Sonic 1 & 2 : Taxman & Stealth Edition; coming to iOS/Android, most likely consoles too ("BUY THESE" - Retro)

[Tenko]

Oh right, I got you now! Its a pity we didn't have the Japanese cannon from the start. Was much better than what we had. Their manuals were so much better than ours too. Colored for a start, with those snazzy illustrations. And the story yeah, more in depth than what we had in our manuals.

Speaking of, I wonder why Stealth/Tax didn't have a manual or at least a bit that looks like one in the side part of the case when it opens up after you select to start the game in the smartphone games. Sonic Jam was great with its full digital manuals. The case looks rather bare inside without it. Like some kinda ex-rental from a video store lol

[azoo]

It's why I continually hope for Head-Cannon to release a current gen (U/PS4/One/PC) edition of "Sonic Mega Collection / Jam", featuring S1, CD, 2 & 3K all refined with widescreen and all the fixings. Include some developer videos and translations of the original manuals and.. man that would be the best thing ever.

[Tenko]

Agreed totally!! Sonic Jam is by far my fav collection set. All the games ported to perfection, extra modes, the original added spindash to Sonic 1, those time attacks with Chaos Emerald prizes (if I'm remembering right), TV ads, history hall, music hall, illustration building, 3D overworld, mini games...god it had everything!! I was smitten when I got my Saturn and that game back in the day. If they did a proper collection with the new versions plus added all the bonus stuff it would be a dream. Why not put in the previous "gem" stuff from the classic era too like Fighters, MD and Saturn 3D Blast, Chaotix, Sega Sonic Arcade and the GG games. People would fork out again, I know I would. And it's not like they are hampered by disc space anymore, or emulation issues what with Stealth and Tax on call.

I better stop, I'm setting myself up for disappointment lol

[Milo]

While no marketing may ever beat Tails Beard the general public is more accepting of retro goodness these days with a lot of Indie games being of that persuasion. Sega did burn a few bridges with Sonic 4 but the good thing about bridges is they can be rebuilt. Much like the modern line of games in the last few years. And '06 was a hell of a lot more unplayable than Sonic 4. I want to believe that the classic remasters will make their way to console and with that a bigger and better advertising campaign.

 

I dunno, from the looks of things Sega would have to rely on another tactic they could use to help sell a new classic Sonic. Except they've used all of the cards they've got.

 

A low budget approach? They pulled that card with Episode I and that didn't really do wonders for them. And then Generations came along and outright blew Episode I out of the water, leading many to ask why Sega even made the game in the first place if they had Generations on the way.

Appealing to those who found Sonic 4 enjoyable? That card was pulled with Episode II, which did even worse than Episode I. Not to mention fans of Sonic 4 would question why they didn't just finish the Sonic 4 series with a third episode instead of making a new game.

And because 2D Sonic has pretty much oversaturated Sonic games by this point, with the likes of Colors, Generations, and Lost World have 2D segments/levels having the lion's share of content over 3D Sonic segments/levels, not even hyping it up as a new 2D Sonic game would turn heads.

 

The only way Sega would be able to sell a new 2D classic Sonic would be to get the market excited over a new 2D classic Sonic...only for the market to remember Sonic 4 and reply "you're kidding, right?"

[Willsy]

rtherg, bitches, RTHERG!

[Tenko]

Hahaha odd mine didn't come up with that. Someone has gone jazz hands on the keyboard writing that update info haha

[TheOcelot]

The android version of Sonic 2 has also received the 3.0.9 update.

 

"What's New

Version 3.0.9

-Performance optimization

-Bug fixes"

 

EDIT: Sonic 1 has also been updated on android. Version 2.0.4.

 

A completed game now says 'Complete' on the save file:

 

 

 

Stage Select has been added:

 

 

Awesome. Thanks StealthTax!

[TheOcelot]

Sorry to double post.

 

I was looking at Stealth's Headcannon site, and I noticed a reply he made a few days ago to someone who asked why StealthTax had used Mystic Cave's multi-player music for Hidden Palace instead of the short looping track.

 

 

This was Stealth's insightful response:

 

"Because, in actuality, the song that was used for the multiplayer version of Mystic Cave was specifically composed by Masato Nakamura for Hidden Palace Zone, where it was originally used in early development of the game. The only publicly-known build containing a functional version of Hidden Palace that doesn't still use Sonic 1 music uses that song. "The real HPZ tune" was originally composed in a non-looping form ill-suited for a level background song, strongly indicating that it was actually written originally to play in some short sequence of some kind. The fact that the looping version of the song plays when you use cheating devices or otherwise modified code/data to attempt to load Hidden Palace in the final version of Sonic 2 should be taken as no stronger indicator that they actually ever intended to use the song for Hidden Palace's level music (much less that this was what was planned from the start) than the visually-corrupted level should be taken to mean that they planned to intentionally make Hidden Palace an unplayable mess of garbage data, since it was never meant to be activated, and aside from the fact that much of its actual data was removed from the game entirely, any other data, including music ID, wasn't kept up-to-date as everything else in the game was shuffled around while moving toward the end of development. The only place you'll find the song used with the level is in fan games/hacks, of which there are many, and which are part of the reason so many people believe so firmly in this misinformation.

 

Aside from that, the reason Hidden Palace was removed from the game in the first place was that overall, it didn't fit in well with the rest of the game. It was underdeveloped, the pacing clashed with how the rest of the game played, and they didn't know what to do with what they had. The only way it would ever have made it into the remake is if it were brought up-to-par with the rest of the game; otherwise, it wouldn't have been approved and would have been dropped all over again. Even if it were true that one of the (many) things that changed during development of the original game was that they intentionally switched Hidden Palace's background music to the unused song, it didn't suit the pace of the new version of the level (it clashes pretty hard, actually), so we chose to go with the original plan and use the original Hidden Palace song, which just happens to be the song they used for Mystic Cave 2p in the final version of the original game, from which Hidden Palace as a level was removed. As with the rest of the new version of the level, this was approved by Sonic Team"

 

 

 

I have to admit I do prefer the use of Mystic Cave's multi-player track in Hidden Palace on the mobile version. It fits the feel of the level far better. 

[andrewtuell1991]

I always though the three 2P tracks were supposed to used for the scrapped zones, it's nice to finally have some confirmation!  Now that just leaves Emerald Hill and Casino Night's 2P music.

 

For Casino Night 2P I have two theories:

1.) It was supposed for Genocide Cyber City Zone, or

2.) It would've been used Oil Ocean Zone, like in the Simon Wai prototype, and Oil Ocean's finalized Egyptian sounding music would've been used for the scrapped desert level.

 

I'm not quite sure about Emerald Hill's 2P though.  It's 16-bit version sounds like it could fit well with an ice-level, but Masa's Demo suggests a tropical level.  Either way, I don't think it really fits Wood Zone well.

[GuyWithThePie]

Just got Sonic 2 Remastered (I know I'm late). When I got to the special stage, I almost died. Simply beautiful. Rings look a bit smaller, though... Oh well.

[Linkabel]

Sonic 1, 2 and CD to be part of Amazon's Fire TV launch.

 

Source

[Willsy]

Amazon Fire TV confirmed to have Blast Processing. Haha, take that real consoles!

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

Sonic 1, 2 and CD to be part of Amazon's Fire TV launch.

 

Source

That might explain why Sonic CD, the complete game, is currently available for free only on Amazon Appstore at the moment.

[kadybat]

I'm interested in getting my hands on the controller for the Fire TV and giving the remakes a try. When the Taxman remakes were announced I was all excited about playing them on AppleTV, but AirPlay still has palpable lag, and being an employee at a certain fruit-themed retail store, I've gotten my hands on several of the new made-for-iOS 7 controllers and they're just... not good.

 

Apple's mandate for the controllers says that the d-pads can only be one button rather than 4 separate buttons for up/down/left/right and that leads to a lack of the sot of precision that would justify purchasing a controller. The joysticks are fine, generally - the SteelSeries Bluetooth controller has snappy, protruding joysticks, while the Moga snap-on case controller has joysticks that resemble the 3DS. But even if the controllers have decent face buttons and joysticks, the d-pads are crap, and that's all ignoring the utter lack of support from developers - the Taxman remakes handle the controllers, but I have no idea if Sonic 4 does, and other SEGA platformers like Castle of Illusion or popular iOS plats like Super Crate Box don't.

 

The Fire controller looks really nice though. I'm curious about the weight, because the right weight in a controller that size would be very comfortable. It reminds me of the Xbox One controller, which I'm quite the fan of. Do we know yet if Sonic 4 and Castle of Illusion will be coming to Fire, too? The 2GB of RAM the thing has is plenty enough to handle the 3D effects I'm sure...

[VO.SUPER]

I'm still wondering why this hasn't come to STEAM yet. You'd think after the success of Sonic CD, that they'd put this on everything.

[kadybat]

Yeah. I'm betting on a compilation being released once the S3K remake is out.

[two tailed fox]

It looks like they did a great job when remastering this. They totally need to put this on consoles and on steam.

 

Now we wait for sonic and knuckles the reamster (although I don't know how that game could get any better).

[TheOcelot]

Here's a recently discovered video which shows part of the unfinished Egg Gaunlet - Boss Rush - zone which was apparently accessible in the first version of StealthTax Sonic 2.

 

The video runs at a very slow framerate and there is no description on the video which is annoying.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75_QvTsArjQ

 

This has prompted Taxman to comment on Retro

 

"The levels were partially playable, but never included in the retail copy. As for Egg Gauntlet, the WIP assets slipped through on the first version of Sonic 2, but it's not in the data file in the subsequent updates."

 

Assets from Sonic Crackers were used:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnuZOFmVFQQ&list=PLRaYoJK_WUidtE5mm1NrIZxwp71dOo54Z&index=2

 

"Yeah, a lot of the graphics are placeholders. Had we gone on with this design, it would have been cleaned up with new art and looked much better (for example, the Death Egg Robot would have been inside an aquarium). But obviously, before that sort of dev time is invested we have to be sure that the design is going to work - and after several discussions it was decided that the Sonic 2 bosses should not occur outside of their "canon" environments.

Looking back on it now, I think I actually prefer just being able to blast though the bosses with next to no filler."

 

 

Wow, that's really cool.

[Sonictrainer]

Here's a better video:

 

http://youtu.be/YSrEAVFnKc0

[t0ms0nic]

 

More discoveries in Sonic 2! Same guy that recorded those two videos also found that the original Hidden Palace from the prototypes, layout and music and all, is in the game with a warping emerald to send you out of the level. Taxman even popped in again and revealed there's been a code to do this (level select, play sounds 03, 03, 03, 0B, 10, 10, 10, 04, select Hidden Palace) and was surprised nobody had discovered it already.

 

Currently uploading a video of this as well, but showing it accessed from the level select menu and flying around the top to show it's still as empty as the prototype. Pretty awesome to see Team StealthTax go to such lengths!

[TheOcelot]

Holy freaking hell it works!

 

You need to enter debug mode 01,09,09,02,01,01,02,04 (on the level select screen) first and then 03,03,03,0B,10,10,10,04 and select Hidden Palace.

 

I'm playing it on my android right now! It has the original layout and the looping music 'no 10' track. <3<3<3<3<3<3

 

Here's a screenshot from my phone:

 

 

I love you StealhTax!

[t0ms0nic]

For the record, debug mode isn't needed. Not sure why Taxman said it was, but you can punch in the numbers for the Proto Palace code and it works without any trouble. My video (which seems to be having trouble processing) was recorded right after booting up, and unexpectingly worked in the face of forgetting to put debug mode on.

 

Also, just tried flying up the tube at the end. Still nothing and you just hit the top of the level eventually, aside from a few rows of rings on the way, so hope nobody got their hopes up for anything.

[Blue Blood]

Just tried it. Very cool stuff! But I did have to enter the debug code first. I tried of without numerous times and it wouldn't work. I'm playing the iPhone version though, and that's been the route of several minor differences before so it could be the case again here.

[MamboCat]

Neat.

 

I love the little extras that have gone into these games. :3

[Badnik Mechanic]

From the TSS comments.

 

HogFather, I just tried this, and it’s legit! It’s also worth noting that this ‘cheat code’ works on the remastered version of Sonic 1 as well with a variety of options like turning the speed cap on/off and the spin dash!

 

Wow! Sorry about the double post, but you can even give Sonic the instance shield from Sonic 3!

 

Is he talking about the debug or the Proto Palace code?