Reviewers of Sonic Origins, the highly anticipated remaster of the hog’s most classic titles, are not happy. While the overall presentation is nice, they’ve been pointing out the various glitches and bugs throughout the games that weren’t present in the originals. An outsider might ask how Sega could possibly mess this up, if all they had to do was dump some ROMs into a menu. The cynic would reply, “Sega always finds a way.”
But there’s a bit more to it than that. For one thing, Sonic Origins is NOT a ROM dump. It’s a legit rebuild of Sonic 1, 2, 3 and Knuckles from the ground up, using the Sonic Mania engine. The developers of that engine, Headcannon, also created this remaster and says they are aware of the bugs, but that not every single one is their fault. Developer Simon Thomley says they “asked to do major fixes near submission,” but they were denied the opportunity because of “submission and approval rules.” So it sounds like bugs were getting squashed up to deadline — which is typical of any game — but in this case, it goes beyond that…
Turns out when Headcannon saw the finished product, it had extra bugs they didn’t encounter in testing. Sega did some post-production work themselves, which tampered with the code and introduced more bugs. There’s the “Sega finds a way” at work.
Thomley says it is still possible to get a patch in the near future to fix the bugs (and why wouldn’t they, really) but they have yet to hear back from Sega. Maybe the company is just too busy doing damage control over the fact Yuji Naka casually tweeted a confirmation of Michael Jackson’s involvement in Sonic 3, then tried to walk it back with a nervous “uh, haha, did I say that?” This is the reason some tracks in Sonic 3 had to be redone, with tepid results.
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Even though I adore the collection, I can’t help but be perplexed as to why Sega and the Sonic team are unable to learn from their errors; this is the second time in recent memory that a Sonic product has been rushed. Last year, they launched Sonic Colors Ultimate, which was rushed, wasn’t hardware-optimized, contained bugs that weren’t present in the original version, had worse-looking cutscenes than before, and had an excessively shiny Sonic model. The levels varied in terms of brightness and darkness from their original states. How did Sega mess up this game for Sonic’s 31st anniversary by pushing it to fall on his birthday when they published a ton of 30-year-old games that were nicely replicated on numerous consoles and collections? We want to spend our hard-earned money on items that were manufactured with love and passion rather than with sloppiness and empty gestures.
Self sabotage is not something new with Sega. Remember when Sonic of Japan sabotages Eternal Warriors because they are trying to force Virtua Fighter to the masses? Actions like this is the reason why they died in the console wars.
Has Sega loathed Sonic so much that they would do anything to undermine his momentum? Sincerely, I believe that the AAA segment of the game industry—or the entire industry—needs a complete leadership overhaul. Companies that have good or even excellent reputations for the items they provide are repeatedly exposed for decisions made by the CEOs and other higher-ups of these businesses. Can there please be some form of unionization in the gaming sector or perhaps a set standard for how gaming businesses should operate? Because this is becoming absurd. Although gaming may be more popular than ever, it may once again become a niche industry. Do you recall the 1983 game industry collapse?
Sega treats its fans and the group that gave them resurgence in this manner. It can be difficult to hear about. It almost seems as though they abuse the devotion of their followers. They just see us as cash cows.
Just like they just follow latest hardwer requirements and not what users have. They test on latest and best hardware but many users can’t afford so they play on older hardwer which often can’t run latest games without bug.