Sega "Working On Fixing A Variety Of Issues" In Sonic Origins

I’ve played Sonic Origins for 45 hours and the only issue I experienced was the Tails not de-spawning glitch, which only happened once and only lasted for about 20 seconds.
That being said, I’m so glad that they’ve officially announced patches are coming for issues others have experienced, they haven’t abandoned us like some thought.

@Pandy-the-Panda same, I honestly don't know what issues there are?
My only complaint is the music on Sonic 3.

@Pandy-the-Panda That has been the main bug I've been experiencing too. But I also once got soft locked in Sonic 3 and this weird thing happened in Sonic cd where I got stuck above the zone and could just run to the end.

I have been really enjoying Sonic Origins and the cool system of earning extra tries at bonus games etc instead of lives that you can run out of. I think all the shortcomings will not be apparent to the average player.

I'm glad to see Sega is coming out with patches for this game. I was starting to think they were just gonna leave it the way it was with all the glitches. Still though, I don't feel like this completely excuses the state they released it in.

Honestly id feel better if they enlisted Headcannons help. I played the full play through from Sonic 1 through Sonic 3K and there's just way too many bugs and oversights that it felt like an actual chore (e.g. Constantly slowing myself down in Carnival Night Act 2 as the camera doesnt keep up and expecting to die of screen). Not to mention just wierd and annoying design choices (not being able to restart Sonic CD time attack special stages).

I just dont feel that the SEGA dev team would really delve in and provide the amount of polish it deserves. I hope they prove me wrong but what we got was very disappointing to me.

The one issue I did notice is that it's just a tiny bit blurry, and I'm playing on the OLED. It's very minor but doesnt quite have the crispness of other versions. Anyone else notice this? Compare it to the Genesis collection versions on Switch.

I really want to like it... and I do... but I'd be lying if I said the compilation doesn't have absolutely tons and tons of issues. Most of the issues I have with it are not necessarily bugs (although the Tails bug in Sonic 2 is absolutely ridiculous), instead most of them have more to do with the interface and presentation in general, as well as seemingly poor design decisions and a total lack of polish and integration into the collection as a whole.

For example, the graphics are already less sharp than I would prefer, but to make things worse, I can't apply that nice, sharp CRT filter like what Sonic Mania has. Instead, the only option is to make it even more blurry, and honestly just horrible looking! And yeah, those borders for 4:3/Classic mode might be nice, but it sure would be nice to change the border in-game, and better yet, set a different border to be used for each game! And yes, the widescreen Anniversary modes look great--how about an option to start the games in 16:9 with the "lives/continue" system though? And in Sonic 1 Classic mode, why is the spin dash enabled by default? I sure don't remember that feature. Sure, seems like a simple oversight, but it's all the little things (and holy crap this game has a lot of them) that add up and tarnish any polish this collection should have. Personally, I think that if they can't even get the "classic" versions right, then they should have just stuck the ROMs on there and run them with a good quality emulator. But of course they can't do that with S3&K--because the original retail ROM has music by Michael Jackson.

Also, the games' save system--except S3&K's--just sucks. They removed the save systems from the original Christian Whitehead releases and replaced them with what I'm sure they intended to be a "unified" save system across games. Only problem: It sucks, it only allows one save per character, and good luck remembering where you were in Sonic 2 with Sonic and Tails or just Sonic alone, and never mind the tons of other possible character/game combinations. And why are my only options when starting a game to continue or start new, then when it sees old data it asks if I'm really sure I want to start a new game instead of continuing with the currently-saved data for that character?

But wait, there's more! I never even intended to save that data in the first place anyway, so why does it have to bug me every time I want to start a new game when the game autosaves and it decided to save the second it dropped me into Green Hill Zone? Why can't I delete that data myself, turn off autosave and save manually if I really, truly want to? The save system is just terrible--at least S3&K still has its original (and far superior) save system.

And how about the menu system layout? I could raise plenty of complaints but I'll just leave it at these few things: First, Why are the options under Museum, of all places? Second, why the hell can't I access at least some options--global and per-game--within the games themselves? This would especially make sense for certain global settings and settings for the current game. And Sonic CD still has its old settings in-game. In theory Sonic CD's options being accessible is not a bad thing, but they did absolutely NOTHING to make them fit into the collection. In fact, the way they changed the title screen while keeping the menus themselves in that game makes it stick out like a sore thumb. Not pleasant, and just reeks of laziness, not just artistically, but in terms of coding and integration.

OMG, this compilation just has so many things wrong with its presentation--and it's sad too, because I really see so much positive about it. I would love to see Sega fix all these issues and the tons more that there are. There are tons of reviews on YouTube featuring constructive criticism as well, and in many cases, the reviewers make very good points.

Come on Sega, get to work! Make this already pretty-good compilation the amazing, truly-definitive way to enjoy these games! Now that you took away newer players' ability to purchase certain digital versions of these games, it's up to you to make these versions at least as good as the originals, if not even better.

Honestly I am most impressed with S3&K--you can really tell here that Stealth's work has gone relatively untouched (in other words Sega hasn't gone and really screwed S3&K up when integrating Stealth's work into the compilation like they did the others). It's just unfortunate that they had to go and have Jun screw up some of the prototype and other music so badly. Christian Whitehead's original releases were great; yeah, they're aging now, but it's unfortunate to see Sega make changes that make them worse instead of better, and put so little effort into making them feel like a truly cohesive part of this package.

Between Sega not paying up for the OST and the bug issues, my excitement dropped off. Sega should have have given this a top notch effort, but they clearly cut a few too many corners

SEGA feel like a really cheap brand these days.

@Pointy59 It's an issue with the collection itself. The collection runs at Sonic Mania's Soft Pixel setting, and it results in the games looking blurry. Sharp pixels would fix the issue you're talking about, and was modded in on the PC version within a few days of launch.

The first 5 posts sound like damage control from Sega lmfao!

"We heard that modder cancelled his project because of the state the game's in so we're gonna make it easier for him!"

@BloodNinja yeah I thought the same. Some crazy fanboyism going on here

I hope so. The collection is so close to being good that it’s frustrating.

@BloodNinja
That’s what a significant percentage of the fanbase has turned into, it’s why Sega releases these games in the states they do, remember last year when they created a narrative that Colors Ultimate’s infamous glitches were the results of emulators and malicious hackers?

I just dont understand why there are so many problems with games which were originally on the 16 bit Mega Drive. Hopefully it is all patched and properly finished when they finally create the physical. But with all the random bad mouthing, they might not.
Well who am I kidding? Of course they will for all the Sonic fan boys who need to buy all the different copies for Sonic 1 (like me )

Paying for inferior versions of 15 year old games than the roms you can easily emulate on toasters? Silly times we live in.

@SalvorHardin I do remember that

@relinqued Indeed!!

Save states please.

@Thorhax
Either they need to remake it, or get permission from DJ Spindash to use his.

to be honest, it's not that this version sucks that annoys me the most... it's that they delisted the actual good versions from Steam in favour of this sucky version. If they would just undo that then things'd be fine.

If the team had been listening it wouldn't have released in such a state!

@Thorhax mainly stuff that can be only recognized by HC fans

I Don't get what people are expecting them to fix. I've played the original releases to death and didn't notice one thing wrong with origins other than what can't be helped. Unless they wanna restore the butchered sonic 3 music what is the problem?

What a world. A collection of a bunch 25 year old games and they've got to patch it for bugs.

I’ve really enjoyed this game and don’t really understand the complaints in pricing. However, I wish Sonic CD was replaced by 4. Or Mania. But as a fan of 4, I wish that got more attention.

I guess the point was CD underwhelmed. Cool premise, but how it was executed took away from the gameplay. Probably won’t return to it after a single play through.

Honestly thought it was excellent. Very few issues for myself. I did get the Tails jumping constantly glitch a few times in 2 though so I'm glad to see that will probably be fixed soon.

I've been playing Sonic Origins on the PS4 and I've been having a great time with it! The games are just as fun to play as I remember them, and nothing has happened that ruins the experience at all.

I think some of Sonic Origin's biggest critics are missing one key aspect about the game that should be reminded: It was made for the NEW generation of Sonic fans, and the new players I believe aren't gonna be so picky about the small details compared to other versions. If they're gonna patch out some of the imperfections, that's great, but I feel the majority of people who have been harsh on this game are older or veteran Sonic players. The real target audience of this game are those discovering the old games for the first time, and they deserve a good Sonic play experience without the ire of older players making countless tweets and YouTube videos ripping this game to shreds.

From my experience on the PS5 version, there were some issues I would like fixed for these to be the best versions of the games:
Remove roll jump locking in Sonic 1&2 (the reason why you can't drop dash in one direction, jump, then drop dash in the other direction)
Fix Tails' AI in Sonic 2
Fix speed issues with Sonic 3 & Knuckles (going too fast in certain conditions compared to original)
Drop Dashing on top of one of the dormant Super Emeralds in Hidden Palace softlocks the game
Remove blur from all games' visuals

And this is more of a suggestion than a bug, but add Max Control Sonic, because it makes no sense for him to forget how to do the Super Peel-Out, and at that point, you can add the Insta-Shield to 1, 2 and CD. Also, playable Knuckles in Sonic CD.

Rewind feature or Save and load state are essential. I got only the water level on sonic 1, died at the boss and then got back to the checkpoint with NO RINGS! How the heck am i supposed to beat a level that's about going all the way up (with a bunch of enemies) without rings? It's just frustrating

@UltraZelda64 I agree with you on the Sonic CD menu presentation feeling a little outdated, but I strongly disagree with you about the save system.
The save system is rather brilliant. It's actually the save system in S&K3 that's outdated. Why do I like the new save system? It requires ZERO management from the player. You can jump in and out of games quickly and jump between characters quickly. In Sonic 3, you have to manage this system. For example, "Hmmm...I've used all the save files in Sonic 3, but I want to start a new game. Okay which one to delete? Which one was I even playing last? Okay can't just write over the save file. Have to go here and first delete it. Am I sure? Okay I'll delete this one. Okay now go here and start new game." The point is it takes time to manage Sonic 3 saves more than the other games.

@zap-switch You weren't softlocked. That was one of Eggman's speed traps!

@Pandy-the-Panda Same here. I beat the whole story mode on Xbox and the only glitch was what I thought was a sound glitch and it was Tails getting stuck playing as Sonic and Tails. The rest was perfectly fine although additional filters, a sharper filter specifically, would be a welcome addition. The saving system is perfect as it is.

@Pointy59 In the Digital Foundry video, they explain that Sonic Mania has a sharper filter. Also, make sure to turn anti-aliasing off in the settings to make Sonic Origins look better. I hope that the sharp filter is part of the update because, yes, I also noticed the video a little soft.

@zap-switch Did this happen in Metallic Madness Zone 2? If it was, you can do that in the mobile port as well if you super peel out on the things that can launch you very high. I view it as more of a speedrun strat!

@benmalsky198 small details? Christ man, Sega butchered this release and rubbed salt into the wound by delisting far superior versions first. There are countless videos online and a very in-depth post about the multitude of issues in this very thread. Either take your head out of the sand, or work on your PR spin work for Sega my dude.

Fix the issues, put all the games on a cartridge, and then you'll get my money. ^_^

@Jawessome Dude, please relax. We all have our opinions, and it’s okay to like this game.

@Jawessome No matter what anyone says, this will be peoples’ point of entry to the army Sonic games, and they’re not going to be angry, they’re gonna have a good time because the games themselves are still fun.

@Jawessome People deserve to play whatever games they want without anyone online telling them what to do or what to think. No amount of videos or articles are going to stop anyone from playing any Sonic game they want, and Sonic is not going anywhere no matter what they say.

I really, REALLY hope there are other people besides me who are playing Sonic Origins and liking it. Who understands it’s target audience and isn’t being the negative antsy Sonic fans tend to be stereotyped to be. Please, show me that I’m not alone!

The funny thing is that this collection shows a ton more love and effort than Super Mario 3D Almost-All-Stars, that I also pre-ordered.

The teams listening BUUUUUUUUUUUUUT the team wasn't really THINKING when they let blind squirrel games Ruin sonic colors ultimate and is still in pretty bad shape

Hopefully they'll get that DENUVO crap out of the PC version at some point. Till then, I'm perfectly content with playing these on a raspberry pi like a filthy pirate.

I don't know if it's a quirk of the original games or just of this collection, but one thing I wish would get fixed is me getting crushed by things that are moving in the wrong direction to crush you. Like I'll be running under a moving pillar that's moving upwards, and somehow it gets registered as a crush. It's mostly happened in Sonic 3. Very irritating when it does happen.

@benmalsky198 You're definitely not alone. I've never been a diehard Sonic fan, but I do really like the classic games. I wasn't even aware of the negativity before I looked at articles like this. And by that time I'd already put like 45 hours into the collection.

Im still holding off on this collection until its on sale. Then i'll probably get it on Steam for...reasons.

"Earlier this week, a Sonic Origins modder announced they would be halting development on their project after venting their frustrations online about the game's bugs and DRM. A Sonic Origins contributor also previously shared their own thoughts about the current state of the compilation."

(suggestion of a different version of this part of this article: Earlier this week, a Sonic Origins modder had announced a decision to stop being one after announcing frustrations about bugs and DRM related to it publicly (note: a contributor to it had publicized comments about it before then))

@haruhi4 I remember struggling with the Labyrinth Zone boss when I was 10 back in '91 because I thought you had to defeat Robotnik. You don't; just get to the top by climbing and avoiding the obstacles. Deceptively easy.

Unless most of these bugs are fixed there's no way I'm paying for this collection when I can play the original games on my Chromecast..

@thinkhector That's the thing though. I like to manage my own saves. I know what I am doing. Origins autosaves as soon as you get in a level--Sonic 3 allows you to start a game with no save if you want. And just because I started a game of Sonic 2 with Knuckles, it remembers that and wants to put me back in Emerald Hill Zone or wherever I last made it to, whenever I want to get back into Sonic 2 as Knuckles, even if I don't want anything to do with the old save data. Say no, new game, then the second you get dropped into Emerald Hill Zone again it's already saved another new unwanted file, and the cycle repeats... and repeats. It is beyond annoying. How about NO NEW SAVE FILES unless I simply ask for them? Sounds simple but it would really go a long way.

S3&K gives me a bunch of save files, which I can organize and delete as I see fit, and doesn't limit me to one save file per character, unlike the rest of Origins. I am free to save, or not. I personally prefer in most games not to save--after all, the original classics had no save systems, and personally I'd rather it not save unless I specifically ask for it to.

@OwenGamer22 Yeah it was Metallic Madness Zone. I don't remember what act but I guess it was act 2 if that's where you say this glitch comes from. That's interesting to see that it carried over from the mobile port.

Nice that they're listening, hopefully after the fix we could see a physical release soon.

Ah yes, the "I don't experience the issues people have, so it must be your end" posts

@benmalsky198 there’s a difference between enjoying a game and holding a company to account especially if the same company intentionally removed all previous digital copies of said games included in the collection to force people to buy this one.

Accepting this lazy, broken port for anything less than what it is simply lowers the bar and tells Sega it’s okay to deliver subpar content. We all deserve better - especially gamers that are new to this era.

@Jawessome It’s not completely unplayable you know.

@Jawessome It’s clearly not exactly “lazy” given the incredible new animated cutscenes and the the work that went into making the museum.

@Jawessome Look, I really don’t know what to do or say that will make things better, what do you want to do, just fly to Japan and tell them what it is that you want, only to discover it’s a lot more complicated and not so black and white?? You can’t handle my optimistic attitude? Too bad. I’ll always look on the bright side of things, and no angry Sonic fans will change that.

Even if this takes a year to make it to physical like Sonic Mania did, it will probably still be the buggy mess it is now.

@benmalsky198
You spent nearly 10 minutes making multiple reply’s to one single reply I wouldn’t describe your attitude as “optimistic”.
@MidySeaCloud
Bingo! I think they’ve finally gotten wise how a certain segment of their audience will not only let them get away with anything but they’ll also actively defend them and create false narratives to do so like “Colors Ultimate wasn’t rushed and buggy all those glitches are emulators and hackers”, “Frontiers debut gameplay wasn’t debut gameplay it was an “environment showcase” (don’t ask me what they mean by this but it’s somehow meant to excuse how awful it was)” and “Origins wasn’t made for veteran fans that’s why it has lots of bizarre bugs that weren’t in the mobile ports this game’s ports are based off of”, they also hate hate hate YouTubers and will never fail to mention this.

@thinkhector Also, I have to add: If Sonic Origins' save setup were so great, then why would not only Sonic Mania, but also even Headcannon with the Sonic 3 & Knuckles in Sonic Origins decide to use the original Sonic 3/S&K/S3&K save method? And even then, why would the original tried-and-true Christian Whitehead releases of the original Sonic games (Sonic 1 & Sonic 2) on Android also use basically the same exact save method? Hint: Because it works... and it works well.

@BloodNinja Look, why wouldn't the "ultimate" Sonic collection have bugs and issues not present in the versions of the games it's supposed to supercede? Lol

I can see where they're coming from because it's not unplayable. But it just flies completely in the face of what SEGA is trying to position this version of the games as definitive, so definitive that they'd delist previous releases in advance.

It just shows a general lack of care from SEGA, they don't care if the so-called definitive release of old games have more problems than the originals. So what else don't they care about?

@UltraZelda64 Completely disagree. I have the original Christian Whitehead Remakes of Sonic 1, Sonic 2, and Sonic CD. And the save system is clunky. The beautiful think about Sonic Origins is the SPEED at which you can jump in and out of modes whichout having to manage any of it. I go into the old Christian Whitehead games, I can't remember why I saved any particular game, but all my slots are used up so I have to delete one before starting. Sonic 3 and Knuckles has double the save slots, and once you fill them all up, (and you will), you are not going to remember why you saved any of them, if you stop playing for a couple of weeks. Just look how quickly you can jump from playing Anniversary Mode Sonic 2, and then your suddenly playing Sonic CD Classic mode, like that. Then you go to Sonic 3 & Knuckles and everything comes to a grinding halt as you have to decide which file to delete before you can play. Sonic 3 Knuckles save system is there just because that's how the game was. Putting two save systems into Sonic 3 would have been clunky. I don't think it was the right choice though and they should have unified the new save system.

I'd play it for lower price point

@MetalGear_Yoshi *30 year old.

@SalvorHardin Sorry, I guess “defensive” is a more descriptive word.

@thinkhector I am in total disagreement and I personally believe that your reasoning is totally bonkers, but I'll just leave it at that.

The speed and flow is actively hampered for me every single time I want to load a game, because in the originals, I virtually never want to continue anything. I almost always want to start fresh with a new game, but this collection forces me to jump through hoops after literally telling it "new game" to confirm that "yes, I want a NEW GAME" before I can even jump in. Again, a no-save mode or manual save/turn off autosave combined with a manual game save deletion option would resolve ALL of this by making all of the games work effectively the way they did decades ago.

So you would rather have to micromanage a bunch of save across 4 different games? Have to manually delete a game every time you wanted to play? Go thru and decide which one to delete? And then start a new save file? There are just many more steps involved with that instead of just pushing a button twice?

@benmalsky198 Or I don't know, there are real problems with this release that are very unnaceptable?

@Zach Tails spamming jumping sounds and emeralds progress resetting in the middle of the game would be very noticeable, trust me

I’ve played 50 hours on Nintendo Switch, anybody claiming Sonic Origins is unplayable have either played the very unpredictable drm ridden PC version or haven’t played the game at all.
The console versions are nowhere near unplayable and SEEM to have absolutely nothing gamebreaking at all, however the Tails no respawn glitch gets very annoying. I’m aware that Emeralds and checkpoints CAN become disabled, but people who had that happen (including me) have said that reloading the save file restores them.
Most console version issues SEEM (I’m not a professional) easy to fix, so hopefully most things can be eliminated. It would also be great if the drop dash in Sonic 1 & 2 were fixed in this patch too, don’t know how that got messed up when the more simple Sega Ages releases did it completely right.

@ArchRex Not ones that make the games completely unplayable.

@Pandy-the-Panda There has to be a logical reasoning, and I’m sure someone will explain exactly what happened.

@zap-switch I think they'd have gotten even more flak had they delayed the game past Sonic's birthday, since the issues can be addressed via patches.

"No, you can't ruin Sonic's birthday for me! Just patch it later!"