So, I know no one cares and it's a huge waste of money, but... what's going on with the Pix n' Love Collector's Edition? After months of delays it's finally showing "in-stock", but my order from (checks notes) September has yet to ship.
Yup... It's... well... It's far from the worst collectors edition I've bought, but... light years away from the best =/ The biggest problem with it, is the art book, if it were the first ever Sonic art book, it'd be fantastic! Hard cover, loads of pages, huge range of material. The problem, is that none of it is 'new', it's stuff that we've seen in countless books before and there isn't one subject that really goes into a lot of depth, it's like "Here is the page about X, now the page about Y, Now Z....", there's also a huge lack of annotations or any additional detail as to what we're looking at. At the most you get something like "The concept art for Knuckles" or "Cover artwork for Sonic 2" and... that's about it! The other stuff you get is a bit "What do I do with this?" one of the items is basically a table mat for hot plates, which... well... it's different but... I can't really do anything with it, there's no stand so if you want it on display, you have to rig something up. The art cards are... existing. It's literally just an "OK" effort, maybe if you don't have any of the other big Sonic artbooks, you could use this as a psudo autograph book like I know many people do, but since it's only Classic era focused, it's a tad odd to ask for comic writers autographs when it has no information on them, let alone anything 3D era related. And no, there's nothing new about R2 or even artwork of the 'city' from Origins' ending.
Still waiting for mine to arrive, but yes from what I've seen I have to agree. Still glad I got it, though. One nice surprise is the whole thing seems to be a lot larger than I imagined from the preview pics.
Apparently I also pre-ordered this Collector's Edition. I'd completely forgotten and honestly would have said I didn't bother if you'd asked me. It's... Yeah, no. It's a nicely presented box of nothing.
Weird to do announce a collector's edition 3 months after the game is out and then ship it almost a full year later.
All this time later and I still think Origins was fine. Not great, should be better, but fine. Getting the mobile remasters officially ported is enough for me still, tbh, it just shouldnt have been as expensive as it was
I am still waiting for the first great Sonic art book. To be fair, when they announced it, I wasn't expecting anything more than a physical representation of the images in the museum. And that seems to be it? Which...fair. But those images in the museum weren't presented in the best way to begin with. I'd written about my disappointment in the extra's presentation on the front page of Retro prior to the release of Plus, and while I didn't expect much to change with the physical release, I was hoping they might add a few things, or even a few sentences to explain some of the random images. They did not. If they didn't bother with the update, I wasn't expecting the book to be much more, though you'd think maybe I would since Pix n Love were responsible for the History of Sonic book back in 2011 (though even that book isn't perfect). I mean, there isn't even an introductory essay in this art book! So strange. I guess I'm also still waiting for the truly great Sonic the Hedgehog collection, too.
It's frequently around $20 on amazon these days, saw it go as low as $5 once. After all the patches (no more blur, option for mono game gear sound, etc.), I think it's a fine collection. How I'll play the games on console now. But the collector's edition is just baffling. I'm glad to have it, but after all this time it's like... why?
Honestly with Ultrafix and mods to replace the OST with higher quality sounds, Origins is my go to way for replaying the classics now. It's easy to recommend to other people as well as long as they're able to play the Steam version.
I also love the decomps on PC. That's how I mainly play the classics on the computer; Origins on Steam only makes sense if you want mods, achievements, and a playtime/hour count to log, I think. (Which can be appealing; I have double-dipped on some games via Steam for achievement hunting.) The Switch version is what I bought, so I can have all of these remasters on-the-go in one package. I missed out on my chance to buy the original Sonic CD remaster for Android, and Sonic 1 + 2 seem to have aspect ratio stretching issues I can't resolve on my newer phone. This gives Origins a lot of value for me in its portability; I'm happy with the collection as-is. (Warts and all.)
This is almost certainly because they don't know what to say. Well okay, chances are they were never going to bother because that takes effort, but there isn't some unifying main Sonic artist for the first five years of the franchise - the people behind the box art were different to those making the in-game graphics, who in turn differed between 1/2/3/CD, and none of them were directly involved in Origins' production. So there's a bunch of people in Sega of Japan or America that have access to bits of artwork, no context, and no easy means of communicating with the original authors... if they even know who the authors are - I bet Sonic Retro is one of their main sources of knowledge.
There also isn't much text in the artbook because this is a French release (the game box is French) that they wanted to appeal internationally.
"It takes effort" makes sense me. "They don't know what to say" doesn't. Like I said before, it's made by a company that has already written a book about the history of Sonic the Hedgehog. They could have been extremely lazy and copy/pasted some text from that if they wanted to. They didn't have to sit down and do some in-depth interview with every artist who worked on the game (though that would be the coolest), they could have simply credited who drew what. Someone should know, somewhere. Even if all they did was go online and say "oh yeah Greg Martin drew this American cover." But Origins is odd in that manner because in the game museum, the English version doesn't have credits for the IDW covers - but the Japanese version does. Like. What. Even without access to the original artists, they could have done something slightly more with that book. Track down a historian and ask them to write about Sonic the Hedgehog as a concept, why the original game was such a big deal, how Sonic 2 was a cultural touchstone for so many. This makes sense, unfortunately. The original History of Sonic book was published in French first, then had an English translation. It costs money to translate, especially a whole book's worth. Even an essay just talking about the importance of Sonic in the 16-bit era would, if it was originally written in French, need to be translated. Suddenly, you have multiple versions of the same special edition. Do you just stop with French and English? Do you translate it in Spanish, German, Italian? They might not have had the budget to allow that. So. Yeah, I guess.
Apologies for needlessly bumping this thread, but I recently purchased a physical copy on PS5 thank to a cheap listing on Ebay, and I wanted to share my thoughts. Hot take? Sonic CD is a terrible Sonic game, but an AMAZING Knuckles game, and Origins finally made me realize that. Replace the Metal Sonic projectors and Robot generators with emerald shard hunting, and its essentially the same thing minus a proper radar. EXCEPT ORIGINS GIVES YOU NO REASON TO DO ANY OF THAT! Remember all those 2011 Sonic CD achievements? Or the Mobile ports? I had all 3 on my phone during their release and was able to squeeze out all of them over time, but Origins failed in being a completionist challenge in any degree. Even after getting the platinum, I had yet to fully finish a Classic playthrough, nor a Mirror mode run (I stopped at Labrynth 3 because there still isn't any rings after the final checkpoint!) Boss rush was a challenge I didn't even bother with, as some of the changes to the bosses compared to the 16-bit originals made me hate retrying attempts, especially since I was so used to i-frame damage boost through most fights. The lack of starting rings unlike the Sonic 2 Mobile port really frustrated me to the point of seeing no point in the endeavor. Then there is Amy. I have a weird love/hate thing going on with her. Maybe it's because I was expecting more prior to release since I got back into Sonic during the Advance era and enjoyed her portrayal in those games, or maybe it's because I played Superstars before this, where I also did a solo Amy run on my first playthrough (so I really REALLY missed the double-jump). Regardless, I grew to adapt and love this iteration just as well, and enjoyed the hammer-drop jank it brought. I played through S1-2-3 with her, and enjoyed being able to hit enemies I would have had difficulties with before (Except when insta-shield was enabled as Sonic on mobile) Waiting to play this seems to have turned out in my favor, as most major bugs appear to have been patched since launch, but it never prompted that I could be Super Amy in S2/3, plus the lack of Mania's transform button on triangle prompt, I never knew I could transform at all until I accidentally pressed it during Ice Cap 1 after the first big ring. Honestly was frustrated at that, did I miss a pop-up at some point when mashing buttons?? I was also one of those idiots who didn't know Story Mode was a thing until beating all 4 games, so that was an extra playthrough (Though I don't think it was required of me in the achievements?). But sure, why not play through the entire series as Sonic again? I kinda like how Tails joins you half way through per the cinematic, but I wish that narrative story telling was also worked into the mechanics. Sure, I love having the spin and drop dash, but I sorta wish the mode had you start as base S1 Sonic, no spindash or any future abilities. Then once you get to CD, you would have its spindash & the super peelout. Then Sonic 2 gives you the final spindash along with Tails, while also keeping the peelout so its purely additive regarding abilities (Ideally this would then also unlock those abilities to be applied in other games per the players choice.) Then Sonic 3 has the insta-shield, and beating the story would then unlock the drop-dash thanks to the musical cue in the ending's cutscene. Talking in regards to fan patches, I highly await trying out the Ultrafix mod for PC Origins (New update coming in the Hacking Content, so I eagerly await that). Talking Amy though, I am one of those type of people who latches onto "official" move-sets whenever possible. We now have two official move-sets for Classic Amy, and I would love to see them somehow combined into one (While offering options to select what option the player prefers). I like Superstar's double-jump ability, but wish Amy didn't swing her hammer on the first jump, instead only coming out on the second jump input like the rest of the cast. Meanwhile Origins lacks any such double-jump ability that I grew to abuse in Superstars. My solution to this would be to use Superstars' actions while holding Up, and Origins' actions if up is not held. This way you can still single-jump while swinging your hammer like Superstars for that extended hotbox, or use the double-jump insta-shield style like Origins how I tended to play. As for the rest of the package? I felt it was hit or miss. The "Surprise" puzzle was neat in concept, mixing Smash Brawl styled missions unlocks with Street Pass picture building, but why only the one picture? It was done before even getting started. The missions have the same problem, introducing a neat concept for a mission structure, only to use most of them ONLY ONCE!? Meanwhile that terrible Sky Chase mission got harder version? That shit sucked! They could have easily implemented some basic game design if they had more time, introduced ideas in an easy mission, and slowly increase the challenges through iterative change. Nah, but here have 3 Extra missions just because you bought the special version. Can't forget the Game Gear games with their lacking sound emulation and more lacking reason for me to play them. (Start isn't even mapped to start!?) And yada-yada Master System better, but still, the mob ain't wrong here. I'm also slightly shocked that there was no such modern day lock-on technology/cross-comparability attempt within all retro-engine games, making Amy playable in Mania and Mighty & Ray in Origins. The marketing writes itself! I'm sure eventually modders will port both sets of characters into each game, though a version of Amy already existing for Mania, and Mighty and Ray in S3AIR (Not the same, but still). Then you could do a full Sonic story mode across all 5 titles. Honestly? What I want at the end of the day is an easy, convenient way to play all my favorite Sonic games in one place. If a team wants to get snazzy and do something insane, I'd like to see someone integrate Mania into the Origins "Hedgehog Engine 2" package, and retro-fit all of Mania's features (CRT video options anyone?) for all of the retro-engine games. Normalize the feature-set while you're at it too! Make the CD spindash/camera a global toggle, techo-magic some emulators to replace that awful Classic Mode (with Spinball, 3D Blast, and Chaotix added in too), de-couple Tails from stock 2 Player mode, while integrating the Encore Mode's partner mechanics so anyone can team together ala Superstars, more techo-magic to make ALL stages playable in a Mania styled 4P versus mode with all 6 characters playable, fix up some better Game Gear emulators and swap out for Master System roms where applicable, and wrap the 5 game journey up in a character selectable Story Mode to complete the package. Could You IMAGINE!? The only thing that would top this fantasy is a retro engine Chaotix remaster, but then I'd be asking for the same thing again, and then someone would have to model Newtrogic High Zone because of me. But after all is said and done... It was alright. Using Amy was a fun enough excuse to play though Sonic 1-3 again. And I finally learned to enjoy CD for what it is thanks to a character finally able to traverse most of these levels without headache. I might go back and do Mirror mode for the heck of it at some point, but I have no reason to play Classic mode as is, and no intent to play the Boss Rush.
I literally just bought Origins and it is my first time playing it (at this very moment). I am sure this has been mentioned, but the insta-shield in Sonic 2 seems wonky as fuck. I entered the level select code at the title screen so that I could enable the elemental shields in Sonic 2. I am not sure if the insta-shield is enabled by default but it acts maybe differently than in Sonic 3?? It feels off. It seems like I gain a miniscule amount of extra height during a jump when activating the insta-shield (or perhaps that is my mind playing tricks on me). Is there a way to disable the insta-shield while keeping the drop dash?
