Sonic games have had western influence ever since Sonic 2 for the Mega Drive was codeveloped by Sega's American Dev house STI. Mark Cerny was art director on the game, Craig Skitt worked on the level art and Tim Skelly designed the Special Stages. Its a bit late now to try and force a "Japan first" screed to Sonic games.
I can't speak for BlueSkies, but it's not about "Japan" necessarily and more about "Japanese!Sonic" specifically. People from America and American culture in general always had influence in Japanese!Sonic and that's not a bad thing at all. The "problem" would be seeing things from American!Sonic creeping into the other Sonic when they're both different things. Although I do agree that it's too late for that either because American!Sonic has already influenced Japanese!Sonic a lot more than I'd personally wish it did As for the Central itself, I'm very curious to see how Frontiers' Spin Dash will work, I hate how jumping basically eats all of your momentum in the game, so I hope that they remove this at least for Spin Dash jumping. There wasn't a lot that interested me, but I can't complain too much, the presentation didn't disappoint me, but it also didn't impress me, just like the past two Centrals, it was... okay
Japanese TailsTube: It was also used (in English) in the Japanese Sonic 3 guide book, back in 1994: https://info.sonicretro.org/index.php?title=File:Sonic3KoushikiGuideBook_Book_JP.pdf&page=15
Yeah. Sonic is a global icon, and in today's world that means ideas from all 3 of the major markets (US, EU, JP) will blend together more than ever, despite them each being very unique in the 90s with their own strengths and weaknesses. (And that's before we even address the character's success in the lesser discussed Latin/South American markets). Internet culture inevitably means elements of the various versions will start influencing one another... and the fact that Sonic has been more successful in the western markets than the east will also always play a factor.
Very excited to see the update on the Sonic Symphony tour. Kansas City is close enough I should be able to attend, assuming I can get a ticket. https://www.sonicsymphonytour.com/ has also been updated with the new dates, and apparently ticket sales for newsletter subscribers starts June 28.
Does anybody know how much these should sell for? Would love to go now that they're actually stopping in my area. The presale isn't even up so it doesn't say anything about ticket prices. Edit: Cheapest CA tickets right now are around $110 USD. That actually seems worth it if they're priced similarly
Without a doubt, the most surprising part of this presentation for me was seeing the final boss of Sonic 4 Episode II as part of a physical toy, I did not see that coming at all!
Mark Cerny was a producer and head of STI, not an art director. The chief artist was Yamaguchi who had the final say in the art of the game. The American side (Stitt, Ross, et al.) contributed very little to the final product compared to the Japanese side. Also, I said I didn’t want “more western influence,” I didn’t say I wanted none or that none has ever existed. However, the impact, quality, and enduring popularity of the Japanese-produced media vs western is not comparable.
Looks like I’ll be in Japan when the tour reaches France, and back in France when the tour reaches Japan. Life…life isn’t fair… ;(
