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SAGE 2024 - Demo Sonic 2 Rescue Tails

Overview Reviews (2)

Overview

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Sonic 2: Rescue Tails is a reimagined version of the 8-bit Sonic 2 for the Master system and Game gear, in the style of the 16-bit Megadrive/Genesis Sonic games.

The story is much the same as the original game. Doctor Eggman captures Tails and Sonic has to save him. There are some notable changes, however. We've tried to fit this game in the same timeline of events as the 16-bit Sonic games. Choosing the right place for it was a difficult decision, but we've chosen to place it right after the regular Sonic 2.

In this demo you can play trough 4 zones, each with its own unique mechanics. :
- Underground Zone
- Sky High Zone
- Aqua Lake Zone
- Green Hills Zone
- Bonus: An optional prologue level - Emerald Hill Revisited


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Credits

director and programmer = laiker2003
sprites and level design = sovic91 and sonic the penguin
genesis music = sovic91 and Remixis SG

Additional credits: In addition to the three of us working on the project (Laiker, Sonic the Penguin and Sovic91), we feel it is important to acknoledge the contributions of a few other people who, while not directly involved in the project, have done work that was in some form used in the project:

- Undergound Zone background based on the work of KeatonThFox (https://www.deviantart.com/keatonthfox/art/BG-Underground-Zone-16-bits-511760117)
- Sky High Zone background, as well as Sky High Zone and Green Hills Zone tilesets based on the works of Alex13Art and Kamijou420 (https://www.deviantart.com/alex13art/art/Sky-High-Zone-Sprites-640200960; https://www.deviantart.com/kamijou420/art/Sky-High-Zone-705538167)
- Aqua Lake Zone tileset and act 1 background based on the work of Alex13Art (https://www.deviantart.com/alex13art/art/Aqua-Lake-Zone-Sprites-514473527)
- Signposts made by I-like-Sonic-91 (https://www.spriters-resource.com/custom_edited/sonicthehedgehogcustoms/sheet/226095/)
- And of course, the assets of the game are heavily based on the original 8-bit Sonic 2, as well as various other Sonic games, and for that we have to give credit to Sega and Aspect.

Latest reviews

Dizzy
I decently enjoyed what I played of the game, although there were a few bugs and hiccups during my time. The level design felt fairly linear but still seemed mostly accurate for stages made with Sonic gameplay in mind. One issue I had was with platforms being offscreen, both horizontally and vertically. Most of the time there's just enough indication to realize where to go, but it still feels slightly awkward when preformed. My absolute main complaint is with the bubble segments in Aqua Lake Act 2. I don't know if these segments were lifted one for one from the original, but they feel way too tedious and time consuming to get through. They're pretty much where my playthrough ended (more on that later) I really feel that these need to be reworked.

I thought the pre-existing art matched the vibe of the source levels fairly well (although I must admit, I haven't touched Sonic 2 MS/GG since I first beat it years ago). My main complaint is that I think the backgrounds occasionally look a bit barren, some more detail to match the backgrounds found in Sonic 2 would go a long way. The game could also benefit from some boss music, at least I can't remember any playing during my time.

Now for bugs. The first one I encountered was with the cutscene at the end of Emerald Hill. I lost Tails by the time I reached the end of the level, and when he came flying back into the screen, he was stuck in place, making me stuck in the cutscene. During Aqua Lake 2 Sonic preformed his drowning animation into a controllable bubble, essentially saving me while also removing all audio from the game. And finally, and most important, the time overs don't reset the timer when you die. Since I spent so much time having a skill issue with the bubbles, I got a time over and restarted at the checkpoint.. with only 30 seconds left on the clock. This essentially softlocked me and ended the run.

Overall I did enjoy my time with the game, and if improved I could easily see myself playing it over the original. I think you guys have a really solid base so far and I'm excited to hopefully play more of it in the future. Thank you for the experience!
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Sovic91
Dizzy
Dizzy
AltyTimes
I rage quitted after Sky High Act 2. I wish this had nearly the same amount of polish as, say, Sonic Triple Trouble 16-Bit.

Firstly, the presentation. It looks and plays like a less refined Sonic 2. The game is made in GMate, so it has about the same problems as that engine does, meaning as long as you're in the air, you can speed up infinitely. This becomes a problem when you're trying to do precise platforming, but the game decided that you've been in the air for far too long, so it's time to make you go past the camera.

As for the art, well, nothing to really say about them. They're just ripped from DeviantArt, which isn't bad on its own, but it makes the game have less of its own identity when you don't bother making your own assets. I wish you had picked better tile-sets than people who just upscaled the original tile-sets, cleaned them up, and called it a day. The main problem with the game is just that there is no polish here whatsoever. Very stop-and-go movement with the cutscenes. No easing, tweening, acceleration, friction, or whatever else. It makes the cutscenes, and therefore the game, look a lot more cheap when things just kind of happen for one blip, and then they vanish with no feedback the next. Some particles, screen shake, easing, etc. would be nice. You need to read up on Game Juice courses.

The level design is where things really starts going to shit(which is like...the main part of the game). The game could benefit from widescreen. You expect the player to make lots of leap-of-faith jumps, which often leads to bottomless pits or spikes, something this game LOVES to abuse. They don't make the game more challenging, it just makes the game more annoying to play, especially when this game has a life system. I thought people had gotten rid of life systems by now due to how outdated they are and how much they get in the way, but I guess not.

Edit: Forgot to talk about the music. It's ehh at best, and really bad at worse. The music just sound like cheap Genesis renditions of the original. I swear some of the music were off beat at points as well. There's a ton of great Genesis versions of these tracks on YouTube.

This looked like somewhat of a competent game, but the more I played it, the more I regretted even looking at this booth. If you search up on YouTube, there's a ton of game design courses to look at. I can only hope you do better.
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Sovic91
Very well then. Thanks for the tip.
AltyTimes
AltyTimes
Thanks for the reply!

I do agree with most of what you said here. I will say that, although it was unnecessary to scrub through my account and point out everything I said to back up your critique on me (even thought we should be talking about the game and not me. Cool, I guess?), I do try to sprinkle in some positives where necessary(look at the review I left for Astropod), but you also got to understand not everyone will have nice things to say, and to say that I should make my critiques more like a "sandwich"(quite the American analogy) in order for it to be effective and balanced is kind of...idk, weird? All criticism should be valid and effective and should, at least, be at the back of your mind to consider, especially if enough people are saying the same or similar things.

I'm happy to know that people are listening to me and are actually responding positively, surprisingly!, despite how overtly negative my reviews tend to be. I will try to be more calm about things next time.
AltyTimes
AltyTimes
I really wish I could say something more positive, but I also won't sugarcoat what I want to say. If I am to say something positive, it's going to come from the heart, not out of an obligation. I guess I could say something generic like "I like concept of the project!"(even if it's been done a million times before), but I feel that would be cheating. One positive I can at least say is that thankfully the game isn't a 1 act or 1 zone demo. That's more content than any other Sonic fangame would put out, so props for that!
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Comments

B
The fundamentals of this remake are absolutely solid. I do feel, however, that it retains as many of 8 bit Sonic 2's flaws as it does its qualities.


Some of the enemy placement, particularly in the second stage, feel particularly cruel.


Onto things I do like:


A great effort has obviously been made to retain and adjust numerous of 8bit S2's stage gimmicks and mechanics.

Walking through an empty Emerald Hill the player has already finished is an incredibly neat touch. I do think, however, it might be worth having the cutscene unfold a bit sooner.


Some of the smaller animation florishes are great. I really like the spin animation Sonic does off of a spring.


Super excited to see how this project turns out!
 
Foxeh
So im having trouble with simply trying to play this one.
the moment i boot this game up, it makes my keyboard go crazy and holds the up key until the game is closed.
it's causing the game to be unplayable, and troubles with my computer in general.
 
G
has anybody noticed that theres a track about egg scramble in the files, but no actual egg scramble zone in the game?
 
S
Foxeh said:
So im having trouble with simply trying to play this one.
the moment i boot this game up, it makes my keyboard go crazy and holds the up key until the game is closed.
it's causing the game to be unplayable, and troubles with my computer in general.
Click to expand...
Oh, that's really weird. We've never seen anything like this happening before. Sounds like something very specific on your end is going wrong. I don't really know what could be causing it. If it were a crash, we'd at least have an error message to go off of. I guess there's something we can try. It's got a low probability of actually working, but we might as well try something. Try placing this file (https://www.mediafire.com/file/vuf3p0cbbeymydn/settings.bin/file) in this directory: "C:\Users\UEFI\AppData\Local\Sonic_2_Rescue_Tails"

Replace "UEFI" with whatever your windows username is.

Also, keep in mind the keyboard controls would be set to WASD instead of the arrow keys and the jump is done with the spacebar. Let me know how it goes.
 
S
Bigbeandotgov said:
The fundamentals of this remake are absolutely solid. I do feel, however, that it retains as many of 8 bit Sonic 2's flaws as it does its qualities.


Some of the enemy placement, particularly in the second stage, feel particularly cruel.


Onto things I do like:


A great effort has obviously been made to retain and adjust numerous of 8bit S2's stage gimmicks and mechanics.

Walking through an empty Emerald Hill the player has already finished is an incredibly neat touch. I do think, however, it might be worth having the cutscene unfold a bit sooner.


Some of the smaller animation florishes are great. I really like the spin animation Sonic does off of a spring.


Super excited to see how this project turns out!
Click to expand...

Thanks, the enemy placement is a thing, that we are already working on and we planned to leave some enemies and items in EHZ, since Sonic just could not have got every of them in the normal Sonic 2. This would make EHZ less boring resulting in more fun until the cutscene.
 
S
Bigbeandotgov said:
The fundamentals of this remake are absolutely solid. I do feel, however, that it retains as many of 8 bit Sonic 2's flaws as it does its qualities.


Some of the enemy placement, particularly in the second stage, feel particularly cruel.


Onto things I do like:


A great effort has obviously been made to retain and adjust numerous of 8bit S2's stage gimmicks and mechanics.

Walking through an empty Emerald Hill the player has already finished is an incredibly neat touch. I do think, however, it might be worth having the cutscene unfold a bit sooner.


Some of the smaller animation florishes are great. I really like the spin animation Sonic does off of a spring.


Super excited to see how this project turns out!
Click to expand...
Thank you for your detailed feedback. Indeed the enemy placement is a thing. Sonic has an ability that makes it less cruel, that being that he can curl into a ball mid-air like in Sonic Triple Trouble (8-bit), but we didn't really let players know about it, which was a mistake on our part. We assumed that players would discover it naturally, but not all did.
 
Dizzy
Sovic91 said:
Oh, that's really weird. We've never seen anything like this happening before. Sounds like something very specific on your end is going wrong. I don't really know what could be causing it. If it were a crash, we'd at least have an error message to go off of. I guess there's something we can try. It's got a low probability of actually working, but we might as well try something. Try placing this file (https://www.mediafire.com/file/vuf3p0cbbeymydn/settings.bin/file) in this directory: "C:\Users\UEFI\AppData\Local\Sonic_2_Rescue_Tails"

Replace "UEFI" with whatever your windows username is.

Also, keep in mind the keyboard controls would be set to WASD instead of the arrow keys and the jump is done with the spacebar. Let me know how it goes.
Click to expand...
Wanted to mention that I've also been having a similar issue to this but with controller. It keeps holding up both ingame and in other applications while the game is open, causing my windows to automatically scroll up. I tried replacing the file to the directory and the game is still stuck in looking up, only now in other applications the "W" key is being spammed in text boxes. All of these issues instantly go away when I unplug the controller, and the keyboard controls seem to work fine. I've tested both Xbox and Dualshock controllers and it occurs with both.
 
S
Dizzy said:
Wanted to mention that I've also been having a similar issue to this but with controller. It keeps holding up both ingame and in other applications while the game is open, causing my windows to automatically scroll up. I tried replacing the file to the directory and the game is still stuck in looking up, only now in other applications the "W" key is being spammed in text boxes. All of these issues instantly go away when I unplug the controller, and the keyboard controls seem to work fine. I've tested both Xbox and Dualshock controllers and it occurs with both.
Click to expand...
That is seriously really weird. We need to look into that. Thanks for letting us know, we would have never found it on our own.
 
Dizzy
Sovic91 said:
That is seriously really weird. We need to look into that. Thanks for letting us know, we would have never found it on our own.
Click to expand...
I think I've figured out how to stop it! The issue seems to only occur when launching the game through Steam. Running the .exe by itself has the controller working perfectly.
 
S
Dizzy said:
I think I've figured out how to stop it! The issue seems to only occur when launching the game through Steam. Running the .exe by itself has the controller working perfectly.
Click to expand...
That's really interesting. I wonder what could be causing it.
 
S
I actually logged into my account after eons just to leave a comment because augh. This game is frustrating. The aspect ratio needs to be fixed. Im making nothing but leaps of faith in Sky High and falling off more cliffs because there's nothing to guide me. Literally tried playing it safe and go slow only to roll down a hill, onto a spring, gain momentum which flew me past the hang glider, and straight into a game over. Like what??
 
FireStriker
I'm having the same issue with it holding up. Launching the exe causes it keep pressing Up arrow.
I have tried with controller, without controller and It still does the same.
 
Foxeh
Dizzy said:
Wanted to mention that I've also been having a similar issue to this but with controller. It keeps holding up both ingame and in other applications while the game is open, causing my windows to automatically scroll up. I tried replacing the file to the directory and the game is still stuck in looking up, only now in other applications the "W" key is being spammed in text boxes. All of these issues instantly go away when I unplug the controller, and the keyboard controls seem to work fine. I've tested both Xbox and Dualshock controllers and it occurs with both.
Click to expand...

yeah i've done the same exact thing and gotten the same exact result.
why is the input for up controlling applications outside of the game?
 
Foxeh
Dizzy said:
I think I've figured out how to stop it! The issue seems to only occur when launching the game through Steam. Running the .exe by itself has the controller working perfectly.
Click to expand...
i was never running it through steam though?
but i will try running the game with steam now to see if it makes a difference.

edit: yeah that didn't change anything for me...
 
Dizzy
Foxeh said:
i was never running it through steam though?
but i will try running the game with steam now to see if it makes a difference.

edit: yeah that didn't change anything for me...
Click to expand...
Darn, I'm sorry to hear you're having a different issue from mine. I guess mine was somehow separate despite both controlling outside applications? No clue why it was only happening for me through Steam.
 
FireStriker
Foxeh said:
yeah i've done the same exact thing and gotten the same exact result.
why is the input for up controlling applications outside of the game?
Click to expand...
I think the game is holding the key down for what ever reason and doesn't pause when not in focus. I discovered the issue when i attempted to turn the volume down. Its funny to turn the slider down only for it to slowly go back up.

I was also not playing though stream and closing stream did nothing. Whats weird is that my laptop has no issues. Who knows what causes it
 
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