Homebrew Sonic 2 HD

[MiraiTails]

Apparently, some people in the homebrew community are starting work on making Sonic 2 in HD. You can read more at Racket Boy's page.

I like the character sprites.

[Dr. SEGA Monkey]

WOW. That looks great! I'm glad someone's finally doing something like this, instead of using the same low-res sprites over and over again for fan-games.

[Ritz]

It's a neat idea, to be sure, and some of those character sprites look pretty decent, but everything else just has this air of plastic gaudiness about it. It's, like, everyone working on the art is just tracing the sprites in some sort of vector imaging program and shading everything with gradients, despite them all having little to no artistic talent or experience. I'll pass.

[Isuka]

I concur with Ritz, though the Tails and Eggman sprites are damn awesome. If they happened to be accompanied by some CPS-3 style animation, then I'd be definitely sold.

[DackAttac]

Yeah, it's got all the innovation of Heroes. Quite frankly, it'd really be hard enough to find someone interested enough to consider working on it, talented enough to pull it off, but ballsy enough to take liberties and yet sensible to know how tasteful to make them. Some of that music rocks my world, though. I wish Sega would do this if only so I could net the soundtracks, even though they'd probably treat it worse than Lucas treated the Star Wars trilogy.

[Dash]

Eh. Not exactly giving me a stiffy, but I can appreciate the effort. Then again, I don't quite get so-very-true-to-the-source-material SFII HD Remix either... so maybe it's just my problem?


Ritz pretty much hit the nail on the head. I've played Sonic 2. Many times. I doubt beyond some prettied up plasticine pictures that this will offer a fresh new experience with the game. The project is in the early stages so I suppose they have time to make it more interesting... just some smooth animation and Ohshima style shading on the sprites might do it... but really I've had it up to here with straight-up nostalgia. If you're gonna spend a lot of time on something, at least let it be something new.

But realistically, I'm just talking about a fan project. They're not getting paid. It's kind of neat that Sonic has a fanbase willing to put this much effort into a project.




In a humanities class we were discussing the advance of technologies in film and Star Wars came up. Some chick said how awful it looked now. I piped in and stated how great it was in it's day and the effects craftsmanship should be appreciated for being the peak of what could be done at the time. The class gave me a collective "meh", never considering the fact that the effects they have taken for granted were spurred on by the very movie they were dismissing. I would say the same about Sonic 2 in the game world... would I get largely the same reaction?

EDIT: Was poking around this topic and found this:


By all accounts, not bad.

[Opa-Opa]

Some chick said how awful it looked now.

It doesn't look awful. It still looks awesome. I think Star Wars is one of the few movies in which the special effects have aged even better than Madonna. That and Back to the Future.

[DackAttac]

Yeah, for the record, I was talking about when he went back and added shit to the original trilogy.

[Shadow Hog]

Funnily, I think most of the Indiana Jones flicks have aged rather well, too. The head-exploding scene STILL looks quite real.

Of course, the ghosts that caused said head explosion, implosion and melting look pretty "bleh" by today's standards, but it was quite neat even still.

Back on topic, I'm surprised everyone's reporting on it now... we haven't DONE anything yet. Wouldn't waiting for a playable build be a better time to drop this kind of bombshell?

[Dash]

Some chick said how awful it looked now.

It doesn't look awful. It still looks awesome. I think Star Wars is one of the few movies in which the special effects have aged even better than Madonna. That and Back to the Future.

Oh man no. I agree with you. That chick was full of shit. I'm just talking about how stuff keeps getting "remastered" to look better and I wish that people would just let it be, y'know? I mean I was this close to ranting about the Special Edition Star Wars and how Lucas is disrespecting his original effects team by adding stupid CGI and ironically breaking the illusion.. not to mention making it really hard to see the movies in their original form... though I figure everyone is tired of that rant. Seriously though... pencils down Lucas. Pencils. Down.

I'm one of those people that has trouble with classic cartoon DVD transfers because oftentimes lines get thinned and some of the richer colors are lost. And colorizing... just ugh. So yeah I have some qualms when they try to update older media to meet todays standards. By and large, they just don't need to be messed with.

Trying to keep on topic though, that Casinopolis acapella track is sweet.

[Opa-Opa]

I think the thing about games is that we keep seeing them going to better resolutions and such. I mean, when I played Sonic 2 on my regular tube tv I didn't even think it was all pixelized, low-resolution, etc etc, but now in this HDMI/dvi/component cable age, I sometimes wished for a little polishment in older games. That's what made me buy a vga-box for my DC, and a component cable for the PS2, etc etc.

My only concern is making things look fake. For example this Sonic 2 HD title screen is just too gradient/clean/plastic-looking. The thing about graphical make-overs is that they are just that: a make-over. They HAVE to add new stuff to make it look fresh, so people will like it. Things have to have personality.

I remember sometime ago some people were making hi-res textures for Zelda 64. They looked fantastic, but it was just a gimmick. I even tried playing the game all over again because of the textures but couldn't get past the first time he gets to Hyrule Field.

[Radrappy]

I know this is barely related but does anyone else absolutely despise what digital inking and coloring has done to anime? It is so rare to come across a show that doesn't look like absolute shit these days.

[gr4yJ4Y]

I'm just talking about how stuff keeps getting "remastered" to look better and I wish that people would just let it be, y'know? I mean I was this close to ranting about the Special Edition Star Wars and how Lucas is disrespecting his original effects team by adding stupid CGI and ironically breaking the illusion.. not to mention making it really hard to see the movies in their original form... though I figure everyone is tired of that rant. Seriously though... pencils down Lucas. Pencils. Down.

My physics teacher in high school thought pretty highly of Lucas for the way he way willing to go back to his movies over and over again and tweak the tiniest of features. But he seemed to be the majority.

I know this is barely related but does anyone else absolutely despise what digital inking and coloring has done to anime? It is so rare to come across a show that doesn't look like absolute shit these days.

Yes, I hate the computer-assisted animation we see these days. I'd much rather see more hand-drawn animation in everything.

[Furaru]

idk,I think it looks pretty cool, but the number of times I've already beaten Sonic the Hedgehog 2, I don't know if making it HD will do anything for me. It looks like it'll just be, oooooooooooooooooo pretty graphics, and then once I beat the first level I'll be like, time to go play Guitar Hero. Know what I mean?

[P.P.A.]

Seeing as that is the Sonic hacking community, I predict people to lose interest after a couple of weeks and the project dies.
I don't really care anyway, primarily because I'm not interested in Sonic 2 the least. >_>

And Radrappy, I agree. All this computer-generated stuff looks so empty, so soulless. Hand-drawn anime are much more charming usually. :(

[Radrappy]

well, to be fair, they're actually all still drawn/animated by hand. It's just the inking and coloring that's digital.

[G.Silver]

I actually disagree rather strongly, I haven't noticed a drop in quality that I could blame on digital coloring. If anything I'd say since there's so much more anime out there and we're seeing so much more of it outside of Japan, we're just seeing a lot more shit generally. I look back on certain cell-animated shows fondly, but others don't do so well. I don't think digital coloring has anything to do with it.

[Ritz]

I'm thinking the problem (On top of what Silv said concerning anime) isn't that the coloring is digital, so much as it is the fact that every Western cartoon these days is cheaply animated in Flash, which gives everything an unmistakably jaunty feel. I don't think I've ever come across a show animated in that style which wasn't alienated me on the spot.

EDIT: Wait, are we talking about anime exclusively? 'Cause, y'know. I'm not down with that.

[Isuka]

The interpolation/ hqnx filters ruin the Sonic 2 logo. Digital inking does not ruin anime, there just are good shows and bad shows, that's it.
In any case, I like the 90's shows character designs better, like those of Slayers or Evangelion (which still look great in the new movies), or GUNNM, just to mention some. The moé shit actually feels rather soulless.

[Tsuyoshi-kun]

I'd really like to see an anime with a fun, unique art design again. Now we get bland dating-sim crap, bargian bin shonen, bargian bin shoujo, and "gritty, serious" designs. And moé, to ensure us that we can't POSSIBLY have teenagers with breasts anymore from someone not named Yoko from a certain GAINAX show.

I was watching Urusei Yatsura recently with my little brother and we more or less agreed that the show has better art, animation, music, voice acting, and writing than the grand majority of cartoons today. And I'm talking about the original episodes that began in 1981, before the show began to look even better over the years.

Seriously, this is supposed to look PLEASING!?



And "digital restoration" is an oxymoron if I ever heard one. I still shudder when I watch my Looney Tunes DVDs and see the turned up brightness and hideous color mishmashes.

[Dash]

I just tell my friends that Cowboy Bebop is the only anime they need to watch. All because of stuff like that.. ugh. I think that's why I don't check out Sakura-con even though it's nearby. I fear it's full of people that just watch that stuff and thoroughly enjoy it.

Come to think of it, I've not watched much anime at all lately. Like, in the past year or so. Too busy with my Popeye DVD set(which by the way is totally awesome and everyone should buy it.) and other such western cartoons. What's out now that's worth seeing? I've seen Paranoia Agent, some Eyeshield 21, and some of the Ghost in the Shell series but that's about it.



By the by, I just remembered Outlaw Star's creepy ending theme. It's cool but it always scared the shit out of me when I was younger. It sounds kinda neat backwards too.

[Opa-Opa]

Popeye DVD set

I need that.

And speaking of anime and the sailorman...

[Protodude]

I was watching Urusei Yatsura recently with my little brother and we more or less agreed that the show has better art, animation, music, voice acting, and writing than the grand majority of cartoons today. And I'm talking about the original episodes that began in 1981, before the show began to look even better over the years.

To be fair though can you name as many anime series from the early eighties as you can from the last few years or so? It seems like today we're bombarded with more recent anime then ever before, thus we're seeing more of the bad when in reality there was probably just as much from the eighties.

But anyway, some recent anime with unique art styles that come to mind are Kemonozune and Kaiba, and to a lesser extent stuff like One Piece, Honey & Clover, Studio 4C stuff and Nodame Cantabile.

[Isuka]

Maybe it has to do with the absolute lack of shojo anime down here, but the only not-totally-alternative thing I've read about that drawed my attention is this series called My-HiME. Not sure if it's actually good or what, but it sounded cool enough as to give it a try.

Also, that was creepy? This is creepy.

Popeye vs. anime? Of damn course Popeye wins. Man, he could even beat Kamina, he's that badass.

[Xyton]

And speaking of anime and the sailorman...

That was awesome. Popeye sounds reasonably like Popeye, too.