But it is a limitation: it's not blue in KiS2 because the blue comes from Sonic's palette. The green was chosen likely because it was the only other primary color they could use from Knuckles' palette that wasn't red or yellow.
Yeah it would otherwise be a color that's somewhat out of place compared to its context in Knuckles' sprite since it comes from his shoe but I'll go to my grave saying that they shouldn't have changed it back, that it was only like that because those blues weren't available and necessarily looks worse. I feel about the same for the character-specific title screens. It made sense enough for Knuckles in S2 because it's really *only* Knuckles in that one, and all traces of Sonic and nearly all of Tails have been removed, as has the 2P; you're interacting with the title screen differently, so it was probably a good idea to change it. It was always a little jarring that Knuckles got unique CGI model for the intro, though, and both the Tails and Knuckles title screens for Sonic 1 mobile offered nothing particularly special (and I think looked particularly bad for Tails). While I appreciate that it's possible to load in the KiS2 title in Sonic 2 Absolute and S&K title in Sonic 3 AIR, I only like to have them as simple novelties and don't have any particular attachment to either one. If they'd created custom title screens for all the characters in Origins, I'd have been pretty annoyed that it was where they chose to focus their attention given the issues I do have with the game.
Yeah, Nintendo has made edits across the board to a variety of different VC games going back to the Wii days. Super Mario RPG has rom edits with entirely changed full screen effects to stop the risk of epilepsy issues. Their emulators also have built in reductions too for certain effects like full screen flashing. These versions of the ROMs with edits have been documented online, and are even available in romsets like Redump. These changes extend to third party games too. The Wii U GBA emulator is probably the only way that I can play the Castlevania GBA games as the flashing hit effects have turned from instant into a fading transition instead. Honestly, it's pretty impressive to see Sega making these changes. As playing Sonic 1 GG/SMS a few years back was how I learned that I now had photosensitivity issues. And fwiw, a lot of modern re-releases of retro games do not reduce strobing effects at all. So it's good to see Sega making an effort here even though it should honestly be expected at this point.
I tried setting the resolution to 720p to see if that did help fix the blur issue as suggested. On PC at least, IDK if it might help a little bit at least when windowed, as "upscaling" that in maximising it to full-screen results in a similar blur issue? Maybe someone could take a look at that and compare. Though I don't know if it's a sure fire intentional fix as it might've had a weird pixel here or there still. I'm not an expert on pixel upscaling, for the record. So I finally tried mods with this game and downloaded the Origins Blur Fix mod. And not only does it still work fine with Plus, it somehow also fixes the blur on the Game Gear emulation. By complete coincidence. https://twitter.com/TomGyroid/status/1678062850835660800?s=20 I'd assume this was just Retro Engine scaler or whatever-related, but I guess it works with whatever low pixel resolution is contained within the Hedgehog Engine. Scanline filters and all. This kinda breaks my brain. A criticism of the Game Gear emulation mentioned in that very bickuribox12 video posted was the image quality also being a little bit blurry. And assuming the mod doesn't also give its own image problems (again, not an expert), an unaltered mod from way before we knew Game Gear games were even being added managed to fix it by complete accident. So basically just install a mod and manually set your audio to mono for the superior Game Gear experience, the majority of issues addressed? I don't know if there's still some framerate/input lag issues or if that was just a part of the original games, but what other games do you have to mod in better picture quality for in 2023? This isn't a sixth-generation game that needs progressive scan enabled by hacking. Like, Taxman readied the Retro Engine for this thing and even he expressed disappointment that RSDK scaling shaders weren't being used. Just ask Headcannon about it on their lunch break or something.
So I finally sat down with this this afternoon. PS4 version, though I installed my Switch version as well (didn't boot it, though). Played through Sonic 1 and Sonic 2, with all emeralds (I believe only the second time I've ever done that for S2, and the first as Sonic & Tails rather than Sonic Alone (which I did on Sonic Jam). Did spend 3 coins on each game to do so but eh, with how the rings etc worked out at ends of zone and starposts I'd have still been able to do this without them; all it saved was time. By and large, I'm fairly happy with this game. Thoughts: ==BAD== * Manual only has US boxes, no other regions. It would not be hard to detect what region the console is running on and set the respective boxes. * The boxart on the main menu should be the region of the system it is running on by default, I should not have to go to options to change it to the correct setting. * Museum ALSO has a US bias: Everything is labelled "Genesis" rather than Mega Drive, "Sega CD" rather than Mega CD, "favorite" instead of favourite, etc. Again, it would not be hard to detect what region the console is running on and have different strings come up. Lazy lazy lazy. ==GOOD== * I have waited 20 years to be able to play a complete HPZ on a console, ever since hearing about it existing in summer 2001. Today I have done this. * While not so long, I've waited a long time to have the Retro Engine games in an acceptable form: now I do, and they're as good as I was expecting. * I like the animated cutscenes! They don't make the game drag, and there's a charm to them that you don't see in modern Sonic's storytelling. * Mirror mode is WEIRD. But in a good way! Clearing EHZ1, an act I have played hundreds of times, and actually stumbling and taking hits was a very surreal feeling. I'm interested in playing this more, you'd think it'd be more of a gimmick than it is but I actually think this might be a genuinely fun game mode. * The missions seem difficult enough that it'll take a while to clear as S ranks (if ever for all of them), so that'll add a bit more things to do. ==NITPICKS/BUGS== * #24 in the music section: "Battle with Metal Sonic" should be Sonic CD, not Sonic 1. =P * While we're at it, not really a nitpick per se but why does none of the music remixes say the source game they're from? None of the Generations tracks mentions that, the Forces one doesn't, etc. * The "Kill 10 Stingers" achievement - where has the name "Stinger" come from? Per Stinger, this is an Advance-era badnik! The Sonic 2 one is Buzzer, per the name in the scanned manuals literally in this very collection. I actually looked this up on GameFAQs to make sure I was killing the right badnik for the achievement, I figured it was the Buzzer given there's a corresponding Motobug achievement but that's a bit weird. * For a bit while playing Sonic 1 I thought the collision in Retro Engine had been improved since Mania in terms of ease of crushing, but then I died 3 times in the same spot in Scrap Brain 1 making a move that 100% would not have killed me in the original game. Changed my approach on the 4th attempt and got through with no issue, but it's sad that this engine is more fickle about crush deaths than the original games are. tl;dr There are other places in the world aside from the USA and I really wish that Sega America actually understood this; the bugs I came across were minor at best, and I'm overall enjoying my time with this. I've not even touched CD, 3K, or any character other than Sonic yet.
I did that, the point is I shouldn't have had to. It also does not change the boxart in the game's manual, nor the Americanisms populated all over the text in the collection.
Regarding the presentation, I’m personally annoyed that the logos accompanying the games are the western ones instead of the simpler Japanese ones. No clue why it’s like that.
It's such a minor minor minor nitpick but I wish they'd just used the Japanese design on the right side too, with a seperate version altogether for Genesis, and EU Mega Drive, it just throws the aesthetic off to me, y'know:
So far I've only played the missions related to the first game, but I've found that except for some of the last ones, getting S rank on them is really easy. I even tried to improve my time on some of the earlier ones, only to later find out that times aren't saved.
Oh, I didn't know this. That's annoying :/ I figured they'd be fun to time attack every now and again.
Whoops, I misread. But yes, I agree 100%, they should have had the region detected by default and also not made the text so American-centric. Some missions are so easy that I messed up quite badly and still managed to get an S-Rank. They should have fine-tuned the ranking system to make it more of a challenge, otherwise it's just pointless.
It was the same for the Sonic CD default OST. From what i saw online, they preety much assumed "English Language" == USA. Since several people did report they had the JP ost by default (not my case as I had the game in english) Might be worthwhile to check the other languages manuals to see how they are. Also might indirectly explain their stupid bias against the Master System, due to their blindness of other markets outside the US. Since there is indeed lots of places that the console overtook the NES (Something that the Game Gear never managed against the Game Boy to my knowledge) Jupiter through Picross respects the SMS more than Sega itself. That's how sad it is. On a related note Splatoon 3 shows me a Purple abomination as a SNES sticker. Nintendo do what Sega does.
I think the current Sonic brand has deemed the US logo is THE Classic Sonic logo. They probably did that because the old Japanese logos look like simplistic versions of the modern logo, so it probably wouldn’t stand out enough. Then of course the movie branch has its own distinct logo too. Also Classic Sonic has always done better in the west than the east, so that logo is more nostalgic to a greater group of people.
I remembered another weird thing - I cleared the game with all emeralds for both S1 and S2, yet there seems to be no achievement for doing this on each game, only a single "get Super Sonic" - i.e. there's no functional reward for finishing a game fully vs the bad endings. Missed a trick there, really.
Stinger is Buzzer's Japanese name. It sounds like they forgot to localise it, since it's an English word. It was the same in Sonic Jam:
