I think I’m ready to offer my takes on Origins as a package. When it comes to the games themselves, they all play just as I remember them on mobile, with Sonic 3 being the new kid on the block. Each game plays solidly on Switch and PS4 and I just loved all of the neat little touches that Stealth and co. added to 3&K (the characters literally spinning on the tops in Marble Garden, the LBZ to MHZ transition, etc.). You can tell that a lot went into this port of the game. As for the bugs: now throughout my story mode campaign and my separate runs of each individual game, I did not really run into any game breaking bugs that others have pointed out. The only things that really annoyed me were the Tails AI in Sonic 2 and the rubble constantly collapsing throughout Marble Garden Act 1 in Sonic 3. The only time my game ever crashes (and still does unfortunately on the Switch version; haven’t tested it on PS4) was when playing as Sonic and Tails together in Sonic 1 after collecting the sixth emerald during the score tally at the end of the special stage. Other minor things such as the music starting from the beginning when collecting certain items, the Blue Sphere music not speeding up at all, and the drop dash not being correctly coded in Sonic 1 and 2 were stuff that did not hinder my experience of the games at all. Hell even the replaced music tracks being based on the PC version of Sonic 3 weren’t annoying during gameplay like others made it out to be. Could they have been better? Of course, but they’re still the beta tracks at heart, and they still sound good. I’m just happy I have an official way to play Sonic 3 on the go. I understand that SEGA’s in house developers affected the integration of the games with Hedgehog Engine and its very unfortunate because the core of this package is very solid. I got a kick out of the museum stuff as well because I myself had never seen most of the artwork so I considered that a plus. I do hope SEGA have taken note of the feedback and are working on patches for this game Could this collection have been a lot better if given more time? Absolutely. But in my opinion, that doesn’t mean what we got is utter dog shit. It’s still the best official versions of these games by a country mile. Taxman and Stealth deserve all the praise for their work. However I have a feeling this will get better. A physical version is inevitable and I’m sure SEGA is well aware of this because the same thing happened with Mania. I know they will add more to this to entice people to buy again. Knuckles in CD, bug fixes, menu improvements, and other miscellaneous QOL changes (hopefully). At the current moment, Origins is a solid 7 to 8 out of 10 but there is even more to improve upon and I believe/hope it will be.
I'm at Act 2 on Sandopolis with Knuckles. I'm so stuck. Just after you push the block on the sand to keep the block from moving, you go into a room with spikes and a brick wall above it which Knuckles can break. But whatever I do I cant get over the spikes. Am I missing something? Playing on Switch.
Hmm, I haven't taken that path in a while. If you are where I think you are, you have to jump off the pusher thingy and glide left to catch the wall, then climb up the left wall to get enough height to glide over the spikes.
Yeah, I assume Laura means this area: Yep, exactly. Always liked the Knuckles-only routes in 3K. Sandopolis act2 is definitely one of the trickiest areas to make it through.
I absolutely cannot say this for S3&K, despite widescreen and the dropdash, which is honestly fucking sad for me to say. The issues are too numerous, too distracting, and too dumb. It's hard for me to play this version and not be constantly reminded how wrong things are. As for the other games on the collection, the mobile versions are all better.
I want to see them at least fix volume issues and sound quality for s3k but that sort of stuff isn't going to happen. Fucking fuck sega and their shit, this was the final straw for me, they just can't be trusted.
Yeah thats the path! I literally cannot do it. It seems impossible. Am I a bad gamer or is the route busted in Origins?
The Tails respawn fail bug is not only functionally busted but is more egregiously very grating on the ears, it gets bloody irritating and even insufferable rather quickly. What pours vinegar into this wound is the fact that Tails tagging along is mandatory in Sonic 2 during Story Mode, and that mode is supposed to be one of the main highlights of this collection. For SEGA to never patch an issue as glaring and obnoxious as that would be rather disappointing and unacceptable to me.
They could patch every last bug and fix all of the music problems (including adding the Buxer-team tracks for free as an option), and the Retro Engine's fucked collision would still keep this collection far away from being definitive, in my eyes. And this is why. That this is even a reasonable question to ask, and what's required to answer it, is ridiculous. I keep having to ask myself, "am I supposed to not be able to make this jump as Knuckles, or is it just a quirk of the new engine?" I guess needing to ask that is in part my own fault for having only done a Knuckles run in 3K like once, possibly over a decade ago. But still.
As someone who has spent extensive time researching and coding my own Sonic collisions, I have to disagree- in the friendliest way possible. (Speaking of which, it's good to see you're still around, Zephyr. ❤) So, to be fair, the collisions in any Sonic game, official and even fan-made, aren't perfect. (The classics have less robust collision systems than modern fan games, at that!) I ran through the floors and ceilings in Sonic 3 so many times in emulators as a kid, and I had assumed it was the emulator's problem- so imagine my laughter when I first read about the "robotnik's traps" line from the manual in Sonic 3! They were known bugs! Skateboard-like collisions in games of this scope, even 30 years later, are not a solved problem, unfortunately. (More-so if you want efficient collisions that don't steal 2 processor cores per frame.) It is a very difficult battery of problems to solve! This is not unique to Origins, and it never will be. I recently made a fun-sized sheet of screenshots about collision bugs, from Sonic and Freedom Planet, called the "No Game Is Perfect Zone"; even included my own FP fan game in it! (It wouldn't be fair, otherwise.) It has four completely different Sonic-like collision systems/models on display, including my own. Click it if you want a good laugh https://i.imgur.com/AgiCOJZ.png
There's no such thing as a bad gamer! But as to whether the route's busted, it seems okay in the PC version, at least: I'll check the Switch here in a while. Personally, I'd say Origins is the best* official way to play the classics for most players, but that asterisks is doing more legwork than it probably should. I think it's genuinely a great package overall, but I can't in good faith call it definitive, and that sucks because with a few tweaks and a coat or two of polish, I think I could. I guess that's why I sent Sega a letter about it.
Dear Goodness, the state of the game... https://www.thegamer.com/sonic-origins-bad-game-mod-patch-cancelled/
Hey, fair enough! I'm not a programmer or a gamedev, so I know that I can't know how tough this kind of stuff can be to really hammer out. "Collision" might have been too broad a term to use. My problem more specifically is not being able to make jumps I can make in the original game. Getting to the last Giant Ring in Hydrocity Act 2 being the most well-known example of the latter, probably (and is to my knowledge, the only legitimate case I can think of; but, as detailed below, its clearly left a psychological impact on me ). Ledge-detection might be the better word to use. Playing as Knuckles just sows further doubt. "Am I not making this jump because Knuckles was never supposed to be able to in 1994, or is this another Hydrocity Act 2 Giant Ring?" Specifically, I had a moment in Angel Island Act 1, the last small underwater section before the boss. I could not for the life of me hit the spring to get out of the water, and I almost drowned. I barely managed to get out in time by spindashing and then jumping. That I almost died didn't matter, but it just left me wondering if I was supposed to be able to make that jump. But I didn't bother to check at the time, and continued on with my Knuckles playthrough. Just now I decided I should double check this to see what was actually the case, if I was gonna post about it. I tried that part again in Origins, and I tried it in an emulator. And to my pleasant surprise, not only was it just as seemingly-impossible a jump in the emulator, but playing around more I did actually manage to hit the spring in Origins (without having to spindash). feels like basically a pixel-perfect window (with those spikes on the ceiling), but it's doable. You can also hit the spring if you glide at the peak of your jump. And speaking of gliding at the peak of a jump... I checked this on the Switch. Was able to do what you did there. Not only that, but if you stand on the far left of the block, start running to the right, jump just before you run off of it, and then glide, you can just barely get over the spikes. So you don't even need to climb the left wall!
I have to be honest the collision detection in Sonic 3K is what absolutely ruined the experience for me. I had been anticipating this remaster for so many years since that proof of concept video from 2014. I had been doing practice runs for Sonic 3 using the Sonic 3 Complete ROM hack leading up to Origins release. Those runs were practically for nothing as most of the little things that were possible in the original game were now no longer executable. I know most people talk about that specific jump to try to reach the last big ring in Hydrocity Act 2 which they now can’t reach and I can bring up another case just like this. In Carnival Night Act 2 there was a part where there is a small room with 2 ring monitors that I was able to reach using a barrel that was right below it. Here is the part that I am referring to (I put it in a spoiler tag since it is a large image): Spoiler: Carnival Night Zone Act 2 Section You see this was actually a shortcut that I used to skip that part on the top left but in Origins I try to reach that room and I am unable to. It was rather frustrating as I kept trying to reach up there and wasn’t able to. In Lava Reef Act 2 I am not able to wedge myself in between the moving blocks so I could get that part over with. Here is what I am referring to: Now in Origins I get a crush death if I try that. Sandopolis Zone was the worst out of all of this though involving those specific slopes that caused them to do flips and those diagonal catapults. This is a great demonstration of this: https://web.archive.org/web/20220712233518if_/https://i.imgur.com/3RKjFdw.mp4 Gameplay from (@GottaBeFrank_) https://twitter.com/GottaBeFrank_/status/1542534832764248064 It’s funny because reading this made me remember seeing a playthrough from the “Super Gaming Bros.” channel and the person playing had experienced this same problem. This is another thing that is broken and I was disappointed with this as well. And this only apparently happens on the Switch version so that’s real nice that it only happens on the version I just happened to own. I really wanted to see the new upscaled tiles they made for these multiplayer zones and I wasn’t able to so I just searched for videos of it instead. Overall this is a collection that is only just good right now but could have been so much better. I am fortunate to have not experienced very severe glitches from the time I have played throughout but they shouldn't even exist in the first place. I think Stealth and the rest of the developers really got screwed over from this with the crunch they had to go through. I am hoping that maybe down the line they will make a physical version of this collection that will go through many bug fixes and revisions but that is just me coping about all this This is a little late but here is a tip for the special stages in case you (or anyone else who is reading this) didn’t know, holding down on the D-pad actually makes a difference with the way Sonic moves since it slows him down. This makes him easier to control with steering him in these stages. Initially I wasn't good at these stages but once I learned about this little thing it greatly improved the way I controlled Sonic. I think the results can speak for itself: (This certainly and definitely wasn’t just a way for me to just show off my records ) By the way, I’ll admit I still don’t like the depth perception for these stages since it can still be deceptive at times.
