Them having the ROM up on Steam in no way implies that they have the source code, all it means is they have (or found) a copy of the assembled binary. Besides that, even if they do have the source code, do they have anyone on staff who knows how to work with it? Are they willing to put in the time and resources to porting the game to modern systems when they have an emulator and a ROM they can throw together for no additional cost?
The Genesis and emulated versions. Tails is missing a ducking frame, so it's quicker to perform the Spin Dash using him. That's the only thing that makes him different than Sonic.
Tails's outbox is definitely smaller in Sonic 3. You can easily test this in Angel Island soon after the fire bombing transition occurs, specifically the moving spikes next to the first checkpoint; Tails is too small to be harmed by them. Considering the noticeable height difference between Sonic and Tails, it should be easy to spot whether or not this is also true in Sonic 2.
If you try and do a perfect ring run of EHZ1 as both Sonic and Tails, you'll notice it - before the last loop in the level there are some rings in the air that are fairly doable to get as Sonic just by bouncing on the nearest spring, but nearly impossible for Tails to collect all of them as he's slightly shorter and misses the last one.
Yeah, I was trying to collect all 296 rings to get a "perfect" in EHZ1 yesterday. Whilst both Sonic & Knuckles can get all 296 rings, you're correct in that Tails can't get one of the rings in the location you mentioned. However, Tails can collect that ring (and obtain all 296) as long as you've got the fast-shoes monitior which you can collect earlier in the act. I've now uploaded a Knuckles playthrough (gameplay begins at 0:57): I've always wondered why Sonic Team made the ring totals you need to collect with Knuckles in the special stages slightly less than when playing with Sonic or Tails (which makes the special stage a lot easier). I mean there's no disadvantage playing with Knuckles in the special stages.
It was probably just a quality-of-life change. The special stages in Sonic 2 are pretty damn hard and require a lot of memorization. Since Sega used Knuckles in Sonic 2 to fix a few bugs, they probably just reduced the ring requirements to make them easier.
Plus, KiS2 has you retain the rings brought into a SS. I don't think I'd've ever mastered them had these concessions not been made.
There's an even easier way to tell that his hitbox is shorter, because there are some rings that Sonic can walk right into, but Tails walks right under them.
I’m failing to see why Sega isn’t just putting the Whitehead ports on Switch—and other consoles, for that matter. I mean, do they need to license the Retro Engine for every game that uses it?
well, christian is a former retro member. I don't see why we can't ask him if licensing is needed for the ports to happen.
There's a lot of people marking this "informative" and it's bugging me irrationally intensely; this is incorrect. He does have only one duck frame, but the ducking animation length has nothing to do with how fast you can spindash. Sonic and Tails can both spindash instantly. And as well documented above, his hitbox is a bit smaller.
(unrelated but it still bothers me that tails is the only small body character in mania, when ray should also be small bodied but is not)
yes but that was an isometric game, ray is drawn and shown as slightly shorter against mighty and the crew in mania adventures and character sheets yet he has a full size sprite in mania. I think it's a shame because the game could have done with another short character imo.
That makes Mania Adventures the deviation. I'd imagine that the Sonic Mania Plus team had already started working on Ray's sprites by the time the Mania Adventures team got to work on their versions.
Oh so I got around to buying and playing this on my switch and idk if it's just me being burned out on sonic 2 but I beat it with all emeralds and feel like i'm done with it already. With sonic 1 sega ages I played it for months trying to better my score in the megaplay version of the game and get high on the online leaderboards, nothing like that in sonic 2 apart from a 100 ring time attack, bleh. I know score attack is broken in general but if only they could have made a megaplay style build for sonic 2... *edit* we REALLY need the taxman versions of the games bought over, these sega ages releases are average.
Ever since we got the Stealth & Taxman mobile release I find it difficult/don't have much interest in going back and playing the original version or an emulation of the original. Maybe that's partly because the mobile release of Sonic 2 got more new content than the Sonic 1 & CD mobile remasters and that S2 (which has always been my least favourite of the classic games) really seemed to benefit from all the extra content added-which significantly improve the replay value-at least for me. Whereas we've had three releases of Sonic 2 recently (Mega-Drive mini, SEGA Mega Drive collection and SEGA Ages) only one of which offers new content (the drop-dash which is nice) but isn't enough to keep me interested/keep me coming back to the game (even with Knuckles in Sonic 2 included). Sonic 1 on the other hand really seemed to benefit more from the extra features included in the SEGA Ages release; adding the spin-dash & drop-dash makes the game flow better, makes the slower zones less tedious perhaps, and of course the Mega-Play version which removes two slowest zones entirely. So I do think the Sonic 1 SEGA Ages release is better than Sonic 2. I'd be more interested in a remake of Sonic 2 with modern graphics. Maybe something like Sonic 2 HD. We've had more than enough releases of Sonic 1&2 recently. I'd rather SEGA focus on rereleasing other Sonic games.