All the S@nics - the end

[Le Neveu de Rameau]

Oh, so that's where that TSRP2R background comes from.

[Awoo]

Yeah, those special stages are... quite a thing!

One thing that kind of irks me about the US soundtrack is the way the "stage clear" theme goes. Like, it starts, goes for a little bit, starts again, and then ends. Why does it have that weird interlude? I'm probably being way too nit-picky here, but, is it just me?

Fun Sonic Trivia time!

Apparently there was a weird tech demo for the Saturn that used the music from the original Quartz Quadrant's Good Future

[Grounder]

sonicgetout.jpg (21.27 KiB) Viewed 4022 times

pure bullshit, that is

[Sebby19]

Congratulations on the 4th Time Stone.

One notable difference for the original PC version is the loading times. Every time you time warp, or just beat the stage, there would be a loading screen you would have to stare at. While loading times sucks, you do get to see the little planet all at once.

[raocow]

man, and I'm already finding the time warping experience less than seamless

[raocow]

double posting to say, looking at the thumbnail, that ac snail is a real cutie

[Piesonscreations]

Whilst one would think that time traveling would take shape in playing like the newer boost sonics, it's actually all about becoming a Perpetual Sonic Machine

[Reecer7]

it's infuriating how much you have to actively fight against a mechanic which by all accounts should be cool and incredibly fun. i don't think this game was designed. at least in regards to gameplay.

[Sugar]

man, and I'm already finding the time warping experience less than seamless

Yeah, the time warping animation is supposed to hide the loading times, but it can only do so much what with Sega CD having 1X speed (150 KB/s). This isn't a cartridge.

[Bean]

Quartz Quadrant is the whatever zone/round/whatever they want to call the areas in this game to me. Not much going on here other than conveyors and occasional stalactites.

[Sonic CD Special Stage Pro Tips]
1) Jump earlier than you think you need to for the UFOs. Sonic's hang time is greater in those for whatever reason.

2) Don't be afraid to use the fans. They're perfect for both flying above dangerous spots and popping those targets.

3)

The UFOs have set flight patterns in their special stages. Figure them out, and you'll have an easier time.

[10204307]

Funky Sonic fax!

A lot of people don't know this, but when developing this game, Sega actually forced a neural network to play over 1000 hours of Sonic 1 and 2, and then used it to procedurally generate all of the levels in Sonic CD. So next time you find yourself thinking, "Wow, these levels are really counter-intuitively designed and don't seem to accommodate the time-traveling mechanics at all," remember: that little robot was just trying its best, okay?!

[Ashan]

So even putting aside how these levels don't seem to be made in a way that incentivizes use of the time travel mechanic that's the main theme of this game -- what even is the point of the future at all? I get that there's a bad future by default, and you can travel to the past and destroy the machine to make a good future, but is there any reason to actually go to the future once the machine is destroyed in the past? You'd have to screw around finding future signs and places to build speed just so you can see a different tileset? Why would you do that?

[10204307]

The Good Future is theoretically easier since it doesn't have any enemies, but it takes so much effort to get there from the past that it really isn't worth it. If you manage to get all of the time stones early in the game, you could go to the future right away at the start of each act in order to bypass some of the difficulty, but getting the time stones is already pretty difficult, and in a lot of the levels you have to go out of your way to find a good place to time travel.

[Leet]

If you're not going for breaking all the machines or whatever, the time travel thing can be just a fun cool thing on its own merits, like when you're a kid and such

[Crow]

can confirm i thought the time travel was rad even when i was Child and didn't know about the machines at all

[10204307]

It's cool conceptually, and seeing the zones in different time periods is genuinely very interesting, especially since the game has great music and aesthetics. The problem is that because it's so hard to do, it really makes you only want to do it when there's an actual reward for doing so (ie, getting the good ending of the game). The mechanic itself is fine, but the execution is flawed. If you were to make a Sonic game with a time travel mechanic that works entirely identically to how it works in Sonic CD but with better level design to accommodate it, that game could actually be really good, provided the zones were equally as interesting.

[Blivsey]

I liked the idea of making them like Sonic 2 special stages, having star circles appear above the Past/Future signs if you fulfill a certain requirement (one that isn't a hassle to do while playing normally).

Maybe 20-30 rings as fare? Having it cut into your Ring supply would give you a minor dilemma between using your Rings to search for generators or saving them for the end of the stage to try for the Time Stone.

[Ashan]

It's too bad they put all that time and effort into making 4 variations of the stage but never came up with a good gameplay excuse to get you to see them. I could see a kid wanting to see the good future for every level so they took the time to do that just cause you want to see a version of the level you haven't seen before, but after that it's like... why bother?

[BobisOnlyBob]

Honestly, there's one shockingly simple fix you could make.

Remove the present. Start in Bad Future, with lots of enemies; only Past signs, replace current Future signs with enemies or environmental hazards. Likewise, the past has plenty of Future signs, which are both traps if you're not ready to return yet, or useful for navigating. Finally, replace the GOAL signs in the past with Future signs - Levels can only be exited in the Future state, whether Good or Bad. This encourages players to see the ramifications of their actions or lack thereof, and still encourages both speedy playthroughs and explorative playthroughs alike.

[Crow]

# of hits bosses have taken, up to this point:

Palmtree Panic: 3
Collision Chaos: 3
Tidal Tempest: 1

Let's see how this trend continues!

Quartz Quadrant: 1 (?) does it count if it doesn't make him flash

[Sebby19]

So while the previous boss I think is the most unique and best one... today's boss I think is the worst one in the entire game.

Next.
Wait, no, I know what's next. Crud.

[Grounder]

[Super Llama]

C O M E D Y

Also that boss was a neat concept, but like every other boss in this game just feels half-baked.

Also music time

And two of my favorite Temporal Duality tracks

[Piesonscreations]

The camera pans back.

[Leet]

This is why I won't watch raocow on the Switch since I can't find a way to get video descriptions. The descriptions are important canon raocow content