Oh hey, our first look at Amy's standing sprite (I think?) in the form of a perler bead pdf. https://twitter.com/SEGA_OFFICIAL/status/1651061050593390593
Put together a quick non-scaled comparison between Origins Plus's and SCD's Amy sprites. I can see why they'd want to keep Amy more in line with how she's usually represented in at least the modern era of Classic Sonic media. Might still be building off of that sprite a bit for the different purpose as a full playable character (maybe an updated take on her fits her game's theme of time travel!) Reminds me how appropriate it is that we have a character introduced in each of the four games playable in all four games (if you ignore Rad Mobile, 8-Bit S2 and the manga, of course), which is probably why Mighty and Ray sat this one out despite technically being in the Retro Engine's DNA. Knuckles also needed to be added to SCD, and two brand new character additions is usually what we get from these Retro Engine projects. S1/S2 w/ Tails and Knuckles (discounting KIS2), Mania Plus w/ Mighty and Ray and now Origins Plus w/ Knuckles and Amy, SCD being the weird early instalment exception. Also I sorta tidied up a list of issues I had with Origins to see if any more are addressed with the Origins Plus update, what with more bug fixes being stated by the website and Headcannon saying they were allowed to add a few additional updates and enhancements, presumably also finally being allowed to fix up their S3&K remaster. Some of the things listed are way more nitpicky than others, basically for the sake of making a somewhat comprehensive record on things like game inconsistencies. Not expecting all these to be addressed of course; as a matter of fact, four already seem shot down as mentioned prior. But it'd be nice to see what Headcannon does to polish all the remasters, not just S3&K, as guys who actually know what they're doing with Retro Engine code. "S3&K additions" is basically stuff Headcannon might've wanted to add, or at least acknowledged in the S3&K mobile pitch days, through weird remnants in the game or mentioned on Stealth's S3&K anniversary Tumblr post/livestream. Curious to see if S3&K's physics get fixed up in Origins Plus; I'm guessing Headcannon would make it as accurate as possible, but if it's just the end result of how S3&K's values are interpreted by the RSDK (heard that from someone once), maybe they'd see no issue? Perhaps it was always just going to be S3&K in the SCD 2011 engine? Are we too far along to majorly change the game's core physics and perhaps how they'd work in Missions? I'm not sure how different RSDK S1/SCD/S2 were in terms of physics (at least for the worse in SCD's case?) or why S3&K in particular is the issue, but it's perhaps at least an active complaint with Origins' S3&K specifically, if not one of THE sticking points people have with it, and I'm not sure Headcannon would've intended that. Maybe the existing S3&K physics could be another new cheat code they'd add, or vice versa.
The physics don’t feel different enough on a moment-to-moment basis to really put me off the game. It’s just certain sections like exiting the tree in Angel Island and not reaching the big ring in Hydrocity that pop out to me. I’ve played the Retro Engine versions of 1, CD, and 2 enough that they replaced the originals in my mind so I never saw anything wrong there (hit box problems, etc.). A.I.R. has been my preferred 3K version since its release, and feels identical enough to the original and the Jam versions that I grew up with that I never felt any differences. I really wonder what specifically is going wrong with this version of 3K.
I like Amy's sprite, an original set while still looking quite true to the CD version. It sticks out how many colours it has however, not even just one or two more (people have counted up to 22 so far, might be more with hammer sprites). Given the remakes have usually been a stickler for accuracy most of the time, it raises suspicion in me that these sprites might have some role elsewhere in a non-16 bit project.
Nope. The pinks, blues and greens he chose are completely new and used exclusively on Amy. So implementing this design on real hardware wouldn't be possible without changing either the sprite itself or recoloring the badniks. And IIRC it just uses 22 colors, 6 more than what's possible with a single palette line.
I meant the ones from pre-Plus. So, stuff like New Blue Spheres and the redone Sonic 3 multiplayer stage graphics.
And the hydrocity ring is at least alleviated by being able to command tails to fly an option I wouldn’t mind in the original considering even with those physics its a little tricky
I'm sure I'm the last to have done this, but here are the sprites from the PDF they provided. The PDF colors are on the left and on the right is the color palette I picked from the earlier Sonic 3 screenshots. Edit: Added CD Amy for comparison's sake. Interesting how the Sonic 3 palette is pretty much the CD palette while Sonic 1 & 2 (& presumably CD) use a much lighter pink.
It really is interesting how they had to design Amy’s sprites to work in the style of 4 different games. Tbf 1-2-CD probably look the same to non-Sonic obsessed folks… but still
I know I'm a couple days late to the party, but I'm so glad that finally SEGA showed off the 3 different cover variants properly in higher quality and larger resolution images on Twitter. SEGA really ought to have posted these right after they officially announced Sonic Origins Plus; Mark Hughes did a fantastic job on them, including the details of matching-region cartridges and consoles which Knuckles and Sonic are holding respectively. There are also some Twitter posts about the art from the artist. Spoiler: Large Images
Maybe I'm reaching here, but from them mentioning Amy's place in the character select menu, can we assume the save file system hasn't been fixed in Plus? Still the same "one character per save file" and "infinite retrying of only the final level" nonsense? It would be another thing that was on Sonic Team to fix up rather than Headcannon and thus of course fell to the wayside.
I feel like it’s a bit of a reach but it is too early to tell.. I mean they technically can still keep the same character select menu but expand upon it with a more conventional level select like the mobile ports once you beat the game with a character. I never minded the “one save file per character” thing since that’s what I used to do with the original mobile versions anyway but yeah a more consistent save system like how it is in Sonic 3 would be nice.
The menus aren't going to be replaced. The team Sega put on it clearly did not have the resources or expertise to make a good one in the first place. I'm sure they consider the menus "good enough".
Maybe I’m nuts, but do the black borders on the “coins” icon drive anyone else crazy? If they’re not going to make it transparent, at least make the entire square have a white background.
