Sonic 1.... in 3D

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big_smile
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Sonic 1.... in 3D

Post by big_smile »

So it seems Sega of Japan have their own spin on the Sonic remakes in the form of Sonic 1 in 3D (for Nintendo 3DS).

Aside from being in 3D, the game has a plethora of extras such as spin dash, classic TV mode, the ability to chose between Mega Drive 1 & 2 sound styles (apparently each console rendered the music differently) and a save mode. It even offers a choice between the US and JPN versions of the game.

Unfortunately, there aren't any really cool extras such as the ability to play as Tails and Knuckles or a 2P mode.

Bizarrely, it doesn't even seem to have the widescreen mode of Taxman's forthcoming update, which suggests to me that it is a completely separate project.

I'm not a fan of 3D, so I doubt the new mode will add anything. But this seems to be an interesting little release if only because it has more extras than SoJ's previous efforts.

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Re: Sonic 1.... in 3D

Post by G.Silver »

That is really weird, not that they didn't do widescreen exactly (the 3DS isn't exactly a wide-screen format, is it?) but that the game appears to be letterboxed in their own screens. Even without a Taxman-like rebuild I would think if they can get into the "guts" enough to make it 3D, they ought to be able to change the display resolution as well.

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Re: Sonic 1.... in 3D

Post by Neo »

G.Silver wrote:That is really weird, not that they didn't do widescreen exactly (the 3DS isn't exactly a wide-screen format, is it?) but that the game appears to be letterboxed in their own screens. Even without a Taxman-like rebuild I would think if they can get into the "guts" enough to make it 3D, they ought to be able to change the display resolution as well.
It's WQVGA, so yes, it's very much a standard widescreen format, just very small.

The problem with the screen size in the old games is that the game logic depends on it -- objects get unloaded when they're off-screen, which means changing the screen size begets changing the game logic ever so slightly which in turn makes certain stuff play a bit differently. Consider objects that throw projectiles at you, like Unidus and the flame jets in MZ/LZ/SLZ, for instance. (I agree that it should at least be an option.)

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Re: Sonic 1.... in 3D

Post by Neo »

G.Silver wrote:the game appears to be letterboxed in their own screens
To be clear, the original games had a 320x224 window, and the 3DS's top screen is 400x240. So for the sake of pixel perfection there's effectively 8-pixel gaps both on top and bottom. Original hardware would generally scale it to 4:3 (and to something atrocious and shitty for PAL).

Why is the edit time limit such a square
Last edited by Neo on Wed May 08, 2013 1:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Sonic 1.... in 3D

Post by big_smile »

The 3DS XL screen is gorgeous (it's the perfect size for a handheld) so having those borders is not appreciated.

Taxman's code was built with widescreen support at its core (I think), so I am guessing this must be an updated port of Sonic Genesis?

Edit: Actually, that's nonsense, as Sonic Genesis had completely different screen dimensions.

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Re: Sonic 1.... in 3D

Post by FlashTHD »

I'm led to believe this is some sort of emulation, from the screenshot of the stage select. Good luck rigging up a Genesis ROM with native widescreen! Letterboxing it is perfectly fine by me, but you'd think based on M2's previous ports, they'd have come up with some kind of nice eye candy for the border...

Regardless, I am going to rage if we get this abroad but not Space Harrier and Super Hang-on. That seems like the sort of dickish move the US and europe branches would pull.

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Re: Sonic 1.... in 3D

Post by FlashTHD »

Oh right, it's got the spindash. Well, no telling what they've based this on then.

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Re: Sonic 1.... in 3D

Post by big_smile »

Trunks on Sonic Retro posted some mocks up of how Sonic 1 3D might look. You can see them by going here with a 3DS.
I have never been too keen on 3D, but I have to say that I am greatly impressed (although, obviously there's no guarantee that the finished product will be like this).

Disappointingly, Taxman confirmed that he is not working on this. A huge shame as it means we will have one version of the game with perfect controls but lesser extras and another version with better extras but weaker controls. It amazes me that there are two teams working on what is essentially the same project.

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Re: Sonic 1.... in 3D

Post by FlashTHD »

M2's version is part of a larger series of 3DS ports, so it probably comes down to when Sega contracted them compared to Taxman and Stealth. Still disappointing, and bound to conflict with future re-releases if M2 doesn't get the 3DS ones to themselves.

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Re: Sonic 1.... in 3D

Post by FlashTHD »

M2's is out. It's an emulator, albeit a crummy one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8ewJsCIfxE <-- direct video capture
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjmPAqNMIIY <-- longer, but handcam

I don't know what audio setting these clips were using (prolly whatever the default is), but it sucks. Bad memories of Mega Collection sound emulation, down to the scratchy sound effects. Even in the handcam video, it's obvious right away something's wrong with the BGM, like they nearly muted an entire sound channel. I wouldn't be able to play that for 2 seconds without wanting to twitch. More to the point, i'd have rather had anything else M2 could port better than this if they were going to phone it in..

Taxman and Stealth's version, on the other hand, has Tails and Knuckles playable, but what's this I keep reading about smooth rotation making the special stages unnecessarily more difficult? (You also can't hit Eggman in GHZ3 until the wrecking ball drops. How arbitrary.)

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Re: Sonic 1.... in 3D

Post by big_smile »

The 3D make is getting a physical release in a collection with several other games.

http://3dclassics.sega.com/

There's some new hand drawn classic Sonic art.

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