Sonic Origins - The Digital Foundry Tech Review - Good... But Should Have Been Great

On paper, this should have been the definitive collection of the classic Genesis/Mega Drive Sonic games. Built on Christian Whitehead's Retro Engine, the technological underpinnings are there - but a whole host of technical problems and a general lack of polish contribute to a release that promises so much but falls at the last hurdle.

Music in this video (In Order of Appearance)

Fluvial Beat Deposits - Simon Stålenhag
Sky High Zone (YM2612) - Savaged Regime
Tidal Tempest 'G" Mix - Sonic CD
Stardust Speedway - Sonic CD
Turquoise Hill Zone - Sonic Chaos SAGE Demo
Angel Island (Good Future) - Savaged Regime
Carnival Night - Sonic 3 Prototype
Ice Cap Zone Act 1 - Sonic Origins
Palmtree Panic "G" - Sonic CD
Sky Battalion - Freedom Planet

[TwinOpinion]

There was no reason to rush this out the door. It's not like they would lost sales from delaying the game for a couple of months. It's not a horrible release, but SEGA's lack of consistency has long been their biggest problem. They have certainly lost fans and sales because of that.

[Ronniespartan]

The museum is kinda weird too. There’s no music at all, just loud beeps. Even if you make your own custom playlist, the shuffle doesn’t work properly. It often plays the songs in the same order every time you start playing music

[Silvris]

Just want to add a minor addition to this: Sonic 1 has "missing" functionality from its earlier Retro Engine port, mostly. The game's character select only allows for choosing Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles individually and is missing the option to play with Sonic & Tails together. However, this is actually still able to be selected within the final game by going into the level select and choosing Sonic & Tails that way, but you cannot save your game doing that. It's a baffling error that the option is missing when it's still easily accessible and fully functioning.

Also I didn't see any discussion about the new Blue Spheres levels added as a bonus to S3&K.

[zummone]

10:48 Just something to address here, the OG Sonic 1 special stage can rotate as smooth as the remaster does, the graphics for it are there. It was intentionally made clunkier because it presented collision issues that couldn't be solved in a good way. All it takes to make it smooth is to remove an AND instruction iirc.

[aL_]

I was like "How can Christian whitehead / headcannon release a sonic game with forced bilinear filtering?"
ah... sonic team...
shame about the music, those carnival zone and ice cap zone themes are burned into my brain :D

[IkesDaddelbox]

The difference in instrumentation of the beta tracks is jarring. I didn't know what to think at first. But during gameplay I didn't find it distracting and even bobbed to the music. The new versions are fine, but I wish there was an option to change to the actual beta tunes, like in Spyro Reignited. I still vastly prefer them.

[mattlandry]

The number of bugs is unacceptable imo. I seriously hope they fix all of this

[alexweinberg]

I really hope this does get the Doom rerelease treatment soon, this release does still have a ton of potential but there's just too many issues right now.

[GASQBDUV]

Fantastic work as always John! Besides the technical issues, I'm pretty bummed out that they didn't include the SMS versions of the original 2 games.
While outside the scope of this video, I would love a comparison to the and "Sonic 3 A.I.R." projects, seeing as they have comparable featuresets.

[enriquepinero]

Woah. That tails infinite stuck jump loop is kinda of big issue. How about when a second player is controlling him? If player 2 gets left behind (which can happen often) will he never respawn by you until the stage is done?

[maxrichards]

Litterally the best summary of sonic origins I've seen. You did a great job going over the different music tracks & their respective versions, the issues the some games exibit, & the hedgehog engine used to run these games.

[brandonscott]

I wanted to buy this collection but it’s near full price for 4 games that have been re released dozens of times before especially sonic 1 2 and CD

[pixelsbits]

Sincerest thanks for making this in depth Sonic Origins review video John. Like always nobody I've heard review this game has your attention to detail. The review was awesome, and thanks again John. You're hard work is inspiring.

[GamingRobioto]

The different music is an absolute deal breaker for me. Sonic 3 AIR is still the best way to play

[Atlink]

A few other things I've noticed:

Sound in Sonic 2 is gimped. Listen to the ring collection sounds when you rapidly pick up rings. They tend to just stick to one channel of audio.
The Sonic 1 special stages seem obscenely more complicated. The buttons are extremely sensitive so you'll constantly be reversing, or speeding up and down within a few frames of one another.
The audio is actually really bad (at least on PS5 that I've noticed) and seems horribly compressed. It's not even subtle, it sounds like it was recorded at 96 kbps rather than 128 or higher. They're pretty bad.
--To be fair, I was also hearing this when listening via the DualSense's headphone jack and wirelessly communicating with the console. With that being said, however, I've never heard another game sound like that with the same exact setup (which I use CONSTANTLY)

One quick fix for the S2 Tails issue. Hold up and press jump. Once you hear Tails' flying sound effect, rapidly rock left and right on the d-pad. If Tails' flying audio just cuts out, he should spawn in in a second or two. It's not foolproof, but I've had a lot of luck with it.

I think John is right in this case. It's not about Sega screwing over the devs - it's about Sega not learning their lesson about crunch and releasing an unpolished product. They have done this countless times, and they continue to do so. I'm just hoping that in the coming weeks, we'll get some news regarding a patch to resolve these issues.

[Myles]

I thoroughly enjoyed my time with Sonic Origins, but there were many tiny issues that collectively made this title fall short of feeling like a truly definitive classic Sonic collection.

I was gutted to see certain Sonic 3 tracks removed, but hopefully this is a game the developers will fix, optimise and add to in future.

I’m also pretty sure the Missions island is the Sonic Spinball location. I know it’s not the most popular classic Sonic game, but I would have loved to play that on the Retro engine at 60FPS.

Thanks for another great detailed review John!

[canontheory]

I didn’t think the music would make a difference but when I got to carnival night zone it was so immersion breaking I had to turn off the music and play the real theme from my phone and when I got to ice cap I did the same thing.. those new songs do not fit the levels at all and ruin the feel of the levels making me want to beat them as fast as possible so I don’t have to hear the song anymore but with the original I would take my time to explore the level vibing to the music, sonic needs music that fits the level and aesthetic perfectly because music is one of the key components of the classic sonic games

[roberto]

My Sonic Origins version arrived in 1997 with Sonic Jam for the Sega Saturn, this is where I played 16-bit Sonic more than on the Mega Drive itself. But I always felt they should have added Knuckles Chaotix, Sonic CD and all 8-bit versions from the Master System as unlockables, then, I'd be in paradise as a preteen.

[BrotherKnowledge.]

Extremely useful. Thanks.

Now I know to get this game at the end of the year, like on Black Friday or during the Winter sale, instead of getting it now.

Thank you all for your hard work!

[IdoMuffin]

26:00 - sneaking in music from what started as a Sonic fangame. I hear what you did there!