Seem like the 06' project for Gen has finally been dethroned. As someone that really wanted 06 to be good (and that think the game has some redeeming qualities), I gotta say this project is turning out damn impressive. When I first heard of it a few years ago I though it would just join the pile of promising fan projects that end up getting canned (It's VERY ambitious, which is never a good thing lol), but it reached such a point now I have 100% confidence in the team behind it. The day when I could enjoy 06 might actually come. What a time to be alive.
Right? At this point this and the 06 Generations project now have all the main stages in them, but this is obviously an improvement as it's not being shoehorned into the Generations engine. The only thing this doesn't have yet that 06 Generations does is the Adventure fields and honestly, who cares. This one also has Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, and Silver's gameplay figured out already. It's exciting seeing the core of this project is pretty much done, now the rest of it will be like alternate layouts for Silver and Shadow. I guess they still have to figure out bosses though (please fix the Sonic/Shadow Iblis fight it's so boring), and the town stage minigame things. I love the little details this adds, particularly with the partner characters. Now they follow you around sometimes, and there's less nonsensical teleporting (Like in White Acropolis after you play as Tails and go back to Sonic, in the original 06 Sonic just teleported back to Tails, in this one they make use of an unused tunnel that actually connects the two sections).
Finally played P-06, and god, it's really polished and very fun. I know I've always loved this project, but I'm so glad it's 'complete' now. The stop-and-go doesn't bother me too much and in fact, it's faster than Heroes (where it gets a bit annoying esp with Team Dark), and this project shows how 06's level design was a natural mix of Heroes and SA1's. However, I must add that I'm very familiar with the original and maybe that's why I always knew where to go, and how to move the camera to get there. But man, the tweaks and the refinement added to this project are soooo great. In terms of feedback, I guess I wish Flame Core was a bit brighter, and that there was a way to turn off the unnecessary lives system though. If this was an official product and released as just this collection of 9 stages (released today or in 2006), I'd have genuinely loved it. (maybe not worth 60 dollars but more worth than a particular 40 dollar game). Definitely recommend taking the time to play it!
I don't think there's enough content to sell this as is for even $40. I think they'd have to complete at least Shadow and Silver's stories and the bosses, but maybe just having cutscenes in between levels instead of the Adventure fields would be enough. Also the town missions could almost certainly be cut.
Is it out for Mac? I seem to recall the creator saying he planned a Mac release at some point. Even if I can't, I just gotta say that I absolutely love the videos I've seen. ChaosX has done an impeccable job!
This is impressive as fuck, and the snowboarding in white acropolis still suuuuucks. No layer of polish can fix that.
That's the inherent limit of porting 06, you can't account for straight-up shitty level design, or level design built with 06's bad controls in mind.
Just tried the latest demo. It's pretty impressive for what it is - a more polished port of Sonic '06. Even better considering that it's fanmade. It'd take more than tweaks and extra polish to turn that game into something enjoyable IMO, but I guess control and character overhauls are beyond the project's scope, which is fair enough. That said, is it just me or does the snowboard control worse than before? I'm having more difficulty navigating the first section of Crisis City than in the original. On the flip side, every other area seems to have improved. There are far less glitches, it has a better framerate, and many of the annoyances are gone or have been made less aggravating.
Yeaaaa that section is a mess, def not a fan. But they added an accelerate button to get you jump started when you're at a complete stop, so that's cool, even if that bandaid isn't perfect either (that jump system is just not worth replicating, they'd be better off trying to replicate Generations' snowboard physics)
I have really mixed, complex feelings about P-06, LOL. On one hand it's super impressive as it stands and it improves a lot of things about it. On the other, it's still got many of the same warts of the original. The physics are definitely better and work as intended, like the Spindash/roll accelerating down slopes or the HA being fun for once, but steering is still squirrely and collision still as clunky as ever. The level design has some nice QOL changes and fleshed out areas, but it retains a lot of it's heavy automation and pointless pits (looking at Wave Ocean's shallow water). And while the stages and UI have gotten a very clean makeover, the models are still those same old ugly designs and mixed-bag animations.. It's still Sonic 06 at the end of the day (which was the point, so fair), and I can't say it's the most enjoyable game in the world. But for what it is I can accept it as a fun enough title. 06 has been bumped up from a 2/10 to a 5/10, and I guess that's good enough. Super impressive all the same, cuz ChaosX really has gone all out in replicating the experience.. like to the extent that it's almost scary how accurate it is at times.
I have to second on the steering. More often than not, I found in the last demo that Sonic will slip off of platforms after I land on them. I haven't had the chance to play Demo 3 yet, so maybe it might be better compared to 2.5, but it's what's stopping me from really enjoying it right now.
I love how satisfying spindashing is in this game. And it works like the slide too, so you can just roll under the lasers in Aquatic Base which, you know, MAKES SENSE. And while they are using the original models, they're making use of a ton of scrapped animations to make the game look less clunky. Hell sometimes I don't hate the models in 06 now because everything seems so much smoother. I'd maybe bump this up to like a 6.5 or so, and I'm sure things will only improve. The core is set (Sonic, Silver, Tails, and Knuckles and all the action stages are pretty much set), now for the rest.
Does this require a high end laptop? I tried playing it earlier through steam so I could use my Switch Pro Controller and it was laggy. Edit : It's because I tried running it through Steam tbh, I just tried launching without it and it ran fine. Guess I'll have to find one of my Xbox 360 controllers later.
Man, this controls like shit lmao. Props to the team but moving Sonic around is just ass like the original.
What timing, they just released demo 3.5 which is essentially just a giant patch. I've updated the top post with the details.
Finally got around to trying this one myself. Played through most of the levels, skipping Flame Core, Tropical Jungle, and Aquatic Base. Enjoyed myself much more than you'd expect, playing '06. I know that the X-Button to push yourself forward on the snowboard was added to this game, but were you always able to use the Bounce ability in a Mach Speed segment? I never see anybody do that, and even saw MegaGWolf hurtling himself through the air out of control, when it makes a perfect sort of brake to control your landings after a jump. Made it though Kingdom Valley's Mach Speed segment first try, and I'd never played it before either through this or through the original. (I'd compare against the original, but my 360 has a broken power cord, and it happened before I could get around to playing my copy of the original. I guess my system committed suicide rather than let me play through the original game as some sort of attempt at mercy?)
I want to say no. This version adds ways to slow down in mach speed sections and I don't think that was possible in the original (plus hitting things no longer necessarily means instant death, there's some bounce back and slow down allowing you to readjust)
Technically, it still does mean instant death in the Crisis City mach speed section, if only because the bounce back and slow down gives the tornado enough time to get you. But overall I really enjoyed this demo, and like SuperSnoopy said, I actually have confidence that this will be seen through to completion now, if only because so much work has been done on this that it'd be a waste to stop now.
