All-new 2D Sonic rolling out in 2010

[Crisis]

The video unpleasantly reminded me of G Sonic. The one hope from all this is that at least SEGA seem rightfully embarrassed of it.

[Dr. BUGMAN]

Hey, wouldn't it be neat if some of those car wash dash panels had motobugs in them, happily getting their chassis polished?

[(...)]

Personally I'm interested by the first screen in the video:

"Online actions are not rated by the ESRB"

Sonic 4 is going to have online multiplayer!!

[j-man]

That's a bit of a stretch, mate. I'd imagine it's for the leaderboards.

[Radrappy]

That video is, uh... pretty rough looking... but I guess it's not fair to judge a game by a leaked video of an alpha build.

Seriously people take some deep breaths or something. Cripes.

Are you crazy? When has footage seen of these games NOT been basically reflective of the end product? Alpha build my ass, the game is due out in a few freaking months. There's absolutely no reason to assume this is going to get any better given the track record involved.

These people are notorious for terrible quality control remember?

[(No Imagination)]

Are you crazy? When has footage seen of these games NOT been basically reflective of the end product?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRBchXbrwtQ

(Edit: Damn, theiy spoil the animation by inserting actual game footage. I swear I've seen one of these without it...)

But yeah, the game's due out soon. It probably won't change much from what it is now.

[K2J]

The Release Date is "Summer". Flash decompiling has revealed it's more specifically July. That's five months, and that's assuming the build we just saw was current. The problems shown look like they could be fixed in five months, especially since there doesn't seem to be a specific date they're aiming for. The time from going gold to actual release is also much smaller for a downloadable title.

And I recall Dimps having a rather good track record in terms of QC. The self-titled 2006 game was done by a different team, under different conditions, for a the physical retail market instead of download, and was in 3D. The comparison between this game and Sonic '06 is quite hard to make in this case.

[Zeta]

These people are notorious for terrible quality control remember?

Not DIMPS, as far as I know.

[Arcade]

Okey, you just broke my mind...

[Locit]

Are you crazy? When has footage seen of these games NOT been basically reflective of the end product? Alpha build my ass, the game is due out in a few freaking months. There's absolutely no reason to assume this is going to get any better given the track record involved.

I'm pretty confident that they'll get rid of game-breaking invisible vertical walls in the first stage of the game by launch. DIMPS, while not really exemplifying classic Sonic design in their games, doesn't put out titles that lack polish in the same way Sonic Team does. Again, deep breaths.

Something else to consider: because of the anonymity of the source we don't know when the video was taken. It's possible that it's not actually contemporary with the current state of the game –that the opportunity to take the footage occurred while the game was at an earlier stage and, at that point, it looked pretty shoddy. Take into account the severity of leaking before and after the game's announcement and it's possible that the source had been biding their time with this footage for a while. I'm not saying that's how it is (nor making excuses for however the finished product plays) but it is a reasonable possibility.

[G.Silver]

I thought those "walls" were the player using the homing attack unintentionally and bouncing back to the springboards that launched him? I saw the behavior earlier when he bounced off a diagonal springboard earlier in the level.

[j-man]

Yeah, it's pretty clear the silly sod playing it didn't know what he was doing. I'd imagine if you didn't jump over every spring, didn't hammer the homing attack button into walls, and actually pressed down once in a while, you'd get some pretty smooth gameplay out of the thing.

[G.Silver]

I think there was a parrot in the room he was playing in. It laughed, and that laugh sounded like the creepy, inhuman laugh of a trained parrot (or a 90 year old woman).

[Esrever]

Ha! I thought that was a human baby!

[Kogen]

I had assumed there was a duo of Japanese lesbians on the bed. But I can see how that can be confused with a parrot.

[Frieza2000]

Sonic Dimps 7? I could go for that about now, especially with a retro feel. I expect level design will fall somewhere between Pocket Adventure and Advance 1, which were both a fun few hours. The Sonic polygon is a turnoff, but the parallax backgrounds look nice. They're not very Sonicy - the closest they resemble is Flickie's Island - but they do look like an enjoyable setting for a platformer. They could've pleased everyone and saved money by simply reverting to an old sprite set, but they were probably afraid of the game looking too much like a fan project. Episodic format should theoretically give them a chance to respond to criticism, but creates the potential for overcharging. If each installment is 4 zones of 3 full acts, $15 should be the limit.

From a critical standpoint this game was doomed from the start; the level design of the old trilogy is so good that anyone trying to hearken back to it is bound to fall short. In fact, so many fans and pros alike have tried to mimic that design and we've all spent so much time analyzing it that I'm not sure it would receive the same recognition as the old ones even if someone pulled it off. The Sonic 4 name, while it probably gained them the extra sales it was intended to, has doomed it to even more impossible and contradictory expectations than a normal Sonic game. Half of the complaints are that it's too different than the old games, and half are that it's not building on them in ways worthy of a true successor. They know they can't win.

Dimps might be the worst company this could've been handed to, if for no other reason than that we've seen so much of them already that this is sure feel like just another 2d Sonic game. But no matter who gets it, there's one fundamental difference between this and the old games that will always be present. The original games were made by a small team of young dreamers who had an idea for a game they thought would be cool, were given a reasonable budget, and probably had a lot of fun making. This game is being made by a group of programmers that offer themselves for hire (and apparently Iizuka), who were given a strict concept to adhere to and a list of features to be included that were complied by marketing analysts who spend a few weeks surfing Sonic forums. No matter who the programmers are, and I'm sure some of them are Sonic fans who pour their love into their work, the result will never be quite the same.

[FlashTHD]

This game is being made by a group of programmers that offer themselves for hire (and apparently Iizuka), who were given a strict concept to adhere to and a list of features to be included that were complied by marketing analysts who spend a few weeks surfing Sonic forums. No matter who the programmers are, and I'm sure some of them are Sonic fans who pour their love into their work, the result will never be quite the same.

Yeah this is what i've been saying, if you don't think the damn thing was born in a management meeting, you're gullible. This was greenlit because someone of importance wants to cash in on a trend.

[FlashTHD]

Someone allegedly tried a private build on a developer's 360. Other than the (rehashed) Sonic 1 special stages being controlled vaugely like Cameltry, predictably the game sounds pathetic. Assuming it is all true, this bit is most important:

I am afraid to say that we are actually dealing with the very final product here, folks. Since the developers already sent the software for the Microsoft Evaluation Proccess. Additionally, the game’s software was sent to ESRB game content analizys team. Considering the game is already been analized and rated by ESRB, the development team cannot overgo any significative change in the game, visually or otherwise, which therefore pretty much means that this is what the game looks like.

[K2J]

Considering someone on Retro baited him using his own "experience" and Endri agreed with him, it's looking mighty suspicious right now. Summary.

[FlashTHD]

lol, well he did a decently convincing job anyway.

[j-man]

The whole situation is completely ridiculous; and man, that Tweaker bloke is kind of a dick.

[K2J]

He kind of has to be in order to keep everyone's rampant speculation and whining in check. Myself included, admittedly.

[j-man]

A moderator should do just that. He doesn't so much moderate as make keyboard-gangster threats to anyone that offers a differing opinion. All that "U DARE TO CONDESCEND ME" stuff is wayyyy overblown, and a little bit silly. He's one of those extreme-right that are desperate - flat out desperate - to be right about this game being terrible, because they share that ROM hacker superiority complex that's got them utterly convinced they could do it better, regardless of how good (or shit, whatever) the final product is. To be this good takes Sonic Retro, apparently.

I like to imagine that every poster over there is Chris-Chan, and narrate each post accordingly in my head. Instant hilarity.

[j-man]

Speaking of SR, I was browsing their "ideal Sonic 4 music" thread.

I will say that you guys should listen to the music first (when we actually start showing off high quality tracks, etc), and base your judgments off that. Check out the composer afterwards, and then quickly decide whether you love it even more now or are going to eternally dislike it then.

For a forum that has thrived on rampant speculation and wild allegations since the announcement, I'm surprised nobody's mentioned it. Masato Nakamura return confirmed????

Tell you what, if they license the Sonic 2 theme for the invincibility music then fucking Vengaboys can compose the soundtrack for all I care.

[Radrappy]

Someone allegedly tried a private build on a developer's 360. Other than the (rehashed) Sonic 1 special stages being controlled vaugely like Cameltry, predictably the game sounds pathetic. Assuming it is all true, this bit is most important:

I am afraid to say that we are actually dealing with the very final product here, folks. Since the developers already sent the software for the Microsoft Evaluation Proccess. Additionally, the game’s software was sent to ESRB game content analizys team. Considering the game is already been analized and rated by ESRB, the development team cannot overgo any significative change in the game, visually or otherwise, which therefore pretty much means that this is what the game looks like.

thought as much. I can't see how any of you can tell me to "wait and see" with a straight face.