Sonic X Shadow Generations announced, releases Autumn 2024

This is what I hate about Modern gaming and social trolls. You've only had decades to buy the game and now suddenly when a game is going to be delisted, you care about it?

 

It's good to know we can always count on you to show up hours late to a thread and still have no idea what you're talking about. Charming, really.

 

If we start speaking outside of the "1st world"/english speaking audience it becomes evident how hard and inaccessible everything is.
Also as mentioned before, time, unexpected events, new audience, social and online literacy, etc.; All of these factors are hard to navigate, putting the game behind arbitrary barriers to acquire makes it worse, there's a reason Sega is doing it, even if it's the best of bad case scenarios.

 

I personally wouldn't count it as a win for preservation even if they did keep it listed alongside SXSgens, it's still on a digital storefront after all. The reason I'd argue for keeping it listed is for it to remain easily accessible if someone wants to play it, for mods or other reasons. There's no reason other than a monetary one to delist the original entirely. Yes, ideally it would be bundled with the new version but I'd take the compromise apposed to them nuking it.

Yeah, this is a Sonic forum, pretty sure most of us that would want to buy generations already have, but that's missing the point. There's a non zero chance that someone in the future wants to check out some old mods. Telling them that they had a decade to download it when they hypothetically didn't know what a Sonic was during that decade is pretty mean. There's no reason to be against keeping the original listed, and it's a perfectly valid concern that companies often don't think about preservation and keeping games playable.

Suddenly caring about a game being delisted... when it's being delisted.... That's just how that works. When else am I supposed to worry about it being delisted?

I wouldn't be worrying about it being delisted if it wasn't potentially being delisted.

 

I don't know what you mean by "all the god damn time", but I was aggressive in my recent posts because of the flippant responses I got.

 

People have had years to buy Sonic Generations and gaming is a hobby that makes a difference to when you are born ... Try getting hold of a Pal Mega CD Snatcher or Pal Panzer Dragoon Saga for a decent price, both titles I got from Gameplay for less than £35 each brand new. That's part of the joy of

Surely if one cared so much for the game they would have already brought it.

And like I said even if a game isn't delisted doesn't help matters . Try getting some of Pal Mega CD games on the cheap if you're a young gamer just getting into the Mega CD, same for goes for SEGA Saturn stuff.

Also, look at Revenge Of Shinobi . Us old lot who got the game on launch enjoyed the likes of Spiderman bosses, younger gamers missed out on that when SEGA changed the sprites with the newer versions of Revenge.

 

I think you missed part of the post you're responding to, because this is missing the point completely.

 

The point I can't get my head around is that OG Generations isn't even being delisted. It's only being moved aside so that the new, more relevant version can be put front and centre. Anybody who wants to access the old version specifically will able to do so.

 

The argument that preservation was bad for games in the past so it has to continue to be bad baffles me. Hell like part of the reason I care about games being preserved and remaining accessible is because there's so many games from before I was born that I will never get a chance to play. Why should we be content with the shitty world we live in and never try to make it better. Is there any actual reason why OGgens should be delisted that isn't from the point of view of a business executive?

 

It's unknown if this bundle allows decade old mods to work if it's not released yet. Let's wait and see, shall we?

 

I saw a modder say a little while back that mods relying on code injection probably won't work but mods that don't should be fairly easy to get working in the remaster.

To my understanding a good chunk of Generations modders were planning to stick to the original anyway because of Denuvo and how easy it is to mod the original version, and since the original version isn't being delisted and will still be legally available I expect that version to remain the preferred one for mods. My guess is that most of the mods for SxSG will be for the Shadow side.

 

By the way, this legacy collection feels really random? Like there doesn't seem to be any rules to it. If it's meant to be games that are 10+ years old... Then where's Lost World, not to mention all the All Stars Racing games? It just kind of seems like they want to push you into spending $60 to get the original Gens, so they just tossed in whatever, everyone likes the Adventure games and they're like $10 so there you go, and then a bunch of games no one buys but it'll get that price tag up along with sales of those games. If it were my choice I think the smart and sensible decision would be to put all the games they delisted in favour of remasters, so Sonic 1, 2, 3K, CD 2011, and Gens. I imagine they'll do this for future remasters, but right now it's just kind of weird.

 

It's literally the same old game just is part of a bundle instead of having it's own store page, it will not be modified or a be a "new" version

Not to mention they explicitly said that mods will still be supported for the old version, imagine the bad press if this was not the case

 

If you can complain about it online right now you could have bought the game or had mum or dad. It's not like babies can post on forums or social Media

 

This is hopeless.

 

Okay, let's see if we can get everything in order since it's all done now and doesn't need to come up again:

• Preservation of the original game is important for historical purposes, but assuming SEGA hasn't completely fucked the new version, there is not a ton that it offers to unmodded players that the remaster doesn't. Unless those Chao are covering up a lot of well-made practical effects, it's really not like Lucas's Star Wars special editions.
  
• The game is not any more or less "preserved" now than it was before, it's just a slightly less convenient acquisition method.
• "Preservation", itself, probably shouldn't be defined by current digital store accessibility. There are plenty of Sonic games you can play right now that would be lost media by that standard. It's not like Runners, where the game could have disappeared forever had dedicated programmers not invented a server emulator (and to my knowledge, that game still isn't safe, because I don't think you can run your own server yet).
• In the longrun, actual preservation of most media will necessarily require legislative protections for piracy.
  
• The $200 solution from before was stupid and nobody would have gone for it, but the $60 bundle is a decent compromise.
• It still would have been best to simply give every remaster purchase the option to download the original as well.
• All of this being said, it's still a shame, because the strength of OG Gens was in simplicity for modders, and any change in that game's visibility is going to have an impact on the modding community. Nothing would actually definitively kill it for good, but even as convenient as the $60 bundle looks now, the comment section of every mod is now going to be filled with kiddies asking which version it's for, and/or whether the mod can be ported to SxSOuToG.
• Additionally, this still sucks overall, since OG Gens was cheap and easy to buy, and now it isn't. Saying "you had your chance" is and always will be a dumb excuse, because everyone enters the Sonic fandom at a different time, and no matter how you slice it, this is an accessibility loss by its very nature.
• We need a community spray bottle for use on Andromeda

 

See there's a point to be made there because the Chao rescues were described to unlock new paths. And last time something like that happened it was with Colours Ultimate and the Jade Wisp. The new Jade Wisp areas replaced some red ring locations. It is a bit presumptuous of me to assume that the Chao paths will replace some red ring locations, but ultimately if it does then it changes how you are meant to explore these levels in a way not faithful to the original. I'm not saying it's a bad thing either I actually enjoyed the Jade Wisp red rings, but it does mean there is a reason to preserve and offer the original levels. Of course I could also just be wrong and the Chaos are instead on said new paths and the only thing to find there is the new Chao, but every screenshot we've seen of the Chaos have been on the original level terrain.

 

Any chance we'll get to see Shadow's White World in action at Gamescom? Seeing it properly might give us some kind of hint regarding Shadow Gens' amount of content

 

I did forget about those -- we'll have to wait and see what they actually look like, since we haven't got footage or screens of a single one. I have to imagine whatever they are is pretty vestigial.

Not that this justifies the official decision, but that is the sort of thing that probably will get modded if they're significant at all; even Colors Ultimate had its new paths removed, and whatever mods this game gets will probably be more than Ultimate did by way of not needing something like Re-Rainbow as a prerequisite.

 

Clearly I didn't make this point very well, because lots of people are taking are issue with it. I meant to make this point only in relation to people who sounded as though they were being personally put out by this change and that they specifically had no right to complain after 13 years.

Either way though, I don't agree that this is significant accessibility loss. It's a change, and I'll be surprised if it it has any affect at all apart from people wanting to access mods. If you want mod access, you can be be directed to access to access the direct version of Generations on Steam too. I think we're making mountains out of molehills.