Megathread Sonic Origins | MT | General Discussion

[Cosmos Rogue]

It's damning for Sega that a developer partner is willing to endanger the possibility of future work with them to speak out like this.

[Zoomzeta]

44 minutes ago, Cosmos Rogue said:

It's damning for Sega that a developer partner is willing to endanger the possibility of future work with them to speak out like this.

Honestly, I appreciate their transparency on the matter, knowing the risks of doing so. 

[LegoFedora]

1 hour ago, Jake_LeOFFICIAL said:

Really telling thread by Stealth. The team was basically rushed, and SEGA made direct changes to Sonic 3 without the team's involvement.

It's all so tiring... Can we just kick out the higher ups at sega and replace them with someone competent by comparison?

[CleverSonicUsername]

Well that's a depressing read, but Sega's treatment of their partners and adherence to arbitrary deadlines at the expense of quality is a known quantity. This company has shot itself in the foot so routinely since the 90s you can time your watch to it. It's just especially depressing in this case because Stealth and the team at Headcannon are such talented developers with a genuine passion for this series, and probably a better understanding of what made Sonic so special in the 90s than anybody.

Also of note is Stealth saying they don't know if they'll be called upon to provide any post-launch support, and given the shape the game is currently in, it's badly needed.

[LegoFedora]

9 minutes ago, CleverSonicUsername said:

Also of note is Stealth saying they don't know if they'll be called upon to provide any post-launch support

That's the part that scares me the most. The game is still very playable in this state, but man could it use some polishing up. I really hope sega doesn't intend to just leave it as-is with all its problems.

ESPECIALLY with sega taking the weird way out. From what I'm seeing elsewhere from dataminers, most of the music of this collection is actually being streamed over muted versions of these games. These games are technically still playing the MJ songs but just muted and the "remixes" play over it, this is the case for every game (also assumed to be why sonic lacks his 2 voice lines in CD when timing out/getting a life). This game was from the ground up, why and how are you actually playing over anything at all sega?

[CleverSonicUsername]

12 minutes ago, LegoFedora said:

ESPECIALLY with sega taking the weird way out. From what I'm seeing elsewhere from dataminers, most of the music of this collection is actually being streamed over muted versions of these games. These games are technically still playing the MJ songs but just muted and the "remixes" play over it, this is the case for every game (also assumed to be why sonic lacks his 2 voice lines in CD when timing out/getting a life). This game was from the ground up, why and how are you actually playing over anything at all sega?

This is the first I've heard of that and oh my god, if that isn't so perfectly Sega I don't know what is.

Man, all I want is these games in 16:9, unadulterated and on my TV. Extra characters, levels, modes on a toggle so I can tailor the game to my liking, from pure to ROM hack levels of craziness. I can get on that on PC, sure, but I want to kick my feet up and sit on my couch and play it on my 55" screen. This is evidently impossible.

[LegoFedora]

10 minutes ago, CleverSonicUsername said:

This is the first I've heard of that and oh my god, if that isn't so perfectly Sega I don't know what is.

Man, all I want is these games in 16:9, unadulterated and on my TV. Extra characters, levels, modes on a toggle so I can tailor the game to my liking, from pure to ROM hack levels of craziness. I can get on that on PC, sure, but I want to kick my feet up and sit on my couch and play it on my 55" screen. This is evidently impossible.

Admittedly, this is just speculation, and honestly I have no idea if there is a twitter thread up for this or not. This is all coming from one of the MANY nonstop Origins threads 4chan's /v/ board has been having since release. They've been going on nonstop trying to figure out why this collection is the way it is and how Sega managed to screw up what should have been a very simple collection.

[Conando]

The replaced Sonic 3 tracks are way less jarring in game, because everything in the collection has the same filter (save for CD) that mimics the Model 1's Yamaha YM2612. That new Super Sonic theme IS jarring, though. Other than the inappropriate S2 drums, it's TOO clean. It's not based on the YM2612 like the rest.

Edited June 24, 2022 by Conando

[KHCast]

Wild how I’m seeing people call out stealth for being “unprofessional” in how they handled this whole situation. It’s especially weird considering how on board people are when devs call out the likes of konami or Ubisoft or Activision and go into detail about their beef with the shit those companies pull. 

[Sean]

6 minutes ago, KHCast said:

Wild how I’m seeing people call out stealth for being “unprofessional” in how they handled this whole situation. It’s especially weird considering how on board people are when devs call out the likes of konami or Ubisoft or Activision and go into detail about their beef with the shit those companies pull. 

People are getting mad at Thomley literally because they just want him to keep making Sonic games and him criticizing Sega jeopardizes that. Y'all ain't sly.

[Sonicka]

30 minutes ago, Sean said:

People are getting mad at Thomley literally because they just want him to keep making Sonic games and him criticizing Sega jeopardizes that. Y'all ain't sly.

It’s a catch 22 situation really and it’s gunna hurt his team in some way or another regardless of if he says anything or not.

I mean - I think everyone saw this coming anyway after Headcannon stated their specific involvement with the project - the warning flags were right there. 

It’s just a shame that Sega couldn’t trust the whole bloody thing to them entirely and provide additional support (or the 3D menus) to his team rather than it be the other way around. 

What I can completely appreciate us that the side of immediate updates is not as straightforward as some folks make it out to be. There are processes in place and usually there are good reasons for it before you can simply launch a new release… but on the flipside it’s mad that Headcannon offered support in advance of this knowing there were issues to address and we’re not called upon due to additional time restraints of SEGA wanting the game on the shelves.

I’d rather SEGA have left launching this game for a few months for a little more polish - but I can see why they didn’t. Mania stole Forces thunder launching a mere few months in advance, and it’s my suspicion that they wanted to avoid this happening again by giving the release gap between Origins and Frontiers a larger width. 

I would however, be surprised if SEGA didn’t opt for eventual patches, especially after Sonic Colours received post launch updates. But at least Origins isn’t a mess like that one was. 

[Cornelius Fudge]

It's honestly a shame to see this happening because I never grew up with the Classic Sonic games but their contributions is what led to Sonic Mania which absolutely opened my eyes to the Classic Sonic games. But, they are completely in the right about being transparent about this because Sega's lack of transparency can poorly reflect on the hard work the team actually did. It's also concerning to hear about time crunch because it correlates with what Iizuka said about Sonic Frontiers. I wish they would actually follow Nintendo in this regard and actually delay their games whenever they need to. Many games have suffered simply because of time crunch and lack of delays. 

[SolidSurgeTT]

Sonic Stadium's own review seems to be the only unequivocally positive take out there.

[Ming Ming Hatsune]

5 hours ago, LegoFedora said:

ESPECIALLY with sega taking the weird way out. From what I'm seeing elsewhere from dataminers, most of the music of this collection is actually being streamed over muted versions of these games. These games are technically still playing the MJ songs but just muted and the "remixes" play over it, this is the case for every game (also assumed to be why sonic lacks his 2 voice lines in CD when timing out/getting a life). This game was from the ground up, why and how are you actually playing over anything at all sega?

Ahhh, so that's why when I restart an act, the BGM doesn't restart along with it! I thought that was a strange design choice.

25 minutes ago, SolidSurgeTT said:

Dreadknux, remove your review, you're clearly in the wrong here and are recommending a faulty product.

Dreadknux may have some relationship with Sega, because an honest reviewer who has played Sonic classics a lot would have spotted these issues and put those in to the review.

You can give it praise all you like, it's an opinion piece after all - but it just doesn't look honest when you give it a '5/5 Essential' rating KNOWING these bugs and issues are present.

[SolidSurgeTT]

I had to reword my post to be less shitpost-y... >_>

[Willsy]

I feel like we rarely get windows into the working environment at SEGA, so this transparency from Stealth is very appreciated but also speaks volumes about how bad the situation is and how much of a tight leash they must have on their employees for this to be such a rare type of statement. On paper this collection should have been the easiest thing in the world to do. Three-quarters of the work was already done, with Sonic 3K being in good hands, but it sounds like the extra shit they decided to bolt on to "justify" pricing Origins at a premium, rather than taking the games as they were, created problems. Sounds like another recently released remaster, doesn't it? 

I think the chances of Frontiers not being rough at launch, at the very least to a slightly annoying degree, are slim to none. I also think SEGA taking the right lesson away from this is basically a non-starter, they're more likely to hyperfixate on the fact that Stealth was open about the situation. I could look past Colours Ultimate as perhaps just being a case of Blind Squirrel living up to their track record, but now Sonic Team themselves are having issues sticking the landing on what is a very basic collection of mostly existing ports. The issue sounds like it lies much higher up, not with the actual talent involved, and for all of the brandishing about quality that SEGA have done in recent years, this isn't it.  

 

[SolidSurgeTT]

I want to believe but...someone has to shoulder the recurring issues with the franchise that don't get addressed, even though everyone keeps telling them.

[The Deleter]

2 hours ago, KHCast said:

Wild how I’m seeing people call out stealth for being “unprofessional” in how they handled this whole situation. It’s especially weird considering how on board people are when devs call out the likes of konami or Ubisoft or Activision and go into detail about their beef with the shit those companies pull. 

No one has a problem with devs calling out corruption and bad business decisions or practices. Professionalism when applied to corporations is just another way for them to maintain their image they want for themselves. Fans of the devs working on the IP usually will be disappointed out of their own interest to see more from their work on the IP in the future, but largely it's pretty understandable for anyone slightly reasonable, and cathartic to see broken for those more invested in the power dynamic imbalance.

Professionalism when it applies to working with other devs and peers though? No matter how many times he reiterated that they had left their own bugs in themselves, he still opened the thread with this premise:

Which is a lot more shocking to air publicly than any amount of corporate grievances that were later in the thread. The rest of the thread would be just as informative as is, as the lack of ability to be hands on with the final product and SEGA's lack of allowance for fixes make the state completely understandable on their end. Directly pointing to the integration of it introducing different bugs and alluding to responsibility that is not their own? It's not incorrect to say considering what we know, but it sounds pretty clear what they're referring to for a lot of fans.

It's not a sudden hypocrisy to be shocked by this; this rarely happens among developers themselves, and for much better reason than falling in line behind a company's favor at the expense of you and your work's wellbeing.

[VO.SUPER]

1 hour ago, SolidSurgeTT said:

I want to believe but...someone has to shoulder the recurring issues with the franchise that don't get addressed, even though everyone keeps telling them.

To be fair, Izuka isn't the one making release schedules, team sizes, and allocating the budgets. 

His job is to work with the tools SoJ gives him and manage that.

From the Nintendolife interview a few days a go, he made it clear this project was always going to be just the classic 5. No extra games cut out or anything. So for all we know, he was trying to keep a realistic project.

But of course, things still went awry in places. 

[NoKaine]

1 hour ago, SolidSurgeTT said:

I want to believe but...someone has to shoulder the recurring issues with the franchise that don't get addressed, even though everyone keeps telling them.

I do adore that even a person with fandom clout like Stealth says "people like Iizuka are not the problem, it's a problem with SEGA's management", people still insist "well, no, acksually Sonic Team is still responsible and incompetent because I need SOME physical entity to blame." Iizuka is Head of Sonic Team, but Sonic Team is just a puppet of SEGA. Everything down from the games they make are SEGA's decision, and it's up to Sonic Team to use the tools given to make something good, which is hard when you are being throttled by your higher-ups. Iizuka and Sonic Team doesn't hate Sonic and they're truer Sonic fans than most. But they keep getting dealt a shit hand.

Unfortunately, the truth is that no one even "hates" Sonic, not even SEGA. SEGA just sees Sonic as, well, marketing. It's a franchise! It makes money. The decisions they make around Sonic are based on money. It's also why I find the idea that SEGA / Sonic Team are jealous of Mania is silly; in fact, them liking Mania is why things like this happened. SEGA didn't care to let Headcannon / Sonic Team / whoever give Origins the time it needs to fix this. And yeah, Origins isn't '06 buggy, but everyone involved surely knew there were problems and weren't allowed to fix them because SEGA wants Origins to come out on Sonic's birthday! Imagine the money we can make!

Stealth may be "unprofessional"--he's no orator--but this is good to get out there. Will SEGA, especially SoJ, take the stick out of their ass and actually take the backlash constructively? Probably not. But it's good that it is out there. 

And screw people who are like "don't say these things because SEGA won't work with you and you're the only ones who make Good Sonic Games!" First off, if SEGA does cut them off over this, they deserve the bad games they keep twisting out of their employees. Second, grievances with this should be taken to management so EVERY game can be good. This is a company-wide problem. It affects every game and every person involved, even the people you personally like.

It's amazing that people can hear these stories but still resolutely conclude "Sonic Team is just Incompetent." Iizuka literally alluded to crunching to make Frontiers but ehhhhh they're just Dumb and Lazy. It's part of why discourse over Sonic Team in this board annoys the fuck out of me. They don't always make good decision with what they're given, absolutely. But "better people" can easily be fucked over by bad management. So I hope this changes how people talk about these games.

But probably not.

[Zoomzeta]

19 minutes ago, NoKaine said:

I do adore that even a person with fandom clout like Stealth says "people like Iizuka are not the problem, it's a problem with SEGA's management", people still insist "well, no, acksually Sonic Team is still responsible and incompetent because I need SOME physical entity to blame." Iizuka is Head of Sonic Team, but Sonic Team is just a puppet of SEGA. Everything down from the games they make are SEGA's decision, and it's up to Sonic Team to use the tools given to make something good, which is hard when you are being throttled by your higher-ups. Iizuka and Sonic Team doesn't hate Sonic and they're truer Sonic fans than most. But they keep getting dealt a shit hand.

Unfortunately, the truth is that no one even "hates" Sonic, not even SEGA. SEGA just sees Sonic as, well, marketing. It's a franchise! It makes money. The decisions they make around Sonic are based on money. It's also why I find the idea that SEGA / Sonic Team are jealous of Mania is silly; in fact, them liking Mania is why things like this happened. SEGA didn't care to let Headcannon / Sonic Team / whoever give Origins the time it needs to fix this. And yeah, Origins isn't '06 buggy, but everyone involved surely knew there were problems and weren't allowed to fix them because SEGA wants Origins to come out on Sonic's birthday! Imagine the money we can make!

Stealth may be "unprofessional"--he's no orator--but this is good to get out there. Will SEGA, especially SoJ, take the stick out of their ass and actually take the backlash constructively? Probably not. But it's good that it is out there. 

And screw people who are like "don't say these things because SEGA won't work with you and you're the only ones who make Good Sonic Games!" First off, if SEGA does cut them off over this, they deserve the bad games they keep twisting out of their employees. Second, grievances with this should be taken to management so EVERY game can be good. This is a company-wide problem. It affects every game and every person involved, even the people you personally like.

It's amazing that people can hear these stories but still resolutely conclude "Sonic Team is just Incompetent." Iizuka literally alluded to crunching to make Frontiers but ehhhhh they're just Dumb and Lazy. It's part of why discourse over Sonic Team in this board annoys the fuck out of me. They don't always make good decision with what they're given, absolutely. But "better people" can easily be fucked over by bad management. So I hope this changes how people talk about these games.

But probably not.

Just to correct, this is an industry wide problem, if the last few years didn't make that clear. 

[NoKaine]

10 hours ago, Jake_LeOFFICIAL said:

Really telling thread by Stealth. The team was basically rushed, and SEGA made direct changes to Sonic 3 without the team's involvement.

The part about SEGA making changes is the expected part of the development: Headcannon was hired to remaster the games but the collection itself was always SEGA's job. Problems arose when SEGA put the games in the collection (which is completely expected, they are different engines after all).

The actual problem is that not only was Headcannon's rushed from the outset, but they were also refused the ability to fix the issues after submission, even though they offered to do it off contract and for free (and I doubt that the internal SEGA developers were given any time to fix their issues too).

All of this could have been avoided if they were given a delay, but nope! Gotta release on Sonic's birthday! In other words, dumb management bullshit.

EDIT: It also sounds like the two teams was also isolated from each other and weren't allowed to, like, work together, even though they have the same project.

[light-gaia]

I think his tweets are kinda unprofessional. The game has a few glitches and bugs but nothing severe that couldn't be fixed with a few patches. Sonic Mania had way more problems when it first came out. I experienced a lot of deaths because of glitches in Sonic Mania.

Imagine if back in 2017, Sega says: "bugs in Sonic Mania are Headcanon's fault not ours"

[SolidSurgeTT]

4 minutes ago, light-gaia said:

I think his tweets are kinda unprofessional. The game has a few glitches and bugs but nothing severe that couldn't be fixed with a few patches. Sonic Mania had way more problems when it first came out. I experienced a lot of deaths because of glitches in Sonic Mania.

Imagine if back in 2017, Sega says: "bugs in Sonic Mania are Headcanon's fault not ours"

Sega WAS trying to push off the inclusion of Denuvo in Sonix Mania onto Headcannon. That's what made me doubt that Stealth should continue his company's relationship with Sega. They seem not to want to make things between them and collaborating developers work smoothly (or worse, scapegoating and undermining their work).

Or rather maybe just when it comes to Sonic. Streets of Rage 4 seemed mostly unhindered between Lizard Cube/Guard Crush Games and Sega.

[light-gaia]

Just now, SolidSurgeTT said:

Sega WAS trying to push off the inclusion of Denuvo onto Headcannon. That's what made me doubt that Stealth should continue his company's relationship with Sega. They seem not to want to make things between them and collaborating developers work smoothly (or worse, scapegoating and undermining their work).

Sonic Mania glitches had nothing to do with Denuvo. I have the PS4 version, not the PC version and I experienced a lot of glitches and bugs. Including the infamous blue Super Sonic. Sonic Mania had way more glitches and bugs than Sonic Origins.