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I have mixed feelings about those tweets. It's partly the tweet author's responsibility to make sure that his work is properly integrated into the final result. It comes across that he turned in his work at the very last minute and crossed his fingers that Sega would be able to integrate it successfully.
It's also simply bad form to throw your collaborators under the bus.
I have mixed feelings about those tweets. It's partly the tweet author's responsibility to make sure that his work is properly integrated into the final result. It comes across that he turned in his work at the very last minute and crossed his fingers that Sega would be able to integrate it successfully.
It's also simply bad form to throw your collaborators under the bus.
The restructuring of the Sonic CD ending video to have the footage run at 60 FPS is a controversial choice. To get the audio to synchronize with the sped-up footage, they no longer include the sound effects at the start of the video. Based on what a fellow by the name of DefinitiveDubs pointed out on Sonic Retro, there's some things to point out here that have softened my opinion here. Let's look at some of the versions of the outro and how they timed themselves.
The footage from the original Mega CD release was redrawn. Due to how much data had to be transferred to the Genesis to actually do this -- effectively uncompressed, hence why the footage is so clean -- it runs at, I believe, somewhere around 15-18 FPS. Note that it doesn't synchronize up very well to the audio, especially at the start. The orchestra hit that ends the intro to the song shows up around the same time that Sonic's head shows up for the ending sequence, and I don't think the frame pacing is particularly consistent.
All rereleases of the game since have used video files of the animation of the ending. The most notable of these is the 2011 rerelease from mobile and ported to other systems such as the PC. It's been retimed to fit the sound effects a bit better, and recorded at 30 FPS. Because the framerate of the video doesn't match up with the frame pacing, there are a number of blurred frames in the outputted video. The piano intro also comes a little earlier into the footage (the last few bits of chain dropping have no SFX, as a result), but it's timed such that Sonic's pose occurs when that orchestra hit occurs. Note that while the original release has a re-recorded song that lacks the vocals due to licensing rights issues, modding the original audio back in isn't a particularly challenging task and has been done.
So what of the version in Origins?
It's running at 60 FPS, so there are no frame blends. The animation is extremely smooth as a result -- and note how well the piano line in the intro matches the motion of the footage, especially at the start. And when we play the footage like this, note that the orchestra hit and Sonic pose are timed together just like in the 2011 footage. The next few clips (based on scenes of footage from the game), including one presumably inspired by a level cut during development also fit the pace of the audio much better the way they've been used here.
I know there are people who think that the original recording with the SFX was better, but I think the motion at 60 FPS fits the pace of the underlying music much better. The lack of foley may be jarring for some people, but I actually like the way this turned out a lot in retrospect, and it's hard not to think this was somehow secretly the way it was intended.
Note also that the framerate of the intro and outro was not shared with the pencil test footage, which even on Sega CD runs at a much higher framerate more in line with the footage of the games. This footage consists of the bits of the intro and outro that were part of the original animation sequences but cut out due to needing to sync with audio in the case of the intro and not referencing an included part of the game in the outro. Because it's much simpler data, being only in black and white, it runs on the Sega CD without the frame pacing issues. Note that the rate of playback (while it doesn't look to be 60 FPS) matches that of the sped-up ending.
And here's a comparison footage across all releases of the game, though it doesn't compare the pencil test footage to the outro of the game
There is so much here that I thought would hurt you when you touched it that doesn't...
There is so much here that I thought would hurt you when you touched it that doesn't...
As for Sonic & Knuckles, the biggest loss to me -- and I haven't seen how they've done it yet, if at all -- would be the Knuckles cutscene when you start his game.
Just curious: Does the electric shield actually protect against electric things, or does it function the same as on Genesis?
Oooh, neato! Do you have to go collect rings or points or whatever it was every single time you want to play, though?The ones strategically placed at the ends of both acts of Angel Island are damn useful, as is the one by the twin ziplines in Launch Base 2, but there's also not a lot of flame stuff to deal with in the first place.
Unrelated to the Origins discussion, apparently I missed the porting of the WiiU DLC stages to PC Sonic Lost World. Neat!
The mod tool to load this has a way to not tie respawning the bonus stages like these to player score -- I believe the mod page on gamebanana has the little button you should click for that.Oooh, neato! Do you have to go collect rings or points or whatever it was every single time you want to play, though?
I can't keep my finger off the button for that long, someone is just going to have to tell me.Try going super right as you enter a boss arena for a SPECIAL SURPRISE.