/vr/ - Retro Games

>>9698792
>strike ultra extreme gold with sonic, to the point people start considering him bigger than mario, which was the most popular franchise at the time
>essentially drop the franchise completely a generation later, outsourcing all of its games

how retarded IS sega, really? you need to have an entire row of executives with brain damage to do something like this

>>9698801
They didn't drop him. Sonic Team wanted to take a break from the character for a minute and work on other games, so Sega let developers at Sega Technical Institute (Sega of America devs) work on the next game for the Saturn. Unfortunately Sega learned the hard way that American game developers are incompetent and they were never able to come up with anything worthwhile. They game was delayed a few times, and Sega put out Sonic 3D Blast on Saturn to try and buy time during development of the new game, but it wouldn't matter after all because it was ultimately cancelled since the devs couldn't even get anything good running on Saturn hardware.

Then Sega asked Sonic Team to make it instead, so they did. But the Saturn's life was cut short so development was moved to the Dreamcast and the game released in 1998 as Sonic Adventure. The engine they created while the game was in development for the Saturn was used for the "Sonic World" hub area of Sonic Jam.

Sega didn't abandon the character at all. They just hired the wrong guys for the job and then had to throw it back to the original devs. It's exactly the same situation as what happened to Metroid Prime 4.

>>9698879
>Sonic Team wanted to take a break from the character for a minute and work on other games, so Sega let developers at Sega Technical Institute (Sega of America devs) work on the next game for the Saturn.
Not him, but what a disingenuous response.

>>9698792
Sonic CD is shit, though. Easily the worst 16-bit Sonic game with the worst level designs and bosses of any of them, oh yeah, and the spindash fucking sucks.

What we should've gotten was an enhanced port of 3&K with new levels, new 3D special stages, and a new OST composed by MJ himself.

>>9698917
Yeah, even besides the different development teams, sega was legitimately outsourcing games for a whole mini era between 3&K and SA, with Traveler's Tales and the gamegear guys

>>9698792
Was the Sega Saturn supposed to be reverse compatible with Mega CD games? Might explain why no Mega CD games were ported to Sega Saturn.

>>9698917
>what a disingenuous response
Everything I said has been confirmed in interviews, zoomy.

>>9698879
> American game developers are incompetent
Comix Zone is the shit

>>9699906
Interviews are not facts, and I doubt the dev team decided their fate themselves. Most likely the producing and publishing parts did and then in interviews devs to try and safe face be like
>oh yeah we just wanted to take a break

I mean seriously... taking a break...

>>9698801
Pretty crazy how sonic team were allowed to just fuck off and develop some score attack sphere collecting game with a jester instead of continuing to put out sonic games, leading to the responsibility of sonic games on the saturn being carried by some random bongs at travelers tales and some americans with no experience in california.

>>9698935
> Easily the worst 16-bit Sonic game
Trust me, you've seen nothing if you haven't played Chaotix

>>9699629
not by design, as outside of the 68k chip they used for audio it shared no other components with the Genesis/SegaCD, so native support was out. They could probably bruteforce it via software emulation but doubtful it would have been any good.

Perhaps back when their "next generation" console project was code-named GigaDrive they might have considered it. But when the project became Saturn it was decided a clean break was needed, both in hardware and outlook (for better or worse).

>>9699938
>Chaotix
Didn't they share dev team members with the original Sonic CD team?

>>9699935
It's not crazy they were just not able to develop a 3D platformer. It was a very difficult task pulling this off on a gen 5 system in 1995-1996. People don't give games like Mario 64 and Tomb Raider enough credit, whenever someone says they are overrated it just sounds hilarious to me. But with Sonic, a speedy character, it was even harder, practically impossible. I mean, Adventure 1 is VERY impressive for its time and it's a Dreamcast title

>>9698879
what Xtreme was trying to do was pretty taxing for the Saturn; the fish eye lens effect barely ran on a real saturn and the best version was intended to be the PC version. It really wasn't incompetence, Sega just never cared enough to give them input (IE, remove the fisheye effect, and start from scratch, before any major development was done) and so they floundered trying to implement that effect (and because Sega had already advertised the game using this effect) to little success, to the point where Sega basically forced Chris Senn and the other person working on it to almost karoshi themselves (which in Japan was seen as noble/honorable at the time, and has only recently been seen as a bad thing; there is a death-wish part of Japanese culture that is sadly ignored by many, though its truly an epidemic)

the problem with the sonic mainline games is that they'd already done everything by sonic 2. this is just IMO but even 3&K flags a bit, it has some of the best music and better single-player tails moments but you could tell they were going through the motions.
maybe you could graft more things onto the formula but i don't blame them for just trying something new. it only seems like a mistake in hindsight.

>>9699951
>Didn't they share dev team members with the original Sonic CD team?
No, actually I think none of the Sonic Team members even worked on Chaotix

>>9699938
That’s 32-bit

>>9699972
https://segaretro.org/Makoto_Oshitani
https://segaretro.org/Yukifumi_Makino
https://segaretro.org/Kenichi_Ono
https://segaretro.org/Kazuyuki_Hoshino
https://segaretro.org/Takumi_Miyake
https://segaretro.org/Masato_Nishimura

>>9700025
It is, I'm retarded. If I recall correctly Symphony of the Night was going to be a 32x game. Pretty powerful for a simple add-on

>>9700032
Didn't know, cool stuff
>Kazuyuki Hoshino (星野 一幸) is the character designer for Sonic CD, in which he introduced such fan favorites as Amy Rose and the robotic doppelganger Metal Sonic
>Sonic Adventure (Dreamcast; 1998) — Art director
>NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams (Wii; 2007) — Art Director
It's so fucking weird because NiGHTS Wii looks like complete shit. The game itself is enjoyable but it's very unpleasant to look at

>>9698935
>Sonic CD is shit, though

>>9698879
>Sonic Team wanted to take a break from the character for a minute and work on other games, so Sega let developers at Sega Technical Institute (Sega of America devs) work on the next game for the Saturn. Unfortunately Sega learned the hard way that American game developers are incompetent and they were never able to come up with anything worthwhile.
>>9698917
Lol so fucking disingenuous, SoA didn't even have a proper Saturn devkit until AFTER the Saturn launched, how were they supposed to make games for a system they didn't have the proper development tools for? That's not on STI or SoA, that fault falls squarely on SoJ's shoulders.

>>9699928
>People who were on the development team are incapable of telling what happened during development and their word can not be accepted as truth
This is the worst possible argument you could have made.
>in interviews devs to try and safe face be like
>oh yeah we just wanted to take a break
You can literally look at their output during that era. Sonic Team worked on other projects like NiGHTS while STI devs were making Sonic X-treme, and then they went back to Sonic after X-treme was cancelled. Multiple Sonic Team members have gone on the record that they were tired of Sonic after developing 123KCD and wanted to work on something else. Some of those members even hate each other today and yet they still have the same statements.

Make up whatever delusion you want, but that doesn't change reality. Historical revisionists like you are the worst.

>>9700083
You can start to develop games based on spec estimations

>>9699935
X-treme was being developed by staff from Sega Technical Institute. STI had assisted with development on Sonic 2 and 3 (although it's well-known that they didn't get along with Sonic Team staff and all of their ideas got shot down) so it's not particularly surprising that they got to work on X-treme since they had worked with the series before.

The Traveler's Tales games were spin offs, so it's quite normal that they were licensed to an outside developer. 3D Blast was for the Genesis but the Saturn port was commissioned due to the delay of X-Treme. Sonic R is a similar case. Sonic Jam was released to capitalize on the success of the Saturn in Japan and port the mainline games to the platform so that more Japanese gamers could try the series before the release of Sonic Adventure the following year. Also the Sonic World segment makes use of the engine that Sonic Team created for Sonic Adventure before development was moved to the Dreamcast.

>>9699954
>Sega basically forced Chris Senn and the other person working on it to almost karoshi themselves (which in Japan was seen as noble/honorable at the time, and has only recently been seen as a bad thing; there is a death-wish part of Japanese culture that is sadly ignored by many, though its truly an epidemic)
Cut the bullshit, I'm Japanese. Karoshi has never been seen as honorable.

>>9700113
post apartment

>>9698879
>Unfortunately Sega learned the hard way that American game developers are incompetent and they were never able to come up with anything worthwhile
Hi Yuji

>>9700342
And dox myself?
>>9700350
Hello from prison.

The Panicking Palmtreetians
The Collisioning Chaosites
The Tiding Tempesteus
The Quadring Quadrantzians
The Workbenching Wackitects
The Speedwaying Stardusters
The Maddening Metallicians

>>9698879
>American game developers are incompetent
SoA is the reason why the Genesis was such a success. SoJ is the reason why SEGA isn't in the console market anymore.

>>9701016
>SoA is the reason why the Genesis was such a success
SoA didn't program any of the games that them a success. They were a marketing firm until they established STI, and STI only ever did busywork.

Its more weird that CD and Chaotix on top of that didn't get ported to Saturn, while Sonic 3D Blast was ported over instead.
I get 3D Blast was technically 3D, it was by Traveler's Tales so they could still enhance it quickly, but still. Even them being part of a Japan only collection would've been better.

>>9699954
>what Xtreme was trying to do was pretty taxing for the Saturn; the fish eye lens effect barely ran on a real saturn
A homebrew dev in under a year got further on a real Saturn than anyone at STI ever did:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MA5EzJoNG9k

STI was incompetent. The only decent dev was Chris Senn who basically had it all dumped on them at the end due to the rest of the team's incompetence.

>>9701086
Chaotix was originally intended to be an early Saturn title but got shifted over to 32X to help out Sega of America. The same thing happened to games like Stellar Assault, Cosmic Carnage, Metal Head, etc. Apparently the Japanese devs were not happy about this.

>>9698792
>begging for ports of old Mega CD games
What, does the Shiturn not have anything for you to play? Lmao, what a shitty system.

>>9701089
It's easier for homebrew developers today to develop for the Saturn than it was in 1995, we have better compilers and stuff now. Also, the English hardware documentation contained several errors.

>>9701621
>we have better compilers and stuff now.
We have slightly better compilers. However that demo I believe you'll find is built off of SGL and older versions of GCC, meaning it's most likely the same shit STI had available to them.
>Also, the English hardware documentation contained several errors.
But still readable, and for STI they had no excuse as they had a direct line to the creators to ask questions.

There's no way to get around it, STI was incompetent. Whatever talent it had either returned to Japan or had been sniped by other companies like Sony by the time Sonic Xtreme started development. What remained was the F team.

>>9701086
Why do people always say different things about 3D Blast? Some say it was originally a Saturn game but was downported to the Genesis and released on it first and then the others say that the Saturn game is just an enhanced version of the game developed for Genesis primarily

>>9700356
>a Japanese person who's into Sonic
Are people like you considered hipster games over there?

>>9701880
>Some say it was originally a Saturn game but was downported to the Genesis
If anyone has actually said that they're factually wrong. It's pretty clear it started and released as a Genesis game. Jon Burton has confirmed the Saturn port was a quick and dirty code conversion with updated 2D assets and music, with Sonic Team doing the 3D Special Stages.

>>9699938
>Chaotix
>16bit
>Only for the 32x

>>9700356
Your 2 square metre apartment room isn't going to identify you especially when that's how 99% of Japan lives . Not that outing yourself on /vr/ matters, the only person who has anything to lose here is Auster

>>9701089
>STI was incompetent.
Comix Zone was a great game so no

>The only decent dev was Chris Senn
Christina Coffin says hi

>>9698792
I can’t see that image without immediately thinking
>You…you…double nigger!

>>9702351
this

>>9702348
>Comix Zone
The STI that made Comix Zone and the STI that was working on Sonic Xtreme were two different things. What part of that are you not understanding? When Sonic Xtreme was starting development most of STI's actual talent had left already, either by returning to Sega of Japan or leaving for other companies like SOny.

>Christina Coffin
My mistake, I miswrote Senn. I meant Coffin.

>>9701891
No? There's way more obscure games out there.
>>9701908
My condo is 103 square meters
>Auster
Who?

>>9702348
STI is hit or miss, and many of their good games are either "Japanese dudes do the programming, Americans do the graphics" or "Japan makes better sequel"
Comix zone is the case where they made a good game.