Gaming Sonic Classic Collection DS impressions- Nintendo World Report

[granville]

I seriously doubt that being an early build has much to do with bugs or slowdown when it comes to Sonic Team. Recall that they have done this before, like with Sonic 06. They sent review copies out to magazines telling people it was an early build and all the issues would be fixed in the final version. PLAY magazine was dumb enough to buy that crap and even gave it a really high score, only to lower it by a considerable amount later on when the game came out and nothing changed.

This is SEGA we're talking about. Maybe they still make quality games other than Sonic, but their Sonic games just slap their fanbase in the face with a cold wet fish lately. Not that i'm buying the game or have something to complain about my money being wasted, but for everyone else, don't believe their crap. Neither a compilation of old games, nor the announcement of a "Sonic 4" inherently makes a game good. People need to stop feeding SEGA's faces in this case, they've not been able to make a truly good Sonic game of their own (as in without the help of Dimps) for years now.

Basically, the thing that made me facepalm the most about Sonic Genesis was not even the game itself, but what the hacker Stealth did after it came out. Somehow, an amateur hacker managed to port the engine 99.99% perfectly to the GBA using his own means. He disassembled the code himself and reverse engineered the game to work on GBA. All without the source code, and it played without glitches or shit. The hacking community always says "don't put us above SEGA", but they really are above them in this case. Hell, even most of the fangames out there are better than what SEGA can do...

 

[granville]

Here's some new screens i've found-

http://www.eversonic.fr/V6/news-425-SCC:_2...checommentaires

Assuming these portray the real games, virtualized lock on technology is in effect for both Sonic 3 AND Sonic 2, just like the originals. So you can play through Sonic 2 as Knuckles and such. No idea what they'll do with Sonic 1, maybe they'll use the blue sphere game like the original, maybe not. Doubt they'd go through the trouble to have Knuckles a playable character in it when he wasn't originally.

At any rate, the games appear somewhat faithful. I'm not sure if the squished images will be in effect in the final game or not though. Some things look a bit distorted. Art gallery confirmed though.

 

[Dr.Killa]

I seriously doubt that being an early build has much to do with bugs or slowdown when it comes to Sonic Team. Recall that they have done this before, like with Sonic 06. They sent review copies out to magazines telling people it was an early build and all the issues would be fixed in the final version. PLAY magazine was dumb enough to buy that crap and even gave it a really high score, only to lower it by a considerable amount later on when the game came out and nothing changed.

This is SEGA we're talking about. Maybe they still make quality games other than Sonic, but their Sonic games just slap their fanbase in the face with a cold wet fish lately. Not that i'm buying the game or have something to complain about my money being wasted, but for everyone else, don't believe their crap. Neither a compilation of old games, nor the announcement of a "Sonic 4" inherently makes a game good. People need to stop feeding SEGA's faces in this case, they've not been able to make a truly good Sonic game of their own (as in without the help of Dimps) for years now.

Basically, the thing that made me facepalm the most about Sonic Genesis was not even the game itself, but what the hacker Stealth did after it came out. Somehow, an amateur hacker managed to port the engine 99.99% perfectly to the GBA using his own means. He disassembled the code himself and reverse engineered the game to work on GBA. All without the source code, and it played without glitches or shit. The hacking community always says "don't put us above SEGA", but they really are above them in this case. Hell, even most of the fangames out there are better than what SEGA can do...

can you give me a link to this

 

[RupeeClock]

can you give me a link to this

I don't believe we can, as technically it is an unsolicited port the game using code from the original rom.

I should point out though, that though it was a flawless port of Green Hill Zone with the addition of Tails and Knuckles, as well as an incomplete Labyrinth Zone, all that data was 7.51mb.
To create a working assembly hack of the entire game may exceed 32MB, the GBA's romsize limit.

 

[IzzyInfamous]

Hoping this will run perfectly.

Also, Sonic 4 is likely to be balls. Just callin' it, bein' the pessimist I am. If Sonic looks like a skater, it's not classic.

 

[granville]

can you give me a link to this
Since it's a precompiled rom of copyrighted data, i'm sure i'm not allowed to link to it. You can find it easily enough by googling "Sonic 1 port by stealth" though. It's easy to find. I hope it's ok for me to say even that though...

I should point out though, that though it was a flawless port of Green Hill Zone with the addition of Tails and Knuckles, as well as an incomplete Labyrinth Zone, all that data was 7.51mb.
To create a working assembly hack of the entire game may exceed 32MB, the GBA's romsize limit.
True, although it wasn't the game data or graphics that made the game so large. To make the game as close as possible to the original, he used streaming sound samples, of high quality. So, every song and sound effect was a large audio file being streamed, not using the GBA's sound hardware. It's possible to make a custom sound driver for the game and have the music in GBA-style, but Stealth wanted to make it as close to the original as possible. Not that hard to do though, just hard to get it as close to the original as possible. GBA could never perfectly replicate the Genesis sound, although it could certainly be done better than SEGA's own port...

Still, i think it could fit within 32MB even with streaming music. Two zones have their music, as do about all the sound effects. You could even lower the quality to reduce filesize.

QUOTE

Hoping this will run perfectly.

Also, Sonic 4 is likely to be balls. Just callin' it, bein' the pessimist I am. If Sonic looks like a skater, it's not classic.

I'm partially with you. I doubt it will be terrible, but i don't think it will be that great. Sonic has been failing not due to being more modern, but the lack of competent programmers who know how to make a genuinely solid gameplay engine that doesn't take the control out of your hands. Being in classic style does not a good Sonic game make, the GBA port of Sonic 1 should be proof enough of this. It's having well designed levels and a great physics engine that makes the games so great.

 

[Dr.Killa]

yea im tired of "press 1 direction to beat the level" sonic games

 

[Terenigma]

yea im tired of "press 1 direction to beat the level" sonic games

But adding a jump button makes it all worthwhile

 

[geoflcl]

Here's my theory about why SEGA isn't what it used to be...

Spoiler

They only hire people with an extra chromosome.

Controversial joke aside, SEGA has to buckle down, and really think about what they've been doing with the Sonic franchise. Something in their outlook has to change.

For instance, I am completely puzzled as to why every Sonic game today has some kind of outrageous gimmick in it. An Arabian theme, werewolf segments, Excalibur... They keep getting worse and worse! They'd use the Old Testament, if they could. They ought to drop the gimmicks, and concentrate on Sonic at its very core... Speed, and control.

 

[granville]

Some new REAL screens were released, showing some badly scaled graphics. Take a look at them on SEGA's official flickr-

http://www.flickr.com/photos/segaeurope/se...57622788979521/

Ones below the DSi mockups. Looks like these will be emulations. Not looking too good. If they're emulated, the physics will probably be right at least, but we still have squished graphics and possible slowdown. No idea what it'll sound like either...

 

[Dr.Killa]

Here's my theory about why SEGA isn't what it used to be...

Spoiler

They only hire people with an extra chromosome.

Controversial joke aside, SEGA has to buckle down, and really think about what they've been doing with the Sonic franchise. Something in their outlook has to change.

For instance, I am completely puzzled as to why every Sonic game today has some kind of outrageous gimmick in it. An Arabian theme, werewolf segments, Excalibur... They keep getting worse and worse! They'd use the Old Testament, if they could. They ought to drop the gimmicks, and concentrate on Sonic at its very core... Speed, and control.

sonic 4 will probably take place during WWII and sonic was hitlers pet hedgehog and he mixed his dna with jesse owens then it resulted in a human-like hedgehog with super speed and turned against him

as for the emulations, idk what to say

 

[CyrusBlue]

Here's my theory about why SEGA isn't what it used to be...

Spoiler

They only hire people with an extra chromosome.

Controversial joke aside, SEGA has to buckle down, and really think about what they've been doing with the Sonic franchise. Something in their outlook has to change.

For instance, I am completely puzzled as to why every Sonic game today has some kind of outrageous gimmick in it. An Arabian theme, werewolf segments, Excalibur... They keep getting worse and worse! They'd use the Old Testament, if they could. They ought to drop the gimmicks, and concentrate on Sonic at its very core... Speed, and control.

Sega isn't the problem. They're still making fantastic games. Sonic Team is the one having problems.

 

[Opium]

Slowdowns are IMO unacceptable! We are talking about nearly 15-20 year old genesis-games!

Yep. I agree. Especially considering how well homebrew manages to emulate the games. You're telling me a commercial team with money behind it can't get sonic the hedgehog running at full speed?

 

[smashbro]

lmao that is sad

 

[zeromac]

I doubt there would be any slow-down, it is a early build remember

 

[granville]

I doubt there would be any slow-down, it is a early build remember
That means nothing whatsoever when it comes to SEGA and Sonic. They promised the media that their review copies of Sonic 06 were early builds and slowdown/glitches wouldn't be present in the final game. PLAY magazine was dumb enough to believe them and gave the game a 9-something/10. They later knocked the score down (although still was fairly high) when they found out they'd been lied to and nothing was fixed.

Really though, it's totally fair and understandable to think that the slowdown won't be fixed. SEGA half asses everything in regards to Sonic. I'm not being an anti-modern Sonic either, it's just tradition to make Sonic games in the least expensive and quickest way possible. Doesn't Sonic Genesis GBA ring a bell in this regard? Anyways, we have new annoyances now- the fact that everything looks like a steamroller ran over the graphics. Ugly scaling = ew. I'd rather have a reduced view size than have everything squished. Just reposition the HUD a little to center it.

A mod at a famous Sonic hacking site put it best in regards to this image:

QUOTEI can’t wait to visit “Cl l?MICAl ?l ANT” Zone!

Anyways, not being hostile at you zeromac, you're ma buddy. Just being realistic, and i'd love to be proven wrong when the game comes out for real.

 

[granville]

Bumping this to post a video someone uploaded showing some cam footage. Good news is that this port looks fairly competent in terms of music and performance-



Guess it will be dumped sometime soon, since it's out in stores.

 

[EyeZ]

It looked pretty good on the video, definately worth a look at.

 

[KingVamp]

hmm... i thought they would have made sonic be going between both screens, but I guess that doesn't really matter.

 

[geoflcl]

Dumpin' time soon, hopefully.

I guess I can handle the slowdown. After all, Sonic 2 (the one I'll be loop-de-looping through the most in this game) hand slowdown in its original Genesis release.

But Sonic 3 with slowdown will be a bit more "blech".