Remembered another one that was on the easter egg list. There was something relating to colour changing 'x' boxes from SA2. Corporate life is misery. Especially during those years where being a fan of the product was actively frowned upon. If there is (I forget to be honest) it was an entirely different design. Mine specifically had the headline 'Detectives You Want On Your Side' and a telephone number. I half had a mind to suggest setting it up to be a legit phone number where you'd get an answerphone message from the Chaotix. But never put it down in the end. Absolutely. I think they were worried about upsetting Rare somehow. (The same courtesy Rare showed SEGA, clearly!) Which is nonsense. Rare would've loved it. Like I say, Aaron wasn't to know and I'm glad I've been proven right in the end. Of course, it's not done me any good, lol. But yeah, they've done a total 180 on the previous stance. To give you an idea how kind of 'huh' it was, I did interact on @SonicGames here and there with some meme-y, I guess, answers. I once got a joke about Sonic 06 or it refenced Sonic 06 in someway - it was really clever and made the CM team laugh. I replied with "It's no use." or something similar. It was a smart answer that showed we knew what they meant and it was a nod and a wink to the situation - and which they thought was amazing we did that. My reward for that was an absolute rocket from SOE brand management for acknowledging Sonic 06 and games other than the current projects. It's like, isn't that what you hired me for in the first place? To be this conduit for people and have that knowledge that you admit you don't? To be able to communicate with fans about the franchise as a whole? Didn't you hire me specifically to try and repair the fanbase after the damage it took following Sonic 06? Jeez guys, you've gotta own it. A nod and a wink aren't going to kill you and that fan was delighted - and will look out for what else we say in the future. You can be smart about it. But no. Apparently, I'd ruined the entire business and/or run over their dog. Conversely whilst @sonicgames couldn't 'be' Sonic and never implied it was I was the one who replied to all the kids who sent Sonic Christmas cards to SOE... as Sonic. I had to design an actual signature for Sonic which was a bit bizarre. Sonic could say things then - that was fine. An odd situation.
Haha! Sega's contempt for Chaotix was palpable when the Cook & Becker artbook featured an entire page of napkin concept doodles for Sonic Crackers, and then nothing at all on Chaotix, save for the single spread of Uekawa illustrations tucked away in the Modern Sonic section. As if they couldn't have dropped a page of nearest neighbor-scaled game object pixel art for some of Takumi Miyake's manual illustrations. It almost ruined the whole book. Makes sense that it's the biggest game Sega refuses to re-release. It's truly bizarre- I guess it makes sense that the game's development cycle was a turbulent one and a bad memory on the technical side, but when the artists put so much love into that game, you'd think they'd take some pride in that. There's a story here that absolutely needs to be told, the cold shoulder treatment is insulting. I also commend your marketing/PR acumen. Some of those campaigns were witty, cutting edge and feasible, and most of those callbacks would've set the fandom on fire. Further developing Sega's storied legacy of having gold handed to them on a platter by an install base so desperately starved for their success that people are structuring their lives around realizing it, and getting shit on in return. I doubt Mania's success is going to be a turning point.
It's known already by those of us keeping up with mandates on the now-defunct Archie comic that SEGA's got a hateboner for the Chaotix game. The characters can appear all they want, but the game musn't be acknowledged. It's kind of weird.
I'd say let the Mania team do a remaster port of it with modified physics, level design, etc. but that would be one hell of a task to endure just to make a terrible game more tolerable. :v:
Bring it back and call it Sonic Chaotic :v: If Shadow can have his own emo af game and continue to get nods, let Knuckles shine. However I? guess we should feel lucky getting the & Knuckles ending in Mania.
What do we know? They did use the giant red Metal Sonic late into Ian Flynn's run, albeit as a separate entity from the real Metal Sonic.
That would effectively require remaking the entire game and throwing out literally of the level design and core game design (5 acts per zone is fucking absurd, even Sonic 1 has 3 and everyone pretty much agrees that 2 is the perfect act number nowadays). I'm not even sure if it's possible to unfuck the ring system's endless shittiness :v:/> (Best bet would be to resurrect one or two levels for Mania 2--Oil Ocean act 2 uses Marina Madness sprites apparently, so it's not like Chaotix is off the table for remixing!)
