Sonic Generations

[CM August]

That boss had the dreaded Egg Pawn Grin(tm)? The neck ring didn't look like a mouth to me. After checking the original sprite, now I can't unsee it.

[Team Mecha]

Hydrocity snucked into Seaside.


& Flying Battery in Spangoia.

[Crazy Penguin]

I don't think that's an Eggrobo... I think it's the final boss from Sonic 2! (Or was that thing ALSO called the Egg Robo?) It kinda looks like he might be in the Sonic 2 style death egg environment, too.

That guy was just called "Death Egg" in the Sonic 2 strategy guide. But it's definitely the Sonic 2 boss. The guys who hacked the demo found untextured models for Egg Robo, and they look just like the S&K versions, whereas this guy has a moustache and three spikes in place of fingers.

They are repeating themselves after Sonic 4, but it's hard not to love this!

Also, the Hydrocity homage and Flying Battery cameo were completely unexpected. It really shows that they're putting a lot of thought and love into this. Seaside Hill and Rooftop Run look a lot more distinctive than I expected they would.

[Neo]

Hydrocity snucked into Seaside.

Well, this kind of gimmick is as old as the first game, but the large spikeball there and the more angular design make it closer to Tidal Tempest:



I am pleasantly surprised by all these new developments. It's hard not to get sucked in to the obvious nostalgia pandering. For their sake and the sake of the franchise, I hope the game ends up being as much fun as people are hoping it to be.

[P.P.A.]

This game is strange. I'm pretty sure I have been through the Sonic Cycle twice with it already, but now I'm getting sucked back in again.

[Farmer]

Any more news on the potential PC release?

[Alexrd]

Any more news on the potential PC release?

No. The lack of news/leaks about it is starting to concern me.

[Edgerock]

Modern & Classic Mushroom Hill footage with direct audio

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... e8LoLwlJ_M

...So Modern Sonic keeps the original music while Classic Sonic gets the remix of it...

[Wombatwarlord777]

Christ, when this game is in motion, it truly looks terrible.

Sounds terrible too. Boing-boing-boing-boing-boing-boing-boing-boing!

[Esrever]

No kidding. I mean who knows, the console Generations may turn out terrible, but at least you can tell they are putting a lot of effort into it. The 3DS version just looks ridiculously lazy.

The stupidest part is, the classic Sonic stages are all just direct remakes of the original stage layouts! So you can play the same stages you've played before, only uglier.

[Crazy Penguin]

I fully expect Modern Sonic to have verbatim remakes of Rush levels as well. On the plus side, at least they've fixed the Sonic 4 ramp unrolling.

[Wombatwarlord777]

The stupidest part is, the classic Sonic stages are all just direct remakes of the original stage layouts!

I entertain the notion that this is Dimps fervently trying to appease anybody. Imagine them going through the backlash of Sonic 4, so that afterwards they're extremely reluctant to do anything that rocks the boat. As Sonic Generations is released, I can almost imagine the company collectively throwing their hands in the air in desperation, screaming "AT LEAST ONE-SIXTH OF THE LEVEL DESIGN IS BOUND TO BE GOOD!!! PLEASE DON'T HATE US!"

Or, perhaps more realistically, this is the lazy way out.

[Edgerock]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_tRYc-gRcA

They changed the music for the Big Arm boss fight. It's now a remix for the final boss theme of Sonic 3 instead of Doomsday Zone.

[Crowbar]

Woah, that music is vastly improved from how I remember the Doomsday rendition sounding.

[Radrappy]

That music is fucking awesome. The fact that that music and mushroom hill are in the portable version is the slap in the face. I'm sure we'll get awesome things like remixes of the sonic heroes theme song and "his world" in the HD version. Fuck Escape from the City man, the megadrive games had real music.

[Crazy Penguin]

http://gonintendo.com/?p=163307

Never ones to stray from formula, the 3DS version will have 7 stages. Hopefully this should mean a boss after each stage, and not just one per era.

Green Hill
Casino Night (mentioned, not shown)
Mushroom Hill

I expect the remaining slots will be represented by two stages from the Advance games, one from Sonic Rush, and one from Sonic Rush Adventure.

[James McGeachie]

The gameplay is looking consideribly improved in the 3DS version now, although far from perfect. The fact they made the necessary change of music for Big Arm though is a good sign, especially since the new remix is awesome.

7 zones though is a bit balls when the console version has 9. I mean, if it means that they have more time to work on sorting out the frame rate, then I guess it's fine...but shows though that there's no Sonic 3 stage in either game, which is absolute bullshit.

If they are focusing on handheld games after this, it'll be weird that either one of the Advance games or one of the Rush games wont have any representation.

Maybe they'll just do one "Advance Era" stage, one "Rush Era" stage and then finish off with one based on Sonic Colours.

If that is the case, good luck not pissing people off with your one choice from 3 entire games.

[Edgerock]

Woah, that music is vastly improved from how I remember the Doomsday rendition sounding.

What's interesting is the guys behind "Reach For The Stars," was behind the Sonic 3 Final Boss remix.

http://www.sonicwrecks.com/news/bigarmmusic/

"Big Arm is back and Classic Sonic faces him down, but with a rather snazzy remixed boss theme music courtesy of Cash Cash (confirmed by T-Bird on TSS). Enjoy!"

In other news... Sonic CD Coming to XBLA, playable at PAX

http://www.joystiq.com/2011/08/22/sonic ... le-at-pax/

Major Nelson, majordomo of all things Xbox, took to his blog this afternoon and posted a detailed list of all the games and events that will be spread out across Microsoft's five booths at this week's Penny Arcade Expo. It's about what you'd expect; Gears of War 3 Horde mode, Forza 4, Mass Effect 3, etc, until you get to the list of Booth 432's XBLA titles. Right near the end, snuggled squarely between Retro City Rampage and War of the Worlds, is an unannounced XBLA port of Sonic CD.

We've reached out to Major Nelson and Sega for comment, but as of yet no additional confirmation has been provided by either party. We suspect they're too enthralled by Sonic CD's masterful theme song to even move, let alone respond to our e-mails.

[G.Silver]

So, cheap PC port ala Gems Collection or full on SegaCD emulation? Multiple soundtrack support? Sega should know by now that this is REALLY IMPORTANT. I mean, who even knows which "masterful theme song" Joystiq's referring to?

[FlashTHD]

So, cheap PC port ala Gems Collection or full on SegaCD emulation? Multiple soundtrack support? Sega should know by now that this is REALLY IMPORTANT. I mean, who even knows which "masterful theme song" Joystiq's referring to?

I lol'ed, but strictly speaking, Sega hasn't considered applying a shred of additional polish to their old ports to be "really important" since... maybe when the Sega Ages series was discontinued? Lifting a finger cuts into profit after all!

[Ritz]

It's going to be Taxman's remake. You know, probably. He's acting all weird about it on Sonic Retro and that's all the confirmation I need. I don't know if you guys know anything about him or his engine, but the game is basically in good hands and we might wind up getting some neat extras.

[FlashTHD]

Huh. Well it has been a few years since he made that pitch, so i'll believe it when I see it, but I suppose likelihood of that happening vs. him toying with naive people on Retro is about equal :p

Assuming for the sake of discussion that it's true, though, I worry about the potential of boneheads in the media and on other fansites latching onto the "fan engine" aspect and getting tremendously carried away with themselves. We're talking about the horror of personal conduct that is Sonic fans here, and this is to suggest that Sega would stick its' hands directly into that fire, just to do a job they're too inept/unwilling to do themselves... yeah, if Tax is behind it then quite frankly, I think i'd have kept my damn mouth shut.

[P.P.A.]

When a friend told me about the Sonic CD port earlier today I felt a surge of excitement rushing through my body (which is exceptionally rare), but it didn't take long for me to return to the usual cynicism of expecting it to be a direct port of the Sonic Gems version, including only the US soundtrack. Not that I wouldn't buy it anyway. I just hope it comes to PSN as well.

[G.Silver]

I lol'ed, but strictly speaking, Sega hasn't considered applying a shred of additional polish to their old ports to be "really important" since... maybe when the Sega Ages series was discontinued? Lifting a finger cuts into profit after all!

Hah, I actually didn't mean "quality is important" so much as I meant "these are important issues when talking about a port of Sonic CD."

[Crazy Penguin]

It'd be nice if they'd use the high quality version of the ending, but with good and bad versions again, rather than merged together.