Normally when a new remaster releases of a beloved classic, its the original developer upscaling textures and graphics to more modern standards. However, a number of Sonic fans have banded together to deliver a new look at a classic Sega title for the Sega CD or Mega-CD console.
The game in question is Sonic the Hedgehog CD, often shortened to Sonic CD, which premiered on the Sega CD console and opened with a striking animation of the blue blur showing off his speed and spinning abilities. In fact, it's this animation that fans have remastered, with new visuals and a higher sound quality than was capable in the game's original version on the twenty-five year-old console.
RELATED: Sonic the Hedgehog Games Keeping Dr. Eggman Voice Actor
Members Tanks and Quazza of the Sonicretro.org forums shared the results of their remaster recently, releasing the classic Sonic animation as both a clip on YouTube, as well as a direct MKV file for fans to download. In order to fully upscale the entire opening, the fans used an AI program known as an ESRGAN in order to achieve the final result in 720p. However, not every part of the process could be done with AI, as there were some sections of the animation which had frames seemingly out of place that the fans had to reorder manually.
Regardless of how the upscaling was achieved, the result has stunningly brought the decades old animation more in line with modern definition, as fans might expect with a new Sonic animation. According to a post by Tank on the Sonic forums, this could have possibly been done by hand if the fans had a proper rescan of the animation to work with, but at the moment, AI is the best option for getting this type of quality.