The GHZ Forum

Akinori Nishiyama interview
Sonic Rush director speaks to Sega-Europe

Sega-City, Sega-Europe’s 'members only' website, has conducted an interview with Akinori Nishiyama, the director of Sonic Rush.

The interview, which has been published in Flash and so cannot be reproduced here, doesn’t reveal any new details about the game. However, Nishiyama does discuss some of the influences the Sonic Advance series has had on the forthcoming title.

The interview can be accessed here (Free registration required).

Sega Japan web updates
Updates to Sonic Team’s websites

A number of updates have been made to Sonic Team’s Japanese websites.

The Shadow the Hedgehog site features new profiles and artwork on Sonic and two of the creatures from Black Arms. Unfortunately, as the information is published in Flash, it cannot be translated by machine.



The Sonic Gems Site now contains the methods for unlocking the Bare Knuckle games. Interestingly, although the game has been released and its secrets are now widely known, Sega are still planning a further update to the site on September 2nd.

The director column on the Akadoko site (Where do Babies Come From?) has been updated, and the site also showcases new aspects of the game.

Sega have additionally revealed that all Japanese pre-order copies of the game will include a special bonus CD that contains 5 songs from the game.

Am I the only guy who doesn't think Sonic Rush looks very good or interesting? (Apart from Gibbon, obviously, who pre-emptively copied me in not liking it after having lacked the guts to jump on my Heroes-hating bandwagon a few years ago.) There's loads of idiots on internet forums everywhere shouting about how it's the return to what Sonic should really be about, but it just looks bland and strangely empty to me...

When you compare Sonic Rush to that other big 'Sonic' game, SR seems like a godsend.

Think of it as people latching on to the slightly-better-but-still-humdrum alternative.

Sonic Rush looks to have most of the same faults as the piss poor Sonic Advance series, only now with crappy character models and disorienting double screen action.

I'll give it a try if I get the chance, but I don't plan on buying it unless I'm proven thoroughly wrong.

There's loads of idiots on internet forums everywhere shouting

I think that was the complete sentence right there.

Sonic Rush is... y'know, it's Sonic Advance 4. I wouldn't say it looks any more insipid than Dimps' other efforts. Now, Shadow the Hedgehog on the other hand looks badass.

Popcorn wrote:Am I the only guy who doesn't think Sonic Rush looks very good or interesting? (Apart from Gibbon, obviously, who pre-emptively copied me in not liking it after having lacked the guts to jump on my Heroes-hating bandwagon a few years ago.) There's loads of idiots on internet forums everywhere shouting about how it's the return to what Sonic should really be about, but it just looks bland and strangely empty to me...

Untill Naka and Sonic team get up off their high horse and use the old Chaos Emerald/Super Sonic template, that'd be good. If they stared to focus the games more so on Sonic himself, but are still able to work in other playable characters without changing the main game play, that'd be a step in the right direction. Until any of that happens, I don't think the new Sonic games will ever measure up to traditional standards or performance.

I hate having to only use Super Sonic for a sub-par boss fight.

I don't really think Sonic Rush is looking all that great. I certainly don't feel compelled to rush out and buy a DS or anything.

The boss fights look good to me, but the levels appear to have all the same problems that the Advance series did... occassionally poor/confusing design, and way too much visual monotony/vacancy.

I dunno. The levels just seem to lack a certain richness, not just visually but in design... well, the videos of them I've seen, that is. It involves a lot of running really fast, which a lot of forum dwellers seem to think is "what Sonic is really about"... actually, that's a common delusion that even I used to suffer from until a few years ago.

I'm not digging the two screens, either. I've yet to play a DS game that feels like it really, really needs the dual screens, and I'm sorry to say that Sonic Rush seems to be the first one that even comes close. I'm not sure it's going to be better for it, though... I don't get why the screen can't just scroll up and down with Sonic like it always used to. You never need to see anything other than what Sonic's doing anyway...

The classic Sonic titles definitely had a solid balance of faster "hold forwards" sections and slower platforming sections. The real genius was the way the transitions between these sections were designed... the levels were constructed so that you would be naturally slowed down by something before you entered a section that required more precise control.

I never really thought about it before until recently, but just think about the simple elegance of those quarter-circle upward-curving ramps that were staples of every 2D Sonic game since the beginning. The sudden direction change provides a natural near-hault of your left/right momentum, and the hangtime gives you an unusually lengthy bit of time to see what's immediately in front of you. While you're in the air you can look ahead and decide whether you want to hit the ground running or just land at a stop and take the next area slow.

You don't see that kind of thoughtfulness in the Sonic Advance level designs. Sure, the Sonic games always had spikes and pits and enemies, but until recently the games never shot you into them headlong at top speed. These days, the obstacle sections feel more like reflex tests or memorization exercises than platforming.

The first Sonic Advance kinda reflected that. It didn't have the quarter loops, but at least they didn't make levels so damn linear and uninspiring. I don't know what they were where thinking when they made Sonic Advance 2 and 3.

I wouldn't be suprised if the loops and stuff are scripted in Rush like they are in the 3D games. The chute in that forest level seems to be.

I never really liked the scripted loops. You'd think it'd be common sence to just hold forward and guild yourself through like in the first stage of Sonic R. I had hope when I first saw that your team broke up when you hit the loops, but alas.

The quarter pipes probably don't work quite so well in 3-d through.

The quarter pipes ought to, Sonic Adventure seems to have a lot of structures that are at least comparable. All it has to do is be sharp enough at the top to launch you into the air at the top rather that having Sonic run along the surface. I'm thinking of a particular spot in Emerald coast that shoots you up a steep slop and you end up in the air at the top of it. There's a dash zone at the bottom but I think it's just for extra speed, not the sort that hooks you into a prescripted motion.

I guess the fact that you can see pretty well what is ahead of Sonic just due to the perspective they aren't needed in that regard, but they're fun for more physical purposes, interesting pieces of ground to bounce around on like that didn't make it into Sonic Adventure 2 in favor of box-shaped rooms and smooth runways.

Quarter pipes could also be used to break up the levels. If you go fast enough through them, you'll fly higher into the air where you could access a higher part of the level.

Some information about the Blaze the Cat character. It's in German though.

http://www.g-freaks.de/News/scarnews.ph ... w_news=467

Babelfished:

a new character reveals In Sonics it will give naturally also new characters to newest adventure beside new mysteries. We would like to bring you to one of it today more near, "Blaze The Cat". Sonic Rush appears in November for the Nintendo DS.

Blaze the Cat Beschuetzer of the "Sol Emeralds"
Sex: womanlike??
Older: 14 (probably went with Sonic to the school!) ?
Size: 95 cm
special ability: Can fires and flames control

Blaze is not the woman, who shows large feelings. But despite their rather reserved nature it breaks sometimes from it - and there one should go better fast into covering! Blaze belongs rather to the shy characters in the world of Sonic the Hedgehog. It leaves nobody actually near, gives themselves very reservedly and is extremely reserved opposite strangers. Blaze takes its role as a defender of the Sol Emeralds very seriously. Sometimes perhaps even too seriously...

So it sounds like she's essentially the early Knuckles. But a girl. And a cat. With fire powers. Hmm...

Sex: womanlike??

Very suspicious.

OMG, the first ever trannie Sonic related character!

I think they made her pyrokinetic just so they could get away with calling her Blaze. Really, how do you work fire attacks into a Sonic game? All I can picture is either a ripoff of Cream's homing chao or a complete copy of Sonic's move template but with flaming sprites.

Perhaps something like Sonic 3's flame shield dash attack?

Man, why don't they bring back the different sheilds? Those were awesome.

JESUS.

I remember those. The bubble was the coolest.

Maybe it will work like a 2-D version of Shadow's gun. You can never get enough of those Shadow's guns.

Omni Hunter wrote:OMG, the first ever trannie Sonic related character!

That would actually be an improvement.

I've found a picture of Super Blaze:

***SPOILER***

^ Thanks for the laugh. I needed it.