I was hoping we wouldn't do this but, since shots are already fired... I hate Sonic 2's sprites. The change in the shape of his eye from Sonic 1 makes him look like a rageaholic. His hands are fucking tiny. And stylistically they come across as a bizarre halfway between 1 and 3. Mania gets a pass because of the fuller color palette, but even then the brand new sprites made for Mania are miles ahead of the modified ones from 2. Gimme 3 or even 1 any day.
Not to mention the nasty mohawk in the rotation sprites in Sonic 2. I really never got the hate for 3's sprites when they're the most accurate to the artwork of the Genesis titles in terms of style and proportion. The bigger hands and rounder belly make him more on model than the previous sprite sets.
Just to add my two cents to this as well, I honestly don't see the appeal of the angry, mouthless S1, S2, and SCD sprites. I can agree that S2's sprites tried to Americanize Sonic's look a bit more, but he looks far too angry and a bit off model. Not that Sonic 3's sprites are completely on model themselves, but they're at least more relaxed looking and has a mouth. I'll typically play Mania with those sprites, but using the Mania color palette. To veer back onto topic though, I don't think Origins is going to do anything outlandish like sprite changes. The MO for ports like these is to present the game more or less as it originally was. The "Don't fix what ain't broke" mentality with the original Genesis games is one of the few things I think Sega's gotten right. Aside from a few quality of life changes like spindash in Sonic 1, the main trio in all 4 games, or widescreen, I think we're kidding ourselves if we think they're going to add features like changing sprite styles for every game. Just wait for mods to do that, they'll exist shortly after the game's release.
Yeah, I didn't mean to say that I actually expect them to offer that option. I honestly consider the different sprites to be a small part of each game's identity, regardless of my personal preferences. But I do really hope they fix sprites with misaligned tiles, like Sonic 3 Super Sonic's transformation, idle, and ledge sprites.
Ah, see I always thought Sonic 1's eyes were weirdly blocky, and Sonic 2's blue, while admittedly flat, is the shade I most closely associate with Sonic, or at least it was until they made Classic Sonic light blue for some reason. But different strokes for different folks. And let's be real this feature is unlikely anyway. They should have told us more than just dropping that hot turd of a reveal huh.
I dunno, I still prefer just to know that they're working on anything at all, instead of being completely in the dark as we were a couple months ago. It's not much better, but it's better.
Sonic's proportions changed for Sonic 3. Look at the actual artwork produced for Sonic 2 and you'll see that the sprite art accurately portrays those proportions. Sonic 3's artwork made his hands and shoes proportionally larger, which is reflected in the sprite art.
Don't expect consistency or completeness to be mandatory. An extra is just an extra. For example, the SEGA Ages release includes a Time Attack only for the first zone, Green Hill. It would be expected to have a complete Time Attack but it's just an extra, so they only included the feature for one zone and it's still acceptable.
Dek Rollins is correct, for anyone unwilling to go have a look: His hands expand from about a quarter of the size of his abdomen while folded (see his right hand on each) to around half the size.
That was considered acceptable? I'm... a little surprised, to be honest. "Just an extra" or not, anything they decide to add to the game should be as thorough and satisfying as reasonably possible—and I don't think that a single zone is either thorough or satisfying.
I like the different art styles and sprites for each of the classic games and appreciate that they are all unique.
Spoiler: sprite style I absolutely haaaate the 3K Sonic sprites. If they had just done some tweaks to the OG ones to better reflect the upgraded style ala 1/CD->2... it would've been way better than trying to replicate the incredibly off-model 3D model (yes, you read that correctly) used in the title screen. There was a commercial that had a drawn version of that scene, and while off in it's own way, looks a lot better: Trying to save my full wrath for a thread I'm making soon tho I don't expect being able to swap sprites to be a thing included in retail, but definitely something within the first month of community mod support.
3's sprites go for this pseudo-3DCG effect that just falls flat on its face towards someone like me who grew up with 3D graphics being a standard and norm in gaming instead of a mythical thing from the future.They're not badly drawn, but they try to cram way too much in and have a slightly chubby proportion in my eyes. I much prefer 2's cleaner and simpler sprites, and I'm glad Mania went with 2 as the main inspiration for its sprites' visual design. It's much like Donkey Kong Country's sprites to me--I'm well aware at the time that they were considered incredibly good-looking, but to a kid like me whose first console was the Gamecube, they just look like awkward attempts at faking 3D...which they are. Now, 3's sprites are nowhere near that bad, but I'm not surprised that after DKC blew everyone's mind they tried to go in that direction a bit for S3&K. There's a lot more "pseudo-3D" in that game (and a more realistic aestheitc) than the previous two games and it looks a bit of a mess, frankly. I still maintain that CD has the best aesthetic of the classic series (and once again, I'm glad Mania's original stages mostly follow in its footsteps).
kind of tying back to early CG, (as an aside) it blows my mind that I didn't even notice that the palm tress in GHZ use "polygons" until someone had brought it up here a few years ago, despite being someone who grew up with early 3D graphics of that nature
I keep seeing people complain about Sonic 3's sprites being ugly renders but I literally don't see it. Knuckles' sprites are definitely prerendered and look a bit awkward nowadays but Sonic looks just fine to me. Are you guys sure his sprites were even prerendered? In any case, they're full of personality and look so much more fun than the somewhat boring Sonic 1/2 sprites in my opinion. I don't care much for Mania going back to them when they should've gone for fully original sprites like Knuckles'.
*1 I think the shading in Sonic 2's running animation actually looks very 3D, and that along with the spiral animation with the skinny spines make me think the Sonic 2 sprites may have been assisted by 3D models to some extent (if that's not the case, they coulda fooled me ). Sonic 3's sprites don't really look particularly 3D rendered to me. The running animation in 3 does achieve a very 3D look, just not the "prerendered 3D model" kind of 3D. But I fully agree with you about the "try to cram way too much in" problem. There's a wonderful simplicity to the original style of Sonic's sprite, and Sonic 3's looks overall less defined, blobby, and a bit messy by comparison. I've noticed that issue in some other mid-'90s games, and at some point I started calling it "too much detail syndrome" because of the negative affect this sometimes has on the visuals of a game. Sonic's foot-tap idle animation from 1/2/CD is iconic, in 3 it just looks nasty. Totally flat and lacking personality next to its predecessor. Mania did good by using Sonic 1's sprites as a base, though I still think it would've been better off with an improved iteration of the running animation from 2, kind of like this.
Wasn't SEGA/Marketing just trying to push really hard to make Sonic 3d as soon as possible to one-up everyone else, which is why everything in Sonic 3 looks "kind of" 3d and they use the pre-rendered graphics for the title screens?
