I’m fairly sure the only Sonic game released in the past five years that dropped Denuvo was Mania. Forces still has it, and so does TSR.
I'm definitely gonna get absolutely flamed for this, but what's the issue with Denuvo? In all of the time I've spent playing Origins I haven't even really thought about it or noticed it was there. All I've known is that it was supposedly bad, for some reason.
It can cripple the performance of games and force you to have to play online, in addition to DRM just being anti-consumer and pointless
As someone who knows both of those fandoms very, very well, the circumstances here are different because there's no outside force determined to manipulate/review bomb the material for unrelated political reasons, which is a big factor in why both of those franchises get treated that way and why people are so reactionary to them these days. Also, the actual status of the Steam reviews are mixed, not overly negative, but 'trending' negative if you look. It's not being review-bombed (it'd be overwhelmingly negative by now if it were), it's just actual genuine reaction from frustrated consumers. Again, I don't actually want this game to fail if SEGA is willing to fix it. Games go through this phase on steam all the time and the reviews often turn positive when issues are actually addressed. The problem is that SEGA doesn't always support games post-launch, and the de-listing of older titles without bugs makes this a lot worse. De-Listing the older titles also seems to be killing what was an awesome mod scene in Sonic CD, and has had a chilling effect on AIR mods too. Why compete with an official release, after all? That Tails bug in Sonic 2 is new and makes the game (Sonic 2) borderline unplayable for a lot of people. Even if I excuse all of the Sonic 3 issues as nitpicky problems (And I think new players will get hurt and frustrated by them more than I will, but i digress), that tails bug just breaks the most common mode of the biggest current release of one of SEGA's 90s flagship titles. Again, SEGA can either patch these issues, or we're stuck in a worse state than we were before launch.
Mission mode is nice...except this stupid super spin dash attack crap. If I was rolling before I jumped, kills scored during that jump should still count. This mission is practically impossible. EDIT: So, I finally relented and watched a guide on YouTube and...they did exactly the same thing I've been doing, except all their aerial kills count and it seems my copy is just bugged, making the mission impossible! Thanks a fucking lot, SEGA! EDIT 2: So, I think in order to make this mission beatable, I have to remove the roll lock disable mod I have installed. I have to make the game less fluid and fun to play in order to clear it because somebody made the boneheaded decision to include the roll lock in the first place.
I like how well the boss fights play in the new version of 3K apart from a few exceptions (Hyper Sonic being able to annihilate the 2nd boss in Doomsday ridiculously easily and the rock-spike things in Marble Garden's mini boss falling from above about five-times faster than they should). In the original version collision detection would sometimes screw me over when trying a no-damage run against the bosses, wheres as in Team Stealth's 3K this doesn't appear to be as much of an issue. The Mecha Sonic fight has been implemented better in the new version. It's much easier to read his attacks in the second phase in Knuckles' story. In the first phase (and in Sonic & Tails' story) he's slightly harder to beat. In the original version he took damage a bit too easily whereas in the new version if you try to attack on his head or when he's charging at you whilst facing the other direction you tend to take damage more easily, which I think is a positive change. Had fun playing Boss Rush Mode. There are some bosses where they didn't need to provide rings IMO and some such as the CN & IC bosses where not having rings is really harsh. Also had fun with Mission Mode which is probably the best thing Sonic Team created for Origins. Except for that annoying S2 Tornado mission which is really hard to S-Rank.
Post-release update, one week onwards. Individual reviews: GamingTrend review by David Flynn: "The past never looked so bright" God Is A Geek review by Chris White: "It all depends what you want from it" PCMag review by Zackery Cuevas: "Classic Sonic, modern issues" VideoChums review by A.J. Maciejewski: "Revisit the Hedgehog's 16-bit classics" --- Reviewer aggregate updates: Opencritic - 77 "Strong", 45 reviews, 68% of critics recommend Metacritic: PS5 - 79 "Generally favorable", 23 reviews Switch - 78 "Generally favorable", 7 reviews PC - 72 "Mixed and/or average", 5 reviews Xbox Series X - 70 "Mixed and/or average", 5 reviews - PS4 (2 reviews) Xbox One (No reviews)
Yeah, this is exactly what I was saying a few posts above lol. It's honestly my favorite mission, despite the game being very unclear about it. SEGA seems to imply that being in roll lock is still technically a "spindash attack", which is a little silly, but I think the big trail of rings kind of guides you to do a slope jump to follow the trail, which then (upon hitting the enemies out of that slope jump) shows you that those enemies count toward your total despite Sonic being airborne. Disabling a mechanic of the game just breaks the entire mission, which is good to know actually for the future Somewhat! But something that takes more advantage of the complexity of Sonic's movement and gives you intuitive problems to solve with it. A lot of VR and TC is just Origins-style missions with more puzzle-y elements like switches and stuff, iirc
I mean sure, but there's no reason that this absolutely needed to be dependent on the roll lock. At any rate, I cleared the sodding thing first time after turning off the mod and thankfully there are no other missions like it in the other games as far as I can tell.
Right... but I didn't even know about the roll lock thing on my first clear and I still did it just running around and trying to get as many enemies as I could on both paths, didn't use any roll lock kills. I don't think it should have been impossible. (it is impossible to S-rank without it though)
Oh, I should’ve specified that. I’m a damned perfectionist, so if I haven’t got the S rank then I haven’t beaten it in my own eyes. :p
I noticed that slamming into Sandopolis 1's boss at a high speed makes it go flying further. Was that in the original?
What, really!? That's awesome! I also noticed you can kill the FBZ Act 2 mid-boss (the laser) if you have a way to get up there and hit it. I was hoping there might be a way to defeat the Lava Reef Act 2 boss faster, but so far no luck. There are two people on the Switch boss rush leaderboards that are like a minute ahead of me, so they must be doing something...
Nope, that's a new feature put in. I've just (just!) finished reading all pages up to speed, from about page 160+ onwards up to here and I've seen someone else mention it here earlier.
Another new feature. You can now destroy the Lazer in FBZ Act 2 with 12 hits. My dream feature, finally. I hated that section because it was so slow
Oh yeah, the first thing I did when I got to that laser was try and kill it to see if it was changed lol. Nice, I was worried I've been doing things wrong for years. It's really satisfying and is a cool addition.
I just finished Sonic CD again. I always liked it, but I definitely "get" it WAY better than I used to, and while I still don't think it's the best game in the series, I understand where those of you who DO are coming from. I did a playthrough where I'd go to the past, find the robot generator, then jump to the Good Future and restart the level. I think the game was designed with the idea that you'd spend a lot of time in each level, with all the unique aesthetics and music tracks meant to help incentivize that. I also noticed for the first time that in Wacky Workbench's good futures, the electrical wires never light up! But similar to NiGHTS, I don't think the game does a great job conveying its design goals to the player, and so most people pick it up and play it like it's any other 2D Sonic game. And to be fair, I think the game is designed to be perfectly playable THAT way, too. The fact that you can get the good ending with the Time Stones is evidence enough of that. It's just definitely skewed toward exploration and completionism in a way that no other 2D Sonic game is, and that's where it's at its most rewarding. I think it also would've helped a lot had the team been able to make time travel instantaneous like they wanted, and if the mechanics of time travel (hitting a sign post, keeping your speed up) weren't a bit convoluted and frustrating sometimes. It SUCKS to finally find a PAST signpost after wandering around for a long time, and messing up your time jump. But having the Drop Dash in Origins actually really helps with that, as you can just dash back and forth and get it as long as you have relatively flat ground. I was also going to the menu after each level and swapping the soundtracks, so I'd get one set of tracks on the first act, and the other in the second. Wish there was a way you could just *do* that, I always thought the soundtrack option could do with some more customization.
https://twitter.com/SEGA/status/1542538666278617088 Man people are absolutely butthurt or very confused about the Ice Cap music situation.
