SEGA's Leak of the Month

[Kogen]

I live in Canada and my balls are always blue.

[Gaz]

Sonic Classic Collection for DS has now been officially announced.

Not exactly that different to past collections but it might be worth buying if the games are ported well.

[Yami CJMErl]

Yeah, assuming they actually get this one right (and it comes out in the States), I might consider buying it, if only because I've never played the original Sonic games in portable form--I ALMOST got Sonic Genesis until I read how much of a Porting Disaster it was.

[Neo]

It doesn't inspire much confidence having this game be announced for the western market only (at first, anyway). The last games we got out of that deal were Sonic Chronicles and Sonic Genesis.

EDIT: Also, doesn't it strike you as odd that they're not flaunting the lock-on feature as a bullet point in the game's description? Hmm.

[Radrappy]

this image was included in the press release. What the fuck?

[FlashTHD]

Heard some people suggest that shot could be a weird mockup, and I guess there's a slight chance of something that ridiculous since these are all 1-screen shots, but if there's anything to suggest potential trouble under the hood, it's this one:



This cutscene is not supposed to have the HUD nor a ticking clock, not even if you trigger cheat codes (I think). New glitches or bad programming afoot? God I hope not, under un-fucked up circumstances a basic Sonic Jam knockoff for portables sounds something i'd actually want to play. (much unlike the dyslexic crybabies at Sonic Retro who hold these games and their asthetics in such reverence, but pop a vein at the thought of them being ported to anything ever again.) Then again there's the possibility of "lol press releese, give us any old screenshotz lyin around nao".

Nice of them though, to come to the conclusion that cropped 1:1 resolution for Genesis games on DS sucks, and to simply scale back the pixels per inch with a filter or something instead.



lol, look familiar to anyone who browses Sonic Channel? Screams placeholder to me, although scarier things have happened in european boxart and I don't expect the logo to become any less lazy...

[Shadow Hog]

To be fair, though, those aren't even scaled to the correct resolution (which would be 256x192, not 240x168). Also, the aspect ratio is correct for Genesis screens (320x224 -> 1.42857142857... or 10:7) but not DS screens (256x192 -> 1.333... or 4:3). It's definitely a mockup, although why they had to modify the screenshots to show Sonic present in Knuckles' quest, or a timer ticking during a cutscene that plays before the stage even begins, I have no clue - they could just boot up a ROM in an emulator, take a screenshot, resize it and be done with it, and leave us with less idiocy to nitpick at.

Actually, the differing aspect ratios make me wonder if they'll go for the resizing method, as FlashTHD suggested, and if so, by which axis? Letterboxed horizontal, or what? Maybe they'll leave the exact implementation up to the player... Can't be too hard to excise the rendering code for the HUD and reposition as need be if the screen gets cropped slightly.

[Dasher]

I prefer that cover to anything 3D, I hate 3D box art.

but yeah its lazy, sonic is way too in your face these days unlike this covers.

[Shadow Hog]

How the hell is the new boxart "in your face"

[(No Imagination)]

Heard some people suggest that shot could be a weird mockup, and I guess there's a slight chance of something that ridiculous since these are all 1-screen shots, but if there's anything to suggest potential trouble under the hood, it's this one:



This cutscene is not supposed to have the HUD nor a ticking clock, not even if you trigger cheat codes (I think).

Looks like they're desparately digging through the old Sonic Pandemonium hoaxes section for screencaps now. It could be due to some insane fan demand - you get a chance to knock Knuckles out before he grabs the emeralds, collect them back right there, make Knuckles your partner, go Super and totally break the game in general. Make sure you beat your fastest time, kids!

On another note, this is a DS game, right? So will two player do...netplay?

[Crazy Penguin]

If they actually wanted to modify these games in any way, I would not be opposed to Super Sonic having a full sprite set. Naturally there should be a proper Time Attack mode (and hopefully High Score table??) as well. One of Sonic Jam's few mistakes was that Time Attack mode was only available for Sonic and "Normal" difficulty (as opposed to "Original" and "Easy"). What's the point of having a Time Attack of Sonic 2's Death Egg Zone if rings are available? Not being able to play as Tails in Sonic 2 Time Attacks was no big deal, but not having Knuckles or Tails in 3&K was a HUGE oversight.

I really appreciate the simplicity of the box art, but it could do with some wingies on the ring.

[Isuka]

Didn't know about those shortcomings in Jam. Oh well, not that a 12-year old compilation lacking the full implementation of some then-new features makes for anything relevant.

To be fair, though, those aren't even scaled to the correct resolution (which would be 256x192, not 240x168). Also, the aspect ratio is correct for Genesis screens (320x224 -> 1.42857142857... or 10:7) but not DS screens (256x192 -> 1.333... or 4:3).

Actually, it seems the original Genesis/ Japanese Mega Drive hardware slightly stretched the 320×224 signal to the full 4:3 AR of all television sets, in the same way the SNES stretched its 256×224 and 512×224 signals or the CPS-II compressed its 384×224 to 4:3 displays.

So, this is looking like yet another hasty port job...

[Dasher]

How the hell is the new boxart "in your face"

I dont know. but the point is...Sonic jam is better.

[Ngangbius]

Sonic Classic Collection for DS has now been officially announced.

Not exactly that different to past collections but it might be worth buying if the games are ported well.

Seeing that Sega West instead of Sega of Japan made the announcement, don't get your hopes up. At best, it'll be another mediocre port job from Backbone, at worse it's being outsource from some unknown 3rd-party that can achieve the same "quality" as Sonic Genesis for this compilation.

[Dash]

I took that initial screen shot as a sign they might be coding some wireless Sonic-and-Tails style 2- player in there, with any characters you like. An idea I wouldn't mind, if well implemented, even if it doesn't make any damned sense to the story scenes(Knuckles helping to fight himself? lol). But yeah, I'd rather just see the ports done properly before anything else. I'd like a pocket Sonic Jam. No reason they shouldn't be adding in some more games, but if they added the other curio cases like Chaotix and 3D Blast I suppose they'd have to change the name of the collection wouldn't they?

[Locit]

I really appreciate the simplicity of the box art, but it could do with some wingies on the ring.

This guy, he gets it.

[Yami CJMErl]

Sonic Classic Collection's been confirmed for a US release--and the boxart gives you 80% more Green Hill in your diet.

[Arcade]

Yeah, assuming they actually get this one right (and it comes out in the States), I might consider buying it, if only because I've never played the original Sonic games in portable form--I ALMOST got Sonic Genesis until I read how much of a Porting Disaster it was.

Get a Nomad!

[Yami CJMErl]

no

[Shadow Hog]

no

This guy, he gets it.

[FlashTHD]

29 fugly screenshots. Possibly not fresh ones (copyright reads 2009) but borderline embarassing all the same.

It appears their solution to the screen res problem is crushing the graphics down vertically somehow - I can't tell if it's ingame graphics being altered, lazily not displaying whole lines of pixels, a little of both or what. Either way it looks slipshod, and I sense it's not going to leave too good an impression on the sap that dares play this on a DSi XL. Mysteriously the HUD, despite being (awkwardly) moved around, doesn't appear affected by whatever they're doing to the rest of the graphics. Sounds like trouble to me.

On top of all that absurdity, notice that anything referring to a vs. mode has been scrubbed out of Sonic 2 and 3, and there's no apparent equivalent to be seen yet. crappppppppp

[G.Silver]

Funny, I was just thinking about this and decided to google it to see if there was any news I missed, and I found this:

http://www.kotaku.com.au/2010/02/want-y ... -in-a-tin/

At the time I'm writing this, it's not up on Kotaku's news site, even though it's dated the 16th. Could be because it knows I'm not in Australia's time zone? Anyway, there's your collector's box and Australian pricing.

Why would they squish it vertically? The DS screen proportions are taller than regular TV, so they should be squishing horizontally to allow you to see the proper distance in front of you. I'd love it if they'd take the route Umihara Kawase took and allow the player to control the scaling.

[FlashTHD]

I'd love it if they'd take the route Umihara Kawase took and allow the player to control the scaling.

Tell me about this and its' limitations, i'm wondering why this mystery group making SCC would not be trying some kind of scaling option.

[Kogen]

Every emulation of older games I have seen on DS (ie: 1 [Contra 4's extras]) have allowed you to choose your own scaling. So that is likely here.

[Shadow Hog]

Maybe, but this IS Sega we're talking about. Don't hold your breath.