yesterday, the 2024 the sonic amateur games expo began! it’s a yearly showcase of fangames, mods, and even original indie games! i love checking the expo out every year to see the cutting edge of what the community has to offer, and this year they’ve offered quite a bit.
i’m not mentioning every game i played - as to be expected, at a fangame expo the quality of games varies wildly - but i am going to highlight the games i found most interesting. without further ado, let’s begin!
sonic (and sega) fangames
let’s out with the event’s bread and butter: sonic fangames. there were a lot, and the ones i’m about to list make up only a fraction of a fraction of what was there. also, as a disclaimer: my primary gaming machine is my steam deck, and while it’s pretty good with windows compatibility it’s not perfect. take my performance gripes with a grain of salt!
nights moonlight dreams
an arcade-style nights fangame! if you’ve played nights you know what to expect, with the caveat that this game is actually 2D as opposed to the typical nights 2.5d perspective.
it was pretty fun, but on the deck i couldn’t seem to get analog controls working, meaning that i was stuck using just the d-pad. the real nights-heads out there are probably thinking to themselves “the original game was d-pad only too,” to which i’d respond: i haven’t played it, and i’m a poser.
instead, my primary exposure to nights gameplay has been through the special stages of sonic robo blast 2, which do support analog control and are awesome. being spoiled by srb2’s special stages probably put a damper on my enjoyment of this one, but you should give a try yourself and see what you think!
sonic adventure blast 2
don’t be fooled by the name - this is not an srb2 mod. this is a unity fangame with saturn-style models that plays much closer to sonic adventure.
this one is pretty janky and unpolished, and the tutorial isn’t great. however, i did find that it was pretty fun a lot of the time in spite of that - years of playing the modern sonic boost games have made me forget about the simple joy of just running up a slope really fast to start wallrunning. also, there’s a surprisingly large number of levels. it’s at least worth a look.
sonic colors demastered
exactly what it says on the tin - this is a demake of sonic colors using sprites from sonic advance and (i think?) colors ds. it plays pretty well - i have my issues with it, namely the kind of limp-feeling homing attack and over-reliance on boost lane-switching sections, but those are also issues i have with the real sonic colors, so i don’t hold them against this game.
this is another game with an impressive amount of levels; reportedly there’s twenty whole acts so far! they’re all colors-length (1:30 - 2:00), but still - very impressive. check it out!
sonic momentum (beta edition)
i have really mixed feelings about this one.
on one hand, the game’s aesthetic is simply incredible. the music is on-point, the menus are persona 5-tier in terms of style, and while the game uses advance sprites, it’s juiced up the animations significantly.
on the other hand, the game has a really unconventional control scheme for 2d sonic. it’s clearly trying to be a spiritual successor to the likes of sonic advance 2, with an emphasis on running over rolling and a core focus on keeping an unbroken stride, but it’s really hard to get used to the specific control decisions that were made. for example, there is no spindash - instead, the spindash input will put sonic in to a “peeling-out” state that you charge with jump and release with the action button. similarly, you don’t press down to roll - you have a “spin attack” that boosts you forward and can be held like a roll, but seemingly isn’t intended to be. and so on.
i have been playing a shit-ton of sonic mania recently, and so it’s possible that i’m just to genesis-brained at the moment to adjust to this new control scheme. it does seem like the choices were made with intent, though, so i might give the game another shot in the future. try it out and let me know if you acclimated to it any better than i did.
sonic rush 3d
unsurprisingly, if you take a 2d boost game and make it 3d, it plays like a 3d boost game. if you like unleashed / colors / generations, you’ll like this - if you don’t, you won’t.
sonic the fighters blitz hyper edition
while this game adopts the aesthetic and stage themes of sonic the fighters, it plays much closer to something like blazblue or guilty gear. and i’m fine with that - the time i spent with the singleplayer was an absolute blast, and reportedly the game does actually have rollback online. as you can imagine, it’s not the easiest thing in the world trying to convince people to play sonic kusoge, so if you’d like to try the game’s online out with me, let me know.
project reignition
i saved the best for last. project reignition is the “project 06” for sonic and the secret rings - an updated pc port with (traditional) controller support and in a new engine. and it’s awesome.
i loved secret rings as a kid, but i’ve found it difficult to revisit as my decaying adult bones chafe more and more against wii-era motion controls. being able to play these levels with a regular controller at 60 fps really reveals that secret rings is the true progenitor of the modern boost sonic style, and while the game is definitely pared down and simpler than its successors, there’s something to love about its narrow focus.
also, because it’s secret rings, the music and art direction remain stellar, and some of the best the series has ever seen. i cannot wait until this is finished.
indie games
in addition to sonic fangames, sage typically has a suite of indie games as well. many of them are sonic-inspired or sonic-adjacent, but some are totally out of left field (i first played pizza tower at sage 2019!)
i didn’t play as many of these, but i still have a few highlights that i wanted to share.
buster’s big score
this one is very short but still worth checking out - it’s a cute furry take on mark of the ninja. buster’s got an airdash and he can climb up walls. that’s about it!
lylia’s deadline: clearance
after sonic, the second most popular franchise at sage is usually megaman - and as such you get a lot of megaman-likes both in the fangame and in the indie game section. this is one such megaman-like, and i happened to megaman-like it a lot.
the art style is really killer - it’s very neo-PS1, for lack of a better term. the game makes real use of its 2.5d perspective by having cool action set pieces sprinkled throughout the levels and having the camera tilt in interesting ways during gameplay. i do think that lylia’s damage output and animations could use some work, but it’s definitely a very promising start - i look forward to a full release.
robogal
as you can probably guess by the name, this is another megaman-like. while lylia was closer to megaman x, this game is taking much more from the original series - including its difficulty.
i did really like the one stage i played for this review, but it is definitely megaman-hard. i may revisit in the future but if you’re not already acquainted with the blue bomber and his adventures, this one might be a little much for you.
toree saturn
as with the last category, i’ve saved the best for last. this game was a blast - it’s a 3d platformer that feels like a combination of penny’s big breakway and sonic adventure 2 (there is a level that looks suspiciously like metal harbor in the demo). it was musically and visually vibrant, the controls were extremely tight, i needed to change absolutely no settings, even on deck, and it has a ranking system. highly recommend checking this one out!
conclusion
that’s all for this year! i think i’m going to try to make a habit of doing these for each sage as well as each sonic hacking contest. let me know if you check out any of the games here or if i missed anything - see you around!