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Sonic CD Coming to XBLA, playable at PAX

R

RagnarokX

Member
PepsimanVsJoe said:
Sonic CD really is something else. I'm looking forward to finally putting a serious amount of time into it.

I've always preferred the style of Sonic 1/CD over every other Sonic game.
Click to expand...
I've always been the opposite. I appreciate Sonic CD over Sonic 1, but its level design is just too chaotic. I much prefer Sonic 2 and 3. To me 3 was the pinnacle of the franchise.
 
B

Blueblur1

Member
Sonic 1 > Sonic CD > Sonic 2 > Sonic 3 > Sonic & Knuckles

That's timeline, Sega. No matter what your current Sega of America mouthpiece says.
 
SonicMegaDrive

SonicMegaDrive

Member
RagnarokX said:
I've always been the opposite. I appreciate Sonic CD over Sonic 1, but its level design is just too chaotic. I much prefer Sonic 2 and 3. To me 3 was the pinnacle of the franchise.
Click to expand...

It depends on how you play the games, I think.
 
P

PepsimanVsJoe

Member
Phonomezer said:
Marble Garden Zone is the worst level in the original series. Horrible.
Click to expand...
Almost all of my candidates for worst OG Sonic level come from Sonic 3K. The levels tend to be overlong and run out of gimmicks early, which just makes them repetitive.

Marble Garden for example felt like a lot of the same stuff over and over again, only with +1 trap or +2 enemies to deal with. Plus act 2 is one of those levels where it's pretty easy to get close to running out of time, something I don't agree with in the slightest.
 
A

Articalys

Member
Okay, now that we have a complete video interview from the show floor itself, a massive infodump/list of clarifications to clear up any remaining issues:
  • It’s commonly understood that Sonic 2, Sonic 3 and Sonic and Knuckles form what is called “The Death Egg Trilogy” because of the overarching story of Eggman’s Death Egg across the titles. Sonic CD was a self-contained adventure that hovered around that area with the most popular belief to be between Sonic 1 and Sonic 2, despite no true concrete evidence.
  • Sonic 4 is trying to bridge all of them together more. It’s not trying to give Sonic CD a concrete place in the timeline, just say that “It happened prior to Sonic 4: Episode 1.” It does not mean Sonic CD is immediately before Sonic 4: Episode 1 and after Sonic 3 and Knuckles.
  • The events of Sonic CD are important to Episode 2. You can see Metal Sonic in the ending. The idea is you’ll see how Metal Sonic comes back after his destruction in Sonic CD and his return. (Knuckles Chaotix unavailable for comment.)
  • Sega is supportive on Christian “The Taxman” Whitehead’s Retro Engine, calling it “a really good piece of technology.”
  • “You’ve got to work within the confines of what a publisher is and what a publisher does in order to get all the benefits as well. We as a publisher will get the benefits from working with really talented developers, and developers on the flip side get the benefits of working with a publisher and all the things and all the exposure they get and they can bring to the table, as well as working on really big brands, like Sonic.”
  • On Metal Sonic: “He’s appeared in some of these [games], but we’ve never made him so integral to that continuity. We’ve had him back, but no one ever explained how he comes back after CD. He’s just there. So, we’re going make sure that we fill in some of these really nice… I almost think of it like Star Wars, right? We’re going to go back and explain this really cool era that was the Clone Wars? We’re going to go back and explain this really cool era that was the classic experience, and show you guys some really fun stuff.”
  • With regards to Sonic 2 Spindash and the “HD Filter”: “Stay tuned.” He doesn’t want to confirm anything until details are more concrete. However, a filter will be present.
  • On Sonic CD not being on 3DS, Vita: “We never really intended to release it yet for the Playstation Vita, or the Playstation Go, or the Nintendo 3DS… those were never really on the table. We were always talking about, ‘It was either digital console or mobile devices.’
  • He’s unable to comment on why the game isn’t on WiiWare.
  • The U.S. Soundtrack will not be included at this time due to licensing issues. However, there’s a couple of more surprises to be revealed later down the road.
  • The trailers have nothing to do with the continuity of the games. They’re their own thing designed by Balough. The ‘detour’ talked about previously is Sonic going to the past so players can relive Sonic CD and understand its events and references in Sonic 4: Episode 2.
Click to expand...
(from Sonic Retro, duh)
 
Upsidedown Fuji

Upsidedown Fuji

Member
Great interview. Sounds like things are shaping up well. I had a feeling there would be a music licensing issue for a game like this. Hopefully that can be sorted out before release. I think it would be a great bonus feature to alternate between soundtracks.
 
T

TimmiT

Member
Muchi Muchi Pink said:
Sorry if this was answered before but from the look of the screenshots, I assume that they're using the retro engine, right?
Click to expand...
Yup. We've known this for two days now.
 
B

BocoDragon

or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
Won't have US soundtrack due to licensing issues? The last release of Sonic CD was US Soundtrack only :p You could get the rights, Sega...

But if we're stuck with a soundtrack, the Japanese/European soundtrack is the one to be stuck with..
 
R

Rlan

Member
Upsidedown Fuji said:
Great interview. Sounds like things are shaping up well. I had a feeling there would be a music licensing issue for a game like this. Hopefully that can be sorted out before release. I think it would be a great bonus feature to alternate between soundtracks.
Click to expand...

The "licensing issues" excuse seems total bunk though. In all previous renditions of Sonic CD (being the PC version and the Gems Collection in NA and Europe) have all used the American soundtrack.

And yet somehow, right now, they're having "licensing issues"? Just like how it was "impossible" to do Sonic 3&K in the Genesis collection, and how the terrible iOS exclusive Sonic 4 levels were "never intended" for the XBLA and PSN versions?
 
B

BocoDragon

or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
Rlan said:
The "licensing issues" excuse seems total bunk though. In all previous renditions of Sonic CD (being the PC version and the Gems Collection in NA and Europe) have all used the American soundtrack.

And yet somehow, right now, they're having "licensing issues"? Just like how it was "impossible" to do Sonic 3&K in the Genesis collection, and how the terrible iOS exclusive Sonic 4 levels were "never intended" for the XBLA and PSN versions?
Click to expand...
bingo.
 
Upsidedown Fuji

Upsidedown Fuji

Member
Its too bad a solid fan engine like the one being used for Sonic CD wasn't used for 1-S&K. Oh well, at least they didn't use Backbone again. A big step in the right direction for SEGA 16bit ports.
 
Upsidedown Fuji

Upsidedown Fuji

Member
Rlan said:
The "licensing issues" excuse seems total bunk though. In all previous renditions of Sonic CD (being the PC version and the Gems Collection in NA and Europe) have all used the American soundtrack.

And yet somehow, right now, they're having "licensing issues"? Just like how it was "impossible" to do Sonic 3&K in the Genesis collection, and how the terrible iOS exclusive Sonic 4 levels were "never intended" for the XBLA and PSN versions?
Click to expand...

Honestly, nobody knows the details of the licensing for the Sonc CD version here so we can all speculate why SEGA screws us at every chance they can get... Here's a theory; what if the US soundtrack had a time limit on it. So while it may have made it to PC and GameCube's mega Collection, too much time may have passed for those rights before they could be renewed. It sounds dumb but stuff like that could be on the table here. SEGA works in counter logical ways. Maybe they want to package the extra soundtrack as a surprise or DLC. Hopefully things will get sorted out. It would be a shame to loose it but the game doesn't become any less valuable.

Using Taxman's engine is enough to convince me SEGA is at the very least giving a serious effort here.
 
ZeroGravity

ZeroGravity

Member
Blueblur1 said:
Sonic 1 > Sonic CD > Sonic 2 > Sonic 3 > Sonic & Knuckles

That's timeline, Sega. No matter what your current Sega of America mouthpiece says.
Click to expand...
Why does it even matter? Sonic CD has no connection to any of the other games anyway. It doesn't matter where or when it takes place.
 
Upsidedown Fuji

Upsidedown Fuji

Member
ZeroGravity said:
Why does it even matter? Sonic CD has no connection to any of the other games anyway. It doesn't matter where or when it takes place.
Click to expand...
Exactly how I feel. SonicCD was its own thing. It never clearly explained where it sat between the original 1-3 and it didn't need to.

It was a nice side story with its own unique modes and features to showcase the SEGA CD. I am very happy to have experienced it when it first came out on my friend's SEGA CD. My mind was blown at how awesome the game was compared to what was out at the time.
 
D

DICKS AHOY

Banned
No American soundtrack is lame (how come it's been the soundtrack of choice in every other port of the game?), but at least the JP OST is my favorite overall. :/

Also wonder if they'll throw anything else into this version that wasn't in the original. Probably just small stuff like leaderboards/staff ghosts for the time-trial mode, but playable Tails and/or Knuckles would be neat, if not weird as fuck, or if they were feeling especially adventerous with this 'remake' of sorts they could always try to complete that supposedly cut zone.
 
Upsidedown Fuji

Upsidedown Fuji

Member
Astrosanity said:
No American soundtrack is lame (how come it's been the soundtrack of choice in every other port of the game?), but at least the JP OST is my favorite overall. :/

Also wonder if they'll throw anything else into this version that wasn't in the original. Probably just small stuff like leaderboards/staff ghosts for the time-trial mode, but playable Tails and/or Knuckles would be neat, if not weird as fuck, or if they were feeling especially adventerous with this 'remake' of sorts they could always try to complete that supposedly cut zone.
Click to expand...

I'd love to see a proper leaderboard system that wasn't hacked and broken. It sucks to see 0:00:00 time attack times in recent XBLA Sonic games.
 
R

Rlan

Member
Upsidedown Fuji said:
I'd love to see a proper leaderboard system that wasn't hacked and broken. It sucks to see 0:00:00 time attack times in recent XBLA Sonic games.
Click to expand...

Not only that, but a Leaderboard system that is actually based on each level of the game. Previous Sonic games on XBLA don't have the feature outside of Sonic Adventure and Sonic 4. They're based on the score, the one part people generally don't care about :p

Reconfiguring the Sonic CD time attack mode would be sweet.
 
M

Muchi Muchi Pink

Member
Upsidedown Fuji said:
Using Taxman's engine is enough to convince me SEGA is at the very least giving a serious effort here.
Click to expand...

Indeed, SEGA seems finally try to do the right things. Generations looks good, the Sonic CD port is beside the soundtrack looking good too and finally we get vf5fs. If the next Valkyria Chronicles is on consoles and not handheld, I might forgive them.
 
Upsidedown Fuji

Upsidedown Fuji

Member
Rlan said:
Not only that, but a Leaderboard system that is actually based on each level of the game. Previous Sonic games on XBLA don't have the feature outside of Sonic Adventure and Sonic 4. They're based on the score, the one part people generally don't care about :p

Reconfiguring the Sonic CD time attack mode would be sweet.
Click to expand...
You read my mind.
 
B

BlazeHedgehog

Member
Astrosanity said:
No American soundtrack is lame (how come it's been the soundtrack of choice in every other port of the game?), but at least the JP OST is my favorite overall. :/

Also wonder if they'll throw anything else into this version that wasn't in the original. Probably just small stuff like leaderboards/staff ghosts for the time-trial mode, but playable Tails and/or Knuckles would be neat, if not weird as fuck, or if they were feeling especially adventerous with this 'remake' of sorts they could always try to complete that supposedly cut zone.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't hold my breath on R2 showing up; whatever existed in that level slot is probably buried in a warehouse somewhere in Japan, and has been for nearly 20 years.

The Retro Engine codebase used to build this version of Sonic CD would probably already support Tails and Knuckles right out of the gate. It's definitely possible.

As for the licensing issues regarding Sonic CD's US OST, I get the impression that they could use it in stuff like Gems Collection because they were emulating the game directly. There are rights associated with how this music would be performed, and they were probably fine using "unmodified game data in its original format". By rebuilding the entire game from scratch, they'd need to re-license all the music again. Same reason emulated versions of Sonic 1 and 2 keep Masato Nakamura's music, but to use it in any other games they had to re-license it.
 
D

DrFunk

not licensed in your state
No US soundtrack is unfortunate. I've always preferred it to the saccharine-sweet JP/EU version. But at least I get a chance to play one of my favorite Sega CD games.
 
S

Seraphinianus

Banned
Muchi Muchi Pink said:
Indeed, SEGA seems finally try to do the right things. Generations looks good, the Sonic CD port is beside the soundtrack looking good too and finally we get vf5fs. If the next Valkyria Chronicles is on consoles and not handheld, I might forgive them.
Click to expand...


This is just the positive part in the cycle :)
 
P

Phonomezer

Banned
PepsimanVsJoe said:
Almost all of my candidates for worst OG Sonic level come from Sonic 3K. The levels tend to be overlong and run out of gimmicks early, which just makes them repetitive.

Marble Garden for example felt like a lot of the same stuff over and over again, only with +1 trap or +2 enemies to deal with. Plus act 2 is one of those levels where it's pretty easy to get close to running out of time, something I don't agree with in the slightest.
Click to expand...

Marble Garden, Carnival, and Launch Base could have done with some serious editing.
 
Upsidedown Fuji

Upsidedown Fuji

Member
Sega1991 said:
...
The Retro Engine codebase used to build this version of Sonic CD would probably already support Tails and Knuckles right out of the gate. It's definitely possible.

As for the licensing issues regarding Sonic CD's US OST, I get the impression that they could use it in stuff like Gems Collection because they were emulating the game directly. There are rights associated with how this music would be performed, and they were probably fine using "unmodified game data in its original format". By rebuilding the entire game from scratch, they'd need to re-license all the music again. Same reason emulated versions of Sonic 1 and 2 keep Masato Nakamura's music, but to use it in any other games they had to re-license it.
Click to expand...

That makes a lot of sense to why the game may not be covred by the music rights this time around.
 
SonicMegaDrive

SonicMegaDrive

Member
I am A-OK with there being no US soundtrack. I've already purchased the game with the US soundtrack 3 times from Sega, and this will be the first time the JP soundtrack will be available to the states.

In a perfect world, you would be able to choose between both. But if I am forced to have one or the other, I'd want to have the original(and in my opinion, better).
 
B

BlazeHedgehog

Member
Upsidedown Fuji said:
That makes a lot of sense to why the game may not be covred by the music rights this time around.
Click to expand...

Thinking about it more, Sonic CD in Gems Collection was a port of the PC version. But I guess that still worked out - they were porting existing code to a new platform; this is still a from-scratch re-creation.

What's making me wonder now is Sonic 1 on the GBA. Was that really intended to be a port of the original Genesis code? Or did Sega actually have to license music for that piece of shit? Because it definitely did not feel like a port; it felt more like a bad flash game that vaguely resembled Sonic 1.
 
S

skullomania

Member
I wonder if they'd do a slight improvement, whereby sonic would be transported instantaneously into the future/past without the need for the cut scene where he zooms by the green background.
This is what I thought would be a great improvement for the game, and surely would be easy to do these days, making a seamless transistion between the time zones!

Admittedly, I've only played the Gems collection version, so the original MegaCD/SegaCD version might have been instantaneous...does anyone know?
 
Q

qq more

Member
skullomania said:
I wonder if they'd do a slight improvement, whereby sonic would be transported instantaneously into the future/past without the need for the cut scene where he zooms by the green background.
This is what I thought would be a great improvement for the game, and surely would be easy to do these days, making a seamless transistion between the time zones!

Admittedly, I've only played the Gems collection version, so the original MegaCD/SegaCD version might have been instantaneous...does anyone know?
Click to expand...
The original version wasn't instantaneous if memory serves right. Although, unlike the PC version, it didn't have a "NOW LOADING" image.
 
B

BlazeHedgehog

Member
The original Sonic CD time travel effect on the Sega CD was not instantaneous. After showing the time travel "cutscene", it would usually sit on a white screen for a second or two before letting you resume play. Same goes for finishing levels; after the score was tallied up and it faded to black, it would sit there on the black screen for a couple seconds while the next level loaded in.

From the way it sounds, those couple seconds of loading are no more, but you still have to watch the time travel cutscene.

In an interview sometime in the last few years, Naoto Oshima revealed it was originally his intent for time travel to be instantaneous; that it would just fade up to white for a split second and then you'd be in the other time period. It'd be nice if that was an option now that we don't have to load off of a disc, but I don't expect that'll be the case at all.
 
Z

Zen

Banned
Muchi Muchi Pink said:
Indeed, SEGA seems finally try to do the right things. Generations looks good, the Sonic CD port is beside the soundtrack looking good too and finally we get vf5fs. If the next Valkyria Chronicles is on consoles and not handheld, I might forgive them.
Click to expand...

Hopefully they support custom sountracks, or 'music import' wink wink.
 
S

Sciz

Member
"Sonic 4 is like the Star Wars prequels" is the most succinct description of the game I've seen to date, come to think of it.
 
T

TEJ

Member
jman2050 said:
The Sonic CD opening is still one of the most impressive animated clips I've ever seen. This was back when they actually put effort into their Sonic game projects!
Click to expand...

After years of people hyping up the non-american sonic cd soundtrack and finally hearing this, I let out a "what the hell, man". The lyrics seem like a big random jumbled mess. Sonic Booms lyrics at least have some consistancy.
 
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