E-122-Psi

Yeah, it is really weird. Considering how sonic never makes any inclination that he'd ever do anything bad to anybody, his friends would trust him more. Like, I still consider it a bit ridiculous that nobody questioned eggman's motives in that part in sonic x and instead pointed fingers at the guy who has literally been fighting him for ages. In Sonic Adventure 2 it was at least a little more believable since at that point sonic was probably still new in the public conscious.

Ironically those were probably the most justified. X revealed most of the cast were brainwashed to side with Eggman (except the other heroes who didn't believe it, and Chris and the President who at least caught themselves on it). Also Sonic seemed to be partway in troll mode and didn't bother telling anyone as punishment for being science flunks, so didn't help his case.

Meanwhile we didn't hear much from the public opinion in SA2 besides from Tails and Amy (who again didn't believe it) and GUN, who were later established as corrupt and likely trying to use Sonic as a scapegoat to hide their past mistakes (in hindsight Prison Island was an asshole victim locale).

Others like EndGame, the Man of the Year short, Pseudo Sonic, most Sonic the Comic examples (yeah he was dick there but come on) they were usually just being dimwits.

Had the Saturn lasted longer and wasn't a flop outside of Japan, Sonic Xtreme wasn't in development causing the lack of a big Sonic game despite the staff nearly dying over it, Sonic R wasn't made on a rush (it was originally planned to be like a Formula 1 game or something but it was ditched since Sonic was more interesting for Jon Burton to work on*) and Sonic Team was interested in a Sonic game from the start since they weren't interested until it was too late. Sonic Jam and R were like almost on its final year in the West with not much after and the Dreamcast would have got flack for no big Sonic game either had it happened.

Yeah... That actually would have been a good 3D Sonic game .

*- They actually did do a F1 game later on but for the PSP.

I can't really condemn Burton for choosing a Sonic game, Saturn had plenty of standard car racers already, and R was the only fully original Sonic game the console ultimately had (and hey at least he was keen to make a proper Saturn Sonic game :P). It's just a shame they didn't get a little more time to work on it and make it a more solid competitor against Mario Kart (seriously, FIVE tracks?).

Recall Yasuhara designed the level maps for 3D Blast and Sonic R--say what you will about the gameplay for both games, but the levels were absolutely legit. 3D Blast provided serviceable platforming and had decent amount of exploration (even given it was required, since you had to search for and free the Flickies), while Sonic R absolutely nailed providing moderately sized 3D worlds to explore. (Yasuhara was also brought on to do some level map concepts for X-treme, before that project got trashed.) The only thing both titles didn't quite nail were sloped terrain, but given the nature of those titles, that's a bit admissible.

Imagine if Sonic Team / TT Games collaborated on a legit 3D platformer for the Saturn (rather than a isometric Genesis swan song / enhanced port and a on-foot racer) and Yasuhara was allowed to direct and design it....we probably would gotten a genuinely good 3D Classic Sonic game out of it. :[

Agreed.

Aren't Saturn games supposed to be difficult to emulate?

Model 2 and 3 are arcade bleeding good and Sega pretty much at their best. So many classics during this time and not just from the legendary AM2 either. PS3 and the 360 actually got quite a few Model 2 games but a few stayed in Japan such as Virtua Striker because they sold so bad outside of Daytona.

If a Model 2 and 3 collection somehow happens even though it is impossible, then I'm set for life. Saturn does have a few gems (including Fighters Megamix and Dynamite Deka that uses Saturn hardware in the arcade) but most versions were better in the arcade.

@TheOcelot Short answer yep. Long answer, complex hardware of its time and very hard to understand, real hardware has copy protection (bit like the original Xbox actually, again hard to emulate). Even Sega didn't really emulate much and outside of PC ports back in the day, NiGHTS and Dynamite Deka were remade by Sega of China, the latter better than the former that is missing features.

There is a pretty good emulator for the Saturn on the PC but requires a more recent powerful computer that has a 64 bit processor. It's not 100% technically accurate (as no current computer can run it) but it runs some of the harder to emulate games such as Virtua Fighter Remix, Resident Evil (needs good timing especially at the end).

I suspect emulation is difficult, though these guys seem to have confidence in emulating the Dreamcast well so maybe they have something up their sleeve.

Saturn games are mentioned to be in their future plans at least, and they have got round to emulating a Model 1 arcade game with Virtua Racing, which is at least some promotion over the purely 2D rereleases on previous consoles (from what I heard M2 did the Virtual Console's SEGA library as well). It might also perhaps mean the first Virtua Fighter as well.

At worst I suppose they could do what Gems Collection did and utilise those old PC ports (if hopefully in better quality).

Yep. And the reason is bloody ridiculous.

What’s the reason?

It’s “too political”.

But every commercial slot in the UK these days is filled with charity ads which are WAY more in-your-face about it. I agree it's not much of a CHRISTMAS ad but no reason it can't air at all.

So that's the line? Hmph...it's way better then celebrities begging for money between ads reminding you that you're gonna die and somehow insurance makes it all better.

Gamma in general was actually pretty cool and I think with a couple of more mechanics to work with he definitely could've worked as a reoccurring character since he's pretty close to the normal gameplay while still being unique enough to stand on his own.

I don't mind Gamma staying a one time character, I just would have preferred if they made that one time count. Maybe be a bit more integral to the main story, a couple levels helping Eggman snag more of the emeralds from Sonic, and his boss fights being more aggressive.

I've always maintained that a good Sonic character should focus on movement first and combat second, but Gamma's an interesting case in that his attacking ability doesn't hinder his movement, which is probably the next best thing. It's a pretty interesting disconnect between SA1 Gamma and ShTH, the latter of whom basically needs to come to a complete stop to shoot as accurately.

Were it up to me I'd make the two work hand in hand. Let him use that booster of his horizontally for a speed boost as well as vertically for hovering, but give it a finite guage that you have to shoot enemies to refill. Bam, now he's perfect.

I don't think Gamma's speed is that distracting even, it could do with a subtle boost perhaps (or even just having the rolling mode offer a more significant difference) but otherwise he's slower than Sonic but still keeps enough adrenaline about it, compared to Amy and Big that feel a lot more like a Sonic character trying to lug a heavy weight behind them, which feels more tedious.

I think the bigger problem is the difficulty of his levels and bosses, since the fact he can actually keep up momentum based gameplay well was seemingly underestimated by the developers. Final Egg and Emerald Coast are absurdly short, and even with the bosses, the problem isn't that they can be defeated quickly since that's the same method as the old Sonic bosses, but more they don't really put up much of a resistance while doing such so that you had to master his controls to still keep a flow. Hot Shelter and E-105 Zeta were a well made final level and boss however.