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SAGE 2024 - Demo Project 32X - Sonic Mars (Final Demo)

Overview Reviews (3)

Overview

WARNING: IF THE GAME GIVES YOU A BLACK/WHITE SCREEN, UPDATE YOUR DRIVERS, AS THE GAME USES AN GLSL FILTER FOR THE LOW RESOLUTION EFFECT.

Project 32X - Sonic Mars is a revival project of the Sonic Mars/Sonic 32X projects, everything being completely based on the original design documents, concept arts and concept animations

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Main Plot:
While Sonic is away checking on a security alarm in a remote part of the Great Forest, his pals (Sally, Bunnie, Tails and Knuckles) have discovered a strange message from within one of Robotnik's super computers.

(Dr. Robotnik is trying to take over a computer VR world (Micro Mobius) and the message is a plea for help from its peaceful inhabitants.)


Sonic returns to Knothole to discover that Robotnik has captured his friends and taken them into his VR world.


Sonic is tasked with trying to liberate his friends and thwart Robotnik's plan to completely "reformat" Micro Mobius.


Gameplay:
The gameplay of the game consists on a 3rd Person View of Sonic (no camera turning) where you can freely go around and explore the level until you reach the end of it, each Zone has 2 Acts and a Boss, after the Boss, you will "Free" one of the 5 unlockable playable characters, each one with their own abilities that can be used in the levels to find secrets

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Controlls: WASD to Walk and Run, If you hold "U" while running you will walk slowly without any momentum, and if you hold "I" you will Jog, still not a full run;

If you press "O" you will change the camera mode from a far camera with the HUD, to a no HUD closer camera;

If you hold and then release the "J" button, you will do a Spin Dash, hold it for more time to do a faster spin;

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This demo will contain only 2 (better saying one and a half) of the planned final 8 Zones for the game

Updates

Log #01 (13/08/2024): Page created, trailer first submitted, still no build attached (will be at August 15th).
Log #02 (15/08/2024): Early, W.I.P (but playable) build submitted.
Log #03 (05/09/2024): Not as complete as I wanted, but final build submitted

Latest reviews

Starturbo
While graphically this is a clear step-up from the previous demos, as far as gameplay this demo honestly felt rather frustrating and buggy. I do like that levels seem to have more going on now, but due to how narrow the paths are I found it easy to fall off.

As for the bugs I encountered, these included being able to launch yourself way up in the air particularly with the spindash which I can't imagine is intentional, getting stuck in geometry (once soft-locking the game), sometimes falling off the level for longer than intentional (causing Sonic's model to separate), and one time the effects from killing badniks reappeared after the level is reset.

Another thing I noticed is that the ability to rotate the camera was removed, and I honestly have to wonder why? I get that it may not have been possible at a stable framerate on the actual 32X, but I feel the goal here likely is (and should be) to make something that FEELS like it could run on 32X, rather than be 100% hardware accurate. Seems like a feature that could lessen some frustration and (unless I'm missing something here) was ultimately harmless at worst, not to say it's outright required either and I get that you can now zoom the camera in at least.

One last thing that I feel like pointing out is that the the music (particularly the title theme) honestly sounds worse to me compared to before, mainly in terms of instrumentation. And I know some people criticized the music in the past, but I honestly didn't mind it and feel that the new music sounds less accurate to the 32X. Which again this game doesn't need to be entirely hardware accurate, but I'd argue the music should at least be close. Maybe I'm in the minority here as far as not liking it as much, but I don't know.

Hope I don't come off as way too negative here since I do seriously like this project, and have enjoyed seeing it progress over time. This should all be fixable stuff plus I did at least have some fun with this new demo, so keep at it and I'm sure this will be a really fun and unique Sonic fan game once it's done!
R
RetroDev
Well, did you see the last update on the build that is shown on the page itself? That says: "Not as complete as I wanted, but final build submitted"? And about the camera, there was simply no proper way of including It in a "Genesis Controller Like" setup, and It simply wasn't needed anymore because they Level Design was now adapted to rarely have câmera facing paths, and about the narrow paths, first Sonic's Collision Box is a Lot bigger than himself, and also, you can hold U and I to go slower, and about the music, in reality I tried replicating the instruments from GEMS, simply because Sonic Mars was made at the same time almost all American Genesis/32X games were using GEMS for the soundtrack.
Starturbo
Starturbo
Yeah I did see that update though felt like reviewing the game as it is, I still probably should have mentioned that though. The thing with the camera makes sense and is kinda what I figured after posting my review, although the standard Genesis controller only has 3 buttons so I assume this is taking into account the 6 button controller as well.

I know you can hold those buttons to go slower, although personally I don't think the game should be designed so that's mandatory, but to be fair it doesn't quite seem to be the case. As for the music making it sound like GEMS makes sense, though I'd still say it doesn't quite sound accurate enough, at least in my opinion.

Again, wasn't trying to be overly harsh so I'm sorry if this came across that way, I just want this game to turn out the best it can. There's likely only so much you can do for a game based on Sonic Mars, but still I see a lot of potential here and for what it's worth the visuals are just about perfect now I'd say.
misterio______
Pretty solid game, the addition of the slowdown buttons are really useful on some parts due to the tight level design
The lack of explanating for the bossfight at first was kinda confusing, but pretty easy to understand the second time i played it
The enemies are pretty well designed, but i think stuff like the spider badnik feels a bit unfinished design wise
I overall enjoyed the demo and looking forward to the full game
Roknadal
Hey. Just finished the game and I got to say it's really great. the movement is solid and really glad that you added a button to slow down sonic since the levels are a little tight. I just wish there was like a bigger space for sonic to move around. BTW a weird bug I saw was that after you break the ring box and you die, the cloud that comes out of it stays there for a while. also, the spindash+ jump is OP. overall love the game! :)
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R
RetroDev
I didn't thought people would really like this demo, mostly because of how rushed It was, but still, I'm grateful you liked It and thanks for playing!
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Comments

Jaco4126
While the game itself looks cool from what I've seen, I'm having issues running the game on my steam deck. When I open the game, the sega animation plays and i'm greeted to a plain blue screen. I can reach the first level, but my view is one solid color. (for clarity sake, im using ge-proton9-13, a windows compatibility layer for linux)
 
R
There is one issue I have so far with the game. The keybindings. WASD for movement is simple enough. But then you have I and U for movement control, L for jump and J for spindash while K is a random ring toss(don't know what that's for). The keybindings just feel.. odd in that way.
 
R
Jaco4126 said:
While the game itself looks cool from what I've seen, I'm having issues running the game on my steam deck. When I open the game, the sega animation plays and i'm greeted to a plain blue screen. I can reach the first level, but my view is one solid color. (for clarity sake, im using ge-proton9-13, a windows compatibility layer for linux)
Click to expand...
This game isn't supposed to be played on a Steam Deck, mostly because of It's use of some GLSL Filters
 
AortaPlatinum
Yeah this is about the quality I'd expect from an American-developed 32X game. Looks cool as fuck tho, impressive that games can be made entirely in Blender like this.
 
Eyzmaster
This is pretty darn good. It really feels like a missing scrapped 32X Sonic game.
It also reminds me a lot of BUG! on the Saturn. Like a strange parallel branch of the series if Sega didn't move Sonic Mars to the Saturn as Sonic Xtreme (then cancelled it), we'd have gotten this simpler 3D platformer like BUG! later on.
I like it.
I'd love to see it running on actual 32X hardware, but I feel like this is way too much for it.
 
N
Haha yes I was thinking of BUG! a lot when playing this game. Buug Juuuuice! Makes you wonder if that game really did have some sort of start as Sonic Mars.

The game is really well designed. Faithful graphics, nostalgic sounds, and the SatAM universe.
What a treat to see those characters. I look forward to play as them.

Is the ring attack an unimplemented feature? Couldnt seem to do any damage with them.

Also at first I thought I was just pissing the boss off by jumping on him, and kept hoping that I was actually doing damage. Maybe add Sonic Spinball hit sound like the regular enemies.

Other than that, great work!


Eyzmaster said:
This is pretty darn good. It really feels like a missing scrapped 32X Sonic game.
It also reminds me a lot of BUG! on the Saturn. Like a strange parallel branch of the series if Sega didn't move Sonic Mars to the Saturn as Sonic Xtreme (then cancelled it), we'd have gotten this simpler 3D platformer like BUG! later on.
I like it.
I'd love to see it running on actual 32X hardware, but I feel like this is way too much for it.
Click to expand...
 
MeyerGames
A vast improvement over last year's build. The winding paths are my favorite thing about the new approach to the level design. They help separate this from Crash Bandicoot by a country mile.

My only serious critique is that if you take a path involving crumbling platforms, they don't respawn when you die, so you're locked out of that path for the rest of the playthrough.
 
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