Sonic Origins Will Feature ‘Adapted’ Sonic 3&K Music, Likely Not Originals

[Penny]

It was expected, but yeah, this really stings. Honestly, more than I thought, too. Like, yeah, the beta tracks are all really good and I love listening to them; the Carnival Night tracks, the Competition theme, and Launch Base Act 1 are all bops. Playing through the game hearing those tracks is definitely not a bad time by any means.... but for me, it pales in comparison to the original tracks. The original version of all 3 level themes fit so perfectly, the idea of not hearing them in the definitive official version of 3&K just feels wrong, man. They give those levels such a distinct flavor (especially Carnival Night Act 2 and Launch Base Act 2, absolute perfection in terms of level-song pairing) that it's hard to forgive losing them, despite how necessary it is and how good the replacements are.

IDK man, it really does suck that the best game in the franchise can't be remade without compromises like this. Worse for me too, since my platform of choice is Xbox and I can't just mod in the original music there. All that said, however, I'd rather this happen than not get the game at all, and I'm excited to hear the finished versions of those beta tracks, considering how good those tracks were to begin with.

[Roger_van_der_weide]

Would have been funny if Jun Senoue would make off-brand remixes of the original tracks, like the Lego DImension knock off versions redone with Megadrive instruments:

Altough hey, I'm 100% in favor of the PC/ Beta versions being used, those are the ones I grew up with as well.

[Dummy Bear]

5 hours ago, Monkey Destruction Switch said:

This is pretty sad and disappointing. Ice Cap Zone is one of the best pieces of music I've ever heard from a video game, and the other copyright-unfriendly tracks are good too. I was already not interested in Sonic Origins for various reasons, but adding another reason to the pile is not pleasant

Not to mention the other Ice Cap are so generic sounding.

"Wheeee! Generic Winter Wonderland! Wheeeeeeeee!"

I prefer the frozen wasteland vibe of the original...

[TSS Classic Comment Bot]

Posted By: Murphmario

On one hand, it's a shame that Ice Cap isn't getting it's Act 1 track featured. On the other hand, Carnival Night's proto music is better than the final music.

Good music for good music, I suppose.

[TheOcelot]

It's a shame the original released music for CN, IC & LB had to be replaced, but if this was the only way to allow for a new release of 3K then I'm happy with this change.

In terms of preference; I prefer the Proto tracks for Carnival Night, released tracks for Ice Cap & Launch Base. Not that there counterparts are bad-they're good compositions. LB act1's Proto music is the only piece which isn't a good fit for that act IMO.

[JezMM]

Well it's a relief to have it confirmed one way or another.  Carnival Night is no biggie, I don't feel the music affects the mood of that stage.  Ice Cap is kinda sucky - I like the original just as well but it does totally change the mood of the stage from what I mostly played (Sonic Mega Collection here).  Launch Base fits somewhere between the two of these extremes for me - the original's chilled out atmosphere was so cool and unusual for a final stage - but seeing as Origins forces you to play locked on (naturally, as intended), that weird context would be gone anyway so somehow that makes the change less meaningful for me.  And the original still sounds fairly "unusually upbeat for an Eggman Base stage" in a similar way to the Mega Drive version.

Jun Senoue feels right too.  I get where people are coming from with the modern master of classic music Tee Lopes, but Jun was literally involved in the original soundtrack.  Sonic 4 had it's ups and downs musically, but he has existing music to start from here so I don't see any of the concerns with that soundtrack happening.

I hope the original Sonic 3 ending theme makes it in either as cut-scene music or just the music player, and definitely hoping we get the full Sonic 3 + Sonic & Knuckles ending medley.

[PickleBrows]

I think Ice Cap is the only one I'll truly be gutted to lose only because there's such a tonal difference between the beta and final tracks.

Absolutely the right decision to make though VS having to awkwardly pretend S3K doesn't exist and never re-release it. 

Having Jun back for the replacement songs does help make this feel more authentic. Most of the beta tracks are bangers as 16 bit tunes so I'm excited to hear his "final" versions.

And obviously PC players will have a music mod available within the first week anyway.

[Sonicka]

So we're actually now looking at Jun remastering the Prototype tracks then? I'm not so against as they do still sound very nostalgically sonic-y (which might sound weird to say... but I never grew up playing with those BGM's very much). It's certainly going to be difficult to playing Ice Cap now though, that was a real stunner back in the day (and still is). 
 

1 hour ago, JezMM said:

Jun Senoue feels right too.  I get where people are coming from with the modern master of classic music Tee Lopes, but Jun was literally involved in the original soundtrack.  Sonic 4 had it's ups and downs musically, but he has existing music to start from here so I don't see any of the concerns with that soundtrack happening.

I hope the original Sonic 3 ending theme makes it in either as cut-scene music or just the music player, and definitely hoping we get the full Sonic 3 + Sonic & Knuckles ending medley.

That's a good point. I tend by proxy to associate Jun with the modern era and forget he worked on this title originally.

I love his modern stuff of course, but Sonic 4 left a very sweet & sour taste in my mouth musically. That could just be due to the attempt to make it sound "mega-drivey-yet-modern" and it failing to do so IMO - but the cues were certainly memorable and hum worthy (especially part II). 

I do agree on the ending themes, although with the other tracks seemingly out of the picture I have a feeling the original S3 ending track may not even make the sound test. But here's hoping! 

[Jango]

We were not gonna get Sonic 3's staff credits music (Stranger in Moscow) anyways because you can't play Sonic 3 alone anymore, heh. They dodged that one pretty easily. I really like that track tho'. 

But yeah, the biggest hit will be the Ice Cap tracks for sure. I love me some Carnival Night proto (Act 2 especially) and Launch Base is just so weirdly good... That song is so bizarre, because it sounds like a kid imagining what a military base would sound like, it has a childish vibe. I don't know, I love it. But the MD version is as good I'd say. 

By the way... The timing of this video:

Buxer said he and Michael did one cue together, all the others were his own creations. Granted Buxer was part of "MJ's team" at the time... So yeah, I guess even with that new information, it's still a complicated situation to sort for SEGA.

[TSS Classic Comment Bot]

Posted By: Track Name

It was pretty predictable even prior the confirmation that this was about to happen. From this point on, it’s up to mods to bring back those tracks for those who are really eager to have them in Origins and further re-releases. I just want to believe that Jun ain’t gonna screw this up, because we do know what the end result was when he made music for Sonic 4.

[TSS Classic Comment Bot]

Posted By: Jayenkai

I'm totally ok with this, as long as he doesn't use those god-awful synth instruments he used for Sonic 4.

[Blue Blood]

@Jango Actually, that's a good point about the credits music. It's not thought about it. Now that you mention it though, I hope that they go the extra effort to create a new credits medley that includes all 12 zones rather than just the S&K half. 

 

[TSS Classic Comment Bot]

Posted By: Rezapoc

I've been saving the Xbox credit I've been earning through their rewards program for this so I don't feel as bad as I probably should about the soundtrack situation.

I've got Sonic 3 several times already anyway with the Megadrive version, Saturn, Ps2, 360 and PC releases already in my library. That and I'll probably get the PC version of this down the line in a sale and mod it

[Shiny Gems]

2 hours ago, Blue Blood said:

@Jango Actually, that's a good point about the credits music. It's not thought about it. Now that you mention it though, I hope that they go the extra effort to create a new credits medley that includes all 12 zones rather than just the S&K half. 

 

Funny, I made a status update about it, mainly about this.

This is apparently prototype music for Sonic 3 and Knuckles. It is missing some levels, but add them all into this medley and it would be great to see.

[TSS Classic Comment Bot]

Posted By: Supersonic

I will be very angry if the original music is on the music menu

[TSS Classic Comment Bot]

Posted By: Mike

Not-so Sonic Origins. That sux!

[TSS Classic Comment Bot]

Posted By: Willow

Sad, but at least it's new music. So they couldn't get a deal with the MJ Estate?

[TSS Classic Comment Bot]

Posted By: Megasis

On 6/11/2022 at 2:34 PM, Willow said:

Sad, but at least it's new music. So they couldn't get a deal with the MJ Estate?

Either MJ’s estate or Brad Buxer. I’m guessing it’s MJ’s estate though because Buxer doesn’t seem like the type of person that would hold up a simple licensing deal like this. In that case, it seems like Buxer got the worst end of this deal. He said he did 99.9% of the Sonic 3 work, but he seemingly can’t license his own Sonic 3 music that he wrote because of some contract that MJ set up and then dumped the work off on him.