Can't believe forces doesn't even have one level on the level of seaside hill or sky sanctuary.
Sonic the Hedgehog Community |OT| There’s no end to this franchise!
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I tweeted at him "What year was this?" as soon as I saw it and never got a response :/
Pity. Has to be early-mid 90's sometime, but it doesn't line up with anything we know about. The title is just "Sonic's friends" as far as I can tell, aside from whatever the last kanji character is that I can't parse because my Japanese is awful.
Between this and Ohshima somehow having an anecdote about hearing MJ's demo tapes for Sonic 3, I'm suddenly seriously wondering just what all he was up to in and around 1993 beyond getting Sonic CD out the door.
Didn't see this posted yet but a fan is converting Sonic Triple Trouble from 8bit into 16bit style! Pretty freaking cool if you ask me, this is the best GG Sonic game imo.
https://www.sonichq.net/article/Sonic-the-Hedgehog-Triple-Trouble-16bit-Remake
https://www.sonichq.net/article/Sonic-the-Hedgehog-Triple-Trouble-16bit-Remake
I prefer to suffer a little with Big's story than any Knuckles/Rouge stage from SA2 at least.
And I love those tweets that Oshima throws around sometimes.
And I love those tweets that Oshima throws around sometimes.
Well I wouldn't expect it to have anything matching generations best when it doesn't have one level on the level of Modern Green Hill
Somewhere around '92 to '94 might make some sense to me (trying to figure it out looking at how his artstyle evolved through that era - I found that it at least Sonic looks similar to this CD illustration. but this could have just been for the PC port) - maybe the lack of Tails is a case of lack of communication while Yasuhara and co. were working in the US? Not that he probably didn't know about Tails per se but maybe he had a different idea/role for him in mind? Yasuhara and Oshima weren't aware that they were both using time travel for 2 and CD respectively where CD used it as a game mechanic and 2 was supposed to use it for story transitions (ever wondered why Hill Top looks so similar to Emerald Hill? (^_-) ).
EDIT; After peeking on Retro, I'm now wondering if this is an early Knuckles' Chaotix concept. Mighty and Vector look almost identical to their respective illustrations for that game, perhaps Max was replaced with Charmy? That would probably narrow it down to around '94, maybe '93? I'm definitely pretty eager to learn more about Chaotix's development now...
Apologies if old but I found out Oshima had been tweeting CD animation cels.
If the negatives (or any film prints) of those still exist they need scanned and restored in HD stat!
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Well, that and Eggman's name canonically being "Ivo Robotnik". I mean, at least the "Robotnik" part is canon, given Gerald and Maria's last name is "Robotnik" even in Japan, where Eggman's always just been "Dr. Eggman".
Granted, "Robotnik Winter Zone" is called that even in Japan too, and Triple Trouble/Sonic & Tails 2 came out long before Adventure 2 did, so I guess there was precedent. Strange precedent that, if I recall, went without much notice being drawn to its existence, but precedent nonetheless.
Running Hedgeblog, I think Sonic Team actually fucked up any "nostalgia" in Forces. The game features Modern Sonic, but everything around him is "Classic", like Green Hill, Chemical Plant, Death Egg etc.
Based on the popularity of types of posts I do on Hedgeblog... it's actually ADVENTURE era that people are a bit more nostalgic for right now. 1 & 2, Heroes, and games in the Gamecube / PS2 era. I think having Classic Sonic stuff actually hindered any nostalgia. If the city was Station Square and not Green Hill, Egg Carrier instead of Death Egg, they'd actually hit the design a bit better.
Based on the popularity of types of posts I do on Hedgeblog... it's actually ADVENTURE era that people are a bit more nostalgic for right now. 1 & 2, Heroes, and games in the Gamecube / PS2 era. I think having Classic Sonic stuff actually hindered any nostalgia. If the city was Station Square and not Green Hill, Egg Carrier instead of Death Egg, they'd actually hit the design a bit better.
Whenever I hear Mecha Sonic, I think of Shard The Metal...
Without a doubt, he was my favorite pre-New 252 hero. He gave his life to protect his friends (and his love) from his brother. I still miss him.
Without a doubt, he was my favorite pre-New 252 hero. He gave his life to protect his friends (and his love) from his brother. I still miss him.
Yeah, Mecha Sonic, the robot that appeared in the archiverse version of the events of Sonic CD, appeared in issue 25.
This is the same Shard. From villain, to selfless hero.
This is the same Shard. From villain, to selfless hero.
Still got #25 as well. I actually started collecting from #30. Stopped around the 60s I think. Got the 48 page specials along with the Tails series and Knuckles series. Then I only bought the special issues like #75, #100, and the ones with the Genesis style covers.
I should post a pic of my collection sometime.
Edit: Just took a harder look at that cover. Didn't remember him being called Mecha Sonic. I always thought it was Metal Sonic.
I should post a pic of my collection sometime.
Edit: Just took a harder look at that cover. Didn't remember him being called Mecha Sonic. I always thought it was Metal Sonic.
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Yup! I have almost all issues of it. Love all the Elson/Kitching Sonic strips, especially the Sonick & Knuckles adapation, Project Brutus and the Metallix stuff.
My favourite non-sonic strips (back when they did them) were Chuck D Head, Mutant League and Kid Chameleon (loved the art in that one).
StC is crazy, but mostly in a lot of fun ways. Wish it had gotten to live on officially.
I remember the Ecco series being gorgeous in particular.
Archie's nomenclature was all over the place.
Archie Sonic was published here in Brazil... kinda. The first four issues from the mini were published by Editora Escala around 97 and then nothing else until 2013 when Editora Alto Astral released Sonic Quadrinhos #1(Sonic Comics) starting at weirdest place possible: Sonic Universe #1 and another thing that I don't even remember. They released another issue but then stopped forever.
At least I own the Shadow meme face on print form. Yay.
At least I own the Shadow meme face on print form. Yay.
The Sonic & Knuckles mecha sonic was my favourite, mainly due to the sonic the comic storyline with him as part of the metallix that gave him a pretty cool design
http://sonic.wikia.com/wiki/Metallix_(Mecha_Sonic)
Sonic Team and SEGA in general seem to either willfully act or carelessly think modern boost Sonic is exactly the same as it has been since 1998. I have seen Aaron openly correct people who want Dreamcast era content by saying it is modern. I really do believe SEGA actually chronicles what the fans generally say about things and in this case I think it is a huge negative because most discussion of the Adventure era of games online is "This is when Sonic became bad".
That said, even if they did a great job with City Escape and Seaside Hill Zone I think Speed Highway Zone in Sonic Generations was handled extremely poorly. Maybe they just have no idea what made people like the first Adventure at all.
I think Aaron is smarter than that. He knows what people are talking about when they ask for Adventure-era fanservice. He's a PR guy though so he's trying to spin it since Sonic still resembles his Adventure-era design for the most part.
I'm sure Sega/Sonic Team is aware of the demand for Adventure-era stuff to come back but they're in a bit of a pickle since those games aren't looked back on fondly by the general public, unlike the Classic games.
Also, I'm not sure what you thought was terrible about Speed Highway in Generations. It wasn't one of my favorite levels in that game but I still enjoyed it a good deal.
Cross-posting from Discord:
Frank Cifaldi live-tweeted a GDC postmortem about Sonic 1 as presented by Yasuhara and Oshima. It's worth picking through the whole thread, even if you've obsessively followed the last twenty years of community research on the subject, and especially if you haven't.
Frank Cifaldi live-tweeted a GDC postmortem about Sonic 1 as presented by Yasuhara and Oshima. It's worth picking through the whole thread, even if you've obsessively followed the last twenty years of community research on the subject, and especially if you haven't.
Dunkey's review of Knack brought this up as an example of why Knack's character design is flawed for a mascot platformer. Sonic and Mario have simple designs and are insanely easy to draw - I can't tell you how many drawings of Sonic and his friends I did as a child. Knack has like a million different particles, how does an average person even doodle that.
Also reminds me of Matt Groening's rule for memorable character design, that they should be identifiable by their silhouette. Sonic easily passes that test.
Wrote up a long post earlier explaining how I felt about Speed Highway Zone in Generations, but my computer crashed just as I was sending it. To sum it up, basically I think the aesthetics were all wrong (and even a bit Westernized), the music was super underwhelming, the running down the building portion was done all wrong, the lack of the At Dawn section (which could have been Classic Sonic's act) and some other things just made it feel like a genuinely poor and uncreative effort compared to most levels in the game.
Generations already had too many city levels anyways. I realize they wanted to pick the most iconic levels from each games, but I seriously feel like Lost World Zone was completely robbed and would have been a much more interesting fit.
Lost World would have been weird since the previous stage was Sky Sanctuary, another ancient city level. I think Twinkle Park would have been a good fit. Lots of gimmicks they could use, plus Sonic Generations strangely lacks a proper "bouncy casino park" level of any sort outside of the underwhelming DLC.
Would have love Red Mountain as well.
Would have love Red Mountain as well.
Agreed. The level design in the first half is some of the best in the game and the music in the 2nd half is one of my favorite tracks in Adventure 1.
I have my issues with the set up for a lot of SA1 levels, but red mountain aztech are the good ones. I mean the rest of them aren't bad... so much as like parts of them are bad and don't need to be there and are indicative of my other issues with SA1, but those levels are generally good all around. Oh, the city level is ... okish
I think its more than pickle and more so a jar. One I think the general public doesn't reallly care? Anecdotal, I know a lot of folks who are just like " oh I remember sonic adventure 1 and 2 ,those games were tight " , I think that's most of the general public. I just remember the dreamcast kinda fondly or the GCN ports, they kinda bowed out after the weirdness.
But to the point about the pickle jar, uh to put it very simply. Sonic team has done a lot of things in the past...over a decade, to make me think there are two main problems.
1) They don't seem to want to spend that much money. And making something that resembles adventure era stuff, comes with exspectations, and a lot of them, and making video games costs money. And if they were gonna make a hypothetical sonic adventure 3 type game, it might cost some money.
2) There are a lot of things sonic has done... since and including a lot of the stuff in shadow's game, people call bold stupidity, which in reality just seems like a lack of confidence. And that sort of plays into them not wanting to like...commit capital to stuff. Just a lack of confidence in ideas, and then with that lack of confidence, they try to compensate for the idea with more stupidity and make it worse and then justify spending less money or just...changing shit. Instead of just analyzing the problems and fixing the problems, instead of building the confidence that comes with knowledge and understanding gained from your failures.
The 2nd theory being why I kinda.. think they don't get... why people like sonic. And I mean like... all eras of sonic, both gameplay and thematically. Like they understand people like it, but they don't get what people liked about it or rather they do, they don't get why they liked it. And a problem when handling brand.
Maybe i'm wrong, but I think we will get that adventure-type game, when someone else is making it. I also think that's kind of the future of sonic in general, sonic team handles the brand and how its used. But generally everything is made by someone else. That's where I see that going I guess. I dunno, i'm tired.
I think its more than pickle and more so a jar. One I think the general public doesn't reallly care? Anecdotal, I know a lot of folks who are just like " oh I remember sonic adventure 1 and 2 ,those games were tight " , I think that's most of the general public. I just remember the dreamcast kinda fondly or the GCN ports, they kinda bowed out after the weirdness.
But to the point about the pickle jar, uh to put it very simply. Sonic team has done a lot of things in the past...over a decade, to make me think there are two main problems.
1) They don't seem to want to spend that much money. And making something that resembles adventure era stuff, comes with exspectations, and a lot of them, and making video games costs money. And if they were gonna make a hypothetical sonic adventure 3 type game, it might cost some money.
2) There are a lot of things sonic has done... since and including a lot of the stuff in shadow's game, people call bold stupidity, which in reality just seems like a lack of confidence. And that sort of plays into them not wanting to like...commit capital to stuff. Just a lack of confidence in ideas, and then with that lack of confidence, they try to compensate for the idea with more stupidity and make it worse and then justify spending less money or just...changing shit. Instead of just analyzing the problems and fixing the problems, instead of building the confidence that comes with knowledge and understanding gained from your failures.
The 2nd theory being why I kinda.. think they don't get... why people like sonic. And I mean like... all eras of sonic, both gameplay and thematically. Like they understand people like it, but they don't get what people liked about it or rather they do, they don't get why they liked it. And a problem when handling brand.
Maybe i'm wrong, but I think we will get that adventure-type game, when someone else is making it. I also think that's kind of the future of sonic in general, sonic team handles the brand and how its used. But generally everything is made by someone else. That's where I see that going I guess. I dunno, i'm tired.
Noticed that the first two issues of the new IDW comic were up for Pre-order on the kindle store at £2.74 each so have stuck an order in for them.
If they're good I'll probably pick them up each month. Don't think Kindle store has a subscription function sadly.
If they're good I'll probably pick them up each month. Don't think Kindle store has a subscription function sadly.
I don't get why they haven't just fully integrated Comixology into the Kindle store yet... They've been up on there for a while.
Yeah I could use Comixology as I think that dies have a subscribe function but I have a bunch of manga and regular books through Kindle and I like having everything in a single app.
Just beat Sonic Adventure DX. Did not like Big's gameplay sadly and I struggled with it, but I did enjoy Knuckles and Gamma to an extent. Gamma was easy but Knuckles I feel is like it's got a good idea it just feels awkward to play it the way it is.
One thing I found odd about Gamma's story is how Eggman just...forgets about him. He rebels against him but Eggman seems occupied with other stuff that he is never brought up again. Heck he even has access to Eggman's fallen EGG Carrier via a frikkin' RAFT. You'd think Eggman would have the smarts to plan ahead in case his tech got into the hands of undesirables but nope, just leave it floating on the ocean...
For that matter what is up with him self destructing it at the end of some of the stories? This is a big ass combat helicarrier that likely cost millions to build and you just blow it up without a care in the world? Well guess Eggmanland would've covered its costs in due time @_@
I played the game with the JP dub and you can tell some lines are different than the English ones.
Quoting my quickie write up from the 52 games thread
"I'm a little torn on this game as there are elements of it I liked and didn't like. For one thing I liked the separate character structure and the main plot is quite good IMO. The visuals although dated look clean and vibrant, esp. with the Dreamcast restoration mod. Gameplay's a mixed bag for me tbh, and I feel like this is a game taht'd benefit from a fan remake with some QoL updates."
IMHO the game has good ideas and some decent mechanics and I liked some of the puzzley stuff in some of Sonic's stages for example, but it's age really shows. The game is playable and I find that it can be enjoyed still, but it feels like a game that's in the 6-7 out of 10 range for me.
Gonna get Sonic Adventure 2 installed later, any good mods I could apply to the PC ver.? I plan on playing through Dark mode.
One thing I found odd about Gamma's story is how Eggman just...forgets about him. He rebels against him but Eggman seems occupied with other stuff that he is never brought up again. Heck he even has access to Eggman's fallen EGG Carrier via a frikkin' RAFT. You'd think Eggman would have the smarts to plan ahead in case his tech got into the hands of undesirables but nope, just leave it floating on the ocean...
For that matter what is up with him self destructing it at the end of some of the stories? This is a big ass combat helicarrier that likely cost millions to build and you just blow it up without a care in the world? Well guess Eggmanland would've covered its costs in due time @_@
I played the game with the JP dub and you can tell some lines are different than the English ones.
Quoting my quickie write up from the 52 games thread
"I'm a little torn on this game as there are elements of it I liked and didn't like. For one thing I liked the separate character structure and the main plot is quite good IMO. The visuals although dated look clean and vibrant, esp. with the Dreamcast restoration mod. Gameplay's a mixed bag for me tbh, and I feel like this is a game taht'd benefit from a fan remake with some QoL updates."
IMHO the game has good ideas and some decent mechanics and I liked some of the puzzley stuff in some of Sonic's stages for example, but it's age really shows. The game is playable and I find that it can be enjoyed still, but it feels like a game that's in the 6-7 out of 10 range for me.
Gonna get Sonic Adventure 2 installed later, any good mods I could apply to the PC ver.? I plan on playing through Dark mode.
Hittin' up comixology to pre-roder if their prices are cheap enough for me :3
Well, there is no reason for the levels to be in chronological order (they absolutely should not have done that IMO), but even still we got two city levels back to back because of that and no one really minded, so I do not think that would have been a big deal. To me, Lost World Zone encapsulates so much about what made Adventure 1 interesting and special and they likely would have integrated elements of time travel and the Mystic Ruins into it too. Real shame. Honestly, I just cannot believe they did not expand on the game with DLC or a proper sequel. Even just sloppily updating the 3DS levels for the HD version would have made them lots of money.
IIRC, the last time that Eggman sees Gamma is when Gamma is about to fight Sonic. He probably just assumes that the robot was another unremarkable addition to the scrap heap.
Yeah, the levels shouldn't have been chronological. It just limited what levels could show up so heavily. I remember a lot of people complaining about two cities levels being back to back (and too many city/green hill levels in general) back when it came out. I would have loved for Rail Canyon or Hang Castle to appear for Heroes for example though I'm kinda happy we got Seaside Hill since the Modern Act is the best 3D level in the entire franchise imo.
The only logical reason for a lack of DLC would be that Sega wanted to focus their resources on the next game asap. Sonic Lost World was the next "big" game to come out and it was a 2 year wait, which was longer than it usually was in between the 3D titles (though now after waiting 4 years for a game as small as Forces it doesn't seem so long in retrospect).
So Angel Island crashes in an area that is accessible by train from Station Square in Sonic Adventure.
This just strikes me as utterly bizarre; knowing what we know about Angel Island and it housing gemstones of great power, you'd think GUN or some military body would be setting up shop there to at least stop Eggman or any other nefarious group from getting their hands on it.
But nope Eggman actually manages to not only HIDE HIS GIANT ASS HELICARRIER THERE, BUT ALSO ERECT A NEW BASE.
Forget Knuckles being an incompetent Guardian, how the heck did manage to do all that?
This just strikes me as utterly bizarre; knowing what we know about Angel Island and it housing gemstones of great power, you'd think GUN or some military body would be setting up shop there to at least stop Eggman or any other nefarious group from getting their hands on it.
But nope Eggman actually manages to not only HIDE HIS GIANT ASS HELICARRIER THERE, BUT ALSO ERECT A NEW BASE.
Forget Knuckles being an incompetent Guardian, how the heck did manage to do all that?