Yeah. I don't like the prototype original music. If we can't get the original release music, rather just get a new attempt on those stages.
-
Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
-
We have made minor adjustments to how the search bar works on ResetEra. You can read about the changes here.
I got a chuckle at the "put an effort" part about the licensed music. Not so much Sonic related, but Yakuza related (so its still Sega related), I remember reading one of the localisation staff discussing the legal nightmare that was the licensing contracts for some of the Yakuza music on older titles (basically back before the series was doing good outside of Asia, leading it to get cut for the best part of a decade). It was basically unfeasible to include the music, and would have incurred an insane cost to use said music.
Now granted the comparison isnt a 1:1 comparison to Sonic. In Yakuza's case its a few key pieces of music for cutscenes, in Sonic 3 its a far bigger deal. But I can see it being a similar problem for them - does make me curious as to just what we'll get music wise for this version of Sonic 3. I cant wait to find out. But either way, I cant imagine Sega isnt "putting in the effort" with regards to the music, the very fact they are porting 3 again suggests they are putting an effort in, but we might still get a different soundtrack for legit reasons.
Now granted the comparison isnt a 1:1 comparison to Sonic. In Yakuza's case its a few key pieces of music for cutscenes, in Sonic 3 its a far bigger deal. But I can see it being a similar problem for them - does make me curious as to just what we'll get music wise for this version of Sonic 3. I cant wait to find out. But either way, I cant imagine Sega isnt "putting in the effort" with regards to the music, the very fact they are porting 3 again suggests they are putting an effort in, but we might still get a different soundtrack for legit reasons.
The Tee Lopes suggestion that keeps coming up makes a certain sense considering Mania's popularity, and I'd enjoy whatever he produced. If a current Sonic composer made new tracks, though, Jun Senoue, who did work on the original, is available. Naofumi Hayata or Tomoya Ohtani would also both do good work. Hayata did a lot of the work in the Japanese version of CD and his style greatly informed Lopes' original pieces in Mania. Music by Ohtani would be interesting to hear in the context of an actual Classic Sonic game as his musical style is synonymous with the character today.
That said, the original prototype music does exist, and it leads to a bit of a philosophical question as to what "original" means. We don't actually know why those tracks were on the original Sonic 3 carts in the first place. And it doesn't help that real, actual, tangible proof of much of what people have come to believe about the making of Sonic 3 is hard to come by.
We know Sonic 3 was being developed as one big game that was later split up into two games due to scheduling issues, and some actually theorize the build with some of the Jackson team's music was released by accident. We don't know how many tracks Jackson's team actually did, if maybe the ones still in the game were meant to be pulled as well but due to the aforementioned scheduling issues a build with them was released by accident. Some people on the team say the Jackson team's music was all pulled, others say it all ended up in the game, and Howard Drossin himself says he didn't change much about Jackson's music. It's a reach, I know, but it is possible every Act had a Jackson song and we only heard the ones we did by accident. I won't talk much about the "there's an entire Jackson soundtrack we mostly never heard" school of thought in this post due to time, but it's a fun one for sure, if a bit of a stretch based on what little we do know.
The songs that Jackson's team worked on are really good and to many they are the original soundtrack. But there's another school of thought that deserves, at the very least, some acknowledgement. That the originally-intended music is the original music because it was the music that was meant to be in the game, and if you want to be cynical, it was not great of Sega to scrap their own composers' labour in exchange for the name recognition of a pop star. And part of me wants to argue that this original music sounds more like Sonic 3 music. Carnival Night Act 2 in particular is a phenomenal track in my opinion that just completely shines with a very similar energy to, say, Hydro City Act 2 or some of the multiplayer tracks. I would be wrong to say that, though, because various composers and teams all with their own styles worked on this game, so it would be intellectually dishonest to make this argument. There is no one unifying musical style in Sonic 3, which is why I think any of the composers I listed in the first paragraph could make good new music. But at the risk of sounding a bit inflammatory I do think the people who say the prototype music is outright bad are either mostly thinking about Ice Cap or they only like the other Sonic 3 songs out of nostalgia in the first place. I do acknowledge the vibe is very different between both sets of songs in every Zone that had a Jackson song, though. The Jackson team's songs give off a strong sense of place, while the prototype songs are more scored to Sonic's own actions in the Zone. Kinda reminds me of Sonic CD's and Donkey Kong Country 3's alternate soundtracks in that way.
How would I handle it if I were working on Origins? Legalities aside, I think they should have the Jackson team's music play during the Sonic & Tails story and the prototype music during the Knuckles story. For "event" songs like the mini-boss music and Knuckles' theme, it would go by Zone, with the Sonic 3 versions playing during the Sonic 3 half of the game.
I guess to go back to this post's big question as to what "original" should mean in this context, I somewhat side with the original intention rather than the actual experience most kids actually had, but it's admittedly not a position I hold with much conviction. Games have songs replaced all the time, after all, and that doesn't make those final products any less legitimate. I did say the prototype songs are more consistent with the style of some of the other tracks, but I also noted that even with prototype songs, Sonic 3 & Knuckles still does not always stick to a unified musical style in the same way Sonic 1 or 2 do. Maybe searching for some kind of "original" vision is futile in itself. Actually, that is my take: Original doesn't mean anything.
It would be great to get as much content as they can legally give us, but as long as the content is good, maybe that's ultimately what matters most. Original is a term that doesn't actually hold much value when you strip away context, and in this case, various people are coming in with very different contextual backgrounds (and I haven't even mentioned the amount of people I've met who grew up with the prototype music via the Windows version of Sonic 3), so maybe it's futile to frame this discussion around who thinks what soundtrack is the right choice in the first place. I just hope at this point that we get good music, and between the Jackson team's music, the prototype music (for the most part...), and the wonderful composers Sega currently has access to, the chance that the music in these Zones will turn out bad is astronomically low. It's a cliché at this point to say that Sonic at least gets the music right every time, but barring some of the instrumentation used in Sonic 4 and Forces, it's a cliché for a reason. The most likely problem will be if new music is made but it is badly converted to the Mega Drive/Genesis style, like the tracks in Sonic 4 and the Classic Sonic levels of Sonic Forces.
That said, the original prototype music does exist, and it leads to a bit of a philosophical question as to what "original" means. We don't actually know why those tracks were on the original Sonic 3 carts in the first place. And it doesn't help that real, actual, tangible proof of much of what people have come to believe about the making of Sonic 3 is hard to come by.
We know Sonic 3 was being developed as one big game that was later split up into two games due to scheduling issues, and some actually theorize the build with some of the Jackson team's music was released by accident. We don't know how many tracks Jackson's team actually did, if maybe the ones still in the game were meant to be pulled as well but due to the aforementioned scheduling issues a build with them was released by accident. Some people on the team say the Jackson team's music was all pulled, others say it all ended up in the game, and Howard Drossin himself says he didn't change much about Jackson's music. It's a reach, I know, but it is possible every Act had a Jackson song and we only heard the ones we did by accident. I won't talk much about the "there's an entire Jackson soundtrack we mostly never heard" school of thought in this post due to time, but it's a fun one for sure, if a bit of a stretch based on what little we do know.
The songs that Jackson's team worked on are really good and to many they are the original soundtrack. But there's another school of thought that deserves, at the very least, some acknowledgement. That the originally-intended music is the original music because it was the music that was meant to be in the game, and if you want to be cynical, it was not great of Sega to scrap their own composers' labour in exchange for the name recognition of a pop star. And part of me wants to argue that this original music sounds more like Sonic 3 music. Carnival Night Act 2 in particular is a phenomenal track in my opinion that just completely shines with a very similar energy to, say, Hydro City Act 2 or some of the multiplayer tracks. I would be wrong to say that, though, because various composers and teams all with their own styles worked on this game, so it would be intellectually dishonest to make this argument. There is no one unifying musical style in Sonic 3, which is why I think any of the composers I listed in the first paragraph could make good new music. But at the risk of sounding a bit inflammatory I do think the people who say the prototype music is outright bad are either mostly thinking about Ice Cap or they only like the other Sonic 3 songs out of nostalgia in the first place. I do acknowledge the vibe is very different between both sets of songs in every Zone that had a Jackson song, though. The Jackson team's songs give off a strong sense of place, while the prototype songs are more scored to Sonic's own actions in the Zone. Kinda reminds me of Sonic CD's and Donkey Kong Country 3's alternate soundtracks in that way.
How would I handle it if I were working on Origins? Legalities aside, I think they should have the Jackson team's music play during the Sonic & Tails story and the prototype music during the Knuckles story. For "event" songs like the mini-boss music and Knuckles' theme, it would go by Zone, with the Sonic 3 versions playing during the Sonic 3 half of the game.
I guess to go back to this post's big question as to what "original" should mean in this context, I somewhat side with the original intention rather than the actual experience most kids actually had, but it's admittedly not a position I hold with much conviction. Games have songs replaced all the time, after all, and that doesn't make those final products any less legitimate. I did say the prototype songs are more consistent with the style of some of the other tracks, but I also noted that even with prototype songs, Sonic 3 & Knuckles still does not always stick to a unified musical style in the same way Sonic 1 or 2 do. Maybe searching for some kind of "original" vision is futile in itself. Actually, that is my take: Original doesn't mean anything.
It would be great to get as much content as they can legally give us, but as long as the content is good, maybe that's ultimately what matters most. Original is a term that doesn't actually hold much value when you strip away context, and in this case, various people are coming in with very different contextual backgrounds (and I haven't even mentioned the amount of people I've met who grew up with the prototype music via the Windows version of Sonic 3), so maybe it's futile to frame this discussion around who thinks what soundtrack is the right choice in the first place. I just hope at this point that we get good music, and between the Jackson team's music, the prototype music (for the most part...), and the wonderful composers Sega currently has access to, the chance that the music in these Zones will turn out bad is astronomically low. It's a cliché at this point to say that Sonic at least gets the music right every time, but barring some of the instrumentation used in Sonic 4 and Forces, it's a cliché for a reason. The most likely problem will be if new music is made but it is badly converted to the Mega Drive/Genesis style, like the tracks in Sonic 4 and the Classic Sonic levels of Sonic Forces.
Tee Lopes reinterpretation of the MJ tracks would be fine, I don't understand flatout refusing the game if you are otherwise interested in the 5 titles.
Would be interested to see if they could port over the additional chars from Mania+ if this is really a complete Taxman engine production, and really any other chars they could squeeze in (Amy, Metal and Mecha Sonics... maybe Shadow to tie in with Sonic 3 movie hoype)
Would be interested to see if they could port over the additional chars from Mania+ if this is really a complete Taxman engine production, and really any other chars they could squeeze in (Amy, Metal and Mecha Sonics... maybe Shadow to tie in with Sonic 3 movie hoype)
Cowabunga Collection + Sonic Origins Collection = J_ToSaveTheDay Origins Saga
Please be best in class ports.
Please be best in class ports.
Add the upcoming Capcom arcade collections to the mix and (as long as the quality of the ports are good), this will be a really good year for classic game ports, I can see me putting in tons of hours on all of them! Probably double dipping on most of the collections as well...
lol amazingI love how it was Stevie's favourite game in Malcolm in the Middle.
hell yeah
Ideally, both boss music tracks would be included and the game would give players the ability to select which music they want.
I need it to be Chili Dog good; if it's just Hot Dog good that's not gonna cut it.
I've been itching to play the classics but I've known this is coming soon so have avoided the 360 versions I own until I find out more about this and the improvements. Fingers crossed for a trailer and release date any time now...
I'd like to see Sonic 3D Blast (megadrive/genesis version) with widescreen support included. The soundtrack is amazing and somehow I enjoy playing that game. I may be the only one in the world who likes the game probably, but still think everyone should give it a try.
Considering that the game uses prerendered images and a totally different engine from the 2D Sonic games, porting it should be completely different and difficult. Well, I can always keep dreaming.
Considering that the game uses prerendered images and a totally different engine from the 2D Sonic games, porting it should be completely different and difficult. Well, I can always keep dreaming.
They need to surpass the Mega Collection + menu theme. Hearing it feels so nostalgic
Can you play Sonic 1, Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles on SX? I can't buy them on the store on my Series X and the web marketplace says they are only playable on Xbox 360.
Indeed you can. Curious that you can't purchase them from the Series though, I thought that recognized the 360 marketplace.
Well it lists all other 360 Sonic releases, including Sonic 2. Only those three are "currently not available".
Huh. That's odd, but they are absolutely playable as Edward said.
Amy being in the keyart is interesting even though I assume it's just for Sonic CD's inclusion.
Can't wait to see what Taxman does with the best Sonic game.
Can't wait to see what Taxman does with the best Sonic game.
Keep the modern characters out of classic Sonic. Bring in Amy, Ray and Mighty but that would be it.
this is a great post and provides a lot of insight to people that aren't aware of the Beta/PC tracks.
it is the Taxman ports of Sonic 1, 2 & CD with "a port" of Sonic 3 & Knuckles. Though the producer has said it is a native port, I'm still holding my breath to see if it isn't something akin to the M2 Sega Ages stuff. We'll see.
The beta Sonic 3 music that replaces the MJ tracks is just really weak imo. Sounds like prototype/placeholder music at best. Even like 8 year old Xtortion was appalled at those tracks on the PC version. MJ music probably isn't coming back, but I'd much rather have all new compositions in the Genesis style than the beta tracks.
some of the "levels" could be adjusted, but the thing that is remarkable about the act 2 versions of the Beta tracks is... they're markedly different than the act 1. Compare the retail S3 Hydrocity Act 1 to Act 2. Now do the same for, say, Launch Base-- the act 2 music is functionally the same with a slightly different arrangement and removed audio tracks. To me-- that is like... Placeholder 101 stuff lol
They're not properly finished in the Mega Drive beta so some parts can sound off.
That being said , beta Carnival Night act 2 and Launch Base act 2 slaps.
Unless they were able to pull Christian Whitehead away from Freedom Planet 2, I really would be surprised any of these are Retro Engine since they would need to remake 3 & Knuckles from the ground-up themselves and have to inject new code into at least Sonic 2 if they are going for multi-game lock on capability, like Sonic Jam had.
the trailer used footage from the Whitehead versions of Sonic 1, 2 and CD.
It also used footage of the original 3 & Knuckles. Doesn't really tell us much in the end. They didn't have anything ready to show yet. My guess with this collection is that they're going to try to unify them all as much as possible and that would require tinkering with those versions at the very least.
While true, Iizuka did say something about "native ports", but without many details. I'm skeptical and personally feel they're going to be akin to M2's Sega Ages line but we will see.
They actually sound pretty dang great when played through the Genesis sound chip. Different, certainly, but I'm listening to them for the first time and I'd be happy to have them back if the Genesis songs are an issue.
I wouldn't object to the accurate Genesis renditions of the beta tracks replacing the legal grey area ones though I will really miss Ice Cap
Ideally, it would be cool if you could toggle between both like in Taxman Sonic CD.
Yeah, the Sonic CD rerelease was kinda perfect except for that.
Was it ever actually proven these were prototype tracks, or is that just speculation?
Based on Iizuka's word, Sonic Origins are all-new native ports developed by Sega themselves and not the Retro Engine versions from years ago. It'll have a lot of the same features though like widescreen, their goal is to make the definitive version of these games that are widely available without any legal hurdles holding it back like Sonic 3's music.
A 1993 build of Sonic 3 was dumped in 2019 that had the alternate tracks. Before then it was generally accepted they were replacements specifically for the PC release.
Now rated in Australia as well. My guess is an announcement this Thursday.
nintendoeverything.com
Sonic Origins rated in Korea, Australia
Sonic Origins, an HD compilation of Sonic 1, Sonic 2, Sonic 3 & Knuckles and Sonic CD, has been rated in Korea.
nintendoeverything.com
This really shouldn't be such a mysterious product, lol. It's a fucking compilation of 20+ year old games. Even if it's a 100% quality product, it's the type of game you should immediately be able to explain to fans what it is... we shouldn't be wondering what it is nearly a year out at this point.
It'd be a shame if they don't use the Whitehead ports as a base though. Those are basically perfect versions of Sonic 1, 2, and CD.
Gotcha.
Anyway, I expect nothing less than perfect ports of all the classics complete with widescreen, toggleable music for all games including S3&K, and a complete remake of Sonic World from Sonic Jam.
EDIT:
So somebody who is a complete nobody claims that this music is from the game:
Take with a grain of salt, of course
Last edited:
Sadly this is fake and comes from SDVX III -GRAVITY WARS-
Edit: Also while I think the image is legit it also comes from a Sonic brand trade advert from a few weeks ago...
