Sonic Origins Collection - General Thread

I do wonder how much of the cheat codes being cheat codes is down to Sega being strict with their mandates or such, what they want the OG games to be seen as. I remember Stealth mentioned that they could only get stuff into the game in the first place as a cheat code. And while there might be some levity for some options as toggles outside the Level Select, IDK if it'd be all of them like S3&K's Banana Mode. Not sure if it's even something they'd have to program into the RSDK, as Classic and Anniversary are basically the same game with different options turned on. But maybe there was always hesitance in allowing at least a large range of weird, confusing, inauthentic toggles for each game be easily available, when Sega would rather have the games be more authentic to the original experience (relatively) in their most accessable state. Stuff like S&T and Insta-Shield/Super Peel-Out would benefit from being default options for each game kinda like in Mania (assuming they're properly fixed haha), but I'm not sure a Forever/Absolute/Restored/A.I.R. wealth of toggles for each game would've ever been okay with Sega, perhaps even as a long list of cheat codes.

 

Emulation would feel like a big step back after the mobile remakes.

Emulation has it’s place (and it would be neat if they could have included emulation in place of classic mode). But the remakes are much more fun than the M2 Sonic games on 3DS/Switch.

I suspect Sega hasn’t given Headcanon much freedom in making changes to Plus. If Headcanon had more freedom, then this package would be stronger.

As they have classic mode, then there's no need for Sega to be reluctant about changes. As classic lets you have the authentic experience.

I agree that having lots of toggles could be overwhelming. But again, they have Classic and Anniversary mode for those players who don’t want to deal with options. So it would be possible to cater for everyone. Players who don’t mind options could just press a button to call up the toggle menu. And those who don’t want them, can just stick with Classic/Anniversary.

 

Origins isn't a bad collection at all. You have the 4 main classic games, the three playable characters you'd expect + a new one, the Drop Dash, some neat bonus and missions that are pretty interesting all things considered. Your average player is not going to notice nor care about most of the issues. The problem with Origins isn't what it did for the most part, but what it didn't do

I mean, just look at the features I listed and you'll find the first problem with the game, "Three playable characters"... yeah, unless you're playing Sonic CD for the whole first year of the game. I'm glad they're fixing it now of course, but the fact that they had to do it in the first place shows how rushed Origins was, and potentially means that we could've been getting something actually new and interesting with Plus that didn't have to be in the base game (Not that I love DLC and stuff, but they're going to do it regardless, and it is at least a way to get new content in already released games, so I can live with it as long as I don't feel like I'm being robbed of stuff that should've been part of the game day one)

Before Origins released, Iizuka mentioned that having the Retro Engine remakes meant they could add new features to these older games. Ignoring how I don't see the point of Amy being playable if they're not going with the Advance 1 route, she would've been perfect as part of the base game to show that, it would be a significant addition to these four games to have an entire new character there. Mighty and Ray would've also been good since they're in Mania, and it makes sense for the definitive edition of the classic games to include some of the more recent additions into the main classic gameplay roster.

Maybe it's unreasonable for the to expect for a compilation to get what is essentially the same treatment you'd expect for a new game, Origins was just a smaller side project after all, and it is already getting a lot more work and attention than most compilations do. But in a world where there are so many ways to play these games, with all of them being very easy to do, I just wanted to be impressed by this collection, and I know that they could've impressed me if that was what Origins's about. Of course, new features is just half of the problems, there are new problems introduced by Origins and just a lack of quality of life improvements in general, but the point here is that Origins could've been the new golden standard for what classic remasters can be at their best. Am I asking for too much? Perhaps, but I can't help but feel like Origins is mostly redundant and there are very few reasons to buy it even now

 

Keep in mind there's only so many characters that have been added to these RSDK projects in the past. It's never gone past 2 additional characters for any of these, like Amy wasn't also added in Mania Plus.

We do know HC alluded to some updates and enhancements they were allowed to make alongside the characters, and I'm not sure what those would be besides maybe Knuckles' routing if that doesn't fall under the former, or the SCD Timer bug fix if that was significant enough to allude to.

https://xcancel.com/Head_cannon/status/1641242632759427075?t=i9YcoiASZm1rmpfq_Efjrw&s=19

Though yes, it seems like they were unable to touch stuff on Sonic Team's end like the pixel blur and SCD cutscenes being too loud, which is lame on Sega's part. The only other prevalent issues that stick out so far is a minor inconsistency or two between games like only S3&K having blue fade-outs or S&T apparently still not being an option in SCD, which I can't imagine was too hard to implement after Knuckles/Amy.

 

I feel that everything wrong with this collection is 100% blame on sega and not the fine folks that made the retro engine ports in the first place. Exactly as you say it's like sega just took a dev team with free time to build a front end and system to house the retro games and that's it, no love or care for how.

I'm extremely sour over stuff like this, sega just don't have it in them any more and my trust for them handling sonic in any way even with superstars is an all time low, made double worse that they fecked up the retail release with a freaking dlc code in the box, pisses me off.

Mania truely was the swan song for sonic in my eyes, i've had enough.

 

I noticed this just the other day. Reminds me how you can set a best time of 0'00 if you play a Sonic 3 competition stage via level select + debug mode and finish it

 

That is either something they patched out really quickly or a very strange regression as I went to HPZ on my first playthrough of S2 and a time wasn't registered for MCZ2 at all

 

If I could hit the Agree button a hundred times, I would.

 

Shame there isn't a disagree button

 

I don't understand this mentality that it's acceptable because "we can just mod those on PC". First, the PC isn't the only platform getting these games. Second, since when has it been acceptable that we as consumers are responsible for fixing the products we're buying? Third, Denuvo is still present, which from my understanding makes modding more of a pain than it should be.

I don't know about anyone else, but I was not expecting this collection to be on par with community efforts. I just wanted a collection of the four games that was at least as good as the originals. That's the bare minimum as far as I'm concerned. And we didn't even get that.

 

I understand why they're not using the Advance moveset, presumably because kids gravitating towards the cutest character are gonna be upset when she's way harder to play than the others. It's a shame it's not represented in some way though because those of us who enjoy her Advance moveset are left with pink Sonic.

That's why Amy should have had her Advance moveset and they could have given the babymode Sonic moveset to Honey.

 

Origins came out the same year as TMNT: the Cowabunga Collection, which has all the older games, and even has online multiplayer for some of them. Not to mention all the bonus features it has. It seems like every classic compilation trounces Origins.

 

Honey was barely a presence in her own game, she's way back of the line as far as the next Classic Sonic playable character is concerned.

 

I just took my copy of Advance 1 out yesterday to revisit Amy's gameplay, and honestly I cannot fathom why anyone would want her to play that way again. Calling it a drag is an understatement.

 

The Cowabunga Collection is worse. Every non-Game Boy game comes with 6 frames of input lag, while the Game Boy games have 5 frames of input lag. For action games, that's inexcusable.

 

I was hoping the would dissuade anyone from taking me completely seriously. I know Honey's chances of actually showing up in a game that isn't a Championship rerelease are close to 0 but a human can dream out loud, can't they?

Different strokes. Even back when I was a kid playing it I enjoyed the extra challenge right away.

 

I don't really like DLC as a concept, but if I wanted to extend my game, chances are I'd want to add challenge. With her hammer extending her attack range, the Amy in Sonic Origins and Sonic Superstars seems to be engineered to make the game even easier.

So I'm on the team that prefers Sonic Advance's Amy. Although streamline the moveset perhaps - there's redundancy across all the characters in Advance.

 

To all the people shocked that some enjoy how Amy plays in Advance, congrats on finally encountering people with different opinions than yours. Get used to it.

Anyway, Tails already serves as the cute character + easy mode option. I don't see Amy's double jump and hammer moves offering any unique utility compared to the existing roster.

I'm not saying Amy should play exactly the same as Advance here, it will likely need to be one button after all, but I'd have wanted some inspiration to be taken. My proposal would be to retain the uncurled jump and let an aerial press trigger the current hammer spin. Let down + jump do a hammer jump and let it have that boosted spring mechanic...

As I'm writing this, I've decided against it. I still like how Amy plays in Advance, but this is probably for the best if they have to include Amy. My main issue is still with the change in characterisation. Amy doesn't need to be powerful and fight enemies to be a valuable character.

 

I think a lot of people knew Amy likely wouldn't be her Advance moveset, by virtue of how much extra programming that would require.

An alternative that is more uniform with the other characters makes sense, the problem is that it doesn't seem very innovative. She's Sonic with a double jump (so basically his lightning shield/Blast incarnation) and a bigger spin hit box. In fact abiding by some rumours her hammer attack is activated in a similar way as the Drop Dash, Amy sounds concerningly like just a better more OP clone of Sonic, which kinda comes off as hypocritical in terms of making her 'equal' with the others.

Knuckles has a similar core moveset as the other characters for examples but his signature strengths and physics differences make playing as him a totally different ballpark at times, converting Sonic's speedy approach to a slower more explorational one. Same for characters like Ray. Amy's new moveset by comparison sounds pretty derivative and less compelling.

It's worse for Origins because Amy was pretty much set up as the big centerpiece for the Plus DLC, which already seems pretty lacking considering its price. The ability to play the old games as a new character kinda loses interest if she doesn't really add anything new. Hell you can use cheats to give Sonic an electric shield to double jump throughout most of the games.