I think you can get a gist for how robust the hobbyist game development scene is by observing the current state of Sonic the Hedgehog fan games. After all, a not-insignificant amount of indie and hobby developers cut their teeth on Sonic ROM hacks, building faithful-as-can-be Sonic engines, and decompiling old Sonic games to uncover their many secrets. Ease of access to more powerful game creation tools and an ever-growing level of talent and passion among developers has caused such fan projects to balloon in size and scope as well as buy-in outside of the usual Sonic fanosphere. Take last year's Sonic Triple Trouble remake or Project 06 - we've come a long way from simply putting Dust Hill back into Sonic the Hedgehog 2.
Enter Sonic and the Fallen Star, a fan game which came out around the same time as the Triple Trouble remake, and which similarly emulates the gameplay style of the classic Genesis Sonics while shooting for a far different vibe and aesthetic. Fallen Star in many ways reminds me of Before and After the Sequel in that it's very much built from a place of reverence while trying to be different, and much like those games, the end result is a bit of a mixed bag that is ultimately enjoyable despite some of its flaws.
One major area in which Fallen Star differentiates itself from other fan projects is in how much it distances itself from established Sonic games, something that is otherwise still commonplace. Even games like the Triple Trouble remake liberally reuse sprite art from the Genesis Sonics and other games contemporary to them, and Project 06's entire premise is built on improving a fundamentally broken game. You can trace a lot of the DNA in these fan games back to specific official products, but I could probably count the amount of graphics Fallen Star repurposes on one hand, maybe two if I felt like each Chaos Emerald needed its own finger.
The quality of Fallen Star's bespoke artwork is just as impressive as its quantity. Sonic, Tails, Robotnik and the zones they race through are brimming with life and character, and I really got a kick out of all the extra cameos, like Amy showing up on billboards in Discount Districts Zone, and the statues of Mecha and Metal Sonic obscured by overgrowth in Gusty Greenhouse Zone. About the only areas where I felt the visual design was a bit off was in the cutscenes, which feel very herky-jerky and reminiscent of old flash animations. They also go on a bit too long and disrupt the flow of the game. If Fallen Star modeled its cutscenes after Sonic 3 - perhaps not in style but in brevity - then I'd say this game's presentation is flawless. But, unfortunately, it's like, 98% perfect. How horrible.
Fallen Star's gameplay is a lot rockier, however. At its best, it plays just like you'd expect a Genesis-style Sonic to. Momentum and physics both feel appropriate with occasional hiccups, and there's loads of branching pathways and routes specific to each character. Zones also feel a bit too samey, lacking in strong mechanical identity to set them apart, and at times feeling as if whole chunks of geometry were simply pulled from a consumer-grade Sonic the Hedgehog level editor. There are good gimmicks, yes, but the classic Genesis Sonics and even some other fan games are better at making those gimmicks feel like a cohesive part of each Zone's identity, whereas Fallen Star's gimmicks feel more spaced out in favor of long straight-aways and borderline automated tracks. Spectacle and speed are at the forefront while platforming takes a backseat. It's not bad per se, but as someone who generally favors the slower moments of the original Sonic the Hedgehog and the exploration of Sonic 3, I felt Fallen Star's design was a bit lacking and at times just dull.
Most of my venom, however, is saved for the special stages. You run along a linear track collecting blue spheres to gain speed and rings to add time to your clock while chasing after a Chaos Emerald - it's very Sonic Mania. Springs and boost-rings are littered about each stage, presumably to help you gain on the Chaos Emerald, but they're often unpredictable as their efficacy is based on Sonic's current speed. There might be a pit that can only be cleared by jumping into a boost-ring, but because you hit it so fast it overshoots you into another pit further off. Now you've fallen off the course, and because there's so few giant rings scattered about, you either get to reset the game or make peace with doing a second run for the true ending. It's not great.
So yeah, I've got some grievances with the way Sonic and the Fallen Star does things, but what fan game is perfect? At least it doesn't have some aggressive anti-cheat that acts as malware or gets mistakenly (legitimately?) flagged as a keylogger - I feel like you could do much worse. We'vecomealongway!
At times it feels like Fallen Star is carried by its art style, but I still had a great time with it, and I'm looking forward to seeing what developer StarDrop does next with Sonic and the Moon Facility. It definitely shows promise and the fact that they've specifically called out Fallen Star's level design as a key area to improve upon gives me confidence in where they're going, so I'll definitely be playing through that whenever it's ready.
Enter Sonic and the Fallen Star, a fan game which came out around the same time as the Triple Trouble remake, and which similarly emulates the gameplay style of the classic Genesis Sonics while shooting for a far different vibe and aesthetic. Fallen Star in many ways reminds me of Before and After the Sequel in that it's very much built from a place of reverence while trying to be different, and much like those games, the end result is a bit of a mixed bag that is ultimately enjoyable despite some of its flaws.
One major area in which Fallen Star differentiates itself from other fan projects is in how much it distances itself from established Sonic games, something that is otherwise still commonplace. Even games like the Triple Trouble remake liberally reuse sprite art from the Genesis Sonics and other games contemporary to them, and Project 06's entire premise is built on improving a fundamentally broken game. You can trace a lot of the DNA in these fan games back to specific official products, but I could probably count the amount of graphics Fallen Star repurposes on one hand, maybe two if I felt like each Chaos Emerald needed its own finger.
The quality of Fallen Star's bespoke artwork is just as impressive as its quantity. Sonic, Tails, Robotnik and the zones they race through are brimming with life and character, and I really got a kick out of all the extra cameos, like Amy showing up on billboards in Discount Districts Zone, and the statues of Mecha and Metal Sonic obscured by overgrowth in Gusty Greenhouse Zone. About the only areas where I felt the visual design was a bit off was in the cutscenes, which feel very herky-jerky and reminiscent of old flash animations. They also go on a bit too long and disrupt the flow of the game. If Fallen Star modeled its cutscenes after Sonic 3 - perhaps not in style but in brevity - then I'd say this game's presentation is flawless. But, unfortunately, it's like, 98% perfect. How horrible.
Fallen Star's gameplay is a lot rockier, however. At its best, it plays just like you'd expect a Genesis-style Sonic to. Momentum and physics both feel appropriate with occasional hiccups, and there's loads of branching pathways and routes specific to each character. Zones also feel a bit too samey, lacking in strong mechanical identity to set them apart, and at times feeling as if whole chunks of geometry were simply pulled from a consumer-grade Sonic the Hedgehog level editor. There are good gimmicks, yes, but the classic Genesis Sonics and even some other fan games are better at making those gimmicks feel like a cohesive part of each Zone's identity, whereas Fallen Star's gimmicks feel more spaced out in favor of long straight-aways and borderline automated tracks. Spectacle and speed are at the forefront while platforming takes a backseat. It's not bad per se, but as someone who generally favors the slower moments of the original Sonic the Hedgehog and the exploration of Sonic 3, I felt Fallen Star's design was a bit lacking and at times just dull.
Most of my venom, however, is saved for the special stages. You run along a linear track collecting blue spheres to gain speed and rings to add time to your clock while chasing after a Chaos Emerald - it's very Sonic Mania. Springs and boost-rings are littered about each stage, presumably to help you gain on the Chaos Emerald, but they're often unpredictable as their efficacy is based on Sonic's current speed. There might be a pit that can only be cleared by jumping into a boost-ring, but because you hit it so fast it overshoots you into another pit further off. Now you've fallen off the course, and because there's so few giant rings scattered about, you either get to reset the game or make peace with doing a second run for the true ending. It's not great.
So yeah, I've got some grievances with the way Sonic and the Fallen Star does things, but what fan game is perfect? At least it doesn't have some aggressive anti-cheat that acts as malware or gets mistakenly (legitimately?) flagged as a keylogger - I feel like you could do much worse. We'vecomealongway!
At times it feels like Fallen Star is carried by its art style, but I still had a great time with it, and I'm looking forward to seeing what developer StarDrop does next with Sonic and the Moon Facility. It definitely shows promise and the fact that they've specifically called out Fallen Star's level design as a key area to improve upon gives me confidence in where they're going, so I'll definitely be playing through that whenever it's ready.