General Sonic The Hedgehog thread

For the less notable few, the characters only replaced Sonic as a palette swap and nothing else, though through a small refresher...Mighty had his Wall jump from Knuckles Chaotix in the Sonic 1 hack which was really pointless outside of the confined Marble or Labrynth zone, the lazy swap was from different fan hack.

YO. Rules of the Internet 45. Rule 45 is a lie.

What's the point of even hacking a character into a game if you're not going to do anything with it? Hell, if you're gonna palette swap, at least palette swap the levels too so it at least looks like you put in some effort beyond spritework.

Insert witty 'n clever quip here.

Just playing as the character alone in the game is more than good enough, ultimately.

It's not that hard to please some. I love the idea of those kind of hacks. Don't need much beyond that, since the game is already fun~

...It's weird having so many websites and no way to properly display now, lol.

I wouldn't say just playing as the character is good enough, because if the character is in no way different from the player character in the unmodded version of the game, you might as well just play the original game. There's no point to it if it's just cosmetic. If you were to ask me, a good hack^note heh, oxymorons are fun actually tries to do something different with the game, even if it's something small.^note DISCLAIMER: This also assumes the person does this well and it isn't a complete disaster. Could be anything from a slight change in mechanics (e.g. those hacks that attempt to implement the homing attack in the Genesis games) to making different levels (see every Super Mario World hack in existence). Just changing what the character looks like doesn't cut the mustard for me. Go ahead and do that when you're first starting out, practicing and learning how to hack, but don't release it to the public and claim that you did something cool and original.

Insert witty 'n clever quip here.

Not everybody wants mechanic changes at all. They just want the character.

I'd prefer more dynamic gameplay for each character, but I can understand that too. The Zelda Classic game I'm working on is basically just a bunch of palette swaps for many characters while still having some unique items.

It's really not that odd(no pun intended) that the character is more important to some than the gameplay. Heroes had nearly identical teams, but still was went off well regardless of that. Clones aren't as much of an issue as some say it is. They're completely mixed. I love Mario Party despite nobody being different from one another. The voice files alone are just enough for me. Same with the animations.

You're right it's not original. But not cool? Big case of YMMV.

edited 10th Apr '14 10:15:14 PM by Irene

...It's weird having so many websites and no way to properly display now, lol.

Some people who don't have the exstensive knowledge of hacking will only really start with doing palette swaps and/or simple changes to the palette and layout of a stage...just want to start with something simple or just don't want to do a lot more reading on the tutorials of fan hacking.

edited 10th Apr '14 10:22:49 PM by Randomness4

YO. Rules of the Internet 45. Rule 45 is a lie.

See, Mario Party is different because it's inherently meant to be that way—in theory, everyone has a fair chance no matter who they play as, since it's a party game, and party games are supposed to be fair and fun for everyone. ("Supposed to be" being the key phrase here...)

And I always thought that everyone being fundamentally exactly the same was one of the key flaws most people criticize Heroes for? That's what I see everywhere, that people basically don't want to play through the same game four different times with what are essentially the same set of characters every time, weak attempts at differentiating be damned.

I get what you mean, but it just feels empty and shallow and exceedingly lazy just to swap in another character without doing anything, especially if that character already has a set of abilities at its disposal in other games where the character is playable. The Amy Rose in Sonic 1 hack is a very good example of what I feel is doing it right. Hell, the official Knuckles in Sonic 2 lock-on game is another good example. Like I said, I suppose I can understand how people wouldn't mind just having the character, but if I was someone who wanted a hack with a character put into the game, I'd be disappointed to see that the character is literally just Sonic looking different. (Playing as solo Tails in Sonic 2 has always been a huge disappointment for me.)

And that's fine if they're doing it as practice on their own. But if they're releasing it to the public? They better have at least done something entertaining with it (e.g. the mini-Sonic hack or the fat Sonic hack).

edited 10th Apr '14 10:25:35 PM by Odd1

Insert witty 'n clever quip here.

Oh, and for those of you who haven't seen the fat Sonic hack, it's hysterical

Insert witty 'n clever quip here.

I don't like that you're insinuating that people are lazy for doing a small rom hack at all. Nor do they need to adhere to some "standards" to want to release their fun game to the public. As long as the game works, that's more than awesome enough. Please knock that off. There is nothing shallow about it either. Setting up each specific graphics and making sure the sprites work perfectly takes a lot of work. Most can't just use an easy program to do so, and hack it solely on their own. The best they might have is a sprite sheet laying around, which they have to convert entirely. It's not easy at all. Even using Zelda Classic, I can tell you making a small game is very difficult.

There is nothing wrong with it or releasing it to the public. Some just want to play as the character where it works, has no graphical glitches, and that's it. And yes, it's comparable to Mario Party. Tails and Sonic played the same in Sonic 2. Many characters play near the same or the same in a variety of Sonic games too. Multiple or otherwise.

edited 10th Apr '14 10:31:42 PM by Irene

...It's weird having so many websites and no way to properly display now, lol.

*shrug* I dunno what to tell you then. I've said my piece, and I'm not wavering from my opinion.

Insert witty 'n clever quip here.

Some people are just like that to only do a palette swap and call it a day, its the easiest part of fan hacking because all you need a single program to edit or replace the sprites and they're just willing to settle with that.

edited 10th Apr '14 10:36:25 PM by Randomness4

YO. Rules of the Internet 45. Rule 45 is a lie.

Just one more thing:

If all you're doing is a palette swap, you really can't call it your game. Everything else in it was developed by other people—all the mechanics, the levels, the art assets (including the ones you hacked into the game, assuming you're doing something like hacking a preexisting character into the game and using a spritesheet to do so). You edited someone else's game. You didn't make the game.

edited 10th Apr '14 10:38:46 PM by Odd1

Insert witty 'n clever quip here.

Which wasn't even easy to program too. Neat to see that exists, though.

It's useful to start off with, but for many, doing it via the coding helps too. Most don't naturally understand the insides of a rom itself, so...

That said, we should probably change the subject since romhacking is frowned upon. At least anything beyond special program hack variations(akin to Zelda Classic). Still, I don't believe them doing a small hack is anywhere near lazy or shallow, and I find it extremely insulting to diss their work just because they didn't do much. As long as it's actually playable, it shouldn't matter otherwise. Lazy editing in itself means graphical glitches, not "didn't do much". Even with a program, it's still surprisingly hard. You have to not just download a sprite sheet, but it needs to match up with the program's sprite editor perfectly. I found that out the hard way with Zelda Classic. Not fun.

Sure they can. They edited to change it up. It's their new design. They can't claim it's "original", but they are still the creator of the hack and deserve credit for it. They can't make money off of it either of course.

edited 10th Apr '14 10:41:41 PM by Irene

...It's weird having so many websites and no way to properly display now, lol.

Palette/sprite swaps of hacks is fine for amateur developers. It's NOT fine for professional developers.

Please help out our The History Of Video Games page.

Insert Capcom DLC joke here.

That would make "Me" close to an amateur developer...Yay.

edited 11th Apr '14 2:37:39 PM by Randomness4

YO. Rules of the Internet 45. Rule 45 is a lie.

I think the best analogy between old and new Sonic series isn't in the actual games but the creative atmosphere of them. The original games were designed by a small close knit team of 15 people with strong direction and leadership left to do their own thing in order to get Sega off the ground. I think what brought Sonic down is not only all of his original team (heck, all three of his main creators left Sega years ago, and are all the better for it) being replaced by a listless Hollywood style team (outside of Lizuka, can you name any other significant contributors to the Sonic games design now?) but Sega's own inept management and utter cluelessness as to what to do with their golden goose now (and it shows with them butchering their other old franchises like Golden Axe and Nights) as well as their Control Freak like "looking over your shoulder constantly" handling of the franchise that keeps the series locked in an identity crisis with itself that locks out any real new ideas and keeps it stagnating with little significant change without piggybacking off of other series and trends. Not to mention that Sega is way too over dependent on the Sonic series now, not unlike how Nickelodeon uses Spongebob as a crutch now.

Eh, I agree with half that statement, Sega butchering their other works isn't the best policy, and they realy need to branch out with other characters instead of just Sonic.

but we've argued and mostly came to the same conclusions over and over on this thread. We all know what we want, but sega's not biting. So what else is new?

"No will to break."

Bought Blaze the other day in Dash. Why is it that seeing her beat Zazz isn't as hilarious the 50th time you play and the 2nd time you play as her?

Dakota's blog An odd agent of justice

Sonic Dash is one of those smartphone games, right? Kinda with I had a smartphone now.

Let the joy of love give you an answer! Check out my book!

Rouge could do with a spy game done up like a parody of Metal Gear, only with a bit more speed and gliding :V

The three finest things in life are to splat your enemies, drive them from their turf, and hear their lamentations as their rank falls!

I think It'll be a long time before Sega will even consider giving another spinoff game to a Sonic side character.

Let's be honest, though: Knuckles Chaotix was the only "good" spinoff game.

Dakota's blog An odd agent of justice

Good. They shouldn't be focusing on stuff like that right now, anyway. What they need to do is try to Win Back the Crowd... again.

edited 13th Apr '14 12:40:36 PM by PhysicalStamina

To pity someone is to tell them "I feel bad about being better than you."

Tails Adventure was a pretty good game, and Tails Skypatrol was ok once you it used to its hair pulling difficulty.