The GHZ Forum

SEGA's teasing something "huge" for their Tokyo Festival tomorrow, and Sonic's in the promo image. No details of anything yet, obviously, but in the case that this turns out to be a new Sonic game I thought it might be prudent to set up a thread for it a little early. The interesting thing is that they're plugging a Japanese event on their American and European social media accounts - wonder what all that's about? I can't imagine they'd think Sonic-brand panko crumbs would have much of a worldwide appeal.

We already know that Kenji Matsubara wants to bring those horrible "Flashback" consoles to Japan, so maybe they're just gonna tease some more ports of ancient IPs from the backlog.

So the announcements are in:
-Sega's releasing its own Mega Drive mini. Previous reports have said that it's just a re-release of the Flashback consoles, so that's probably not a good thing.
-Shenmue 1 & 2 are being released for PS4 and Steam with Widescreen support.
-Sega's brining 15 classic games to the Switch e-Shop, including Phantasy star, Thunderblade and Sonic. They will be developed by M2. Why are they are still re-releasing the M2 version of Sonic, when they have the far superior Taxman/Stealth version? The remastered version was recently updated for mobile and they've done a good job of ruining it, which once again shows how clueless the company is.

Edit: Apparently, the Mega Drive 'mini' shown looks different from the AT games version, so it could be an original product.
Edit: Shenmue is also for Xbox. It will have new optional controls and other new features. No Switch version, even though retro games sell exceptionally well on Nintendo's latest system.

big_smile wrote: -Sega's brining 15 classic games to the Switch e-Shop, including Phantasy star, Thunderblade and Sonic. They will be developed by M2. Why are they are still re-releasing the M2 version of Sonic, when they have the far superior Taxman/Stealth version? The remastered version was recently updated for mobile and they've done a good job of ruining it, which once again shows how clueless the company is.

At the risk of stating what's possibly already on all our minds, but it occured to me recently that it'd be a no-brainer to remaster the Traveller's Tales games using the Retro Engine. After all, Jon Burton has made it public he has prudently retained the source code for both of them, so it should be a relative cinch. Easy money.

The Saturn version of Flickies' Island runs on the same code as the MD version, according to Burton, but I doubt he ever had the SC to the Sat Special Stage. It'd still be ideal if they gave us the option for the Richard Jacques and MD soundtracks. Jacques is still a Sega employee, so ordering him to properly loop his music is also logical.

I think Whitehead stated the RE can recreate Saturn(/PS1/N64/etc.-era) games easily. And I don't think any among us wouldn't shell over cash for a 16:9 60fps Sonic R.

Of course none of this will happen. Not that we can begrudge Sega for not putting out a RE compilation with Sonic 3 being so conspicuously absent. But as stand-alone releases? C'mon!

The worst thing is that the Mania team have finished Plus and are now looking for work. Why isn't Sega getting them to do more ports?

It's been confirmed that the Mega Drive Mini is being made by AtGames. Disappointing, but expected. They say it'll be an improvement over the previous iterations, but they said the same thing last time, so it's probably best to keep expectations low.

The new Sega Ages line is pretty exciting though! It's deeply Sega to announce re-releases from the industry's best (M2) and the industry's worst (AtGames) in the same show.

So far it's a nice selection of Arcade, Master System and Mega Drive titles. The highlight is Thunder Force IV, which Sega recently acquired. I was a little worried that they wouldn't do anything with the IP, after its absence in the PS4/XBO Mega Drive Classics lineup. Hopefully the other Thunder Force titles will follow.

It's disappointing that the Christian Whitehead/Headcannon widescreen version of Sonic 1 probably won't ever come to Switch now, but they confirmed that the Spin Dash option will be included, so maybe it'll have one or two other surprises. What's really rad is that, for the first time ever, the arcade Mega Play version will be included. It's basically Sonic 1 re-formatted as a race against the clock score attack game (with Marble Zone, Labyrinth Zone and Act 3 of Scrap Brain Zone wisely omitted). I'm far more excited about playing this than anyone who's bought Sonic 1 so many times reasonably should be.

Hopefully they'll get around to arcade titles that have never had home releases, like Golden Axe: The Revenge of Death Adder and SegaSonic the Hedgehog. In the case of the latter, Sonic Mania Plus has provided the perfect promotional springboard, so they might as well strike while the iron is hot. If anybody can find a work-around to the trackball controls, it's M2.

Dr. BUGMAN wrote:At the risk of stating what's possibly already on all our minds, but it occured to me recently that it'd be a no-brainer to remaster the Traveller's Tales games using the Retro Engine. After all, Jon Burton has made it public he has prudently retained the source code for both of them, so it should be a relative cinch. Easy money.

The Saturn version of Flickies' Island runs on the same code as the MD version, according to Burton, but I doubt he ever had the SC to the Sat Special Stage. It'd still be ideal if they gave us the option for the Richard Jacques and MD soundtracks. Jacques is still a Sega employee, so ordering him to properly loop his music is also logical.

A Sonic 3D port that lets you toggle between graphics, soundtracks and Special Stages (MD, Saturn and PC) would be neat. But if they included the option to play the Saturn version Special Stages separately it'd be an instant buy for me. Unlike the rest of the game, they've aged surprisingly well.

Mega Play for Sonic is a nice touch. But the Switch was made for the Taxman/Stealth version. It would look wonderful on the Switch's lovely widescreen. Not to mention they could add in a 2P mode to work with the Switch's detachable controllers and probably even port over Ray and Mighty (although I admit that I don't know how feasible these additions would be).

Why is Sega making such a dumb decision to go with the M2 version? For a company that's always saying how it is listening on social media, this decision just seems so tone deaf.

https://twitter.com/Tracker_TD/status/9 ... 7393951744
Speculation that Sonic 1 might have the drop dash.

I wonder if there's some legal issue with the porting the Remasters to consoles. Maybe something to do with the music (as Forces didn't have any of the classic music). It just seems bizarre that they would go to all this trouble of creating Drop Dash in an emulated port (as M2 previously explained that including the Spin Dash was a major headache). Still kudos to M2 for adding the drop dash (if it's true). It will certainly make it interesting to play again (especially with the new Mega Play mode) It's just a shame that we have to pick between new moves and widescreen/extra characters.