Megathread Sonic Origins | MT | General Discussion

[Shiny Gems]

4 minutes ago, Jake_LeOFFICIAL said:

I have a distinct feeling that these won't be in time attack. Would love to be wrong though, because holy moly that'd be cool. Hell even getting full versions as bonus stages in the main game is cool. 

Side note, I hope that if online multiplayer is in this they don't force this squashed split screen, it looks so unappealing. It was fine in the 90s, but imo in my opinion it's really ugly.

So we are getting full, in-the-actual-and-not-multiplayer versions of these stages in Sonic 3 within Sonic Origins? I believe I have read that before, but I just want to make sure.

[DaBigJ]

1 hour ago, MightyGems said:

So we are getting full, in-the-actual-and-not-multiplayer versions of these stages in Sonic 3 within Sonic Origins? I believe I have read that before, but I just want to make sure.

I...think? I'm not sure, the assets are clearly remade, but...I don't know.

[Edward850]

4 hours ago, Jake_LeOFFICIAL said:

Side note, I hope that if online multiplayer is in this they don't force this squashed split screen, it looks so unappealing. It was fine in the 90s, but imo in my opinion it's really ugly.

There's no online multiplayer. The store pages would say if there was.

[DaBigJ]

1 minute ago, Edward850 said:

There's no online multiplayer. The store pages would say if there was.

...

It's 2022.

The original Sonic 2 remaster from 2013 had online multiplayer.

This should be a basic feature in Sonic Origins, come on SEGA. It's not asking for much.

[TheOcelot]

Three new screenshots on the South East Asia Sonic Facebook page. The most interesting one is this mission with Knuckles in Spring Yard where you need to defeat badniks:

The other two offer no new info:

 

Stealth did an interview in the latest issue of Retro Gamer. I purchased this issue via Amazon kindle. 

Stealth talks a about each game and the development of the remasters, which is interesting although nothing too deep. 

Stealth said this is the full combined experience (i.e. full 3K lock-on and not S3 and S&K separately), which doesn't explain why we saw the Knuckles EggRobo Mushroom Hill S&K exclusive intro in the Central footage. 

He said "There were a lot of planned enhancements at the time a Sonic 3 & Knuckles remake was first pitched, and I’m happy to say that many of them have made it into Origins along with a few fresh ideas from the new team". 

If this means they've made 3K's multiplayer stages into fully playable single player acts (which is one of ideas he & Taxman had when they pitched the remaster in 2014), then my hype will go through the roof 

The "U" in the new version of the Retro Engine V5U which was used to create 3K stands for "Ultimate".

[Jango]

Looking forward!

[Tenko]

Well there we have it, Katie just confirmed the music situation for Sonic 3K on the Sonic Official stream. They can't/aren't using all the original music from the Mega Drive release.

 

"I know one question that we've seen over and over is, what is the situation on the music in Sonic 3 & Knuckles. So while unfortunately we cant use all of the original sounds from the Sega Genesis version of the game. Jun Senoue has been working really hard to adapt the original music that was composed in 1993 for Sonic Origins. And he's been going so far as reproducing it with the same sound chip from the Sega Genesis, and using his own digital audio tape collection to make this like.. as faithful to the originals as possible. And honestly I'm hoping we can get Jun on stream at some point to talk about this, because he's really excited about it, we're excited about it, and he's got a lot of really cool music projects that I feel he would really wanna chat about."

[Fyrwudz]

Been thinking a bit more about what we're being given in Anniversary Mode and I'm a bit unhappy with it tbh. I think the game would be almost ideal if they just made certain things customizable. I'm not a fan of being locked into the Coin System if I want to play the games in 16:9 (which is the whole reason I want the game), and I also don't like how Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles seem glued inseparably together.

I wanna relive the classics as I played them (music issues notwithstanding, that's a different matter), but with the graphical enhancement of widescreen. I'd quite like the challenge of lives and I'd also prefer to split Sonc 3 and Sonic & Knuckles. Growing up, I never had S&K and so Sonic 3's finale is pretty memorable to me - I consider the sky going dark and the Big Arms boss fight to be a definite high point of the classic story. I don't even see how splitting the games would cause any problems functionally for Anniversary Mode, the only thing I can see it affecting would be how the Islands would display on the home screen.

Origins looks good as a whole, but really wish these aspects were customisable and down to the player's choice, not just locked in. As for the music, the loss of Ice Cap is a big hit for me, Launch Base proto is pretty good but a bit of an oddball, and I'm more than happy to lose the MJ Carnival Night tracks.

[JezMM]

With the adjusted intro cut-scene, completely remade 2P mode and Stealth talking about how a lot of their ideas for cool new stuff in a S3&K remake were accepted by SEGA, I think that right now it could absolutely go either way on Sonic fighting Big Arms in Origins.

To be honest I'll be really surprised if they stay completely faithful to the original and cut it in Sonic's campaign, because that'd mean you'd never fight this iconic boss in Story Mode, and I imagine they don't want to disregard those who prefer to play the games split when they have the option to.

[Indigo Rush]

The fact that the trailer shows Knuckles' first cutscene in Mushroom Hill rather than Angel Island tells me that there'll be an option to play either half. 

Either that or he goes straight from Mushroom Hill to Angel Island, which... would be weird. Eh.

[JezMM]

5 minutes ago, Indigo Rush said:

The fact that the trailer shows Knuckles' first cutscene in Mushroom Hill rather than Angel Island tells me that there'll be an option to play either half. 

Either that or he goes straight from Mushroom Hill to Angel Island, which... would be weird. Eh.

I assume 100% it's the latter.  I don't think there's anything objectively wrong with the idea that SEGA or Headcannon made the decision "let's re-instate Knuckles' intro cut-scene from S&K standalone that was missing in S3&K" and "the original cut-scene was in Mushroom Hill, that's what people remember, so we're keeping it in Mushroom Hill".

Besides that, I'm sure it's been confirmed that you can't play them standalone somewhere, hasn't it?  Possibly weeks ago so no idea when/where, I just feel like I've locked that fact in, noggin-wise.

[TheOcelot]

I think it's possible Team Stealth have created a cutscene of EggRobo appearing in Angel Island attacking Knuckles (similar to the one created in Sonic 3 Complete), but also decided to add the Mushroom Hill cutscene where EggRobo appears. So EggRobo tries to blow up Knuckles twice, once in AI and again in MH 

In the Retro Gamer issue; Stealth said he & Taxman pushed hard to get SEGA to allow them to include Hidden Palace in the S2 remaster because of how popular that scrapped zone is to fans. So I believe Stealth would have pushed hard for Big Arm to be added to Sonic & Tails story in S3&K due to how popular that boss fight is. So I do think Big Arm will be included. 

[Roger_van_der_weide]

There's also the mission mode.
So even if the Solo bosses can't make it into the story mode, they'll probably make an appearence as a mission regardless, would be a waste not too.

[Sean]

Sonic fights Big Arm in Generations 3DS so it'd be insane if he couldn't in Origins. I'm expecting it to be in.

[Jango]

Also, good music cannot be wasted too.

[expansivelovestories]

Oh, if Big Arms isn't in the main playthrough for Sonic, it could be one of the missions!  that wouldn't be as good necessarily, but, it could also be better somehow??

[JezMM]

To be honest I'd love it if Sonic 3's boss rush mode includes every single boss for all characters, like, we get to fight Super Mecha Sonic as Sonic or Tails, the Death Egg bosses as Knuckles, etc.

[Jay_Senju]

It does suck that the original Mega Drive music for Sonic 3 is not gonna be in origins but people are just gonna mod the music in on pc lol. 

[Sonicstitch]

OK, this may not be the best place to bring this up. I am not even shore if I am allowed to talk about it? But…

With the old ROMs pulled from steam, the originals will be much harder to get, legitimately.

I backed up my ROMs from steam, but I have been looking for other ways to get them.

I have a copy of sonic mega collection plus for PS2 and was thinking that the ROMs would just be on the disk? But it does not seem to be that simple.

[Darkvizardberrytan]

Why could they release Sonic 3 with the original music here but act like its a struggle now to do it? I know some like the wonky pc version of ice cap and carnival zone but honestly at least the genesis versions made you "Feel" like you were  in the arctic or a actual carnival .

[JezMM]

32 minutes ago, Darkvizardberrytan said:

Why could they release Sonic 3 with the original music here but act like its a struggle now to do it? I know some like the wonky pc version of ice cap and carnival zone but honestly at least the genesis versions made you "Feel" like you were  in the arctic or a actual carnival .

Previous re-releases of the game have been just an upload of the original ROM - the console is pretending to be a SEGA Mega Drive and just running the same game program that was on the original cartridges.  Clearly, the music licensing agreement only covered the use of the music in that original game program.

Sonic Origins (and the old PC version) aren't the original ROM.  The game isn't pretending to be a SEGA Mega Drive, the console is running a new, remade version of the game (which is why they are able to change it and add new features for Origins).  So that old music licensing agreement would not apply to them and they would have to negoiate a new one.  It may be "the same game" but it is no longer "the same product".  As far as copyrights and all those technicalities go, it's a brand new game, and not one that MJ or Buxer agreed to have their music feature in.

They have to do this for the Sonic 1 and 2 soundtracks for new releases, because those are owned by the original composer too.  This is why Sonic 1+2 music has sometimes been missing from products deemed less important like the Sonic Mania soundtrack or the rare mobile re-release of Sonic Advance (where the Sonic 1 and 2 boss music were replaced with Sonic 4 boss music).

Of course, most Sonic music is composed by in-house SEGA composers since these days, so this is rarely a problem outside of these games (it still happens sometimes though - licensing issues with Sonic CD's vocals had to be sorted out for Origins after they were absent from Sonic CD 2011, and recently Endless Possibility had to be removed from the Sonic Unleashed soundtrack on Spotify due to some issue with licensing for the vocal track there).

[Darkvizardberrytan]

12 minutes ago, JezMM said:

Previous re-releases of the game have been just an upload of the original ROM - the console is pretending to be a SEGA Mega Drive and just running the same game program that was on the original cartridges.  Clearly, the music licensing agreement only covered the use of the music in that original game program.

Sonic Origins (and the old PC version) aren't the original ROM.  The game isn't pretending to be a SEGA Mega Drive, the console is running a new, remade version of the game (which is why they are able to change it and add new features for Origins).  So that old music licensing agreement would not apply to them and they would have to negoiate a new one.  It may be "the same game" but it is no longer "the same product".  As far as copyrights and all those technicalities go, it's a brand new game, and not one that MJ or Buxer agreed to have their music feature in.

They have to do this for the Sonic 1 and 2 soundtracks for new releases, because those are owned by the original composer too.  This is why Sonic 1+2 music has sometimes been missing from products deemed less important like the Sonic Mania soundtrack or the rare mobile re-release of Sonic Advance (where the Sonic 1 and 2 boss music were replaced with Sonic 4 boss music).

Of course, most Sonic music is composed by in-house SEGA composers since these days, so this is rarely a problem outside of these games (it still happens sometimes though - licensing issues with Sonic CD's vocals had to be sorted out for Origins after they were absent from Sonic CD 2011, and recently Endless Possibility had to be removed from the Sonic Unleashed soundtrack on Spotify due to some issue with licensing for the vocal track there).

So basic sum up is the games being shown are not the original files. Which the 360 release is meaning they did not have to pay for the rights? right?

[JezMM]

1 minute ago, Darkvizardberrytan said:

So basic sum up is the games being shown are not the original files. Which the 360 release is meaning they did not have to pay for the rights? right?

Yeah, that's it.  Because this is a remake and not the original file, a new license is required if SEGA don't own the music.  The fact that they weren't able to get one either means it was too complicated (this can happen when stuff is owned by the estate of a deceased person) or the people who own the music were too unreasonable.

[DaBigJ]

14 minutes ago, Darkvizardberrytan said:

So basic sum up is the games being shown are not the original files.

That's right. Sonic Origins uses a brand new, remade version of Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and Knuckles, alongside updated(?) versions of the 2011-2013 remasters of Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic the Hedgehog 2, and Sonic CD.

JezMM pretty much said everything you need to know in that regard, but I do want to add that there is a 50/50 shot of this version of S3K being used in future releases if they ever desire to do so, primarily because of the music licensing issues that previously prevented re-releases after 2011(?)

[Sean]

So where does this theory come from that selling the original ROM is okay but making new ports requires a new license? Because this isn't really how licensing works in the entertainment industry, and I can't think of anything else this actually applies to. If it were that simple then Sega would have released multiple new versions of S3K by now including in the 3D Classics and SEGA AGES line-ups. Meanwhile, Sonic Classics DS doesn't even use emulated music so that theory sort of goes out the window there. I'm asking because I never knew where people actually got this idea and I don't follow the train of logic here considering licensing quagmires have prevented simple re-releases of other video games before. If this is a stipulation outlined in Sega's Sonic 3 music contract then I'd like to know the source.