Sonic Origins Collection Announced, Releasing June 23rd, 2022

I don’t know if anyone noticed, but the Origins page on the PlayStation Store notes that up to 2 players can play the game so it’s highly likely that there will be some 2P features in this collection. As for what they are, the easiest answer would be that 2P VS for Sonic 2 and 3 will be utilized.. if it will be expanded to the other games remains to be seen

 

Or it could be 2P Tails control, but I doubt they'd just totally drop the 3&K Competition Mode.

 

The ground + air speed caps that snap you to base running speed were intentional mechanics placed by the original developers back in the 90's. Those caps were removed by default (I think?) in Retro Engine and have a toggle, so there's precedent for tweaks to be done officially and retroactively. The roll lock is definitely also an intentional mechanic in the same vein, another bad/not well thought-out one.

• If you roll off of ledge of the ground/wallramp/ceiling, you get full left+right movement control. (i.e. the iconic GHZ1 tube->ramp->badniks in the air to precisely maneuver to bounce on and grab more rings)
  
  
• Similarly, if you roll halfway up a wallramp/ceiling but peter out and start falling, you also get full left+right movement control. (i.e OOZ1 top path that's just out of reach without minor slope-jumping otherwise)
  
  
• But, if you try to roll and then jump at any point for any reason, nope! Really hope you've perfectly planned out your jump to account for whatever speed you have and any arrangement of platforms/hazards that could be lurking just off-screen, since you're playing Castlevania at possibly mach 27 now.

I'd even go as far to theorize the roll lock might be one of the key causes of new players not engaging with the entire rolling mechanic (outside of spindashing). It's strong incentive to never roll and always run->jump.
...Come to think of it, Origins story mode would end up swapping you from 1 having it, to CD not, and 2 bringing it back. Joyyy

If memory serves, the "S" monitor in 2011CD is just replicating the exact behavior of the unused/inaccessible one in the original game (giving unmodified basic invincibility + speed + a shield, all at once).

 

That's exactly it man, it'll be "fine". It really wouldn't take a lot to make this go from fine to definitive. And it's great a whole new generation will get to play the games and all that jazz but that's a given, as consumers paying 40+ USD we should expect and demand more.

- Add Knuckles to CD
- Allow any combo of characters (maybe as an unlock?)
- Detach aspect ratio and live system in the options.
- Get rid of gross mismatching menus for character selection (Maybe select character before title screen?)

Anything else I'm missing here?

 

Also gotta figure a major element of the collection is its console releases. They won't get the mods we can make to fix things up, but at the same time they're finally getting widescreen ports that have been around for almost a decade, and Sonic CD's wasn't even backwards compatible on Xbox One/Series or PS4/5. Meanwhile SEGA AGES and the most recent re-releases were only on Switch, and anything else is old collections that will get delisted or are the old XBLA releases that have nothing new.

Functionally speaking we can easily emulate the original versions and homebrew the Retro Engine Sonic 1 and 2 onto multiple systems, but this is basically going to be definitive for an entire new generation of mainstream folks that only have Genesis rom files to play in some digital format or another. It may not be Forever, Absolute or A.I.R., but for the main probability of sales coming out, it'll be the best they've got, period, besides the loss of Mega Play.

 

Sonic Cd not having a roll lock (you won't believe how long it took me to know what that phrase was referring to) stood out to me hugely way back when I first played it. I was always frustrated not knowing why sometimes I couldn't steer my jumps in the other games. I don't think there's any good reason for the mechanic to have been a thing in the first place and I don't think it should be kept around for this collection—at least not for a mode that's supposed to be an enhanced experience over the originals that's smoother to play.
On the presentation side, yeah, it's a shame the menus seem to be following suit with their recent things. Their rereleases lately have been having some oddly-styled menus and I can only hope that this time we don't get slowdown and choppiness during them. Wish things would feel both more cohesive and also especially tailored to the games being presented.

 

That’s certainly optimistic news. I had hoped that maybe Sega weren’t revealing everything yet in Origins and might have some surprises.

Out of interest do you have a link to Christian Whitehead’s comments? It would be neat to see them! Edit: Whoops, I just realized, things like servers don’t use links, so comments can't be shared, so never mind that!

 

I mean you can link to it, but the link would require you to join the server to see it.

 

I'm still very happy with Origins on balance. It's the Taxman and Stealth versions of S1, 2, CD. Stealth is doing 3K. Honestly that's enough for me to buy it.

I think they've gone above and beyond on Mission Mode if the trailers are anything to go on. Could be good.

The presentation is mixed. I personally like the UI design. But it's not well executed at all times as has been pointed out. I like the loading screen transitions but yeah the character selection screen is amateurish.

But then we have to remember we are getting animations with the presentation so....

I dunno, I just think it looks great. Best Sonic product since Mania easily.

But that said I don't think we should be cynical and accuse people of having too high expectations. We should have high expectations. High expectations are a good thing. Remasters of retro games are typically of high quality nowadays and we shouldn't expectat any less.

 

One thing that's kind of funny to me is seeing more people hold this collection up to Sonic Mega Collection as sort of like the gold standard of retro Sonic compilations. I remember at the time SMC dropped a sense of disappointment that it didn't meet the standard set by Sonic Jam - Sonic CD's absence was notable, and having 3D Blast, Spinball and Mean Bean Machine didn't really do anything to make up for it. But the core series were still solid games, they were decent emulations and Mega Collection was wildly successful across all platforms whereas Jam is more of a novelty that only really exists to those nerdy enough to even know what a Sega Saturn is.

I feel like Origins is the first time anyone involved with the series is even trying to meet that standard. More games would be nice (especially Chaotix given it still has never been re-released all these years later), but it's very hard to complain, even if I can think of things I'd personally want fixed or addressed.

 

Really enthused to hear this - 2-Player VS. being missing is probably my biggest worry with this collection since nothing about multiplayer has been announced; knowing that Taxman specifically tweaked things so that it could be supported gives me more hope that it won't be left on the cutting-room floor. Fingers crossed...!

 

The best part of Sonic games, or any video games for that matter is 2-player. It's simply crazy to me that SA2 is like the only Sonic game with a viable 2-player.

 

Yet, the Spindash implementation in Sonic 1 is noticeably buggy and more importantly, the game has moderate performance issues (frameskips/lag) in Sonic 2, Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles. While Origins might not be the ultimate collection we'd dream about, it has everything to be the best classic Sonic collection ever released.

 

Just to be clear I 100% agree with you. They're both products at the end of the day but Jam felt like the original team really trying to polish and reinvent the games, Mega Collection was just... here you go, all the oldies on one disc, huzzah. Just musing about how the fandom has changed, I guess - there's plenty of diehard Sonic fans nowadays who grew up only playing the originals for the first time on their GameCube or PS2, which would have been kind of unfathomable back in 2002 when Mega Collection released (who'd be old enough to be on the Internet, on Sonic-specific forums/chatrooms, having not played the Genesis games themselves?).

I also agree with Mastered Realm up there that Origins is set to overtake Jam in my book. Jam is wonderful but has its own issues, glad we're finally getting a compilation that applies that same mentality (taking the originals but upgrading them to meet modern standards).

 

I grew up playing the classics on Sonic Classic Collection for the Nintendo DS, so I think Origins has a lot to live up to if it's going to surpass Classic Collection.

 

I mean that's basically a guarantee, Classic Collection is just this but more barebones and an even worse UI

 

I think we could add more feasible and pertinent things to this.

• Thus far, I am disappointed with the lack of smooth rotating sprites, which this engine is very well capable of doing by default. You can activate rotating sprites in Sonic CD 2013 with the simplest mods.
• Small graphical improvements could be brought over from mania, like the improved rings or the spring animations. We could have some cool touches to graphical elements that relied on dithering (shields, bushes and waterfalls in Sonic 1 and 2 for example)
• It would be VERY VERY nice to have more than 60hz support via interpolation. Monitors at 75hz+ are now mainstream even for office use. And plenty of gamers have 120hz+. Speed goes very well with increased refresh rate. This would have been a great (perhaps the greatest) way to celebrate Sonic's anniversary.
  
• Also, no Knuckles in Sonic CD is another missing nicety that should have been there.
  
• Finally, I will be disappointed (and actually annoyed tbh) if SEGA doesn’t include quality CRT shaders/filters like in Sonic Mania (heck even those could be improved - there's a lot of quality stuff being done on retroarch).
• I also hope there is some sort of unlockable or semi-hidden goodies. Idk, like sprites from other games, or the ability to play as metal sonic or metal knuckles in some of the games. This product is supposed to be a compilation and also a celebration; in theory SEGA has the authorization to go a bit wild, and none of the things I suggested about are budget-heavy. Do not forget the insane amount of extra content the likes of Mario Maker 1 and 2 have.

Thus far it looks like this compilation’s biggest selling point is just S3K and it could easily be so much more than this.

And from what I've seen in the little gamplay footage there is, the *only* tangible improvements in terms of making the core-experiences better for the player are:

• Drop dash
  
• Fullscreen aspect ratio fixed in Sonic CD (the 2013 version feels like stretched out 16:10 in a 16:9 screen in the PC version)

I guess the only thing I’m hoping for right now is that at least they somehow update all the games to the latest version of Retro Engine, and that the latest tweaks to the physics carry over to all these games. The physics in Mania feel a tad more solid than on the Sonic 2 port. And the later feels more solid and better to play than the CD port (which was the first one to be ported in 2013). At least equally distribute these physics improvements to all games. Mania is a joy to play ALSO because of minute refinements to physics, not just the graphics.

 

They absolutely will not update the physics. Those are coded into the player scripts directly, and they probably didn't touch those much if at all.

 

I think this product isn't as bad as some say, but not as good as some others say. I'm least interested in this now than I was before: at first I wanted to pre-order it, now I want someone else to try it before buying it myself. I can tolerate bad menus, but I'm not sure what will happen with the games themselves when touched by Sega for the small modifications we've seen. I always wanted to buy this because finally we got an official way to have the S1&2 remasters on PC plus a new S3&K remaster, but the interferences of Sega themselves worry me, having to counterbalance them with the inclusion of the new Story Mode animations that I would have been ok to not have if the ports were well treated but are now a must to feel sure about this buy. Stuff like missions and mirror mode are a novelty to me: I may play them to unlock whatever they could give me but not because I find them fun enough. These are something I can be glad to get as extras, but, if they're subject to whatever Sega could do wrong, these extras amount to less than they should.

To be clear, Sega won't necessarily botch this up, but history tells us nothing is guaranteed when they are directly involved, while fans gone professional are usually a seal of high quality if Sega lets them do their way.