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Sonic Colo(u)rs Ultimate released for Switch, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Epic Games Store

Discussion in 'General Sonic Discussion' started by MH MD, Apr 9, 2021.

  1. The Joebro64

    The Joebro64

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    I just noticed that this video is unlisted...

    Could that mean anything? (also those springs noises - there's no way that's intentional)
     
  2. JaxTH

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    Jack shit.
    Am I someone wrong for literally just seeing the top one being "lights are in in the amusement park" while in the bottom they aren't? The lighting suggests so, but I've never played Colors.
     
  3. Aerosol

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    As had been said many times, even if there lights were off, the sides there still wouldn't be so uniformly dark.
     
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  4. Beltway

    Beltway

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    Surely the thing to do to avoid such scenarios would be to slow down Sonic's speed...

    I don't think bottomless pits are a cardinal sin for Sonic level design, but I don't disagree with the notion that they've been used as a crutch. That much is obvious where you have levels with environments where having bottomless pits (or, alternatively, instant-death water) isn't required and/or doesn't even make sense. What's the logic in having bottomless pits/instant-death water in a level based on downtown San Francisco, or a level set in a giant forest, or a level where the world is a giant casino.

    And for what it's worth, you can design Sonic levels where such locations do have bottomless pits, and even pull it off! But this is where I emphasize the "crutch" element--bottomless pits are among a very particular set of level design properties that, for some reason, have been enforced for Sonic game design across the board; where you see it (among other elements) repeated constantly, for most if not all levels, for several games. Even when it's clearly a design philosophy you don't really see in the rest of the genre (platformers) and whether it actually corresponds to quality gameplay is debatable.

    All that aside--I'm arguably with you otherwise in where I don't really see the point of the removal of lives and the Tails' assist mechanic negating the consequence of bottomless pits. Colors is reputable for being one the easier games in the series as it is. If anything, I feel that adding mechanics/campaign modes that made the game harder would had been more meaningful additions for a remaster.
     
  5. Crasher

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    One thing that bugs me here, and has always bugged me about Colours honestly, is how ridiculous the grind rail sparks are. It looks especially bad when turning corners at slow speeds, since every rail spark rotates from what I can see/remember. I also think the boost effects never looked that great, mostly because the effect looks wrong in the air (it has this hard edge for the ground - which doesn't go away in the air) and while drifting (it's stuck in the direction you initiated the drift in, you can especially see this in the Planet Wisp gameplay). I also felt looked a bit silly when going around tighter slopes (it cut into the slopes iirc).

    It's a minor nitpick, and the remake is accurate to the original, but I was kinda hoping they'd change those to look better. They were passable on the Wii but looks silly when on more powerful hardware.
     
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  6. Blue Blood

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    Admittedly I never noticed the grind rail sparks, but I'll not be able to unsee it now that you've pointed it out. The boost effect though, yeah, that's bugged me since E3 2010. I'm surprised that nobody on the development team of either the original or Ultimate said "hey this looks a little jank we should probably make a small change to fix that". But they still thought it necessary to redesign the rainbow rings and add the spring sound effect to them on top of their own sounds.

    Most of the effort put into Colours Ultimate so far feels misplaced. The Tails save feature is nice and the Metal Sonic races sound like a nice idea too, but everything graphical is like why did they even bother?
     
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  7. ChaddyFantome

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    Can't say I agree. This requires a presumption of inherent superiority to fundementally different sensibilities and intent in regards to the actual game design and structure.
    I.E. its only a "crutch" to not design it a fundementally different way because the person in question would need to see the desire to not design in in said given way as something that would require excuses to avoid, as opposed to, well, not even having the intention of doing so.

    I don't get this. The very concept of bottomless pits in platformers doesn't generally make sense in general. Its a gameplay convention that exists to visually represent a fatal hazard. What makes the first bottomless pit in 1-1 in Super Mario Bros. make any sense? Wouldn't logic dictate instead you be able to see the bottom of the pit and stand around in it till you get bored? Is this also a crutch?

    To create an obstacle for the player to overcome in their obstacle course.
    These levels aren't designed like say, Mario 64, where you roam around picking things up and exploring a sandbox. That would better describe say, the Hunting stages, The Doom/LostImpact in ShtH, or even the levels on Sonic CD, etc. which do by comparison have a dirth of bottomless pits. They are obstacle courses where the goal is to get the to end unscathed, and the pits are onstacles for the player to avoid. Thats not a crutch, so much as just different intent and design sensibilities, wouldn't you agree?

    Would one call the bottomless pits in Crash Bandicoot a "crutch"? It seems to be that only through this lens of seeing the game needing to be structured fundementally differently does this claim seem to have any sensible meaning.

    We are more and more entering an age where people seem to think even something as innocuous as a lives system is fundementally "dated". And while I do think it is redundant for some games, others, such as Sonic imo, kind of begin to fall apart without one if you ask me.
    The reason the Chaos Emeralds were even introduced into Sonic 1 along with getting extra lives when you collected 100 was to give players a reason to care about collecting and holding on to their Rings. Without insentive to do, the game becomes a lot mote shallow. No reason to care about finding extra rings, exploring for ring monitors and or worry about taking a hit and losing your rings, since you can just pick em up again.

    To me at least, Tails Saves seems to try and fix a "problem" simply by rewarding the player with the ability to dumb down the game even further than they already have just to implement it, creating a compounding effect which im not a fan of. I would have preferred at the very least it be a seperate difficulty, but it seems like a fundmenetal overhall of the system as a whole.
    Honestly, I could see this being more understandable in a less forgiving game like Unleashed for example, which is a lot more reaction based and has more do or die situations that can catch you off guard. By comparison, again, Colors was already pretty easy despite not giving you lives for collecting 100 rings as is.

    Perhaps an argument could be made that it would allow them the freedom to make the games as a whole a lot more chanlenging to compensate, but I have my sincerest doubts.
     
  8. qwertysonic

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    Thanks, you said better than I could have.
     
  9. Starduster

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    This. I don't understand why the soundtrack is being remixed of all things. For god's sake, this is a Sonic game produced with modern quality music - you could leave the OST well alone and nobody would mind.

    While soundtrack and graphics are obviously different specialisms, it still seems like a waste of resources to change an aspect of the game that absolutely didn't need it.

    At this point, I'm wondering whether they're any considerations of delaying the game to respond to fan feedback regarding the graphics. Obviously not everything can be addressed, such as the 2D background elements (which I'm personally fine with anyway), but things like Sonic's eyes not even moving during the results screen animations? That's just glaring. If SEGA really wants to send the message of delaying games for quality and making sure the Sonic franchise is treated with the respect it deserves, then this is the perfect opportunity to either nut up or shut up.
     
  10. Aerosol

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    I don't know. There's a very (very) vocal contingent of fans that are loudly and rudely dismissing any and all criticism as whiny nitpicking. Sega may just say "Sod it, let's not pay Blind Squirrel any more money and release as is".
     
  11. Something that's never changed about the fanbase is that it always seems to run extremes. Something is either the best or worst thing ever.

    If I had to guess, people who love Colors (or the contingent of fans who literally buy anything Sonic related regardless of quality) are pushing back against the negativity its gotten and so the constructive criticism is being mistaken for "bitching"

    This almost always happens invariably with every Sonic release.
     
  12. Aerosol

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    Yah pretty much. I've done this song and dance many times before. It gets old.
     
  13. Jason

    Jason

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    One thing I am intrigued about the possibility of is the re-rendered cutscenes. All cutscenes were videos, whether in-engine or not. I wonder if the in-engine ones will actually be in-engine.
     
  14. Aerosol

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    It depends on which resources Sega provided them. I doubt they'd re-animated the cutscenes themselves, they don't seem to have those kinds of chops. If Sega still has the source animation files then it's possible they'll be re-rendered. Slightly more likely is that Sega still has the original renders of the cutscenes in a higher resolution. What's most likely...is that they'll just upscale the Wii videos.
     
  15. Blue Blood

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    Upscaled Wii cutscenes would look like garbage, and that's on point for this game. There's every chance that SEGA originally rendered the cutscenes at resolutions higher than 480p so the upscaling wouldn't be so bad, but I'm doubtful that they went all the up to 4K. Upscaling and filtering up that much would look really nasty. And if the cutscenes are just recycled from the original Wii game, they're going to look horribly out of place next to the updated visuals of ultimate.

    Anything is possible. The bar has already been set pretty low for this game.
     
  16. Antheraea

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    don't kill me, but I actually like that second screencap more. It reminds me a lot of what the Nickelodeon park at the Mall of America looks like at night, with the greenery and how the lights look alongside them:

    [​IMG]

    (I went here every Sunday pre-pandemic to play Pokemon GO, and in winter it'd be fully dark before closing time would roll around)
     
  17. Aerosol

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    I mean that pic of the mall is a mood, honestly. And if Tropical Resort looked like that on purpose I'd be all for it!
     
  18. Beltway

    Beltway

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    If I was being critical of the use of bottomless pits strictly on the basis of my own personal thoughts, I wouldn’t be bothered to bring up how their use in Sonic games compares to other platformers, using general terms. Again, what other platforming games use bottomless pits in an identical nature to Sonic games as I have outlined? How does this particular use of bottomless pits directly correspond to positive results/reception for the gameplay (Sonic or otherwise)?

    What is it about my previous post that makes you think I am being critical of bottomless pits as a concept? Again I stress that the "crutch" has more to do with the execution/application, rather than the very nature of the thing. If the vast majority of levels in Mario games and Crash Bandicoot games had the implementation of bottomless pits as I have described them occurring in Sonic games, I would definitely say they're being used as a design crutch over there too. Bottomless pits are only one type obstacle to be considered when building linear stages that can be applied in a variety of ways, and I'd argue those games more often than not understand this.

    I already stated prior that bottomless pits in a environment where they realistically would not exist is not an inherent flaw, so I'm not actually fighting you over the fact that bottomless pits are inherently illogical. But if we were to run with that point, I think there's a very meaningful difference with the existence of bottomless pits in something like 1-1 and City Escape. One is a stage that is clearly and heavily modeled on a real-life location, where they do not (or scarcely, if we consider sinkholes) exist. The other isn't trying to be set in a realistic location at all.

    The bit I really want to emphasize with my argument though is that bottomless pits are just one piece of a entire puzzle of design elements in general, that have been used to enforce a particular level design template. It would be one thing to have bottomless pits as a unrelenting presence in every level of a platformer; but all of the levels are still uniquely distinct and varied in experience in spite of that. That of which I don't actually have a problem with. It's another thing if almost every stage in a platformer had an unrelenting presence of several design elements --which also includes bottomless pits-- that all contributed towards a very limited, controlling, automated, and repetitive approach to design that permeates throughout the entire product. The latter is what I'm citing as crutch design, and where I say the use of bottomless pits is just one demonstration of that in Sonic games.
     
  19. simtek34

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    We got some more footage of Tropical Resort, this time of Act 3.
     
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  20. Blue Blood

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    The Sonic Stadium has published an interesting article about Ultimate, including an interview with the producers:

    Give it a read and a watch. At 15 minutes, it's worth it. Some of the highlights include:
    He also states that all of the music has been remixed. Some of the gameplay footage shows remixed music, but some of it doesn't. I'm wondering if they're only actually replacing the music on 3 of the 6 acts in any zone? That would be neat. But honestly the soundtrack for Colours didn't even need to be touched. They're potentially ruining something that was already brilliant. The remixed music in the gameplay of TR2 sounds... pointless.

    Some people will be disappointed to hear that Tails Save replaces lives. I don't mind, but why couldn't it have just been an option?

    On the subject of cutscenes though, the interview states the following:
    That doesn't really say much though. It sounds as though they've just upscaled the Wii cutscenes or that they're using the original, higher quality video files that SEGA made back in 2010. And that means that the cutscenes will look like Wii graphics. Sounds pretty lazy.
     
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