New Sonic game for 2015

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big_smile
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Re: New Sonic game for 2015

Post by big_smile »

http://www.tssznews.com/2014/11/16/rese ... om-exodus/
^ Ravidrath of Skullgirls dev Lab Zero Games posted the following:
There was a fair amount of staff turmoil on this project, but I don’t think moreso than the usual project.
The single decision that put this game on this path was going with CryEngine. It’s just not ready for a third person platformer, so they were fighting against the engine the entire time.
And the game went Gold in July, which is why people started leaving around then. Many of them layoffs.
Obviously, discretion is required because Ravidrath didn't actually work on the game (and Internet forum accounts can be faked), but it ties in with the Interview statements.

If it's true, then it seems full blame goes to BRB (and not just the big chunk I thought earlier). Again though it's project management. If working on new tech, it makes sense that 100% of the focus should be on the speed gameplay. Once that's perfected then things like multiple characters, combat modes and adventure fields can be added. That way, if the project that runs of time, it's only the extras that will suffer. The core game will still be decent.

(Although the engine issues don't explain why the 3DS version is so poor).

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Re: New Sonic game for 2015

Post by Rob-Bert »

big_smile wrote:If working on new tech, it makes sense that 100% of the focus should be on the speed gameplay. Once that's perfected then things like multiple characters, combat modes and adventure fields can be added. That way, if the project that runs of time, it's only the extras that will suffer. The core game will still be decent.
Wha? This game was never focused on "speed gameplay" to begin with.

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Re: New Sonic game for 2015

Post by big_smile »

That's my point. The starting focus was wrong. Even if they had managed to make a really awesome combat game (or whatever it was they were trying), it would still have been received poorly, as people primarily want a Sonic game for the speed experience.

I know this was supposed to be a 'new reboot', but I think players would still come to it looking for something that had some relation to the traditional speed experience, but built on that by offering something new. This mostly just had the 'new' and, by all accounts, it didn't do a good job of implementing it.

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Re: New Sonic game for 2015

Post by Rob-Bert »

big_smile wrote:it would still have been received poorly
You don't know that.
as people primarily want a Sonic game for the speed experience.
Personally I want a Sonic game for the Sonic experience. And I think fans are getting wiser as to what that is. Your average joe probably doesn't even really know the difference, so I dunno why you're speaking for them.
traditional speed experience
I'm not even sure what this is supposed to mean.
This mostly just had the 'new' and, by all accounts, it didn't do a good job of implementing it.
By all accounts, the game sucks. It has nothing to do with implementation and everything to with being a rushed slapjob of a game.

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Re: New Sonic game for 2015

Post by G.Silver »

Loads of Sonic Boom concept art: http://imgur.com/a/i1YpZ#0

Would definitely have been interesting to see the game with a more unusual take for Sonic, there's quite a few in here. I'm guessing Sonic's pants may have been the least of some of those "what you can and cannot do" discussions with Sonic Team. And what's up with Kid Eggman??

I really like this one:
http://imgur.com/a/i1YpZ#29
Image

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Re: New Sonic game for 2015

Post by Esrever »

It's becoming fairly obvious at this point that the game was originally conceived as a full reboot. (Called "Sonic Origins" in much of the early concept art.) In this universe, Sonic and company were born in the game's setting, which explains all the hedgehog and echidna statues... they're their ancestors.

It's also pretty obvious that Lyric was intended as the only villain, and Eggman was either not going to be present at all, or only present as a seemingly unrelated, non-villain teenager. (They were considering that design in 2012, AFTER they had already finalized Sonic's design, and after the show would have entered development.) This explains why, in the game's final story, there is literally no reason whatsoever for Eggman, Shadow, or Metal to be present. The story is not about them and they influence it in no significant way whatsoever. They feel shoved into it, and I guess they were.

And finally, it's pretty clear that this game was never originally intended as a tie-in to the TV show or anything else... and that it still wasn't a tie yet as of June of 2012, when that Eggman character art is dated. I imagine the game being absorbed by a larger cross media franchise was a big factor in limiting the scope of the reinvention even further. Pretty depressing, all things considered.

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Re: New Sonic game for 2015

Post by cjmcray »

Wow. Seems Sega really did want to start fresh with Sonic. (I have no idea why. Generations and Colors did great things for the brand)

But it looks like they got cold feet at some point and demanded everyone to dial things back a bit, because some of those early designs are really out there. This one doesn't even resemble Sonic at all.
G.Silver wrote: I really like this one:
Image
That one gives me serious Nick Jr. vibes.

I remember Stephen Frost or Bob Rafei mentioned some sort of argument with Sonic Team over the notion of Sonic wearing pants. It suddenly makes sense now why that was so important to them. Sonic's brown bandana clashes with his color scheme, (one of the reasons why I hate the Boom redesign) but with a pair of brown shorts on, it flows together nicely.

A lot of these concept pieces look terrible imo and I'm glad Sega shot them down, but at the same time, I like the idea of trying to create something new with Sonic, and refresh things a bit, it's a shame the two couldn't come together and create something that is both new yet stays true to the character and doesn't piss off longtime fans.

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Re: New Sonic game for 2015

Post by P.P.A. »

Image

Dear god.

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Re: New Sonic game for 2015

Post by Wooduck51 »

I really like those teenage Eggman concepts, I get a kind of Shaggy the laid back genius vibe from them. The concept art conveys such a potentially grand feeling, like this could have been such a fantastic platformer in that classic bright colors single or double hit to kill enemies kinda way, I wish they could have followed their seeming original plan; it would have been a "Sonic Boom" game, and probably not lived up to those intangible hallowed "real sonic" expectations so hard to define, but that would have been just fine. I would love to play a solid well made and fun platformer no matter the star, and if it happened to have Sonic as the lead, with just the occasional hint of traditional speed, that would be pretty swell too.

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Re: New Sonic game for 2015

Post by Wooduck51 »

Forgot to acknowledge the whole "wrong engine for the game" thing, so you can file the previous post under wishful thinking.

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Re: New Sonic game for 2015

Post by big_smile »

http://board.sonicstadium.org/topic/193 ... ntry959974

^ So on Sonic Stadium, they are saying the game has been in development in 2009! Their evidence is a little bit sketchy, but it does make sense. Back in 2010, we saw something of a new direction for Sonic (as they killed of all the spin-offs like Rivals, Story Book, Riders and Rush, unified the handheld and home releases, made Sonic the only playable character and retired most of the cast from regular appearances).

My theory is that after all the bad press they got for Unleashed, Sega decided to take Sonic in a radical new direction. Then, when Iizuka redeemed himself with Sonic Colours (and later Generations), they dialed back the redesign.

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Re: New Sonic game for 2015

Post by Wombatwarlord777 »

Man oh man, there are some really interesting ideas here. I kinda wish they made what eventually became Lyric more mechanical (the one with spider legs is perfect in my opinion; it shows just how utterly separated from his original natural state he is). I can't say that I really like any of Sonic's initial redesigns, but at least they have much better proportions than the final product.

Teenaged Eggman in some separate continuity sounds like an interesting idea. He doesn't look very villainous in the concept art (Lyric probably was going to be the only villain) and there probably wouldn't be a heroic genius glut if you made him an engineer and had Tails as more of a distinct pilot.

Those chao are pretty cute. I know they haven't been relevant for years, but this isn't really a bad reinterpretation of them, especially since the Boom offshoot has always been more wild and rustic then the rather streamlined main franchise.

The game probably had a rough road ahead regardless thanks to its engine, but I imagine more of the creative ideas and designs had to be thrown out the window once the TV show decided it would use Eggman as a typical villain.

I wonder who initially brainstormed Sticks? There's always been little to no sign of her in any of the earlier concept art I've seen.

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Re: New Sonic game for 2015

Post by Malchik »

Most of this concept art looks like shit to me but I don't like where today's art and animation is going, either.

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Re: New Sonic game for 2015

Post by Dr. BUGMAN »

Image

So, incendentally, are those Sonic's new favorite clothes?

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Re: New Sonic game for 2015

Post by Esrever »

In the Wii U game, Sticks is just a rando NPC in the hub with a tiny handful dialogue. She isn't presented as being any more important than, say, beaver chef man or sailor hippo. So, I think she was either created for the show and inserted into the game as an afterthought, or created for the game as a minor NPC and re-purposed into a main character by the TV production staff.

Sticks is SUPER prominent in the 3DS game, of course, but the 3DS game feels like it's actually based on the TV version, with a similar home village for the gang and writing that attempts to ape the character personalities and jokey tone of the show. I suppose, unlike the Wii U game, the 3DS game wasn't even in development until after the overall "Boom" vision was mostly finalized.

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Re: New Sonic game for 2015

Post by Dr. BUGMAN »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=p ... gDbj8UVOZI

So confirmation at the 22 minute mark that Tails Adventures was the primary influence on Shattered Crystals. The director later mentions that he'd most like to take a crack at a Sonic Spinball successor, which is another thing I've wanted to see revisited, particularly for a handheld (Scrubbed clean of all traces of SatAM, of course). So the spirit is definitely there.

It's also revealed that there was almost no back-and-forth between the two developer teams.

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Re: New Sonic game for 2015

Post by big_smile »

http://www.licensing.biz/big-interviews ... her/041483

You'd think Sega would want to distance themselves from Sonic Boom, but, in Europe at least, they are planning a big push of the brand for 2015.

I suppose it makes some sense: The cartoon hasn't aired in Europe yet (with the exception of France) and while the game was a bust, the TV show did get decent ratings. Plus, it was only the games that got negative press. If they released a better made sequel later on, they could probably salvage the brand. Obviously, because of development schedules and the recent streamlining of SoA, we probably wouldn't see a sequel anytime soon.

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Re: New Sonic game for 2015

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http://www.tssznews.com/2017/07/11/tons ... ent-found/
^ An interesting write up on the history of this troubled title.
It seems the concept went through multiple radical changes, many of which occurred at the late in the process, which is probably why it ended up in such a mess.

Interestingly, the game was supposed to focus on Sonic's origins, but very late in the development cycle, Sonic Team insisted that all that be dropped, as they would be exploring that concept in a future game (Sonic Forces?)

Sonic Team also seem to struggle with the concept of an alternative universe as they wanted this new world to closely follow many conventions of the main timeline.

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Re: New Sonic game for 2015

Post by Wombatwarlord777 »

It's interesting that they were ordered to link Rise of Lyric to the upcoming TV show eight months before the game's release. It's probably why the second, uh, "Adventure Field" in the game seems so bloated and empty in comparison to the first one (whose central area is more compact and is almost totally populated by characters that had been conceived earlier). It also explains why the characters in the second hub all seem so different from the characters on the show (Sticks speaks like a caveman, Perci and her ancestors have been guardians of Slowpoke Island for generations, Fastidious Beaver's main personality trait is that he's very passive-aggressive, etc.)

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Re: New Sonic game for 2015

Post by Jingles »

I can't say that I was ever exactly in love with the idea of an American team made up of generic 3D platformer developers rebooting Sonic, but it's a real shame that all their effort had to go to waste in the end. I get the feeling that SEGA bit off a little more than they could chew with handing out the license to BRB - they probably thought that they were going to do a cute spinoff game a la Chronicles that could shill a few toys and a cartoon, not a full reboot that would have serious ramifications on the rest of the franchise.

There's a lot of ways they could have taken a Sonic reboot that offered small redesigns to the cast and took place in a different and unusual setting.
Heck, Sonic Team already did that a good 8 years prior. But making a Crash Bandicoot ripoff starring Nathan Drake the Hedgehog and his cartoon pals was not the right way to do it. It's clear that they didn't really know or care much about the series - whenever Shadow or Metal Sonic appear, they're the most basic interpretations of their mainline counterparts and are given no introduction. It sucks, but if I were Sega I wouldn't have chosen BRB in the first place.

The best thing I can say about Boom is that the TV show is OK (AoSTH and the OVA remain my king and queen of Sonic animation). I guess in 10 years we'll be looking back at Boom the way we do at Underground - as a bland, soulless property that wasn't a very good idea to begin with.

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Re: New Sonic game for 2015

Post by Tsuyoshi-kun »

Jingles wrote: I guess in 10 years we'll be looking back at Boom the way we do at Underground - as a bland, soulless property that wasn't a very good idea to begin with.
I already do that and it's not even been three!

At least Sonic Underground had campy songs and humorously bad art/animation to look back on.

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Re: New Sonic game for 2015

Post by Wombatwarlord777 »

The Boom TV show is pretty good. Some episodes, especially the likes of "Eggman the Auteur", "Don't Judge Me", and "Cabin Fever", are funny, and if nothing else, the TV show is where the voice acting for the Sonic franchise finally became excellent.

I will agree, though, that the writing hasn't been as good in Season 2 so far. It relies a lot more on breaking the third wall and winking at long-time fans. Outside of the excellent episode ripping on a Chris-Chan expy, this has become kinda tiresome. Which is a shame, because everything else, namely the visuals, seems to have been kicked up a notch.

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Re: New Sonic game for 2015

Post by Dr. BUGMAN »

No one's going to remember this show, not unprompted at least. Not to beat the Donkey Kong Country similarities further into the earth, but the show was officially uploaded in its entirety on YouTube for free and in the best quality it's ever been; that happened nearly two years ago and the first episode only has 1.75k views. Keep in mind DKC was an adaptation of a much, much, much more positively received game. All other things being equal, Sonic Boom doesn't really stand much of a chance of anyone besides weirdos and/or fanatics caring after it's off the air.

Also, kids these days are spoiled for choice in frivolous entertainment. We were slaves to a handful of networks and their program time schedules. Of course we'd give the animated adaptation of that awful Gozilla movie a chance, nothing else was on!

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Re: New Sonic game for 2015

Post by Jingles »

I like how the DKC cartoon characterizes Donkey Kong and the gang. They're really cheesy, but you can tolerate them because they're just so darn endearing, like you're watching a goofy stand-up comedian. In Boom, all the characters are smug, insufferable pricks to each other, and I think it hurts the dialogue a lot.

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