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Sonic Origins Collection - General Thread

Discussion in 'General Sonic Discussion' started by HEDGESMFG, May 27, 2021.

  1. Deep Dive Devin

    Deep Dive Devin

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    ...The reason to have Whitehead and/or Thomley on a project is because of their groundbreaking work on Classic Sonic gameplay, which Chaotix mostly uses. If the game you're making is as different as SegaSonic Arcade, you may as well get anyone to do it who was up to the challenge.

    That being said, yeah Chaotix kinda just sucks. There are things you could and should do: making the tether physics only apply when the player wants them to and removing the random order to the stages would be a big help. But it can't mask the fact that those stages themselves are tiny, shallow and damn near empty a lot of the time. Maybe you could get more out of them by merging multiple acts together? There's certainly no reason to have five of the damn things per zone. But nothing is going to make Amazing Arena interesting to travel through except redesigning Amazing Arena. And also getting rid of the horrible "you lose the level if you can't find one specific switch and its full of point-of-no-return traps" gimmick.

    3D Blast is an easier solution. We don't need to keep the genesis's visual style, and frankly if they can't port the Saturn special stages I don't even care, the PC version's are better anyway. All we really need is the ability to switch between soundtracks. Port Burton's improvements and add a No Flickies Mode for good measure, and there you go. Again, not making it into an amazing game, but certainly more tolerable.

    That's generally what I think when we talk about remasters and rereleases of Sonic games that aren't that good. You can't usually delete their problems on the fly, but the things that are good about them can speak for themselves a lot better if you smooth out the big roadblocks into something tolerable.
     
  2. Cooljerk

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    i would say Chaotix really DOESN'T use most of the stuff from classic sonic that matters. Chaotix really doesn't play very much like the old games at all, at least the physics part which people care about. Rolling in Chaotix doesn't gain you speed. Rolling in Chaotix is pretty much useless in fact. You can't hug walls or curves and roll down them. If you jump into a curved slope and try to troll down it, it'll force you into standing up. You gain infinite momentum if you just hold right, regardless of terrain or angle. It actually feels like gravity isn't really taken into account into momentum at all when it comes to chaotix. Chaotix looks like a classic sonic game, but it doesn't really play like one outside of being able to run and having some (but not all) the slopes that old sonic games have (albeit they work completely differently).

    Stealth's big deal was the his new collision detection technology and how it was supposed to use vectors to eliminate running through walls and improve consistent physics interactions, rigtht? Well the way Knuckles Chaotix originally worked, none of that is really needed. The game isn't built in a way where those things happen or are played with.

    Now, a remake that DID make it play like a classic sonic game, with classic physics, that would probably be cool. But it would be very different from the original Knuckles Chaotix. It would be more like a complete reinterpretation of Chaotix than a port at that point.

    I actually don't think you could even change the level progression structure of Chaotix. I made a topic a long while ago about how bizarre the level layouts in Chaotix are, and the thing that strikes me is that for many, many, maaaaaany acts of the game, they are just revisions of the same stage. I don't know if it was supposed to be tied into the day system or if it was just they ran out of time, but if you go through the game iterating through the acts one by one, it becomes incredibly noticeable. You feel like you're replaying the same stages 3, sometimes 4 times in a row, with only super tiny changes to a few chunks. I honestly believe the random level order is meant to hide this fact.
     
    Last edited: Jan 24, 2025
  3. HEDGESMFG

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    You take that blasphemy and stick it where the sun don't shine! The PC stages aren't worth remembering at all, nor are the Genesis ones, honestly.

    The ideal restoration of 3D Blast would be the an enhanced port of Jon Burton's Director's Cut version with Saturn's visuals, special stages, and the option to switch music. I 'suppose' if I were to be generous, you could enable an option that lets you choose your special stage type...
     
  4. Deep Dive Devin

    Deep Dive Devin

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    I legit think something must have distracted me earlier, I'm not even sure I meant to type that about the special stages. I've never played the Saturn ones. I might have chopped two sentences together and not noticed? I think I just meant that the PC version is better than the Genesis, or perhaps that it's just fine, as someone who generally dislikes basically all Special Stages.

    Anyway, now I'm redownloading Chaotix to see if that thing about the stages is really true. If it is...well, I'd still advocate for letting the player do them in linear order. Repetitive is better than disorienting, which is what the spinning wheel thing provides. Also, I'm not sure if "It sucks though" is really an argument against it fitting the Classic mold. I think all the 8-bit games still count as Classic Sonic, even though none of them feel even as close to the original quadrilogy as Chaotix does. I still want an Evening Star take on Sonic 4.
     
  5. Chimpo

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    Gamer credibility was in serious danger after that statement.
     
  6. Cooljerk

    Cooljerk

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    Personally I like that one hack someone did where you don't need to collect flickies more than Burton's director's cut. His director's cut doesn't address the main flaw with 3D blast: the flickies.

    what is this doubt? It is and you can verify right here:

    https://info.sonicretro.org/Chaotix/Maps

    You can just LOOK at them and see what I'm talking about. Like Botanic Base, act 2 seems to be an edit of act 1, and then acts 3, 4, and 5 are all slight edits of each other. Look at Speed Slider, they're all built around that big roller coaster that goes from the top left to the bottom right of the stage with the big spinny pole thing in the middle that rises the platform, with each stage just adding more and more platforms on top of the previous. Some of the levels, this is supposed to be *noticeable*, like it's the entire point of the stage motif, like Techno Tower, which slowly builds the tower on the left over the acts.

    Also, in case what I wrote isn't clear, Knuckles Chaotix share more in common with Sonic 4's physics than classic sonic's. There's a reason people don't lump Sonic 4 in with classic sonic but they do Sonic Mania.
     
    Last edited: Jan 24, 2025
  7. Deep Dive Devin

    Deep Dive Devin

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    Okay I abandoned that attempt to replay Chaotix again on account of it sucking. I just looked at our maps page instead, and my main conclusion is that it's not so much that some acts are copies of others as every single level in this game is completely vapid in the exact same way. It's all just curves and vertical shafts. The only place where I see a direct connection is in Techno Tower, where the bones of the acts are all the same outline, but I'd still say the issue is that nothing you actually do in these acts is interesting, not just that there's too little variance.

    EDIT:

    I don't know if I just wrote my post before seeing yours or you edited this back in after I posted, but my point still remains that I don't think this is actually what the main problem with the design is, nor do I think the randomization helps it. It's actually a great argument in favor of merging elements of acts together though, like I said.

    I'm not chasing the opinion of the crowd, I'm saying it has more in common with the classic games than others, regardless of what a vaguely-defined "people" say (and for the record, "people" absolutely treat Chaotix like a classic Sonic game). Sonic 4 fails to feel like a Classic Sonic game in more ways than just its physics being bad (some of which Chaotix does not fail at), and they don't feel like Chaotix either way.
     
    Last edited: Jan 24, 2025
  8. Cooljerk

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    They are copies of each other. They're not just similarly empty vapid levels, they have the same paths. You can look at one act and figure out which one was the starting point and which ones are edits. They feaure the same landmarks across multiple acts, with slight changes as they progress.

    Look at botanic base act 3, notice the long vertical shaft on the far right of the screen? Look at botanic base act 4, it's still there, just SLIGHTLY taller. Same spot, same position. Look at Botanic base act 1, and botanic base act 3, and note the ring in the middle of the map in the little closed off section. It's the same spot, just with slightly different reordered platforms. Look at the underground interior section of Botanic Base acts 3, 4, and 5 at the bottom of the map, they are identical without ANY changes. Look at the starting spots for multiple maps, notice how you are starting in the same spot in most of them? Look at Amazing Arena act 1, 4, and 5, which are all based on each other. You see the same 4 small rooms at the top of the map. Of the 4 rooms, look at the ramp under it the one on the right, it's the same in all those acts. Look at the projector room under that ramp, it's in the same spot in all those acts. Look at the projector to the left of that spot, they're all in the same position. Look at the long vertical shaft in Amazing Arena acts 1 and 4 that lead to the bottom of the projector, it's there in both acts just reconfigured in act 4. Look at the spot where the big tall screw pole thing is in Speed Slider Zone, it's in the exact same spot in all acts, and the rollercoaster runs through it.

    They're not "similar" because they're "empty," they're "similar" because they feature the same landmarks in the same spots with generally the same basic corridors leading to them, with only the individual terrain blocks changed and shifted around slightly. They're edits of each other, very visibly so. Take your finger and start drawing a path through these levels, and you'll see yourself going in the same maze-like pattern in the same general direction across multiple acts. They are about as different from each other as the different time zones in sonic CD, which is exactly what I think they originally were. They don't feel like different acts, they feel like the same act at different times of the day.
     
    Last edited: Jan 24, 2025
  9. Deep Dive Devin

    Deep Dive Devin

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    Some of them, maybe, other times that seems like a bit of a stretch. I don't know why you're jerking this specific point so hard, because it wouldn't matter nearly as much if they weren't all boring anyway. Individual acts within a zone could be as radically different from one another as the entire zones are from each other, and it wouldn't help the fact that every zone already feels identical either way, outside of horseshit like that thing in Amazing Arena. They might as well all be copied from one template, given the template of the exact same switchback loops and platforms to spring up to repeats across the entire game, regardless of which acts may or may not be provably edited from one another.
     
  10. Cooljerk

    Cooljerk

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    I'm jerking it so hard because you're telling me not to believe my lying eyes. It's not a stretch at all, it's pretty obvious. Instead of, you know, actually looking, you went *DOUBT* before you even checked. Don't do that.
     
  11. Deep Dive Devin

    Deep Dive Devin

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    I'm not telling you to believe anything you fucking weirdo. What the hell are you even talking about? I said I wasn't sure what I believed, and then I DID go and check. How does that somehow constitute me calling you a liar or whatever? And I think some of it is, maybe some of it isn't. What do you care whether I just take you as 100% indisputably correct in a debate I keep trying to change the subject away from because I don't even care? It has no actual relevance to the thing we were talking about before, the thing I'd rather still be talking about right now.
     
    Last edited: Jan 24, 2025
  12. President Zippy

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    Dynamically reloading shaders and assets is such a simple trick, but it's so freakin' cool being able to completely alter the look of an environment with the press of a button. Always feels like switching between light and dark worlds in A Link to the Past, no matter how many times I do it.

    I would pay for some expanded DLC to get all the games under emulation. At that point, it ceases to be Sonic Origins and becomes:
    Sonic: The First 5 Years

    No longer a compilation, but an anthology... Like a full-on David Bowie anthology with embossed vinyl sleeves.
     
  13. I feel like Gamemode One's Sonic Minecraft add-ons have a neat classic-style moveset for Amy.
     
  14. ndiddy

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    Wow, I never noticed that so I guess the stage randomization successfully hid it. IMO Chaotix needs serious rework to make it into a fun game. The tutorial levels with Knuckles and Espio have a bunch of really good ideas for how to make Chaotix gameplay fun and interesting, but they all get thrown out for the actual stages. Anyone working on a Chaotix remaster would have to throw out all the existing level layouts and make new ones to get a fun game.
     
  15. E-122-Psi

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    Didn't Director's Cut have a time attack option for each stage where you didn't have to collect Flickies? That was SOMETHING I guess. (Really though I don't mind the Sonic/Flicky gameplay merge.)

    Really I'd place Director's Cut above all versions simply for having SOME form of post-game content and a reward system via Super Sonic, even if it could have used a save function rather than password. That and the physics are just all around less wonky.

    Director's Cut with Megadrive/Saturn toggle and a save system added sounds like a fairly solid game. Maybe add the odd extra like Tails or Knuckles playable if you wanna get ambitious.

    And yeah Chaotix's level layouts are pretty damn repetitive, forward slope upward, backward slope upward, over and over. I'd argue the lack of gimmicks all around kinda play into that as well, even basics like loops and water are absent, but it definitely feels like the layouts are all following a very similar pattern.

    Again, you'd need an 'Encore Mode' or something added to really fine tune Chaotix's worst qualities.
     
    Last edited: Jan 24, 2025
  16. shilz

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    My ideal form for 3d blast was always just a super customizable version of the game. I used to imagine a 3ds version that let you swap out both graphics and soundtracks and special stages as well but why would anyone want anything other than the Genesis ones

    Idk what to even do about Chaotix at this point. I don't want a remake of it with the same graphics for the same reasons I don't want a remake of any of the first 4 with the same graphics, and we all know how that went, but where would you even put an emulation of it?
    the only other thing I'd hope for it would have been a DLC pack inspired by it for Sonic Superstars but that also doesn't seem likely.
     
  17. sayonararobocop

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    I think adding a Chaotix Mode to Sonic Origins, allowing you to use the rubber-band physics, could have been something fun and would have made more sense than including Chaotix.