So, I'm just chilling with a cappuccino after the LONG queues for Sonic Lost World and the Iizuka signing. Haven't spotted any of ny fellow Retro members yet, where you guys at? Edit: with the day nearly done, and Jam with Jun left, who's had a good time? None of my tweets are appearing in the SoS feed for some reason.
From what little I saw of the event: -Nothing happened. At all. -Jun REALLY likes that blasted Sonic 4 synth. Murdered Windy and Ripply because of it. (In my book, that is high treason. Windy and Ripply is too good.) -I don't know who those two jobbers were that sang but I kept hoping the mics would cut out. Fortunately, it did a few times but... ow. Please, never again. -What the hell is Seaside Denied and why did everyone shit over Seaside Hill with that rubbish? -City Escape is still the most overrated song in the series. Instrumental proto remains the best. This is fact. Deal with it. />/> +Any appreciation to Robotnik's Teaparty is a plus in my book, even if it's several years old and a YTP. +That costumed Sonic looked like he was about to fall off the stage on several occasions. +Sonic Shorts 8 and SEGA Shorts. Guilty pleasure. Shoutouts to Twitch chat because any sort of negative opinion was shut down because we must all blindly love everything Sonic even if it's bad because that's what TRUE SONIC FANS LOL do. Now you know how the Dark Ages from 2001 to 2008 happened, rest of the Internet.
It's like a bad Sonic Short made longer and set to Seaside Hill music. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNwspV1x_gk
do you not understand we must love our sonic the hedgehog there is nothing else in life but sonic the hedgehog we can not deny the hedgehog powers without sonic there is nothing we must love the hedgehog we must embrace the hedgehog we must listen to every song one hundred times a day we must escape from the city to enter the world of seaside hill and embrace the hedgehog and the men behind it saying anything negative is sacrilegious saying anything negative is punishable by death there is only one sonic (except for metal)
From what I saw of the stream while I was at the event, it was mostly pointed at the stage WHEN NOTHING WAS HAPPENING. Awkward gaps between translation in Hoshino's interview made the whole thing rather painful, and quiet. Not sure if the same can be said for Iizuka's. The Lost Work demo was the same as the Comic Con one. Frozen Casino Line Zone and all. I only played Windy Hill and De(s)sert Ruins, the latter played better than the former in my opinion, sans the automated sections. I found Nova's crusade against the bronies on the twitter feed rather amusing, despite NONE of my tweets showing. YAY GOODY BAG (singed by Iizuka and Hoshino, no less)! I missed out on the Jun signing, but this picture makes up for it (if you put it with the better picture I had taken with him, it makes for a great .gif): I'm going to do naughty things to him in his sleep.
Just got back and had a great time. There were some good and bad points but overall I enjoyed myself. I'll list a few of my personal opinions for those interested: Pros The schedule was laid out nicely and wasn't deviated from, as far as I could tell. This was handy in knowing what was happening at what times. The guests doing signing sessions were extremely friendly and would gladly try to initiate conversation. This just made the whole experience more pleasant. When I tried to thank Iizuka in Japanese (which was an awful attempt on my part), he just chuckled and said "Thank You" in English back. You had to have been there to understand but even though there was a language barrier, we still both found it amusing for the same reason. Air Conditioning. Granted, I haven't been to other Summer of Sonic events but I heard that previous ones suffered from terrible heat problems. While this event wasn't perfect (it still got rather warm in the main 2 rooms), there was air conditioning and it made the rooms more bearable. The sheer quantity of merchandise available was staggering. Half of one of the main rooms was lined with tables of figurines, wallets, coasters, t-shirts, key-rings etc. and even though I didn't buy anything myself, it surprised me. Sonic Lost World Demo. Both the 3DS and WiiU were on display and even though the wait times on the WiiU version were quite long, the 3DS version was almost always available from after lunch time and it was quite fun being able to just sit down and try out the demo properly. Cons Signing session rules. The rules clearly stated that no photos were to be taken as it takes up too much time and stops people from getting things signed. So what happened? From the get-go, photos were being taken and no-one even tried to stop it from happening. I feel bad for one guy as they cut the queue when it was of average length due to time, yet they were still allowing photos to be taken at the signing. The guy did scream, and then fall to the floor crying, which was rather dramatic. Signs and labelling ranged from minimal to non-existent. None of the areas were marked very well and getting from the café downstairs to the main hall upstairs was a maze. I also stood in a queue for what I thought was Crush 40 merchandise, only to be told 5 minutes later that I was in the art contest queue, which were both in the same area. The rare merchandise cabinet. This one was a little boggling because I've seen the pictures of this cabinet from previous years and it's usually filled with rare and hard to find Sonic merchandise. This year, however, it contained quite a lot of fairly average stuff, sans a prototype statue and a CiB Knuckles Chaotix. Kind of a let down, but maybe that was my own fault from expecting too much. I'll let the other guys give you their opinions and the low-down, which'll probably be more informative and accurate, but there's my opinion anyway.
I saw that, I was going to try to join the queue just before the incident, but the group I was with at the the time decided better of it, just as the rep informed that guy. It was rather, uncomfortable. As for the second point I quoted, I didn't even know they were selling Crush 40 merchandise until I got home after the event, when I learned that the Generations soundtrack was available to buy there the whole time. Goes to show, eh? I was thinking "who let the cats out?" all the way through Sky Sanctuary, despite the lovely Generation version backing track. The poor song got bastardized.
If this played out like I'm picturing it in my head, I'd be laughing my ass off at the guy. Holy shit, that's pathetic. Please tell me it was a teenager and not some 20-something year old guy. If it was, give that guy his wizard card.
Just saw Metropolis Mayhem and Sonic Shorts 8 MM was ehh. Would've also been a lot better if it wasn't a song. What they showed of SS8 was pretty good. A couple of bad parts but overall pretty enjoyable.
Sonic Shorts having bad parts isn't a shock. It's always been hit-or-miss. Some bits are home runs, others try too hard and aren't really funny. Also forcing the Tails Doll meme more in some way.
Too tired to write anything in depth right now, but I enjoyed the show. Missed the above mentioned incident too, fortunately. Neowl, man. Completely missed you, sorry! Bizarre how you weren't showing on the tweet feed. I think Nova had entirely too much fun with that. =P Lost World is pretty much a solid 60fps and fun enough to play, though I played the autorun level so it's difficult to give more impressions and I'm too tired to think right now. Expect more on Monday. 3DS plays like a cutdown version of the WiiU one with a lower frame rate.
Well I don't know what anyone looks like, so I didn't really meet anyone from here or the other forum, although my Mii did meet a lot of other people's Miis via street pass and I recognised some of the nicknames...so that was kinda cool. I get over 100hits on it and prior to that owning my 3DS for well over a year I had only had 12 hits lol. When I first arrived I went into the main hall, wandered around in there, then headed through to the other room and joined a random queue which lead to a Crush 40 merchant store and I bought the Crush 40 Live CD for £20 (I did go to the Sonic Merch stand prior to that but it was too packed to even get a look in so I went back later), after buying the CD I followed the line further to meet the artist Ferran Rodriguez and got a knuckles sketch off him, really nice guy (he brought some of his original art work with him and it was incredible, I recognised the knuckles poster piece). After that I went away from that area. Already met the two Nigel's before at a couple of the previous summer of sonics - (Nigel kitching was actuallybone of my drawing teachers at university for 3 years) - and whilst it would be nice to meet them again a lot interested in meeting them and it was pretty busy in that area so I decided to move on. I then went to the special effect table and bought 4 raffle ticket strips, and made my way back to the main hall. The queue for the wii u version of lost world was insane so I didn't bother with it, but the 3DS one had no queue, so I got a go on that easily. Had a go on sonic dash afte that but didn't submit my score for the competition thing, 'cause I did really badly at it for some reason (had been playing it a lot recently)! With regard to the 3DS version of lost world -it did feel Very Slow for a sonic game, but it was fun. I went to the iizuka san signing, was near the area early to ensure I got in, as I really couldn't wait to finally meet one of the devs, he was really friendly and humble, very nice guy the item I got signed by him was the booklet from my sonic adventure 2 japanese copy - from the Sonic 10th Anniversary birthday pack game set- which I got off ebay a couple of years back. Was going to get my sonic 3 cart signed but felt it might be a bit small. The signature I got off iizuka was done in a black pen cause I forgot to give him my silver marker. I said it was on honour to meet him and he shook my hand and said thanks for coming. After this I went to watch the mega drive band, recorded some footage of the street of rage part of their set. They were a very entertaining band. I opted not to go the the signing session for jun senoue, because I have already met him twice and thought I would give others chance (from what I heard he had the biggest queue waiting), plus I wanted to watch the Hoshino q&a as his attendance was definitely the biggest thing for me this time around. Brilliant session and I recorded a small snippet of it. I left the q&a early to get a good place in the queue for the Hoshino signing session, as meeting him was gonna be the highlight for me (I studied computer games art at university sonic and the other characters are what really makes the games for me, I would like to become a character designer myself). So meeting Hoshino, one of my artistic heroes and being a sonic team character designer, he is a huge influence, it was definitely the biggest deal. I opted to get my Sonic Cd PC copy - the outer big box - signed because even though I have the mega cd version, it was the pc version I played first and my copy has a lot of sentimental value to me. Again Hoshino was a really nice guy, very friendly, and humble (in his q&a it was clear he had confidence in his designs which I thought was very cool), I shook his hand said it was an honour to meet him and thanked him, then went to exit the venue. After the Hoshino San signing I left to catch the five o clock train back home from king's cross. If anyone is interested I can post pictures and the two videos I recorded. Side note: Agree with others on the rare merchandise cabinet, was definitely less of great interest in the cabinet this time around.
