Sonic’s Ultimate Genesis/Mega Drive Collection Lets You Turn Off Splotchy Colors

While our own Phillip Levin has greeted SEGA’s Mega Drive Ultimate Collection (known in the US as “Sonic’s Ultimate Genesis Collection” for reasons unknown, perhaps as an attempt to make Sonic more of a fixture as their mascot) with enthusiasm, the name of Backbone Entertainment and some select screenshots have so far dampened the hopes of others, due in no small part to the filtering of graphics which has been commonly described as “blotchy.”

Fortunately, SEGA has confirmed that does not have to be the case:

Speaking to RPGSite, a Sega PR representative confirmed that the filter which proved controversial with fans would be optional. “I’ve had confirmation that the filter can indeed be switched off,” Martin Snelling of Sega UK told us. “And the games will display at whatever ratio your console is set at – 4:3 or 16:9. If playing in 16:9 the game will fit and not have black borders at the side.” he added, confirming another feature that will please fans.

…Classic Genesis/Mega Drive games were shown with a smoothing filter applied not unlike what many PC emulators use to make games look cleaner. However in this case fans argued that the filter caused a loss of detail and made the games look worse than they did at their original, blocky resolution. — RPG Site

Up close on a computer monitor? It looks pretty bad. But on an HDTV set up across the room? It may not be so bad. SDTV? No clue. It’s a damn good thing that gamers will be able to take it as it comes and pick what works best for them when this 40-game collection eventually hits PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. Let’s just hope that the controls and other issues don’t carry Backbone’s traditional notoriety.