Sonic the Hedgehog C64 - video trailer

[kremiso]

interesting news for the Commodore 8 bit retronostalgic

yes, seems Sonic is coming, fast

[ Show youtube player ]

ram expansion required !

EDIT (other videos in the tube page)
stage 1 (NTSC) :
[ Show youtube player ]
stage 1 (PAL) :
[ Show youtube player ]

[Matt_H]

Neat! Been waiting for my Amiga port of Sonic since 1992 but this is a good start.

And in case anyone didn’t realize, this is a port of the Master System version, not the Genesis/Mega Drive version. Looks extremely accurate!

[Pyromania]

You can play Sonic right now on the Vampire.

[Havie]

Just tried on my V1200 - works but jump is wrong, there are no sound effects and crashed after level 1!

Good proof of concept though.

[Pyromania]

It’s better on the V4.

[Havie]

Yes - that's what is says. Clearly not the most efficiently programmed Sonic game seeing how much memory it uses. I'm also pretty certain that with a little more effort, it could have sound and work properly but Vampire Team are definitely more focused on the V4 than the V2 edtions, which is fair enough as they are newer.

[Matt_H]

Originally Posted by Havie

Yes - that's what is says. Clearly not the most efficiently programmed Sonic game seeing how much memory it uses. I'm also pretty certain that with a little more effort, it could have sound and work properly but Vampire Team are definitely more focused on the V4 than the V2 edtions, which is fair enough as they are newer.

Aren't the Vampire ports based on the more recent PC releases? Those use a whole new engine designed for modern systems, so there's only a finite amount of performance that can be squeezed out of those. It's like the Amiga Quake ports - there are limits to what can be changed to improve performance while still having the end result be a recognizable Quake engine.

Given that the original Sonic is a game from 1991 running on hardware designed circa 1988, a 1MB A500 should be able to run something damn close to the original Genesis version; a stock A1200 should definitely be able to do it. But to achieve that you've got to do a reimplementation from the ground up, like this impressive C64 version.

[PortuguesePilot]

As the unfinished "Blaze" ( [ Show youtube player ]) game shows, technically a game "like" Sonic could be done on a plain A500 or at least on a typically 1MB expanded one. Sonic actually almost came to the Amiga and other contemporary 16bits at the time, courtesy of U.S. Gold (guess it wouldn't be very good, then, heh?) but SEGA actually realized what they had in their hands when they saw the pre-release version on the newly released Mega Drive hardware and immediately cancelled all the third-party negotiations regarding Sonic (and other games) as they - correctly - realized that the game would help sell consoles as a Mega Drive exclusive and they would make a lot more revenue that way than by selling the rights to some third-party company that would later sell the game to sloppy westerners and their weird, quirky and crappy desktop computers...

So the game was never released on the Amiga not because the Amiga "couldn't do it", but because of mere business acumen. Well, to be absolutely frank, the Amiga probably couldn't really do it like the Mega Drive did, given the absence of a chunky mode, so we'd probably end up with something more akin the Master System version of Sonic, which is not too shabby at all. More than probably, though, we'd end up with some travesty named Sonic, programmed by a couple of teens on some bedroom out in Preston, bearing a main character sort-of resembling Sonic, but devoid of all its qualities... you know, something like other SEGA tie-ins on the Amiga: Out-Run, Sonic Boom, Action Fighter or Thunderblade.

The aforementioned new remake for the Amiga is just adapted code. It's not made grounds up for the Amiga. I think it used mainly C and it's devoid of any 68k ASM. A true Sonic the Hedgehog made for Amiga should be almost entirely coded in low-level 68k ASM. Because of this - and the fact that 68k ASM is, by all accounts, a "dead language" and programming a game like Sonic the Hedgehog would not be a small feat - I suspect we'll never actually see a true Amiga version of Sonic the Hedgehog. Hell, even Keith Bugeja himself said someone could finish his amazing Blaze prototype but no-one picked it up, given the size and difficulty of the task at hand. Now imagine making a proper 16bit version of Sonic the Hedgehog for the Amiga in 68k ASM. Yep... probably not gonna happen, even discounting all the legal issues that might arise (even though SEGA isn't Nintendo and other Sonic fan-made games seem to exist fine without legal action). It's just too much work for too little (if any) pay. We're going to have to remain in the "what if" realm of imagination, I suspect.

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by PortuguesePilot

So the game was never released on the Amiga not because the Amiga "couldn't do it", but because of mere business acumen. Well, to be absolutely frank, the Amiga probably couldn't really do it like the Mega Drive did, given the absence of a chunky mode,

I don't think 'chunky mode' would make any difference. The MegaDrive got its speed from tiles, playfields and sprites.

so we'd probably end up with something more akin the Master System version of Sonic, which is not too shabby at all. More than probably, though, we'd end up with some travesty named Sonic,

Except we wouldn't because - as you pointed out - Sega wasn't going to let their only reason for buying a Megadrive get away from them onto the Amiga. Anyone who tried to use the word 'Sonic' would prpbably get a call from their lawyers.

...programmed by a couple of teens on some bedroom out in Preston, bearing a main character sort-of resembling Sonic, but devoid of all its qualities... you know, something like other SEGA tie-ins on the Amiga: Out-Run, Sonic Boom, Action Fighter or Thunderblade.

Yes its a travesty that developers paid good money for the rights to port games and then weren't given the assets to do it properly.

The aforementioned new remake for the Amiga is just adapted code. It's not made grounds up for the Amiga. I think it used mainly C and it's devoid of any 68k ASM.

Yep, we just traded one travesty for another.

A true Sonic the Hedgehog made for Amiga should be almost entirely coded in low-level 68k ASM. Because of this - and the fact that 68k ASM is, by all accounts, a "dead language" and programming a game like Sonic the Hedgehog would not be a small feat - I suspect we'll never actually see a true Amiga version of Sonic the Hedgehog.

I wouldn't say never, but it would take someone who thought it was worth the effort. Personally I would rather see something a little more original.

[PortuguesePilot]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

I don't think 'chunky mode' would make any difference. The MegaDrive got its speed from tiles, playfields and sprites.

You're right. I meant that the juxtaposition of the colourful and animated background (with its obvious own tiles and sprites) and of the main foreground (also with its own set of sprites and tiles) was made using the superior planar abilities of the Mega Drive's VDP and a faster DMA which the Amiga's OCS is not able to perform at the same level. So either an officially-sponsored Sonic on the Amiga would look like the Mega Drive one but sans the backgrounds (would probably use a copper-based sky used on some many other Amiga platform games of the time) or a - if they felt bold and brave - less-than-impressive de-colourised and inanimated backdrop à la "Cool Spot". Chunky-mode was not used here indeed, though the backgrounds sometimes feel they have a 3D effect (or apparent depth, almost like the SNES Mode-7) to them that could be done using chunky, especially in the first level, but that's probably just some clever planar trickery.

[Solo Kazuki]

Originally Posted by Matt_H

It's like the Amiga Quake ports - there are limits to what can be changed to improve performance while still having the end result be a recognizable Quake engine.

Excuse me, what?
Of course there are some "hacked" ports, but some ports are based on same sources as Lixux/PC/Mac ports. It's visible on addons/modifications, where probably all are working on "direct" ports, but some are not working on "hacked" ones.

[Matt_H]

Originally Posted by Solo Kazuki

Excuse me, what?
Of course there are some "hacked" ports, but some ports are based on same sources as Lixux/PC/Mac ports. It's visible on addons/modifications, where probably all are working on "direct" ports, but some are not working on "hacked" ones.

I think you misunderstood - my point was that no matter how much one optimizes an Amiga port of something resource-heavy like Quake (or the modern PC Sonic engine), the performance will never equal the original version because our Amigas just don’t have comparable raw CPU/hardware power to the original platform.

Maybe the new A500 Doom-like game (I’m forgetting the name) is a better example. The performance is amazing and far better than the Amiga Doom ports because it’s all original, natively-written code. But it’s not “Doom” per se at the source level. I don’t know if any amount of optimization of the Doom source code could achieve similar performance while still retaining either portable code or 100% datafile compatibility.

The Sega Saturn version of Quake is another good example. It’s not actually a port of the Quake engine - it’s a conversion of the Quake assets to an optimized, Saturn-native engine. But it’s not “Quake” per se at the source level. I suspect it shares little to no code with id’s engine.

So if we’re to have a high-performing Sonic engine on the Amiga it’s got to come from a ground-up adaptation rather than porting the 2013 PC version. Technically it wouldn’t be “2013 PC Sonic” per se at the source level since it wouldn’t share any code, but it would be functionally near-identical.

[mcbpete]

To bring things back to the topic title - The C64 version is out now: https://csdb.dk/release/?id=212190

[kremiso]

already? great !

first Mario, now Sonic

[Retro-Nerd]

And it plays absolutly fantastic. If you like the Master System version you will be not disappointed. Use a joypad though, it's much better that way.

[malko]

Even if it's for an extended ram C64, simply WHAOU !!!
KUDOS to all involved in this master piece

[Predseda]

There is probably no way how to play it on C64mini, is it?

[Retro-Nerd]

Yes, it should be playable on the Mini too (Maxi too of course). Found this in Forum 64:

I just tried this on my TheC64 Mini, but there was always a "File Not Found" Error, even after firmware update!

But there is a solution: For me it was the thec64-default.cjm file which I had in the root, I simply renamed it (of course you can also delete it) and the game worked. It now works with the file browser and also in classic mode.

[rothers]

That's quite something, it's hard to believe it's real! I'm loving all these new C64 & Spectrum games pushing the limits.

[dlfrsilver]

the megadrive version is almost fully coded in full ASM68K.