Sonic the Hedgehog Community |OT| There’s no end to this franchise!

[A Syrian Communist]

Iizuka talked about it in the Retro Gamer "Making of Sonic Adventure" piece a few months ago. The level was only partially complete and nobody was available to finish the work on it due to time constraints so even though he wasn't doing level design he took it upon himself to rebuild it from scratch.

 

[BlueStarEXSF]

Man, the possibility of a Sonic Adventure Remake really does excite me. I hope I don't get burned but I have high hopes for this new Sega of America led Sonic Team.

 

[Rurouni]

Honestly, i wouldn't even mind if the next game in development is the equivalent of the Crash trilogy remake with SA1/SA2 (at least assuming the LA based Sonic Team are actually competent).

 

[Virtua Sanus]

I honestly could not trust Sonic Team less when it comes to even understanding the appeals of the Adventure games, so I rather them just make an Adventure 3 in line with the style of the original ones. Just make sure it has at least three playable styles and has a few adventure fields in there, but make them optional or something.

 

[A Syrian Communist]

I honestly could not trust Sonic Team less when it comes to even understanding the appeals of the Adventure games, so I rather them just make an Adventure 3 in line with the style of the original ones. Just make sure it has at least three playable styles and has a few adventure fields in there, but make them optional or something.

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I might've said this in here before but honestly? Sonic Adventure 1 and 2 are known quantities and at this point I'd take an attempt at that over whatever random thing they'll think of next. Even if it's not as good as the original I'd still take Adventure 1/2 Again But Not as Good This Time over stuff like Forces and Lost World that are almost conceptually antithetical on the deepest level to what I think a good Sonic game looks like lol.

 

[Village]

I might've said this in here before but honestly? Sonic Adventure 1 and 2 are known quantities and at this point I'd take an attempt at that over whatever random thing they'll think of next. Even if it's not as good as the original I'd still take Adventure 1/2 Again But Not as Good This Time over stuff like Forces and Lost World that are almost conceptually antithetical on the deepest level to what I think a good Sonic game looks like lol.

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Bold Statement: And I say this as a sonic fan, not to suggest game design is easy, but due to advancements to how games are designed in general , them attempting sonic adventure 1 and 2 again on a baseline would probably be better than the OG 1 and 2. There would be less control issues, the knuckles type stages would go from " an annoyance to some " to totally fine. And just due to how consuming game deisgn is nowadays there is no incentive to include characters like big. He would just be an easter egg in the background and everyone would generally be satisfied with decision like that.

Now it isn't cut and dry, like I mentioned on a previous page the shooting gallery type stages in both of those games would have to be redone from the ground up. Just as game design has evovled some of the issues of the other two playstyles, it has evovled in such a way that reveals these sections to be rather boring nothing. You would have to redo the entire purpose of these levels. Should they be merely get to the end? Should they be more combat focused, should mechs/ Mecha have more utility in how it navigates the levels. Or even if you wanna have those levels at all.

Then there are the sonic levels where, i'm not saying they have been negated to nothing, but the people making these games haven't done anything like that since... sonic adventure 1 and 2. Even the levels put into generations are modernized versions of those levels and are nothing like how the originals were. Which kind of have exploration in them.

Thats why I would suggest they remake sonic adventure 1 and 2 . Get them used to designing levels and gameplay like that. So they can eventually move on to whatever is next where they use whatever philosphy were in those levels to expand on the premise.

So I wont say they are known quantities because even I think need to like remake 1 and 2 to kinda practice. But a modern touch on a lot of the issues those games had, fixes itself.

 

[Deleted member 34949]

Thinking about it, it is pretty weird that for a series as long running as Sonic, no single game's ever got a fresh, from the ground up remake. A few extensive ports sure, but never a full scale remake.

 

[Virtua Sanus]

I do not think a modern Sonic game would be given the budget necessary to make anything close to where Adventure went. SEGA not making consoles anymore is a huge, huge, huge reason why the series took a dive in quality because they no longer need it to be a bleeding edge series that saves their hardware. They have shown that they are entirely comfortable with it being a million seller only, so I doubt budgets are going to jump anytime soon.

Sonic's speed is always going to be an issue in 3D just simply due to the scale of assets needed. This is only getting harder now too, which is why so many recent titles feel so short. Add the necessary multiplatform focus the series has on top of that and I honestly cannot see them ever reaching something like Adventure's boldness again.

But that does not mean they cannot make awesome games. I do think things are improving behind the scenes.

 

[Rurouni]

Weren't 06 and Unleashed HD outliers regarding AAA budgets?

 

[Zippo]

Also, just so people don't get confused, Iizuka and the "Sonic Pillar" in SEGA of America are in charge of Sonic, but the development team is entirely still in Japan. They're just directing them from the west coast. This isn't them splitting into two halves of Sonic Team with ST Japan/USA like they did in in the '00s.

 

[Ghost_Messiah]

Also, just so people don't get confused, Iizuka and the "Sonic Pillar" in SEGA of America are in charge of Sonic, but the development team is entirely still in Japan. They're just directing them from the west coast. This isn't them splitting into two halves of Sonic Team with ST Japan/USA like they did in in the '00s.

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Hey dude. This is awesome and enlightening info - but what's the source for this? Was it mentioned in the Sonic stream?

 

[Zippo]

Hey dude. This is awesome and enlightening info - but what's the source for this? Was it mentioned in the Sonic stream?

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Iizuka and all of the stuff about SEGA of America having more of a say was mentioned when he moved back to America a few years ago.

SEGA of America is just a localization house, they don't have any development teams, they haven't for years.

 

[Ghost_Messiah]

Iizuka and all of the stuff about SEGA of America having more of a say was mentioned when he moved back to America a few years ago.

SEGA of America is just a localization house, they don't have any development teams, they haven't for years.

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Thanks dude! Yeah all that makes sense. Cheers.

My confusion was just that Sonic Team has been merged in to Sega's CS2 development team, and are reportedly working on a new IP and not Sonic. But we know a big Sonic game is in development, so whose working on it? The Sonic Pillar thing makes sense now, but where are the development staff coming from?

All I can think of is a sub-team of CS2 or something since they're ex-Sonic Team Japan. Wish Sega would clarify.

 

[Zippo]

Thanks dude! Yeah all that makes sense. Cheers.

My confusion was just that Sonic Team has been merged in to Sega's CS2 development team, and are reportedly working on a new IP and not Sonic. But we know a big Sonic game is in development, so whose working on it? The Sonic Pillar thing makes sense now, but where are the development staff coming from?

All I can think of is a sub-team of CS2 or something since they're ex-Sonic Team Japan. Wish Sega would clarify.

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That, I have no idea on. Iizuka was super vague on who was developing the new Sonic game at SXSW. Might be a smaller team at SEGA.

Evening Star (Sonic Mania devs) was formed a few months ago, but I doubt he was referring to them. Their first game won't be out for years, even if it is Sonic.

 

[Tailzo]

I'm loving Sonic AIR :)

I'd love to see the same treatement to other Sonic games.

 

[A Syrian Communist]

I do not think a modern Sonic game would be given the budget necessary to make anything close to where Adventure went. SEGA not making consoles anymore is a huge, huge, huge reason why the series took a dive in quality because they no longer need it to be a bleeding edge series that saves their hardware. They have shown that they are entirely comfortable with it being a million seller only, so I doubt budgets are going to jump anytime soon.

Sonic's speed is always going to be an issue in 3D just simply due to the scale of assets needed. This is only getting harder now too, which is why so many recent titles feel so short. Add the necessary multiplatform focus the series has on top of that and I honestly cannot see them ever reaching something like Adventure's boldness again.

But that does not mean they cannot make awesome games. I do think things are improving behind the scenes.

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That's a fair point but even so, I wouldn't mind it. Even if they gave the games the Crash remake treatment (which I doubt but you never know) you'd still have new games with better art direction, better story, and better music than Lost World and Forces, at least imo. Worst case scenario it's another shit Sonic game but idk, maybe the cutscenes will be charming and the soundtrack better than the last few outings.

 

[Village]

On a recent bumble cast a follow up question to the " Team Dark doesn't work for gun and not really a team revelation was asked. " Ok They don't for gun are they contract workers "

Short answer, he doesn't know. Longer answer: He doesn't know he maybe thinks shadow could hit them up to help him find a strong thing to punch, but he really doesn't know and is that one thing that contributes to the list of reasons why he isn't addressing the whole two worlds thing right now. How is this relevant ? There's a lot of complaints about the book that boil down to a few things

• The book moves to fast
• Nothing feels defined and the world is lifeless
• The characters don't feel like they are around long enough to actually be themselves
• the stories are very samey ( Sonic and character go punch thing, or each other )

Now while I think other miniseries coming into play will help with a lot of this , its now very apparent it wont help with all of it. It seems as though Ian flynn has taken to avoiding things whole sale in some cases. Why? Because from what he's told us over the years, even back during archie reboot days that the information he gets is sorta vuague and there are a lot of restrictions on this vague info . This is ontop of sega watching him like a hawk, Penders had long lasting effects.

My overall point, If you have issues with the current book I don't think its gonna get better soon. The information he's given and how's he's given , what he's doing now is the best format possible untill the book goes on long enough to establish its characters and world or more miniseries. The information he's been given seems not only contradictory to what... anyone with any type of comprehension ability thinks about this franchise, but also in some cases good story telling. And he's trying to navigate around that. And if you don't wanna wait for that I would suggest bowing out for a while.

 

[Setsune]

I was thinking about this earlier, and I think the worst thing about the comic situation is the wider issue it speaks of. Assuming this is still true, Ian can't reference Infinite, in a comic series that's a direct continuation of Sonic Forces. But it's not thay he can't show Infinite, or say Infinite is gone for good. They can't even just say Infinite is gone "for now." But why is that? I get the impression they don't know what the Sonic leads plan to do with him. He's not in Team Sonic Racing, but one of the Deadly Six is... but just one of them, the same one that was in Sonic Forces, but also wasn't because he was a Phantom that didn't act like any of the other phantoms.

All this goes back to a key problem: Apparently either Sonic Team won't tell the American arm of Sega what they plan to do with major characters in the series, or they don't know themselves. Is Infinite going to come back? Nobody knows. Everyone should be on the same page, so they can work around it all more effectively. I know that's easier said than done with the region and language divide, but this feels like more than that.

 

[Virtua Sanus]

I was thinking about this earlier, and I think the worst thing about the comic situation is the wider issue it speaks of. Assuming this is still true, Ian can't reference Infinite, in a comic series that's a direct continuation of Sonic Forces. But it's not thay he can't show Infinite, or say Infinite is gone for good. They can't even just say Infinite is gone "for now." But why is that? I get the impression they don't know what the Sonic leads plan to do with him. He's not in Team Sonic Racing, but one of the Deadly Six is... but just one of them, the same one that was in Sonic Forces, but also wasn't because he was a Phantom that didn't act like any of the other phantoms.

All this goes back to a key problem: Apparently either Sonic Team won't tell the American arm of Sega what they plan to do with major characters in the series, or they don't know themselves. Is Infinite going to come back? Nobody knows. Everyone should be on the same page, so they can work around it all more effectively. I know that's easier said than done with the region and language divide, but this feels like more than that.

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Going from my knowledge of early 2000s happenings in the Sonic brand, this sounds like how Sonic Team would create new characters just so they could have more creative control over the franchise. I doubt anyone in Japan was happy with how SEGA America, Europe and anyone with the license (like Archie) just did whatever with most Sonic characters, so Sonic Team wanted more new characters they could have full control over. I am not entirely certain how it works currently, but traditionally with SEGA and probably all Japanese game companies you are expected to get the creator's blessing for what can and cannot be done with characters or locations. Even though the Sonic Advance games were handled in part by Sonic Team and were made in Japan, this would explain why Shadow did not appear in games like those even though he was at the height of his popularity.

Yuji Naka was supposedly pretty protective of Cream for a long time too. I do not follow the comics, but I heard she was banned from being referenced in the mainline ones for a long time. This all sounds awfully familiar to this Infinite stuff.

Even if there is no outline in place for what will happen with Infinite, that ability to control that character's presentation has to be something they outright are proud of, especially after seeing stuff from the Sonic movie.

 

[Setsune]

Even if there is no outline in place for what will happen with Infinite, that ability to control that character's presentation has to be something they outright are proud of, especially after seeing stuff from the Sonic movie.

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But they should still have a guideline for "Here's how this character should exist in the Sonic World until we say otherwise." You can't have a story featuring Infinite? That's fine. You literally can't reference Infinite existed when the entire setup for the comic is Sonic Forces? I feel like that's a bridge too far.

Also, the Sonic movie stuff wouldn't be happening without their OK, unless they signed the absolute worst contract in the world. I'd think SoA basically had no control or say in it at all. Could be wrong, of course.

 

[Virtua Sanus]

But they should still have a guideline for "Here's how this character should exist in the Sonic World until we say otherwise." You can't have a story featuring Infinite? That's fine. You literally can't reference Infinite existed when the entire setup for the comic is Sonic Forces? I feel like that's a bridge too far.

Also, the Sonic movie stuff wouldn't be happening without their OK, unless they signed the absolute worst contract in the world. I'd think SoA basically had no control or say in it at all. Could be wrong, of course.

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Yeah I guess. To me it seemed like a big mistake to even partially reference Forces right from the start though. I know some people that would have otherwise been pretty interested if it started off in a more sensible manner and I am certain there are way more people out there that agree.

As for the Sonic movie, I believe SEGA had a lot more control when it was at Sony. When Sony sold it they lost most control. Movies are a way different can of worms though because the filmmakers are potentially dealing with way more funds. The leverage these people have over the IP holders is why pretty much every video game movie comes out the way they do.

 

[Nali]

Yuji Naka was supposedly pretty protective of Cream for a long time too. I do not follow the comics, but I heard she was banned from being referenced in the mainline ones for a long time. This all sounds awfully familiar to this Infinite stuff.

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She was considered an exclusive part of the Sonic X branding for a while as far as external media went, until that branch of the franchise dried up. Extremely doubtful that Naka had anything to do with that, if only because of how the timing lines up between that comic starting and him leaving Sega.

 

[Tizoc]

I want Sticks brought into the main series.

 

[Psxphile]

I want Sticks brought into the main series.

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Character Designer Yuji Uekawa has all but adopted her, so why not?

 

[Waddle Dee]

If we get a "remake" of Adventure 1 and/or 2, it'd be from the ground up and would be very different from the original titles. I love those games but they have too many flaws for a simple remake in the style of the Crash or Spyro collections. The budget would also be a major concern so there's no way the game would be as ambitious as what we originally got. If a remake ever happens, it'll be more of a reimagining like what we got with the Resident Evil 2 "remake" where it's more of a loose adaptation that takes some of the existing foundation from the original but then heavily updates and tweaks it for a modern audience (and for a smaller budget).

I'd be fine with that, in theory, but I imagine a ton of fans will be very upset if it happens.

 

[Setsune]

If we get a "remake" of Adventure 1 and/or 2, it'd be from the ground up and would be very different from the original titles. I love those games but they have too many flaws for a simple remake in the style of the Crash or Spyro collections. The budget would also be a major concern so there's no way the game would be as ambitious as what we originally got. If a remake ever happens, it'll be more of a reimagining like what we got with the Resident Evil 2 "remake" where it's more of a loose adaptation that takes some of the existing foundation from the original but then heavily updates and tweaks it for a modern audience (and for a smaller budget).

I'd be fine with that, in theory, but I imagine a ton of fans will be very upset if it happens.

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I figure the way around that is to also include the PC port of SA DX, and maybe work with the community to bundle in or replicate most of the fan fixes to it (Lantern lighting, water, missing decorations). 16:9 and 4:3 support, and maybe some toggles to swap the DC and DX models and textures in and out if they're feeling adventurous. Could even throw some shader options on top of it for fun.

 

[A Syrian Communist]

If we get a "remake" of Adventure 1 and/or 2, it'd be from the ground up and would be very different from the original titles. I love those games but they have too many flaws for a simple remake in the style of the Crash or Spyro collections. The budget would also be a major concern so there's no way the game would be as ambitious as what we originally got. If a remake ever happens, it'll be more of a reimagining like what we got with the Resident Evil 2 "remake" where it's more of a loose adaptation that takes some of the existing foundation from the original but then heavily updates and tweaks it for a modern audience (and for a smaller budget).

I'd be fine with that, in theory, but I imagine a ton of fans will be very upset if it happens.

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🤷‍♀️ At the end of the day I'll still have the original. It'd suck to have a new game that barely resembles the actual Adventure but hey at least we'll probably get a great remix album out of it.

 

[Waddle Dee]

I figure the way around that is to also include the PC port of SA DX, and maybe work with the community to bundle in or replicate most of the fan fixes to it (Lantern lighting, water, missing decorations). 16:9 and 4:3 support, and maybe some toggles to swap the DC and DX models and textures in and out if they're feeling adventurous. Could even throw some shader options on top of it for fun.

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DX is already on Steam so it'd be weird for that platform. I guess it could work for all the modern consoles, though. It'd only be seen as a nice bonus for to the fans, since if you're not already into Adventure, you're likely to not be sold on it anytime soon. I see a lot of fans accuse the bad DX version for convincing people that Adventure sucks but let's be real, a lot of the reasons people don't like Adventure are in the original DC version as well. The messed up graphics and questionable art direction changes weren't what made people laugh at that game nowadays. Obviously I prefer the DC version (besides not being able to skip cutscenes) but outside of the visuals the DX version isn't significantly worse. Adventure was just a very ambitious and charming game that was always very rough in some areas and hasn't aged well.

 

[A Syrian Communist]

DX is already on Steam so it'd be weird for that platform. I guess it could work for all the modern consoles, though. It'd only be seen as a nice bonus for to the fans, since if you're not already into Adventure, you're likely to not be sold on it anytime soon. I see a lot of fans accuse the bad DX version for convincing people that Adventure sucks but let's be real, a lot of the reasons people don't like Adventure are in the original DC version as well. The messed up graphics and questionable art direction changes weren't what made people laugh at that game nowadays. Obviously I prefer the DC version (besides not being able to skip cutscenes) but outside of the visuals the DX version isn't significantly worse. Adventure was just a very ambitious and charming game that was always very rough in some areas and hasn't aged well.

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I agree with everything in this post aside from saying DX doesn't look significantly worse. It definitely does imo. Playing on PC with the restoration mods is really easy now though and I personally don't really care if they rerelease it again or not.

 

[Waddle Dee]

I agree with everything in this post aside from saying DX doesn't look significantly worse. It definitely does imo. Playing on PC with the restoration mods is really easy now though and I personally don't really care if they rerelease it again or not.

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I said the DX version DOES look significantly worse. That's the only major downgrade though. Everything else (controls, glitches, content, etc) is about on par or slightly worse.

The worse looking environments and weird decisions in regards to the character models aren't what makes Adventure a joke to people that aren't Sonic fans, though.

 

[A Syrian Communist]

I said the DX version DOES look significantly worse. That's the only major downgrade though. Everything else (controls, glitches, content, etc) is about on par or slightly worse.

The worse looking environments and weird decisions in regards to the character models aren't what makes Adventure a joke to people that aren't Sonic fans, though.

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Oh wow, sorry. I completely missed the "aside from visuals" bit. My bad.

Yeah you're right. Adventure is definitely bogged down by its technical issues. I watched my fiance clip through the floor/walls literally in the very first level. It's a little too easy to break.

 

[Waddle Dee]

Oh wow, sorry. I completely missed the "aside from visuals" bit. My bad.

Yeah you're right. Adventure is definitely bogged down by its technical issues. I watched my fiance clip through the floor/walls literally in the very first level. It's a little too easy to break.

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Yeah, a big part of why a lot of us are able to love the game is because we played it when we were kids and learned how to bypass the jank by trial and error. When you're an adult you often become far less forgiving of these shortcomings. I personally will still often play a game even if it's buggy but I'm definitely in the minority on that. I've 100% games like Sonic 06, Ride to Hell: Retribution and a big part of that is that I find the glitches to be enjoyable. I like seeing how I can break things and find those kinds of oddities more amusing than frustrating.

I think the level of complaints hurled at Adventure 1 and 2 (and even Heroes to a lesser extent) for being super buggy and "unplayable" is a tad unwarranted, but I understand the complaints and I don't blame people for being put off by them.

 

[nbnt]

They should remake SA1 and 2 as Sonic & Knuckles Adventure. Just Sonic and Knuckles, the rest can stay behind.

 

[Village]

Apparently either Sonic Team won't tell the American arm of Sega what they plan to do with major characters in the series, or they don't know themselves. .

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That's sorta it, its both. Let me give you some examples.

So back during the archie reboot Ian strait up said the hard part of writing GUN stuff is that he said he feels as though sega didn't know or have any plans to use gun. Makes sense, friends were showing up less let alone concepts like GUN. That in combination with what happened with shadow and GUN in worlds unite with that editor is why they aren't even referenced by name in the new book. Ian flynn talks about how sega is a lot more invovled in how he writes the characters rather than the stories themselves nowadays. That would explain why quite a few characters and dynamics are a lot closer than their game counter parts than previous iterations. So if they have no idea what to do with a character, instead of leaving ian flynn up to figure that out. They would prefer to remove it all together until they figured that out.

Another example Sonic Boom, so IIRC the team making the original game wanted to include a sonic backstory. They got a stern no, they were told when they were ready to tell that story , they would. And while this could be them not knowing what that is, I think they do , they just don't think its relevant to the character. Which I think they are 100% correct on. You might then question the movie , but the movie is an probably and old contract that was acted on and the way its written they don't got much control over what happens.

 

[jacket]

 

[Village]

 

[Phil32]

Oh, poop. No wonder I couldn't find the newest Sonic comic. It must have been delayed, I guess. I thought it released yesterday, but it turns out it's coming out in early May?

 

[Psxphile]

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Mike Tyson's Post-Incarceration Punch-Out!!, nice.

 

[Village]

Oh, poop. No wonder I couldn't find the newest Sonic comic. It must have been delayed, I guess. I thought it released yesterday, but it turns out it's coming out in early May?

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Delays yeah.. .its been getting delayed a lot

 

[Zippo]

People seemed to have missed this but there are two new TSR tracks that we have not seen before in this video.

One is a Spogonia level in the sky and another is a space themed track?

 

[Setsune]

Oh good, so you can mix-and-match teams, at least in multiplayer.

 

[A Syrian Communist]

This is really impressive.

 

[KillstealWolf]

Here's what LittleV was teasing about.

 

[BlueStarEXSF]

People seemed to have missed this but there are two new TSR tracks that we have not seen before in this video.

One is a Spogonia level in the sky and another is a space themed track?

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Those new tracks look cool. The other track looks to be part of the desert area as they go through a pyramid and you can see some Boo's House assets. Still, they managed to make them feel very different and varied despite their limited choice of zones. This is cool.

 

[Professor Beef]

This is really impressive.

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I'm intrigued, yet very suspicious

 

[Deleted member 2474]

This is really impressive.

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i absolutely cannot understand why not just one, but two teams of clearly talented and resourceful fan developers are putting their energy towards recreating sonic 06 on pc. literally anything else would be a better use of their time and effort

 

[Terranort]

i absolutely cannot understand why not just one, but two teams of clearly talented and resourceful fan developers are putting their energy towards recreating sonic 06 on pc. literally anything else would be a better use of their time and effort

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I suppose everyone wants to be the first one to make Sonic 06 "good edition" xd.

 

[A Syrian Communist]

i absolutely cannot understand why not just one, but two teams of clearly talented and resourceful fan developers are putting their energy towards recreating sonic 06 on pc. literally anything else would be a better use of their time and effort

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I think I get it. It's not like there's absolutely nothing to like in that game, so maybe the mentality is something like "this game does so much cool stuff but everyone gets hung up on the nonsense. I'll show them"? 🤷‍♀️ Either way I played it last night and had a good time - this version has a very different design mentality than the other one which tries to be an accurate port, warts and all. The controls feel different and there's a lot of subtle cosmetic changes that make the game feel more polished. Biggest downsides for me we're the performance (but it's a beta so I get it), the fact that the characters kept clipping onto stuff on the floor, and the fact I can't play in Japanese because the English voices in this game are ass.

 

[Berordn]

all these fan remakes of sonic 06 just go to show how much lipstick you need to make this hog attractive

but at the end of the day they're just dressing up a pig, because the actual game is flawed down to the conceptual level

 

[Deleted member 8001]