SAGE 2024 - Demo Sonic 2 Rescue Tails

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!

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.