Jump to content

Photo

Sonic Mania


  • Please log in to reply
206 replies to this topic

#16 Cukeman

Cukeman

    "Tra la la, look for Sahasrahla. ... ... ..."

  • Banned
  • Location:Hyrule/USA

Posted 23 July 2016 - 04:08 PM

It looks like we're not limited to the Genesis palette, which is a very good thing. I think the amount of pixelation we see is welcome.


  • Anthus likes this

#17 Haylee

Haylee

    ~ The Ragin' Cajun ~

  • Members
  • Real Name:Haylee
  • Pronouns:She / Her
  • Location:Italian Restaurant in Koorong

Posted 23 July 2016 - 08:19 PM

LET'S GO DEBUG MODE BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOYS!

 

IDK, Sonic 3K's Debug Mode was one of the funnest things aside from the main game.



#18 Ben

Ben

    a very grumpy

  • Members

Posted 23 July 2016 - 09:12 PM

This looks pretty neat, actually. Classic Sonic being an actual official character might be a good move; developing two lines of games based on modern and classic Sonic, without adding needless frills like a story, maintaining only minimal platforming, and no slow playable characters could be a winning strategy.


  • Anthus, The Satellite and Cukeman like this

#19 NoeL

NoeL

    Legend

  • Members
  • Real Name:Jerram

Posted 23 July 2016 - 10:06 PM

Someone's gonna have to get their hand on those sprites. The hue-shifting is amazin'! Also, the animation is awesome. There's no excuse not to have smooth animations in 2D games anymore, and I'm glad they realized this. Hit us with all the careful attention to detail!

A perfectly valid excuse for not having smooth raster 2D animations is budget/time constraints. :P Cell animation is waaaaay more time-consuming than auto-tweening keyframes.



#20 Koh

Koh

    Tamer Koh

  • Members
  • Real Name:Dominic
  • Location:Monsbaiya, Virginia

Posted 23 July 2016 - 11:02 PM

I don't let them get away with that either actually, because I've seen polish in the animation of free things, lol.  



#21 Anthus

Anthus

    Lord of Liquids

  • Members
  • Location:Ohio

Posted 23 July 2016 - 11:25 PM

I gotta say, this looks a lot better than the 3D game they just announced. I'm not gonna be a huge skeptic dick about it, but as a Sonic fan, I think this looks way more solid.

 

As far as the animation, and sprite work goes, It think it does the job pretty well. I honestly doubt they had a pixel dude come in, and make each frame of Sonic on the title screen, but they probably use a low-res approach similar to how the newer 2D Rayman games did it. They have/ use sprites, sure, but they can do things now that they couldn't do then. You don't need a true pixel artist to make pixel art anymore. I'm not trying to disrespect the art of spriting, and yeah, it is kind of bullshit how games can look old, and be accused of looking 'retro' and either, a) have a shit load of heart going into making each frame, or b) use modern rendering techniques to generate 'retro-2D' assets real quick. It's kind of like how Mario Maker has 'old-school' graphics, but they are used, and manipulated in ways that weren't available then. It still works but, it irks me /end random, unrelated, sorry for being off-topic, rant about nothing really,

 

Overall though, to me at least, the art direction, and design looks pretty faithful to the older designs, and I have to admit, this immediately looks way better than 'Sonic 4'. 



#22 Nicholas Steel

Nicholas Steel

    Hero of Time

  • Members
  • Location:Australia

Posted 24 July 2016 - 12:33 AM

If it plays similar to Sonic 1, 2, 3 and/or Sonic 3 & Knuckles then I think it will be pretty good, mostly because it is 16x9 so you can actually see what is coming up when you build up momentum!


Edited by Nicholas Steel, 24 July 2016 - 12:33 AM.

  • Anthus likes this

#23 The Satellite

The Satellite

    May the way of the Hero lead to the Triforce.

  • Members
  • Real Name:Michael
  • Pronouns:He / Him

Posted 24 July 2016 - 01:38 AM

Some music got leaked. It's actually really good.


  • Neppy and Lüt like this

#24 NoeL

NoeL

    Legend

  • Members
  • Real Name:Jerram

Posted 24 July 2016 - 08:22 AM

I don't let them get away with that either actually, because I've seen polish in the animation of free things, lol.  

That's beside the point. If you're a talented animator working on your own project you can sink as much time and effort as you want. If you're outsourcing talent and want to get your game shipped in the next decade you've got to compromise. It's short-sighted to look at a game with stiff animation and say "C'mon people, it's the year <current year> already! Can't you get smooth animation?"

 

 

As far as the animation, and sprite work goes, It think it does the job pretty well. I honestly doubt they had a pixel dude come in, and make each frame of Sonic on the title screen, but they probably use a low-res approach similar to how the newer 2D Rayman games did it. They have/ use sprites, sure, but they can do things now that they couldn't do then. You don't need a true pixel artist to make pixel art anymore. I'm not trying to disrespect the art of spriting, and yeah, it is kind of bullshit how games can look old, and be accused of looking 'retro' and either, a) have a shit load of heart going into making each frame, or b) use modern rendering techniques to generate 'retro-2D' assets real quick.

True, but the "fake pixel art" only really works well with large, quickly animated backgrounds/sprites where the fidelity isn't so important. Sonic's in-game frames would still be done by pixel. But yeah, it irks me too when people don't understand the time requirements for pixel art, though I'm all for people using modern techniques to cut this down where pixel-perfect fidelity isn't a big issue.


  • Anthus likes this

#25 Koh

Koh

    Tamer Koh

  • Members
  • Real Name:Dominic
  • Location:Monsbaiya, Virginia

Posted 24 July 2016 - 09:06 AM

Even so, that still doesn't deny the less quality output of the product, you know.  It's not like I'm saying that "The game isn't in 2.5D, so graphics get a 2/10," but rather, for the medium they chose (2D, pixel art), and regardless of color limitations (8-bit, 16-bit, 32-bit, etc), the animations can still be fluid and natural. Since they aren't, they lose points.  If they are, they keep the points.  If they didn't have enough budget, that's their fault, but that doesn't make the criticism any less valid.

 

Seeing the graphics in this, so far it looks like a solid 9/10.  It's hard to tell if the game is running at 30 or 60 FPS, since the video is only 30 FPS, but the sprites are both well colored AND well animated.

 

Conversely, we look at something like say...Terraria.  The animations are very stiff, but smooth.   As in, everything moves in a robotic unnatural manner, but the animations have a lot of frames to make it seem fluid.  The coloring is average.  Not really any hue-shifting or anything to make the colors stand out, but they get the job done texture wise.  So I give the graphics a 6/10 there.  Looks decent, but doesn't animate amazingly, nor does it pop out at all.


Edited by Koh, 24 July 2016 - 09:11 AM.


#26 Anthus

Anthus

    Lord of Liquids

  • Members
  • Location:Ohio

Posted 24 July 2016 - 01:23 PM

Some music got leaked. It's actually really good.



Sounds like Sonic CD which is fine by me. Also there's some gameplay online too. The video isn't the best but you can see pretty clearly.

https://youtu.be/VjfeKd-vSD4

#27 Lüt

Lüt

    Germanize

  • Members
  • Real Name:Steve
  • Location:Chicago

Posted 24 July 2016 - 02:00 PM

It does remind me a lot of Sonic CD (pretty much the only Sonic game I ever really played).

 

It's like an odd cross between the Spencer Nilsen American and Hataya/Ogata Japanese soundtracks.

 

A bit more jazzy, but no complaints.


  • Anthus likes this

#28 The Satellite

The Satellite

    May the way of the Hero lead to the Triforce.

  • Members
  • Real Name:Michael
  • Pronouns:He / Him

Posted 24 July 2016 - 02:02 PM

The gameplay footage looks really solid. This is gonna be a good game.


  • Anthus likes this

#29 NoeL

NoeL

    Legend

  • Members
  • Real Name:Jerram

Posted 24 July 2016 - 08:43 PM

Even so, that still doesn't deny the less quality output of the product, you know.  It's not like I'm saying that "The game isn't in 2.5D, so graphics get a 2/10," but rather, for the medium they chose (2D, pixel art), and regardless of color limitations (8-bit, 16-bit, 32-bit, etc), the animations can still be fluid and natural. Since they aren't, they lose points.  If they are, they keep the points.  If they didn't have enough budget, that's their fault, but that doesn't make the criticism any less valid.

That's fair enough. I misunderstood your first argument.
 

Seeing the graphics in this, so far it looks like a solid 9/10.

Why not a 10?
 

Conversely, we look at something like say...Terraria.  The animations are very stiff, but smooth.   As in, everything moves in a robotic unnatural manner, but the animations have a lot of frames to make it seem fluid.  The coloring is average.  Not really any hue-shifting or anything to make the colors stand out, but they get the job done texture wise.  So I give the graphics a 6/10 there.  Looks decent, but doesn't animate amazingly, nor does it pop out at all.

Everything's about the hue-shifting with you. Sometimes I regret telling you about it. :P It's just another tool, like anti-aliasing for example, and like anti-aliasing it can be overdone or inappropriately used. Sonic Mania is almost overdone, since it has a very noticeable yellow-blue-purple ramp going on. I personally like that look, but that's a personal preference. It doesn't make the art objectively better than something more subtle, and I disagree with you that the lack of it causes the art not to "pop". Terraria's art uses vibrancy, contrast and outlining to make things "pop", and does so effectively IMO. That said, Terraria's art is overall mediocre. Like Minecraft it gets the job done, but it's far from amazing to look at.



#30 Anthus

Anthus

    Lord of Liquids

  • Members
  • Location:Ohio

Posted 24 July 2016 - 09:16 PM

Minecraft and Terraria are programmer art :P
  • Moonbread likes this


0 user(s) are reading this topic

0 members, 0 guests, 0 anonymous users