-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
(First?) Shots of Sonic Unleashed
- Thread starter FallenAngelV
- Start date
Azure Dream
Member
That's a much more reassuring blog entry, at least he gets some of the hesitation involved and put down a few reality checks. I'm still worried that it sounds like not enough of the game is done for them to be setting hard release periods so soon. Sega's a business, but if they don't get this one right, the license is going to take a long, long time to ever recover, with years of remaking old games and starting from scratch and reboots and all that mess, just to try to get back buyer confidence and interest.
Very true, most fan projects are big on ideas, but just can't pull together the talent and time to get some of the important parts done, and as people lose interest and dedication, and perhaps someone has to slow or stop their work because of other demands on their life... the best fan projects are the ones most people don't hear about until they're virtually complete. That Metroid II remake with Zero Mission-style enhancements was pretty far along before I saw it mentioned on GAF.
I'm surprised you cited Sonic XG, though. Last I heard the maker of it and Retro Sonic merged projects, and considering they were both extremely impressive amateur work at the time, there's a chance the new engine/game will be really great. But maybe I'm worried about the same thing you are: creative clashes. I haven't checked up on it lately.
Sega1991 said:
Very true, most fan projects are big on ideas, but just can't pull together the talent and time to get some of the important parts done, and as people lose interest and dedication, and perhaps someone has to slow or stop their work because of other demands on their life... the best fan projects are the ones most people don't hear about until they're virtually complete. That Metroid II remake with Zero Mission-style enhancements was pretty far along before I saw it mentioned on GAF.
I'm surprised you cited Sonic XG, though. Last I heard the maker of it and Retro Sonic merged projects, and considering they were both extremely impressive amateur work at the time, there's a chance the new engine/game will be really great. But maybe I'm worried about the same thing you are: creative clashes. I haven't checked up on it lately.
flintstryker
Banned
LinkAMN said:
are you sure actual humans were playing?
Sega1991 said:
NOT every one.
For all the 95% that bite the dust some how (due to circumstances that you cited), there are a a scant few that some how are able to exist and pretty much become fully realized projects, more or less.
For instance, Streets or Rage Remake by Bombergames:
http://www.bombergames.net/sorr_gallery/main.php
It's not 100% complete yet, but what has already been crafted is well done. At this point, I'd be more willing to trust this product than whatever Sega might whip up as some sort of "Next Gen Realization" of the franchise.
And for it to have been around for over a year, it has yet to face any real problems from Sega, who either don't know, or just don't care about the product, (I'm willing to go with the latter).
Obviously, this Sonic HD project may come under fire quite quickly, because it's one of Sega's BnB franchises. But then again, Sonic fangaming has been going on for years, and Sega has never seen any of it as a threat, so who knows...
Kulock said:
That is pretty much the latest scuttlebutt for now. Soon after "SAGE" (Sonic Amateur Gaming Expo) came to a close, the two announced that they would be joining forces, with it looking like that they'll take the best aspects of both projects (Retro's engine and XG's aesthetics), to ideally make for a better product.
Since then, there hasn't been too much to speak of. But I'd be willing to guess that any future details may be uncovered at this year's SAGE. Or at least, that's what I hope...
stilgar said:Has anybody ever finished this game? I don't think so
http://fromearth.net/LetsPlay/Battletoads/
BlazeHedgehog
Member
Kulock said:
Last I heard one of the people behind Sonic XG, Nitemare, started a side project recently because work on RSXG was slow and he didn't have anything to do.
That definitely puts the brakes on a lot of my hope for that project.
One comment about the Sonic 2 HD remake, the first mock up shot looked great, a lot of extra detail had gone into the art work, most noticeably on the tiles and final boss.
The art work and animations now just look like very clean vectorized versions of the original sprites and animation, it's hard to see any extra detail.
Right now, i'm thinking this is going to look like Sonic 2 just run through a filter rather than an actual HD remake.
I'd love to see it redrawn to the same quality as the mock and not just traced.
I hope the project doesn't get scrapped.
The art work and animations now just look like very clean vectorized versions of the original sprites and animation, it's hard to see any extra detail.
Right now, i'm thinking this is going to look like Sonic 2 just run through a filter rather than an actual HD remake.
I'd love to see it redrawn to the same quality as the mock and not just traced.
I hope the project doesn't get scrapped.
Kulock said:
:O
I haven't played Metroid II yet!
I want to see this.
*googles*
Edit: found it holy amazing.
Trailer: http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=4wkr8samEBQ
BlazeHedgehog
Member
Tiduz said:
Not all of them did.
- Chrono Resurrection got C&D'd by Square-Enix. They were going to recreate 10 select scenes from Chrono Trigger using their cross-platform 3D engine as a demo to break in to the game industry. They had animators and artists working on the project from all the way up in hollywood; two months before the project went down, they hired an animator who worked on the CG for The Matrix Reloaded.
- Halogen was C&D'd by Microsoft two weeks before Halo Wars was unveiled and three or six months before Microsoft unveiled their "Hey, use our MSGS IPs and assets for free, just don't sell your game." policy. Rumor has it the Halogen guys are actually working with Ensemble on Halo Wars now.
- Both Sonic TFH and Sonic XG have been in development for who knows how long. TFH in particular was one of the first fangames I had ever heard about, and that had to be around the year 2001. They are still going as was mentioned; TFH released a new demo for Christmas 2007 (the youtube video has a link to the demo in the description), and Sonic XG "recently" merged with another popular Sonic fangame called Retro Sonic.
- Ocarina of Time 2D languished in development hell for probably 4 or 5 years before the creator faked his own death just to get out of having to work on the project.
- Metroid Prime 2D is technically "still going", but the message left on their front page is not very encouraging. Supposedly these guys even got the okay from Nintendo to make their game and everything.
Death_Born
Banned
Sega1991 said:
Metroid Prime 2D would be incredibly hard to finish. It's like making the entire game all over again. I doubt it'll ever be finished. Ocarina 2D is just too much effort for one person, and the rest are just outdated. The only really promising one is the Sonic fangame.
I remember that the death faking one was on the frontpage of Digg or something. Then it turned out to be a hoax :lol
BlazeHedgehog
Member
Dascu said:
I did not know that there were two different ones!
I think the four screens at the bottom of this page are new:
http://www.ene3.com/archives/021762.html
Could be old.
http://www.ene3.com/archives/021762.html
Could be old.
v1cious said:
When it became so much of a focus, the actual platforming aspect and good level design suffered as a result of it. Compare the likes of the Genesis games and Sonic Advance 1 to later games like Sonic Advance 2 -> Rush Adventure. Those games that emphasized speed took away a lot of what made those earlier games good, which laid in the intricate level design that often did more to reward solid platforming skills.
Sonic Advance 2 started this whole mess of basically making it so that "press forward and keep running like hell!" became common-place. If Dimps had only just stuck to their guns and kept in line with the likes of Sonic Advance 1, we would have been having games in line of the Genesis games on the GBA/DS, but instead, we just have this rollercoaster stuff.
So, hearing that this new game seems to subscribe to the same stuff as Sonic Advance 2+, and also hearing it muttered in the same breath as "taking Sonic back to his roots" just pisses a number of us off. Because clearly it's NOT taking the series back to its roots, and Sega just seems to have a faulty memory of what it would take to get that.
BlazeHedgehog
Member
Yeah, nobody said take the speed out of Sonic - but rather than making it about speed exclusively (as it currently has been for years), balance the speed with other good gameplay elements - bring back platforming and exploration again.
Sonic CD didn't achieve the legendary praise it's obtained by being soley about speed; if anything, Sonic CD was focused even more on exploration and platforming than Sonic 2 or even Sonic 3 & Knuckles. Sonic CD is practically a game that fights speed directly; it's a game about exploring the environment to find the speed so you can execute time travel.
Sonic CD didn't achieve the legendary praise it's obtained by being soley about speed; if anything, Sonic CD was focused even more on exploration and platforming than Sonic 2 or even Sonic 3 & Knuckles. Sonic CD is practically a game that fights speed directly; it's a game about exploring the environment to find the speed so you can execute time travel.
Azure Dream
Member
v1cious said:
The problem is that fundamentally, Sonic 1 and Sonic 2-K are actually different games. It took me a while to figure out just how different, but Sonic 1 really isn't about running blindly and reacting to twitch gameplay nearly as much. Sonic 1 is a lot of stop-and-go, and heavily encourages exploration of the levels to find huge shortcuts. (And some of them are in really obscure places, or devious to access.) Now Sonic 2-K had shortcuts, but more often than not they were accessed by speeding through an area well, getting an extra-high launch off a ramp, et cetera.
I didn't get into the series until Sonic 2, and while I can appreciate the original, the feel can be very different. And both of those are still different from a game that forces you to run all of the time. Sonic and the Secret Rings pulled it off well most of the time, but you can't say that it goes back to "roots". Who cares if it goes back to roots, what matters if it ends up being a good game or not.
They also previously said the game was more like Sonic Adventure than games like Sonic 06 and Secret Rings, which is doubly confusing. The game looks a lot like Secret Rings, and Sonic 06 was a closer sequel to Sonic Adventure than SA2 was, at least in terms of mechanics and presentation. We're getting a lot of mixed and confusing messages. And they don't seem particularly comfortable with their werewolf mechanic thing, they haven't shown one in-game screenshot of him or his gameplay yet.
TreIII said:
Uh uh, that one doesn't slide. Sonic Advance 1 was a boring, unbalanced mess. (Trying to play through as Amy was miserable.) And I liked Sonic Advance 2 a lot, because it was clever how it handled level design. Yes, in most of the earlier levels, there was a "braindead" route you could slog through. These usually took longer and offered less rewards. With better timing and skill, you could work your way into several different criss-crossing paths, saving tons of time and reaping in the rings. So the game was beatable by people of different levels of skill, but only with practice could you make a good, quick run.
The only thing I really didn't like about Sonic Advance 2 is that the special stages were a complete pain to get to, and that was no guarantee you were going to beat them. I even thought the running bosses were something different and interesting, and made for a great boss gauntlet.
Hero of Legend
Member
Confirmed, Dimps doing the Wii version, and Tomoya Ohtani from Sonic Rush will be the sound director. Wii not using Hedgehog Engine as it was made for the higher-end consoles, as for the Wii version, "talented developers are working hard at replicating those visuals as much as possible."
http://wii.kombo.com/article.php?artid=11846
An excellent read!
http://wii.kombo.com/article.php?artid=11846
An excellent read!
Guybrush Threepwood
Banned
Who is the sound director for the PS3/360 version, or is he the sound director for both versions?
Dampe was the one who faked his death. TRM was the boss of the ZFGC forum (which is still around, only a lot more pathetic and dead now). He used several tricks, the latest being that he was redoing the entire game in C# or something. I haven't heard anything of him in over a year though.Sega1991 said:
Crushed said:
Brrrrrrrrr...Wahooo!!
Life starts with the sunny day.
Let's feel the ocean breath!
We are cruisin' open seas.
(Brrrrrrrrr...Wahooo!!) Can't wait for a New Venture!
La la... La la... La la...
A New Venture...
La la... La la... La la...
A New Venture...
La laaaa....
A New Venture...
La laaaa....
A New Venture...
La laaaa....
Brrrrrrrrrrrr....
Brrrrrrrrrrrr....
Brrrrrrrrrrrr....
WAHOOOO...!
Life ends when the sun goes down.
We'll conquer the Seven Seas!
No-one's gettin' left behind!
(Brrrrrrrrr...Wahooo!!) Get ready for a New Venture!
La la... La la... La la...
A New Venture...
La la... La la... La la...
A New Venture...
La laaaa....
A New Venture...
La laaaa....
A New Venture...
La laaaa....
Brrrrrrrrr...Wahooo!!
Life starts with the sunny day.
Let's feel the ocean breath!
We are cruisin' open seas.
Can't wait for a New Venture!
La laaaa......
...
La la... La la... La la
A New Venture...
La la... La la... La la
A New Venture...
La laaaa....
A New Venture...
La laaaa....
A New Venture...
La laaaa....
Brrrrrrrrrrrr....
Brrrrrrrrrrrr....
Brrrrrrrrrrrr....
WAHOOOO...!
I'll ignore your insult to Naganuma in favor of saying that Tomoya Ohtani is completely awesome and you should be ashamed for suggesting otherwise.LinkAMN said:
I don't get why they're crediting Rush to him, though. Nakagawa was the sound director, and Naganuma handled the composition. Ohtani's biggest contributions to the series so far were in Rush Adventure and Sonic '06.