The GHZ Forum

Three new Sonic-related promotions are currently running in Japan.

SegaEmu is holding a Sonic Festival during April to celebrate the debut of the Mega-CD version of Sonic CD on the service. As part of the festival, users of the Japanese-only service will be able to play Sonic 2, Sonic 3, Sonic & Knuckles and Sonic Eraser for free in exchange for downloading selected titles.


^ Sonic Festival logo

Sonic is appearing in the Puyo Puyo Carnival to promote the release of Sonic Riders. Held to commemorate the 15th Anniversary of the Puyo series, the carnival allows Japanese players to engage in online battles of Puyo Fever at no charge.



The strangest promotion has been saved for last. The website of Japanese restaurant Yumeshiya shows a picture of Naka serving food.

It isn’t exactly clear what Sega would gain from holding a promotion with a restaurant such as Yumeshiya, which doesn’t appear to be a particularly famous or popular franchise. The text that accompanies the image is in JPG format making it inaccessible to machine translators.

The website is referenced on the Sonic Channel Staff Column together with an enigmatic headline that reads “A serious announcementâ€￾. Visitors to the site have taken this as indicating that Naka has left Sonic Team. However, it is important to remember that the Staff Column regularly indulges in Sonic related pranks and so the photograph is likely to be part of April Fools joke.

http://www.yumeshiya.com/yumeshiya_naka2.jpg

Very interesting. A festival for Sonic CD? It also seems strange how SegaEmu is acknowledging Sonic Eraser as an actual Sonic game as opposed to some forever-to-be lost tech-demo for the Mega Modem.

Also, Yuji Naka working at Yumeshiya could have some connection with Yuji Naka's rumored departure from SEGA earlier this month.

In other possible April Fools related news, it seems drx, websmaster of Hacking-Cult has obtained a fairly developed beta of Sonic X-treme. The disc supposedly contains a playable jungle, mechanical and snow level (Pictures of the levels, which contain no noticeable signs of manipulation, are linked to on the site).

Given the scarcity of people that own a modded Saturn (which is required to play the demo), it will probably be a while before it can be verified.

Is it just me or does Sonic look like total ass nowadays? Or is that just a really bad picture of him? His head is actually smaller than his torso and his feet are just ridiculous.

What's the Puyo thing? Is that Puyo Fever 2? Is Sonic actually one of the opponents?

I know I've said this before, but God I hate the design of the new Puyo games. I miss (not blue-outlined) Arale-chan and the rest of the old Puyo cast.

Puyo Fever 2 has been out for a while now, but no one has said anything about it. Anyone bother to pick it up?

Light Speed wrote:Is it just me or does Sonic look like total ass nowadays? Or is that just a really bad picture of him?

Just a really bad picture.

Tsuyoshi-kun wrote:I know I've said this before, but God I hate the design of the new Puyo games. I miss (not blue-outlined) Arale-chan and the rest of the old Puyo cast.

I do like the style in general, but not on the Puyo cast. It looks really weird on them. It's like an anime Mickey Mouse, what with all the superfluous detail, bubbly eyes and four frames of mouth movement.

the thing I hate about the new puyo games is that fucked up shaped puyos like the L shaped ones or the giant ones. THOSE ALWAYS PISS ME OFF!

I'm pretty sure you can turn those off in the options

The only thing I hate about the new Puyo games is the entire "Fever" thing.

Yeah, the whole fever mode seems like it was put in for learning-disabled players who can't figure out how to create chains on their own. It totally screws up the balance of the game. It's like playing Tetris with only those straight pieces.

Double-S- wrote:I'm pretty sure you can turn those off in the options

Oh Snap!

Light Speed wrote: His head is actually smaller than his torso

Out of context, this statement would just be silly. However, compared to the Sonic of old, he does indeed look like ass.

In other possible April Fools related news, it seems drx, websmaster of Hacking-Cult has obtained a fairly developed beta of Sonic X-treme. The disc supposedly contains a playable jungle, mechanical and snow level (Pictures of the levels, which contain no noticeable signs of manipulation, are linked to on the site).

Given the scarcity of people that own a modded Saturn (which is required to play the demo), it will probably be a while before it can be verified.

http://www.sonic-cult.org/newsx/fullnews.php?id=73

Looks like it was nothing but a hoax after all, typical Sonic Cult. However since this news was announced at 19:04 (at least on the front page), it is void of being known as an April Fool since they have to be done before 12 am to count.

The way that played out was simply beautiful. It's pretty sad that only a handful of people caught on, but it's damn impressive that a gag that obvious could result like that on its' own.

Anyway, the screenshots were real, at least. Looks more like something out of Super Monkey Ball than Sonic. Hope level design like that wasn't the intent for the final game.

That new X-Treme vid is pretty funky. I'm sure it played like crap but at least the visuals had some flair.

Is it just me or does Sonic look like total ass nowadays? Or is that just a really bad picture of him? His head is actually smaller than his torso and his feet are just ridiculous.

I dunno, besides his head being a tad too small I like that model. Big hands and feet don't seem extremely out of place, and it's much more like the SA2 model, so I approve. Looks pretty good in motion anyway.

Post-SA Sonic and his companions should look a little taller; I didn't care much for the attempt in Heroes to shrink them back to old school proportions and keep the new design features.

The in-game parts were much better than Heroes and Shadow was. Shadows were terrible. The main problem with the new ones is how they modeled Tails & Knuckles. Tails hhas the mumps or Cottenballs in his mouth, and Knuckle's eyes now wrap around half of his head. They should stop short of his Dreads, but they reach right to where they start now.

Dash wrote:That new X-Treme vid is pretty funky. I'm sure it played like crap but at least the visuals had some flair.

Is it just me or does Sonic look like total ass nowadays? Or is that just a really bad picture of him? His head is actually smaller than his torso and his feet are just ridiculous.

I dunno, besides his head being a tad too small I like that model. Big hands and feet don't seem extremely out of place, and it's much more like the SA2 model, so I approve. Looks pretty good in motion anyway.

Post-SA Sonic and his companions should look a little taller; I didn't care much for the attempt in Heroes to shrink them back to old school proportions and keep the new design features.

That was happens when you try to make Sonic taller and taller, Sega for God sake!, Sonic is suposed to be short!.

Maybe they're making him taller so he doesn't look silly when in front of normal people???

El Cernex

El Cernex wrote:Maybe they're making him taller so he doesn't look silly when in front of normal people???

El Cernex

NO MORE PUNCTUATION FOR YOU.

And my perspective is that it would make the most sense for Sonic to have long legs, giving him a greater amount of distance per step.