Sega, what vile tripe is this you dare call Sonic?

Martoon · Post by **Martoon** » Tue Nov 21, 2006 10:35 pm 0

"Sonic the Hedgehog - Genesis", for the GBA. Supposedly a port of the classic, original Sonic for the Genesis.

All I have to say is, Sonic the Hedgehog plays poorly as a turn-based strategy game. If the GBA can't handle the speed scrolling of a large playfield, that's fine. Just don't pretend that it can, and ship something like this. Invest your development efforts in some other title. Seriously, the dev team could develop a better game in the time it takes this puddle of silicon vomit to render one frame.

Sadly, the kids today will play this, and think that's what the original Sonic was like.

Jonny Cappuccino · Post by **Jonny Cappuccino** » Tue Nov 21, 2006 10:59 pm 0

Sad days, eh?

Nostalgia for rubbishy computer games.. it comes to us all.

Guru-Meditation · Post by **Guru-Meditation** » Tue Nov 21, 2006 11:11 pm 0

After playing the demo of the new Sonic game on 360 I'm worried that's going to be shite too. Sonic Heroes was fun, this is just .. depressing ...

Martoon · Post by **Martoon** » Tue Nov 21, 2006 11:21 pm 0

Guru-Meditation wrote:After playing the demo of the new Sonic game on 360 I'm worried that's going to be shite too. Sonic Heroes was fun, this is just .. depressing ...

Sheesh. At least on the GBA, they had the excuse of hardware limitations.

Stone · Post by **Stone** » Tue Nov 21, 2006 11:39 pm 0

Martoon wrote:Sheesh. At least on the GBA, they had the excuse of hardware limitations.

Not really; the NGPC is nowhere near the GBA in terms of power but its Sonic was awesome

Stone

Guru-Meditation · Post by **Guru-Meditation** » Tue Nov 21, 2006 11:44 pm 0

The Game Gear version of Sonic was fun.

Martoon · Post by **Martoon** » Wed Nov 22, 2006 12:06 am 0

Stone wrote:
Martoon wrote:Sheesh. At least on the GBA, they had the excuse of hardware limitations.
Not really; the NGPC is nowhere near the GBA in terms of power but its Sonic was awesome

Stone

But StH:Pocket Adventure on the NGPC wasn't a direct port of Genesis Sonic. The Sonic Advance games (1, 2, and 3) are all quite good on the GBA, because the levels were designed specifically for the GBA hardware. They did the same thing for the NGPC Sonic, and the GameGear Sonic. The problem with this latest GBA Sonic is that they attempted to do the original Genesis levels verbatim on the GBA, which just isn't feasible on the GBA hardware. There's a reason none of the handheld versions have been direct ports of the Genesis games (until now), but apparently that reason somehow slipped their mind on this latest mess.

They would have been better off porting the NGPC Sonic to the GBA.

adam · Post by **adam** » Wed Nov 22, 2006 12:23 am 0

so has anyone played sonic 3/sonic & knuckles on pc? & is it any good?

Martoon · Post by **Martoon** » Wed Nov 22, 2006 12:42 am 0

adam wrote:so has anyone played sonic 3/sonic & knuckles on pc? & is it any good?

Is that the PC port of the 2D Genesis version? If so, I think I remember playing it, and it's pretty much the same as playing the Genesis rom on an emulator on the PC (which is probably all they're doing with the PC version anyway).

So in short, it's about as good as playing the Genesis version.

Ennui · Post by **Ennui** » Wed Nov 22, 2006 5:44 am 0

I remember reading in, I think, the IGN review that the GBA Sonic is based on the Master System Sonic game, not the Genesis one even though they advertise it as the Genesis one.

adam · Post by **adam** » Wed Nov 22, 2006 1:38 pm 0

Martoon wrote:
adam wrote:so has anyone played sonic 3/sonic & knuckles on pc? & is it any good?
Is that the PC port of the 2D Genesis version? If so, I think I remember playing it, and it's pretty much the same as playing the Genesis rom on an emulator on the PC (which is probably all they're doing with the PC version anyway).

So in short, it's about as good as playing the Genesis version.

not sure which version it is... it's in a shop for Â£5... sonic 3, sonic & knuckles & possibly sonic 3 & knuckles...

Portland · Post by **Portland** » Thu Nov 23, 2006 8:03 am 0

Glad I read this, I was considering a needless purchase (even though I'm already behind with my games)

Spoongod · Post by **Spoongod** » Thu Nov 23, 2006 10:27 am 0

Pity about this, as I wouldn't mind having a fully portable version of MD Sonic. If it runs like shit though, I'm not so fussed to own it. Didn't they, you know, scale down the graphics or perhaps at least put a framerate limiter on it? Well whatever, it's just a pity is all.

Dunno what the clockspeed on the GBA is. Kinda assumed it'd come in somewhere around the 45/50Mhz range but I could be waaaay, way off. It's got to be possible to make a conversion that plays almost identically, and that looks the part. I can't see how it wouldn't be. Anyway, it's probably more expensive than SEGA wanted it to be and so gave it the treatment they did. No bother, I'll find some other way of playing it.

Guru-Meditation wrote:Sonic Heroes was fun

That statement actually scares me.

(Although even though I openly spite the game, I did get about 2/3 through the game before I fucked it off

)

Ennui wrote:I remember reading in, I think, the IGN review that the GBA Sonic is based on the Master System Sonic game, not the Genesis one even though they advertise it as the Genesis one.

Big difference there. The MS version didn't have loops (didn't get loops till Sonic 2 on the MS/GG), had some totally different levels (Bridge Zone, anyone?), had no special zones (chaos emeralds were lying around in 'hidden' parts of the second act), had a world map (that you couldn't choose to travel around), and was far more twitchy in terms of gameplay. I love the MD version like few other games, but I can see why some people like the MS itteration. Just.

Personally, I think Sonic Rush was the way forward. It wasn't perfect, and still suffers from cuntish final bosses that require as much luck as skill, but it was bloody enjoyable.

Martoon · Post by **Martoon** » Thu Nov 23, 2006 4:35 pm 0

Portland wrote:(even though I'm already behind with my games)

Lol!

Is it actually possible to be "caught up" with all the games one needs to play?

Martoon · Post by **Martoon** » Thu Nov 23, 2006 5:09 pm 0

Spoongod wrote:Kinda assumed it'd come in somewhere around the 45/50Mhz range but I could be waaaay, way off.

Li'l bit off. Try 16.78MHz.

Most of the power in the GBA is in it's graphics hardware. The CPU isn't much. Which is why, unfortunately, it isn't much good for emulation (does NES and SMS/GG very well, other than that, not much).

Didn't they, you know, scale down the graphics or perhaps at least put a framerate limiter on it?
...
It's got to be possible to make a conversion that plays almost identically, and that looks the part. I can't see how it wouldn't be.

I don't really think there's a way they could. MD Sonic had some pretty big levels, filled with detailed visuals (not blank backgrounds), that scrolled past really fast. The GBA just can't swap in tiles that big fast enough. I suppose you could scale down the graphics to half resolution, and use sprite/background scaling to bring them back to size in-game, but that would look really crappy. And it's hard to sell a game with ugly screenshots. And a framerate limiter wouldn't be enough to save this game. I think you'd need to slow the entire game to around 4 FPS to even things out (seriously). And Sonic is the textbook definition of a game that can't be played at slow framerates.

It's the same reason they didn't do anything like Sonic on the SNES (unless it had very simple, repeat-tiled backgrounds like Uniracers). It just wasn't the SNES's forte (the SNES was better at other things). And the GBA hardware is essentially a portable SNES, with just enough minor differences to annoy developers doing ports.

Ennui wrote:I remember reading in, I think, the IGN review that the GBA Sonic is based on the Master System Sonic game, not the Genesis one even though they advertise it as the Genesis one.
Big difference there. The MS version didn't have loops (didn't get loops till Sonic 2 on the MS/GG) ... <snip>

Ennui might be thinking of the Sonic Advance games. The recent Sonic Genesis game for the GBA is an actual port of the Genesis Sonic (definitely has loops, etc.).