206 replies to this topic

[Koh]

I grew up with PC games, the Genesis (all Sonics), the Playstation, and the Gameboys.  We got a PS2 later.  I played the Nintendo home consoles at friend's houses, like Mario Kart or GoldenEye on N64.  I didn't HATE the N64 graphics, but the blurriness made my eyes hurt, because they're trying to focus the textures in vain.

Edited by Koh, 26 July 2016 - 05:23 PM.

[Cukeman]

Isn't this CRT discussion kind of a moot point anyways? Sure it affects old consoles and ports of old games, but I'm sure games designed for modern TVs can create whatever visual effects they want.

[Nicholas Steel]

For those curious about the dithering effect, compare these images:

 

http://retro-sanctua...ransparency.gif

http://retro-sanctua...ransparency.gif

 

Source and more examples: http://retro-sanctua... differing.html

 

1st image Clearly shows how the effect was programmed and the second image gives you an idea of what it looks like on a lot of CRT TV's with either RF or Composite A/V cables.

Edited by Nicholas Steel, 26 July 2016 - 11:29 PM.

[Koh]

Yup, exactly as blurry as I remember it being, lol.  But hey, it's fine if other people like it, but my poor eyes just can't take it for too long XD.  

[Nicholas Steel]

Yup, exactly as blurry as I remember it being, lol.  But hey, it's fine if other people like it, but my poor eyes just can't take it for too long XD.  

If the blurring could be only applied to the parts that need it in order to look correct, that'd be awesome but yeah I agree about the blur, I hate it too these days. The comparison image with the blur I believe is simply applying bilinear blurring to the image which is worse than what it'd look like on a CRT with a RF or Composite A/V cable. I hate bilinear filtering and scaling with a passion, it's like smearing Vaseline on the computer display.

Edited by Nicholas Steel, 27 July 2016 - 07:00 AM.

[Koh]

One thing I have to say, after seeing more gameplay of this, is I really hope they upgrade the tilegraphics too at some point.  Sonic's got all new sprites with more colors and such, but the Green Hill tiles, for example, look copy and paste, so the contrast in detail is a bit jarring.

[Anthus]

We only saw a glimpse of Green Hill, and the background looks more detailed than the original in the shot of Sonic fighting that ball thing. I suspect we'll see some other minor visual improvements, and there are likely already subtle things in there that are hard to notice. This is minor but I kinda hope there is an option to turn off Sonic's trail behind him. That effect can stay with the GBA games.

[Koh]

From this.

[kurt91]

The Green Hill graphics looking so similar to the original was intentional. If you look insanely closely, there are some differences. For instance, if you look at the background, there's a small stream on the mountains that was originally a tile error in the original. There are also some additional shadows added in, but nothing that you'd notice in a casual glance. You'd have to know every pixel of the original by heart, so needless to say, the guys at Sonic Retro have already pointed out most of the callbacks and differences in even Green Hill Zone.

 

The fun thing is looking at their thread on Studiopolis Zone, and seeing all of the callbacks and references there. There are a ton of really insanely subtle ones that nobody would ever know of. For instance, the Popcorn machine is based on an actual Sonic popcorn machine in Japan. There's a tiny blue logo on the part that Sonic exits through along with the popcorn, and that logo was originally from Wing Fortress in Sonic 2. The scaffolding used on the platforms came from a canceled game called "Sonic Crackers". The radio-broadcast effect from the truck is made to reference the "teleporters" in Death Egg Zone from Sonic & Knuckles. The logo on said truck came from the Game Gear. The logo on the "EGG NOG" sign in the background uses tiles from Chemical Plant Zone in Sonic 2.

[The Satellite]

Interestingly, I thought Studiopolis Zone was just a made-up and Sonic-sounding stage name, but apparently Studiopolis is actually a voiceover studio in LA, responsible for the English voice dubbing of, you guessed it, the Sonic series, at least since 2010 anyway.

[Russ]

So what I'm taking away from this is that they hired the biggest Sonic nerd in existence to make what's essentially a company-funded back-to-the-roots fan game. I have zero complaints with this.

[Anthus]

I just noticed the spinning island in the background on the title screen is Sonic's head.

And Kurt, are you sure you're not secretly Christan Whitehead?

[kurt91]

I'm fairly certain. For one thing, I can't program worth crap.

 

No, I just go on Sonic Retro all the time, and the people there are absolutely insane about this kind of stuff. Same way as if I asked on this site how many carrots Epona uses on average to get from Lake Hylia to Death Mountain in Ocarina of Time to deliver the eye drops before they expire, somebody would probably be able to tell me.

Edited by kurt91, 27 July 2016 - 08:09 PM.

[Anthus]

It takes about 17 carrots if you don't use the last one, and make them take longer to refill

[Cukeman]

Yup, exactly as blurry as I remember it being, lol.  But hey, it's fine if other people like it, but my poor eyes just can't take it for too long XD.  

 

Yeah, it'd be great it the N64 had an option to turn off the blur.