The problems between Sega's US and Japanese offices are ultimately what sunk Sega. No surprise to see them butting heads again here. Great video, and thanks for the shout-out!
Agree 100% Seeing the repeated debacles of the 32x and Sega Saturn(and now this game) just shows the bad leadership decisions which sunk Sega. The dreamcast was a chance at redemption but Sony's genius move of having the PS2 also be a DVD player sunk it.
@@the-NightStar games composed with GEMS sounded a little rough and a lot of devs who were making multi platform games didn’t take the time to fine tune their genesis/mega drive version. There’s far more offensive tracks from GEMS the system is known for a lot of really low effort music as a result. Some games are just like nails on a chalk board for their music. 😬 Spin ball isn’t the worst offender but I do agree some of the tracks have some characteristics of GEMS like how AI generated imagery has an off feeling to it. You had to be really particular to get good sound out of the Genesis/Mega Drive and most third parties weren’t all that concerned with the effort you need to put in. The Sonic games are an exception for sure. If you play more of the library on the system you really notice when the music sounds really bad.
Oh hey, I’m here early. Glad you’re covering Spinball, it’s a super weird case. The big issue with C is not really that it won’t act like how you’d expect (in fact, since there’s less worrying about the minutiae than with assembly, an argument could be made that for most it’ll act MORE like how you’d expect, unless you’re exceptionally good at understanding the hardware), the issue is more that since the code will eventually have to be compiled from C to binary, you cannot reasonably hand-tune your code for performance. Spinball is the only Sonic game on the Genesis I’m aware of that has to run at 30 FPS, which makes the game feel sluggish. Also kinda fun fact, Sonic 3 itself was developed in around the same amount of time, as the original Sonic 3 project was supposed to use the SVP chip but that was scrapped. Evidence of the super rushed development can be seen in the Sonic 3 prototype recently released.
Technically, Sonic 3 & Knuckles as we know it might have had around 12 months of development (June 1993-June 1994, not counting those earlier 6 months spent on designing the game around the SVP chip). Apparently the plans to use the SVP chip for a isometric/somewhat 3D Sonic game (which go back as far as January 1993) were scrapped sometime around June (at least according to The Cutting Room Floor) which was when the team had to start over by tweaking the Sonic 2 engine and the game itself had to be done and ready to get printed on cartridges in November 1993, so enough copies would be shipped for the Hedgehog Day in 1994, which by the way was the result of a McDonald's sponsorship and the deadline was set by the investors, which is why Sonic 3 couldn't come out for the holiday season of 1993 (and one of the reasons why it had to be split into two cartridges) in the first place.
I suspect memory was a big issue, perhaps more so than C. The game is only 512kb and it is packing. It has pretty wicked compression scheme going on. There's loading screen and stutter between map sections. Probably lots of ram used for lookup tables.
Toxic Caves is a certified banger, which is good because 80% of people who played the game were stuck there forever. Lava Powerhouse is weirdly good, though not super catchy. It does put the "power" in "Powehouse" though. The Machine is very lowkey, but fittingly technological. Not fantastic, but it gets the job done. I like the "bbwwoooooppp" synth. Showdown is just kinda... bland. The boss theme is pretty good! Could've gone a little harder, but it's nonetheless good. The options theme is pretty bangin' *when it's given proper instrumentation.* The title theme is really good for something made in 2 hours _(and the beta version - which is an arrangement of Sonic 1/2's title screen - is pretty good too, I like how it ends)._ Overall, not a bad soundtrack all things considered.
I genuinely enjoyed both Sonic Spinball and Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine as a kid. I got both together as a gift from my aunt towards the end of 1994. All in all, they were both neat little games that complimented the main titles really well.
Funny how the American devs thought staying over hours and sleeping at their workstations was crazy back then when that's exactly what they have to do now.
I mean, directly comparing it to the mainline Sonic games is like being mad that Mario Paint doesn't play the same as Super Mario World, or that Kirby's Dream Course isn't as good as Kirby's Dreamland. If you look at it in it's context, a spinoff title by the B-Team, that was based on a simple concept and executed on in an extremely short amount of time, it's really not that bad. Considering what they were working with, it is pretty impressive that it even works at all. The stuff that has to work does, and they hid the jank as best as they could And even though it didn't look or sound the same as the main line titles, I honestly wasn't bothered by the change in aesthetic, I thought the little glider plane Sonic and Tails had in this one was kinda cool. And the music is a little grimy, but I'm not bothered by that, I kinda like the options theme, and the boss theme is actually kinda sick. And honestly, given that we have the benefit of hindsight from the present day, it's probably not even in the top 10 of "Worst Sonic Games". It's definitely closer to worst of the best, rather than best of the worst.
I love this game. All that needs changing is better code optimisation to get it running faster, but it's still playable. It looks great, it sounds great, the level designs are creative, interesting and challenging. I think what they achieved in the time frame was amazing.
Veteran Member Status FTW! I have played sonic spinball since buying it in the store. (Well, my parents did bought it). I used to play it alot in the 90s when I was younger, but it was way too hard as a kid. I do play it every 3-4 years now, if that. I think the game was too sluggish and awkward to control to become a great game. Imagine casino night zone in sonic 2 converted to a pinball game - I think that would have been a real winner as a full game. (By chance as I write this I am watching your video and I see you are also talking about casino night). That idea totally would have taken off had they done things right. Edit : For atmosphere, I give the game 10/10, even though there's only 4 stages, each one had a very unique look and very detailed. I think they spent alot of time on that but not as much on the other things the game needed
i was thinking the same thing. imagine is the japanese crew was more involved with sonic spinball, AND the engine of sonic 2 was used. it would have been a much different, and probably much better, game
that's quite a good title-screen song for being composed in less time than some peoples' commutes take 🤣💀 this channel's quite nice & informative. high production quality. kinda depression-binging this content after a particularly bad misfit/bullying day ~ Mesyn
Lollll that poor composer dude. I can't imagine someone telling me "Hey uh, we need you to rewrite a song for us and it's gotta be done in like... 2 hours." You're right though, the physics are ass anytime Sonic has to walk around.
I loved Sonic Spinball, it was a game my father got my for my 8th birthday. I find people that criticize this game often don't know how to play it. And the music was awesome.
Yeah, wow, I always remember the Sonic Spinball soundtrack giving me the creeps with how flipping intense it was, lol. Makes sense now that it was from an entirely different and western dev team. Nice work!
That Options music gag made me laugh so hard, instant sub. I liked this game to an extent but like many pinball games, it was kind of hard to follow and i always would forget to put it on Fast, which still felt slow and weird and framey, but altogether, i did enjoy renting it as a kid and it stands out in my mind as the first time i realized the future of Sonic was going to be a mixed bag.
You did not just say "The music was mediocre" The music is maybe not on the quality level of the original trilogy, on that I can agree, but not much is (even in the 3D Sonic era) But Sonic Spinball's music is wonderfully unique and funky
My roommate has a magazine article scanned about this game’s development. According to this magazine article, the full development cycle lasted about TWO months. Idk if TH-cam will allow me to post a link, but I have the scan. EDIT: found it Third page, fourth paragraph. "In two short months, between 15 June and August, the project developed from a roughly playable first build, featuring nothing more than the scrolling and collision systems and 80 percent of the character animations played on a single unfinished level, to a fully completed ready to ship final build. In 61 days it progressed from something not even suitable for a press demo to a fully fleshed-out game."
keep in mind I don't know exactly where the 'two month' thing is - that is just what my roommate told me. I couldn't locate any such claim with a quick speed-read and i'm too tired to bother combing over it more closely (it's 3am), but what I did see checks out with everything pojr said.
@@DELTARYZ It does say that in 61 days it went from a ultra simplified demo to a fully finished game. That may have just referred to one part of the project (programming... which is still highly impressive) to a finished game. The 9 months may have included all aspects of story boarding, music, pixel art, etc. I'm just guessing but still a really cool article!
I got, and still retain my copy with the redone tile music. I had actually, never heard the original before this video. I never even knew it existed. I was 11, so the music was fine. It seemed to "rock out," way harder than it had to. 🤷🏿♂️
Sonic Spinball is a Western-devrloped game that uses GEMS audio. The development team had to use different title screen music because, when initial copies of the game were released, the game included the "Sonic the Hedgehog" title music. The big problem was that they didn't get the copyright permission to use that theme, and the track had to be completely re-written for future copies of Sonic Spinball.
I know for sure my copy of Spinball has the final revision of the main theme, I'd love to come across an early print copy at some point since they're apparently out there.
Excellent information. Excellent history. I wish you more subscribers and popularity. There is just one little eensy tiny little thing though. THE MUSIC IS AWESOME. Sega US really got screwed over when making this game. Howard drossin created the toxic caves theme song on his first day as they hired him late in the production process. He was completely unfamiliar with the sound system of the sega genesis/gems but still managed to make one of the most incredible songs ever. So hearing that story of how he made the theme song in less than 2 hours is totally believable yet crazy. They managed to make an amazing fun game with outstanding music. At least the first level/options menu music. As this is the music 90% of the gaming audience would actually hear
I have the version with the new intro, which I got shortly after it came out. I was so addicted to that game. I spent many hours until beating it, and then I'd repeat the same process over and over. I probably spent more time on Sonic Spinball than any other Sonic title. Of course, I'm a pinball addict, too.
C language is a high level language, because of that it is generating a lot of "extra" machine commands that being processed by cpu, it makes everything slower than assembly in terms of performance. At the same time it's actually heavely depends on compiler, I read that in some cases C compiler did better (less) machine code than human programmers on assembly.
this video came up with my youtube autoplay while i was doing housework and as soon as i heard the cosmic carnage music at the end i knew i had to hit that sub button. good stuff man!
This is the game that came with my Genesis console when I was a teenager. I always loved the music for this game. The weird physics when not in pinball mode are definitely a thing. I knew it was an American game and that’s why it’s so different. It’s neat to hear the story fleshed out. Thanks for a good video!
Small correction: Sega DOES own the rights to three tracks from Sonic 1 and 2, as the games sound designer Yukifumi Makino (credited as "Macky") composed the iconic 1-Up, Drowning and Chaos Emerald jingles for those games, not Masato Nakamura.
Wow I knew i didn't like Sonic Spinball as a kid but could not figure out why. Now i know. This was one of those kid mistakes where I played the game at Target on one of those 6 cart genesis displays and really enjoyed it enough to ask my mom to buy it for me. She eventually did and I'll never forget coming home and within 1 hour realizing "this is not a good game". This video makes me feel a little better as a consumer since Sega basically kinda screwed us with it. Also all the speed and fluidity of sonic is missing, and it feel like the frame rate is very low
to me, this was the best sonic game. i remember saying to my siblings: wouldnt be great if they would make a completely casino night zone themed sonic game? and then it came out!. even as an adult i keep coming back to play it and not the others. but you do have a point in that it feels weird compared to the others; and now THANKS to you i know why. hablas espanol, amigo? me he subscrito a tu canal yt.
First time viewer! Dropping a comment to help the algorithm. Oh, and I always loved playing Sonic Spinball growing up, and always thought the platforming felt a little off. This explains why!
I remember my cousin had the version with the newer theme, he had the Genesis version. The only versions I have are Sonic Mega Collection, Sega Smash Pack on GBA, and the PC version on Steam. Personally, I like the game a lot, it combines Sonic and pinball, two things I like. Even the GBA port was decent, and played well, albeit looping Toxic Caves music since the cart also had Golden Axe and Ecco.
I was a preschooler when I compound fractured my femur. Despite the best efforts of my parents to keep me off video games and cartoons up until that juncture, there really was nothing better to do in that so called Eternal September. I fell in childhood adoration with Sonic through six weeks of traction. Elsewhile, my brother and sister were occupied by a Sega Genesis while mom, dad, various uncles and aunts stood vigil through my recovery. I had to miss trick or treats on Halloween, but I got home shortly after. And we played Sonic and watched Sonic and through that struggle we loved Sonic, a family reunited. That Thanksgiving we watched the Sonic balloon get destroyed by a lamp post in the parade, and somehow that was a thing that stuck as a core memory and one of the two worst things to happen in New York on National Television. It was nothing short of a godsend and a proto Jingle All the Way story that Old Saint Nick was able to conjure Sonic Spinball that Christmas morning. Been around the world a couple dozen times by now, but thanks to Sega of America for pulling this thing off, but thinking about getting Sonic Spinball that holiday season...you kinda want to believe again, in a world and time in life when you dont want to believe anymore but you can at least hold on to that moment of happiness. I will be forever greatful for Sega of America for delivering Spinball in such short time (and I dont think the music is that bad either, but thats just memory association) But then I ended up getting Sonic Labyrinth from Santa in 1995, but thats another story for another day.
A fan, Sonic Mania-like remake of this based on one of the open framework engines would be lit. Could also create some new levels based off scrapped ones from other games, like that Prism Stage from Sonic CD, Cyber City Zone from 2, et cetera.
My version of Sonic Spinball had both intro songs, and I'm inclined to believe all copies did because even the ROM I'm currently playing has both. If you don't press start at the title and just let the demo run, sometimes when it loops back to the title, you'll hear the first version of the theme.
@@MTCesquireSo your "proof" is telling someone else to do it. I have an original cart and the Sega Genesis Classics and neither of them do that. You're full of shit.
I love that game, the visuals, the sounds and the music. I think that metallic sound fits perfectly. By the way, nice channel. I discovered it yesterday and already watched some videos. 👍
I myself at first unfortunately got the game gear version of this. I played it and I don't like it. And I never bothered pick it up again. But I later picked up the Genesis version. Right through games compilations called SEGA Genesis classics for PC and switch.
I've only ever heard the "original" title before for this game, however I've only ever rented the game, I do not know how the video rental store I rented it from obtained their copy, I do however know what happened to their inventory when they closed; everything got sold off, I know as my Mega Drive, Mega CD, Sonic 1, 2 and 3 were all purchased from them when they closed. Spinball and Knuckles had already been sold off or I would have bought those as well, I unfortunately do not know who ended up with these games nor if they have survived to this day. (This was in Europe)
C'mon dude, Toxic Caves' music is super funky. Aside from this, this video is pretty good. Reminds me of the content I'd watch throughout the 2010s, minus the stock footage.
I'm well aware liking it makes me a weirdo, but I do. It and CD are among my favorite Sonic games But boy, is it ever clear the difficulty was designed to discourage rentals. Even if you reading don't like it, gotta admit it's brilliant. Sonic always stood out because of his physics, so being a pinball is perfect. If I had to correct anything, it's that the infamous options music is actually an incomplete version, another casualty of crunch. As Larry Bundy Jr. recently pointed out, the European release or at least some carts have the proper version that's not an assault on the human ear. Which is a quality sorta shared with another song of a game for the system. The options menu music from Thunder Force IV, funnily enough
I’m kinda mixed on spinball, on the one hand it’s pretty fun just to bounce around so much you give sonic motion sickness, but actually trying to play the game is very hard (but that’s probably just because I am absolute garbage at pinball)
Sonic spinball was my first genesis game and it was fairly new when I got it. I was.. 7? 8? My version had the music made in 2 hours. Also I'm suprised you didn't talk more about the satam appearances. It was the only game where they addressed them at all which is crazy to me I loved satam. The canceled stealthy satam game looked cool but sega of Japan hated it.
I really don't like how people keep insisting the bad music in American Mega Drive games has to do with GEMS specifically. GEMS is actually a lot better than what Sega offered to Japanese developers in the early days of the system - The driver is relatively bug-free, it runs well (despite not having the most well optimized code), and actually has a lot better features. The trouble often comes from inexperience of the musicians and developers, either not putting in enough effort to produce high quality music, not having a musician on-hand who could create better music, and having less experience with FM synthesis than their Japanese counterparts. In addition, GEMS provided a standard set of FM voices to use for developers. While it is not really a bad set of voices, some developers used them mostly throughout the soundtrack instead of creating custom voices that fit the song better. This again I would say has a lot to do with inexperience of developers. In addition, the Spinball OST actually sounds worse nowadays because a lot of people use emulators. The real hardware has a great low-pass filtering (on model 1 anyway, unmodded model 2 is kind of bad tbh), so the music sounds better. It is still not amazing, but I think its unfair to call it mediocre. Overall, still a lot of developers went the extra mile and created their own drivers or just utilized the drivers they were given better, and therefore ended up with much better music than your average GEMS game. But let me tell you, no matter what driver, you will find plenty of games with awful music.
Gems gets way more hate than it deserves. The standard patches are pretty lame but it was a great tool for time-strapped developers. Spinball was one of those games that really deserved some custom patches but I still think the music is funky as hell
I was a Nintendo kid. Never played Sonic except a few times at a friends house or on a demo unit in stores. I really never liked Sonic games. I found they gave me headaches from how fast things were moving.
IIRC the game also runs at 30fps while all the other main Sonic games on Genesis ran at 60fps. Maybe like you said if the game was written in C instead of assembly that's why as you said the performance would be worse. I always found the game to be strange. Sonic does look weird compared to the other games and the music was certainly a downgrade.
Yeah, I'm with you on this one. Terrible soundtrack but the game is fun. I remember the first time I saw it at a friend's house as a kid, I had to have it.
So why wasn't the data from Sonic 1 and 2 (engine, code and graphics) used anyway In Sonic Spinball? At that time, in the unreleased Segapede game, STI uses the art (and possibly code) level from the Hidden Palace Zone game, an unused level from Sonic the Hedgehog 2. Segapede was taken over immediately after the end of Sonic Spinball. That is, it turns out when SEGA commissioned STI to create a game about SONIC. At that time, SEGA did not give them any resources from SONIC. And when STI started creating their own game, they already have resources from SONIC. This is stupid and illogical. What was going on in STI and SEGA anyway?
I actually really love sonic spinball! but I'm a huge fan of pinball in general, both real tables and video game pinball. I think thats why the stiff awkward platforming never bothered me. The focus here is on the pinball mechanics with the platforming put in as an afterthought, so I thought it was designed like this on purpose to some extent There are good OSTs that use GEMS but its sadly a case of, the composer has to be good with it, so theres more bad soundtracks made with GEMS than good ones... and I sadly think sonic spinball is one of those. Aside from a few songs that go hard (I really love toxic caves), a lot of the songs in spinball just sound overly harsh and discordant to me. But its a matter of taste no doubt
You are three days out on the release date of sonic 2 it’s actually the 24th of November 1992. It’s even in the cheat code. You also forgot to mention that not only did Masato Nakamura compose the music for the first sonic games. Sega also used their in-house sound driver called SMPS which all of their games used where is gems sounds for Genesis editor for music and sound effects which was designed to make it easier for American dev developers who had little experiments with FM synthesis but it cost a lot of games on the system sounding very mediocre to very bad and sonic Spinball is one of those games.
The problems between Sega's US and Japanese offices are ultimately what sunk Sega. No surprise to see them butting heads again here. Great video, and thanks for the shout-out!
any time! it's weird that one of sega's most successful games was made by a dysfunctional group.
@@pojr This also explains why Sonic Xtreme's development was troubled. It all started with Sonic 2's troubled development.
Agree 100% Seeing the repeated debacles of the 32x and Sega Saturn(and now this game) just shows the bad leadership decisions which sunk Sega.
The dreamcast was a chance at redemption but Sony's genius move of having the PS2 also be a DVD player sunk it.
@@mattm7798 Sonic Xtreme's troubled development is rooted in Sonic 2's development.
@AustinMSmall That and Yuji Naki wouldn't let the American Team have access to the Nights Into Dreams Source Code to help aid its development.
I always thought the intro song was such a jam! I'm surprised it was made in such a short amount of time. That guy had crazy skill!
yeah insane that it was made in only 2 hours. that must have been some extreme pressure. i would have cracked for sure.
They shoulda hired him for the sonic cd us soundtrack 😂
@@FarmFamGaming Bwahaha, then maybe we wouldn't have had to all suffer xD
@@FigbyTheWolf as much as I prefer the Japan/Europe sound track, the US one isn’t _that_ bad.
@@TheGuyWhoIsSitting Understandable, I definitely think it's well done! It's just not my style as much. The other is definitely not bad!
The soundtrack to this game is far from mediocre. It's one of my favorite Genesis era soundtracks and I own the Vinyl for it. It's so good.
I know right? Honestly he was just being kind of an asshole about that.
@@the-NightStar games composed with GEMS sounded a little rough and a lot of devs who were making multi platform games didn’t take the time to fine tune their genesis/mega drive version. There’s far more offensive tracks from GEMS the system is known for a lot of really low effort music as a result. Some games are just like nails on a chalk board for their music. 😬
Spin ball isn’t the worst offender but I do agree some of the tracks have some characteristics of GEMS like how AI generated imagery has an off feeling to it.
You had to be really particular to get good sound out of the Genesis/Mega Drive and most third parties weren’t all that concerned with the effort you need to put in.
The Sonic games are an exception for sure. If you play more of the library on the system you really notice when the music sounds really bad.
The music itself is good but the sound is lacking
genesis music on vinyl? now that's some crazy interesting stuff right there!
Oh hey, I’m here early. Glad you’re covering Spinball, it’s a super weird case. The big issue with C is not really that it won’t act like how you’d expect (in fact, since there’s less worrying about the minutiae than with assembly, an argument could be made that for most it’ll act MORE like how you’d expect, unless you’re exceptionally good at understanding the hardware), the issue is more that since the code will eventually have to be compiled from C to binary, you cannot reasonably hand-tune your code for performance. Spinball is the only Sonic game on the Genesis I’m aware of that has to run at 30 FPS, which makes the game feel sluggish.
Also kinda fun fact, Sonic 3 itself was developed in around the same amount of time, as the original Sonic 3 project was supposed to use the SVP chip but that was scrapped. Evidence of the super rushed development can be seen in the Sonic 3 prototype recently released.
Technically, Sonic 3 & Knuckles as we know it might have had around 12 months of development (June 1993-June 1994, not counting those earlier 6 months spent on designing the game around the SVP chip). Apparently the plans to use the SVP chip for a isometric/somewhat 3D Sonic game (which go back as far as January 1993) were scrapped sometime around June (at least according to The Cutting Room Floor) which was when the team had to start over by tweaking the Sonic 2 engine and the game itself had to be done and ready to get printed on cartridges in November 1993, so enough copies would be shipped for the Hedgehog Day in 1994, which by the way was the result of a McDonald's sponsorship and the deadline was set by the investors, which is why Sonic 3 couldn't come out for the holiday season of 1993 (and one of the reasons why it had to be split into two cartridges) in the first place.
imagine if Sonic 3 used the SVP chip. reminds me of yoshi's island. and you're definitely right about C.
I suspect memory was a big issue, perhaps more so than C. The game is only 512kb and it is packing. It has pretty wicked compression scheme going on. There's loading screen and stutter between map sections. Probably lots of ram used for lookup tables.
@@ScatterbrainPete The early development of Sonic 3 as an isometric game laid the groundwork for Sonic 3D Blast.
did this guy just say sonic spinball music is mediocre?????????
straight to jail right away
The dopamine hit when you get the last emerald
The music for this game is bussin
Its someone who uses ai for his scripts sol what do ya expect
Toxic Caves is a certified banger, which is good because 80% of people who played the game were stuck there forever.
Lava Powerhouse is weirdly good, though not super catchy. It does put the "power" in "Powehouse" though.
The Machine is very lowkey, but fittingly technological. Not fantastic, but it gets the job done. I like the "bbwwoooooppp" synth.
Showdown is just kinda... bland.
The boss theme is pretty good! Could've gone a little harder, but it's nonetheless good.
The options theme is pretty bangin' *when it's given proper instrumentation.*
The title theme is really good for something made in 2 hours _(and the beta version - which is an arrangement of Sonic 1/2's title screen - is pretty good too, I like how it ends)._
Overall, not a bad soundtrack all things considered.
I think he meant…..composed differently to Sonic 1 & 2 😉
Just discovered your channel. It's intelligent, no nonsense and refreshing. Keep up the great work.
It's nice seeing after the Geico commercials the Caveman found new work and a calling reviewing old games. Props to you my dude.
😂
We do not tolerate spinball music slander in this house
I genuinely enjoyed both Sonic Spinball and Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine as a kid. I got both together as a gift from my aunt towards the end of 1994. All in all, they were both neat little games that complimented the main titles really well.
Funny how the American devs thought staying over hours and sleeping at their workstations was crazy back then when that's exactly what they have to do now.
Crunch was a bad thing then and it's a bad thing now, regardless of where we live.
I mean, directly comparing it to the mainline Sonic games is like being mad that Mario Paint doesn't play the same as Super Mario World, or that Kirby's Dream Course isn't as good as Kirby's Dreamland.
If you look at it in it's context, a spinoff title by the B-Team, that was based on a simple concept and executed on in an extremely short amount of time, it's really not that bad. Considering what they were working with, it is pretty impressive that it even works at all. The stuff that has to work does, and they hid the jank as best as they could
And even though it didn't look or sound the same as the main line titles, I honestly wasn't bothered by the change in aesthetic, I thought the little glider plane Sonic and Tails had in this one was kinda cool. And the music is a little grimy, but I'm not bothered by that, I kinda like the options theme, and the boss theme is actually kinda sick.
And honestly, given that we have the benefit of hindsight from the present day, it's probably not even in the top 10 of "Worst Sonic Games". It's definitely closer to worst of the best, rather than best of the worst.
Craig Stitt actually dumped out of his concept games somewhat recently; SEGAPEDE/Astropede pitch demo
nice. pretty cool looking game, although i can definitely tell that the GEMS sound engine was used lol.
@@pojr Thankfully the music was done by Howard Drossin who had decent experience with the GEMS driver, so it doesn't sound bad at all.
Astropede should've been made...
I love this game. All that needs changing is better code optimisation to get it running faster, but it's still playable. It looks great, it sounds great, the level designs are creative, interesting and challenging. I think what they achieved in the time frame was amazing.
Veteran Member Status FTW! I have played sonic spinball since buying it in the store. (Well, my parents did bought it). I used to play it alot in the 90s when I was younger, but it was way too hard as a kid. I do play it every 3-4 years now, if that. I think the game was too sluggish and awkward to control to become a great game. Imagine casino night zone in sonic 2 converted to a pinball game - I think that would have been a real winner as a full game. (By chance as I write this I am watching your video and I see you are also talking about casino night). That idea totally would have taken off had they done things right. Edit : For atmosphere, I give the game 10/10, even though there's only 4 stages, each one had a very unique look and very detailed. I think they spent alot of time on that but not as much on the other things the game needed
i was thinking the same thing. imagine is the japanese crew was more involved with sonic spinball, AND the engine of sonic 2 was used. it would have been a much different, and probably much better, game
I hope you don't mean FTW in the same sense that Taz (the wrestler, not the Devil) meant it.
@@jackofallgamesTV Nope, but Taz rules! I saw him at AEW in Austin
probably my favorite part of this game was its soundtrack
that's quite a good title-screen song for being composed in less time than some peoples' commutes take 🤣💀
this channel's quite nice & informative. high production quality. kinda depression-binging this content after a particularly bad misfit/bullying day
~ Mesyn
Good retrospective. I do wish you had mentioned the SATAM characters included in the minigames between levels.
Lollll that poor composer dude. I can't imagine someone telling me "Hey uh, we need you to rewrite a song for us and it's gotta be done in like... 2 hours."
You're right though, the physics are ass anytime Sonic has to walk around.
I loved Sonic Spinball, it was a game my father got my for my 8th birthday. I find people that criticize this game often don't know how to play it. And the music was awesome.
Seeing Yuji Naka behind bars in the photo looks funny as hell. And I'm a Sonic fan.
This games deserves a remake. (A good one, of course)
Yeah, wow, I always remember the Sonic Spinball soundtrack giving me the creeps with how flipping intense it was, lol. Makes sense now that it was from an entirely different and western dev team. Nice work!
I happen to really enjoy the soundtrack 😤
2 Hours? Howard literally *NAILED* his job for such short amount of time for theme!
Btw, that feel when you hear yourself get name dropped 🤗
Fun Fact: Archie Comics actually predicted Sonic Spinball. One of the issues from 1992 or late 1991 deals with Sonic stuck in a pinball machine.
True lol
Spinball was all I could think of when reading that issue and I'm pretty sure it was meant to be the first game tie-in of the comics
Wow. Bold to call Sonic Sponball music mediocre. 😂 It is ok to have an opinion even if it is blatantly wrong.
Since you read all of these, nicely done and have a great Wednesday
Holiday season 1993 SEARS upper floor..this was on the Genesis kiosk..memories
That Options music gag made me laugh so hard, instant sub. I liked this game to an extent but like many pinball games, it was kind of hard to follow and i always would forget to put it on Fast, which still felt slow and weird and framey, but altogether, i did enjoy renting it as a kid and it stands out in my mind as the first time i realized the future of Sonic was going to be a mixed bag.
You did not just say "The music was mediocre"
The music is maybe not on the quality level of the original trilogy, on that I can agree, but not much is (even in the 3D Sonic era)
But Sonic Spinball's music is wonderfully unique and funky
My roommate has a magazine article scanned about this game’s development. According to this magazine article, the full development cycle lasted about TWO months. Idk if TH-cam will allow me to post a link, but I have the scan.
EDIT: found it
Third page, fourth paragraph.
"In two short months, between 15 June and August, the project developed from a roughly playable first build, featuring nothing more than the scrolling and collision systems and 80 percent of the character animations played on a single unfinished level, to a fully completed ready to ship final build. In 61 days it progressed from something not even suitable for a press demo to a fully fleshed-out game."
Sometimes it will... Try it. I would like to see the article
@@f.k.b.16 floof.zone/files/spinball.jpg
keep in mind I don't know exactly where the 'two month' thing is - that is just what my roommate told me. I couldn't locate any such claim with a quick speed-read and i'm too tired to bother combing over it more closely (it's 3am), but what I did see checks out with everything pojr said.
@@DELTARYZ Awesome thanks!
@@DELTARYZ It does say that in 61 days it went from a ultra simplified demo to a fully finished game. That may have just referred to one part of the project (programming... which is still highly impressive) to a finished game. The 9 months may have included all aspects of story boarding, music, pixel art, etc. I'm just guessing but still a really cool article!
I got, and still retain my copy with the redone tile music. I had actually, never heard the original before this video. I never even knew it existed. I was 11, so the music was fine. It seemed to "rock out," way harder than it had to. 🤷🏿♂️
Sonic Spinball is a Western-devrloped game that uses GEMS audio. The development team had to use different title screen music because, when initial copies of the game were released, the game included the "Sonic the Hedgehog" title music. The big problem was that they didn't get the copyright permission to use that theme, and the track had to be completely re-written for future copies of Sonic Spinball.
I know for sure my copy of Spinball has the final revision of the main theme, I'd love to come across an early print copy at some point since they're apparently out there.
Spinball is fun.
Pinball just isn't the same without Sonic.
Excellent information. Excellent history. I wish you more subscribers and popularity. There is just one little eensy tiny little thing though. THE MUSIC IS AWESOME. Sega US really got screwed over when making this game. Howard drossin created the toxic caves theme song on his first day as they hired him late in the production process. He was completely unfamiliar with the sound system of the sega genesis/gems but still managed to make one of the most incredible songs ever. So hearing that story of how he made the theme song in less than 2 hours is totally believable yet crazy. They managed to make an amazing fun game with outstanding music. At least the first level/options menu music. As this is the music 90% of the gaming audience would actually hear
I have the version with the new intro, which I got shortly after it came out. I was so addicted to that game. I spent many hours until beating it, and then I'd repeat the same process over and over. I probably spent more time on Sonic Spinball than any other Sonic title. Of course, I'm a pinball addict, too.
Great video Pojr as Sonic SpinBall is one of my favourite Mega Drive / Genesis game even if some people don’t like it
C language is a high level language, because of that it is generating a lot of "extra" machine commands that being processed by cpu, it makes everything slower than assembly in terms of performance.
At the same time it's actually heavely depends on compiler, I read that in some cases C compiler did better (less) machine code than human programmers on assembly.
this video came up with my youtube autoplay while i was doing housework and as soon as i heard the cosmic carnage music at the end i knew i had to hit that sub button. good stuff man!
This is the game that came with my Genesis console when I was a teenager. I always loved the music for this game. The weird physics when not in pinball mode are definitely a thing. I knew it was an American game and that’s why it’s so different. It’s neat to hear the story fleshed out. Thanks for a good video!
Love your vids! You have a super wholesome vibe which I appreciate a lot. Retro gaming, especially Sega stuff, is my kryptonite :D
I remember collecting LifeSavers candy wrappers for the $10 rebate that was available for Spinball on launch.
Small correction: Sega DOES own the rights to three tracks from Sonic 1 and 2, as the games sound designer Yukifumi Makino (credited as "Macky") composed the iconic 1-Up, Drowning and Chaos Emerald jingles for those games, not Masato Nakamura.
Kinda surprised there haven't been more sonic pinball spinoffs. GBA had pokemon pinball, mario pinball, metroid pinball... Where was the OG at?
GBA had Sonic Pinball Party
Instantly hated this after you called the music mediocre.
Wow I knew i didn't like Sonic Spinball as a kid but could not figure out why. Now i know.
This was one of those kid mistakes where I played the game at Target on one of those 6 cart genesis displays and really enjoyed it enough to ask my mom to buy it for me. She eventually did and I'll never forget coming home and within 1 hour realizing "this is not a good game". This video makes me feel a little better as a consumer since Sega basically kinda screwed us with it.
Also all the speed and fluidity of sonic is missing, and it feel like the frame rate is very low
to me, this was the best sonic game. i remember saying to my siblings: wouldnt be great if they would make a completely casino night zone themed sonic game? and then it came out!. even as an adult i keep coming back to play it and not the others. but you do have a point in that it feels weird compared to the others; and now THANKS to you i know why. hablas espanol, amigo? me he subscrito a tu canal yt.
0:20 bro doesn't know what a bad ost is like this BOPS
Thank you!
First time viewer! Dropping a comment to help the algorithm.
Oh, and I always loved playing Sonic Spinball growing up, and always thought the platforming felt a little off. This explains why!
thank you, welcome to the channel! yeah I agree, i always felt like this game was weird compared to the others, and i had to find out why.
One things for sure, this game had scary bosses and a scary boss theme to go with it.
I remember my cousin had the version with the newer theme, he had the Genesis version. The only versions I have are Sonic Mega Collection, Sega Smash Pack on GBA, and the PC version on Steam. Personally, I like the game a lot, it combines Sonic and pinball, two things I like. Even the GBA port was decent, and played well, albeit looping Toxic Caves music since the cart also had Golden Axe and Ecco.
7:30 😂
Great video bro! I wondered why it was so different too
I was a preschooler when I compound fractured my femur.
Despite the best efforts of my parents to keep me off video games and cartoons up until that juncture, there really was nothing better to do in that so called Eternal September.
I fell in childhood adoration with Sonic through six weeks of traction. Elsewhile, my brother and sister were occupied by a Sega Genesis while mom, dad, various uncles and aunts stood vigil through my recovery.
I had to miss trick or treats on Halloween, but I got home shortly after. And we played Sonic and watched Sonic and through that struggle we loved Sonic, a family reunited.
That Thanksgiving we watched the Sonic balloon get destroyed by a lamp post in the parade, and somehow that was a thing that stuck as a core memory and one of the two worst things to happen in New York on National Television.
It was nothing short of a godsend and a proto Jingle All the Way story that Old Saint Nick was able to conjure Sonic Spinball that Christmas morning.
Been around the world a couple dozen times by now, but thanks to Sega of America for pulling this thing off, but thinking about getting Sonic Spinball that holiday season...you kinda want to believe again, in a world and time in life when you dont want to believe anymore but you can at least hold on to that moment of happiness. I will be forever greatful for Sega of America for delivering Spinball in such short time (and I dont think the music is that bad either, but thats just memory association)
But then I ended up getting Sonic Labyrinth from Santa in 1995, but thats another story for another day.
A fan, Sonic Mania-like remake of this based on one of the open framework engines would be lit.
Could also create some new levels based off scrapped ones from other games, like that Prism Stage from Sonic CD, Cyber City Zone from 2, et cetera.
My version of Sonic Spinball had both intro songs, and I'm inclined to believe all copies did because even the ROM I'm currently playing has both. If you don't press start at the title and just let the demo run, sometimes when it loops back to the title, you'll hear the first version of the theme.
Any proof?
I'm just curious
Thx for info
@@Billy-Ireland Download the ROM and see for yourself
@@MTCesquireSo your "proof" is telling someone else to do it. I have an original cart and the Sega Genesis Classics and neither of them do that. You're full of shit.
I love that game, the visuals, the sounds and the music. I think that metallic sound fits perfectly. By the way, nice channel. I discovered it yesterday and already watched some videos. 👍
I myself at first unfortunately got the game gear version of this. I played it and I don't like it. And I never bothered pick it up again. But I later picked up the Genesis version. Right through games compilations called SEGA Genesis classics for PC and switch.
I was one of the few millions of people who owns sadx on steam right after playing sadx on the GameCube.
Lol the game gear version was very much lacking
I loved the game back in the day. I can the recall the OST in my head and loved it.
I've only ever heard the "original" title before for this game, however I've only ever rented the game, I do not know how the video rental store I rented it from obtained their copy, I do however know what happened to their inventory when they closed; everything got sold off, I know as my Mega Drive, Mega CD, Sonic 1, 2 and 3 were all purchased from them when they closed.
Spinball and Knuckles had already been sold off or I would have bought those as well, I unfortunately do not know who ended up with these games nor if they have survived to this day.
(This was in Europe)
Enjoyed Sonic Spinball, but definitely felt more like a budget title.
Binging all your vids. Love them man.
Appreciate it!
C'mon dude, Toxic Caves' music is super funky.
Aside from this, this video is pretty good. Reminds me of the content I'd watch throughout the 2010s, minus the stock footage.
I always thought the first level was fun, then the second was super difficult.
I'm well aware liking it makes me a weirdo, but I do. It and CD are among my favorite Sonic games
But boy, is it ever clear the difficulty was designed to discourage rentals. Even if you reading don't like it,
gotta admit it's brilliant. Sonic always stood out because of his physics, so being a pinball is perfect.
If I had to correct anything, it's that the infamous options music is actually an incomplete version,
another casualty of crunch. As Larry Bundy Jr. recently pointed out, the European release or at least some carts
have the proper version that's not an assault on the human ear. Which is a quality sorta shared with another
song of a game for the system. The options menu music from Thunder Force IV, funnily enough
I liked sonic Spinball. Was a bit off the wall but it was fun!
Yeah definitely not a bad game, just a little weird compared to the others.
the Sonic Spinball OST is NOT mediocre, it is S tier.
Sonic 2's development laid the groundwork for Sonic Xtreme.
No mention for the 8 bit versions of the game?
I’m kinda mixed on spinball, on the one hand it’s pretty fun just to bounce around so much you give sonic motion sickness, but actually trying to play the game is very hard (but that’s probably just because I am absolute garbage at pinball)
I'm digging your channel! Commenting for the algorithim....
I might be weird to say this, but I like Sonic Spinball. I might get hate from some in the comments, but I seriously like the concept.
we rented this game at release, it had the old theme song
Really? This is good information.
@@pojrI actually had the old theme in a ps3 genesis collection
@@RawrX32009 Nice. The PS3 collection has the original theme? Didn't realize that.
@@pojr It does :>
I'm pretty sure it's because Sonic 1 and 2 are on there so Sega would have to pay the royalties regardless
Sonic spinball was my first genesis game and it was fairly new when I got it. I was.. 7? 8? My version had the music made in 2 hours. Also I'm suprised you didn't talk more about the satam appearances. It was the only game where they addressed them at all which is crazy to me I loved satam. The canceled stealthy satam game looked cool but sega of Japan hated it.
i like this soundtrack i have a soft spot for this game as it was just one of the games our family got Christmas 93 with a Genesis model 2
I love the music
I really don't like how people keep insisting the bad music in American Mega Drive games has to do with GEMS specifically. GEMS is actually a lot better than what Sega offered to Japanese developers in the early days of the system - The driver is relatively bug-free, it runs well (despite not having the most well optimized code), and actually has a lot better features. The trouble often comes from inexperience of the musicians and developers, either not putting in enough effort to produce high quality music, not having a musician on-hand who could create better music, and having less experience with FM synthesis than their Japanese counterparts. In addition, GEMS provided a standard set of FM voices to use for developers. While it is not really a bad set of voices, some developers used them mostly throughout the soundtrack instead of creating custom voices that fit the song better. This again I would say has a lot to do with inexperience of developers.
In addition, the Spinball OST actually sounds worse nowadays because a lot of people use emulators. The real hardware has a great low-pass filtering (on model 1 anyway, unmodded model 2 is kind of bad tbh), so the music sounds better. It is still not amazing, but I think its unfair to call it mediocre.
Overall, still a lot of developers went the extra mile and created their own drivers or just utilized the drivers they were given better, and therefore ended up with much better music than your average GEMS game. But let me tell you, no matter what driver, you will find plenty of games with awful music.
Gems gets way more hate than it deserves. The standard patches are pretty lame but it was a great tool for time-strapped developers. Spinball was one of those games that really deserved some custom patches but I still think the music is funky as hell
Funny that I've played more spinball than any other sonic. I loooved this game. Good to speedrun it too
This is the hardest Sega Genesis game I've ever played when I was a kid.
hey, what song did you use for the section before the outro? banger came outta nowhere
I was a Nintendo kid. Never played Sonic except a few times at a friends house or on a demo unit in stores. I really never liked Sonic games. I found they gave me headaches from how fast things were moving.
IIRC the game also runs at 30fps while all the other main Sonic games on Genesis ran at 60fps. Maybe like you said if the game was written in C instead of assembly that's why as you said the performance would be worse. I always found the game to be strange. Sonic does look weird compared to the other games and the music was certainly a downgrade.
Absolutely. The frame rate in this game is not great
I actually loved this game. Another informative clip.
I didn't like the game as a kid but as an adult I appreciated it a LOT more. It's a pretty fun game.
You forgot mean bean machine, 3d blazt and flickys
Fart noises!? It all makes sense now 👍👍
Yo I’m new here. Cool videos btw bro 😎
Yeah, I'm with you on this one. Terrible soundtrack but the game is fun. I remember the first time I saw it at a friend's house as a kid, I had to have it.
The cartoon u were talking about..got a few characters cameos in this game
That music bit was great!
Huge respect for those devs.
call the music mediocre again, say it to my face
It's mediocre
I think Sonic Spinball is a decent game.
Sonic Spinball can be summed up in two words: Cluck Alert!
So why wasn't the data from Sonic 1 and 2 (engine, code and graphics) used anyway In Sonic Spinball? At that time, in the unreleased Segapede game, STI uses the art (and possibly code) level from the Hidden Palace Zone game, an unused level from Sonic the Hedgehog 2.
Segapede was taken over immediately after the end of Sonic Spinball.
That is, it turns out when SEGA commissioned STI to create a game about SONIC. At that time, SEGA did not give them any resources from SONIC. And when STI started creating their own game, they already have resources from SONIC. This is stupid and illogical. What was going on in STI and SEGA anyway?
Worth noting that a rom of the initial variant was leaked on a chinese rom site.
I actually really love sonic spinball! but I'm a huge fan of pinball in general, both real tables and video game pinball. I think thats why the stiff awkward platforming never bothered me. The focus here is on the pinball mechanics with the platforming put in as an afterthought, so I thought it was designed like this on purpose to some extent
There are good OSTs that use GEMS but its sadly a case of, the composer has to be good with it, so theres more bad soundtracks made with GEMS than good ones... and I sadly think sonic spinball is one of those. Aside from a few songs that go hard (I really love toxic caves), a lot of the songs in spinball just sound overly harsh and discordant to me. But its a matter of taste no doubt
You are three days out on the release date of sonic 2 it’s actually the 24th of November 1992. It’s even in the cheat code. You also forgot to mention that not only did Masato Nakamura compose the music for the first sonic games. Sega also used their in-house sound driver called SMPS which all of their games used where is gems sounds for Genesis editor for music and sound effects which was designed to make it easier for American dev developers who had little experiments with FM synthesis but it cost a lot of games on the system sounding very mediocre to very bad and sonic Spinball is one of those games.