The Sonic Origins Spoilers Thread

[NoKaine]

Yeah, that's really bizarre. The Competition music is literally the prototype and the Blue Spheres mode music is literally the prototype unused theme (which I guess confirms is actually the bonus stage track that Miyoko Takaoka made).

But they felt the need to get a composer to rearrange the other tracks, when they could've just... used the original tracks. 

 

[Celestia]

Short of something like they really did only have the demos to work on for the stage themes, it's likely as simple as perceived additional value. "No no no it's not just old unused music, it's updated."

In fairness I actually do think the proto CNZ music was lacking something a bit, but uh now it's the worst of the bunch. So it's probably my fault for thinking that at one point. I'm sorry everyone.

[NoKaine]

I would guess it's a marketing trick, but most people never heard the prototypes to begin with so there's no real difference between "the original prototype tracks you never heard" and "the original prototype tracks you never heard, remixed by Jun Senuoue to sound almost exactly the same."

Even if the new tracks were substantially better, it also wouldn't really help people who just want the original music.

And even then, the tracks they remixed have inconsistencies on whether they're based on the Genesis prototypes or the PC MIDIs, namely CNZ sounding much more like the latter and the aforementioned Competition and Blue Spheres music being basically ports for the former.

Maybe the idea to use the prototype tracks at all was a last-minute decision? Like, legal rights actually fell though entirely. I absolutely believe that SEGA would just pay whatever royalties they need for the Buxer tracks and were probably on track to do so but it fell through and they had to pull in Senoue. 

 

[Salamander]

52 minutes ago, NoKaine said:

I would guess it's a marketing trick, but most people never heard the prototypes to begin with so there's no real difference between "the original prototype tracks you never heard" and "the original prototype tracks you never heard, remixed by Jun Senuoue to sound almost exactly the same."

It's also the case that the marketing more or less tried to hide the fact that the tracks had been replaced at all.  If the marketing team thought the replacements would be a selling point, they'd've been up on YouTube well in advance, as was the case for some Mania and Forces tracks.  (If marketing had had even more of a say, we might have gotten new tracks entirely rather than weird semi-updates.)

[LegoFedora]

3 hours ago, VO.SUPER said:

And here we go.

Well. I guess it could be worse, they could have just removed the tracks for those stages entirely. Maybe I'm too used to the genesis songs, but ice cap with anything except hard times is weird and gives me a sense of uneasiness when seeing it. Like one of those subliminal space images, where it's not creepy but it's just "not right" enough to be unnerving, I guess. As for Launch base and Carnival night, eh. I never really liked those songs anyways so nothing really changed for me. They're still 2 stages that I just try to get done with as fast as I can so I can move on.

It's not the end of the world since it's only 3 zones that are affected, just disappointing.

At least the new cutscenes look really good, nice to see knuckles and eggman shown teamed up for once.

[DaBigJ]

So SNick did a thread of concept art from Origin's Museum mode 

Spoiler

 

Quite a lot of interesting stuff!

[YeppersPeppers]

That big final cutscene of Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, and Amy all journeying together really drives home for me how absolutely bizarre it is that Amy keeps getting heavily featured in this stuff but still isn't officially playable in a single one of these games.

[Diogenes]

13 minutes ago, Jake_LeOFFICIAL said:

So SNick did a thread of concept art from Origin's Museum mode 

Spoiler

Can't believe this was almost canon:

 

[Dr. Mechano]

The ending cutscene where Eggman chases the heroes through a city is interesting:

 

Now, sure - the classic games had cities sometimes. Starlight Zone, the background of Chemical Plant Zone and Casino Night Zone, etc. But this traffic light caught my eye:

 

That's a silhouette of a human, not a Sonic animal person. So this city is likely on one of the big continents, not one of the little islands where the animals usually live. Could this final scene be of Station Square? Maybe an implied link from the classic era to the Adventure era? I know the characters still have their classic designs here, but we could always say this was slightly before everyone slightly changed their appearances. 

[YeppersPeppers]

I hope these two rando bully characters have official names of some kind. I kinda like them. It's always cool to see more inhabitants of this world.

[DaBigJ]

Sonic 3 has new sprite assets!

 

[Badnik Mechanic]

So anyway, Since we don't have a review thread for the game, at around 12 midday yesterday, barely 24 hours before the review embargo, Sega sent me a code and asked me to review. it is now 6PM the next day and I have only just finished working.

Yeah... Been working on this for around 30 hours non stop...

If you are a solo content creator like me, you should know that the fact I not only narrated but did pieces to camera in this, nearly utterly kills you... and it almost has... seriously, almost passed out twice today...

So... if you'd at least click the like button on it, that would be grand...

But anyway, since technically I'm a 'review outlet' now... 

This is a game which could be summerised by the following tagline...

"Origins is fantastic, but..."

The transition from IOS and Android devices from 10 years ago to modern systems has been done exceptionally well, there's very little to complain about, 10 years ago we said these games were flawless and, that's pretty much the case in 2022. But I have noted any significant differences with the versions of the games, pointed out some obvious improvements as well as some really odd omissions from the game (Sonic 2's level select being one).

But for me... the biggest surprise... was Mission Mode. Some of these missions are... actually quite a lot of fun. Ironically though, I think the most fun ones, are the Deluxe edition content. 

There's one where you have to destroy 15 buzzbombers... using only the spin dash, not the jump attack. So you have to not only time your dash jump, but also use the environment itself to launch you at the targets. Oh, and you're timed!

 

As for the music... posting what I said at Retro which is more or less what I said in the video...

The new tracks are... fine... in literally any other non pre-existing stage, maybe they could have even been menu music. But... Ice cap is one of my favourite stages and the music is a big part of that, it helps emphasise the feeling of being alone, cold, trapped and suck in an endless ice wasteland.

The new track, doesn't do this. It's the same for Carnival Night, the original sounds like a mad circus, but the new one is... well I said in the video, theme park, but I really should have said "Bingo hall".

[Diogenes]

I imagine new players are still going to have trouble with it, but the new looking up and ducking sprites at least make The Barrel slightly more solvable.

[DaBigJ]

That video in the tweet also has the super theme which

sucks. hard.

[LegoFedora]

10 minutes ago, Jake_LeOFFICIAL said:

Sonic 3 has new sprite assets!

Seeing Super Sonic with an actual sprite for looking up is going to take some getting used to, but very welcome. Hopefully they replaced all the super sonic sprites that were just a yellow sonic with unique ones.

[StaticMania]

They gave Sonic new sprites for looking up & ducking...on the barrel.

Super Sonic theme, the regular invincibility theme sounds more triumphant...

 

It's also still just as short a loop...

[DaBigJ]

1 minute ago, LegoFedora said:

Seeing Super Sonic with an actual sprite for looking up is going to take some getting used to, but very welcome. Hopefully they replaced all the super sonic sprites that were just a yellow sonic with unique ones.

I watched some gameplay.

They did. Super Sonic has all new sprites for those poses.

[LegoFedora]

9 minutes ago, StaticMania said:

Super Sonic theme, the regular invincibility theme sounds more triumphant...

The Super Sonic theme is so weird, it's just the usual theme but with drums every other second. What's weirder, is that the much superior (imo, of course) beta super theme is still used in the game. It's part of the blue spheres mode. And as far as I've read, it's completely unchanged from how it was in the prototype. This mixed with the "polished" versions of the zone themes are weird, I'd almost prefer if they just stuck the prototype music in with no edits.

I like Jun but this and Sonic 4 makes me think maybe putting him in charge of classic sonic music isn't such a great idea. Keep him to modern stuff, that's where he thrives.

[NoKaine]

1 minute ago, LegoFedora said:

What's weirder, is that the much superior (imo, of course) beta super theme is still used in the game. It's part of the blue spheres mode.

I think it was never really a Super Sonic theme. The composer who made Marble Garden said she composed a track for a bonus stage, but she didn't recognize any of the music in the actual game as hers. 

[LegoFedora]

2 minutes ago, NoKaine said:

I think it was never really a Super Sonic theme. The composer who made Marble Garden said she composed a track for a bonus stage, but she didn't recognize any of the music in the actual game as hers. 

Ah, my mistake then. I always assumed that track just unused for super.

[Jango]

4 hours ago, Penny said:

Just yuck. I'll hold off final judgement until I hear these tracks in game, but idk how CN Act 1 gets much better regardless. The rest of the tracks are mostly fine (even CN Act 2) but good lord that Act 1 mix sucks. Loses all the energy and pop of the proto track. And as for the super theme, if I'm not mistaken, it uses the Sonic 1/2 drum samples? Why? IMaybe we just need to stop getting Jun to do these Genesis style tracks lol.... *sigh* really disappointed man

I gave Jun the benefit of the doubt because he IS an excelent composer and musician... But it's undeniable that retro music isn't his strong suit like at all. Tee Lopes would've been a perfect choice, his work in Mania, SoR 4 and now TMNT, holy hell. The man gets it. 

Poor CNZ =/

[Tornado]

lol "We're not only going to chop up the original soundtrack but we're going to give you shit versions of songs that already sound better elsewhere."

 

 

Carnival Night is borderline "ran through a MIDI converter" bad; like they straight took the files from the PC version and pushed it through a soundfont. And Jun, for the record, there are other sound samples you can choose from besides the clapping sound effect.

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

This is honestly something of a better comparison to judge things off of.

Honestly, with how much SSMB was hyping it up, I was expecting something truly horrendous sounding. Not so.

[Tornado]

No, they still sound bad.

[StaticMania]

12 minutes ago, Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon said:

Honestly, with how much SSMB was hyping it up, I was expecting something truly horrendous sounding. Not so.

People were only really complaining about Carnival Night and lumped the rest together.