Saw this over on Atari Age, someone hacked the NES Sonic homebrew to improve it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cY7tI4q5nw
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Saw this over on Atari Age, someone hacked the NES Sonic homebrew to improve it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cY7tI4q5nw
I was expecting more than simple graphic improvements. Still looks like a difficult game.
wow, that music is awful. I've never seen the non-improved homebrew, so I don't know if that part has been changed or not.
I wasn't even aware of the NES version until now. To be fair this looks pretty good for an unlicensed port.
Unless they improved the inertia, I can attest that the game plays like shit.
From the video it looks like the rebound bouncing and in air control has ben improved. Because the first Special Zone is frustratingly impossible to control predictably on the Korean cart I have.
It's kind of cool, but the music still has that grating bootleg sound. If that could be improved, this would be very nice.
Eh, I don't mind the bootleg sounds =P I mind more how often the rings cut off the lead instrument though. Should have swapped those channels.
The inertia seems to be the one thing that hasn't been improved =/ Jumps are still too blunt and Sonic's acceleration is way off. So yeah, it's a bit better but I wouldn't say it has gotten very playable yet.Quote:
Originally Posted by Prince Talmit
Knowing how the original engine worked, they're gonna have a hell of a time getting the physics to work.
I was working with a guy that was working on a Tool Assisted Speedrun of Somari quite a many few years ago. The physics engine is garbage. Whoever's making this hack, they're going to have a hell of a time making the physics more Sonic-like. You're probably better off making a new engine from scratch.
Let me take a guess: absolutely no room for subpixel precision (neither real subpixel precision nor faked by dithering).
Visually this looks way better than I would have expected from such a port.
Sound wise it's a mess. I understand it's trying to recreate the first Sonic game.. but they really should have done more work to change the effects and music to better suit the NES's capabilities.
Gameplay wise I agree it looks like it plays pretty crappy. But all in all, for a game that looks like a sloppy attempt to cash in on a well known game, it's far more impressive looking that I would have expected.
Sound effects cutting lead instruments is something that to me doesn't make a lick of sense. Well, in a bootleg I'm not too surprised since it wasn't even a priority to them, but that stuff happened on the Amiga, on GOOD Amiga games, wtf were the people responsible thinking?! Couldn't they hear how awful that shit sounds?
Graphically this game looks quite nice, bootlegs usually do but this one looked pretty crappy. Massive improvement visually.
Composer is composing music on its own, then passes it to the programmer and it turns out there's a conflict with sound effects, but then they can't get the composer to fix the issue for whatever reason (time, ego, etc.).Quote:
Originally Posted by Kamahl
Yap... yap :nod: was thinking the same also the sound sounded like pooh. As in while watching yesterday had to move the volume slider down, I just couldn't take the sound of every time a ring was acquired.
This is what I am reminded of
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgoH-krP52c
With regards to how the collision works? Or acceleration.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sik
Acceleration basically works in multiple (rather abrupt) steps, based on how long you hold one particular direction. The moment you stop holding that direction, you lose all momentum near immediately.
Amusingly, the engine does have the same sort of "Eject the player if they're stuck in a wall" feature as the real Sonic engine. The TAS ended up using this to zip past a huge chunk of the second Labyrinth Zone act, because the programmers never actually programmed in crushing mechanics. The act has platforms that rise infinitely. Do the math.
Collision-wise... its just garbage. As most people already know, the loops are a hack, the character won't stick to the ground when going downhill (which makes Star Light Zone interesting, to say the least), and I don't know what they did with uphill slopes, but it stops all momentum.
Frankly, if you had to hack an existing NES game to make a new Sonic-like game and engine, hack Super Mario Bros. 3. Change how acceleration works, add spin mechanics and you pretty much have a Sonic the Hedgehog Master System clone. :p
I know a guy called Tokumaru was working on a proper Sonic engine clone (slopes and angles actually working), but apparently he's been busy with other stuff recently.
Anyway, for anyone that wants to see the TAS.
I have just tried playing this. Its got some issues with the placement of enemies, but the color hack makes the game look pretty good. I would never expect an unlicensed hack job to be any good, but this makes me think that it could be possible to make a decent Sonic game for NES.