Sonic Social Media Shenanigans (This totally just happened...)

" target="_blank" style="background: url(https://retrocdn.net/images/3/32/Segaretro-round.svg) right no-repeat; background-size: 16px 16px; padding-right: 20px; border-bottom: 1px dotted #3366BB; color: #3366BB; cursor:pointer; text-decoration:none;" class="wiki">
Yeah their community managers would never listen to us.

 

The problem is that until I see what the new project is, it's very difficult to determine how much they've truly listened.

Generations was by all accounts a solid effort. It's also the last true JP developed multiplat mainline console game we've had since. Lost Worlds can be seen more as something of a flawed spinoff, just in the same way that Boom was. The direction they take the next game in is crucially important to determining whether we can expect anything different.

Consider this; development cycles on mainline titles in many franchises now take longer than before. Mainline Zelda and 3D mario games have a 3 year gap at minimum. Yes, there are spinoffs and other titles released to fill those gaps, but they are not truly the next big thing. Perhaps the new game is a situation just like that; the next big thing has been on the drawing table since not long after generations, and lost worlds and boom were side stories meant to fill in those gaps (which very sadly damaged a brand that was largely recovering in the eyes of gamers).

In short, the titles which come out for Xbox and Playstation are the main events and literally everything we've gotten since is a side effort that won't get nearly the same level of care, love, or budget... or even use the hedgehog engine which was proven to work by Generations.

We shall see.

 

Your logic for Lost World somehow not counting as a "mainline console game" is really wonky. Is Colors a "flawed spinoff", too?

And yeah, you basically just described the dual Sonic Team theory, Boom aside.

 

You guys realise the music is from Lost World, right?

Fairly sure that was their way of including it.

 

I seem to recall Sega explicitly stating that Boom was intended to be a spinoff. Perhaps someone can throw up a quote to this affect?

 

Mainline might not be the right word, but you're correct. The dual team theory applies here, much like you see in the CoD and Creed franchises.

I think we've got Teams A, B, C and D here respectively.

Team A - Xbox/Playstation Division, responsible for Generations and Unleashed.
Team B - Secondary JP Division, (Nintendo?) Responsible for Colors and Lost Worlds. Supposedly, progress started on the latter after Colors was finished, so during Generations development.
Team C - Red Button/Boom Division. US based and worked exclusively on Rise of Lyric. Some memebers may be helping with Ice and Fire, but hopefully they're gone.
Teeam D - Dimps/Mobile Platform Divison, Portable Colors/Generations, Portable Boom(s), Sonic 4 Eps 1 and 2.

While I'm sure there are members who cross develop between the various teams (Jun senoue, Iizuka), I have a feeling what's really happened is that we have yet to see a proper release from the A team since generations, and that's why we've been seeing all these constant reboots over the past 4 years. Sure, the A Team may not have started work on the next game right away like the Lost World Team did after Colors, but the point still stands that I now suspect they've been working on this project behind the scenes since probably before Lost Worlds came out.

I could easily be wrong on all this, and the next game could come out and be yet another wacky reboot that doesn't resemble literally anything from before and makes a ton of new mistakes and flops again... (and frankly, none of these split teams excuse the flaws each game had), but I'm hoping that the real successor to the Generations/Colors/Unleashed daytime formula was just under development in secret for a long time, rather than completely abandoned for the sake of reboots.

 

Let get back to the shenanigans, shall we?

https://twitter.com/sonic_hedgehog/status/746395506297835520

 

Of course when you say they 'listen' to the fans does not necessarily mean they'll implement every minute suggestion by every person that ever posts on the internet.
If they are reading them though, they can decide for themselves if they are worthwhile, and if they are not posted then maybe people don't want them.
All the time you see people demanding the original physics, a remake of the classic games, and not that many people want quick time events, homing attack and scripted scenes/disabling user input.
Its not hard to see patterns.

 

You could compare the credits of Sonic Team games to see if the "dual team theory" is true or not instead of going on baseless speculation. :v:

I mean, I did and I found out that it's bullshit. Sonic Colours/Lost World and Unleashed/Generations had a lot of the same staff working on it. Also, Iizuka said this in an interview:

http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2013/10/interview_sega_on_bringing_sonic_lost_world_to_wii_u_and_3ds

So the dual team theory is somewhat true, but only in the sense that when one game is in development another team is prototyping ideas.

 

That's actually a little bit of a bummer. If only because I just lost a scapegoat in my internal narrative.

But I really shouldn't be surprised, that really wouldn't be a very efficient use of resources in reality. It also probably means the 25th Anniversary title hasn't had quite as much dev time as a lot of us anticipated.

Oh well.

 

Well, at the very least it'll have been a minimum of 3 years between Lost Worlds and the (likely fall at earliest) release of Sonic 25. Boom was a completely separate team with almost no oversight by the JP producers. 3 years was the same gap between Unleashed and Generations. 5 years was way too long of a gap for a simple Generations style game. 2-3 years is enough time to churn out a solid title, even based on the previous track records.

But as stated, my hopes are that they didn't actually abandoned the hedgehog engine entirely, merely put it on hold while releasing some side projects. I'm actually playing through Lost Worlds on Steam today and it's not itself a terrible engine or even a super glitch unpolished game, just filled with questionable design choices in the latter half and very uneven difficulty spikes. Generations isn't perfect, but it hit a lot of the right beats in terms of multi-path design, engine quality, visuals, and other such tidbits. It was also much better balanced in terms of challenge, fun, and design than either Colors 'or' Lost Worlds were. Even the side missions were generally playable and not.... super terrible.

Enough speculation. In a month, we shall see.

 

Okay, hope I can post this here. don't think we have a SEGA Plans thread like we do over at SSMB, move it if needed.

Apparently theres a stream of Sonic's 25 Anniversary Party from Tokyo Joypolis going on and this image is going around:


From what our resident member and jack of all trades [member='Woun'] is saying, its a new Sonic project for 2017.

Problem is were not entirely sure what "new project" means. is there nothing coming out this year? are we getting 2 games back to back? who knows, I'm just trying to not overthink it and awaiting for more details.

 

I imagine that if Sonic Team was making a game for 2016, that they'd announce it before this 2017 game.

 

Agreed. And on top of that, I figure they'd also have announced it by now, considering that there's only five and bit months left until 2016 is over and done with. So my guess is that this project will be released(/launched/"started" etc) in 2017 following a full announcement and reveal at the party next month.

 

well, shit. what a waste of a year then :\

 

Well, Sega is known for rushing games for anniversaries or the november release, it seems that they really don't want to make this mistake for the next game. Or maybe the game was not ready for the 25th, and if there is no game there is little you can do (Nintendo isn't doing anything for Zelda 30th either since Botw is next year).


+ - Or maybe the game is a launch title for the NX  

 

Alternatively they could rush it out to have it be released during the anniversary year like they did with Sonic 2006. :v:

 

I don't mind at all that it's been delayed to 2017. I actually called that a while back, lol. It also lines up with it potentially being an NX launch title, which wouldn't surprise me in the slightest.

I'm just ready to see what it is after all this time we've had it hyped up.

 

This explains a lot. The delay past the anniversary, the extended development time - everything. The game is 2017 and that's why it hasn't been announced yet. Can't believe they're missing the anniversary year for what is supposed to be an anniversary game but then again I'm somewhat pleased to a certain extent because this game really is going to have a long development time which increases the chances that it's actually, you know, decent. Sega are clearly serious about focusing on quality.

Hell, they're effectively missing the anniversary to give this game a longer development time period. It proves that the statements made by Sega's new CEO were serious. Hype levels rising now we know when this game is coming out. Even if development started post-Lost World by the time this releases we're looking at four years of development. Isn't that the longest development time for any Sonic game ever?

Aaron said we'd see an announcement on July 22 so I hope to God he was serious when he said that. 2017 could mean we have to wait even longer.

 

That GameGrumps Sonic 06 reference
https://twitter.com/sonic_hedgehog/status/746425053575688193