Sonic 3D Blast - Genesis & Saturn Review
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- Опубликовано: 28 июл 2021
- On the Genesis it was the final Sonic title for that system. On the Saturn it was a desperate attempt to save the franchise.
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Opening "Sega" jingle is from Astal for the Sega Saturn.
Ending Music during the credits is from Batman for the Sega Genesis.
Opening 3D SLX Logo
By: Jan Neves
RUclips Page - / jan3d
Opening 2D Animation(characters)
By: Kevin Bhall
Facebook - / kevin.bhall.14
Episode Notes:
1. Genesis version captured from the Mega SG. Saturn version from rfeal hardware.
2. Elsewhere in the world this was known as Sonic 3D Flickies Island.
3. The Flickies here are taken from the arcade game Flicky. There you needed to save the little birds as well.
4. The Genesis game features a short FMV intro. Impressive for a cartridge at the time.
5. There is a good and bad ending here depending on whether you score the chaos emeralds.
6. There was a dedicated PC release of this around the same time.
7. Sonic would remain without an exclusive action title until Sonic Adventure showed up in 1998, more than 2 years later.
8. Although this was developed by Traveller's Tales, Sonic Team handled much of the design process. Stage design, enemies, etc. Sega had their in house people do the music. 
Игры
I never even knew the Saturn version was some kind of failure when I was a kid... I just loved playing it! The music and especially the bonus stages blew me away at the time
I never realized Volcano Valley was that good of a ost
I was 13 when this game came out and I remember being fascinated seeing screenshots in magazines. I was amazed at how they could get this much graphical fidelity out of the Genesis. I loved the game when I played it.
Same here and seeing both side by side, it's impressive on the Genesis and very unimpressive on the Saturn, not to mention that amazing FMV intro on the 16-bit monster, that was sweet, a rare showcasing of what could be done if in the hands of masters. Imagine if such visual prowess was shown when the console launched, back in 1988.
me too... the saturn ost was AMAZING!!!
I was also 13 when it was released and I remember only thinking that it looked like a bad Saturn game and had no interest in it. I loaded it up in retroarch years later as an adult and didn’t think it was a bad game but feel like I didn’t miss much by skipping it as a kid.
@Roberto really? I thought the side-by-side did a great job of showing the graphical improvements on the Saturn. The music is also way better. 🤷♂️
The best part about this game was the music. The rest was just sonic ice skating trying to find birds
Yeah, the soundtracks to both games was really excellent. Easily the best parts of the games.
I liked it so much that I even took the entire Saturn version's music and replaced the original Sonic CD's soundtrack with it. Not surprising 3D Blast's soundtrack fits Sonic CD like a glove! 😄
The Saturn versions controls were less slippery (which he failed to mention), but there was still room for improvement.
I liked the game a lot.
mmmn, that Volcano Valley though~
mmmn, that smooth scaling, multi-layered bonus stage though.
Sega was a huge dumpster fire at that point. Developing 3D and R, Travelers' Tales really did their best with what they had. It's really sad, how things went.
I loved Sonic R and it was actually received pretty well when it was first launched. But all the cool kids turned it to a internet meme.
@@neobogard I've never liked the controls/handling. The character balancing is also broken. However, it's still fun and very playable. I can at least feel that sunshine.
Sonic 3D Blast and Sonic R did eventually lead to the creation of some fantastic movie based games on the PlayStation. A Bug's Life and Toy Story 2 were some of the best 3D platformers at the time, especially the latter.
@@MichDC Yeah, I agree. The 3D Controller is actually one of my favorite controllers ever made. R is still awkward as hell for me, to this day. lol
@@MichDC No you haven't. You just use B to accelerate and left and right to steer, like any other racing game. TT should never have left the ability to move forward using the d-pad in the game, they confused so many people. To this day people don't know how to play it.
I was really hoping for a shout out to the director's cut that was developed several years later. That version I think has a lot more appeal even for people that didn't enjoy the game originally.
Yeah, it seems like an odd omission given the hack is done by the game's original programmer. That being said I do think most people who didn't enjoy Sonic 3D Blast and despise isometric platformers aren't going to like the Director's Cut either.
@@atrocity3010 Probably. But at least I was not interested in sonic 3D blast until the director's cut. Just tons of brilliant additions, improved camera, improved flickies, they even tell you where they are when they get lost, a save system complete with a map and a way to track new collectables and challenges, the return of super sonic!
To be honest, some of those alone could be a game changer for some people. The fact that they are combined makes it even sweeter.
I do recommend that anyone that enjoys sonic to any capacity, but didn't like the original sonic 3D blast, to give the directors cut a try. You can even install it legally through the steam workshop. If people still don't like it, at the very least the work done on the director's cut is worth checking out and it is interesting by itself.
@@diegog1853 Yeah it is a neat addition, I remember it crashing though once I achieved 100% achievements.
He probably doesn't know about it.
What’s the difference?
The Director's Cut hack from Jon Burton is definitely the way to play now. It fixes so many issues with the original it's unreal.
Shame that theres no Director's Cut for the SS version. Would love to see more bonus and potential new levels added to increase that replay value even further. Always dug the music in it and the PC version
Being a Mega Man & Mario fan when I was a kid, my appreciation for Sonic has grown over the years.
Good stuff
Your nostalgia factor has increased
Same. Although I’d say appreciation for sega rather than just sonic as the company was so ambitious always pushing forward
Richard Jacques, who composed the Saturn game's soundtrack, also made the soundtrack for Sonic R. Aka, the greatest soundtrack of any game ever.
At least Sega had outstanding game soundtracks starting with the Saturn.
I mean everybody's "Super Sonic Racing" right? Everybody...everybody...
Quite the statement lol
@@Sholities yeah cause that's what a games console needs over gameplay
I adore TJ Davis' singing.
I've got a soft spot for the Genesis version, as it's the only Sonic game I had as a kid. Playing it now is even better with Jon Burton's Directors Cut, he put a lot of content back into the game that he intended to initially. Look up the GameHut channel, he talks about his coding. That FMV intro is absolute wizardry.
GameHut...amazing channel
The Directors Cut is for me the only way for this game to be tolerable. It should be definetely ported to the saturn.
I don't recall him ever saying that the Director's Cut was stuff he intended initially.
@@urquanseven2332 yeah, from what I remember it was content that fans requested.
Same. 3D Blast and Spinball were the two Sonic games I owned as a young kid, and I'd put both of them into the "not as bad as everyone says" category. The Genesis soundtrack for 3D Blast is off the charts too, and every bit as good as the mainline titles.
I'm still impressed to this day with what they managed to pull out with 3D Blast on the outdated Genesis hardware. Very nice game and a technical wonder: still looks, sounds and plays amazing after all the years.
Agreed! To me, its the best looking sonic game on the Genesis.
I wonder if "CODING SECRETS" were used to make "IMPOSSIBLE" things on the Genesis game.
SHAKE THE CARTRIDGE!!
I remember that Christmas my aunt went to the USA (I'm Brazilian) and bought us a Sonic game for Saturn. At the time there was no internet so we wait for her to arrive to see the game. We were sure it would be Sonic Xtreme. Imagine our disappointment to see the name Sonic 3D blast.
That's exactly how we all feel when anyone talks about Sonic on Saturn.
Every time.
The graphics in Sonic 3d Blast for the Genesis (aka Megadrive) were sheer wizardry. You could be forgiven for thinking that there might have been extra vram, and/or a graphics chip in the cartridge (like with some later Snes games), but there wasn't. Sonic 3D Blast did however use a much larger quantity of ROM on the cartridge than most other games.
That Rusty Ruins music for the Sega Saturn version was legendary though! I totally love it still to this day!
Yup! My favorite!
Also Volcanic Valley and Gene Gadget (love me some 90’s Techno music)
I agree. To me its one of, if not some of the best gaming music ive heard.
All the stages on the saturn had great music
Yup. It still ends up on videogame and non-videogame-related chill out mixes of mine, 25 freaking years later.
Richard Jacques did a fantastic job on the saturn soundtrack that I still listen to today
SLX you seem jaded on the Saturn version.
You should go outside reach for the sunshine. And forget about the rain. Just think about the good times and they will all come back again 😉
😆😆
For some reason I enjoy seeing side by side split screens of Sega Genesis and Sega Saturn's versions of Sonic 3d blast
The Saturn version visuals/environments look overly, unappealingly darker.
For me as a kid, this game had a very confusing perspective and actually gave me headaches (Mega Drive version). It was one of the reasons I put off getting into 3D gaming if that's what 3D gaming was, as my small child brain thought.
Same, I always hated isometric games because of this. Landstalkers on the Genesis was similar. Its always hard to line up jumps.
I always liked the idea of isometric games and enjoyed some of them. Light Crusader still is a great game in my book. But I get they're not for everyone. Regarding the headaches, it may be the motion more than the perspective. Of course, I don't know your circumstances. In my case, I'm sensitive to certain types of motion(I despise screen shake) in shows, movies, and games. In Sonic 3D Blast, at least on the Genesis, the scrolling can be a bit too quick and the "camera" has a tendency to snap back and forth as you change direction. I have a similar problem with some portable games ported from home systems. They tend to be zoomed in due to limited resolution, and to the scrolling is sped up to compensate so the camera can snap back and forth like a rubber band. That snapping back and forth is worse for me than just fast scrolling. That will either give me headaches or just tire my brain out really quickly.
Wow i just posted a comment addressing this very thing i got huge headaches playing this as a kid never understood why
@@ravagingwolverine Thanks for the explanation, I own this game in the Sonic Mega collection on Gamecube, and I got me dizzy very fast, mostly when Sonic was jumping , the quirky speed of the characters and the isometrics don't mix well, unlike in Mario RPG that is also isometric but the camera is more zoomed out and the characters walk slower is a mush better experience
I hated it when it came out. I tried to go back to it recently on the switch in the mega drive collection and it hasn't changed. It ain't good
I still play this game time to time. Love the music and visuals in the genesis version, also decent game for the SEGA Genesis’s final days. Saturn version should have been better.
The Saturn version is still better though, with at least as good music (that obviously sounds better as well). I'm not convinced I'd recommend a worse version of the game, just because the better version isn't as good as it should have been.
@@wyterabitt2149 I agree. The Saturn version is much, much better than the Genesis version and whenever I want to play Sonic 3D Blast, I play it on the Saturn.
I'm thankful that a lot of the Genesis must was reused in Sonic Adventure. At least some of the great music wasn't trapped in this game.
Never noticed that the flowers move in the Saturn version but not the Genesis.
Alot of extra visuals in the Saturn port. Its the best between the two.
The power of 32 bits! 😅
One interesting detail is how the intro animation was possible to fit and run on the Genesis: first compressed to only 16 colors and 256*80 pixels, then stretched back with line interrupts, and finally dithered with line offsets to recreate intermediate colors and a smoother image. There's a short video about it on GameHut.
I was blown away by Sonic 3D on the Genesis. I was a kid and had never seen anything like it on the Genesis before. I did find it a bit fiddly though and never bothered to complete it, the only 16-bit Sonic game I never finished!
I like both versions. Of course it would have been better if they had released an exclusive Sonic for the Saturn but as far as ports go, I think the Saturn version of 3D Blast does a good job improving sound and graphics making it better than the original version and yet staying true to the source material. There's no problem with the Saturn version itself, the problem is not having another Sonic made just for the Saturn to showcase the new plataform.
Ohh man, Astal. That game didn't get the love it deserved. My friends gave me crap when I picked it up from the bargain bin. I played it at least once a day until I sold my Saturn 5 years later.
We didn't get it in Europe, but we got The Crow City of Angels.
astal was the game i bought for my saturn when i got it after joining the army, i have such major nostalgia for that game and the saturn menu system, i want a music playing app with the space ship flying visualization
@@Kwstr42 Oh man my friends and I had so much fun with the music player. We loved the slow down and speedup feature. We would sit around and mess with it for HOURS. Thanks for the flood of memories!
Yup, I still have my original Astal copy and replayed it like a year ago. Everything about it is great
I was 11 when Sonic 3d Blast came out for the Genesis and I absolutely loved it, besides some movement issues and the feeling that sonic "glides" across the levels it's a great and fun game
I honestly prefer the look of the MD version. The "realistic" ground textures just doesn't fit for me
It's great how many pieces of music they remixed for other games. Green Grove (Genesis) became Windy Valley "The Air". Diamond Dust (Genesis) became both Central City in Sonic Chronicles and Snow Mountain in Sonic Dash. Volcano Valley Act 1 (Saturn) became the Kron Colony in Sonic Chronicles. Panic Puppet Act 1 (Genesis) became Twinkle Park "Twinkle Cart". An unused Knuckles bonus stage became Twinkle Park "Pleasure Castle". Panic Puppet (Saturn) became Metropolis in Sonic Chronicles, one of the boss fights in Chronicles, and also apparently Lost Impact in Shadow the Hedgehog. The Final Fight (Genesis) became the Mystic Ruins in Sonic Chronicles.
The saturn version has like the greatest soundtrack ever thanks to legend Richard Jacques
Totally agree! Music was epic sounding!
That reason alone always made it hard for me to spend mor than 5 minutes with the Genesis version.
I actually prefer the colors of the Genesis version to the saturns. It just pops more and it’s more visually appealing
Absolutely love your channel man. Even for games I know and have played already your videos are so informative.
I grew up with the saturn version and the music was a big part of what i loved about it.the visuals were really clean as well especially the special stages. I played the genesis port years later.i just had more of a feel for the soundtracks on the saturn along with sonic r's soundtrack as well.the genesis version was really well made but i just can't get into it like i do with the saturn version
Came here from Funhaus, i can’t believe I never found your channel man, you have gold on here
I don’t know, the Saturn version legit looks great to me. In fact it looks a lot better to me than a lot of Saturn games you’ve praised for their visuals. Really shows how flat the textures are on the Genesis version. Would’ve appreciated that version getting more rerelease love over the Genesis one.
It's amazing that they haven't yet! It could be an unlockable after beating the genesis version.
Agreed. Both are fantastic looking but the Saturn's looked definitely better.
I hope Sega will re-release the Saturn version of 3D Blast someday. I liked the genesis version tho
If they can even find the source code for it.
Well I got RetroArch installed on my PC and Xbox Series S and I do think Sonic 3D Blast is great to come back to every now and then. Traveller’s Tales did put effort into 3D Blast and Sonic R (though the PC and GameCube versions I would stick with).
Man, whatever you’re doing on the video capture front, keep it up. Your stuff has been crisp as hell lately! 👍
Thank you again for another awesome and informative video. We just had classic Game Fest down here in Austin TX this past weekend and your videos got me into Sega quite a bit. I had 10 pickups over the weekend and 8 were Sega titles. I picked up Golvellius and the Blue Variant of California games for the Sega Master System, Mickey Mani for the Sega CD, and 5 Saturn titles. I grabbed Virtua Cop 2, Quake, Earthworm Jim 2, Mortalk Kombat Trilogy, and Enemy Zero. Really looking forward to playing them during this next year. Thanks for the awesome videos and inspiring me to collect and play Sega games.
2:56 this having been the first Sonic game I actually owned, that close call with the spikeball nearly gave me cardiac arrest
Ive been dying to find a good comparison video. Thank you
expectations are what kills any game really As an isolated experience, I love 3D Blast on my Saturn.
Pretty crazy that this was basically intended to be the Saturn’s mainline Sonic game. No doubt this hurt sales big time.
They would been better off porting sonic CD and knuckle chaotic for Saturn as launch title
Great video! I’m one of the ones you mentioned that enjoyed this game (both versions, but I lean heavily towards the Saturn version because of that sweet, sweet emerald half-pipe stage music and the other Saturn versions of the soundtrack!) .
sonic looks like a shiny inflated birthday balloon version of himself in this game
The PC version was a port of the Saturn version, but the special stages looked like the Saturn version and Genesis version got together and had a baby.
Wow!! I've got it on the Mega Drive, but I didn't realise how little difference there was between that and the Saturn version. You're probably gonna find better value for money on the Mega Drive version, by the looks of things. Nice comparison 👍
Would love to mention that Richard Jacques also worked on Sonic R, the Jet Set Radio and it’s beautiful remake on Xbox. Honestly the best decision SEGA could have made when making that port was hiring him!
Sonic 3D Blast is the only Sonic game I never tired of. Especially the Saturn version, the soundtrack is magic
This tho, coming from someone who reeeeaaaaally didn't like what Sega did with Sonic for the Sonic Adventure games.
Very nice review man! I agree the Saturn should have had more improvements to it from the Genesis Port.
I'm surprised that you didn't mention the directors cut hack that was made by Jon Burton, the former TT Games developer. It does add in some interesting things to fill in the void of the game like a tracker for the flickies, saves, level editor, and Super Sonic.
In the director's cut version of Sonic 3D Blast/Sonic 3D: Flickies' Island, you can save and load your progress, play as Super Sonic and a time attack mode was added. Plus, in the director's cut version of Sonic 3D Blast/Sonic 3D: Flickies' Island, Tails and Knuckles are found in Gene Gadget and Panic Puppet.
Segaaaaaa
you weren't kidding. what an awesome soundtrack
I remember when as a ten year old I took my bike to the city centre and bought this game for my own money right around when it was released. I was an extreme Sonic fan, and even though I didn't own Sonic 3 I still brought Sonic 3D Blast instead for some reason. I was so disappointed..
My expectations were sky high, naturally, but as much as I tried to like it I just couldn't get past the fact that this is a boring game with bad and confusing controls.
It's not a terrible game, the presentation is decent, the music is fantastic and at least they tried something different, but I'll never forget how ripped off I felt that day.
We all feel your pain yo.
I made the mistake of trading in my copy of SONIC CD in exchange for SONIC 3-D BLAST for the SATURN.
I got screwed...
😲😢
Ouch.
I remember renting this as a kid and being like ......wtf lol
I can feel your anger and frustration! Similar to myself at the time - love your content!
Love the new intro. Exceptional content as usual. Keep it up
It’s nice to see you do a review on this game, but the issue is, you barely talked about the many negatives of the game and you focused too much on bashing the Saturn version. Like really some of the platforming is obnoxious in this game and the whole concept is pretty boring. You also don’t seem to know about the 2017 directors cut for the genesis version.
I directly addressed the concept and I was not reviewing any other version than the originals.
It's interesting to see the Saturn version, I got 3D Blast for Genesis when I was 3 or 4 years old and have fond memories of its music, the ending credits song is burnt into my brain in a primordial way. It is certainly the weaker of the Genesis titles and I preferred the mainline games it still has a special place in my heart. The graphical upgrade looks nice but I think if I revisit this title it'll be the way I have been doing it since I was shitting my pants and unable to spell my own name.
Regardless of anyone's feelings towards Sonic 3D Blast, I think we can all agree it's a technical marvel on the Genesis/Mega Drive. Travellers Tales did a bloody excellent job at fitting all that game on the cartridge. I mean, it's got an FMV for gods sake!
I sort of agree.
But, I just thing Genesis still had some awesome tricks that no Sonic game ever used..
like the rotating background Battle Mania,
Or the Mode 7 found on the unreleased title Wacky Racers,
or even the psuedo 3d background from Ranger X...
I think personally, there are so many tricks that a Sonic 4 could have used..Tricks that a younger version of me would have simply gone gaga over.
This was my sonic game for satern , joyed it so much , not until years later I fond out it was also on Genesis
I remember seeing the Saturn box of this in my pre-algebra book as a kid and being fascinated. This was during the 128-bit era and the consoles that failed held a certain mystique and allure to me
This video and your commentary at the end brings back so many memories. It was my introduction to brand loyalty. I didn’t have any consoles during Sonics initial trilogy but collected every comic, watched every show...etc. I remember the saturns launch and the red shoe diaries article, so when I was presented with a chance to get either a PlayStation or Saturn before that Christmas I jumped at the Saturn in hopes of being able to enjoy the next trilogy as it was released and surely enough year after year I was disappointed. When the next generation came I lost a lot of respect for Sega and even distanced myself from video games as a whole. Crazy, I was just a kid but Sega not living up to those expectations really left a bitterness in my young mind.
Here we are enjoying another episode! 🔥👊
Even when I disagree with some of your arguments, it's always a pleasure watching your videos and hearing your perspectives. Excellent at always!
There's a hack of the Genesis game released a few years ago by Jon Burton, the founder of Traveller's Tales, called Sonic 3D: Director's Cut. It's considered the definitive version, since it corrects bugs, tweaks some gameplay and graphics issues, and adds many improvements like world map, time attack, level editor. I've never liked 3D Blast, but the Director's Cut version makes it much more enjoyable, it definitely had the foundations of a pretty good game.
the graphics are actually pretty sweet on saturn
so many dithers tho
I’ll never forget how even though the box said “3D Blast,” it wasn’t 3D or a blast
Man I try to erase from my memories those games were a thing that I played 😬
I see you all over the place, sorta miss the old pfp you had lol
I tried the Genesis and owned the Saturn version of Sonic 3-D Blast. They are okay, but they could have been a lot better than what players got: especially the Saturn version, which could have taken advantage of more enhanced graphics beyond the Bonus stages. That, and the slow loading times on the Saturn were just half baked. I do, however, like some of the music from Richard Jacques on the Saturn port: especially "Green Grove Zone," "Rusty Ruin Zone," and "Diamond Dust Zone."
This was my first "3D" gaming experience. I remember reading GamePro and EGM issues for the next year or two really hyping up the idea of games going full 3D, gradually becoming more realistic, and this overall idea of full immersion in a game. There was a lot of talk about VR even back then, you had the Virtual Boy, and Sega was really going crazy with trying to sell this idea of being "part of" the game with FMV on the Sega CD, 3D games on the 32X, and early gimmicky peripherals like the rumble vest thing that vibrated your chest every time you got punched. I had all the Genesis add-ons, really trying to get that feeling that I was in the game, like we were just a few years away from full on VR, and as far as I knew, Sonic 3D Blast was basically the start of that.
There was also Vectorman and the SNES had the Donkey Kong Country games that had a similar pseudo 3D thing going on, but I was a Genesis owner as a kid and Sonic was my childhood, so this was the perfect game to be my entry into 3D gaming. And then less than a year later, my friend invited me over his house to show me this new fangled PlayStation thing, something I'd only heard vague rumors about, and there it was: Crash Bandicoot. In that moment, I knew immediately that all that stuff I had my mom buy me for the Genesis was instantly obsolete, and that this was instead the actual future of 3D (along with Super Mario 64).
One positive thing I will say, all the great childhood memories aside, is that at least for the first and third levels on the Genesis, there was something really neat and unique about the intensely colorful, abstract level design. Everything looks like it's made of plastic, like you're on some kind of set or in a play area, like a video game version of a funhouse or the Discovery Zone (anyone remember that place?). You can't really tell if you're indoors or outdoors. You're on a bridge with tropical trees everywhere, but there's a colorful, tiled floor and weird jumping pads. It's just kind of a shame that Super Mario 64, along with a ton of other titles, defined what it meant to make platformers or child-friendly games in 3D, and that's just been the way it is ever since.
Imagine if there were a genre of platformers in full 3D with a perspective similar to Mario Odyssey or Jak & Daxter or whatever, except instead of wandering around a jungle or on a beach or something, you're surrounded by toy-like replicas of trees while wandering around a red-and-yellow-tiled wonderland that doesn't quite resemble any real life environment. I don't know, I liked it as a kid, and I guess I still do.
Diamond Dust Zone music always creeps into my christmas music playlists. Love love love the saturn OST!
This game blew my mind as a kid
The Saturn version imo looks cluttered. The extra patterns and tones they've put on everything does not help it at all.
Came here to say this. I actually prefer the flat, brighter colors of the Genesis version. I still don't think it's a good game, and it definitely doesn't feel like a Sonic game, but it is what it is.
Another good video Sega Lord. I find it incredible that Sega never realized how important their Sonic games were and how they could release the 32x, Saturn and Dreamcast without a Sonic game ready on release. I personally think it should have been the pack in game for all 3 consoles but even if there was just one available I'd have to imagine Sega's fortunes would have been at least somewhat different.
I remember the initial disappointment getting this Christmas Day 1996. I'd read that it was basically a Genesis port, and not a particularly great game. Definitely not on the Saturn, the system I opted to spend my 17-year-old self's meager funds on instead of a Playstation. But, it was...fine? Definitely for someone who didn't have access to literally thousands of games like most of us do now. Every few years, I still pop it in for 10 minutes. And, man, that soundtrack. That Rusty Ruins tune you opened this review up with still finds its way on "chill out" and "videogame music" mixes pretty regularly. Fantastic.
Great video! You're a million percent right about the Saturn port! As an early adopter (I got the Saturn in May 95), it's bonkers that SEGA couldn't get a legit next gen Sonic game out for the Saturn!!
I LOVE the soundtrack of the Saturn version! Used to listen to it on the Saturn media player dashboard thing lol
I remember romanticizing the Genesis a lot when I was a kid, for years I had a SNES when my cousins had the much cooler Genesis. I finally got one in 1996, and I remember that Christmas I got Sonic 3D Blast, and I was so excited to have a brand new Sonic game with my still brand new to me Sega Genesis. It was so disappointing but I played it to death anyway.
That's one of the great mysteries of gaming, I think. What would a Sonic 4 have been like, one that pushed the Saturn to the limit like his previous titles. I think you're right, something like Astral or Rayman. I think the gameplay would be a combo of Sonic 3 & Knuckles, with some of the good ideas of Sonic CD tossed in. It would have been magnificent.
Remember that, at that time, 3D was a new thing with 32-bit consoles, and even THE thing ! People wouldn't have accepted another 2D Sonic, as it's what they got with the previous gen (16-bit consoles). Just a better looking 2D Sonic wouldn't have done the trick to compete with Crash Bandicoot on PS or Super Mario 64 on N64. Something like Sonic Mania works now because of the nostalgia we're so used to 3D games, nostalgia and the hype for retro gaming. It wouldn't have worked the same back then at all. That said, SEGA / Sonic Team should have been able to develop a convincing true 3D Sonic for the Saturn, no question.
Been waiting for this!!!
Before I even watch this, I predict this sentence: "The FMV scenes on the Genesis were nothing short of a revelation".
Low rez, choppy video a revelation? Hmmm..
I played this game on CD rom as a kid and loved every minute of it
*get stuck for something to say
*reaches hand into hat with little pieces of paper inside
*pulls out paper and reads it, smiling and nodding slowly
*turns to keyboard and types "from the gods"
Those are nice information about the game Sonic 3 D blast. I remember that I tried the version on Mega Drive/Sega Genesis. It was a nice try to save the console.
Good review. I love this game. I can understand why most people didn't liked it, they wanted something more similar to the previous games, but that doesn't make Sonic 3D a bad game, it's a great game in my opinion. To jump on top of enemies without failing, I just looked to where the Sonic shadow was, it's really easy. It's a shame that the Saturn developers didn't have more time to make better graphics.
Bravo as usual sir! Any chance of a Power Stone episode?
I really loved the music for Sonic 3D Blast Saturn. I still remember loving it in 1996 and I am still trying to find the soundtrack. Haven't heard the music since then.
I respect that, even though you’re a huge Sega fanboy, you hold them accountable for their shenanigans.
Also, I loved the isometric grid first in Kirby’s Dream Course - a mixture of billiards and mini golf on SNES.
It's 11pm! Eh, not like I was going to sleep anyway 🤷🏾♂️
If the Saturn version of 3D Blast had been a free pack-in game, I still would have felt ripped off.
The Saturn deserved better about sums up the system’s life in North America.
Just got this for the genesis and it's solid! But yea I think we all would have appreciated an even unfinished Sonic Xtreme than this on the Saturn
I think your vitriol is well warranted. This would have been somewhat akin to Nintendo releasing a souped up version of DKC3 for the 64 instead of a proper 3D Mario game. Fans would have revolted.
I had this game on PC and played it quite a lot back in the day, along with Sonic 3 and Knuckles. I got them from a book fair in school lol!
I was one of the rare cases of only playing it on PC when it was new apparently. It was basically the Saturn version with a slightly tweaked bonus stage that looked like a weird hybrid of low-quality 3D stage with the pre-rendered Sonic sprite overlayed. Still had a lot of fun with it because I didn't know any better from not having a Saturn at the time and the Genesis being largely out of the picture by then. Actually being skilled at it with the direction keys on a keyboard vs a dedicated gamepad is something else, too.
I love SEGA
As a kid I had the Saturn and LOVED 3D blast. I need to go back and play as an adult and see if it has held up at all.
GOD just hearing that channel opening could turn u into a sega fan,like an update to the sonic games "SEGA"!
Honestly for a 32 bit port it looks very nice albeit darker than the genesis version. If you judge the game on its own without the grudge of the missing sonic sequel on the saturn, it is a very good game for saturn standards.