Sonic 30th predictions

[Red Hot Jack]

^I get that but it does take time... not just to make good quality, something they are confident to show, but Sonic games in general take a lot of time, unless you want empty corridors to boost through. They take time to design, even stages that take 1 minute to run through.

Yeah the console gens are an obstacle for SEGA, from what I've understood at least. They need to take 3 years to make a brand new graphic engine and a lot of bulk for future games... only for the consoles to die a few years later and be replaced with new ones, then the cycle repeats. Eh. It's complicated.

[SonicLegends]

In regards to spinoffs I wish we could get another attempt at a Sonic RPG that actually doesn't set up for a sequel like Chronicles made the mistake of.

[User18091994]

17 hours ago, Jack at Home said:

^I get that but it does take time... not just to make good quality, something they are confident to show, but Sonic games in general take a lot of time, unless you want empty corridors to boost through. They take time to design, even stages that take 1 minute to run through.

Yeah the console gens are an obstacle for SEGA, from what I've understood at least. They need to take 3 years to make a brand new graphic engine and a lot of bulk for future games... only for the consoles to die a few years later and be replaced with new ones, then the cycle repeats. Eh. It's complicated.

The Hedgehog Engine 2 wasn't developed only for Sonic games. Sega used it in a lot of recent games such as Sakura Wars and the new Project Diva.

[Blue Blood]

6 hours ago, Raphael Martins said:

The Hedgehog Engine 2 wasn't developed only for Sonic games. Sega used it in a lot of recent games such as Sakura Wars and the new Project Diva.

Right, this is an important factor to remember.

The Hedgehog Engine (1 and 2) is a proprietary lighting and graphics engine created by SEGA. It was created with fast, 3D and large Sonic games in mind initially, but it's not limited to just those scenarios. It was used in Lost World, which is a very different of Sonic game to begin with, but has since been used in Sakura Wars and the M&S Olympics series. If much of Forces' supposed development time was actually spent on building a versatile engine, that warrants a rethink. Forces was likely put together in short amount of time, and the actual process of developing the game would have take a back seat to developing the engine. They are two separate projects there we're lumping together because they're connected. I know it's been thrown around that Most of the 4 years between Lost World and Forces was spent on engine development and not game development, but it's important that this is understood in the wider context.

Although @Raphael Martins, could you get me a source on Project Diva using the Hedgehog Engine? It's pretty well-known at this point that Sakura Wars uses it, but I'm having a really hard time establishing other games that use it. The SNN Wiki and PSO2 Wikipedia page is the only source I'm seeing for some other games, but they're not reliable of course.

[Red Hot Jack]

Okay, I still don't understand something: Aaron Webber said to lower our expectations, so it's not a new game I guess. But he said we will get news before the next stream (either this or early next week). 

The question is... what kind of minor announcement we are getting? Especially IF this announcement happens on gaming panels in June. Game or no game? If not, what the... I'm confused. Could be a new spin-off or maybe I'm wrong and it's something else, something smaller.

[Blue Blood]

18 minutes ago, Jack at Home said:

Okay, I still don't understand something: Aaron Webber said to lower our expectations, so it's not a new game I guess. But he said we will get news before the next stream (either this or early next week). 

Would you like some fuel on that fire?

It's probably absolutely nothing and with Sonic being used purely as a random filler graphic (the fact that it's from Generations is neither here nor there) but there we go.

[Whatever the WhoCares]

It could be one or a series of Switch ports. SA, SA2, Colors, and Generations would all be received well by players (not so much critics, but that hasn’t stopped Switch ports of controversial games in the past). 

[Tracker_TD]

18 hours ago, Raphael Martins said:

and the new Project Diva.

Running in real quick as the resident Hatsune Miku guy - as far as I know, this is not the case. Project DIVA Mega Mix is a port of SEGA AM2's DIVA Arcade, a game that's about 10 years old now; the shader used in the Switch version is actually present in the original game (it's used in a few songs, including the yodelling song that is bizarrely absent from DIVA Mega Mix), and as far as I know, no engine switch happened. 

Sakura Wars used it though, yeah. AFAIK it and Forces are the only two games to use it so far. Maybe Olympics 2020 too? Memory's fuzzy on that one. 

[Blue Blood]

9 hours ago, Tracker_TD said:

Running in real quick as the resident Hatsune Miku guy - as far as I know, this is not the case. Project DIVA Mega Mix is a port of SEGA AM2's DIVA Arcade, a game that's about 10 years old now; the shader used in the Switch version is actually present in the original game (it's used in a few songs, including the yodelling song that is bizarrely absent from DIVA Mega Mix), and as far as I know, no engine switch happened. 

Sakura Wars used it though, yeah. AFAIK it and Forces are the only two games to use it so far. Maybe Olympics 2020 too? Memory's fuzzy on that one. 

Awesome, thank you. Couldn't find any source at all on basically any of the claims, so it's nice to have that one cleared up.

Anyway, here's a little Twitter thread about M&S Rio basically using the HE2 (years before Forces, and on the Wii U). It stands to reason that Tokyo would use it too, although I can't find a source on that.

[Red Hot Jack]

13 hours ago, Blue Blood said:

Would you like some fuel on that fire?

It's probably absolutely nothing and with Sonic being used purely as a random filler graphic (the fact that it's from Generations is neither here nor there) but there we go.

I don't know. Part of me that would say "it means Sonic is part of the panel" is my obvious hope. But I frankly don't know. I don't get why they would use Sonic as face of the gaming event, especially if he's not part of it. 

I am aware we are questioning too much, when in reality we should just wait.

Btw, it's the second time IGN uses a Sonic icon to promote this event, last time it was Modern Sonic in a scene from Forces...

[Jango]

It's probably nothing. Big Daddy is there too and there isn't a new BioShock on the way, AFAIK... Well, there's the Switch port that comes out this week. Maybe Generations port? A little late, but still. I wouldn't complain. Generations is great.

[Wraith]

7 minutes ago, Jango said:

It's probably nothing. Big Daddy is there too and there isn't a new BioShock on the way, AFAIK.

There is. 

https://www.engadget.com/2019-12-09-a-new-bioshock-game-is-in-development.html

 

https://www.gamesradar.com/new-bioshock-game-confirmed/

[Jango]

Well shit, I never played BioShock, so I wouldn't know. I heard it's a great series, tho'.

So this thing starts when? Generations port is my bet. 

[SonicLegends]

1 hour ago, Jango said:

Well shit, I never played BioShock, so I wouldn't know. I heard it's a great series, tho'.

So this thing starts when? Generations port is my bet. 

In about 2 hours but yeah that would be the logical bet. Would be cool if they added additional content  as people wanted dlc for the game but fat chance of that happening.

[Red Hot Jack]

I don't follow, why do you think it's a Generations port? I wouldn't mind it honestly, but it's a pretty specific prediction.

If it's because they used a pic from Generations in the post, they also used one from Forces back when the event was announced.

[Dr. Detective]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's what this always is 100% of the time. We need a generic picture of Sonic to put in our advert thing so get one.

Although, if they announced "Sonic Generations port but now it looks like Unleashed and also here's Hang Castle" I'd be all over that. 

I don't even care about possible lag. 

[Whatever the WhoCares]

If I could get SA2 on the Switch, I would finally make time for those Chao emblems. 

[Blue Blood]

It's perfectly feasible that they could put out ports of existing games to platforms where they're not yet available, with the Switch having the biggest holes in the Sonic library. It would be nice, I guess, to have games like Generations, Colours, Unleashed, the Adventure series, Heroes etc etc on any system. But unless SEGA really want to go out of their way to make definitive editions of these games, particularly the older ones, then I'm not interested. Gaming on my PC is never my first choice if it can be avoided, but SEGA's efforts to re-release much of SEGA's old library have been lacklustre at best so I gravitate towards the PC or even emulated for their enhancement mods. It's unlikely that SEGA themselves ever do anything more than the bare minimum of rendering the games at higher resolutions and enabling widescreen (there's very little involved in this process). 

Ports are fine, but even Switch versions would be lost on me if SEGA didn't enhance the games in any way. Going back to a 30fps version of Generations is one big ball of nope.

[Johnster4]

I defiantly think porting Sonic games over to PC would have helped calm the fan base while we wait for the next Sonic game, I mean they have Sonic games that they could bring over to Steam so why not even when the last port they make was Yakuza Kiwami 2 last year so they definently have done something during that time.

8 hours ago, Blue Blood said:

SEGA's efforts to re-release much of SEGA's old library have been lacklustre at best 

I disagree, SEGA have been improving when it comes to porting their games to PC, since 2014 we've had the following games release in Steam:

• Valkyries Chronicles 1
• Sonic Lost World
• Bayonetta
• Vanquish
• Yakuza 0, 1 & 2 Kiwami 
• Shenmue
• Catherine Classic
• Puyo Puyo Tetris

There aren't even counting the Simultaneous releases.

[Blue Blood]

31 minutes ago, Johnster4 said:

I defiantly think porting Sonic games over to PC would have helped calm the fan base while we wait for the next Sonic game, I mean they have Sonic games that they could bring over to Steam so why not even when the last port they make was Yakuza Kiwami 2 last year so they definently have done something during that time.

I disagree, SEGA have been improving when it comes to porting their games to PC, since 2014 we've had the following games release in Steam:

• Valkyries Chronicles 1
• Sonic Lost World
• Bayonetta
• Vanquish
• Yakuza 0, 1 & 2 Kiwami 
• Shenmue
• Catherine Classic
• Puyo Puyo Tetris

There aren't even counting the Simultaneous releases.

Sorry, typo there. I meant to say Sonic, because their Sonic ports to PC are pretty bad.

[McGroose]

2 hours ago, Blue Blood said:

Sorry, typo there. I meant to say Sonic, because their Sonic ports to PC are pretty bad.

Which ones did you have specifically in mind? 

For me, The Sonic Adventure DX port was awful. It needed the modding community to make it good. As for the SA2 port... it works whenever it wants. IDK what the hell happened, but ever since I got a new monitor the thing refuses to play 1/2 of the time and just crashes on startup. It's certainly far better quality than the SA1 port, I'll give them that, but at least that one technically worked all the time.

The Lost World port works fine, I think. Some people weren't happy with the 60FPS lock, but I never cared, 60FPS is smooth enough. Won't make you like or dislike the game any more, I think.

Generations PC is alright, but I swear it stutters more than it should considering how good my hardware is.

Or did you mean Sega's lack of Sonic ports, meaning games like Colors and Unleashed? In that case, I guess I see why Unleashed wasn't re-released, but that reasoning became moot ever since it became backwards compatible on Xbone with a 4k/stability patch as well. With Colors, it makes no sense why that hasn't been ported. 4 control schemes on the original Wii, making it super easy in concept to map to a keyboard and xbox/ps4 controller and the highest praise a "3D" Sonic game has ever received since SA2 (probably), yet they released Lost World on PC instead? Who asked for this?

[Styx_Linoone]

What we need is fresh, new writers for the story and not memelord cringe-worthy Pontaff & Graff. Seriously, I haven't been able to enjoy the current Sonic games in comparison to Shiro Maekawa's stories from the Adventure era. I think it's fair to say I grew up playing those games because they were fun and didn't force me to quit my game because of bad writing.

About Sonic's voice. Yes, I know Roger has been doing Sonic for a decade now, at least, but I think it's about time we introduce Ben Schwartz into the games and bring in the aforementioned paragraph above in combination to make a fresh new experience.

Are we going to see nostalgia in the 2021 game? Yes? No? Maybe? The only thing holding the blue blur back this past decade post-Colors was the massive influence on nostalgia, shoehorning Green Hill Zone into our faces in every mainline game (Generations was an exception). I want them to experiment, show us something new, then we have our thoughts.

[User18091994]

On 5/25/2020 at 8:01 AM, Blue Blood said:

Right, this is an important factor to remember.

The Hedgehog Engine (1 and 2) is a proprietary lighting and graphics engine created by SEGA. It was created with fast, 3D and large Sonic games in mind initially, but it's not limited to just those scenarios. It was used in Lost World, which is a very different of Sonic game to begin with, but has since been used in Sakura Wars and the M&S Olympics series. If much of Forces' supposed development time was actually spent on building a versatile engine, that warrants a rethink. Forces was likely put together in short amount of time, and the actual process of developing the game would have take a back seat to developing the engine. They are two separate projects there we're lumping together because they're connected. I know it's been thrown around that Most of the 4 years between Lost World and Forces was spent on engine development and not game development, but it's important that this is understood in the wider context.

Although @Raphael Martins, could you get me a source on Project Diva using the Hedgehog Engine? It's pretty well-known at this point that Sakura Wars uses it, but I'm having a really hard time establishing other games that use it. The SNN Wiki and PSO2 Wikipedia page is the only source I'm seeing for some other games, but they're not reliable of course.

I remember reading an article some time ago saying Hedgehog Engine 2 was used in lots of Sega current gen games. Such as the new Sakura Wars, Hatsune Miku Project Diva and even in some sports games. I can't find the source now, but I remember well reading it.

The first Hedgehog Engine wasn't used only in Sonic games, too. For example, Phantasy Star Online 2 (which was released in the US today) uses the first Hedgehog Engine. The game was originally released in 2012 in Japan.

 

On 5/25/2020 at 8:22 PM, Tracker_TD said:

Running in real quick as the resident Hatsune Miku guy - as far as I know, this is not the case. Project DIVA Mega Mix is a port of SEGA AM2's DIVA Arcade, a game that's about 10 years old now; the shader used in the Switch version is actually present in the original game (it's used in a few songs, including the yodelling song that is bizarrely absent from DIVA Mega Mix), and as far as I know, no engine switch happened. 

Sakura Wars used it though, yeah. AFAIK it and Forces are the only two games to use it so far. Maybe Olympics 2020 too? Memory's fuzzy on that one. 

Being a new version of old game doesn't mean it uses the same old engine. Super Monkey Ball Banana Blitz HD it's a port of an old Wii game and the new version uses Unity.

[Tracker_TD]

32 minutes ago, Raphael Martins said:

Being a new version of old game doesn't mean it uses the same old engine. Super Monkey Ball Banana Blitz HD it's a port of an old Wii game and the new version uses Unity.

This is true, but you also haven't backed up your claims; so given Sonic Team weren't anywhere near Project DIVA Mega Mix, I feel fairly confident that it's still running on AM2's engine. 

[Blue Blood]

13 hours ago, Raphael Martins said:

I remember reading an article some time ago saying Hedgehog Engine 2 was used in lots of Sega current gen games. Such as the new Sakura Wars, Hatsune Miku Project Diva and even in some sports games. I can't find the source now, but I remember well reading it.

The first Hedgehog Engine wasn't used only in Sonic games, too. For example, Phantasy Star Online 2 (which was released in the US today) uses the first Hedgehog Engine. The game was originally released in 2012 in Japan.

 

Being a new version of old game doesn't mean it uses the same old engine. Super Monkey Ball Banana Blitz HD it's a port of an old Wii game and the new version uses Unity.

I've searched for both Project DIVA and PSO2 Hedgehog Engine claims and can't find anything except public Wikis with no sources and various forum posts where people say "this game pretty so it must be using the Hedgehog Engine".

So again, sources please.  

16 hours ago, McGroose said:

Which ones did you have specifically in mind? 

For me, The Sonic Adventure DX port was awful. It needed the modding community to make it good. As for the SA2 port... it works whenever it wants. IDK what the hell happened, but ever since I got a new monitor the thing refuses to play 1/2 of the time and just crashes on startup. It's certainly far better quality than the SA1 port, I'll give them that, but at least that one technically worked all the time.

The Lost World port works fine, I think. Some people weren't happy with the 60FPS lock, but I never cared, 60FPS is smooth enough. Won't make you like or dislike the game any more, I think.

Generations PC is alright, but I swear it stutters more than it should considering how good my hardware is.

Lost World got a patch to unlock the framerate, which actually broke the game and made several levels impossible; collecting butterflies wouldn't trigger flowers to open and something went wrong with the Drill Wisp too IIRC (both were necessary to clear a number of levels). I'm not sure if they ever officially fixed this, but I'm going to hazard a guess and say that they did because I'm not finding much discussion about it. There's an option to disable voice overs, but it's so lazily done that the BGM volume still lowers for a few seconds at the points when characters are still supposed to talk. All of the Circus Tents were removed outright. They weren't exactly a highlight of the Wii U game but rather than remap the motion controls to regular buttons, they just got taken out completely and the numbers of animals you needed to rescue to progress along the map was massively reduced. It reeks of lazy to take them out completely. Lower the requirements to reduce the need to grind to progress, but just to cut out content like that... lazy as shit. 

Generations is so tackily done that is used the default VB icon on the task bar. It's got very limited graphical options available and you can't configure the games settings at all from within the application itself. Cutscenes frequently run out of sync with the audio regardless of the how well the rest of the game runs. I can't back it up from technical point of view, but from what I've heard the game is just poorly optimised. It also removed the bonus unlockable version of S1 that was included in the console versions. No idea if this was due to laziness or another reason, but it also seemed such a strange omission. 

SCD was built natively on the PC using the Retro Engine. But SEGA, in all of their infinite wisdom, hired Blit Works to port the 360 version back to PC who then broke the game's resolutions and scaling in the process. It looks constantly blurry as a result. Taxman spoke out on the issue, expressing his regret at being unable to fix it because it was not his version of the game. 

With regards to SA1HD and SA2HD, it also includes the console versions. SA1 didn't even support widescreen and improperly rendered different resolutions resulting in a blurry image. This is a bit of recurring theme actually, cause it also applied to S4E2 before fan outcry got it patched. Neither game made any effort fix the broken graphical effects of the GCN versions (and the additional ones of the original SADX PC version). Controller support is borked and in-game settings are again non-existent.

The PC versions of Sonic games are functional. They work (apart from the time they broke Lost World), but they are as half-arsed as possible. Make sure the game boots up and it's ready to sell. It's sad that they don't do anything to make the games the definitive versions to play. Would it have killed them to rebalance the audio mixing in SA2?