Cognition Dissemination: Sega Couldn’t Just Release a Normal Retro Collection

Sega’s announcement of the Sonic Origins collection was, for a short time, worth an all-around celebration. This new collection will include Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Sonic 3 & Knuckles, and Sonic CD, all remastered for current console generations. These games have been rereleased for several prior platforms, which goes double — perhaps triple — for the first two Sonic games. But emulation efforts have only improved over the years, and these could very well be the newest examples considering Sega’s other recent efforts on digital platforms and the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive Mini. It’s a shame the company has no current plans to release the collection physically, but that alone is no reason to argue against its existence.

No, there are other reasons to do that. It would not be a Sega release without a catch, and this one will include several. One in particular suggests an ominous foreboding for digital retro collections.

The new collection will have features not found in previous rereleases, though not all of them will be available initially. Some will have to be unlocked with coins earned through completing in-game missions. Beyond the use of coins instead of rings, a sacrilege that should be punishable through the death penalty considering Sonic’s history, this bodes very, very ill for future retro collections from Sega and perhaps others. People buy these collections to escape the kind of nonsense that comes with new games that involve the need to collect in-game currency for unlockables, piles of downloadable content, and microtransactions. Sega feeling fine with adding this to a retro collection means little is sacred anymore.

It gets better. The coins (ugh) can primarily be earned through completing missions, but preordering the Standard or Digital Deluxe Editions will provide a head start of 100 coins. This is, regrettably, only one way in which Sega is creating an unholy fusion of classic and modern features.

Other bonuses will be locked behind different preorder editions, in a scheme so complicated that it necessitated a chart. The Start Dash Pack, available for free after preordering, will include the aforementioned 100 coins along with the Mirror Mode and a letterboxed background. The former will also be unlockable in the game, but the latter will apparently not. A Premium Fun Pack version will include Hard Missions, letterboxed backgrounds, character animations in the main menu, camera controls on the main menu’s islands, and character animations in the music islands. (Did all of this really have to be relegated to a different edition?) The Classic Music Pack will have additional tracks from other Genesis/Mega Drive titles, though nothing else. The Digital Deluxe Edition will include nearly all the above features, though the 100 coins and letterbox background will again only come with preorders.

If a chart is necessary for potential owners to keep track of all the preorder editions, there are too many of them. This is a common practice among AAA games and some AA titles, but again, they should stay far away from retro collections. Sega knows a significant audience is interested in a Sonic retro set, and they’re running with it in the worst way.

Plenty of fans have understandably looked at this and wondered if they should pick up prior rereleases free of all this nonsense. These are the concerns Sega heard, and they will address them by disappearing them.

Sega announced through an extremely brief press release that the old single rereleases of the old Sonic games on previous platforms will be pulled from digital networks on May 20th, about one month before Origins releases. The only exceptions here will be the Sega Ages versions of Sonic 1 and 2 for Nintendo Switch, and Sonic 2 for Genesis through the Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pack.

I 100% guarantee that something will be different/inaccurate in the new versions, and that this is a completely boneheaded move. It's like we fetishize film so much that we want to make the same mistakes Star Wars made, tossing away the originals for the Better version. https://t.co/wIk3dNDyzS

— Frank Cifaldi (Unlicensed).nes (@frankcifaldi) April 26, 2022

As Frank Cifaldi, who’s chronicled many game preservation efforts and has worked on solid ports of classic games as part of the renewed Digital Eclipse, mentioned in so many words on Twitter: This immediately raises questions as to potential changes the Origins editions could have. The likely culprits could involve alterations to the Michael Jackson-contributed tracks for Sonic 3 & Knuckles; the fact that a few older versions of Sonic 1 and 2 will in fact remain available further implies that this will be the case. There are all sorts of colorful opinions about whether these tracks were good or not across the internet, but potential changes to them will mean the original experiences as they existed could vanish from official digital spaces. The original games will remain available through emulation, but the experience will nonetheless be partially lost to time.

There’s a possibility that this may not be the case, that Sega simply wants to force everyone to purchase the more-expensive Origins collection so owners can potentially spend even more money on the preorder and deluxe edition schemes. Or it could be a little of both. We’ll find out in time.

The Sonic Origins collection will release on June 23rd for all current platforms. The emulation will ideally make this a solid effort, with or without potential music alterations, but let’s hope this doesn’t lead to a trend of more preorder and in-game currency features for retro collections. Save that stuff for new games.