The GHZ Forum

M2 has done a series of interviews on the 3D Sega Classics series of games they've produced for 3DS, and Silicon Era has been translating them for Sega of America to use on their blog. It ain't Iwata asks, but the M2 guys demonstrate incredible care for what they're doing, and clearly love and respect those old games. I have to admit I bought 3D Space Harrier immediately after reading their interview, I just had to do it. The latest interview is on Sonic 1, so naturally it's time to post about it here (I guess!)

http://www.siliconera.com/2013/12/03/em ... -hedgehog/

There's a lot of talk about the changes that need to be made to make a 2D game actually work in "3D," and the hardware they ended up "emulating" isn't actually a Genesis or MD, it's a kind of made-up hardware spec that could conceivably actually be built to play both existing Genesis games and 3D enabled ones. That's pretty neat! They also ended up contacting Yuji Naka to ask about how they should implement the Spin Dash, because apparently it's harder than you'd think.

But I kinda wonder about that! We've got such a dedicated romhacking community, especially for Sonic games, it seems like we've got lots of guys who have already done it (they even put Knuckles in, etc). I wonder if they are even aware of that work? Some of the details they put in include fixing glitches brought about by the presence of a spin dash, Sonic Jam also fixes it but I wonder if the more home brew types do as well? They talk a lot about pushing the 3DS to its limits with this, and of course computers are much more powerful, but I wonder a bit about that. M2's staff are clearly perfectionists, so they may be holding their emulator to a higher standard than most (all?) PC ones. And of course Taxman's Sonic ports are a whole other animal as well, I don't know what's going on under the hood there, I assume his engine interprets a fair amount of data from the original ROMs, but I was under the impression those are closer to ports than strict emulation.

Anyway I think it's really interesting and has me excited to pay $5 (edit: $5.99! Sega, you're killing me!) to play Sonic 1 again. (Here I thought my DS collection was supposed to prevent me from buying it again, at least not for a portable...)

Here's links to some other interviews, if you like!

3D Space Harrier
3D Super Hang On
edit: 3D Altered Beast is here too! (Come on, Shinobi 3!)

And yet I still find it hard to take them seriously, after all that fascinating conversation about their attention to detail, when the Sonic 1 port ended up sounding like this.

Are you referring to the spin dash at the start? I played a bit with it and you do have to fiddle a bit with revving it at the right intervals to coax that sound out of it (you can get some others out too, but not so jarring). If you use it "as intended" you'll never hear those noises, but I'm surprised they didn't catch that. Other spin dash details: that additional revving does not actually seem to add speed to it; and the spin dash is not an attack, if an enemy walks into you as you do it, you take a hit.

That said, I didn't notice any of that right away because the first thing I did when I turned on the game was turn the spin dash off. :P

It's not just the spindash, everything sounds off kilter due to (according to more technically-inclined people at sonic retro) emulating the YM2612 at 32kHz instead of 44100kHz. Given the shaky track record of audio in official Sega emulations, I just find this rather sorry.

I think it's interesting how they basically created a hypothetical brand-new SEGA console just to try and get a good chunk of these games looking right.

It's too bad M2 weren't aware of Taxman and Stealth's work. While I appreciate all the effort M2 have put into this port, it pales in comparison to the awesomeness of Taxman and Stealth's port. Plus, I would imagine that getting the retro engine to work on the 3DS would be less of an ordeal than creating a Gigadrive.

Being able to play as the Sonic 3 cast in a widescreen Sonic 1 in 3D on the 3DSXL's gorgeous screen would be breathtaking.

Well, no one had to create a Gigadrive, they just had to emulate its fictional specs, which for their purposes was easier/more practical than doing the MegaDrive itself. Because they are emulating, they aren't using the 3DS at top efficiency. In order for Taxman's engine to do its thing on 3DS (which I assume would be more efficient--for instance M2 did not add widescreen support for performance reasons, the same reason they aren't emulating the sound at a higher frequency. Taxman would not have those problems because--correct me if I'm wrong--it isn't emulating), it would need to be completely ported over to 3DS, and even if could be ported as easily as it was to mobile platforms, it's evidently not where Sega wants to spend their money, a 3D enabled emulator for non-Sonic titles is going to be far more cost effective. So that's why we can't have nice things, or at least not things that are THAT nice on 3DS.

I've been doing a little reading on the mobile ports for Sonic 1, and it sounds like the physics aren't quite spot on (I guess they call it "improved" physics), like there are surfaces that Sonic doesn't stick to the way he did originally, so it's not as if the non-emulation approach is always going to be perfect either.

I don't think Taxman's system is emulation. It probably just didn't end up on 3DS because M2/Sega Japan didn't know about it.

I've been doing a little reading on the mobile ports for Sonic 1, and it sounds like the physics aren't quite spot on (I guess they call it "improved" physics), like there are surfaces that Sonic doesn't stick to the way he did originally, so it's not as if the non-emulation approach is always going to be perfect either.

Mobile Sonic 1 might not be perfect in terms of copying the original. However, it expands greatly on the original and it's differences are so minor that I personally consider it to be the perfect version of the game. The attraction in most re-releases is nostalgia, whereas Taxman's port actually has a fresh 'new' feel.

big_smile wrote:However, it expands greatly on the original and it's differences are so minor that I personally consider it to be the perfect version of the game.

Barring of course the fact that it's on mobile devices only. That's a deal breaker for me.

You can run Android on PC via Bluestack.
Most Android phones support the Wiimote (allowing for proper controls) and a lot of newer phones can connect to the TV.
There's also the Xperia Play which is a phone and portable gaming device in one (complete with PSP style controller).

big_smile wrote:You can run Android on PC via Bluestack.
Most Android phones support the Wiimote (allowing for proper controls) and a lot of newer phones can connect to the TV.
There's also the Xperia Play which is a phone and portable gaming device in one (complete with PSP style controller).

Those all sound like too much trouble just to play a fan emulation. I'm sure it's amazing but could it have killed them to make it more widely available? I have no desire to buy a new phone or set up a virtual machine on my virtual machine (I run windows via bootcamp already) just to play it.

While I wish it had been made more widely available, I think it was rumoured that Sega couldn't make the business argument for it, as these systems already have Sonic 1. I wouldn't be surprised if it pops-up on the next-gen systems.

Bluestack on Mac is really easy to install. Just click the installer and it sets itself up. Then, once in Bluestacks, you can log-in via Google Play or Amazon to purchase the game.
The whole process is no more difficult than installing a regular Mac game.
The only draw back to Bluestack on Mac is that it doesn't seem possible to use a bluetooth controller (e.g. the Wiimote), but the Mac keyboard works great and I understand USB controllers work fine as well.
It's certainly worth the effort. Plus, the more sales it gets, the more chance we have of seeing future titles.

The Ecco the Dolphin interview is up, and it has an interesting bit of random Burning Rangers trivia from Ryoichi Hasegawa:

Sega Blog wrote: (as a side note, his personal favorite second biggest accomplishment was during his time working on Burning Rangers. He also was in charge of writing English-y lyrics for the theme song, Angels With Burning Hearts, he hid a small Easter Egg where the first letter of each word in the line “Sight of night I cheer to embrace a magic” read together form a message.)

Did anybody know this before?

Ha, that's very clever:
http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/196841-b ... s/63754255

I always thought the title was just Engrish.

So the new set of 3D Classics includes a Fantasy Zone 2, but it's not the Fantasy Zone 2 most people know, the Master System version, it's the "DX" remake, which was created for the PS2 Sega Ages Fantasy Zone Complete collection, and afaik was never released anywhere else. It was made using actual System-16 hardware (the PS2 version emulates it) in order to create a game that would seem like a real arcade sequel as if made by the original team, whereas the Master System FZ2 was apparently made by another division. Although there are some similarities the two games are completely different, so much more importantly than being 3D, this is the first time it's been on other hardware, and potentially the first time released outside of Japan, too. I consider this a Big Deal!

so apparently we actually ARE getting the second wave of 3D Classics, just not until early next year!

Hey look at that, Sonic 2, Streets of Rage 2 and Gunstar Heroes this summer.

Spoiler: A little extra M2 included at the end of Streets of Rage 2:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSN-YIDEq3U

It's too bad SoJ didn't get M2 to work with Taxman and Stealth on using the Retro Engine for these games. Imagine what M2's talent and passion could have produced if they weren't stuck with emulation.

big_smile wrote:It's too bad SoJ didn't get M2 to work with Taxman and Stealth on using the Retro Engine for these games. Imagine what M2's talent and passion could have produced if they weren't stuck with emulation.

Imagine what your posts would be like if you stopped sucking Taxman and Stealth's dicks.

Sonic 2 3D is out in Japan. It has a "ring save mode" where you only lose half your rings when hit.

Like SoR2, there's also a comedy ending:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKevtNydnx8