/vr/ - Retro Games

[Anonymous No.9725672]

>realizing a 3d sonic for the saturn was not going to happen sega instead decided to make a metroidvania style Sonic game for the saturn
>2d sprites and 3d environments
>more lore, story and rpg mechanics
>more playtime than Mario 64 and Crash so while still a 2d game segafans can say their game is bigger
Would have this saved Sega and the Saturn?

[Anonymous No.9725678]

They should've just designed a 3D sonic game in the style of crash bandicoot where you have a fixed camera behind sonic.

[Anonymous No.9725692]

>>9725672
They should have just made good games. Which they did. Sonic is dogshit

[Anonymous No.9725702]

Nah, it probably would have been blasted for not being 3D.

[Anonymous No.9725705]

>>9725672
Sonic needed to open up with something 3D, which wasn't gonna happen on the Saturn

[Anonymous No.9725757]

It has already been done. It's called Ecco the Dolphin.

[Anonymous No.9725872]

Metroidvania is directly in opposition to what sonic does; Sonic as a character cannot move up vertically in a fun way. The physics of the game fight against him doing so, which is why sonic levels are divided into a series of branches that are seperated based on player skill. If you do well you stay up top which is faster, if you do screw up you fall down to the next path which is less difficult but a little more slow, repeat until you hit the very bottom of the level which is the longest path.

it's also why "exploration" in sonic games is just a low skill cope; you don't have any agency about where you go. the only choice you have is willingly abandoning a higher path to go to a lower one.

[Anonymous No.9725883]

>>9725872
>Sonic as a character cannot move up vertically in a fun way. The physics of the game fight against him doing so

[Anonymous No.9725896]

No, the Saturn's problem was always its hardware being too complicated.

[Anonymous No.9725912]

>>9725883
most levels aren't chemical plant

[Anonymous No.9725934]

>>9725672
At the time you absolutely needed a strong 3D game to sell your system. I'm not saying 2D games aren't as good as 3D games, I'm just saying that 3D was the new hotness and you absolutely needed it to sell. For example the top 20 best selling games on the PS1 are all 3D

[Anonymous No.9725935]

>>9725912
You'd be surprised! Most levels are extremely vertical and the physics are there for you to indulge in this verticality.

[Anonymous No.9725946]

>>9725678
I wonder if boost gameplay could have worked in the saturn

[Anonymous No.9725950]

>>9725692
based

[Anonymous No.9725965]

>>9725934
Really their only chance was developing the best approximation of Sonic Adventure they could on the hardware and not made Nights at all, and that's just the bare minimum to stay competitive. Sonic World in Jam is really cute but there was no way that version of the game was ever going to stand up to Mario 64, maybe Crash 1 at a stretch. Saturn's 3D capabilities just weren't up to scratch.

[Anonymous No.9725979]

>>9725935
The problem is that you lose all momentum when you land from a vertical drop, it kills the pace and is anti-fun

[Anonymous No.9725982]

>>9725672
not metroidvania, but they should have made a big, elaborate and high quality traditional sonic game on the saturn, a kind of celebration and culmination of sonic's 4 genesis games. saturn had a lot more 2d power than the genesis and the sonic games were already pretty impressive on that hardware, i would have really liked to see what those developers could have cooked up

after that i think something like crash bandicoot would have been the most logical choice for what the saturn could accomplish in 3d. though im not sure it had the power to run at the speed that was expected of the character and franchise in the 3d space.

[Anonymous No.9725992]

>>9725979
Lose your horizontal momentum? Maybe in the MD version of Sonic 1, but in that webm you can see Sonic's still going fast after landing on his way leftwards. Not sure what you're complaining about if not basic physics, in which case take it to the man upstairs. For me, the laws of motion and thermodynamics are very fun.

[Anonymous No.9726162]

>>9725678
Came to post exactly this. Would have worked wonderfully. 3D Blast’s special stages on Saturn prove this could have happened.

[Anonymous No.9726164]

>>9725678
Or Sonic Colors 2.5d style game play would have worked fine too.

[Anonymous No.9726203]

>>9725705
>Sonic needed to open up with something 3D, which wasn't gonna happen on the Saturn

[Anonymous No.9726205]

>>9726162
I was thinking klonoa really, pull the camera out for some bigger areas to platform thru, up close when you want to, largely it could maintain the gameplay of 2d sonic just present it in a 3d environment. Also a little secret about the way saturn can render quads, you can get a perfectly smooth curved slope at the cost of 1 polygon by playing with how the vertexes intersect. Using this technique you can have Sonics iconic slopes and loops at a low performance cost.

[Anonymous No.9726207]

>>9726205
pic demonstrates the quirk, will share one more

[Anonymous No.9726213]

>>9726207
this is an FMV which is flipped and curved, if done with an untextured shaded polygon it would look really nice and without the distortion of course. This result is obtained by rearranging the vertexes in the corners, the way saturn draws the polygon it simply spits out the distorted polygon without an issue

[Anonymous No.9726216]

>rpg mechanics
>metroidvania

*pukes*

[Anonymous No.9726227]

>>9726205
A 2.5d Sonic with 3D segments would have been pretty neat, yeah.

The problem was it was going to have to compete with Bing Bing Wahoo! 64, which although extremely primitive blew everyone's fucking minds back in 1996.

[Anonymous No.9726232]

>>9726227
That just wasn't going to happen, but sega could have leaned into spectacle, something they did often thay gen. Mario 64 is a fairly logical 3d game with very non dynamic levels, a 3d sonic game could twist geometry and show off all kinds of effects. That would be how it would impress. Sonics gameplay but segas iconic polish of the era.

[Anonymous No.9726267]

>>9725672
No single thing qould have saves the saturn, was a combination of factors that fucked it up.
Regardless some kind of new 2.5d sonic would've worked well on the saturn

[Anonymous No.9726296]

A good 2.5D Sonic game at or near the launch of the Saturn in US, with good marketing behind and with enough machines on the shelves could boosted the Saturn in a well better position against PS1 and N64. But there was the 32X problem to solve before... Western customers were already pissed and confused by end of 95

[Anonymous No.9726310]

>>9725672
They should have made a game that is way zoomed out so you could see the entire "course" and plan your routes and go super fast

[Anonymous No.9726332]

>>9726203
Problem with sonic world is that it relies on the vdp2 'mode7' layer a lot. This limits level design a lot since most of it has to be a flat surface.

If tou want to get crazier with the level design the n sonic r is a better showcase. Whih was plagued by poor vdp1 drawdistances

[Anonymous No.9726356]

>more lore, story and rpg mechanics
You want this in a Sonic game, why?

They should have basically made Crash Bandicoot. A game that's technically 3D, but functionally 2D, for like 80% of the game.

[Anonymous No.9726590]

>>9725672
A good Sonic game would have been a good start, but there were many more problems than that. The 32X cannibalized not just funds but also parts which could have been used for the Sega Saturn, and overall the Saturn was just handled incredibly poorly.

The Dreamcast was good in design, and actually had a pretty good start for a library, but Sega was going broke so it didn't matter, which is why it did well to begin with, then went into a freefall. I was gonna say to wind back time and then go shoot whoever was suggesting the 32X, but the Saturn itself could have used changes on the planning stage, like developing better documentation and resources and providing them for devs to use, and hardware which was better suited towards rendering 3D, together with translucency.

One of the many things which Sega wasted a LOT of money on was trying to revitalize their arcade business as it began floundering in the 2000s. I'm not saying give it all up, but like, uh, just accept that fate and scale it down accordingly, keep it a smaller specialized division.
The reason money is important is because the Sega Genesis, while a phenomenal success, was Sega's only really big time one, they couldn't afford the 32X and fucking up the Saturn, unlike Sony, or Nintendo, who could easily afford the Nintendo 64s' lukewarm performance, even if they weren't doing great with handhelds at the time.

[Anonymous No.9726604]

>>9726356
"lore" is what killed the sonic franchise.
I remember reading Sonic 3 manual when I was a kid and be amazed the game actually had a plot, something I really never cared about in Sonic games.

[Anonymous No.9726614]

>>9726205

Best answer for a Sonic Game on Sega Saturn. Now regarding a full 3d platform for the SS, it was time for Alex Kid to made his comeback.

[Anonymous No.9726658]

>>9726590
>The Dreamcast was good in design, and actually had a pretty good start for a library, but Sega was going broke so it didn't matter, which is why it did well to begin with, then went into a freefall. I was gonna say to wind back time and then go shoot whoever was suggesting the 32X, but the Saturn itself could have used changes on the planning stage, like developing better documentation and resources and providing them for devs to use, and hardware which was better suited towards rendering 3D, together with translucency.

It's funny, because the majority of hardware decisions on the Dreamcast were specifically made to address issues that developers had with the Saturn:

> A single, powerful, straightforward, well documented CPU instead of a complicated multi processor setup
> 16MB of RAM (8x the PS1/Saturn)
> 8MB of VRAM and hardware AA (which meant textures could be incredibly crisp and AA was essentially "free" in terms of performance)
> 4 controller ports and a modem that shipped with the console instead of being addons (addons traditionally have poor sales, so supporting them is a risk for devs)
> Support for either using Katana (the DC's development software, which had excellent performance) or Windows CE (which made porting games from the PC significantly easier)

The Dreamcast did almost everything right, but by then it was just too late.

The biggest hardware issue I think it had was with the controller. They shifted from a 3x2 arcade style face button layout to a 2x2 diamond layout, which would have made it easy to have the same control scheme for multiplatform games on the PS1 and PS2, but then they went with a single stick. A single stick would have been better with a 3x2 layout would have been best for arcade ports since it would replicate a standalone arcade stick, but two sticks and a 2x2 diamond layout would have made more sense for a home console. It was like they went with this weird mishmash of arcade and console style controllers.

[Anonymous No.9726670]

>>9726658
Right? It's a real tragedy, the Genesis kicked ass, and the Dreamcast did all the right things on paper, but man, nothing could be done.

[Anonymous No.9726685]

>>9725672
>sonic
>metroidvania
Press right to win Sonic fags couldn't even figure out how to press down one(1) time.

[Anonymous No.9726724]

>>9725883
Kek. There are also springs, bubble shield bounce and electric shield double jump from S3&K, tails air carry, the pulleys from Marble Garden, spindashing up hills, etc. They also could have created new moves for vertical momentum

[Anonymous No.9727319]

>>9725678
It would've probably been somewhat slow, like Sonic R.

[Anonymous No.9727550]

I'd imagine the Saturn still would have died, but you'd probably have people saying this hypothetical Sonic game is a cult classic and everyone's missing out for not playing it.

[Anonymous No.9727553]

>>9725979
This is exactly why they added the Drop Dash in Mania!

[Anonymous No.9727560]

>>9727553
the drop dash is a dumbfuck mechanic that removes any sort of failstate from controlling the character, it's a boost button that doesn't even cost a resource. There's never a reason not to drop dash.

[Anonymous No.9727564]

>>9727560
Yeah I personally don't like the ability either, I just thought it would be fair to point out the one Sonic game that tried to address vertical drops killing momentum.

[Anonymous No.9727640]

>>9726356
>>9726604
The 'lore' was always intended to some degree: The JP manuals were mini stories to set the stage and looking at Sonic 2's development makes it clear that Sega wanted a bolder (by 1992 platformer standards) storyline, which they eventually archived in Sonic 3.
Even then, the games never really let the "lore" overtake the gameplay outside of arguably SA1 having Adventure Fields.

[Anonymous No.9727726]

>>9725672
That’s sounds horrible
>I know, let’s make Mario’s Time Machine for our speedy platformer

[Anonymous No.9727739]

>>9726332
Sonic R draw distances aside runs and looks great though, I think if Sonic Team making Nights in 1996 was non-neogeotiable, the team to outsource X-Treme to was Traveller's Tales. Even by that point they'd made several great games and clearly understood the hardware well.

[Anonymous No.9727834]

>>9727739
The main programmer on Sonic R has a really interesting youtube channel where he goes into hyperautistic detail about a bunch of the tricks that his team as well as other developers did to get certain games running with impressive effects on the Genesis and Saturn. Shit like Toy Story's backgrounds, the insane bossfights in The Adventures of Batman and Robin, and the FMV intro for Sonic 3D blast on the Genesis, as well as stuff like the crazy graphics for Sonic R on the Saturn.

It's gran autismo but he's really good at breaking it down visually so it makes sense for rarted people. An example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRzKAe9UtoU

[Anonymous No.9727835]

>>9726658
> A single, powerful, straightforward, well documented CPU instead of a complicated multi processor setup
It had a 2-way processor, but it was well documented and off the shelf.

[Anonymous No.9727876]

>>9726658
The Gamecube and the Xbox was also meant to be developer friendly, but at the end of the day the mess of architecture known as the PS2 had all the sales and games.
Devs would work on a soviet vacuum tube computer if it had the sales.

[Anonymous No.9728015]

SA is a 3d metroidvania.

[Anonymous No.9728448]

>>9727876
The PS2 supposedly had some weird hardware quirks that made it perform better than you would assume just by looking at its paper specs.

The guy who runs Polyphony Digital said that the PS2's fillrate was super fast (faster than the PS3's even), which made getting Gran Turismo Prologue running on the PS3 a little more difficult compared to getting 3 and 4 running on the PS2. Also, one of the devs at Criterion said that the reason the Gamecube never got a port of Burnout 3 was because it couldn't handle all of the particle effects that they were able to get out of the PS2.

It was absolutely the weakest of the 3 in terms of specs, and most of the time you were better off getting the Xbox version of multiplats for better textures and progressive scan, but honestly games like MGS3, Gran Turismo 4, Xenosaga, and God of War all proved that the PS2 could still do some pretty impressive shit when devs wanted it to.

[Anonymous No.9729803]

>Finally took the time to try the Classic Sonic games that aren't on Genesis/CD.
>There were 16 of these across 8 years.
>1 and 2 8-bit and Tails Adventure were the only good ones.
>Spinball, 3D Blast and Fighters just barely hit the "acceptable" watermark.
>The rest either only have good presentation (visuals, sound) or absolutely nothing going for them.

And people say modern Sonic has a poor batting average.