Another Fangame thread...

The background is certainly interesting. The colors on those rocks with what I'm guessing is moss/foliage in the back are inviting, I'm seeing some red come through on the green parts. I don't like how the gradient goes straight to black on the yellow rock structures, I would have made the yellow go into orange, into brown, and then into black. The clouds make the background more dynamic after seeing so many horizontal and vertical, orderly structures and features. I wonder why the foreground tile colors are still so garish. Maybe it's a WIP, I don't know, but something should be done about that. Overall, my main nitpick is that the way the whole background is rendered comes off as sterile. There needs to be more depth as to how backgrounds are colored, I want there to be hints of certain colors in spots and interesting hues peeking through the base color so you get the idea that it's not all made of plastic.

As far as the characters go, Sonic and Robotnik look appealing as the rendering looks to be subtle. At the same time, I'm concerned that when Sonic is really moving, it might be hard to distinguish him from the background, since this picture suggests that everything is rendered in similar way. Tails could look a little more alert, maybe make his eyes a little bigger and have his pupils touching the top of his eyes like Sonic's do.

That's all I've got to say on this since that's all I've seen. I do wonder about the programming aspect of it though, and the actual goal in making this game. I don't want to say this is like Sonic 2 reimagined, but those concept tiles look similar to Emerald Hill's, and there's the Death Egg back there. Yeah, I hope that the artist being as competent as he is that he does not do a re-imagining of any of the classic games, but to do something entirely different.

 

I gave up hope awhile ago.

 

LOL all I see is a mock up of Sonic, Tails, Robotnik, and a background. If anything at this stage it's nothing more than a wallpaper. Hardly any faster than you make out. And I'm sure S2HD would be alot further than it is now if it accepted every first submission it received. But then it would have ended up like most mugen games. It be Tacky, have clashing art, unbalanced gameplay and would be forgetful. I'm sure no one wants that now do they.

 

And how long did it take you guys to reach that stage? The project forum is too bloated and convoluted for me to locate an equivalent milestone, but I'm pretty sure it took no less than a year from the project's inception. I've no idea how long Fredenucci's been working on this, but it seems to have taken him just ten days to get from here to here. No matter how you hack it, this sole individual is running circles around your entire team.

It's okay, though, this isn't a race. I mean, if it was a race, he'd probably win. It's not though

 

To be perfectly honest, Death Egg and Sonic model aside, everything in the first shot looks better IMO. There are a lot of clashing styles in the second shot (just like Sonic 4), and that grass looks atrocious. ATM, this project is looking pretty amateurish to me (just like Sonic 4), but there are a couple of nice things about it, so I hope that something good comes out of it. Also, since you guys are comparing this to S2HD, I have to say I think S2HD looks better, regardless of how slow progress is made on it.

 

It's quite possible that I fell in love with you for a moment there.

Anyway, comparing these two games would be like comparing an apple to a banana - they're both fruit, but they're both pretty different, and have their strengths and weaknesses.

 

I like how we're comparing the quality of work from a project that started over a week ago to a project that's been development for years.

Good job Retro.

 

Well, *I* wasn't trying to do that. I just like this new project because it's fresh and new. This thing could come out in another year, another month, hell it could come out tomorrow! It's exciting!!

We know it's going to be an assload of time before Sonic 2 HD comes out. Reading all of the posts discussing what type of vines should cover the moving platforms should tell all of us that.

 

Pardon me, but I must point out my stark disagreement with this. Basically what you're saying is that a rather bland HD restatement of Green Hill Zone's first screen (overlaying a solid blue background no less) is better that a different, more embellished derivative style. Come on, now, no creativity? No urge to distinguish or excite? And what about the mockup's "styles" are clashing? I'm not seeing where you're coming from with this. Surely it's not just the grass that's bothering you. You know the same overall grass floor design was taken from Angel Island Zone, if that means anything to you. All that's missing is an additional layer of foreground and background foliage.



I'm not buying the "less is more" argument in this instance. The second shot clearly looks more appealing for relative lack of visual redundancies.

 

That game was 16 bit and the foreground and background make all the difference. I doubt it's that he tried to distinguish his art that's the problem, it's not really my problem, personally I just think it looks incomplete and like it needs more attention paid to the little things, background in particular. Death Egg is cool, but as someone said earlier, it's the lack of hues and blended colors that make it boring. The black gradient looks lazy, like someone tried to make it look dramatic as an excuse to not color more or use originality. "Black = darker shades" isn't very original, nor does it take much thought, and it doesn't look right with the source material.

 

Not exactly. I think that the first shot looks better because even though it's bland the art style is consistent throughout the whole thing.

It's the same problem that exists in Splash Hill Zone in Sonic 4: different elements of the scene use different art styles. The clouds are photorealistic (with increased contrast), the background grass/trees near the waterfalls are heavily textured, the background mountains, the water and the foreground are smooth gradients, the grass are just 2 flat colors, Tails looks like a cloth doll, Sonic looks like he's supposed to and the flower thing looks like vector art trying to mimic plastic. Nothing matches! The only genuinely good things in that shot are Sonic and the Death Egg, those 2 are fantastic!

It's not the design I have a problem with, it's the execution. There are some weird grayish outlines that appear to be transparency artifacts that make it look very amateurish, like it was badly cut from an image with a light background and pasted in the mock-up. Also, in a world full of smooth gradients and detailed textures (which don't go well with each other BTW) it's weird that the grass uses only 2 flat shades of green. Even the Angel Island grass, that was drawn for a system with very limited color count had some yellow to give it more depth and texture.

The clashing styles kill it for me. It looks like another one of those projects where the author goes like "Oh, this looks great, I'll use this. Ah, that object is awesome, it must go in. Man, that background is the shit, definitely in." without ever considering if they all go well together. In the first shot everything looks like vector-plastic, which might not be the greatest art style ever, but at least the whole scene is consistent.

 

This game could be quite good. Though, I must point out that Sonic's shoes aren't that... well... pointy. Granted they were knives in Sonic 1 and 2, but they got it done better in Sonic 3. Plus, if you look at the character art from Sonic 1, you'll see that was the case back then. It was just less detail in 16-bit.

The other thing is the spikes. Even back then. Sonic still had six spikes coming from the back of his head like he does today. Just play Sonic 3 and watch him rotate. You'll see it for sure.

 

I'll reserve my opinions mostly for if gameplay is shown. Until then, I won't get my hopes up.

But I will at least say that -I- think it looks good, though I generally agree with what most people are saying. The mouths should have stayed there, and the photoshop job someone did in here looks much more accurate to the classic design of Sonic.

Though I agree that the second screenshot's stage foreground looks pretty bad. I hope that gets fixed, because otherwise I'm fine with it as is.