The Definitive Way to Play Sonic 3 - Part 2 (Supplemental Podcast)

Since it seems like people want me to talk more about this, including things I may or may not have "missed," I decided to address them all in a podcast. That you listen to!



A link to drx's article about the troubled development history behind Sonic 3.

[Triple-Q]

I guess you could say that when it comes to re-releasing Sonic 3, Sega would have some... hard times

[RoboticEdward]

11:00 Well if we check the music copyright for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate on the songs Green Hill Zone, Scrap Brain Zone, and Emerald Hill Zone, it says that the songs are still copyrighted by Masato Nakamura, so Sega still probably has to pay some royalties whenever Green Hill and other songs are ever used.

[TheMasonGamer]

Thinking about it like this, I actually feel bad for SEGA. I talked with Aaron Webber at SXSW 2019, and he pretty much implied without saying straight up, that he wants Sonic 3 to come out again but they can’t. I hope everything gets cleared up someday

[ALtheBoi]

Fantastic video, as always.
shame we'll never get an official sonic 3 & knuckles, it's my favorite in the trilogy. the storytelling in that game is phenomenal.

[fredrikrg]

I literally just watched part 1 for the first time 20 mins ago lol

[CheatFreak]

At this point, I'm satisfied enough that we have Sonic AIR regardless, but I do have some thoughtful speculation on the situation.

We all agree MJ and his crew were involved in Sonic 3, but the timelines don't add up (or people think they don't, at least) but I believe that this can be explained rather easily though in a number of ways.

Possibility 1: See, as you said in your video there's a process by which songs were adapted from source recordings to digitized synthesizer data (chiptunes), it's possible that Sonic 3 was going through so much difficulty in development that the sound engine people were a little too busy making sure the game's audio drivers weren't full of bugs. We know there are loads of issues with it in this prototype and, assuming this is relatively late in development, it'd be much higher priority to finalize the sound drivers themselves before digitizing any new music for it, to avoid having to redo any work, since such reiterations would cost them more time, which they clearly didn't have.

Possibility 2: One thing not talked about much is how this prototype actually has the multiplayer mode nearly feature-complete compared to the rest of the game. In game-development oftentimes different tasks are spread apart to smaller groups on the team, and later on, the code is refactored together with the progress from other parts of the team, this is common practice, especially on tight schedules, it's dirty, but it saves time, and thus, saves money. Business, like you said. Because of the nearly feature-complete state of the multiplayer mode on this prototype, it's actually quite possible that this build of the game was taken directly from the people working on the multiplayer mode, before any progress from the other parts of the team were refactored in, since it was at least functional enough to show press at the time.

[heyjoeway]

12:59 Alright, you're going a bit off the rails with speculation. Yes, porting the music takes more skill than the average code monkey, but keep in mind that Sega already has M2 under their belt AND they've welcomed members of the community to help them before. I think your second explanation makes a lot more sense. Also, there's still the possibility that they'd get brought to court by undead MJ's hounds even if all the music is replaced just because they don't know any better or because there's some other legal knot.

[you-mustenter-a-name]

I wonder if this is why we never got a remaster/port of Jet Set Radio Future. That would suck.

[milesprowr]

The Definitive Way to Play Sonic 3 - Part 2 (Supplemental Podcast)




And Knuckles

[Lu_ST]

SEGA still can't use the Sonic 1 and 2 music in some cases either - in LEGO Dimensions, for the Sonic Level Pack they had to compose completely original "sound-alike" versions of the music.

[dhLord]

It's so annoying how overprotected music is. Music licensing needs an overhaul.

[HunterTechTen]

In regards to Sega possibly owning the full rights to Sonic 1 and 2's music, the Sonic levels in Lego Dimensions and Sonic Forces use original music for zones that are supposed to be from the originals, so it's very likely that Generations was more a temporary license on Sega's part.

[AndersOHMoberg]

It's so bizarre to me that two Sonic-related development stories opened up in the same year (Sonic 3 and the Sonic movie). Sonic as a game brand is teetering on disappearing into nothingness, but every time I think about it, there's incredibly rich lore in the making of Sonic across all these years. Sonic is maybe the most interesting story in games ever.. Gosh, that might be a bit hyper-bolic.

[raffamoreira]

Kinda ironic the fact that you and Sonic 3's developers had similar time constraints

[elPatrixf]

I love that the winamp player is actually playing back the podcast.

Good stuff, Sonic 3&K is my childhood and I feel for SEGA. Its a good thing we can still experience the games with fan remakes and stuff!

[keizaronstesticularcancer]

Sonic Mega Collection is the best because it has near perfect emulations of all the Genesis games, and feels great with GameCube/ps2 controller

[ThisGreenDingo]

Brad Buxer likely owns the performance rights to the drum tracks of the MJ tracks as he did all of the drum programming for those. That is likely why SEGA can't use the songs for the most part.

[kramhere]

This is like a sonic 3 documentary i like watching these we need sonic 3 now

[TrackerTD]

Really nice watch. Two things though:
a) as mentioned already in these comments, the weird bootleggy versions of Nakamura's tracks in LEGO Dimensions, as well as Nakamura's compositions being missing from all releases of the Sonic Mania OST, indicate he still very much owns the music. He might just have slimmed his rates given Dreams Come True aren't the powerhouse they once were, as far as I can tell anyway.


b) in terms of getting a hacker - well, M2. M2 managed to recreate the entirety of Fantasy Zone 2, a Master System game, to System 16 spec *from scratch*, and have it run on actual arcade hardware. Replacing some Mega Drive music would be a walk in the park for them.

[SyntaxTsundere]

Wouldn't the presence of the prototype soundtrack in the PC collection provide an indication that SEGA does have some idea as to who composed what, though?