Sonic Robo Blast 2 - Sega 32X Demo

[@philmason9653]

This would have blown minds in 1994.

[@Cam-pe3nd]

It would've changed history. Fun to think about.

[@nickc4087]

This game would be Mario 64 before Mario 64.

[@DoinThatRag]

This is a crazy exceptional port to see come to life. So happy to see all the incredible work Vic did on the engine with the Doom Ressurectiob project getting additional use here to help bring this game over to the 32X as well. As far as low polygon models, the reason for this is due to the incredibly small amount of memory available in the mega drive/32x. If the resolution were any higher there would be no memory for game logic, audio, and everything else. Devs spent a lot of time playing around with different resolutions and audio sample rates to squeeze everything in that was needed. It's amazing it looks, sounds, and plays as well as it does. Very impressive.

[@Hamdad]

Hindsight is 20/20. Even years after SRB2 was available it was still blowing minds that it's based on Doom. No chance it would've occurred to 90's Sega. Especially given how bad 32X and Saturn Doom were due to development time constraints. Many things are possible with unlimited dev time & fanbase work that aren't feasible as commercial products.

[@pharotman2311]

Holy crap I love that my 32x is getting new games after all these years and this one is beautiful!

[@Hamdad]

Feels like it's still a current console, or like being around for its heydey

[@neilmclean1527]

To me it’s crazy Sega didn’t go down this route in the first place. The fisheye X-treme looked like it’d never work. Looks more of a puzzle game than a platformer.

[@Skellotronix]

Looks like a 3D version of the Chaos Emerald bonus stages in S1.

[@eskanda3434]

yeah and kinda boring no enemies in the world to actually make it compelling 😂

[@JorArg-c7s]

3d platforming wasn't even a thing around that time

[@queercommunist]

The X-trem project was a big scam. The team never developed anything on the Saturn hardware and ripped of Sega

[@SevenCompleted]

the fisheye xtreme looked god awful what an awful perspective

[@gregoryberrycone]

this might be the coolest homebrew port ever made honestly

[@mikebrasoljr8857]

Finally, Sonic on the 32X. This is amazing!

[@FoxUnitNell]

Knuckles Choatix was sort of fun too.

[@mikebrasoljr8857]

@ oh I love Chaotix, don’t get me wrong. I’ve always craved a Sonic game on 32X. I wish Sonic 3 got a 32X port with the enhanced colors, more animation/smoother frames, enhanced audio, and smoother rotation on the special stages. That would’ve been enough for me!

[@FoxUnitNell]

@@mikebrasoljr8857 That seems cool, I bet they could have included both Sonic 3 plus Sonic and Knuckles with the 32x.

[@mikebrasoljr8857]

@@FoxUnitNell Oh for sure. Plenty of room on 32X rom chips.

[@RemnantCult]

This is why I love homebrew. I love breathing new life into old hardware and making what-if games that no doubt would only have been made if once in a lifetime geniuses were working for the industry.

[@graymars1097]

While I’m all for “sega fucked up during 32X, Saturn, Dreamcast and hell, the sega cd era” I do actually think that it’s a little bit unfair to compare these games. The tools and the knowledge that today’s devs have at their disposal is just not comparable. This is the reason why people like Yuji Naka came to fame in the first place! Because they pulled something off in that time that honestly looked like sorcery to some people! It was sheer talent and brains. No updates, no patches, no new versions of SDKs…absolutely NOTHING! they had to create something that is going to work for the generations to come and they fucking did it man 😮 It’s because of them that we have a huge retro scene, today! Respect to devs, both new and old 🫡

[@Zaphod-ef9yz]

100% agree on this, I'm not a programmer or anything, but "back in the day" people were coding their own tools, assets, and engines from scratch. Today, most "programmers" would be lost without the likes of unity. Similarly, today, many new tools, etc, have been designed to assist on older hardware, meaning it is NOW possible to pull off amazing stuff that it wouldn't necessarily have been possible decades ago. In the old days, to pull off something insane like Quake on the Saturn, Doom on the SNES it took extreme talent.

[@thebasketballhistorian3291]

Exactly! I work in indie game dev these days and it's crazy how easy it is for anyone to get into it. All the software is free to download and use. UI is easy to understand. Tons of free tutorials online. And even an average PC is good enough to make some games. The only thing you need is time and ambition.

[@rustymixer2886]

Example of his work?

[@viciious1234]

You have no clue what you’re talking about What modern 32X development tools or assets exactly are better than their equivalents from back in the day? Please provide concrete examples

[@zebulan1485]

Worth noting that this port already has support for floors-over-floors (and some are already used in the special stages)... they just can't be rendered properly yet. Right now, the FOFs in the special stages only get rendered when you're close to their elevation, since they can't currently be rendered at the same time as whatever is below them. The first special stage has a big FOF in the middle that you land on after launching from the yellow springs, in case you're curious how this looks in practice.

[@greenknight9000]

If they figure out how to fix that janky FOF rendering, then the level design is going to _really_ open up! I'm so excited for this!

[@Canadian_Gamer]

Long live the 32X!!

[@cndctrdjful]

Came here to say the same thing. Finally seeing some of its potential

[@mikebrasoljr8857]

@@Canadian_Gamer agree! It’s a console deserving more support and powerful enough to make some awesome games on. I always wanted to see it succeed.

[@youuuuuuuuuuutube]

This has the exact same feeling as Sonic 1, in 2D on Genesis, the inertia looks on point too. Imagine if Sega had released this, and then an upgraded version for the Saturn?!

[@eponymous7910]

I don't think it would've been well received in comparison to Tomb Raider, Crash, Mario 64 etc

[@katsujinken10]

You're right. It isn't this or Sonic X-Treme that people should be making on Saturn. Homebrewers need to make a full game from the Sonic Jam overworld.

[@AGwolf2097]

not sure if you're playing on an emulator or via RGB on original hardware but the demo utilizes the horizontal pixel-column blending of the genesis/32x composite encoder, so a lot of the textures (especially darker wall/ground/underwater) look much better via clean composite on a CRT rather than the pixel-perfect output of rgb. also there are at least three or four special stages (only found 3 so far), and I feel like there are probably still a few more little hidden things waiting to be found. Apparently there's a very small easter egg if you stand on all three brick houses and they carried the message over into this demo too.

[@SegaLordX]

I have no doubt. The footage here was from Kega Fusion, so it's not the best way to see it.

[@DLPAgenda]

This has absolutely blowm my mind. The draw distance is phenomenal!!

[@Dwedit]

Draw distance really isn't a thing for Doom. Every vertical column of the screen keeps going until it hits a wall.

[@kazinwho]

This is incredible. I just played through the demo on my actual 32X. I can't believe how great it looks, even with massive slowdown.

[@FrancoAlmiron-f6o]

I swear the Sonic fandom is amazing, seeing Sonic Robo Blast 2 being homebrew into the 32x makes me wish to see more Sonic games being ported into Sega's old consoles!

[@UnBuenJugador]

It seems a good reason to remount the 32x

[@josephmacleod7415]

Those visuals are beautiful

[@ChaosAngelZero]

Seeing this running natively on the Saturn, possibly with support for the 4MB RAM cartridge, would be insanely bittersweet.

[@SomeOrangeCat]

Since the Doom engine relies heavily on multi-directional sprites, and sprite storage is primarily what the RAM carts are used for, that would certainly be a good use for it.

[@kinorai]

The fact that it has 360° controls (like SM64) and not tank control (like Tomb Raider) makes this infinitely more exciting! Can you imagine having seen that way back then?! I'm going to be incredibly bold, but I think that the graphics are better than Super Mario 64 - the textures are clearer and Sonic as a sprite is better looking than Mario's low Poly model. Yes I know this game is not made of polygons. But still, it's impressive. And I'm sure they could add a 3d model of Sonic, the 32X should be able to handle that! Anyways, I'm off to download the game and try it out! Happy new year everyone!

[@J45yu456]

Short but sweet video. Love SLX content!

[@denraimei32]

Petition to get Doom Resurrection and SRB2 to Saturn.

[@alejandroatencio8661]

Don't forget about the Dreamcast

[@Hamdad]

@@alejandroatencio8661 DC has Doom64

[@katsujinken10]

No the route that should be taken for a Saturn Sonic game is using the 3D engine from Sonic Jam.

[@Mr.Atari2600]

​@@katsujinken10 Seeing that the Sega Saturn is a master when it comes to 2D Sprites. It makes more sense to make the characters, enemies, & obstacles 2D since the Saturn can handle a ton of them without the game slowing down. Now if they want to do more 3D, they could just modify the DOOM Engine with 3D Floors & 3D Models like what they did with the PC Version, but this may require a bit more work.

[@katsujinken10]

@@Mr.Atari2600 Plot twist. All 3D on the Saturn uses sprites. It uses images that it warps to whatever perspectives it needs. That's why the Saturn uses four-sided polygons unlike everything else which uses triangular polygons.

[@SixtySixHundred-1982]

I just downloaded the 32X ROM and had a go before making this comment. I Got through the stages and I'm pretty impressed. There's the usual Sonic tropes like 100 rings getting you an extra life, loads of different shield types and even the anxiety inducing drowning music is here. Inside the options menu is also a widescreen option. It isn't showing any extra pixels on the sides of the screen, but it is anamorphic widescreen at least, and that's a nice touch, especially considering how early this demo is. The music is also great and undoubtedly Sonic, as are the sound effects. I really do hope this gets finished. I can see myself playing a lot of this. 👍 Good recommendation, SLX. Thank you for letting more people know of its existence.

[@Thatsnicereal]

This is INSANE. It would be revolutionary if it had released on the 32x in the day and even is now

[@DarDarBinks1986]

Sega should hire these people!

[@Hugoisbuff]

He finally made a video on srb2

[@pklucas9790]

that intro is enough for to like the vid. Well Done.

[@Rationalific]

Wow... I didn't even know about Sonic Robo Blast on the PC, even though I have called myself a Sonic fan (at least of the classic Sonic games)... That's definitely something to check out!

[@Aztyph]

Yeah, _SRB2_ is *old.* Like, "has been in development before _Sonic Adventure_ was released" old.

[@katsujinken10]

If you think that's wild check out the Sonic Kart Racer made by further modifying SRB2. It's called Dr. Robotnik's Ring Racers. It's amazing.

[@Aztyph]

@@katsujinken10 Oh yeah, _SRB2Kart_ is cold. What's arguably as wild is _SRB2 Persona,_ which is pretty much what you think it is. Modders are crazy inventive and skilled as hell to transmogrify the base game that much.

[@Rationalific]

@@katsujinken10 Thanks! I'll check that out.

[@hoppy8008]

This is so impressive and fitting for the 32x (and should have a future Saturn port), hopefully the performance can be improved soon.

[@kevinramsey417]

Oh that is BEAUTIFUL.

[@PixelShade]

I played this on the Steam Deck since it was free to download from the "Discover store" in the desktop-OS, I had a REALLY good time with it, felt like a long lost 3D Saturn Sonic game... It's actually REALLY incredible that it runs this well considering the expansive, almost open-world nature of the maps. I honestly think a lot of performance could've been gained if the level design was sectioned off and crafted with a 32X performance target in mind. adding a few smaller u-shaped corridors between larger areas and sectioning those off would go a long way.

[@ThePurpleMatrix]

Sonic Robo Blast 2 Should get a Saturn port. It would probably make up for the Sonic X-treme cancelation.

[@Mr.Atari2600]

I agree.

[@Hamdad]

The extra processing power might let them put slopes & 3D floors back into the stages, as well as running full screen and higher resolution. Maybe even with 3D character models like on PC

[@katsujinken10]

No it shouldn't. If a Sonic game is made for Saturn it should use the 3D engine from Sonic Jam to make something equivalent to other 32-bit platformers.

[@ThePurpleMatrix]

@katsujinken10 that would take forever for STI since they didn't know 3D, and Sonic Team was doing everything but make a new sonic game.

[@Hamdad]

@@katsujinken10 Why not both? If SRB2 is already running well on the 32X, which uses dual SH2s like Saturn, a Saturn port wouldn't be nearly the undertaking that porting it to 32X was in the first place.

[@thedougtime]

Don't forget the Christmas NiGhts secret level!

[@rancid_]

Amazes me how fan stuff is better than mainstream at times.

[@TBrizzle01]

It's nice to see Sega Lord X and the popular home brew Sonic communities coming together like this.

[@simondaniel4028]

It is fkin WILD that this is running on 32x. SRB2 is a ton of fun and the idea of this, and Doom tbh, running on OG hardware is one of these 'i never saw that coming' gaming moments. That music at 04:30

[@alexgeorge501]

Shout to the Robo Blast team for this incredible conversion!

[@NoSuRReNDeR001]

I had a 32x Cosmic Carnage(I forced myself to like this) and my favorite Virtua Racing which was SUBLIME when it came out... om a CRT TV it was MIND BLOWING to me... VR felt like the arcade at home for the first time IMHO

[@Hamdad]

32X was a bad idea in retrospect. But at the time, it brought very good ports of polygon arcade games like Virtua Racing & Virtua Fighter home for $160. On paper, that must've seemed self-justifying.

[@katsujinken10]

To all the peopel saying this should be the Saturn Sonic, No No No. There is already a superior 3D engine in Sonic Jam that homebrewers should expand into a full game. Imagine someone had Banjo or Spyro in the late 90s and you showed them this running on your Saturn? You'd be laughed off the playground!

[@Dmar-ih7kr]

Thank you! And plus Doom on Saturn needs to be fixed first anyways.

[@katsujinken10]

@@Dmar-ih7kr That's not to say this isn't a great game. It is but most people back then would've just seen it as dated on Saturn. Sonic Jam is the only 32-bit Sonic that compares to other contemporary 32-bit platformers.

[@Dmar-ih7kr]

@@katsujinken10 oh agreed! I think that srb2 is gonna doing wonders for the 32X homebrew scene. And then there’s also Sonic Z-Treme from XL2 for the Sega Saturn.

[@jahdorose8659]

Happy New Year

[@EnigmaHood]

I'm absolutely amazed that this can run on the 32x! I always hoped someone would port SRB2 to the Sega Saturn, but I never thought it would be possible on the 32x! It makes sense though, the Doom Resurrection guys were already working with the 32x, so they know how to code for it. It honestly looks a lot better than I thought it would too. I already have an idea for how they can improve the framerate, they just need to make the viewable area a bit smaller than usual. In Doom, you can adjust the screensize, and make the gameplay screen smaller to improve performance. That's actually how the original Doom on the 32x ran, in a reduced screen size. While it's not ideal, I wouldn't mind reducing the screen size to boost performance. They can probably display all the hud elements (lives, score, and what not) in the non-gameplay part of the screen too. Maybe create some custom art to make it all look nice.

[@saljuarez2910]

Never knew this even existed on PC and seeing the love for 32X is so dope. Glad that you are covering it and on that note please try to cover Sonic galactic fan made for Saturn. They just completed 5 full levels and it looks sick. Thanks for your work sir!!!!

[@SomeOrangeCat]

Now this is something to get excited for!

[@yousefslimani99]

We finally have a sonic homebrew on a SEGA add-on

[@hotconductor4749]

This is incredible. Honestly if they can stabilize the frame rate this would've fooled young me into thinking this was Sega developed. The devs performed a miracle to say the least.

[@mickeymaus1]

Impressive - that confirm what I still expected: the hardware wasn’t bad at all And don’t forget the nice smoothing blureffect you will have back then trough the CRTs

[@Mr.Atari2600]

It's amazing how much support you can give to a failed console. Especially one that didn't even reach a million units!

[@jmcclain8237]

When i bpught my 32x at launch, i was hoping for a 3d sonic game. 30 years later, here we are.YAY!

[@badcp455]

It looks awesome! Will definitely buy it for my Genesis 32X when available!

[@ashcoronawestmuckett8889]

Keep up the amazing work! Love your channel

[@rapidloaf]

I’ve been waiting for Sega Lord X to make a video about this

[@singletona082]

Oh Fsk!~ I hadn't realized the potential the doom resurrection project would have for other 2.5d projects on the 32x. As with doom resurrection itself. Had this been on the commercial lineup? Yea. I'm buying the 32x because... good lord.

[@cringycook9597]

Happy New year Sega lord X and for your enthusiasm and mega consistency I applaud you 👏

[@budrip3479]

Hellyeah was waiting for this slx video.

[@EnigmaHood]

1:54 Not exactly, it was based on a source port of Doom called Doom Legacy. While the original release of Doom Legacy back in 1998, probably wasn't all that dissimilar to the original Doom engine, the source port had been updated regularly (and still receives updates to this day), to the point of where it's considered a separate engine from its origins. GZDoom for example has advanced so much that it's actually possible to recreate Quake 2 on it, and supports polygons, stuff that wasn't possible on the original Doom engine.

[@Ken_Leep]

The moment I played this on the 32X I had the same thoughts. It really makes it more fun to ask "what-if" when we have fan projects like this to play. I'd go as far as to say that if this was a Saturn launch title, people would have been thrilled. Back then it sounded crazy to make a platformer on the Doom engine, but now we don't think twice when Unreal is used for everything. The Doom engine is a lot more versatile than we thought.

[@Mohammed1000real]

It looks incredible with the fact that it runs on real 32X and Doom 32X Resurrection engine is amazing on its own.

[@StudDioxide]

Happy new year

[@BigSnipp]

This is mind blowing. Great job the devs. I always wanted to see the 32x pushed to its limits.

[@AD.ArcadeGaming]

This looks really well done!

[@Claudia-km9lo]

the game does have room over room btw, it's visible in the special stage at 6:26

[@lhfirex]

It's gonna take a lot of time to convert this to a 32X ROM but it's cool that they've been able to get it working this much so far. The original GZDoom mod is pretty intense for that engine.

[@entertainmentwizard2703]

Impressive and I look forward to seeing the final version! I believe Sonic Mars on 32X this design was considered but they didn't like the look of it at the time but yes this would have been a game changer!

[@Boogie_the_cat]

Nice. The first Robo Blast was a quality project. Happy to see more work done in the same vein.

[@cd5sircoupe]

This looks fantastic, I can't wait until it's finished. Who would've thought that the Doom engine would lend itself to something like this so well. I just dusted off my Genesis Mini like a week or two ago, you better believe I'm about to throw this on there. I revamped the whole thing with a bunch of new roms; official releases, translations, romhacks, RetroArch, etc.

[@AspieGamer1986]

I love game and have been playing the PC and the fact you can also play as Modern Sonic makes it more interesting.

[@mishkofrydrysek7445]

wow.. I think I played early versions of this back in the day, if only we got something like this

[@Nachobeerman]

The 3D Sonic from sonic jam really shows they could have made a good 3D sonic game on Saturn .

[@nufiya999]

Can we get a Saturn version of RB2? At 60fps. I hope so in the future.

[@tyagagerson]

the thing that has been NOT implemented: floor-above-floor horizontal movement slope floor transparency where 0.0

[@VandalIO]

This is mental ! 32x would have killed it back in the day if it had a title like this

[@Mystemo]

This looks amazing. Imagine a similar game on the Saturn using the Slavedriver engine 🤤

[@francescocanu8138]

Sonic 2D sprite is really amazing and it doesn't seem to be out of place in the 3d environment

[@r0b0m1r0]

Long time gamer here. Currently don’t have any Sega consoles. Would love to have a CDX once again. Would settle for a Mega SG. My copy of Final Fight CD will have to wait a bit longer. Much respect.

[@KennytheHedgehog619]

sick as hell

[@retroboy-fh1ji]

Finalmente, el verdadero potencial escondido del SEGA 32X. Nadie, ni en el mejor de los escenarios, hubiera imaginado q una plataforma inesperada como el 32x correría algo tan ambicioso como SONIC ROBO BLAST 2. Es una locura lo q han hecho en un add-on del Sega Genesis. Es increíble

[@mjdf122]

Sega Lord X Sega’s Finest Soldier

[@dacollbns6336]

Next ... GTA 3 on Dreamcast

[@katsujinken10]

I hope they port Dr. Robotnik's Ring Racers next.

[@Leeki85]

I've said it multiple times. Both Sega 32X and Atari Jaguar teams should take their time to optimize DOOM engine and start releasing games based on it. This engine was perfect for early 3D hardware. You can do 3D platformers, TPP shooters, StarFox-like game, 3D racing games (kart racers). RPG games are also a good fit for DOOM engine. The best part is that engine works in such a way that there's almost unlimited view distance. It was impossible to replicate large areas in fully 3D engines along with huge amount of enemies DOOM 2 had. This makes DOOM engine great for Sonic game. You can have large worlds, where Sonic has a space to run fast.

[@profcelsofontes]

Time to remake your video of "lets save sega 32x"

[@bloodykenshiro8218]

Much like Streets of Rage for the longest time, fans have been doing Sega's work for them for as long as I can remember.

[@JoeyJ0J0]

The fact this was made in the doom engine is impressive

[@thewacokidd06]

I would be interested to see this ported to the Saturn or Dreamcast to see it run better on original hardware, this is still an awesome project to see happening

[@metal_kitsune]

Thats so cool!

[@johneygd]

I can’t believe it was ported over with a doom engine, everything just looks like being made with polygkns. By the way, an updated doom engine does support rooms over rooms but it requires a dummy system. And with that in mind it is crazy how far even fake 3D could go😁👍🙏

[@SomeOrangeCat]

Doom just makes everything better.

[@forcedfeedbackclassicgamer5499]

Interesting proof of concept...

[@omgitsbees]

Could this eventually be ported to Saturn? Either way, I need to play this on PC, I have never heard of it before until this video.

[@josephchaparro1037]

That's Amazing.

[@breakpack]

I would love to see some 2d platformer love on the 32x! I think it could be a 2d powerhouse. Imagine Sonic Mania running on the 32x with all those simultaneous colors!

[@timpieper5492]

I honestly think Sonic R was the closest 32-bit glimpse of what future Sonic titles would become: a behind-the-character camera on a rollercoastery path, with a few alternate routes and some exploration elements thrown in. It's much closer to Sonic Adventure than the hub world of Sonic Jam was, or what this 32X game demo is. (For better or worse.)

[@sonkunhyperspinretroarch4867]

I agree with this. Sonic R showed actual running through "stages", running around the loopty loop etc. Pretty much everything in Sonic R is like a precursor to Sonic Adventure gameplay wise.

[@thomaspleacher2735]

Your comment at the very end about Duke Nukem 3D or Powerslave on the 32X gets my hopes up! Maybe one day.

[@SegaLordX]

It's a dream, but I'd love to see it.

[@evilash570]

Someone should port the Legend of Zelda game that uses the Doom engine and re-skin it to Golden Axe Warrior, that would be epic!

[@Ken_Leep]

I was thinking the same thing!

[@Sauceyjames]

This is a reason for me to get a power adapter for my 32x, and finally fix my dreaded genesis's broken DC jackpot

[@Lord_Deimos]

I've seen people pull off some pretty impressive stuff with the Doom engine but a Sonic game isn't something I expected.

[@pik3177]

i can't wait to try this on my 32x once i get a flash cart to play it on because the 32x deserves to be in the spotlight for what it's getting a sonic game after 3 decades have passed since it's release in 1994 plus i still stand by that failed systems and addons like the 32x deserve a second chance because the homebrew scene will give it some more life

[@Digiflower5]

Looking forward to srb2 love these games

[@gameNLHD]

kinda hope they also port it to the sega saturn

[@retroboy-fh1ji]

Or Sega Dreamcast. The old version of SRB2 on DC was bad, so a newer port based on 2.2 can be a much modern solution of the old release

[@j.goggels9115]

Great Sonic game on PC just released.

[@NoelComiX]

I remember seeing that a Doom style engine was being discussed but STI wanted to do something more akin to Mario 64.