Sonic 3D Blast MD, 2017 and beyond!

Are you sure you're not thinking of the PC version that actually had refresh rate settings in the launcher?

 

Since there is a chance that Jon will appear at the Hacking Contest in some form, I started a topic on SSRG in which we can collect all sorts of questions in an organised place instead of pestering him over dozens of Youtube videos (which also results in answers being all over the place, making them hard to retrieve). When the time comes, someone expert such as Spanner or IceKnight themselves can forward that list to him. Should I open a similar topic here on Retro as well so we can work out the ultimate question list?

 

That's certainly the thinking of a SEGA marketing guru, and it most certainly worked by the sounds of it

I would say though, noone here in the UK ever got stumped by the title (going by childhood memory of around the release date here so I could be wrong). It was simply "hey, it's Sonic 3D" and that's that. Whether you knew what one was or not, everyone was mostly cool to assume Flickies' Island was just something relevant to the game, and kind of provided an additional tone of an adventure to it, similar to the way the Uncharted games were titled.

 

I am. I haven't touched the PC version in over a decade. I barely remembered it when playing the Saturn version. I was more used to the precision and fluidity of movement in Sonic World, for example, than the PC version. 3D on the Saturn just looked... muddy during movement. Fine in a still image, but if a sprite moved back and forth it looked... 'compressed'. Like getting an upgrade in SADX and the camera swirling around the player suddenly moves at 15fps, making it look like a movie even though it's still the in-game engine. Just not as fluid as the Genesis sprites.

That said, maybe I'll try to fire up the PC version now for kicks.

 

We don't know for certain that he'll even submit to the hack expo, or that he won't release a hack expo version and then a more completed one later. All that's confirmed at this point is that he knows when the deadline is.

 

I usually refer to Sonic 3D as Flickies' Island, like in "I've been playing Flickies' Island this morning". I was reluctant to say "Sonic 3D" when actual 3D games started appearing, and "blast" says nothing to me; it's not like he's blasting through the game like he's "rushing" on sonic rush with its boost mechanic. Oh, and it was an isometric game anyways, even if it has 3D renders for graphics. To me, "Flickies' Island" sounded like the most proper part of the game's name (of both names) to define the game itself.

 

The connection between Sonic 3D Blast and Sonic Blast is quite obvious, with the similar names and the pre-rendered graphics. They're completely different games (hell, even Sonic Labyrinth is more similar to 3D Blast, being about collecting stuff in isometric levels), of course, but so are the 8 and 16-bit versions of Sonic 1 and 2, so it's not unprecedented to have similarly named games being released together that are actually mostly unrelated.

 

True, I'd say definitely obvious to someone living in the US where they had those names. Though here in the UK (and Japan) they're just considered two separate games called Sonic 3D: Flickies' Island, and G-Sonic/Sonic Blast, so growing up I never associated the two together that much - they were just part of Sega's awkward transition phase between 2D and 3D Sonic when anything and everything was being experimented with (along with X-Treme, Sonic R and everything else we were seeing around that time.)

I feel Japan got even less of a connection between the two, where Sonic 3D didn't get a proper release there until the Saturn version, around the time Sonic Adventure had released, a good while after G-Sonic had come and gone. I think my brain just disconnected the two completely after a while.

 

Yeah, the games were definitely presented differently in Europe and Japan. Here in Brazil, Sonic Blast was released on the Master System (and a lot of bugs related to the screen size were never fixed!) maybe a year after 3D Blast was already out, and I really wanted to buy it. The only thing I knew about it was that Knuckles was playable, so I had to have it. I was surprised to see how different it was from 3D Blast, but I still thought it was pretty cool!

 

An update with some of the new features and bugfixes in the Director's Cut:

 

It looks pretty good especially the controls and the flickies changes, but there are some things I found weird like the semi-invincibility you get with the speed shoes, the extended camera and being able to outrun it.

I also found a pallette bug I think. The grey from the monitors, turret, etc. is now blue. It only seems to happen in Green Grove though.

 

My goodness, that flicky dropping change is a godsend!!! I can't even begin to say the amount of times I've died from getting hit by something after scrambling to pick both rings and flickies up.

 

I can agree on the Invincible Flickies being weird, but simultaneously, the levels of 3D Blast are a bit more complicated than a 2D arcade wrapping style sort of thing, so losing one can be a royal pain. It kind of makes the 'you've not collected a flicky' flashing thing almost pointless.

 

Yeah, I'm not big on some of these tweaks either, especially the Flickies. I understand addressing frustrating stuff like the slippery controls, but I don't really see the need to make everything easier for the sake of it. I hope he doesn't think that people dislike Sonic 3D just because they found it hard.

And what's with the weird palette?

 

For me, it was Gene Gadget that used to give me a hard time where there's a lot of stuff wanting to kill you (those proximity bombs on the ground, the electrical spikes, cannons, badniks, etc). I can get through it fine today, but I just remember making one too many wrong moves trying to collect rings and flickies and then just dying.

I never really disliked 3D when I was younger because I thought that the learning curve and gameplay was straight-forward, but it was about getting accustomed to the overall design of the stages, controls and gameplay. I don't know. I understand why some might/might not like the changes in general, but IMHO I do think that the edits were made for those people who didn't like the game because they found it hard.

 

Completely agree, this just makes the game way to easy. Hopefully he changes his mind, but that is not very likely.

 

Flicky barrier only works if you're standing still, so it's a neat addition, honestly. The flickies would get stuck in the worst places, like in lava pits in Volcano Valley, so it still is a bit of an issue. Removing spikes from the first enemies is a good choice too - it would have made it much easier for new players to understand the wild physics of Sonic 3D blast compared to the original game.

Speed shoes is a weird one, if anything they're pretty worthless in Sonic 3D Blast, I'd say replace them with more Blue, Red or Gold Shields.

 

I like the changes. Means less BS.

Any word if he could patch things PC version?