If Sonic Mania came out in the 90s

Would it be a Sega CD game, a 32X game, a 32XCD game oe a Saturn game?

Making it Saturn exclusive would lead to harsh comparisons against Mario 64 by a public which, at the time, was ravenous for polygons

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it seems like the team was aiming for a saturn-like game based on the sprite scaling techniques and some of the basic 3D models it uses

Yeah but the mode 7 special stage and mode 7 island in the title screen shout 'Sega CD' to me, where the color depth of the original stages seems about on par with what the 32X could do.

Sega CD wouldnt be able to render the 3D stages. Saturn would, though. Look at Panzer Dragoon.

What 3D stages? The only one I know of has a flat ground plane and scaled sprite trees. It looks almost exactly like the special stages from Sonic CD.

Also 32X was perfectly capable of putting a little polygonal 3D sonic on top of that.

SEGA CD supposedly gonintendo.com/stories/287974-sega-talks-sonic-mania-design-process-and-goals-old-new-stages

>for Sonic Mania, it was decided that the technological limit would be set at SEGA CD

The team has stated it was meant to be based on a what-if scenario where a 2D Sonic was made on the Saturn, so Saturn. You're right about it getting harsh comparisons against SM64 though, so many only cared about 3D then.

Those stages aren't scaled. They're 3D assets. Look at the tree leaves. The only 2D assets are the balls.

The color depth of the original stages is way beyond what Sega CD could do though. It resembles Knuckles Chaotix in that respect.

have you looked at the sonic cd special stages recently, dude? also the special stage decorations in mania (like those trees) are models, only the orbs and rings are scaled sprites. if it were really on the saturn, though, they probably would have opted for full 3D environments like Sonic R (which has a very similar sonic model to the one used in mania anyways)

>have you looked at the sonic cd special stages recently, dude?

Yes, that's why I said what I did. The special stages in Mania are flat, and obviously meant to imitate the Mode 7 special stages from Sanic CD.

32X wouldn't be able to handle anything like that at a decent framerate. Chaotix had this as special stages and your character is still in 2D.

It's also a whole level above the Sega CD's capabilities considering all the 3D models, which kind of have this Saturn 3D quad polygon look to them. It's pretty clear the special stages are supposed to look like a potential Saturn Sonic game.

SEGA Saturn. I say this because of the special stages, the amount of colours, the frame rate, etc.

>Chaotix had this as special stages and your character is still in 2D.

Because the environment was polygons. If the CD unit's scaling chip handled the mode 7 ground plane like this then all the 32X would have to render is Sonic.

32X had much improved color depth over stock Genesis, Knuckles Chaotix stages look very much like the original stages in Mania

Try to tell me this doesn't look like a new zone from Mania based on the thumbnail.

The mania sonic model has more triangles (or quads, if you prefer) than any single chaotix special stage, plus there are a multitude of other 3D objects that appear. There's no way the 32X would come close.

It could if the trees were scaled sprites. You can't tell me the 32X couldn't manage a single blocky polygonal Sanic model. Look at this:

youtube.com/watch?v=qNPgSlc84h0

or at Darxide for that matter.

>mode 7

Way to blow all credibility dude

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I'm not even sure how well a 2D CD32X game would work since all it was used for in practice was to give shitty FMV games a better color palette. I think there are some significant limitations on making them work together.

>It could if the trees were scaled sprites.
But the point is that they're not, and there are more obstacles than just trees that get rendered. Later stages can have over ten models rendered at a time, each with more complex geometry than anything in Darxide. The special stages may have taken inspiration from Sonic CD in their design, but they were clearly made to look like they were from the Saturn era.

Chaotix looks nice but it had some bad framerate problems which is why the game feels so empty, more enemies would have made it even worse.

Good point, but I'm sure at the very least it could have graphics like these ...plus CD music/sound effects.

it's supposed to be a blend, a culmination of the special effects and fancy nonsense all the sega systems did. But if it was on any 1 platform, the dreamcast.

32x cannot into 2D games. It just cannot do tilemapping.

It's a Saturn game.

>public which, at the time, was ravenous for polygons
The ads said it was but it actually wasn't.

How did it have so many 2D games then