Sonic Origins Collection - General Thread

Sega of Japan handled the new missions, islands and integration. Everything else was new or reused work by headcanon and taxman. My point is that I think it’s slightly too broad to say that this was “Sega Japan's chance to prove they're good developers.” This probably was Sega Japan’s chance to prove they could competently use the retro engine and as we’ve all pointed out they have made the games buggier than their original ios versions

 

I seem to be the only Switch player so far to have beaten S3K Mirror mode as Knuckles. Someone got to Hidden Palace but they seem to be stuck currently because they have no sky sanctuary rank yet

 

Having seen mission mode in motion now, I think the thing that sticks out to me most is the grey boxes. Would organically changing the landscape and level layouts really have been that much more difficult?

 

That is slightly annoying I must admit. Maybe that track is based on a pre-existing demo, though it certainly doesn't sound like it's OPN2 music.

 

I don't have much of an opinion on the song itself but for years I know it was felt that Super Sonic's theme in 3 being just a loop of the normal invincibility theme was a massive oversight. Maybe this wasn't the best replacement but I'm grateful they at least tried?

 

Would you feel the same if Stealth or someone else in SEGA's employ had blown the whistle for something like actual abuse? Physical or emotional? Crunch culture to the point of terminal illness, or doing shady dealings such as altering contracts to make sure they don't receive credit or any royalties? Would that be "unprofessional"?

Obviously Stealth's situation is not even close to being the same as something that might've happened at, say, Naughty Dog, but I think the principle of how to treat it should be the same. If a corporation is mistreating its employers or contractors, and said employer or contractor thinks it's bad enough and has been going on for so long that they felt the need to come forward and ask that those responsible face accountability, then why tell them that their actions were wrong? I can believe in giving SEGA the benefit of the doubt and hearing their side of the story, but I also believe in a multibillion dollar corporation being guilty until proven innocent. Why should SEGA's reaction be "This guy is impossible to work with" and not "Wow, maybe we fucked up and should fix this"? Unless Stealth is exaggerating or straight-up lying, I don't see how that's appropriate. I dunno, maybe it's just because I'm a human being and not a suit, but I don't understand how anyone could be so soulless and robotic as to see Stealth's thread and think "Beep boop, developer not playing by rules, beep boop, must punish."

Yes, virtuous standing for your principles doesn't pay your bills, but keeping those principles to yourself while they're taken advantage of around you doesn't do wonders for your mental health. It bothers me that people, subconsciously or not, seem to care more about potential future Sonic games made by Headcannon than they do Headcannon not being disrespected and ignored.

 

The islands are crashing computers on Steam; the missions (I'll ignore the fact they use boxes to create the layout from Forces) can also break the game as you can easily go out of bounds and complete the acts; the integration they made simply introduced a lot of bugs everywhere, especially on Sonic 3.

And honestly, most changes they introduced on the titles themselves, especially on the audio side, suck too.

They failed on the only parts of the collection they acted as a dev (except for mirror mode, which is great). So, my point still stands. Even though they didn't fully develop the collection, it's their first time managing these titles and the fucked up on every front.

 

I imagine it would be. Does the Retro Engine use level chunks to build stages like the original? Finding ways to fit those pieces together or having to design new ones just to make a 30 second long mission is not really worth it. Even if it doesn’t use chunks, it is still way more cost-effective to use these boxes.

I think they could have at least found some interesting way to edit the boxes so they don’t look out of place. Maybe they could have had a little story as a framing device for the mode where Eggman captures Sonic and forces him to do these challenges. Then they could have giving the boxes some Eggman-ish design without it seeming like the devs just went full Forces on the missions.

Sega is not some faceless, evil leviathan. It’s composed of people just like Stealth. I’m not saying what Stealth did was wrong in this instance, but thousands upon thousands rely on the company for their livelihoods. Even reading Stealth’s tweets in the least generous light, the worst they are guilty of is incompetence.

 

That's classic Sonic Team level design now unfortunately. The same problem was in Generations' mission mode, Sonic Colors, and Forces.

 

Okay, what is this "abuse" you keep talking about? I see none. And Stealth is not a "whistleblower" either. That has an actual legal definition, and this ain't it.

Also, guilty until proven innocent? In the case of corporations, that's technically true. The burden of proof is on the corporation to show, not the accuser. But we don't believe in mob rule either, which sounds like what you're advocating for. Correct me if I'm wrong.

And corporations aren't these empires run by evil overlords that control everything around you. Like someone else said, they're made up of individual contributors no different than you and me.

I think your perspective on corporations is blinding you a bit about Stealth's situation. He's not some battered poor sap who needs to seek justice to right the wrongs bestowed upon him. He and the folks at Sega are adults with disagreements. That's it.

 

I don't think these are from an older build, they sound like they were written recently and recorded on hardware by Jun. That's what the post seemed to imply, not that they're older versions of the prototypes.

 

This is so difficult on a smartphone to strip out the massive walls of text...

I think you're misreading me, or I'm just not being clear enough. I am grateful for the efforts on the product. I'm sure everyone involved tried their best. I am, like most everyone else, disappointed in the final result overall. I say that having not played it, but simply reading all the comments. It *should* be better. And I'm crossing my fingers that Sega does the right thing.

And briefly on the other point you made that you suggested I was missing... I get that. I don't fault anyone for defending their reputation. This can be reputation-damaging. I said early on that there were better ways to communicate what he needed to say and be just as effective at it. That's all.

 

This feels only half true. Headcannon (not just Stealth) is a very small indie studio, a tiny umbrella represented mostly by Stealth but not comprised of just Stealth. With a relatively small pool of assets and resources that are funded by the developers themselves.

SEGA is quite literally a gigantic AAA corporation. SEGA has employees, full-time employees with benefits and salaries / contractual wages. SEGA doesn't have to worry about SEGA's health care, SEGA BUYS people health care. Headcannon is contracted BY SEGA because one of these parties has an enormous amount of assets and resources (chiefly money) that are held by a corporate entity... whereas the other party was uncertain of its own future following Sonic Mania and just trying to fund their next game.

This isn't "two teams working together on one project", I think your perception of it is kind of skewed. Headcannon isn't even interfacing directly with the majority of the Origins Team, it's not a collaborative endeavor from what we've been told. They have a submission deadline and they need to meet that submission deadline and hand over the build. SEGA and the Origins Team then integrate that build into the Origins package. Stealth and HC have mentioned providing feedback and SEGA taking that feedback, but they are not working together on Origins as a whole, HC is just submitting a build of Sonic 3K and New Blue Sphere.

I also don't understand how we are still asserting that HC is only saying SEGA is responsible for the state of the game. Stealth made very clearly that they found their fair share of issues in their build. But SEGA sets the deadlines. SEGA tells them when it needs to be done, no matter how unrealistic that deadline may be. This is not two teams collaborating to get something done on equal terms. One is literally contracted by the other and given specific instructions to do things within a specific set of parameters.

I don't think we need to go one way or the other and allege that anyone is either a poor sap or a cranky developer just lying about the quality of their work. It's entirely possible the full story is not being told, but alleging that these two parties are on equal ground is all kinds of false.

 

Okay guys, where's the high quality music mod? I'm over the track replacements and the normal songs are really low quality.

 

The reason I assert that is unless I misread what he wrote, it seems like Headcannon did finish the game under said deadlines, and turned in a finished build, but that build simply wasn't used.

EDIT: Completely unrelated, but has anyone noticed that CD's opening is now using the demo vocals from the prototype/Jam, rather than the final game?

 

I completed all 4 games and I'm not gonna lie, I was genuinely surprised to hear that a lot of people were having problems with bugs. My experience was mostly pretty enjoyable and bug-free. I'm playing on PS5 so maybe this version is less buggy?

obviously not trying to imply that people are lying or overreacting lol, if this many people are complaining then I guess something's gotta give.

My main gripe is that there's no proper level select in CD. Once you finish the game you have to start over from the beginning, you can't just go to a specific zone like in S3&K.

 

I don’t think that’s what he meant. I’m almost positive his tweet was saying that the functionality of the build he turned in was different than what appeared on Origins due to the integration/adjustments made by Sonic Team.

Edit: What HEDGESMFG said.

You’d think with them already being a year out from the actual 30th, Sega would just take some extra time with the game lol. No one is sitting around on June 23rd saying they NEED a new Sonic game.

 

edit: damnit I always get ninja'd by just not refreshing the page on mobile

But yeah. While implementing the build into Origins introduced a host of new issues that couldn't have been foreseen, he did say in the thread that HC had documented a fair amount of known bugs before submitting it.