Yes, SEGA is fucking with us.

[flipswitch]

Famitsu has something special on next month’s issue and the rumour is Sega could be buying Apple. Just one Apple. ( sorry but it’s the end of the week)

[Mavy]

They're buying the part that Apple cut out cause it had a worm in it.

[flipswitch]

Worms Armageddon exclusive!

[Ambrose Burnside]

Sega has topped the chart of review aggregate website Metacritic's game publisher of the year rankings.

The company had 38 products scored over the year, 95 per cent of which were judged "good" - including the notable Persona 5 Royale and Yakuza 0 - and zero per cent as "bad". This gives the publisher an average Metacritic score for its 2020 releases of 81.6 per cent.

With Warhammer: Total War 3 to come this year

Sega is Metacritic's game publisher of the year

[unfnknblvbl]

Seeing this thread revived got my hopes up for a Sonic Mania 2 announcement...

[t0mby]

I expected the Sonic Cycle image.

[Ambrose Burnside]

[unfnknblvbl]

ALL OF THE DLC! COINS! MICROTRANSACTIONS!

Fuck me dead.

[Rorschach]

Watching that, makes me miss 90s console gaming. Literally was a Golden Age of pure gaming. Also makes me sad that Sega still can't come close to re-capturing that magic.

[GeneraL CyberFunK]

I mean.. they are giving us a collection we should have had back in the mid/late 90's..

I don't really feel as though this is a big deal. The extras don't really seem all that essential and that's coming from me - who adores this generation of Sonic.. CD especially.

[t0mby]

Man Sega certainly know how to milk a cow, you'd think the udders would only spit out clouds of dust by now.

[Vince]

Watching that, makes me miss 90s console gaming. Literally was a Golden Age of pure gaming. Also makes me sad that Sega still can't come close to re-capturing that magic.

For mine the greatest time for gaming. It was all about gaming and a real brutal competition between 2 game makers- Nintendo and Sega. I’d give almost anything to have those days back. Gaming at its absolute peak.

[Rorschach]

Yeah. I had a Mega Drive first and played up to Sonic 2 before I sold it and bought an SNES. The SNES is still the high point of my gaming memories. Rival Turf was the first game I ever played on it and was blown away. Super Mario World, Street Fighter II, Yoshi's Island, MKII, Super Mario All Stars. To go back and experience them all for the first time again.

[Ambrose Burnside]

I actually skipped the entire 16-bit era as a kid. Went from a Sega Master System II to a PSone

I do have a Mini SNES but missed out on the Mini Mega Drive, which now seems to sell for crazy amounts online (where you also have to deal with a bunch of crappy AT Games knock-offs)

Have two Mini SNES's actually, one still sealed in its original box, thinking that would appreciate in value more considering it came with Starfox 2 as well, but the Mega Drive seems to sell for more. Might see if I can do a direct swap or something one day

[Ambrose Burnside]

And of course they're deleting the individual games from all digital storefronts (with one or two exemptions).

The Sega Ages versions of Sonic 1 and 2 on Switch will remain on sale. Sega also notes Sonic the Hedgehog 2 will remain playable as part of a Nintendo Switch Online + subscription.

[unfnknblvbl]

At least they're giving us native Taxman/Pagoda ports and not subpar emulated garbage. This will probably be the gold standard Sonic release, since even Sega haven't documented everything about the games.

[Froggy]

I dunno, SEGA can get fucked on this one. I was gonna buy it but now I don't think I will unless they have updated the DLC plan.

[Froggy]

Plus I got the MD mini with sonic 1 and 2 but I know the kids would like them all on the xbox/switch.

[unfnknblvbl]

So it's confirmed that the Sonic 3K component uses the music from the first PC release, also found in the Sonic 3 beta ROM that was unearthed a few years ago. All the "Michael Jackson" tanks have been stripped out.

That's understandable, and the tracks sound infinitely better on correct hardware (or VGM emulator/player) than the initial MIDI ones from back in the day... but it's still disappointing. The "replacement" tracks are good in their own right, but the "original" MJ ones have all the nostalgia attached to them. And isn't that what this kind of release is all about?

[Deef]

Wait, what about Icecap?

It's been confirmed that wasn't an MJ thing at all anyway. But ... *googles*...

What. The actual. F***.

Sonic Origins was already looking dodgy enough; microtransactions this and pre-order that and no widescreen if you want finite lives and bleh... but this. This completely sinks it for me. I am out. Icecap in particular would have to be objectively the most cherished tune of my childhood, I've still been playing it (as in instrumentally) even this week. And what, they couldn't get around some red tape or something?

Stuff that. It'd be nice to have Sonic 3 in widescreen and all, but nah, I'd be too annoyed. I don't want to play a butchered Sonic 3; when I want the feel of playing the originals I'll just play the emulations again. (Hell Sonic Jam is literally 2 metres away from me right now, and my Megadrive with all the OGs is still in the house.)

I don't hate the 'new' tunes either; there's a great remix of the Icecap replacement that I've really liked for years. But no. Damn they screwed up with the Sonic music in general; the main theme was an issue, now this. Blegh.

Icecap, of all things. Carnival Night and Launch Base were great too, but Icecap's music was one of the highest points of Sonic 3. This does the reverse of what it should have imo; tarnishes the legacy, makes it worse. Nope, don't want to play it. So this is perhaps why there was such a long resistance to Taxman doing a Sonic 3 remake.

rant rant rant rant rant...

(In case anyone didn't know, Icecap's music existed like a decade before Sonic was even a thing.)

Edit --

Motherf***ers!

/Edit

[Deef]

I'm guessing some mods will happen that will fix up this crap. Perhaps that's Sega's plan all along; knowing fans will do what would cost them too much to do. They are very, very aware and (opposite to Nintendo) quite supportive of the modding/fangaming scene in the Sonic community.

Still, what a fail of preserving the IP's legacy. Icecap isn't the most rearranged tune on OCRemix for nothing.

[unfnknblvbl]

for what it's worth, there's a fan jobbie out there called Sonic 3: Angel Island Revisited. It's available for PC, Mac, Android, Switch (modded), and... anything with a modernish web browser. Just gotta supply your own ROM.

It's really excellent.

[Deef]

Cheers, yeah heard of that but don't think I've ever actually checked it out.

It appears that Origins is also a bit sloppier in its remakes than usual. A couple of bugs in 1 & 2 that weren't in the same remakes earlier, while 3&K is apparently just not polished enough. Speed issues in particular, layer transitions.

One thing I've heard that irritates me hugely is that the control lock from a rolling jump has been deleted from 3&K. Only 3&K. It was one thing I liked about the insta-shield; being able to use it to break that lock and choosing how to play with the jump power/steering control balance of it.

The more relatable nuisance though is due to that lock still being present in Sonic 1 & 2, which causes irritation when using the drop dash. The drop dash has been slapped into all the older games, but in 1 & 2 it can't switch direction in a rolling jump, making it not feel like the original.

So they removed the lock from the 1 game that didn't need it removed, and left it in the 2 games where it would be more understandable to remove it. Removing the speed cap from Sonic 1 & 2 is one thing, but removing the control lock is too much liberty taken, imo. That was never a technical limitation.

Blurriness is a thing too. Origins doesn't offer an unfiltered pixels-sharp version of its output; there's always a little blur at best. Already fixed by modders on PC, at least.

I'm getting that last paragraph from the Digital Foundry review, which is a suprisingly good look at all the details. It includes side by side comparisons of visuals, technical tweaks, and especially the music differences. (For Icecap in particular they put 5 versions side by side.)

[unfnknblvbl]

Yeahhhhh.. how the hell did Sega cock this up? The S3K sound is woeful in that video.

Sega really love screwing with their old-school Sonic fans, don't they? I really doubt we'll ever get a Mania 2 at this rate. They appear to have burnt their bridges with Taxman and Headcannon