To preface, I played the absolute snot out of the classic sonic trilogy to the point where I could run through all of them back to back with all the emeralds and without dying at one point. 3D Blast is the one I never really spent much time with until this morning after loading up this version on my everdrive.
I walked away enjoying the game more than I expected. Although it's been years since I've played the vanilla game, I have to say that this one handles well (for the most part) factoring in the perspective. I did find a few stages to be a bit confusing to navigate and I think panic puppet (last zone) is kind of a shit show, but other than that, this was a fun little ride. Can't top the 2D games, but it's still a solid diversion.
I walked away enjoying the game more than I expected. Although it's been years since I've played the vanilla game, I have to say that this one handles well (for the most part) factoring in the perspective. I did find a few stages to be a bit confusing to navigate and I think panic puppet (last zone) is kind of a shit show, but other than that, this was a fun little ride. Can't top the 2D games, but it's still a solid diversion.
A 10/10 effort to make a slippery, directionless mess just a little more fun.
Big ups John Burton
Big ups John Burton
Simple, fun game. The game can get a little irritating at points, but it's generally forgiving enough to not get on my nerves. Getting the Chaos Emeralds is a bit of a pain, but the levels generally are fun to explore due to good atmosphere and the satisfaction of attaining high amounts of rings. I enjoy the music and the game is quite pretty.
I don't know what possessed them to make Sonic Labyrinth 2. Jokes aside Sonic 3D just isn't great no matter what version you play, not awful but decidedly below average. Sonic is strange and unweildly to control with a wide turning circle and a lot of difficulty judging depth or positioning from the isometric view, in the original versions he's slow and slugging and in the Director's Cut the increase to his speed makes him twitchy and uncontrollable whenever precision is called for. Huting down and gathering Flickies feels like a chore that just slows the game down, no different than looking for keys in Labyrinth. The game is both comically easy and frustrating at the same time, avoiding getting hit is a nightmare because of the difficulty in controlling Sonic and judging depth/distance, but there are few threats in the game that will ever actually kill you, just toss your rings and Flickies everywhere. Both soundtracks are great, but while the MegaDrive has higher highs the Saturn has fewer lows. Visually the game is a an oddity, the Saturn version is the nicer looking game but incredibly unimpressive for the console and with poor presentation and menus that resemble stock MS Office 2000 presets where the MegaDrive version is at least somewhat impressive for the hardware. Neither console version seems to run completely smoothly with occasional frame drops, doubly shameful on the Saturn hardware. The PC version, a port of the Saturn version, on a good PC it at least runs great but the sprites/textures are half the resolution of the Saturn and the special stage is outright terrible.
It's become something of a tradition in the Sonic community for industrious fans to pull apart Sega's games and make all sorts of little changes to improve the experience of playing them. Project 06 might as well be the poster child for this, but even games like Sonic Superstars are benefitting from alternate soundtrack mods that attempt to wash away the stain left by Jun Senoue's bootleg Genesis snare drums. While a lot of these efforts are driven by the passion of fans and amateur modders, Sonic 3D Blast: Director's Cut is a unique case where the game's original designer, Jon Burton of Traveller's Tales, has gone back to retool their work. Unfortunately, it's still Sonic 3D Blast. fart_noise.flacc
I was actually pretty excited to try this out, even grabbed a reproduction cart of it in lieu of a legitimate copy of Sonic 3D Blast (you can toggle the mods off and play the game like normal, which for me makes this the ideal copy to have), but all the quality-of-life improvements in the world can't cleanse this game of its stink. Director's Cut makes improvements to movement speed and momentum, tweaks how Flickies function so that they're easier to find and don't all drop at once, and even adds Super Sonic, but the core design of 3D Blast is still the same. Jump on enemies, collect bird, hop into ring. I don't find this loop to be very compelling and would prefer something closer to a traditional Sonic, but the isometric perspective really hinders navigation and stage readability even in the time trial levels, which do ditch Flicky collecting for something more straight-forward.
For every improvement Director's Cut makes, which there are many, it just highlights the parts of the game that don't work for me, and those parts are so fundamental that you'd enter Hedgehog of Theseus territory if you started to uproot and replace them. Jon Burton, to his credit, changed about as much as he could, and the Director's Cut is the most approachable version of 3D Blast for his efforts. Changes to hit detection and the way damage operates does smooth over some the base game's key problems even if I may still be hung up on the more immutable aspects. It is unreasonable to expect Burton to alter level layouts to be more conducive to traditional Sonic gameplay, but changing how far the camera pans when running does help me avoid jumping directly into pits of lava in Volcano Valley, so I guess this is my preferred way to play.
In true Traveller's Tales fashion, I'm left weighing how impressive the game is on a technical level against how much fun I actually had playing it, and while I do think Jon Burton smoothing over nearly 30-year-old rough edges if worthy of some praise, I still find Sonic 3D Blast a struggle to get into. Very excited to pull this off the shelf in another five or eight years and walk away with the exact same opinion, because unlike 3D Blast, I never change.
I was actually pretty excited to try this out, even grabbed a reproduction cart of it in lieu of a legitimate copy of Sonic 3D Blast (you can toggle the mods off and play the game like normal, which for me makes this the ideal copy to have), but all the quality-of-life improvements in the world can't cleanse this game of its stink. Director's Cut makes improvements to movement speed and momentum, tweaks how Flickies function so that they're easier to find and don't all drop at once, and even adds Super Sonic, but the core design of 3D Blast is still the same. Jump on enemies, collect bird, hop into ring. I don't find this loop to be very compelling and would prefer something closer to a traditional Sonic, but the isometric perspective really hinders navigation and stage readability even in the time trial levels, which do ditch Flicky collecting for something more straight-forward.
For every improvement Director's Cut makes, which there are many, it just highlights the parts of the game that don't work for me, and those parts are so fundamental that you'd enter Hedgehog of Theseus territory if you started to uproot and replace them. Jon Burton, to his credit, changed about as much as he could, and the Director's Cut is the most approachable version of 3D Blast for his efforts. Changes to hit detection and the way damage operates does smooth over some the base game's key problems even if I may still be hung up on the more immutable aspects. It is unreasonable to expect Burton to alter level layouts to be more conducive to traditional Sonic gameplay, but changing how far the camera pans when running does help me avoid jumping directly into pits of lava in Volcano Valley, so I guess this is my preferred way to play.
In true Traveller's Tales fashion, I'm left weighing how impressive the game is on a technical level against how much fun I actually had playing it, and while I do think Jon Burton smoothing over nearly 30-year-old rough edges if worthy of some praise, I still find Sonic 3D Blast a struggle to get into. Very excited to pull this off the shelf in another five or eight years and walk away with the exact same opinion, because unlike 3D Blast, I never change.
Cleared on April 22nd, 2023 (SEGA Genesis Challenge: 5/160)
Sonic 3D Blast is a game I had on my list of 160 Sega Genesis games, but unlike the others, I didn't even roll this one, I just chose this one, wanting to finish what I started years ago.
Sonic 3D Blast is the first Sonic game I ever played. I thought it was fun at the time, but having replayed the original on the Genesis back in 2012, I realized... wow, the game is so slippery. I just figured at that point it wasn't worth enduring it past the first few levels. But then sometime back in, I believe 2017, the game's original director announced he was going to revise the game, making the controls more manageable, make the flicky hunting less dreadful, have a better camera, and just add new features like Time Attack and Super Sonic. I was on board, a game that I had nostalgic feelings for, but couldn't bring myself to fully enjoy sounded like a dream. So, what did I think? Well, it was fine... I guess.
It definitely didn't misled the audience or anything. What was advertised is what you get, but the game still felt kinda boring to me on an inherent level. It's no traditional Sonic game and even with the new Time Attack, you can't really change that. In fact, going fast is actually a liability in later levels because you might miss an enemy or crash into something and take damage, so you're best off just going slow.
The music is fine, but it does pale in comparison to the Saturn version although some of the music in the Genesis version would later go on to be remixed in Sonic Adventure 1 which is pretty cool.
I do love the visuals of the game. For a Genesis game, it had a certain charm to it being an isometric Sonic game, and I can tell it must have been a lot of effort to make it look this way on the Genesis. Hell, I heard the game's code is such a mess that even if there was some secret cult that wanted to make the game good, then they would need the knowledge that the game's director had... well, not like we needed that because the director himself went to refine the game.
You won't really miss much even with the Director's Cut of Sonic 3D Blast since it isn't really traditional in its objective in reaching the goal post, and it does take exploration in a slow pace and nobody has time for that, but if you want to play the game for any reason, this is the definitive version.
Sonic 3D Blast is a game I had on my list of 160 Sega Genesis games, but unlike the others, I didn't even roll this one, I just chose this one, wanting to finish what I started years ago.
Sonic 3D Blast is the first Sonic game I ever played. I thought it was fun at the time, but having replayed the original on the Genesis back in 2012, I realized... wow, the game is so slippery. I just figured at that point it wasn't worth enduring it past the first few levels. But then sometime back in, I believe 2017, the game's original director announced he was going to revise the game, making the controls more manageable, make the flicky hunting less dreadful, have a better camera, and just add new features like Time Attack and Super Sonic. I was on board, a game that I had nostalgic feelings for, but couldn't bring myself to fully enjoy sounded like a dream. So, what did I think? Well, it was fine... I guess.
It definitely didn't misled the audience or anything. What was advertised is what you get, but the game still felt kinda boring to me on an inherent level. It's no traditional Sonic game and even with the new Time Attack, you can't really change that. In fact, going fast is actually a liability in later levels because you might miss an enemy or crash into something and take damage, so you're best off just going slow.
The music is fine, but it does pale in comparison to the Saturn version although some of the music in the Genesis version would later go on to be remixed in Sonic Adventure 1 which is pretty cool.
I do love the visuals of the game. For a Genesis game, it had a certain charm to it being an isometric Sonic game, and I can tell it must have been a lot of effort to make it look this way on the Genesis. Hell, I heard the game's code is such a mess that even if there was some secret cult that wanted to make the game good, then they would need the knowledge that the game's director had... well, not like we needed that because the director himself went to refine the game.
You won't really miss much even with the Director's Cut of Sonic 3D Blast since it isn't really traditional in its objective in reaching the goal post, and it does take exploration in a slow pace and nobody has time for that, but if you want to play the game for any reason, this is the definitive version.
eu não gosto da inconsistência dos anéis que você derruba quando você toma dano: as vezes eles ficam tempo o bastante pra você pegar de volta de boa, outras eles desaparecem dentro de um segundo, que geralmente é o tempo que o sonic toma pra se recuperar do dano que ele sofreu. de resto é um jogo até ok, só não sei se vou jogar ele de novo. pelo menos não pegando todas as esmeraldas do caos.
This is a nice bonus verion of Sonic 3D Blast that improved a lot on the slippery, messy, clunky Sonic 3D Blast. It's still the weakest of the Genesis Sonic games, but it's less weak now. I'm still amazed that the original 3D Blast didn't have Super Sonic!
This Director's Cut has evolved a sh*t into a high-quality chocolate
Glad they included a 10/10 soundtrack to a mid game
Un intento por mejorar el juego original que termina con resultados mixtos. Por un lado son de agradecer los indicadores en pantalla de los flickies que se sitúan fuera de la pantalla y algunos ajustes aquí y allá en el control del personaje y las colisiones de los enemigos y plataformas del juego. Sin embargo, me parece un error garrafal darle más velocidad de movimiento a Sonic en un juego cuyo campo de visión permite ver poco, y no basta con modificar la cámara para desplazar al personaje a uno de los extremos de la pantalla con el propósito de tener más margen para ver lo que se nos viene por delante a altas velocidades, pues debido a esto se crea al mismo tiempo otro problema.
Mirad, en el juego original, Sonic se situaba en el centro de la pantalla, pero gracias a eso teníamos un mejor control del espacio a nuestro alrededor. En esta versión, el desplazamiento constante de la cámara que varía dependiendo del lado al que mira el personaje termina incomodando y mareando mucho al jugador, además de que esto crea muchos puntos ciegos cuando Sonic está colocado junto a los bordes de la pantalla.
Me quedo con el original.
Mirad, en el juego original, Sonic se situaba en el centro de la pantalla, pero gracias a eso teníamos un mejor control del espacio a nuestro alrededor. En esta versión, el desplazamiento constante de la cámara que varía dependiendo del lado al que mira el personaje termina incomodando y mareando mucho al jugador, además de que esto crea muchos puntos ciegos cuando Sonic está colocado junto a los bordes de la pantalla.
Me quedo con el original.
One of the worst feelings in the world when it comes to videogames is that "I just want to get this over with" sorta mood, you know? It's never fun when a game gets to that point. This is different from simply dropping a game altogether, like I did with Tails' Skypatrol; that was one case where I was retching from the first minute in.
No, this specific feeling works differently. It's a horrible state where you're not exactly having fun anymore, but you were at some point, and now you're too far in so you end up forcing yourself to see how things end? Hard to explain, but that's how I felt here.
3D Blast just... Exists? It's hard to find things to say about it. Calling it dogshit and ripping it a new one would be too harsh since I do think there are worse games out there, but there isn't anything praiseworthy either. The music is pretty damn good? But that's a given when it comes to Sonic games, like a free space in a bingo card.
No, this specific feeling works differently. It's a horrible state where you're not exactly having fun anymore, but you were at some point, and now you're too far in so you end up forcing yourself to see how things end? Hard to explain, but that's how I felt here.
3D Blast just... Exists? It's hard to find things to say about it. Calling it dogshit and ripping it a new one would be too harsh since I do think there are worse games out there, but there isn't anything praiseworthy either. The music is pretty damn good? But that's a given when it comes to Sonic games, like a free space in a bingo card.
The best way to play an underrated gem by adding tons upon tons of quality of life improvements.
I'm still going with the Saturn version either way.
I'm still going with the Saturn version either way.
immensely better than the original. still tedious
you see SADX, THIS is how you do a directors cut
the title is actually just describing the directors penis
This version does a lot to make Sonic 3D Blast a lot more enjoyable.
I always thought the original was a decent puzzle platformer, but with this update storing your progress, tracking the Sonic Medals and adding a time attack mode it really fleshes out the game, making it feel like a mini-collectaphon.
I always thought the original was a decent puzzle platformer, but with this update storing your progress, tracking the Sonic Medals and adding a time attack mode it really fleshes out the game, making it feel like a mini-collectaphon.
É uma gameplay diferente, mas é MUITO bom!
This game's definitely still very rough. The adjustments made in the Director's Cut save it from being just not fun to play but it ultimately is still just okay. I don't really believe Sonic in the isometric perspective works all that well and the way the levels are laid out is definitely evidence of that. It's a short enough game though and the Director's Cut with its faster movement makes blazing through the game, if one desires to, satisfying enough. Kudos to the guy who made this, though, love his videos and love the stuff he does.