Project Needlemouse: old threads

You have horrible taste.

 

As music goes, I'd really prefer well written and catchy tunes like the old games, rather than pop/rock/or anything with any sort of singing. I think that the modern Mario games are a good example of translating the charm of music from the 8/16-bit era into modern day. Some Super Mario Sunshine songs have got stuck in my head just as much as any older song.

 

Seconded. Not a single song from the game was good? You kidding me? I mean, Naganuma's stuff alone I found great, but some of the other tracks were pretty catchy. "Birthday Cake" from Future, for instance, tended to interest me, if only because I couldn't figure out what the hell she was saying.

Incidentally, I rather liked Naganuma's work in Rush, as well. A quirky choice for music composer, to be sure, but since I was familiar with his work from JSR, I found it clicked with me rather well - definitely one of the best aspects of Rush. I'd debate whether it would mesh with Needlemouse, though - honestly, although I'd probably be happy with such a soundtrack, I'd find it less than ideal.

 

I would have liked the music in Jet Set Radio, if it didn't have those lyrics in them. The music is decent enough. Personally, when people said that Sonic Rush had hints of JSR, I was intrigued. And then I heard these stupid chipmunk voices in almost every song, and songs like Vela Nova made me turn down the sound on my DS entirely. Fortunately, the chipmunk voices went away in Sonic Rush Adventure, and it was an improvement, I think. I wouldn't want Richard Jacques to do any more Sonic music either.

I'm leaning towards Genesis-like melodies that are distinct and loop every ninety seconds or so. I wish Tim Follin would do music for a Sonic game, but he retired a few years ago (Treasure Master like music would be fantastic). All of those arpeggios and tricks to try on a Genesis soundchip (or something similar to it) for the new game. Nice fantasy.

If all else fails, music like Sonic Unleashed would work for me.

 

No more Richard Jacques would mean no more chance of awesome tracks like Rusty Ruins. And that would be

On the flip side, it'd also mean no more vocal songs, but IIRC Jacques wasn't a big fan of them either - he had to fight for the No Lyrics option in the game. Might be misremembering that info, though, so please don't quote me verbatim.

 

You don't think this would be too repetitive?

I guess it would depend, though. If the level's only going to be 1:30-2:00 that would probably work just fine.

 

You must definitely be referring to someone else because, IIRC Jacques had quite a lot of fun doing lyrical music with the singer T.J Davis for Sonic R. I know you said not to quote, I just felt like pointing that out.

Also, Jacques doing music for Sonic HD in the style of Sonic 3D = Potential win.

 

Good luck with that. The YM2612 doesn't reset the envelope per-note like that, so most of the cool sounds he got on the NES with arpeggios and trills wouldn't sound anything like that.

EDIT: Then again, this video seems to evidence to the contrary. It's pretty cool shit. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxMAkKJFQ1k

I mean, I'll be one of the first to declare the chip underrated overall, but I'd really like them not to restrict themselves to its sound.

 

Uh, Genesis Sonic songs were about 90 seconds (especially Sonic 3 - the shortest song in that game is the one for LRZ1, at 40 seconds); even Sonic CD songs were in that range. Try again.

It depends on the instrument. Each operator has an RS value that controls what happens when the note is released. Basically 0 = no release (the note is controlled solely by the other values), 15 = immediate stop.

I love you. FM can do oh so much, someone please join me in tapping its full potential.

 

Tim Follin wasn't a one trick pony who only worked on the NES. Not to mention a new game wouldn't be using old hardware.

 

Veering off the music discussion here, I just thought I'd share a story real quick.

I walked into math class the other day and casually brought up the fact that they're making this game. My friend, who hadn't played a Sonic game in years, asked "Oh, you mean like the old Sega games?" And I said "Yeah." Her face lit up like I told her there would be two Christmasses this year and she said "That's awesome!"

So I guess Sega will be getting a bunch of old fans back.

 

You make me fuzzy inside.

 

And with that, the nail is hit on the head; A lot of the older fans haven't played anything post-Megadrive for various reasons (anti-Sonic hype etc) and will be genuinely glad to see this. Even if Sega alienate some of their newer fans, I'm sure they'll get enough fans back to make this a worthwhile venture.

 

That's kind of what I'd expect, yeah. I doubt it'll happen overnight, though. Even if the game's brilliant, the damage has been done - several times over - and something like that takes a good amount of time to heal.

Which is probably what that Sega rep meant way back when, more than "the games are gonna stay shitty for a while, deal with it". Maybe.

 

I wish I could believe that, but that's really what it sounded like. It's entirely possible that this new game was only started recently since, after all, absolutely no gameplay whatsoever was shown in that teaser.

 

My best friend (and the only person I've ever known, IRL, to beat Sonic Spinball) hasn't touched a Sonic game since the mid 90s (save for Mega Collection of course), and when I showed him the teaser he was all "that was awesome, I have to play that when it comes out!" In fact, most of my friends (the ones I've mentioned it to anyway) seem pleased or have sort of an "ahh, finally!" attitude about it. Even my little brother, who spends his days playing Halo or Call of Duty.

 

Yeah, and I felt that LRZ 1's music was WAY repetitive. 2 minutes is a minimum for me. There's a reason I usually don't listen to those songs regularly or put them on a portable music player. :P

His Genesis stuff certainly didn't sound so good, and it was mainly in response to those people who wanted it to look and/or sound exactly like a Genesis game. From the context it seemed that whoever posted that was interested that happening.

 

I hate to break this to you, but I wouldn't call these kind of people 'fans'. They played Sonic when it was around on the Mega Drive but they didn't abandon Sonic because his games turned to shit - it was because it wasn't cool anymore.
You tell anyone that Sega are making a new 2D Sonic game and the typical reaction from your average 18+ year old will be "Oh, awesome!" purely out of nostalgia. These people won't buy the game then come to places like Retro to discuss it. They probably won't even buy the game, they'll play it on a friend's console.

 

You say that as if they are all the same. People have different tastes and interests -- perhaps some of them just stopped playing the games after the Megadrive because everything else that came out, to them, was utter crap? Not everyone liked Sonic Adventure. These are old-generation individuals who were just all about the 2D games, and many of these lost fans have jumped overboard.

You can see a lot of them as some of the popular game critics, and websites like Gamefaqs which feature a lot of people who have "moved on." Project Needlemouse was the small fire in their hearts that still loved Sonic. It's interesting to me -- there's so much supposive "hate" for the franchise, but you announce that things are going 2D, and a lot of the haters instantly become lovers, due to their Mega Drive past.

We can more than likely keep a lot of these lost fans if SEGA makes quality main-title 2D games.

 

Everyone I've talked to who thinks "Old Sonic was awesome!" and has no other opinion to give is, generally, just an average person with fond memories of Sonic 1 or 2. Not fans.