun's fault. On another note, the Sonic CD intro/ending feels oddly out of place with the rest of the cutscenes.
I dislike how you are forced into coin mode to play widescreen, both lives/coins and 4:3 / wide should be toggles. I'm put off buying this collection right now and I had been saving for it too, a shame.
I'm SO GLAD I ended up choosing the PC version over the PS4 version so I can mod out that awful music
Anniversary/Classic was probably just to streamline and simplify the customization options these ports would've otherwise had with a marketing pitch so that no one would feel daunted by options only Sonic fans would really thoroughly get. Meanwhile I'm glad I got the PC version so I can mod these at least. Maybe this will light a fire in people's hearts to "finish" the prototype themes or do even more remixes like Realm did, because if there's one thing I've seen modders and Sonic fans love to do, it's try to prove Sega wrong.
Overall, I'm not impressed with the replacement tracks. The only one I find outright horrible is Carnival Night, but these really scream a lack of effort. They literally sound like fan recreations, like Senoue downloaded a Genesis sound font, plopped it into Audacity, and spend 30 minutes trying to recreate the proto music. I never really cared for the proto/PC tracks but it's really disappointing to see them treated like this. I think it can be chalked up to this: Jun Senoue doesn't know how to compose Genesis music. Yeah, he composed for Sonic 3 back in the day, and did music for other Genesis games like 3D Blast. But from what I can tell, he was never involved in actually converting it to the Genesis hardware. Is this as bad as his Sonic 4 work? Not at all. But it still stings and I was really hoping for more. That being said, I do like the new Super Sonic theme, and overall the music ain't a dealbreaker. It's still Sonic 3, and all the quality of life improvements look fantastic. (There are more graphical effects, and hey - Super Sonic has a full sprite set now!) But the treatment of the Sonic 3 soundtrack is very upsetting. Well, at least there'll be mods.
Extremely disappointed in the stage music here. Ice Cap sounds alright (which is good, since that was the least finished in the proto), but Carnival Night (both acts) and Launch Base (act 2 in particular) both sound awful compared to their proto counterparts. I don't understand why they couldn't have just kept them unedited aside from Ice Cap, since they were able to use a 1:1 version of the "unused" theme from the proto.
Just listened to all of them in full. They're honestly not bad? Launch Base act 2 sounds like a garbage fire but the others sound solid to me. Carnival Night act 1 may as well be completely different, but I like the up beat energy it has. Act 2 keeps the funky bongos as well.
One thing I was looking forward to in this collection was 2PVS Splitscreen. I had low expectations, but the Famitsu stream confirmed that we’d be getting an extended selection of Sonic 2 levels in Splitscreen. However, according to this review, + - Knuckles can’t use his abilities in 2P (I assuming it’s the same for Tails). This is baffling as Sonic 2 mobile did allow abilities in the competition mode. If they wanted players to have equal abilities they could have just added a toggle (although, as you can play as the same character, it’s not needed). This might seem minor, but the abilities make it a lot of fun! Bad Sega!
I literally couldn't figure the barrel out at any point when I played on original hardware and only found out when a friend told me over a decade later.
The real annoying part is that everyone but PC users get fucked here, and yet the PC version is the one with Denouvo. And even if you just stuck with Sonic 3 A.I.R., you can't play it on the go. Nobody wins lol.
Spoiler: Music analysis CNZ 2 - 1:28 Some of the melody notes are garbled or sound cut short - There are notes that are just plain wrong at 1:45 - 1:46 (or there are something like bell sounds that are being used in an octave they're not made for) - 1:37 has the melody line from the S3 proto while the PC version had a different melody line here, so this tells us that the PC version was probably NOT used as a starting point for these (see 0:30 in this: ) - 1:17 The melody is overpowered by the arpeggios. In fact, the melody is overpowered by almost everything else in the track, which would leave me wondering what the melody is supposed to be if this were the first time I've heard this song. - 1:18 There is a part of the melody that was incorrect in the PC version and Origins seems to match the S3 proto in fixing that part of the melody (the melody needs to go up and down a fourth but in the PC version it stays the same note (see 0:01 at )
So anyway.... Less than 24 hours before the embargo was due to lift, Sega asked me if I'd like to review the game... I said yes... so for the last 30 hours (no really I've been working that long) I've been working on this... And I'm now quite annoyed. Just because as a condition of me getting this code, I was not allowed to stream, had to be very careful with showing too much gameplay, and couldn't show 'much' of the animations... And I agreed to it... Yet... seems that every other outlet ignored those restrictions... If I'd... actually had these lack of restrictions other sites did or just outright ignored them, aside from it radically cutting down my workload by hours, it really undermines the approach I took to my review now... Well anyway...I talked about the music a little bit in my review and essentially it came down to this for me. The new tracks are... fine... in literally any other non pre-existing stage. But... Ice cap is one of my favourite stages and the music is a big part of that, it helps emphasise the feeling of being alone, cold, trapped and suck in an endless ice wasteland. The new track, doesn't do this. It's the same for Carnival Night, the original sounds like a mad circus, but the new one is... well I said in the video, theme park, but I really should have said "Bingo hall". Anyway, I did take a good look at the museum and I'm actually really impressed with what's in there, I did show off some assets including one artwork of a cowboy Sonic with Vector that I've never seen before and a few other nice bits. But I was very let down with no developer interviews or making of content. But surprisingly, the main star for me was mission mode. Some of the missions are a genuine challenge, and a really good one at that. Though I have a feeling these were Deluxe edition content... Oh yeah and I really laid into the decision to paywall the camera controls.
Spoiler: S3 Immediate Gameplay Tweak Reactions... :D AIZ bombing has Tails huddle with you and not get bombarded, thoughtful! The bombing itself is still a hold-right sequence, not like AIR's alternate one where you need to actually dodge. Super Sonic has a full sprite set. His damage/sliding ones have this nice "i guess this is happening" face... strangely they aren't used when getting knocked off a MGZ top or LBZ pole cups. CNZ barrels have looking up and crouching rotations now. I think that's a good enough hint for the Barrel of Doom. Those new sprites are also used elsewhere like on the LBZ pole cups. Knuckles smacking the Eggmobile doing damage is cute. Big Arms is for everyone. Getting grabbed as Super is the &K behavior of just bouncing. Having Big Arms bonk the platform to cause it to break off is an amazing change, as well as playing the YouBeatTheGame jingle instead of Act Clear. The Eggman flying away animation is restored, cool. When the platform falls off screen, the Death Egg (or what I presume is the Death Egg?) it was attached to falls back on screen in the foreground for some reason. I don't remember that happening in the OG. 3Complete-like use of the &K title screen as a cutscene, a welcome addition. Overall, very respectable changes throughout for the most part. Spoiler: S3 Immediate MUSIC Reactions... >:CCC Music appears to fully restart instead of pausing+resuming for the 1UP/Coin jingle?? Why? Super Sonic has a new theme, based on the &K title screen (like, specifically the title screen.) It's a VERY jarring addition. I think I like... parts of this?? It feels unfinished. CNZ1+2 Origins tracks sound like garbage, utterly butchered straight to hell. ICZ1+2 Origins is alright?? I can't believe ICECAP is the least borked sounding one out of all of this. LBZ1 Origins is noticeably changed but doesn't sound too bad from the very little shown. LBZ2 Origins is butchered straight to hell. What absolute sicko approved these over the Prototype ones?? CNZ2 and LBZ2 are my favorites, what have you done to my lil babs ;w; This isn't a Sonic 4 situation where you're blindly composing from scratch (minus the new Super), you had perfectly good tracks right there! You would have to know about them! Jun, how did you make these!? So yeah, I'm pretty happy about what's been done with the 3K gameplay, and look forward to playing through it eventually sometime later. On PC. With MUSIC MODS applied. I'm guessing it'll be a while before people manage to get major things crammed in there as well, like fixing the 1/CD/2 drop dash to not seemingly be implemented like the AGES ports. Or maybe not, maybe Decomp knowledge will make it easier by starting from square two instead of square one.
I'd just like to point out I said pretty much the same thing several pages ago and got blasted for it by everyone here.
It's a shame for all the effort done with the replacement music and the Super Sonic track, they never let Jun make a "complete" ending with the new tracks, like Sonic 3C tried. It's just the stock S&K ending music, not even the 3C version without the MJ tracks in it. Also I see they didn't change the credits, for those wondering if the music section would get changed.
There was a reason to assume, and it was called Sonic 4. I didn't voice my opinion on people saying Episode II really recovered, because most people over the years generally said "yeah most of the soundtrack is still pretty mediocre, just a couple standouts, and the boss theme was repetitive garbage", so the sudden positivity about it felt weird but whatever. A lot of people were quick to bat for the fact that clearly he had to know what he was doing. Truth is, Jun is a good composer, but not a good converter.
I'm open minded as someone can get. I'd rather like things than not like them and see the good in them. With that being said these sound like songs from a generic 90s platformer that fell to time. They don't have the Sonic oomph or edge to them. They legit sound like Bubsy music. I'm even considering getting the PC version now to mod this music out...man...
There was no reason to assume he could do it well, either. We know nothing about his experience with the Genesis soundchip. We had no reason to believe he was involved in the conversion process, only that he composed the original demos. I'd be happy to be proven wrong, but AFAIK there isn't a shred of evidence to suggest he knew anything about soundchip engineering (or whatever the actual process is called).
