The GHZ Forum

Sonic Gems Collection is out. I captured 2 movies from Sonic the Fighters (yes, it's known as Sonic the Fighters and not Sonic Championship).

<a href="http://www.fileplanet.com/dl.aspx?/plan ... .zip">Fang fighting Knuckles</a>
Requires: DivX 5.1 and Quick Time.

<a href="http://www.fileplanet.com/dl.aspx?/plan ... n.zip">The introduction and a bit of the game demo</a>
A Quicktime movie with MPEG 4.

Anyway, I thought I would share them with you guys. If you want more movies from the Sonic Gems Collection, let me known and I'll capture some for you guys.

Some fucking genius at UPS screwed up the order. It won't be here until tomorrow, but I can't get it till Friday.

Cue sad-face emoticon, then cue big -fucking-mallet-over-the-head emoticon.

I would say, I'll probably get it, but that's what I said about Mega collection when it came out, and I still don't have it. I think I'm just lazy, that and I still don't have a driver's license.
~Neo

That's just pathetic. Even I have a driver's license.

What are you trying to say?

In all seriousness, I failed my driver's test because I forgot I was in reverse and my parents are either too busy or forgetful to even help me get a license/practice driving/whatever.
~Neo

I have a license issued by USFJ, but it isn't much good outside of U.S. installations in Japan.

Got my copy around 1 PM today. I was actually on my way to get it when EB called my house to tell me it was in.

I'll maybe get it but since I have some of those games, why bother?

I got this, too. It's about what I expected.

Sonic the Fighters, the only one of the games I was interested in, seems like a solid port. It runs at a constant 60fps and I guess it's arcade perfect (I've never played the actual arcade version). There aren't many bells & whistles, obviously, except that they made the service mode options accessible from the main menu. Playing with the Cube pad sucks, but I tried it with the Soul Calibur 2 stick and it works alright. Unfortunately, there's no way to change the default button layout, so there's a dead button inbetween P and K that's a bit awkward. There's an option for sound output in the menu, but it's permanently stuck on mono, which makes me wonder why they threw it in there at all. The SFX sound awful.

I'm not too sure what the hell happened with Sonic CD. It's been a long time since I've played it on an actual TV screen, but I swear to god the resolution is fucked up. The sprites are way too big, you don't see enough of your surroundings, and everything is pixellated and ugly. The music and sound effects are, again, mono only, and it sounds awful. There's also a brief loading screen of the Little Planet that flashes on in between every single round and it's distracting because it only appears for a second. Why'd they include that at all? Was it in the PC version, I really don't remember? This is the sloppiest, weakest port of the bunch.

Sonic R is a port of the PC version, and it's a solid conversion except, again, for the sound.


There are some extras I haven't been able to access yet, but it doesn't seem like there's anything more than a bunch of art that we've already seen. It includes both the console and PC version manuals from Sonic CD and Sonic R, plus the StF flyers and complete character move lists, though except for the StF move names, there's no new information.

Basically, we've got a decent (not remarkable) port of Sonic the Fighters and that's about it. They should've sold that alone under the Sega Ages label for $15 with preserved stereo sound.

So does Sonic R have a 4-player mode?

The loading screen was in the PC version, though it took much longer then a second.

So does Sonic R have a 4-player mode?

Doesn't seem like it.

If anyone has the PS2 version, is that one any better in terms of sound quality?

Yes, Sonic R is 4 players actually. I tested it out.

Gibs, I'm really curious about your comments regarding Sonic CD's resolution. I tried looking at various screencaps to compare Sonic CD to the games on Mega collection, but I'm not really noticing a difference:

http://media.cube.ign.com/media/486/486 ... 61297.html
http://media.cube.ign.com/media/748/748 ... 54618.html

If it has the planet loading screen, it's definitely a port of the PC version. Could the resolution problem be a product of that? I never noticed that the PC version of Sonic CD altered the res at all, but since I'm running XP now I can't do a side by side comparisson between the PC version and the emulated Sega CD version.

The load screens might just seem distracting on the Cube, but I'm wondering if the load times are more noticible on the PS2 version. And mono-only sound output is ridiculous. I can't believe no one has mentioned that in any reviews. Are you sure your Cube's internal settings aren't over-riding the games settings? It's strange that they would give a sound select option that can't be used for anything.

Only Sonic the Fighters includes the "option", but all the games are mono. The music and SFX on the menu screens are very clear, but most of the in-game music (especially for Sonic CD) is muffled, and the sound effects are tinny and annoying.

There's definitely something weird about the picture in Sonic CD. It's stretched or something. I tried Vectorman (the only one of the Genesis games I unlocked) and that looks fine (there's a small black border around the picture, but I doubt that has anything to do with it). The fact that it's the PC version probably does have something to do with it, but even then it's got a different Sega logo and the title screen looks like it was deconstructed and slapped back together on some other hardware. Sonic CD feels broken and pasted back together in some awkward ways. They must've had a hard time with the port.

Neon Chaos wrote:Yes, Sonic R is 4 players actually. I tested it out.

Oh, awesome. Thanks. This ups the chances of me buying it now.

Well, that's pretty shitty. It's hard to believe they had so much trouble porting a game that's emulated perfectly on the PC. I'm glad I'm only paying $25 Canadian for it.

Canadians... for some reason, Sonic Gems is underpriced at Amazon.ca... only 29.99 Canadian. And if you buy a bottle of Schwepps Gingerale, you can get $5 off an Amazon purchase. VALUE

Are you sure there isn't something wrong with your GC? My Sonic CD port is in stereo. Or at least, the music is (the sound effects are all off, though, the noises Metal Sonic makes while dashing are especially grating). The sound for all the other games seems about right though, Sonic R in particular has obvious stereo effects as you pass by noise-making background elements, like the waterfall in the first stage.

There are some weird problems with Sonic CD but I don't think the screen resolution is one of them. It does fill the screen completely, so maybe it is stretched slightly (it seems like most Genesis and SegaCD games don't quite fill the whole screen, you get small borders around the edges), but it doesn't bother me any. Some enemies seem to attack differently, or they begin their attacks from way off-screen, and they've eliminated the "fade" when you time travel and just zap you straight into the warping sequence, which also has screwed up the trailing-star effect. The quick load screen wouldn't bug me so much if the game didn't hang for several seconds doing absolutely nothing whenever you clear a level before the load screen even appears--wtf is that about! The game doesn't remember your initials when entering best times and always defaults to "YOU," which I find extremely annoying. The special stages seem to be running at double their normal speed, I don't know if they were trying to up the frame rate or what there, but it makes them a lot harder.

I'm playing the Japanese version, and unlocked Bare Knuckle already. I had been under the impression that in the Japanese version there were a couple of "risque elements" that got nixed from the US version, like (supposedly) Blaze's panties and the girls with whips not wearing stockings (their legs were flesh-colored instead, I have an EGM that shows a screen of that). Besides the opening being in Japanese, it doesn't seem to be any different from the US Streets of Rage.

Has there been any word yet of the EU conversion? When's its release due?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASI ... 77-6615830

October 30th. Shadow The Hedgehog comes out November 18th, if you're interested.

So they get a Model 2 game from 1996 absolutely spot-on but they completely fuck up a Mega CD game from 1993, the most important game on the compilation?

smiths32 wrote:Has there been any word yet of the EU conversion? When's its release due?

Sega Europe have just updated their site with a release schedule for the rest of the year. Apparently Sonic Gems Collection is out 30th September.

So they get a Model 2 game from 1996 absolutely spot-on but they completely fuck up a Mega CD game from 1993, the most important game on the compilation?

I think the case is not that they fucked it up, but they didn't <i>unfuck</i> the PC port, which if I remember right had some some/all of these problems in the first place, in which case it's a flawless port, really. The game is not ruined, but it's sad that the most accurate way to play the original Sonic CD off its intended console is to emulate it on PC...

I've noticed some graphical weirdess in some of the stages in StF, Tails' stage in particular. I'm thinking it's not quite 100%, but I don't have any way of finding out.

G.Silver wrote: I'm playing the Japanese version, and unlocked Bare Knuckle already. I had been under the impression that in the Japanese version there were a couple of "risque elements" that got nixed from the US version, like (supposedly) Blaze's panties and the girls with whips not wearing stockings (their legs were flesh-colored instead, I have an EGM that shows a screen of that). Besides the opening being in Japanese, it doesn't seem to be any different from the US Streets of Rage.

http://www.classicgaming.com/soronline/ ... rsions.htm

There were some changes in the US/Japanese version. You covered all that I could remember. Just the usual censoring Sega of America did back in the day.

the most important game on the compilation?

I have two copies of this game. How is it the most important game on the compilation? It's easy as hell to get a hold of. An arcade cabinet of StF is a bit harder, methinks.[/quote]