The Missed Opportunities of Sonic 06 (2025)(isaacmarovitz.com)
51 pointsby ibobev4 hours ago8 comments
  • TazeTSchnitzel32 minutes ago
    > CSM here stands for cascaded shadow maps, the shadow technique used by 06.

    I was curious about the technique, and there's surprisingly detailed documentation here from MSDN of all places: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/dxtecharts/c...

  • minimaxir3 hours ago
    Sonic Adventure 1 is infamous for its lighting/textures successively degrading after each port from Dreamcast -> GameCube -> PC. There's a famous video showcasing all the changes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SORYL5J1Heg
  • valorzardan hour ago
    Ah sonic the hedgehog… My beloved franchise, long since brutally treated by both consumers and the company that owns them. For something that was at one point just as big as Mario, it’s crazy how much insane history and drama has happened to it. I hold out hope I’ll get to see the Sonic SatAM and Sonic the Comic cast again in something, but I highly doubt it. At least the IDW comics seem to be doing pretty well (although the fans get really weird and parasocial about Ian Flynn and Evan Stanley)
    • jerfan hour ago
      Is there anything else that has both risen and fallen as far? It's not like every (mainline) Mario game is blasting it out of the park, but he has certainly been more consistent overall. I've lost track of the number of times Sonic is over... and then he comes back with some modest amount of success... and then fades... and then comes back. And who would have guessed perhaps the first truly successful video game movie franchise, of all things?
    • kridsdale1an hour ago
      I recall reading web fiction in the mid 90s (I was like 10) about the Sonic Comics characters. Parasocial is a super polite way to put it.
  • LarsDu883 hours ago
    Yuji Naka really fell off hard after Sonic Adventure 2 and commercial failures of Sega's hardware endeavors as a whole. Went from being Sega's golden child, to being arrested for securities fraud.

    Allegedly he was extremely difficult to work with and would not share the Night's 3d game engine with an American team that was developing a 3d Sonic game for the Sega Saturn, effectively kneecapping a big part of that console's commercial viability

  • rjh29an hour ago
    Interesting, the author is recompiling the Xbox game to PC, and complaining about the poor graphics of the final version.

    IMO the gameplay and glitches are a significantly bigger problem. One Argentinian decided to take a different approach, rebuilding the game from scratch in Unity despite having no prior programming knowledge. It's called Project 06 (or P-06) and it's almost complete.

    • sunaookamian hour ago
      Sonic 06 can maybe be fixed at a technical level but not at gameplay level, yeah. Tortured myself by playing it through it twice and when you do know how to handle the game (don't do XY or the game freaks out, avoid jumping here, don't touch the analogue stick here...) a few Sonic parts can be quiet enjoyable but the rest of the game is such a shitshow. I even played ALL of the side quests for Sonic's part and it was one of the worst experiences I've ever had in a videogame. It's interesting to read about the development and people trying to "fix" it though.
  • cachius3 hours ago
    What are the target FPS and where do they know from?
    • bayindirhan hour ago
      It's a console title, so they have standards. I don't have the exact number but I believe it's 60FPS.
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