Both are gorgeous in their own right.
It looks like homing is in, at about 0:34 when he attacks the fish. I kind of wish some of the extra mechanics we're cut too though.
We'll need to see it in profile to know if it's homing or bouncing a la that thingamajig in SA2.
Good call. Well fuck, but at least they ditched boosting. It seems like they've cut down on homing-heavy sections, however, so maybe it works differently. Using it for close-combat makes more sense than having it be a level design crutch.
If the developers could find a way to transfer 2D Sonic's physics manipulation over to a 3D environment, there wouldn't be a need for homing attacks. That's why I think they're mostly in place as substitutes for something better. On the other hand, many people like the direction Unleashed and Colors took with the 3D game mechanics; I'm not one of them, since I think the 2D Sonic games are more complex and replayable on the basis of their physics. I mean, people saw how gracefully Mario transitioned with 64, so the fact that the Sonic developers haven't accomplished something similar says something.
I'm well aware, and I know it's a frightening proposition to make that work. So when I thought for a second that this game had switched to a bouncing mechanism, it occurred to me that the developers had found a compromise that could work.
Notice how each of the bosses corresponds to a certain Chaos Emerald?
