When a team of developers launch their game, it can be a happy moment, one of excitement and anticipation as all that effort and hard work have resulted in a completed product that fans can enjoy. That's true to a degree when it comes to the recently launched Sonic Origins, but there's been some problems as well. Stealth, who is renowned and beloved for his projects and work within the Sonic community, and who is part of the team that helped get Sonic 3 & Knuckles finally released on modern platforms, is not pleased with the end result. Those intricately familiar with Sonic 3 were quick to point out issues and flaws with dev Headcannon's port of the game into the Retro Engine, critisizing them for not having fixed physics and hitbox problems before the game's release.

I'm extremely proud of my team for their performance under such pressure, but every one of us is very unhappy about the state of Origins and even the Sonic 3 component. We weren't too thrilled about its pre-submission state either but a lot was beyond our control.

— Stealth (@HCStealth) June 24, 2022

However, Stealth took to Twitter to let out a long string of Tweets that better explain the situation in its entirety: according to him, Sonic Origins isn't "what [they] turned in" to SEGA, and a lot of bugs and problems that players are having were instead introduced on SEGA's end of things. Stealth mentions how he and Headcannon did all they could so that Origins could be as good as they could make it be, suffering development crunch and stress over getting everything done in time. Some things, he notes as being bugs that Headcannon had to overlook due to the high pressure development, but not all of them are his team's fault. Just ahead of Sonic Origins' launch, the team tried to push some fixes out, but those reportedly weren't allowed due to submission and approval rules, and delaying the game at all just wasn't an option for SEGA. Headcannon has also apparently offered to iron out the bugs and keep working on making Origins better post-release, but the team isn't sure if SEGA will allow that to happen.

Why am I talking about it now, then? Well, there's just too much scrutiny over things that both are and are not related to us, and I don't want to sit in back in silence while people are asking why and how things happened to a product they put so much hope and money into

— Stealth (@HCStealth) June 24, 2022

Not all is negative, though--Stealth wanted to make sure to mention he's still on good terms with SEGA, and appreciated the opportunity and said that most of SEGA's staff was kind and respectful, just that he wanted to clear the air so fans better knew what went on behind closed doors.

 

[Mark McDonut]

One of these days we'll get a finished game.

 

[N7Kopper]

Christ above, I don't understand why things like this get rushed. I understand full well why things like The Last Jedi happen: they're not about making money. They're about the "not-so-secret gay agenda" of the suits. The privilege of DIE hires and the pursuit of ESG and SEI scores.

But when the agenda is to make money, maybe you should try being capitalists for a change? Actually offer something better than what already exists. Something that makes A.I.R. look obsolete. Something that improves upon the 2011-2013 ports. Don't just royally mess up the physics of a physics-based 2D platforming series. Again, it makes sense when the suits are socialists - they've at best been brainwashed into thinking that this is how capitalism operates. It doesn't. Capitalism relies upon customer satisfaction because of the existence of competition.

Try being capitalists, guys. It worked for the movies.

 

[Bobsy]

This was supposed to be the definitive edition of Sonic 1-3&K and CD, yet Sega rushed it out, huh? I hate they do that nowadays.

Sell us an incomplete or even broken product, then fix with an update.

Yes. These games have been around for decades. And now they had to rush an incomplete re-release out the door?

 

[Dr_Faustus]

Mania 2 officially permanently cancelled.

Considering that it apparently did not sell enough in the first place to meet Sega's favor, this was always going to be the case.

Why on earth hasn't Nintendo bought Sega yet. This would solve a lot of issues.

Nintendo does not need them for anything. Also Nintendo will continue to exist even if Sega does fall.

Sega has a better chance getting scooped up by MS before that happens.

I mean I don't know about that
View attachment 315384

Sonic as a game franchise has been for the most part in jeopardy for a long ass time now. A movie series is not going to alone keep it alive in the long term.

Plus if it is true that Jim Carrey is going to retire soon from the industry its going to put the future of the film series in a tight spot. He is one of the biggest draws that makes this movie enjoyable to so many people, without him its going to really make it hard to sell the movie to sonic fans alone.

 

[CeeDee]

Considering that it apparently did not sell enough in the first place to meet Sega's favor, this was always going to be the case.

They must have had unreasonably high expectations then, I'm sure it did fine- especially considering they thought it wouldn't warrant a physical release, and then they made some DLC to give it a substantial physical release due to its success, and then after that, they went back and made the base game a budget physical title after all. It sold a million units before any of the physical versions even came out.

Sonic as a game franchise has been for the most part in jeopardy for a long ass time now. A movie series is not going to alone keep it alive in the long term.

Plus if it is true that Jim Carrey is going to retire soon from the industry its going to put the future of the film series in a tight spot. He is one of the biggest draws that makes this movie enjoyable to so many people, without him its going to really make it hard to sell the movie to sonic fans alone.

I don't think Sonic's in any fear of dying out, at all. As a multimedia franchise it's quite the success, and I'm sure a Sonic 3 will do perfectly well even if Jim Carrey doesn't join.

Spoiler

Shadow

will probably be a big enough draw for a lot of people.

And even if the games have been subpar, they'll continue to exist and even do well financially - Forces wasn't received well, but I'm fairly sure it's still sold at least a million units. Even Sonic 06 was an Xbox platinum hit.

 

[Lumstar]

Mania sold well, but was a ludicrously convoluted project. Don't ask me why a 2D game (halfway based on existing assets) took like 3 or 4 companies to make.

 

[CeeDee]

Mania sold well, but was a ludicrously convoluted project. Don't ask me why a 2D game (halfway based on existing assets) took like 3 or 4 companies to make.

They're tiny indie studios. At least 2 of those companies are literally banners for single independent developers - Christian Whitehead and Headcannon (then consisting solely of Simon "Stealth" Thomley)

PagodaWest consists of some of the developers behind the fan project Sonic 2 HD, and I believe they probably worked on art.

 

[Bobsy]

this is like going to a local bar, buying some drinks and enjoying watching a cover band play your faves but then turning around after the fact and saying the band did a horrible job because they are emulating the original and not the band that created the song.

its fine for what it is - what the hell is so egregious about this game that people need to complain this bad? you get your moneys worth.

What we really want is a time machine to go back to the day we got our Sega Mega Drive for Christmas with Sonic.
No reissue will ever be able to restore that nostalgic moment.

 

[PacBunnyXV07]

What we really want is a time machine to go back to the day we got our Sega Mega Drive for Christmas with Sonic.
No reissue will ever be able to restore that nostalgic moment.

How bout no.

 

[MetoMeto]

It’s not how you do business, plain and simple. I can appreciate “taking his lumps”, but while speech is silver, silence is gold when money’s changing hands. It’s in the best interest of the company to keep such things under wraps and simply state that you’re sorry about the issues and that they’ll be addressed in the future. This isn’t the first game that had a rocky start on release day, and not the last - no point in turning it into a drama.

Like zuckerberg is doing with facebook you mean? "were sorry... im sorry... im so sorry...."

 

[MetoMeto]

They basically did nothing except did an anime. Games already existed, they just built a platform for those games to exist on... and screw that up. And also it costs way to much for genesis games, i dont care what you put in it, they are essentially genesis games for 40$ thats to much. Pass.

 

[MetoMeto]

unless you have first-hand experience working for Sega, i don't see what you gain from trying to discredit Stealth when it's shown time and time again that upper management at Sega of Japan is a shit-show and treat their western devs like garbage

saying that devs should stay quiet about matters like this and keeping the public in the dark about WHY their product wasn't up to snuff gives less incentive for the public to get companies to fix the problem, cause i SERIOSULY doubt it was Stealth's idea to cut the original music from Sonic 3 and add confusing and forced DLC packs

Those wester sega branch are more noncerned about abortions and gay rights than making games.... so yeah....