Don’t get too excited, it’s not a full blown Sonic remake but it’s definitely the next best thing. In order to get excited about what appears to be a simply port we must first break down what exactly makes it different from what’s already out there.
There are basically two ways in which you can bring back an old game to a newer system, the first is the usual half assed emulator job. By using an emulator you’re bound to run into all sorts of issues both visual and in terms of sound, it’s obviously better than nothing but often the game is never a perfect port of the original.
The second and superior way of handling a “port” is to break down the entire game and re-code it, instead of having the system run an emulator which runs the game, you have the system natively run the game itself. It all sounds a little confusing and it is but in the end it means you have a perfect port of the original game, even better is you can do stuff like this.
Instead of having rubbish boarders and horribly pixelated or even worse, hideous smoothed out visuals, you can have the game run in full widescreen and it stills looks the business on a 50 inch TV. It’s obviously more time consuming than shitting out an emulator but it’s very much worth the time when you consider the benefits.
All of this is done by Christian Whitehead A.K.A. The Taxman who caught Sega’s attention after his incredible work on an iPhone port of Sonic CD which later made it’s way to other systems. If you’re still confused then download a trial of Sonic The Hedgehog and compare that to the trial of Sonic CD, the quality between the two is night and day quite frankly.
Getting back on track to the whole point of the post, Sega have announced that Sonic The Hedgehog will be receiving the “Sonic CD treatment”. They are even going to redo the soundtrack but the arrangements will be exactly the same meaning you’ll simply hear a clearer more crisp version of the originals.
At the moment this new and improved port of Sonic The Hedgehog will be be coming to Android and iOS devices which let’s face it, no one cares about. Let’s also keep our fingers crossed for some console ports, let’s also hope they do the same for Sonic The Hedgehog 2 & 3 someday.
