After what felt like years of having to make do with just a single image to promote the launch of Sonic Origins, the game is finally in the hands of Switch owners. Pooling together the classic 2D Sonic titles, including Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Sonic CD, and Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles, the game is a commendable compilation that newcomers in particular would do well to check out. But could it have been more?
In its latest technical analysis video, Digital Foundry puts Sonic Origins under the microscope, and while it concludes that the game is "good", there are a few glaring issues that prevent it from being a true must-buy experience.
Primarily, Digital Foundry points out that the games included are rendered using a bilinear filter, which effectively results in a slight softening of the pixel edges. It notes that while Sonic Mania includes various filter options, Origins is stuck with an anti-aliasing option that actually results in an image that looks even worse than the default.
Unfortunately for Switch owners, the other major drawback with the compilation is specific to Nintendo's hybrid system. The front-end (i.e, the main menu) runs at 30fps with blurry, muddy visuals, which compared to the 4K resolution and 60fps frame rate you'd see on the likes of PS5 and Xbox Series X, is a severe disappointment.
There are also other errors to note during menu navigation, including typos in the museum section and incorrect track names. The actual games fair much better, however, with each running at 60fps with additional options including widescreen anniversary mode and mirror mode.
Having said that, there are a few bugs that should be highlighted. The most egregious is specific to Sonic 2 (and we noticed this one straight away): Tails will often get stuck in the level as you race ahead, and you can hear the irritating 'bwoop' of his jumping constantly until you reach the end goal. Elsewhere, in Sonic 3's Marble Garden Zone, it's actually possible to outrun the camera and die, which is frankly ridiculous.
Check out Digital Foundry's video below for a more in-depth look into Sonic Origins, and make sure to let us know in the comments if you've found anything untoward about the game in your experience!
- Read More
- Sonic Origins Review (Switch eShop)
[source youtube.com]
Comments 32
@Clyde_Radcliffe Their job is to technically anaylse stuff and their main audience love stuff like that...
If you are going to dunk on someone/something at least understand first.
Filled with bugs!…..welcome to gaming in 2022!
@Clyde_Radcliffe you do understand the purpose of their video?
@Clyde_Radcliffe
Get this, that menu is reportedly built using the Hedgehog Engine.
The engine that is going to power Sonic Frontiers on all systems.
Now, imagine what it means for a full game, when a menu running that engine can only run at 30 FPS below full resolution on a docked Switch.
@Orokosaki @Andigaming Yes I'm aware what they do thank you. It's still funny to me anyone would be "severely disappointed" over the framerate being 30fps in a menu. Gameplay, sure.
@RupeeClock I never expected Sonic Frontiers to be 60fps given they couldn't even get Sonic Colours running at that framerate.
@Clyde_Radcliffe
No, I didn't either.
Although it's important to examine the components of a game as software.
Oh no.
Considering the predilections of this fandom I'm worried about the implications of the phrase "Sonic bust".
This wont stop me buying it, IF the physical turns up next year, hopefully with the bugs and rest of the other things patched.
@Clyde_Radcliffe because unfortunately in this day and age people are disappointed about everything. They’re never happy. Nobody cared back in the C64 days when we had 5fps.
Even the developer agrees this one’s in a rough state.
@commentlife
It's important to make clear that Headcannon only developed one component of Sonic Origins: The Sonic 3 & Knuckles portion.
The other games were previously developed by Christian Whitehead and Headcannon, and for Origins were modified by SEGA of Japan (maybe Sonic Team) to add things like the COINS system or the drop dash.
The games have been running fine on my end since I've bought it on Switch. Sadly...the lack of a CRT filter (soft for my preference) is bit of a sore spot for me.
However...there issues I have still. And most of them is with S3&K. For example, in Sandopolis Zone Act 2, the hand rails are missing.
I'm not sure if it's a glitch or not. But the original version didn't have it. I hope the the problems will addressed with a patch in the coming future.
Just some additional context into the main menu. It's not just some bog-standard menu set against a static image; each game in the compilation links to a fully rendered island, each packed with small references and easter eggs.
The Deluxe Edition of the game lets you zoom into the islands and properly explore them; it's as much a celebratory piece as the games themselves, so that's why the Switch performance here proves disappointing.
I would like to add that I celebrate Sonic Youths entire catalogue xx
@Olliemar28 Oh okay, that makes more sense, apologies for my comment. I will remove.
I read ‘sonic boom or sonic bust’ and I understood what they were going for but… Sonic boom was such a disaster that bust seemed like the lesser of two evils.
More nit picking 🙄 I honestly couldn’t care less what they think. I’m having a fantastic time playing through these classics!
The price is the only bug that seems really serious, and I expect that will get a heavy patch within months.
@Orokosaki
That was 30+ years ago. Technology, like life, moves on.
@Orokosaki There's been lots of games that have bugs over the years. In fact, back then, it was worse since they needed to re-release the game in order to fix it. At least now they can release patches to fix issues without needing to reissue the game.
That said, I'm hoping they do announce an estimated time table for any future patches/updates soon, because while I haven't seem anything that couldn't be fixed with a restart, the bugs I have seen are a little concerning to me.
For the most part it's a functioning product but on PC there are some really annoying issues like Tails getting stuck and jumping forever, Chaos Emeralds disappearing and most notably people who use Integrated Graphics can't even start the game at all or it just keeps crashing because of the 3D Graphics on the title screen. Just to point out regarding the Chaos Emeralds issue but leaving the game and going into the main menu then loading the game again fixes it. The issues aren't game breaking but honestly it's rather shameful. This Collection could have been perfect for new Players but once again Sega demonstrate that they only seem to care about money and meeting deadlines.
Lol Nintendo even made a better Sonic Frontiers Trailer than they did.
@Slowdive I understand what you mean but surely there is no excuse for typos regardless of how much time they were given.
Just get a native speaker to proof read it a couple of times.
@kupocake I chuckled when I read your comment.
Atm the only workaround for Tails getting stuck is to play as a character alone. It's utterly ridiculous such issues exist that weren't present in the original games but it's better than nothing I suppose.
Another stark reminder that sonic mania is the best sonic game by a generous margin.
@Crockin eh. I love Sonic mania (a lot) but still think Sonic 3 & Knuckles is the superior game. I've just played through it on emulator this week and it holds up so well. The soundtrack is one of the best of all time, especially Ice Cap Zone.
I'm really enjoying Sonic Origins on Switch and have had no real issues that bothered me in any way. I love it. Its definitely my prefered legal way to play these games.
However, one issue pointed out in the DF video that REALLY bothered me when I watched it yeaterday was that of the Bilinear filtering. I had no idea this was a thing - I've exclusively played on my Switch Lite (I find it much more comfortable and nicer to look at than the bigger Switch) and its not really noticable to me on the small screen.
The comparrison between how clear the pixels are in Mania, and how soft and blurry they are in Origins (because of the implementation of the Retro Engine into the Hedgehog Engine, just for the sake of menus! Grr) would be HUGELY noticable to me if I played on my big TV. I'm the kind of person that has spent thousands on devices like FrameMeister, OSSC, modding consoles, buying expensive cables etc to get the cleanest picture possible. I love crispy pixel images on huge modern tvs. I'm far from the only person who will be very upset by this, there's whole very successful YouTube channels that blew up by decribing exactly he best ways to get the cleanest image possible on old games with new TVs.
I'm very glad that the fans have already managed to fix this with an unofficial mod/patch for PC but this is something that needs to be fixed by Sega immediately. Its literally unforgivable and stupid beyond belief - there is no reason for this to be a thing, its literally caused by them taking a perfect image, then projecting it onto a 3d surface so they could use the 3d engine to program 2d menus. But even using that crazy logic, its a very, very easy fix. I deal with this in my own games ll the time. Just make sure you only use integer scaling (the 424x240 res of RetroEngine ensures this by default!). This silly mistake is also what causes the issue with the beautiful animated scenes playing in the wrong resolution and looking jaggy in the Story mode. Again an easy fix and this should never have been an issue in the first place.
As anyone who's followed all these threads and read my posts will know, I've been extremely excited and positive about Origins and have said nothing but good things about it. I've been super forgiving of all the little niggles and bugs. But this one thing is a huge deal for me. I'll still keep playing on handheld on my Lite and loving it. But it would cause me actual annoyance to the point of not wanting to play in TV mode. glad I didn't pull the trigger on the PC version yet because of Denuvo.
By the sound of it I agree with these sentiments. It's a nice package, but omissions, errors, and inaccuracies make this bundle not worth 45 dollars.
@Olliemar28 30FPS on a MENU is not disappointing. It'd entirely ridiculous to compare a console that is over 5 years old to one that just came out. Let alone comparing a home console to a portable one. You know what's disappointing? Playing Sonic with 30fps menu's on a break at work while your PS5 is under your TV at home not being used.
@RupeeClock
well this aged like milk. frontiers runs great lol
@Cynwit
I'm pretty sure it's still running at 30 FPS below full 1080p on Switch.
But yeah, I have it on Switch too and it actually runs pretty well. The engine itself has some jank to it though.
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