Again, the whole affair just leaves a bad taste in my mouth now. Even getting the ROM for AIR is now much more difficult than before (since the steam ROM that got delisted was actually the easiest way to set it up, and not every dump seems to work). The removals of small features, the Denuvo affair, the poor treatments of save files/bonus features in S1/S2, the completely pointless blocking of Sonic+Tails in S1 (even though Tails and Knuckles alone are accessible and S2 has Knuckles+Tails). The lack of bonus ROMS they could have cheaply thrown in (Chaotix, Spinball, 3D Blast) to properly replace the Mega collection of old. The poor treatment of Stealth and his team, leading to easily the worst of the 4 remasters. Jun screwing up the beta mixes royally (despite being what I'd consider a fairly talented composer). Reverting to worse versions of the Sonic CD OSTs. Screwing up the Drop Dash in S1+2... Now it all just leaves a sour taste in my mouth. I can still recommend the collection for more casual players. It is still arguably the best versions of these games on consoles, but the whole experience is just tainted and disappointing. And the community pretty much abandoning the mod scene almost immediately is a bad omen. Technically, there's no reason Origins can't be extensively modded, but without direct support it just leaves the classic fans with more confusing and less accessible options and that's 'also' kind of a shame. The Decomps are great but they are a pain to set up even for me.
Sonic + Tails being blocked off in S1 is a good example of Sega exerting more effort in removing stuff from the remasters for no known reason rather than adding to or just leaving them alone. You can totally still access Sonic + Tails through S1's level select character option, but you're shit out of luck if you want a save file with them. Which yeah, is confusing when Knuckles + Tails in S2 was upgraded from cheat to default option? I just don't get like, what Sega mandate had to be followed so that they had to go out of their way to make this small, dumb change, instead of more important stuff. Also nuking Proto Palace Zone and Tails' playability in SCD's level select (thus also being unplayable in Classic Mode), as well as SCD Sonic being made mute in THIS version of SCD currently sold only and the new save system. I could at least kinda see the reasoning on changing the soundtracks to more authentic renditions in S1/SCD/S2 (plus they'd only ever be remastering an incomplete, MJ-less soundtrack with S3&K, not that there aren't inconsistencies between the games) or replacing S2's cool continuous Boss Attack Zone with the more standardised Boss Rush for all games in Origins (despite SCD still having its separate Time Attack; I'm guessing retaining BAZ within the S2 remaster itself would've required knowledge of editing the game's Retro Engine code that Sonic Team clearly weren't privy to).
Wait, why is Sonic made mute in CD? Is it because of classic Sonic not speaking in Generations and Forces?
I don't understand what the big deal about those Sonic CD voice clips is. They could have just been removed because they sound cheap and don't add anything of value to the game. If the game was perfectly accurate to the Mega CD version in every other way it'd be a different story but that's not what the Origins version is going for.
Wouldn't be as confounding if they didn't keep the voices in the Sega Mini 2 version that came out after Origins. I know it's just putting the ROM on in that case, but what are the rules? https://twitter.com/DazzlerJJD/status/1586387393069912071?t=pRqGAfsyP6qHC5tHhUypbA&s=09
But the collection is total trash because SEGA treated it like total trash. The issues I've been encoutering aren't "over the heads of most players", as they're being pointed out by a damn 4 year old. I'm being serious, as my 4 year old played the SegaAges version and notices he dies a lot more often in this version of Sonic 2. The multiplayer in Sonic 2 is broken, plain and simple. We get softlocked every single time we try to play. It's unacceptable for the price point.
Eh, Origins is just okay for the most part to me. I don't find it particularly offensive. Obviously these aren't ideal 10/10 versions of the games, but at the end of the day, it's still Sonic 1 2 CD and 3. You can still easily have a fun time with it, it's not like Sonic 1 GBA or something. I'd like the issues to get ironed out at some point but it wouldn't be the end of the world to me if they didn't. (I can't speak for the competition mode issues though since none of my IRL friends are exactly excited to play 30 year old Sonic games with me anymore. They would all rather play Apex Legends or something, SMH it's their loss)
Am I crazy or did they mess up the opportunity to just make classic mode the ROMs with save states? Because when a company stops selling roms, the loss is theirs, not ours.
In yet another collection. People complain about the quality of the collection overall because these games have been re-released so many times over at this point, and what value is there in another re-release if it doesn't add anything substantial over previous re-releases and the quality isn't any better than those? The games might still be fun and "good enough", but they're also fun and good enough in a large number of existing releases, so what was the point of Origins?
Fair enough though, this is the only version on there that lets you play Hidden Palace and all the levels in VS mode (and fly as Tails for some reason). I do think there's enough goodies here to make it a good collection....if you don't have the mobile remakes already. If you do, there's the joy of full screen console play at last, but it is annoying how sloppy the job is in places. I really think the bigger aggravation is that most of the biggest issues with the game are just simple bugs or oversights, stuff that likely could be fixed with another patch or two. They already got rid of a fair amount of bugs last time, why didn't they keep that up? Sure there could be more to the collection, and the soundtrack copyright is a shame, but I could live with that if they just made it all run smoothly and feel polished.
I think that sorta supports my point that the voices were removed for being bad, not because of a rule that we decided Sega was enforcing on CD for some reason without any evidence. In a case where CD is being presented as the original product, the voices stay, and in a version that is (supposed to be) polished up, the voices are replaced with something more natural.
I have a strong feeling we're going to see something Origins related soon... There have been several updates on origins's steam database, and now Burger King has started to release a Sonic promotion in Spain that uses Origins branding (more info on that https://twitter.com/sonicparadise/status/1616484989041770497 ). I don't think it is an accident.
By “accident”, are you saying burgerking didn’t mean to have the sonic video/promotional materials released yet or that the burger king campaign won’t align with an origins update?
More specifically, the Burger King video ad is using a style of Modern Sonic, so the Origins key art there is likely a coincidental "we grabbed this asset from Google / a PR pack to plop into our deck" type thing. Not indicative of anything to do with Origins specifically.
