The Lack of Sonic Re-Releases and Compilation Titles

[Silvereyes]

It seems like in recent years, partly due to the rise of games being available through digital stores, re-releasing games has become more popular, often under the banner of being an "HD Remaster". I find it slightly odd that Sega hasn't really tried to give Sonic that treatment. Sure, they seem to love making sure that their 90s titles are always available every few years, with the original Sonic trilogy being avaible on god knows how many platforms, and some games like Sonic CD and both Adventure games are relatively available.

But alot of older games aren't available. And due to Sonic having basically released titles for seemingly every system during the PS2 and PS3 eras especially, if you want to try and play the bulk of Sonic titles out there, you will need to hunt down the hardware. Want to experience Sonic Rivals? You'll need a PSP. Want to experience Sonic Rush? You'll need a DS.

Certainly as fan, I feel like it would be great if more Sonic titles were put out for todays systems. Sonic Heroes is the oldest main line Sonic game that hasn't seen a re-release since its original release, and while it was given a PC version, I highly doubt that PC version works on todays modern operating systems. I think you could give that the HD remaster treatment, and while Heroes may not be considered a great game, I think it is one that has a lot of nostalgia held for it by kids who got to experience Sonic since they didn't own any Sega console.

I think with the success of Sonic Mania, Sega could always try to capitalise on the popularity of 2D Sonic by rerelelasing alot of handheld games. Maybe put the 12 Game Gear games together in a bundle? Sonic Advance 1-3 in a collection with perhaps Battle as well, Sonic Rush, Adventure and Colours DS maybe with Sonic Chronicles as a bonus? I think you could make decent little mini collections if you so desired.

Personally though, I'd want proper big anthology titles. Maybe say have one that contains all Sonic games from the Mega Drive, Saturn, Game Gear in one collection, perhaps finally port Knuckles Chaotix. A more modern collection of say the Dreamcast games up to PS2 titles? Certainly I think games like Sonic '06 or Rise of Lyric could only ever be released under a compilation, I doubt Sega would want the bad press of asking money for '06 by itself, even if it had some improvements like better loading screens.

Certainly some games could benefit from a good port. Sonic Free Riders could get a motion control free release. Maybe the 2 storybook games could benefit from being free of the forced Wii controls? Others would probably be more difficult, DS and 3DS games are designed with 2 screens so I imagine porting those titles would require a bit more work and a different resolution to fit monitors and TV screens. There are also limitations, I doubt we'll ever see a definitive Sonic Racing Transformed with all racers due to some racers being exclusive to certain platforms. Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games would have to stay on Nintendo hardware. Mind you though, I think a collection of the 5 previous console Olympic titles ported for Switch controls would actually make for a very solid minigame collection.

Ofcourse as well, arguably Sega could go the other way, and instead of compilations, instead they port and release everything seperately so that consumers and fans can pick and choose. Sega has already down something like that with their Sega Mega Drive and Genesis Classics on Steam, where they had 50+ games all purchased seperately, all using 1 launcher. (Althoug just checking Steam now, they seem to have discontinue that model and it is just a compilation now.) Personally, I'm not sure I'd want that, because as a fan I would like a conventient way to own all Sonic titles, and I feel like buying them seperately would just be nickel and diming fans.

I am curious what peoples thoughts on this are? What would you expectations for this kind of thing be? Would you want something akin to the Sonic Mega Collection Plus or Sonic Gems Collection, or something different, akin to maybe another game compilation released out there?

[Iko]

4 hours ago, silvereye27 said:

Sonic Advance 1-3 in a collection with perhaps Battle as well

I would definitely buy it, especially if they're not mere ports but they are enhanced with new stuff and improvements (but basic ports would be cool as well).

[Salamander]

My perception is that re-releases and compilation titles often tend to ignore handheld games, no matter how acclaimed.  DS and 3DS titles, at least, seem like they'd require more of an overhaul to function normally on standard single-screen systems (perhaps if the Switch gets an official vertical mode?).

[Silvereyes]

3 hours ago, FFWF said:

My perception is that re-releases and compilation titles often tend to ignore handheld games, no matter how acclaimed.  DS and 3DS titles, at least, seem like they'd require more of an overhaul to function normally on standard single-screen systems (perhaps if the Switch gets an official vertical mode?). 

See, I think that is true of other franchises, but I can't help but think Sonic is a bit different in that regard where for a long time, the handheld games wern't cheap cash grabs, but felt like genuine attempts at continuing the franchise's 2D formula. You're right though, I imagine DS and 3DS games would require alot of work to port than I imagine the Advance games would require. To me, with other franchises, the handheld games would be more like neat bonuses, whereas I think Advance and Rush are respected enough to be able to sell by themselves, again say in a theoretical Advance and Rush bundles.

[JosepHenry]

Games like the Castlevania DS games are not cash grabs, and yet the had zero rereleases anyway.

[Diogenes]

There hasn't been a whole lot of porting or rereleasing of Sonic games lately, but that's largely because Sega already went port-happy a while back and most of the major games are already available. The Genesis classics, both Adventures, and everything from Generations onward are already on Steam, and at least most of them are available in some other form as well. Most of the other games are probably not worth the effort, either because they're too obscure, not very good, or both.

[Marco9966]

I would have liked Shadow the Hedgehog on PC. At least on Steam.

Same engine as Sonic Heroes so shouldn't be hard. What does it cost to make such an easy port?

[Chili Dawg]

I want mega collection and taxman cd on switch plz

And both Adventures.

[Shaddy Zaphod]

On 3/23/2019 at 9:49 AM, Marco9966 said:

I would have liked Shadow the Hedgehog on PC. At least on Steam.

Same engine as Sonic Heroes so shouldn't be hard. What does it cost to make such an easy port?

Shadow uses similar movement physics as Heroes but that means nothing when it comes to the visuals or additional mechanics, not to mention stability and performance. You have to make sure everything works in a port and you should believe that everything can break. Just because two games have the same basic control doesn't mean it'll just be super-easy. This is why many Sonic "ports" are actually just emulators running the old game files.

 

Also Shadow is a really shitty game

[Silvereyes]

6 hours ago, Diogenes said:

There hasn't been a whole lot of porting or rereleasing of Sonic games lately, but that's largely because Sega already went port-happy a while back and most of the major games are already available. The Genesis classics, both Adventures, and everything from Generations onward are already on Steam, and at least most of them are available in some other form as well. Most of the other games are probably not worth the effort, either because they're too obscure, not very good, or both.

That does make sense, although unless I'm wrong, Heroes, Unleashed and Colours are all unavailable on Steam and not available on any of the current consoles right now, so can't see much excuse to not give them some kind of port in future. I mean, what you say is true. It costs money to port games, and there isn't much point in spending money for a port of a game noone but die hards are going to buy.

With both Mega Collection Plus and Gems Collection, when you read the back of the covers, it is clear that what they are being sold on is the classic trilogy and Sonic CD, Fighters, Sonic R respectively, with the Game Gear titles being touted more as additional features rather than headline attractions. Which made sense, I doubt even back in the early 2000s, anyone outside fandom cared about Sonic's Game Gear career. Likewise, I think it would make sense if a modern day compilation worked in that way. Like say have a game like Heroes be the headline, but give us stuff like, I dunno, Riders and Rivals as stuff the fill up the package. Stuff that fans want but casuals who remember playing Heroes when they were kids won't care so much about.

Mind you, I do genuinely think though that with an appetite for 2D Sonic since the release of Mania, I do think you could make an Advance or Rush compilation, as long as it was priced right and marketed towards the people who enjoyed Mania.

[JezMM]

I feel like the Rush games wouldn't be THAT complicated to port.  With high modern day resolutions, you could easily just make it so the entire vertical space of the two screens is available at once, and then simply extend the screen out horizontally for extra space you couldn't see originally.  The only part of that where, theoretically, they'd have to dismantle the game and put it back together again, would be accounting for how the game loads off-screen elements and what's going on in that "dead space" between the two screens halfway up the level where Sonic will switch screens when you pass across it.  The backgrounds would have to be tweaked too, since each screen had a seperate background which had the screen break cover up their lack of connection.

The tricky part is that, unless the game runs super tiny and zoomed out, they'd need to properly upscale the visuals or else the pixelly 2D textures will look awful next to the now-hi-res 3D models.

 

On the flipside though, the Rush trilogy is still very playable.  The games are not hard to come by second-hand and run just fine on a 3DS.  Heck, the addition of the circle pad makes the free-movement Super Sonic battles feel much more comfortable to play in fact (my fingers always cramp up doing that kinda stuff on a d-pad, for whatever reason).

[Detective Kaito]

I just want Sonic Unleashed, to be honest.

It's really odd how Sonic doesn't have re-releases of any games past SA2, but at least most of them are playable via emulators.

[Eurisko]

They would do well with a Sonic Classics collection. 

Sonic The Hedgehog 

Sonic The Hedgehog 2

Sonic CD

Sonic 3 & Knuckles

Knuckles Chaotix

Sonic Mania Plus

And hell , why not throw in some of the 8-bit titles like Triple Trouble and Tails Sky Patrol as bonus unlockables. TAKE MY MONEY!!

[Big Panda]

If we do ever get more compilations, I don’t want a straightforward “dump the games on the disc and call it a day” affair: I want something on par with Sonic Jam, Mega Collection, and Gems Collection.

The bonus features in those games were just such a brilliant treat to me. Especially in Jam’s case, with the Sonic’s World minigame.

[Emerald Chaos]

Is there a reason SEGA have never rereleased the Advance series?
Given they were pretty much the most critically acclaimed Sonic games of their time, a compilation of them feels like a no-brainer.

[Your Vest Friend]

Legal eagle. They were re-released in Japan, but with THQ going under their Western rights are in limbo. 

[Shaun Shikeishuu]

I don't think I'd buy any compilations or rereleases since I pretty much own everything already. 

Remakes or remasters l would depending on the game. 

[Tornado]

On 3/23/2019 at 4:32 PM, Shaddy Zaphod said:

Shadow uses similar movement physics as Heroes but that means nothing when it comes to the visuals or additional mechanics, not to mention stability and performance. You have to make sure everything works in a port and you should believe that everything can break. Just because two games have the same basic control doesn't mean it'll just be super-easy.

Except... uh...

Both games ran off the Renderware engine, both were deliberately designed to be easily ported, they presumably still have the source code, both games were on OG Xbox, they already have a good PC port of one of them that they could learn from, and there are countless professional game development studios who exist for that reason alone. It wouldn't be hard for Sega to do it, at all.

 

 

The actual reason probably is that Sega doesn't want to remind everyone it exists, even if there is a market for it (which I'd question) since as you note it is infamously shit; but this isn't "porting Orange Box to PS3" we're talking about here.

 

 

On 3/23/2019 at 12:41 AM, silvereye27 said:

Sonic Heroes is the oldest main line Sonic game that hasn't seen a re-release since its original release, and while it was given a PC version, I highly doubt that PC version works on todays modern operating systems.

The contemporary port of Heroes runs better on modern hardware than the 6 year newer port of Adventure 2 that is on Steam.

[Your Vest Friend]

Heroes isn't even a true example since it was re-released on PS3...in Europe. Same for Shadow except in Japan.

[Shaddy Zaphod]

2 hours ago, Tornado said:

Except... uh...

Both games ran off the Renderware engine, both were deliberately designed to be easily ported, they presumably still have the source code, both games were on OG Xbox, they already have a good PC port of one of them that they could learn from, and there are countless professional game development studios who exist for that reason alone. It wouldn't be hard for Sega to do it, at all.

The actual reason probably is that Sega doesn't want to remind everyone it exists, even if there is a market for it (which I'd question) since as you note it is infamously shit; but this isn't "porting Orange Box to PS3" we're talking about here.

A fair point, I didn't know all that. I just see a lot of "it'd be so easy" with regards to porting stuff all the time and I don't like to see it minimized into less of an undertaking than it is. Obviously I was wrong here, though.

[shdowhunt60]

I honestly really don't understand what SEGA's rhetoric when it comes to rereleasing games. I don't think it's even the controversy, because I mean, Sonic Lost World got released on Steam, and that was right when opinions against it were at its most sour. Meanwhile, people have been begging for a Unleashed PC port for how long now and SEGA just doesn't feel like it I guess.

Truly a baffling company at times.

[JezMM]

On 3/29/2019 at 3:59 AM, shdowhunt60 said:

I honestly really don't understand what SEGA's rhetoric when it comes to rereleasing games. I don't think it's even the controversy, because I mean, Sonic Lost World got released on Steam, and that was right when opinions against it were at its most sour. Meanwhile, people have been begging for a Unleashed PC port for how long now and SEGA just doesn't feel like it I guess.

Truly a baffling company at times.

Both of those games had pretty middling to mediocre reviews, but Lost World didn't have the Werehog baggage.  In public opinion, "flawed but fun" is overall better recieved than Unleashed's "the day gameplay is great but the werehog is AWFUL".

I mean, I disagree, Unleashed is my favourite 3D Sonic game, but I find it very easy to comprehend why Lost World might get ported to PC over Unleashed (as if they were ever in contest with one another anyway, it may well be that Lost World was designed from the beginning with potentially porting it in mind so it was an easy job, whereas Unleashed wasn't).

[Gumbit]

I think all Sonic games should be available on steam , even Sonic 06 .

[Skull Leader]

On March 24, 2019 at 4:39 PM, Your Vest Friend said:

Legal eagle. They were re-released in Japan, but with THQ going under their Western rights are in limbo. 

I always wondered why Sega could not distribute these three games of their very flagship franchise by themselves.