I will say this is indeed 4 classic Sonic games, and on a very basic level they do function (sometimes), but this collection is not really worth the money whatsoever in its current state.
First off let's go over the content you get shall we? You get a new challenge mode, a story mode connecting all 4 games into one cohesive story, a museum with music, artwork, and all kinds of other goodies, and a few other neat features. These are cool and what I expect from any collection of this caliber, BUT a lot of these features come off as feeling rushed.
The music in the museum (especially the DLC music) is not recorded correctly from the Sega Genesis and a lot of the music is not labeled correctly making it difficult to kind certain tracks without skimming through every song in the menu. Door into Summer is now Midnight Greenhouse, The 3D Blast Invincibility theme is just the boss music, etc. And a lot of the "Premium" music is just Sonic Generations and other modern Sonic remixes from past games (again not being labeled correctly). Would it have been so hard to include something like the Sonic Arcade techno music since those were a lot more nostalgic of that era? Or the Sonic Boom/Virtual Sonic CDs? That would have been great even if they weren't playable in game.
The story mode I generally have no major complaints about it's a pretty cool mode that new players and old players will get a kick out of playing. The boss rush is also fine and offers a cool challenge (especially for Sonic 3K) to run through. Mirror mode is... ok. My biggest problems lie in the Anniversary and Classic modes. Anniversary mode is a version of Sonic 1-3K with no lives, coins you collect to use in the museum, and no continues. This is fine as an accessibility option and I don't blame anyone for using it over the original gameplay style, but I don't like how Sonic Team didn't give a fleshed out options menu for the 16:9 mode to have the old live and continues system. It's really weird they didn't include a feature like this because every other fan port and the mobile versions have it. Again I am perfectly ok with an accessibility mode and I think it's a great idea, but please let me use lives and continues in the remastered aspect ratio!
The challenge mode was the most intriguing to me out of most of this games new features. I wanted to see all the creative ways they could design new classic Sonic challenges and levels, but sadly these felt very rushed and many of the challenges felt like they were designed by an AI. Sonic 1 by far has the best challenges of the lot, but the rest ESPECIALLY SONIC 2 are just so annoying rather than being challenging.
Now the games themselves. This is the part you'd think would be the easiest to not screw up? There is already source code for Sonic 1, CD, and Sonic 2 available to Sonic Team from Whitehead's mobile ports and features like the drop dash have been done perfectly in the rom hacks like Sega Ages, but NOPE somehow Sonic Team screwed it up. The drop dash feels so jank on these games almost as if they are just a modified spin dash. At the peak of your jump using the drop dash you drop off all of your speed and lose a lot of your control mid air, and not to mention the 2 frames when you land that you are vulnerable because of how this version of the drop dash plays the spin dash animation as you land! It's horrid! And not to mention the blur filter put over the entire game! No pixel perfect, no CRT filters, no nothing just bad anti aliasing you can't turn off. Don't worry tho you can turn off AA...only for the menus! And Sonic CD loses a lot of it's charm as they either forgot or didn't both to include Sonic's voice acting when he gets a life, gets a continue, or when you do the "I'm outta here!" easter egg (WHICH WAS IN THE WHITEHEAD VERSION!).
Sonic 3K is a very special case as it was probably the higher quality of the ports in this collection. Headcannon included new animations, the drop dash functions correctly in this port, and there are some neat new features that other versions don't have like added sfx to make the game feel more cohesive, BUT this isn't a port without flaws. For some reason the special stage music doesn't speed up every time your speed increases which threw me off as I usually use the speed up to tell how fast I am going. The music was destined to be replaced and I understand why, but idk why they couldn't just use the superior prototype music. The music for Carnival Night, Launch Base, and Ice Cap sound so distracting compared to the rest of the soundtrack.
There are a lot of other things I could talk about like the amazing new animated cutscenes from Tyson Hesse or the new restored Sonic CD animations from Tanks, Quazza, and Brady Hartel, but my final thoughts on Sonic Origins in general is disappointing. Fans have made much better and intuitive ports of these Sonic games with more options and features than Origins has. And with the scummy deluxe edition selling content already in the game at launch and the insanely high price tag I can't really suggest this collection to anyone especially people playing on PC.
First off let's go over the content you get shall we? You get a new challenge mode, a story mode connecting all 4 games into one cohesive story, a museum with music, artwork, and all kinds of other goodies, and a few other neat features. These are cool and what I expect from any collection of this caliber, BUT a lot of these features come off as feeling rushed.
The music in the museum (especially the DLC music) is not recorded correctly from the Sega Genesis and a lot of the music is not labeled correctly making it difficult to kind certain tracks without skimming through every song in the menu. Door into Summer is now Midnight Greenhouse, The 3D Blast Invincibility theme is just the boss music, etc. And a lot of the "Premium" music is just Sonic Generations and other modern Sonic remixes from past games (again not being labeled correctly). Would it have been so hard to include something like the Sonic Arcade techno music since those were a lot more nostalgic of that era? Or the Sonic Boom/Virtual Sonic CDs? That would have been great even if they weren't playable in game.
The story mode I generally have no major complaints about it's a pretty cool mode that new players and old players will get a kick out of playing. The boss rush is also fine and offers a cool challenge (especially for Sonic 3K) to run through. Mirror mode is... ok. My biggest problems lie in the Anniversary and Classic modes. Anniversary mode is a version of Sonic 1-3K with no lives, coins you collect to use in the museum, and no continues. This is fine as an accessibility option and I don't blame anyone for using it over the original gameplay style, but I don't like how Sonic Team didn't give a fleshed out options menu for the 16:9 mode to have the old live and continues system. It's really weird they didn't include a feature like this because every other fan port and the mobile versions have it. Again I am perfectly ok with an accessibility mode and I think it's a great idea, but please let me use lives and continues in the remastered aspect ratio!
The challenge mode was the most intriguing to me out of most of this games new features. I wanted to see all the creative ways they could design new classic Sonic challenges and levels, but sadly these felt very rushed and many of the challenges felt like they were designed by an AI. Sonic 1 by far has the best challenges of the lot, but the rest ESPECIALLY SONIC 2 are just so annoying rather than being challenging.
Now the games themselves. This is the part you'd think would be the easiest to not screw up? There is already source code for Sonic 1, CD, and Sonic 2 available to Sonic Team from Whitehead's mobile ports and features like the drop dash have been done perfectly in the rom hacks like Sega Ages, but NOPE somehow Sonic Team screwed it up. The drop dash feels so jank on these games almost as if they are just a modified spin dash. At the peak of your jump using the drop dash you drop off all of your speed and lose a lot of your control mid air, and not to mention the 2 frames when you land that you are vulnerable because of how this version of the drop dash plays the spin dash animation as you land! It's horrid! And not to mention the blur filter put over the entire game! No pixel perfect, no CRT filters, no nothing just bad anti aliasing you can't turn off. Don't worry tho you can turn off AA...only for the menus! And Sonic CD loses a lot of it's charm as they either forgot or didn't both to include Sonic's voice acting when he gets a life, gets a continue, or when you do the "I'm outta here!" easter egg (WHICH WAS IN THE WHITEHEAD VERSION!).
Sonic 3K is a very special case as it was probably the higher quality of the ports in this collection. Headcannon included new animations, the drop dash functions correctly in this port, and there are some neat new features that other versions don't have like added sfx to make the game feel more cohesive, BUT this isn't a port without flaws. For some reason the special stage music doesn't speed up every time your speed increases which threw me off as I usually use the speed up to tell how fast I am going. The music was destined to be replaced and I understand why, but idk why they couldn't just use the superior prototype music. The music for Carnival Night, Launch Base, and Ice Cap sound so distracting compared to the rest of the soundtrack.
There are a lot of other things I could talk about like the amazing new animated cutscenes from Tyson Hesse or the new restored Sonic CD animations from Tanks, Quazza, and Brady Hartel, but my final thoughts on Sonic Origins in general is disappointing. Fans have made much better and intuitive ports of these Sonic games with more options and features than Origins has. And with the scummy deluxe edition selling content already in the game at launch and the insanely high price tag I can't really suggest this collection to anyone especially people playing on PC.