In honor of this recent Kickstarter called Spark the Electric Jester getting fully funded and for Sonic's 25th Anniversary, here is a thread covering two fantastic fan-produced Sonic the Hedgehog titles 
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These two games were created by LakeFeperd and its soundtrack composed by Flak and his team, which many of us know from his work on recent Square Enix projects like Kingdom Hearts 2.5 HD Remix and FFXV Demo.
Before and After the Sequel take place before and after Sonic 2 and explore the build up to the Death Egg construction that we see happen in Sonic 3 & K. This set up leads to both Sonic and Tails playable and if you looked at my Sonic 3&K and Sonic CD threads, you will have a good idea how each control. Sonic has his super peel out while Tails can fly in the sky (much further then in the Genesis games I must say).
The core gameplay is classic 2D Genesis Sonic; momentum physics being used, spin-dashing through loops and hills and bouncing on robot too robot. What makes these two games special is the musical score they have and how LakeFeperd has little gimmicks that really make the levels feel unique from one another.
For example, in the second zone in BTS, if you bump into the floating fuzzes (from Yoshi's Island), the screen bugs out and you have to be more careful with your jumps and flying (as you play as Tails in this zone). Speaking of Tails, BTS is interesting as you switch from Sonic to Tails every zone, leading to things always feeling fresh (Sonic has shield abilities and more speed-based level design while Tails has his ability to fly alongside his levels having more platforming.
In ATS you can decide which character you want to play as from the start and the levels are built for both Sonic and Tails.
A big thing that really helps BTS and ATS stand out is expanding the story telling devices that the Genesis games does. In those games (S3&K's mainly) the characters had silent animations and little scenes during the level, telling this grand tale while not getting in the way of the gameplay.
BTS and ATS do that as well, but having fully sprite animated scenes using various tools (Sonic CD sprites, original sprites, using level assets, ect) in telling its story and giving the games a really great feeling of adventure. Honestly wish recent Sonic games took a page from BTS and ATS for their plots.
And the score for these is simply amazing and they stand tall & proud next to other games in the Sonic series and here is the link to the OST's of the games. They are a fantastic score and really show the skill Flak and his team have in music composition.
Sonic Before the Sequel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFJxHbtyLgk&index=1&list=PL94E128D4184DFFA0
Sonic After the Sequel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hA7jcWVnmQ0&list=PL1YC01GDyvc9BZTaSAvW64SqLjhz5cplg
The soundtracks in both games have such amazing quality, are quite catchy and most importantly, match the various level themes like gloves. These are some of my favorite Sonic Soundtracks to be quite honest.
My only issue is that BTS is caped at 30FPS regardless of your PC specs, so the games might not be as smooth as other 2D Sonic games out there. But the controls still feel good and it controls quite well. Just figured bringing this up considering the Genesis games (at least in NA and JP....I think it was locked to 50FPS in EU Mega Drives) ran at 60FPS.
Overall, these are two really great games that I highly recommend you give a look at. I would of left this thread alone but considering I am making the Sonic Retrospective to celebrate the series 25th anniversary, why not include one of my favorite set of fan produced games ? These are really fun games that while have some issues, are nice complements to the Genesis games.
For anyone interested in checking the game out, here are the download links to Before the Sequel and After the Sequel.
Both games support GamePads (press CTRL + Y to get its menu open when you open the game), so they play great
!
These two games were created by LakeFeperd and its soundtrack composed by Flak and his team, which many of us know from his work on recent Square Enix projects like Kingdom Hearts 2.5 HD Remix and FFXV Demo
.Before and After the Sequel take place before and after Sonic 2 and explore the build up to the Death Egg construction that we see happen in Sonic 3 & K. This set up leads to both Sonic and Tails playable and if you looked at my Sonic 3&K and Sonic CD threads, you will have a good idea how each control
. Sonic has his super peel out while Tails can fly in the sky (much further then in the Genesis games I must say). The core gameplay is classic 2D Genesis Sonic; momentum physics being used, spin-dashing through loops and hills and bouncing on robot too robot
. What makes these two games special is the musical score they have and how LakeFeperd has little gimmicks that really make the levels feel unique from one another.For example, in the second zone in BTS, if you bump into the floating fuzzes (from Yoshi's Island), the screen bugs out and you have to be more careful with your jumps and flying (as you play as Tails in this zone). Speaking of Tails, BTS is interesting as you switch from Sonic to Tails every zone, leading to things always feeling fresh (Sonic has shield abilities and more speed-based level design while Tails has his ability to fly alongside his levels having more platforming.
In ATS you can decide which character you want to play as from the start and the levels are built for both Sonic and Tails.
A big thing that really helps BTS and ATS stand out is expanding the story telling devices that the Genesis games does. In those games (S3&K's mainly) the characters had silent animations and little scenes during the level, telling this grand tale while not getting in the way of the gameplay.
BTS and ATS do that as well, but having fully sprite animated scenes using various tools (Sonic CD sprites, original sprites, using level assets, ect) in telling its story and giving the games a really great feeling of adventure. Honestly wish recent Sonic games took a page from BTS and ATS for their plots.
And the score for these is simply amazing and they stand tall & proud next to other games in the Sonic series and here is the link to the OST's of the games. They are a fantastic score and really show the skill Flak and his team have in music composition
.Sonic Before the Sequel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFJxHbtyLgk&index=1&list=PL94E128D4184DFFA0
Sonic After the Sequel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hA7jcWVnmQ0&list=PL1YC01GDyvc9BZTaSAvW64SqLjhz5cplg
The soundtracks in both games have such amazing quality, are quite catchy and most importantly, match the various level themes like gloves. These are some of my favorite Sonic Soundtracks to be quite honest
.My only issue is that BTS is caped at 30FPS regardless of your PC specs, so the games might not be as smooth as other 2D Sonic games out there. But the controls still feel good and it controls quite well. Just figured bringing this up considering the Genesis games (at least in NA and JP....I think it was locked to 50FPS in EU Mega Drives) ran at 60FPS.
Overall, these are two really great games that I highly recommend you give a look at
. I would of left this thread alone but considering I am making the Sonic Retrospective to celebrate the series 25th anniversary, why not include one of my favorite set of fan produced games ? These are really fun games that while have some issues, are nice complements to the Genesis games. For anyone interested in checking the game out, here are the download links to Before the Sequel and After the Sequel.
Both games support GamePads (press CTRL + Y to get its menu open when you open the game), so they play great
