Sonic Origins Collection - General Thread

I've said this several before, but I would absolutely pay 20 dollars for another DLC if it meant getting SegaSonic/Spinball/Mean Bean/Fighters/Chaotix/3D/R, along with the kinds of fixes the Ultrafix mod adds, and rings in the final bosses. Bonus points if you expand the screen size and add rings to the bosses in the 8-bit games and give me more inventory space in Tails Adventure. This collection isn't as far off from being the definitive Sonic collection as online opinions may suggest.

 

Origins is often judged by its initial release, which did deserve lambasting, but it really is a solid retro collection. I’d argue all it REALLY needs to be definitive is Spinball and 3D Blast, and those aren’t even that great anyway.

I think some fans should appreciate the actual scope of work done to get Origins done, even if most of that work was done for the mobile ports. I really can’t think of any other retro compilation where they remade the games from the ground up with a new engine and widescreen.

 

That's funny, because Spinball and 3D are among the least-important of the missing games, I'd argue. Not just because they've had slightly more long-term exposure (until the Steam delisting, fuck you SEGA), but because SegaSonic, Chaotix, Fighters and I guess R are the games that actually introduce classic-era characters that, at least if SEGA is to be believed, will actually recur in new Classic Sonic material. That is my Honey bias talking a bit, but I don't consider Spinball and 3D so contextually or aesthetically relevant that they absolutely need to be there above the others, especially since Spinball 8-bit is in there already.

 

I mean they’re just more fitting because they’re SEGA Genesis games, not arcade games imo

 

At the very least I need Saturn 3D Blast for those sweet special stages.

 

I just want to clarify (to avoid confusion) that this means absolutely nothing; Steam is automatically hiding password-protected beta branches from any such visibility now, and it's been rolling out gradually.
There isn't even a setting in the Steam backend to toggle this, it's just how it's been changed to work globally.

 

Those two and Chaotix - I still find it pretty weird those three games are fairly prominently featured in Origins only to not actually be playable.

Chaotix isn't great but the fact that it's locked to Sega 32X hardware officially is a dismal fate for it.

 

It's like Chaotix is cursed to be referenced in Sonic collections without actually being included in them, with both Gems Collection and Origins.

At any rate, I found out there's a Sonic My Arcade coming with S1/S2/SCD/Spinball/3DBlast together post-Origins Plus. Interestingly still no S3&K (looks like Sega would need a damn good reason to also ROM hack MJ-less S3&K, if even that's on the table considering they just waited until they could remake it entirely to rerelease it and already spent the effort on that) but indeed SCD right after its successful emulation on the mini console, thus presumably with original voice clips and all. So seemingly it's a half-victory for future emulation rereleases.

Do the coloured Flickies of 3D Blast not count? They even returned for the 3D island model in Origins! And before Knuckles, even!

3D Blast I could see as important if only because its X-Treme replacement release and platformer nature may make people argue that it's actually a mainline entry, Wikipedia included. Though I'm not sure if they'd spring for any version other than the standard Genesis release.

Granted I don't personally particularly love any of the Genesis spin-offs to be too fussed about their exclusion (even Mean Bean Machine has that older PuyoPuyo control to it), it just loses a little something to no longer have their Game Gear counterparts be alongside them (even though that was never the case with Spinball, it seems).

Side note on Flickies, I only just now got that the Blue Flicky in S1's Origins intro is likely the same one that appears in S3&K's Origins outro. That Flicky was gunning for Eggman for a while.

 

Yeah, I feel like those two games, even just emulated, would have been a more befitting addition than the Game Gear entries. It's nice the latter are there, but they feel kinda shoehorned in, while at least the other 16 bit entries are referenced in the menus.

Really if they officially released Jon Burton's Sonic 3D DX, that would be the next best thing after a full remake.

I dunno, maybe they're holding out for a second compilation or something.

 

Maybe the Game Gear titles just didn't have the right islands? Like half just being South Island again?

I do wonder what the legalities would be in merely rereleasing a fan hack, they'd probably want to make it under their stable so there wasn't anything in there they didn't know about or such.

If they could figure out 32X/trackball emulation, I'm guessing a modern day Sonic Gems would consist of:

*Sonic 3D Blast (probably regular Genesis version)
*Sonic Spinball
*Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine
*Knuckles Chaotix
*Sonic Eraser (gotta be thorough)
*SegaSonic the Hedgehog
*Sonic the Fighters
*Sonic R

Whether that's substantive enough for an entire release or there are any other justifiable inclusions, I'm not sure. But there are some interesting hooks in there, at least.

 

I guess I consider Sonic 3D DX more viable since it's technically from the original developer, though I don't know if that makes it any more legal. Just because SEGA are lax on it doesn't mean they can actually distribute it.

Another compilation would definitely be made up of more niche titles than Origins, but they got enough there to make some sort of elusive package of rare treasures. Even more so if some of them are also full on remakes so can have some of their rough spots patched up a little.

They already have a polished remake of Sonic the Fighters handy and SORT OF do for R and 3D as well depending on whether the PC ports are still useable. 3D is admitedly a bit of a botch job, but you get a team to port the Saturn special stages properly and add the same tune ups as DX then you got a reasonably good title.

 

Sonic R got a more recent port to PS2 and GameCube through the Gems Collection. Dunno if it'd be easier to work with those or the original PC port, but it's definitely doable.

The Saturn version of 3D Blast feels like it's been purged from history by Sega. I imagine they would just throw the Genesis ROM in there and call it good as far as that game is concerned.

 

I think that's a port of the PC version that carried over its more modern compatibility issues, like a broken lighting system. Fans have been able to work wonders with a mod to make the PC version run on modern devices in HD and everything.

For what it's worth, they did remix You're My Hero from the Saturn/PC version in Generations. But an easier option for Sega is an easier option, like GG versions instead of messing around with MS stuff.

 

The problem with the remaining 7 classic-era games in their own collection isn't that there's not enough of them, it's that there's no strong classic-style platformers for the collection to center around. Gems barely scraped by with CD, but now that Origins has taken it, you're not getting a strong lineup no matter how many extraneous spinoffs you include. The best bet would be including a classic-style game from after the classic era itself. And I'm not gonna lie, the prospect of Mania getting in there and an opportunity to spit-shine Superstars is very appealing. Or hey, give Chris and Simon a place to remake Sonic 4!

 

I would buy such a collection in a heart beat. Especially to play SegaSonic the Hedgehog and Sonic R on modern platforms.

 

I agree that this is where the problem now lies. If games like Chaotix, R, 3D etc are to be bundled into a collection, they'd have to be the supporting acts. Even though such a collection might appeal to us, I don't think it would have the same wide reaching as any package containing the main Classic series. Origins missed a great opportunity to give relevancy the missing games.

 

Hence why I wish we'd get another DLC. Unless they did do something with the revival-Classic games, we're basically gonna be waiting another console generation before the next try, and that's assuming they're going to be using Origins as a foundation for future collections and not restarting from scratch, and that the Playstation 6 and Xbox Whatever aren't backwards-compatible to necessitate new releases in the first place.

I suppose, maybe if they wanted to do an "early 3D Sonic collection", they could feature the Adventure games, R, SegaSonic, Fighters and 3D Blast, with Spinball and Mean Bean as hangers-on? But that robs us of what would be far-and-away the more structurally-sensible idea of an Adventure collection of every pre-2007 game remastered, with the Advance and Rush games as the Plus DLC.

 

I thought whoever did the Amy sprites did a great job.

It looks like that got cancelled while it was being shown at CES. My Arcade deleted all their tweets about it and took the Sega section off their site.

 

I think that both her sprites and all of the other new sprites for other characters were made by Andy Collins of A+Start. + - Apart from the Super Sonic sprites that were accidentally stolen from S3 AIR (or a different fan project if I'm thinking of the wrong title).  

Amy's sprites really stand out in all of the games in the collection, and not in a good way. I didn't expect them to perfectly stick to all the limits of the Mega Drive, but there wasn't really any effort made maintain any illusion that they're a part of these 16-bit games. The worst parts to me are her overly bright and saturated pink shades, and the way that her 4-frame hammer jump isn't fooling anyone at slow speeds. There's also the fact that she has two entirely separate sets of sprites and colours for CD for her original appearance and player appearance. And her goal post. That thing looks very amateur, like it's from an early 2000s rom hack by someone new to sprite editing.

Generally the sprites are perfectly fine and are actually pretty good. They just don't fit their purpose. Mania had a similar thing with good sprite work in the base game, but both Mighty and Ray in the expansion were really not up to scratch.

Drex made this post a long ago, detailing a few things:

 

I never did get around to seeing if they improved her sprites in the final game. I just never felt motivated enough to play as her since I don't really find the new playstyle they gave her interesting enough to play the games through Origins again.

I did see the Amy S&K run at AGDQ by SnowballSMB this year though and couldn't help but notice some of the issues that were mentioned previously that caused her to stand out. The jump and hammer spin animations like Blueblood mention look rather poor. There's also some scaling inconsistencies with some animations where certain body parts just bloat in size or Amy herself looks bigger compared to the rest of the cast.

Overall it's fine, but like blood mentioned, it just doesn't fit with the rest of the game. It sticks out too frequently for me.