Old school! They probably won't be as intricate, but you can still do some very decent hacks like that.
Alright, here's another one: Not sure if unpopular, but, while Sonic 2 is a better game than Sonic 1, the first gamer offers a much better art. Some art in certain levels in Sonic 2 doesn't feel right for me. I think I prefer much more the aesthetic from the first game in general. Aquatic Ruin is fucking pretty tho'. Oh, I also prefer The Doomsday theme more than Big Arms', because it feels much more like... epic or intense? I can't explain it right exactly. Just to be clear, both songs are AWESOME, I just prefer The Doomsday theme a little more, I think this song deserve some love, I dunno.
Haha okay, as long as he regrets it. I have almost zero exposure to his work so that being my first taste of it was slightly off-putting. I always hear pretty good things so it seemed extra strange.
I love Sonic 1's art and music. It has such a weird, almost-lonely feeling that I find kinda engrossing. Can't really describe it. I don't really like Sonic CD's aesthetic much at all. I don't like the weird color palettes or the weird music. I'm kinda sick of seeing this aesthetic in so many fangames, to be honest—especially with the overused voice samples.
Old zones being in new games has never been much of an issue to me. On the contrary, I actually tend to like it, as long as something new is done with them, like everything reimagined in full 3D (with a cohesive aesthetic that doesn't get enough credit) in Generations, or the brilliant layouts, new gimmicks and Act 2 overhauls in Mania. If every game just opened with its own spin on Green Hill Zone from now 'til the end of time, I seriously don't think I'd be bothered by it.
I think Doomsday really has a sense of urgency that Big Arms theme doesn't, befitting of the gameplay of the zone. If there's a Mania 2, I hope the team does something like Generations and interprets some iconic levels from outside the original trilogy - City Escape Act 1 is the most consistently fun level in that entire game, IMO.
Yeah, I think that's actually what I wanted to say lol. The Doomsday feels like "I don't have much time, I have to get Eggman or things will be fucked up".
You can definitely feel the difference with Sonic 2 having some western developed art styles and graphics though. That said, Hidden Palace is easily the best among the American made art.
Yeah, which is sad, because especially that zone had to be cut from the original game. Thankgod it was restored in the 2013 version of Sonic 2.
I think some of the problem with Sonic 2 is that so much of it is mechanical, a lot of it samey mechanical too. we have ... 4 areas in that game that have a naturalistic aesthetic: Emerald Hill, Hill Top, Aquatic Ruin, Mystic Cave. Everything else is artificial and either has silver (Chemical Plant, Wing Fortress) or a form of bronze (Casino Night, Oil Ocean, Metropolis, Death Egg, and yes Wing Fortress) as a primary color. Metropolis having three acts doesn't help either. And in development it would've been even worse because Cyber City, whose assets were reused for The Machine, would've been...purple and silver! I would actually pin this on the US dev team for that reason (the reuse of unused Sonic 2 assets into Spinball, which they made). Scrap Brain is mostly blue, Wacky Workbench and Metallic Madness have the same insane color palette as the rest of the game, and only Flying Battery and Death Egg Zone in Sonic 3 really come close to the mechanical aesthetic of Sonic 2, and even then those levels use more colors and more surreal technology (the holographic ring paths in DEZ for instance, which could've pretty easily have been Chemical Plant or Metropolis-style tubes). IMO, a lot of the western-developed Genesis games I've played have this kind of grungy, more detailed style to them that Sonic and Ristar generally don't have, because it clashes with the hypersurrealism of even Sonic 1.
Actually looking at Cyber City's sprite art, it likely would have been more primarily silver (hard to trust it based off of The Machine, Toxic Caves uses modified Hidden Palace assets and looks nothing like it). I feel like the backgrounds tend to help set them apart however, Chemical Plant has a heavy red scene due to its background as well the water giving it some pink. Casino Night has loads of multi coloured aesthetics due to its pinball/casino theming, Oil Ocean has an unusual amount of candy coloured assets as well as that lovely burning sunset giving it a whole unique life for an industrial level, while Wing Fortress, due to taking place in the air, is painted heavily by a grand sky blue. The nearest to samey levels are Chemical Plant/Death Egg and Emerald Hill/Hill Top due to them sharing art, though even then the aformentioned backdrop and asset changes really help distinct them from each other (at least they aren't much worse than Green Hill and Marble Zone's similar assets). On another Sonic 2 hot take, while I like the remake's Hidden Palace and how they added unique assets to the unfinished level, I feel it lacks the same grandeur the original version had, feeling more like another fast paced level instead of this ominous trek into a long lost landmark. Not to mention knowing it was going to have plot relevence to Sonic's super form originally. They didn't finish the lift run in any form, arguably the biggest enigma of the original unfinished level. The stuff that made Hidden Palace fun thinking about were largely ditched and left unanswered. I think if SEGA hadn't been so finicky about adding new levels, it would have been a better strategy to put all the new adrenaline based ideas for a level into another beta level like Wood Zone or Sand Shower (the ziplines would have especially fit Wood more) and instead tried to contact past developers to replicate the original plans for Hidden Palace as much as possible.
I already mentioned Forces here, but specifically, I actually really like what it does with returning areas. It could've done more with the concept, sure, but seeing green hill dried up and turned into a desert, a snowy bleaker chemical plant, and city escape in ruins are all pretty great, and I feel like it's not nearly as bad as a lot of samey levels
I prefer some of the US Sonic CD tracks over the JP ones. example being: Metallic Madness (Bad Future) Wacky Workbench (Good Future) Palmtree Panic Past (King Meteor Studios) ( I don't even think this counts but I don't care.) and Stardust Speedway (Good Future) (I kinda prefer the US version a lil over the JP version because it is more structured, but I still love the JP ver.) there are other tracks I enjoy but I don't feel like posting them.
I love the US present Stardust Speedway. It evokes an incredibly memorable image to me of just running through winding roads in the sky, high above the world, with nothing but the stars and flashing lights around you. I get no such imagery from the JP track.
I also thnk Stardust Speedway Good Future US fits MUCH better for the race against Metal Sonic in Act 3.
I can't remember right now, but I think it doesn't force the BF music with the US soundtrack. The good thing about the US soundtrack here is that both tracks fit for that race, while JP good future doesn't.
odd. When I listen to the JP Present track, I think exactly of stars and flashing lights ironically. But the US version reminds me of a race of some sort.
So... JP -> Stardust US -> Speedway Not sure if that means both did well or they just got halfway there.
exactly. I feel they both fit what the stage is about. In my opinion, JP represents the backround, while the US track represents the foreground.
