Sonic Origins is Still Not Finished

foreign wow okay Sonic Origins the new and improved collection of Sonic's first four major outings came out one year ago to fairly mixed reception especially on PC but skewed positive overall for many it was the definitive way to play these classic titles officially and while that was certainly the goal of the project for just as many people there were too many setbacks to overlook a list of inconsistencies between original games and these new ones glitches that never existed before undercooked bonus content a crippling steam performance for half the users and an expensive price tag after delisting the older versions making this your primary option now after a full year the origins plus expansion has arrived advertising a playable Amy Rose 12 Game Gear titles and a patch for everything else so does this fix what was wrong with the base game is Sonic Origins finished now no not really it's definitely an improvement things were amended making this a better product than what we had but the majority of complaints from day one are still here with a few new ones like I was saying let's start with the price Origins was forty dollars at launch airing on the expensive side for a quartet of 90 minute pixel games from the 90s I was okay with it because I liked them all but it was hard to not see it as a touch greedy when compared to the industry standard worsened by the 45 deluxe edition that offered nothing more than a few music tracks bonus missions and the ability to zoom in on the menu islands all features minor enough to not be worth the money but just tempting enough to reach for those three wacky digits well now they have lowered the price of the normal game to thirty dollars and are selling the plus Edition at 40 which includes all Deluxe DLC that's great for people buying it now as they get more content at a lower price but if you already own Origins you have to buy the Ten Dollar Plus expansion double dipping into DLC you already own for a grand total of fifty to fifty five dollars across both purchases instead of being rewarded as a loyal fan who bought it at launch with a free upgrade you're actually penalized by paying ten dollars more than the oblivious newcomer 15 if you bought Deluxe back then nice these are not big numbers but the principle at play is backwards I'm shocked that the no-brainer classic collection of beloved titles is this remarkably stingy compared to the experimental full-priced Sonic Frontiers with massive content updates all free of charge it's wild and what do we get for those 10 extra dollars playable Amy that's the big appeal of this update they had originally advertised new playable characters in the trailers and now we finally have one and I think it's great that she's being included in more classic outings it's a great retroactive Edition to see her in games that she never existed in her Sprite is pretty good she gets unique ones in all the special stages menus and endings although her death expression looks horrified she combos well with a lot of stage palettes wacky workbench past is her color scheme it's her play style that may come across underwhelming for all intents and purposes she is a modified Sonic with a bigger Longer lasting insta Shield that doesn't give iframes or maybe it did what though so Shield enemies have to be hid while their spikes are rotated slightly off axis to escape damage killing things that Sonic never could safely except for bubbles he's still a demon you can hit items from underneath you don't have to get as close to make contact and it can destroy bosses that were normally out of range the Death Egg Robot is a joke now caution be gone the only boss made more difficult is the egg Gravitron since you don't have the iframes to bypass the hitbox her other ability is a weaker drop Dash where she swings her hammer for about two seconds this is kinda cool because she isn't rolling so you can go uphill without any resistance something a normal drop Dash doesn't have giving these games a touch higher Pace just be sure to release before going through a loop because she can't scale it you can rapidly go back and forth to reposition yourself which isn't that handy on the ground but it can be done in midair too if you run off a ledge although not in Sonic 3 for some reason come on Origins it also caps your speed back to normal when using speed shoes or a super form so keep that in mind it can break a few walls that Sonic and Tails never could helping her play through stand out a bit more in Sonic 3 and lastly she can toss hammers all over the place in her hyper form to add some chaos which is adorable I have to admit watching certain bosses that used to take a long time crumble in seconds is a fun feeling before his entrance animation is done I've already eviscerated that large bald man she's technically called Super Amy since you need the super emeralds for it only achievable in Sonic 3 of course but she has a regular super form for the chaos emeralds too the game just doesn't tell you so it's not that she doesn't have good abilities I thoroughly enjoyed my time playing as her it's that her primary move set is too similar to Sonics to have the same impact that Knuckles and Tails have were their methods of traversal are completely unique or how franchise defining the drop Dash was when Mania came out there's nothing like that here she's got no Hammer bounce hover spin double jump nothing and I'm someone who doesn't typically play these games as anyone other than Sonic so this doesn't really bother me I don't even like using the spin dash in Sonic one yeah I'm that guy but to charge people 10 dollars for character's first official classic appearance and it's a borderline reskin I can see why there would be disappointment of course that's not all you get for the plus expansion we have 12 emulated Game Gear titles that you will never finish I heard some horror stories about this poor audio frame rate resolution I was frightened booting up Sonic 1 and yeah the Sega intro is crusty slow down comes and goes but that's how the Game Gear was the controls are at least responsive and the presentation bearable maybe it wasn't as bad as they made it out to be let's load up Sonic 2 next and ah okay yeah I I see the problem it would seem that not all emulation is created equal this game's audio was so much louder than the first that intro was a tank level jump scare only bit crushed and air fried the audio in general has a weird oscillation effect to simulate stereo so the sound effects are all bouncing back and forth between ears while the music is trying to compete for space doing the same but then if you take damage the music goes down the middle for a second and if there are a bunch of sound effects at once some pan While others don't it's really distracting you have to change your computer's output audio to Mono if you want to take away the pain but then a new problem comes up in the volume fluctuating during those same intervals every game is also trapped in this box never reaching the screen borders and that doesn't bother me but it's weird that there's no way to change the size and like the rest of the collection the image quality is not razor sharp it's quite blurry on any HD display don't look at me like that Sonic I don't know and there still aren't any CRT filters yet to try and disguise that blurriness as a retro style either the start button is put on Y and triangle and has no way to be remapped that took me a sec a and X is still your general selection button except for Sonic chaos where only B and circle can select your character then it's back to normal I I just don't get it Sonic Blast didn't do this even though it also had a character select then again it also has the most terrifying Sega jingle I've ever heard I think I just met the devil what legitimately bothers me about these emulations is the input lag this is also not created equal because most games are perfect in their response time Sonic 1 drift one although not drift 2 spin ball tail Sky Patrol Adventure Labyrinth blast and mean bean machine don't have any significant delay Sonic 2 Chaos drift 2 and triple trouble are all cursed with it combine that with the frame rate issue spinball in particular being the abomination of the bunch and it only makes for an even Starker contrast with a smooth Genesis remasters I'm not expecting them to rebuild the handhelds in a new engine but some better emulation is required to retain an audience the fact that Sonic Labyrinth and blast are the best performing games on here is a fourth degree burn to logic and morality what I don't understand though is why we only have The Game Gear versions of everything While most of these are Standalone titles some are the inferior ports of console games Sonic 1 2 and Chaos were all made for the Master System with a much wider screen resolution and more consistent frame rate on The Game Gear you can hardly see where you need to go getting blindsided constantly it's going to sour the impression for a lot of people which is unfortunate because games like Sonic 1 are surprisingly good rivaling its 16-bit counter part in a lot of ways playing these cut down ports is a disservice to their quality I'll cool a slope I run down those a lot oh these absolutely need to be included just as an option for what version you want there's no way that AAA company doesn't have the resources to properly emulate a few 8-bit side scrollers so balls in their chord so yeah the plus expansion not Amazing Amy is a good addition and having the Game Gear titles is better than not having them but it could have been better could have been free that would have softened the blow barring the bonus content though how does the main game fare because I did say that they made improvements and I want to give proper credit to that roll locking has been patched in Sonic 1 and 2 if you spin or drop Dash your control would be locked unable to move in midair after a jump now we have constant flexibility like in Mania and it goes a long way to making these already fun games even better Tails AI is no longer broken as a companion that Firestorm and Angel Island doesn't teleport you after you can reach this special ring area hidden in the wall again all four characters are playable in all four games so Knuckles was added into CD a treasure hunting game that he thrives in there are some extra settings you can toggle in the Sonic 1 level select like the spin dash item boxes and a seventh Chaos Emerald they've even added a 65-page manual to the title screen now this is not something you see anymore and didn't have to be included so they have my respect for doing this it's got all the controls game elements characters screenshots some are pretty blurry but I was pleased although despite referring to the special stage as blue spheres and the menu the manual straight up calls them blue balls wow they just went for it didn't they blue balls remaining oh there's even a two next to it this is so weird because the 90s manual didn't even say that this was a modern decision to call it that technique touch all the blue but no no there's no way I mean it's funny don't change it but I can't believe this in spite of all these changes however a majority are still here some aspects are really tight with a lot of care given to them While others are neglected in the exact same area every game is still slightly blurry that crisp pixel art imagery That We crave isn't quite here yet because the physics run a little faster in these retro engine remakes some scripting can go wrong like in Starlight Zone where I try going through a loop like always and it randomly breaks Sonic 3 has quite a few places where this can happen and I don't know what's causing it you can't quit out of a special stage it only gives you a continue option credits can't be skipped except in Sonic 3 results green tallies can't be sped up which is hilarious because some of the Game Gear titles have that by Design super Transformations are activated by pressing y or a in Sonic 3 but in Sonic 2 you have to press up on the d-pad with wire a CD's time attack only lets you play as Sonic although in the my data and rankings tab under Museum you are able to play every stage as any care character to try and beat your best time it's just a rather out of the way menu to navigate towards Sonic 1's level select is the only one to have bonus options granted it's the most primitive in the collection so it makes sense to be the one playing catch-up but some kind of extras menu for the others would have been cool too and yes you have to input a level select cheat code to replay stages in Sonic 1 and 2. instead of having a conspicuous menu for it like the mobile ports or any normal game and you can only back out of this menu in Sonic 3 otherwise you have to pick a level and quit out that way I feel silly harping on such small details but why don't all the games have the same features it's weird like how Sonic 1 bosses have invincibility when they fly in so you can't get a bunch of free hits but then the palm tree Panic boss still lets you camp behind him for an instant win CD's audio is still inconsistent as well the vocal tracks are so much louder than everything the results screen is quieter no voice Lines no three minute I'm out of here and I ran into some strange glitches with Amy thank you ten dollars she also doesn't get to see the good ending so collecting all the time Stones is narratively meaningless then again it's still out of sync and silence so I guess I'm not missing much Marvel Garden's intro is still broken due to the higher speed this spring launches me right into these spikes that I shouldn't be able to reach and Sonic 3's music being muffled erratic partially replaced and compressed has not been changed there is a noticeable degradation and quality coming from any of its predecessors they didn't fix this sound effect either my biggest issue with all of this is that everything I listed comes from these remasters if there was a way to play properly emulated versions of the original games unchanged I would be a lot softer on Origins but because they delisted the old ones and then threw in a classic Mode that is not the original games but rather the same ones in anniversary only cropped with returning game overs means I have no official way to play those Originals in a modern release they don't even have to change classic Mode just add a third one called original that gives you the exact game from the era they're clearly not against using emulation so that would be an easy win and while we're at it we still can't mix and match settings either there is no wide screen with one UPS mode which is completely within their power to add because if they're able to crop anniversary mode and bring lives back then they can just as easily uncrop it and bring lives back that would actually be an easier job look I'm cool with the coin system and all but I am never going to run out I have nothing to spend them on anymore they added a new surprise tab for Sonic's birthday but there's nothing to buy it's just a mediocre mission list with a nice illustration under it we need something else to do with these coins I still think the islands have a lot of potential for customization skins animations items weather conditions maybe fixing the models to not vibrate in place or how you can see their animation stop for a moment when they reset it's kind of choppy like a gif or GIF sorry shadow look how mad Sonic is at this chicken oh never mind guess he's over I know all of these issues are minute grains of sand when you look at them individually but at the end of the day I'm sitting on a beach no this is not nearly as bad of a remaster as colors ultimate or even Sonic Adventure DX I'd say this is more like Adventure 2 battle it makes a few solid improvements brings the game to a wider audience and for many is the best way to play it but anyone who had the original knows that things were broken on the way over and still have yet to be fixed I can have fun with Origins a pretty similar amount to playing the original sometimes more Sonic 1 and 2 in particular are fairly safe and barring the sound mixing so is CD my opinion on this collection has only improved from last year if I had no choice but to play this version of the Classics for the rest of my life I wouldn't be too upset assuming I could mod Sonic 3's music back in it's a decent collection of some great games that casual audiences will be totally fine with the widescreen is a massive selling point the playable characters give everyone their own flavor retrying special stages is cool even if a bit busted in Sonic 2 and the engine improvements that did make it through Are Much appreciated for fans new and old alike I just know that they could have done a lot better technology has come so far that not being able to accurately Port over 30 year old two-dimensional games is well below the bar of expectations and adds further insult to the industry injury of poor remakes maybe one day this will be the Undisputed classic collection but for now still not quite finished thank you guys so much for watching and as always don't forget to check out the next episode whenever I post it which will probably be soon alright see ya

Channel: bickuribox12

Views: 204,893

Keywords:

Id: PR3G7E1L2hg

Length: 15min 39sec (939 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 08 2023