SAGE 2011 Reviews (Part 1)

And now, INPO, here is the first batch of my reviews of the games on offer at this year's SAGE. There will be more over the next couple of days, but don't expect a review of all the showings; I'm only interested in the Sonic ones and even then there are a few that don't catch my fancy.

Sonic Small World

I'm impressed that this is actually a complete functioning level with a handful of objects such as a trampoline and moving platforms. But there's nothing here to really blow me away - or anyone else, for that matter.

I don't have much affinity for 3D Sonic engine tests. The effort necessary to make a 3D game even playable, let alone good, usually means that all other departments get neglected. As a result, they are usually very bland and not entertaining, and Sonic Small World is no exception. I'm not going to say it's bad - it's not - but it was probably far more fun for the creator to make, exercising their skills, than it will ever be for an audience to play.

As basically all of the artworks and other elements are ripped from other sources, there's nothing really new or creative on offer, either. I'd give it a pass if I were you, unless you're a 3D Sonic engine test enthusiast.

Sonic Zero

I reviewed this one last year and it hasn't changed much - but it sure has been expanded! There are now 3 working acts and a boss (albeit an embarrassingly easy one).

Though I was lukewarm last year, calling it generic, I've warmed to it this year. I really like the mix of elements, from Sonic's new sprite set, to the appearance of the Golden Shield from Sonic 3D Blast, to the Battle Kukkus from Tails Adventure. I was really enjoying myself, and even though I harbour a certain amount of hate for the Sonic Worlds engine (the way it handles corners and edges is just ass) it doesn't seem to mar this game too badly. The level design works around a lot of the issues quite cleverly.

I am disappointed by some minor changes from last year. The music has been traded out with another remix of Chaotix's Isolated Island (and not a very expert one, at that), which is so overused it makes me groan every time I hear it. And there's a rumble feature that - on my system, at least - makes the identical annoying jolt with every spring and enemy you hit.

I do really appreciate the highly detailed and user-friendly control customisation screen, though. I am sick of games that leave joypad users high and dry, so the Sonic Zero team deserves commendation for rectifying that.

And one last thing - why is the intermittent drowning warning (which is traditionally a chime) the Sonic CD drowning countdown sound effect? It's a ridiculous change that makes anyone who's familiar with Sonic CD feel like they're drowning any time they happen to be underwater for a moment.

The good far outweighs any complaints I may have with this one, though, so I definitely recommend you check it out. If this ever progresses beyond the "single green zone demo" stage, it'll be a keeper.

Sonic Run 3

This is either a joke, part of a conspiracy to make Game Maker look bad, or made by a developer that needs 5 or 10 more years of practise before they should ever set foot at another SAGE.

I won't complain about the visuals - they're actually sort of cute - but the gameplay is totally borked. Which I could excuse if there were complicated loops or something - but the whole game is made of simple boxes. Even then, there's a terrible bug upon all horizontal collisions, making each jump a chore that requires you to stop and start.

This would be better suited to RAGE, I'm afraid. Don't waste precious minutes downloading it.

Madcap Grotto

Made by two members of the community I've long respected, Dimension Warped and my bud Overbound, and with music by the inimitable Karl "Sonicesque" Brueggemann, this single level demo delivers a veritable Sonic playground. It has more gimmicks than a sitcom with failing ratings, and when it comes to Sonic zones, that's a very good thing. Along with those gimmicks, a posse of clever new enemy types and an impressively animated boss make for a greatly satisfying experience.

What makes a Sonic zone live and breathe for me is when it has a tonne of original stuff for Sonic and his friends to actually do, rather than the all-too-common "look guys I made Tropical Trope Zone Act 345656frghgjkjkf and the Ring Monitor sound is different!" Be warned though, at least one bit of gadgetry in Madcap Grotto will inspire rage unless you remember the worthy lesson the Barrel of Doom taught us all. =P

It's not all roses, though. Some of the usual Sonic Worlds issues rear their ugly heads, and there was plenty of slowdown on my machine (which, to be fair, isn't that high-end). Some of the gimmicks had a bug or two, one of which actually forced me to restart, and the boss - as cool as I think it is - is in a large arena making it difficult to keep track of. Wandering around stupidly while a boss shoots you from offscreen happens to be one of my pet peeves - there's a reason Sonic game don't normally do this, you know!

That aside, I'd definitely recommend this audio-visual and gameplay feast.

Project Spikepig

The plaintext manual that accompanied the Project Spikepig executable I found to be incredibly witty, but I'm afraid that's the extent of anything good I have to say about it. The level trope is generic, the level layout is - as the manual admits - "slow, nebulous, confusing, complicated and made by a drunk man", the music is frankly terrible, and the engine is plain vanilla Sonic Worlds at its worst. Give this one a pass.

...I suppose the graphics do have a certain charm to them, as well. But it's not enough to save it.

Sonic Gear

Look at that shot and tell me honestly whether it's an improvement over the original:

I didn't even bother playing this for more than a few minutes. It was pretty dire.

Sonic GML

This is such a clumsy mess I have no idea where to begin. It's weird because there's so much content and so much "completed", it must have been worked on for a long time. But there's absolutely no polish or charm whatsoever.

A pass, then.

Sonic Mobius

Sonic Mobius, judging from the material at its homepage, has a lot of potential. This demo, however, is yet another "single green zone demo". As such it would be unfair of me to evaluate it. I'll only say this - I don't think it was ready to be shown off.

Sorry it's got to be so abrupt. Next time I'll be giving my thoughts on some of the heavier hitters: Sonic Axiom, Sonic and Friends 2, and Sonic: Before the Sequel. Those will be in greater depth.

Expo-sition

SAGE, a.k.a. the Sonic Amateur Games Expo, is now in full swing. Unfortunately it's coinciding with a particularly busy and tumultuous time in my life, but that seems increasingly to be the case with me. Nevertheless, I'm going to try and review most of this year's offerings as I did last year, while they're still relevant.

I'm also going to review the Hacking Contest entries, but since I'm a judge this year I'm going to do that once the results have been comfortably revealed through the proper channels. Anything else would be bad form, doncha know.

This year, for the first time, I'm actually involved with one of the games on display (Sonic Fan Remix didn't make it to SAGE last year thanks to a poorly timed illness on my end). So do a bloke a favour and visit the Sonic Time Twisted booth. Said bloke being you, of course, because there's sum good eatin's t'be had thar.

I think the showing this year is phenomenal, and I can't wait to get started.

Speaking of Hidden Palace...

I made a remix!

I wanted to make it sound like the opening to a wushu movie; it could use some more polish but meh.

Y'all win an internet cookie if you can ascertain where I lifted the drum sample from. =P

A Musical Mystery Still Unsolved

While Michael Jackson's involvement with Sonic 3's soundtrack seems to get all the press, the mysteries surrounding Sonic 2's soundtrack by Masato Nakamura capture my interest to a much greater degree. With the release of the Sonic 1&2 Original Soundtrack imminent, I'm hoping some of these mysteries will finally be put to rest by the demo material that's promised to be included.

There are many questions I'd like answered about Sonic 2's music. For example, were the 2-Player tunes originally intended for zones that didn't make the cut, but included in their current capacity in order to avoid discarding Masato Nakamura music for which Sega had already payed good money? But today I want to discuss a single issue in particular: The strange and wonderful subject that is the Hidden Palace music.

In the interest of full disclosure I must admit that my take on all things Hidden Palace is quite aberrant due to the circumstances of my experience. Back when I first played Sonic 2 the only things I knew about the beta and the removed zones were those titbits which I chanced across in gaming magazines like Sega Visions. Any knowledge of the Simon Wai prototype and the Sonic hacking scene would have to wait over a decade for me to dip my toes into the Internet. For whatever reasons, I just never encountered any screenshots of Sonic 2's Hidden Palace, but only a brief mention of it by name in the letters section of a gaming mag. The only visual evidence of missing levels I saw was this shot (later confirmed to be a mockup made by Sega):

Completing the trifecta was an unused song in Sonic 2's sound test, number $10 (that's hexadecimal for 16, for all you non-computer-obsessed types). Between the name Hidden Palace, the screenshot of a missing zone, and an unused song, I made the only assumption I could given the paucity of evidence (and the mental faculties of a 7-year-old): All these bits of info were related to the same zone. In my defense, Sonic 3 had a 2-Player level called Desert Palace, which - using logic a conspiracy theorist would be proud of - I thought helped cement matters.

Once I found the glorious resource that is Sonic Retro years later and opened the floodgates of info on the Sonic 2 Beta, I had to update my mistaken understanding. However, this didn't help erase over a decade of picturing that desert zone with that music and that name. Boohoo for me - I used to pronounce "echidna" wrong, too. Sometimes you just have to change your mind and move on.

But I was invested for another reason. As evinced by the "about me" box in the sidebar of this blog, my main project is "a Sonic the Hedgehog fan game that retells the story of the original Mega Drive titles in unprecedented detail and depth." (If that doesn't sound bombastic, what does? =P) Part of that unprecedented detail and depth is the inclusion of material from the beta versions of the games - an idea which has been done to death by now but which I still wish to be part of my own project. If I include both the desert zone from that screenshot and Hidden Palace in my remake, I want to give them the right music. I don't want my choices to be influence by bullshit theories, not from my 7-year-old self nor from an internet forum. I want the music for each zone to be as accurate a reflection of the developer's original intent as possible (perhaps mixed with the slightest dash of what I deem to be most apposite as an artist).

Anyway, this isn't exactly the subject of this article. I've already made a thread thinking aloud about whether or not the unused track was intended for Hidden Palace or not. When I was informed that it was indeed the song associated with the zone when the zone is accessed (through hacking) in the retail version of Sonic 2, I was content with that. No, my subject is a different, but related, question about Hidden Palace's music.

This question arises because of a hack known as Sonic 2 Long Version. In this hack, Hidden Palace (among other cut zones) is restored to a playable state, and sound test $10 is the music it's given. Here's a video of it in action:

As a slavering Masato Nakamura fanboy it pains me to say this, but that song is really inappropriate for that zone. It's heavy, sluggish, boring, and feels detached from the action.

Such an assertion would fall squarely in opinion territory, if it not for some objective facts. Before I get to those, though, let's just take a look and listen at how Hidden Palace feels in the Sonic 2 beta:

Here, it has the tune which is known to players of the final build as Mystic Cave 2-Player. I would argue that this song is far more fitting, despite the fact that it is still unusual for a "zone music" from a compositional standpoint (it's a stretto fugue that lacks the emotional dynamism of other zones, perhaps because the bassline refuses to change chord throughout the song's duration).

Of course one can hardly learn anything from the music assignments in the Sonic 2 beta; Oil Ocean plays the Casino Night 2-Player theme, even though Oil Ocean's theme is present and accounted for in the sound test. If Oil Ocean Zone's music from the final was not intended for that zone from the get go, I'm a doughnut. (Some folks suggest it may have been intended for the desert zone, but that's nonsense - the desert zone is an American desert, replete with cacti and buttes, not an Arabian desert.)

It's unusual for a Nakamura "zone music" to not be fitting. As stated in this interview (and also by Takashi Iizuka in the Sonic Jam strategy guide), Nakamura didn't just compose a bag of music which was then alotted to each zone like a jolly neighbour handing out Halloween candy. He took a gander at concept art and even test footage of the zones, then composed themes for each with close attention payed to their pace and atmosphere. These songs need to encourage what Sonic does best: running and jumping. As such they are all flavoured with rock, funk, and jazz with time signatures that drive the action along. None of them do anything boneheaded like being a waltz which suggests endless circular motion; no, that's reserved for the stately rotating Sonic 1 Special Stage where it fits like a glove.

Or do they? Let's take another look at sound test $10. Yes, folks - it's a waltz. Just like the Sonic 1 Special Stage. Hidden Palace, instead of having a respectable theme that encourages the actions and motions most likely to be found in a zone, it has a slow, dragging theme that - while a beautiful tune - suggests an unchanging environment.

Yes, this is one of those objective facts I promised earlier. Hidden Palace is a waltz. Say what you will about opinions and bullshit internet theories, but it's pretty incontrovertible. Furthermore, it's the only "zone music" that is (Death Egg's music doesn't count, because it's not a full zone). The only other waltz in the Nakamura Sonic canon? The Sonic 1 Special Stage theme.

Using this passing similarity (which has been noted before) as a starting point, I decided to check deeper into the two songs to see if there were any other similarities. Perhaps I would learn something interesting; after all, Nakamura is known to reuse motifs in songs that convey similar themes. You don't have to take my word for it, either. Not only is it well known that the title theme, invincibility theme, ending theme, and Super Sonic theme are all based on the same composition (one might consider it "Sonic's theme"), but there are other examples.

Robotnik's Sonic 1 theme and Final Zone (here, the arpeggio, melody, and accompaniment are all similar):

Robotnik's theme and the final boss theme in Sonic 2 also revisit the militaristic percussion and have related structures. Nakamura knew exactly how to evoke Robotnik, in the same way John Williams might reuse instruments and motifs to suggest the Empire in Star Wars.

Super Sonic's theme and the Sonic 2 Special Stage:

That sound evokes the unbridled power of the Chaos Emeralds. It's no mistake that it's part of Super Sonic's theme and the theme of the stages in which the Chaos Emeralds that power him are collected.

So are there similarities between Hidden Palace Zone and the Sonic 1 Special Stage beyond that of both being waltzes? Well, yes. They both have similar chords progressions, as well as overall superficial similarities: they're both comparatively short, and are made of a main melody that loops twice before a much shorter coda brings them back around to the beginning (this has also been noted before). But the most damning evidence is a literally reused motif!

This is barely audible in the original song with all the other tracks going, but it's really there nonetheless!

This leaves no doubt in my mind that sound test $10 was written by Nakamura with the explicit intention to hark back to the Special Stages of the first game. I would also bet money that it was never meant to be heard behind a zone with traditional gameplay.

And that's as far as I'm willing to go... on the record. If I give myself over to speculation, I would say this: What we know as Mystic Cave 2-Player was indeed composed for Hidden Palace. But as development progressed it became clear that Hidden Palace would not make the cut - at least not as a full zone. At some point in Sonic 2's development Hidden Palace was given a makeover, giving it a purpose similar to that of the zone from Sonic & Knuckles with the same name. Yuji Naka as much as confirms this. When the zone's new purpose was decided, Nakamura was conscripted to compose a new, more suitable them for it. As the zone was involved with the Chaos Emerald lore, he composed a song which borrowed heavily from Sonic 1's Special Stage. But when it was decided to scrap the zone altogether, the newly madeover Hidden Palace was never included in the ROM, even though the song assignment was updated. The displaced song was given to Mystic Cave 2-Player, because - let's not quibble here - the zone has a very similar feel to Hidden Palace (underground, brown, green, and purple).

But relying on speculation is unwise. Like Carl Sagan, I try not to think with my gut. For all I know sound test $10 was composed for a rotating Special Stage that never made it into Sonic 2. Or maybe Nakamura had a brainfart and just composed the world's most ill-fitting tune for Hidden Palace. This is why I'm so excited for the Sonic 1&2 Original Soundtrack release. On October 19th maybe some of these long-standing mysteries will be cleared up!

Until then I will rest happy knowing that I discovered an interesting connection between two songs in Nakamura's Sonic canon. And if it's been common knowledge in the community for years now, well then won't I feel silly! =P

Code of the Ninja Moves House

Just a heads up: all future "Code of the Ninja" posts can be found at its new dedicated blog, Code of the Ninja. Please update your following procedures accordingly. And, er... go there now, 'cos there's a new post. =)

ReadySonic is released!

From the perspective of the average player, the 16-bit Sonic the Hedgehog titles are among the most solidly made and least glitchy games from the era. Playing them ad nauseum in my youth I found them to be virtually bugfree, and I certainly never encountered anything gamebreaking.

However, from the perspective of Sonic-hacking nerds with nothing better to do, the games contain bugs and other niggling flaws that can number in the hundreds. This doesn't reflect badly on Yuji Naka and his team - no programmer can truly squash every bug - but once you notice them they're hard to ignore.

As one of these nitpicking players, I always thought it would be cool to have a "fixed" version of the games. When released by Sega, they had tight deadlines and a fixed number of playtesters. But the intervening years have seen them combed through, inside and out, by scads of Sonic hackers the world 'round. Surely a hacker could, with this accumulated knowledge, make more nearly perfect versions?

Though I'm somewhat impulsive by nature, this idea was not quite enough to cause me to undertake such a project myself. But in combination with something else, it was enough to drive me to try.

That "something else" was playing a lot of Sonic hacks. Many of them are inspired and a great lot of fun. But they inevitably inherit the tiny flaws from their template games, which inflames my OCD. Some hackers go ahead and fix one or more of the bigger and well-documented bugs, but everyone can't be expected to squash the whole list in each hack they make.

Hence I had the idea for the "ReadySonic" project. Starting with Sonic 1, I would make hacked versions of each of the games that fixed every problem I knew about. Then I would release their disassemblies. Using the enormous power I wield in the community, I would then encourage all future hackers to use my disassemblies as the base for their projects instead of the plain vanilla versions of the games.

...Okay, so that last part is far-fetched. But I hoped that at least some people might benefit from the project, if only by looking at the code instead of outright using the whole thing for their hack.

To make a long story short, I ended up making a lot of progress with Sonic 1, but ultimately decided to abandon the project. Why? For one, I'm cynical enough to doubt anyone is going to use a disassembly they aren't already used to, regardless of the benefits. For another, I simply got too busy. The time I devote to Sonic projects would be much better spent on AeStHete, and I assume most would agree with me on that.

So I'm releasing the nearly-complete ReadySonic source for Sonic 1. For the download and a list of the mods and fixes I made, please visit the project's home page.

Stardust Speedway

My favourite Sonic zone of all time is getting a 3D makeover for Generations, and I'm starting to get a little giddy!

I spy with my little eye what looks to be a Ferris wheel. It seems they're mashing up elements of the good future and the bad future, then.

Also, Sega should know better than to pose their classic designs alongside their modern ones. It only serves to highlight how hideous and misshapen the modern ones actually are.

...Oh, right. I haven't posted since the middle of June? Well, suffice it to say I'm still alive, and in the pink again. I should have something of moderate interest to reveal soon, too (it has to do with Sonic hacking).