Sonic Classic Collection

[Blue Blood]

How do you add slowdown to a 15-20 year old game on a more powerful system?

Rush job. Nice going Sega.

If these games were ports, then yeah I'd understand what you were saying. But they're emulations.

[Sean]

Ports, emulations... Doesn't change the fact that it could and should have been done better than this.

No sweat off my back though, I already own most of these games in some format or another (although Sonic 1 for Sega Smash Pack DC sucks ass). It's cool.

[Velotix von Skruviktorrius]

Notes for the technophobic among us:

Port - rewritten code designed to run specifically on different hardware from the original code with the intent to retain equivalent performance on both platforms at the possible expense of the experience

Emulation - the original code running in a special interpreter designed to let the code run on different hardware from the original code's intended platform with the intent to retain a near-identical experience to the original platform

Because the processors have to waste time running the interpreter as well as the game, the system requirements to get identical performance to the original platform are far higher than the original platform's requirements.

Now having pointed all that out, the DS is massively more powerful than the Genesis so if the emulator is struggling at all, it's guaranteed developer fail.

[Patticus]

If these games were ports, then yeah I'd understand what you were saying. But they're emulations.

But Gens on the DS runs these games a million times better...

[Blue Blood]

But Gens on the DS runs these games a million times better...

Gens on the DS? You sure about that? IIRC, there's actually no emulator that supports the full S3&K other than the modified jEnesisDS that SEGA used for this.

[Patticus]

Gens on the DS? You sure about that? IIRC, there's actually no emulator that supports the full S3&K other than the modified jEnesisDS that SEGA used for this.

That doesn't explain why Sonic 1, 2 etc get terrible slowdown too, unless all the games are being emulated at the same time for some reason.

[Tornado]

Sweet Christmas. I apologize for my early posts in this thread where I stated that no company would act as if an emulator that is competent for homebrew is the same as an emulator that is competent for actual retail. Clearly I underestimated Sega's huge brass balls when it comes to putting the minimal amount of effort possible into something. I mean, I have a PSP, so I don't care, but damn. Its jEnesisDS with a (very) slightly different menu system and the music disabled! Which, despite not emulating the music, runs worse!

Edited March 14, 2010 by Tornado

[PSI Wind]

Though the DS is more powerful than the Genisis:

1. Emulators can still slow down a game.

2. These games were ment to play on a TV.

3. ITS 6 GAMES IN ONE (KinSTH2 & STH3&K count IMO)! Of course there will be slow down.

Could the slowdown be better than what we got? If SEGA worked a little harder, yes. But there would still be slowdown.

Edited March 14, 2010 by Pearl

[Sean]

I... don't think having six games in this compilation has anything to do with it slowing down.

If the DS was going to be having problems emulating these games then maybe Sega should have just ported them. inb4 "Sonic 1 Genesis" because it's not the only example of a ported game in the world.

[Blue Blood]

I... don't think having six games in this compilation has anything to do with it slowing down.

If the DS was going to be having problems emulating these games then maybe Sega should have just ported them. inb4 "Sonic 1 Genesis" because it's not the only example of a ported game in the world.

It's more the case that the emulator isn't perfect.

But still, ports would have been a better way to go. And maybe add a few new features here and there, perhaps? You know, like all the Super Mario Advance titles.

[Nattala]

I got this game recently and while its been running fine for the most part, I did encounter a glitch that I don't think was in the originals (correct me if I'm wrong). In Sonic 2 and Knuckles I was in Casino Night Zone Act 2 and I'm not quite sure what happened, I was just playing as normal and running into bumpers when Knuckles got stuck in his ball form. Like he was always spinning even when completely still. It made it hard to get on the elevator thingies. Well I thought that would make the boss really easy but just before I got there Knuckles rolled down a hill and turned back to normal. I don't know what I was doing to cause it but it was definitely a glitch.

[-Mark-]

The iPod version of Sonic 1 is still to this day the 'best' port, in that it's actually a port rather than an emulation, and as such it's a pretty much perfect representation of the original.

Shame playing with the touch wheel makes the game practically impossible once you get to the Marble Zone.

Anyway, finished S3&K on this last night. I'd actually say my biggest gripe with the game is the layering issues, which is odd. It just irks me more than the framerate (which isn't so bad) and the cropped screen (barely noticeable except during the credits and certain bosses that were made to fit the screen, Green Hill for example).

I'd say I'm overall happy with the collection. The only blatantly noticeable issue for me is the layering (and that only gets really bad in the second half of Sonic & Knuckles), other than that I'd say it's a perfectly acceptable collection. The framerate issues are only really noticeable at times when rolling (sometimes you stick on one frame) and when you have a shield in Sonic 2.

Must say though, what with the quick, to-the-point and hassle-free menus, added with the quick-save feature, I love how 'pick-up-and-play' this is. You can dip in and out of it for a quick blast really easily.

Edited March 15, 2010 by Mahzes

[Yong]

The iPod version of Sonic 1 is still to this day the 'best' port, in that it's actually a port rather than an emulation, and as such it's a pretty much perfect representation of the original.

Was their something wrong with the Mega Collection "ports" or is that just considered "emulation"?

I don't know if choosing to play Sonic 3 first on Classic Collection was a good or bad thing. The slowdown seemed to be really bad during those first few stages. It picked up as I got closer to the end of the game but it was still always noticable. If you played the original a bazillion times on the Genesis/Mega Drive like I have you should have no problem noticing this. The sound issues are what's griping me the most though, with the other sounds not being muted during the extra life and continue jingles, and the stage clear jingle repeating everytime I get a continue after a special stage.

Also why is it that the Start button works for everything else except pausing the game? Why they did feel that only the touch screen should be handling pausing of any sort?

It's a good effort, but not my ideal portable port. The main menu could've benefitted with a sound test collection(since they took those features out of the actual games) instead of just only the art "collection" which you'll breeze through in 1 minute and most likely never come back to ever again.

[Detective Shadzter]

PALGN give the game a 7 1/2 -

http://palgn.com.au/nintendo-ds/16132/sonic-classic-collection-review/

[Aquaslash]

Not sure if it's been mentioned, but this IS an emulation job. The roms have been extracted already, and with a little byte-swapping, run PERFECTLY fine on regular emulators.

So yeah, I'm not familiar with the DS's capabilities, but it's either emulation failure on Sega's part, or the DS simply can't handle running Gene...

Oh god what am I saying, of COURSE it's emulator failure on Sega's part XD

[Blue Blood]

Not sure if it's been mentioned, but this IS an emulation job. The roms have been extracted already, and with a little byte-swapping, run PERFECTLY fine on regular emulators.

So yeah, I'm not familiar with the DS's capabilities, but it's either emulation failure on Sega's part, or the DS simply can't handle running Gene...

Oh god what am I saying, of COURSE it's emulator failure on Sega's part XD

Yeah, just few posts up were talking about this being an emulator with a few roms. I'd rather SEGA emulate games at this quality than port them at Sonic Genesis quality.

[Saint Nathan]

Just to say, I've encountered little to no lag/slowdown. At all. Layering seems to be the only BIG problem.

Edited March 16, 2010 by Nathan Speed

[-Mark-]

Was their something wrong with the Mega Collection "ports" or is that just considered "emulation"?

Sorry, I meant 'handheld/ portable device' version.

I mean, we've got the mobile phone version (ew), GBA Sonic 1 (eww), the brilliant-yet-unplayable (due to input limitations) iPod version, and now Classic Collection, which is still pretty good, just not 'perfect' like the iPod port was.

Then again, considering the iPod version of Sonic 1 is around 84MB (whereas the original game is a tiny fraction of that if they were to just emulate it), it should be a good port.

[Sonic Yoda]

Is there any unlockable stuff? What happened to those History of Sonic and Chronicles videos that got rated with the other game content by the Australian classification board?

[Blue Blood]

They didn't make the final cut for some reason. Not that a Chronicles trailer would have made SCC any better.

[bolt7]

Is there any unlockable stuff? What happened to those History of Sonic and Chronicles videos that got rated with the other game content by the Australian classification board?

There is no unlockable content and both videos most likely were cut from the final build.

What you see on the box is what you get, basically. Can't say I had too much faith in this collection in the first place, anyway. =X

Edited March 16, 2010 by bolt7

[Patticus]

Just to say, I've encountered little to no lag/slowdown. At all. Layering seems to be the only BIG problem.

Are you using a DS Lite or DSi?

[Blue Blood]

My Limited Edition version arrived today! Woo! The tin, cards and figure are really nice. Plus the game itself came in one of those sleek black cases instead of the bulky translucent ones you normally see in Europe.

[Balthamos]

My Limited Edition version arrived today! Woo! The tin, cards and figure are really nice. Plus the game itself came in one of those sleek black cases instead of the bulky translucent ones you normally see in Europe.

Theres a limited edition one?

[Blue Blood]

Yup! And there's lots of pics at the Blognik. It was only released in Australia and Spain so I imported it.

Okay, so stuff to mention.

• I'm playing it on a DSi and the slowdown is not as bad as I've seen on some videos of DSL gameplay so it's probably safe to safe there is some DSi optimisation.
  
• The screen squashing isn't bad at all. I never notice itn apart form the occaisional heat-wave effect it can cause with moving objects (waterfalls in AIZ especially).
  
• AIZ in particular isn't bad.
  
• The S3&K special stage juttering isn't bothersome or particularly noticeable.
  
• The menus are overly lazy.
  
• I laughed when I tried the S2&K level select cut off level names. 'Merald Hill' and 'Ill Top'.
  
• Some sound effects are a bit odd. As of now there's the sound the stars make in the S2 intro, ring loss, spin dash charging and when you see Robotnik in the backgroun right before you fight him in AIZ2.
  
• While the menu screenshots for S1, S2, S3, S&K and S3&K are high quality perfect screens of the original games, the S2&K is like poor GIF. Wonder why.
  

Overall I'm incredibly pleased with this. I can finally play these games on the go and everything is good enough not to hinder the experience.

Edited March 16, 2010 by Blue Blood