So uh, I encountered this during my first playthrough as Knuckles... I'm honestly surprised that they would 1. Let you climb through that loop and 2. It doesn't break anything...
I just did this myself. It's quite hilarious. You can even climb down the other side of it (but dropping off will have you fall to your death). When I emerged on the other side the water layers in the background were misaligned a bit lol but nothing game breaking.
$10.99 is still a bit of a stiff price for something I don't exactly support entirely in its handling. I'm just going to be waiting for a sale if any, or a better opportunity I guess.
I haven't seen the contract Rafa signed with Sega back hen she made the models but I assume it did say something along the like of "this model now belongs to Sega so they can do whatever they want with it". So I agree that she probably shouldn't get any money from them just because they are using it for Origins and Superstars. But I can't believe there are people that think that she doesn't even deserve credit. It takes them literally zero spendings and effort to throw a name of the person who made assets that were used for the game (models of the MAIN characters no less) into the credits. I'd like to look at what people would say if Sega reused one of Tee's Mania music tracks and not credit him just because "it was made for Mania so now it belongs to Sega"
Done a run through of CD with Knux. I found a well hidden new route in Palmtree Panic act1; Also found a high-up small platform with an extra life just before the sign-post in PP act2. Team Stealth have done a good job with the design of the new routes. Oh and Knuckkes animation at the start of a CD special stage where he bangs his knuckles together is too cute:
While not everything is 100% clear, I think we might be looking at a somewhat Michael Jackson esque scenario here, where some people at SEGA know full well Rafa has been involved in a game's material in some capacity, but stay mostly hush-hush about acknowledging it due to uncomfortable rufflings between Rafa and other SEGA employees / associated people. Tyson Hesse and especially Aaron Webber took issue with some of Rafa's behaviour, contract breach / freelance misinterpretations and Rafa's general portrayal of events. Aaron Webber also stopped working with Rafa due to their behaviour. I wouldn't be at all surprised if SEGA is using the models under a contract which covers in-game use while simultaneously keeping the artist name out of credits due to bad blood.
Obviously, each to their own and your mileage may vary. But personally I’ve had tremendous fun with Super Sonic in 2PVS. You can use the teleporter to steal the powers, so in my experience, players are frantically trying to find a teleporter so they can steal the powers from each other. It’s like a game of Super Sonic tag. Once you’ve reached that point of overplaying 2PVS that it’s become stale, adding Super Sonic into the mix breathes new life.
Oof, if those are real it's no wonder that Sega does not credit Rafa. From a third party point of view Rafa should have been given credit. But damn stop hurting your case like this...
Okay, I've done a quick playthrough as SCD Knuckles and I can confirm there are changes in every zone. Some are minor, but they do some interesting things like enable new routes along upper paths (SS1, QQ2) for better speedrun abilities. That's kind of neat. I can't confirm changes in every act, but it turns out there are new tweaks in most acts. (Except for boss acts). Not all of which translate to every single time zone either. This means we'll need to explore every time zone to find all the changes for sure. One strange but seemingly intentional mechanic is that they did 'not' enable the mechanic where Knuckles will come to a stop if he starts gliding above the level's skybox, nor did they implement any barriers to jumping on top of structures that extend up into the skybox. That means you can run on top of 'any' structure that touches the ceiling in SCD as it is now... 'except' in MM Act 3! In Metallic Madness Act 2, you can literally skip the entire level's strucutres by playing and Knuckles, climbing a wall up to the skybox, and running and gliding from one platform to another. In MM Act 3... if you try to do this, it clips you back down! For whatever reason, this oddball choice is deliberate, as they do stop you from doing this in specific acts, but not all of them. P.S. Can we not let the Rafa discussion take over the thread? Their online behavior makes the situation much worse than it should be, honestly.
It's not like I don't think artists don't deserve credit (hell, I'm one myself), but unfortunately this is what happens, and my point is Rafa shouldn't be given special treatment. Sonic Origins doesn't credit the animators who worked on the Mania intro, nor the original artist of the Harmony(?) artworks, nor those who drew the concept art seen in the gallery. In that sense, Rafa not being credited for the use of a model originally commissioned for a different product isn't particularly odd.
Checked it myself and sadly that's the case. I feel like I'm the only person who's noticed this which absolutely sucks cause I feel this is just as egregious a misstep with the audio as everything with Sonic 3's soundtrack in this pack.
Rafa has a history of burning people she works with, like the time she and the Rolled Out development team had a public spat, so I'm not surprised Sega employees don't want to touch the situation. Either way, at least Knuckles in CD is looking good. It's a shame it took this long for him to officially appear in it, but they did him right. I'm hearing lots of different things regarding Amy though lol, maybe I should try her for myself.
Doing some more digging, I found this DeviantArt Journal containing 2 additional Twitter screenshots, these ones including Tweets from Rafa. There's also a link to a Tweet which Rafa later deleted. Interestingly, it seems Rafa was actually aware that assets she worked on could be used for future games, and not just toys. On a more positive and on-topic note, I'm overall pleased with what I'm seeing for the new level design added to Sonic CD for Knuckles, and it's nice that this new level design can also double as extra content for Tails!
Internally, it seems like the Game Gear games are encrypted to be run as-is rather than allow for any alterations or changes. So no easy hot-swapping until that gets cracked.
I assume even when they're not encrypted, you can't just mod things in and out of the 8-bit games with a simple manager program the way you can other Sonic games? If people get to work on QOL mods for the game gear games, they basically have to patch the ROMs themselves, right?
I couldn't see any mention if it in the thread: https://twitter.com/sonicstadium/st...^1671505748969521152|twgr^|twcon^s1_&ref_url= Roll lock has been fixed in Sonic 1 and 2! Great news. With all these issues fixed, it seems they finally got these up to code as the best official version of the games. I know I'm in the minority here but I think this is a fine collection, especially now.
Quite the upgrades and improvements (especially on Knux's side ^^") Good to know Sonic Origins is shaping up to be a nice collection title (not the best or ideal, but what else can we do?) Still sad they didn't make a JAM Sonic World-like space in Origins... :'(
Played around a bit with Amy. She’s fun to play as and her sprites are super cute! And the annoying hitboxes in S3 seem to be fixed, which was my one major complain with the vanilla game. I can safely reiterate this is the best official version of the classics currently available, even moreso with the improvements from Plus ^^ (she's just like me frfr)
That was my dream. Either a recreation of the original with slight improvements and additional content, or a Sonic World 2 made by Evening Star as a test for a 3D classic Sonic.
