I suppose if you claim fangame it could be legal. This is something we've never really seen happen before, so I'm very interested to see how it plays out.
Considering it will be a patch, probably. As long as all the data he publishes is completely original it should be legit. And since he's got such an intimate knowledge of and source code to the original, it should be possible to accomplish a clean separation like that.
Why hasn't anyone invited him here yet? hell maybe Jon could join the hacking contest too. it'd be a treat to have him here and discuss 3D Blast stuff.
The Sonic Hacking Contest is certainly going to be exciting this year if he gets it done in time for the Contest or Expo deadline...
I think a director's cut would be far better served on the PC version, which has a better soundtrack and doesn't inherently limit modding in terms of scope. But I suppose it's understandable why he'd focus on the Mega Drive version, especially if he doesn't actually have the original code for that port, and it'd be more impressive to achieve his aims in that version.
Here's the thing: Jon has a perfect avenue to share this in the form of the Steam Workshop. It's obviously Sega-approved, and it's an easy way for folks outside of enthusiast circles like ours to find it and get their hands on it.
And yet he intends to distribute it as a patch. It's entirely possible he's unaware of how this portion of the Steam Workshop works. Or that it even exists.
Great news about the movement fixes in the DC, what an awesome guy. +1 he should definitely get in Sonic Retro (if he isn't already that is)
Man, I'd love a PC Director's Cut which has an option for both Soundtracks, as well as adding in all the Sega Saturn extras that weren't in the PC Port (Special Stage, Additional visual effects). Still, I'm well glad Sonic 3D is getting love again.
This is exciting news! Kudos to Jon for putting the effort into this. Given Sega's relationship with 'fan' developers, it would be nice if they worked with Jon to make this official and had the game released on the same platforms as Mania. It would also be nice if Jon could work on the Saturn version as that had slightly better graphics, far superior special stages and I think it had tighter controls as well. In fact, the only thing the Saturn version was really missing was a save mode (which made no sense, because the console had built in memory). I'd also love it if Jon could do a DC of Sonic R. I still think Sonic R has some of the best 3D Sonic level design. It's too bad Sonic Team weren't inspired by its design for their 3D games. If they had followed the direction of Sonic R, I don't think the Modern series would be in such a mess.
Might as well ask if they could just port 3D blast to Taxman's Retro engine. Assets could be ripped from the existing PC version with the Saturn special stages recreated in-engine (as they were made specifically to run on Saturn hardware).
Far as I could tell from my time on the Saturn, the controls were 1:1 to the Genesis version but the whole game ran at 30 fps versus the Genesis' 60. Everything looked the same speed (and would on 30fps-capped YouTube videos), just with a coat of grease on the low-def visuals. I had a hard time with it as it made moving/attacking feel less precise. I don't think I made it past Rusty Ruin Act 1. And nice as the Special Stages are, they felt surprisingly slippery to me, but I chalk that up to my inexperience with 30fps-capped platforming more than anything. And playing Jam's Sonic World first, where controls were a bit more refined.
Really impressive.. so it was due to clock speed differences that the technique was not implemented? I wouldn't bother if it had a tuner... we also had to tune our analog TV s and radios back then ... they just needed to write in the box "wanna see some cool SEGA GRAPHICS? So, tune that game, boy!"
It's all about the marketing. As a child I would have felt like a pro TV operator tuning those colourful lines :specialed:
Just changed the title because holy crap. This is way beyond awesome now. Is there an "exclamation mark limit" in the topic titles? The last one doesn't show up no matter what I do, how annoying.
This was "Sonic Motion Sickness Adventure 1" for me. So sadly, I'm out. Will there be music enhancements/remixes?
I've seen a few people say this game did that to them, which is super weird to me. That said, he does state he is going to change the movement.
As far as things that might actually be possible go, Not having the score tally on a separate screen would make the game feel a bit more Sonic-y. And having the gold shield be able to target monitors and springs would be a plus. It's a difficult one because the Saturn conversion is a better game as far as I'm concerned, and "make it more like that" involves gutting the soundtrack and reworking graphics, neither of which are on the table.
