Sonic is grinding obviously! (please God no). As far as Sonic 3 levels go, I still want to see Hyrdocity over any other level. Best water level in a Sonic game, period.
Would someone mind clarifying what the issue is with the audio tracks for Ice Cap, Launch Base and Carnival Night? I'm assuming this has something to do with who owns the rights to the music. But then I am further confused... How did Sega once have the rights to them, and now not? And is Michael Jackson the owner of the rights? Would this not have confirmed his involvement decades ago? And if someone else does own the rights, then why not purchase them back? Another assumption... is this the reason Sonic 3 is always left out of ports to new consoles, and if so, why did Mega Collection get Sonic 3? Sorry for the semi related game of 20 questions, but I have been wondering this forever...
I think that one of the reasons for the music in Carnival Night, Ice Cap, and Launch Base being changed for the PC version was that they relied a lot on samples to play certain sounds. The PC version of the game was designed to use the default soundfont that was in computers during the time or the Roland GS soundfont.
Ice Cap obviously has nice music and visuals, but the the level design and gimmicks are pretty doll. Easily the least interesting stage in Sonic 3 (and maybe 3&K). Act 1 is completely linear. Even Knuckles route adds nothing of interest. Act 2 on the other hand opens up and has a few alternative routes, but they still don't offer any meaningful challenge, lacking any interesting gimmicks and it's just too easy. Although to be fair, Eggman's boss-fight is a good challenge. This is why I'd like Tax & Stealth to redesign it. I'm hoping for a snow-themed level in Mania whether it's Ice Cap or something brand new. If they pick Carnival Night, Ice Cap or Launch Base, why not get Tee Lopes to design a brand new piece music which would avoid any legal issues, right? Surely there's no harm in re-imagining these levels as long as the music isn't from the original soundtrack. *shrugs* This is also how I feel about Sonic 3 Remastered. If they have to makes changes to the original game to allow a new release (new music for those three stages etc), then surely it's worth it in the long run if the alternative is Sonic 3 never being released again? Being a bit more extreme; I know it would be a bit of a bummer if the entire soundtrack had to be redone, but at this point if it will ensure a new release then I'd say go for it.
I liked IC, especially act 2. I remember thinking that iceberg backdrop was gorgeous. Didn't really like the snowboarding section much when I first saw it as a kid. I always thought Sonic was too cool for extreme sports, just seemed like jumping on a trend. But looking back, it was only a bit of fun and would be good to see it updated.
I've never been entirely sure about what the deal is with Sonic 3's music... I assume that Sega owns the rights, since no other credits were listed in the game or later releases. I don't know if they're afraid of being sued for sampling certain tracks? As for ports, I always assumed that we never see Sonic 3 as they don't know what to do about the lock-on. No option is ideal, either you offer just Sonic 3K and annoy people, or offer Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles separately and annoy people, or you offer every option, but that's more work and a larger file size, for what is 95% a duplicate copy of the game.
Supposedly the one non-MJ answer I've heard as to why some of the tracks were changed for the PC S&K Collection is that for whatever reason when they were porting the game, something didn't play nice with MIDIs that had samples of voices in them.
I think (could be wrong here) that Sega only had the licence to use those songs for the Mega Drive release.
also Ice Cap is Hard Times, not an MJ song as was figured out a couple years ago, but an unrealesed Jetzens song (A band Brad Buxer was part of). So MJ alone isn't the reason specifically for the S&KC song changes. [media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2OWC5Hosv8[/media]
It's very strange: Sonic Mega Collection and Steam have the music. But then I guess that's okay because it's emulation of the Mega Drive. But then Sonic Jam had all the music and that was a port and not emulation. And then those plug and play TV consoles always have Sonic 3 missing even though they are emulation. And then a couple of years ago they did a licensed remix which had Ice Cap. It just makes no sense.
Yeah, it's a bit fucked. Sega should know that we are not really too bothered if they have to change the music for a re-release. But who knows, the licensing could affect the game even without the music. Be nice to get official word on this
Link: Spindash: Sonic the Hedgehog Dance Music Remixes Licensed by Sega On the track listing there is: 04 – Flexstyle – AntiFreeze [ Sonic 3: Ice Cap Zone & Chemical Plant Zone ] 05 – Phonetic Hero – Prow'd [ Sonic 2: Aquatic Ruin Zone & Ice Cap Zone ] I haven't listened to the music, so perhaps it was remixed to not resemble the original? EDIT: Just listened to a brief sample on iTunes. Song 4 does sound a lot like the original, so I am not sure how they got away with that. Song 5 only vaguely sounds like the original (at least in the sample).
Wow, I hadn't heard about this either. I found the music on youtube; AntiFreeze & Phonetic Hero. Pretty cool. Perhaps Ice Cap's music could be included in Mania as long as it's remixed.
People are making a lot of assumptions on Sonic and Knuckles PC Collection, which was released nearly 20 years ago. That remix just confirms my opinion that there is no music problem whatsoever in Sonic 3. I can't wait to see Ice Cap in Mania and everyone gets proven wrong :v: And on the topic of Mania, I hope we get a good multiplayer section. One of my favourite features for Sonic 2 was the multiplayer.
That bit about the Ice Cap remixes is rather interesting. As big smile said, Prow'd has the familiar main chorus at first, but after the first minute and a half, it very much sounds like a different tune; while Antifreeze sounds very much like the original song. So maybe there may be hope for latter half of Sonic 3 levels getting representation, after all. big smile also made a good point about the version of Sonic 3 in Sonic Jam being a anomoly in that it's a port (as opposed to an emulation in most cases) with the original music. But I think what's more weird is that it was released only four months after Sonic & Knuckles PC Collection, which is widely known for changing some of the Sonic 3 tracks. I wonder what's the story behind that scenario?
The music in the PC version being changed because the synths were not congruent makes sense to me. Even playing Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection for PS3, which is emulated, there was the odd moment where the synths in Sonic 3 would go nuts and sound awful, but not pertaining to these songs specifically. Therefore, it seems completely reasonable that those tracks had to change as no analogous midi sound-font existed. If the reason that Sonic 3&K is rarely released does in fact have anything to do with licensing issues, then I don't think this is sufficient to exclude these zones from potentially being in Mania. First of all, Mania is premised on the idea that Sonic is returning to old zones, which have changed over time... So this introduces an excuse to modify the music. Next, the music has to change enough as to not violate some copyright (apparently), but still resemble the original. Well, that is relatively simple to accomplish isn't it. Just think how many times you've been listening to a program/commercial and heard what you think to be a well known song, only to hear a slight variation in the melody, just enough to evade infringement. The difficulty would be striking a balance with difference and similarity, because let's face it, Ice Cap is as popular as it is in large part due to its music, and Mania is intended to be a strong dose of nostalgia. Case in point: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhp7lhofZl0 How can all this time have passed, with all the Michael Jackson involvement conspiracies and exposes, etc., etc., and yet these is still no conclusive answer to this question? Maybe Stealth or Taxman could stop by Studiopolis and ask a few questions then fill us in, unless Sega is intentionally withholding an explanation??
Why waste the time composing new tracks though? Maybe there was a problem with the samples, but surely it would make more sense to take the samples out and tweak what they had rather than commission entirely new pieces?
Ok, it's showing up enough that I feel like I have to step in on this. To my knowledge, there is absolutely no solid basis whatsoever for the claim that S&K Collection features different music for some zones because of sound samples or how the original song would otherwise sound in MIDI form. To the best of my recollection, I was the dumbass that started that rumor This was waaay back in like 97/98? I posed the possibility on probably the first incarnation of the "Sonic the Hedgehog: Area 51" messageboard because it was the only explanation I could come up with, not then being able to fathom the idea of complicated and insufficient third-party contracts, and for the same reason, people ran wild with it. Unless somebody can actually trace the same idea back to another source, I'm confident in taking responsibility and asserting that it's baseless Besides, plenty of people have made good MIDI conversions of those songs by now, and given (that I feel) that some of the ones that actually were in the game don't sound very good, I think this is practically proof-positive that the differences between MIDI/SMPS were a non-issue when considering only SEGA's perspective On the flip-side, there is enough evidence to support the idea that there's a legal problem, mostly in the form of interviews with people who would know, as well as others who could attest to a discrepancy between how video game companies and the music industry handle/handled legal matters, particularly back then. The split between normal and replaced songs in S&K collection even follows directly with the split between music produced in-house and music produced by third-party Anyway, the MIDI thing is crap. I know because my own idiocy spawned it
