Sonic Dream Team (New 3D Game from Hardlight, coming to Apple Arcade December 5)

My point in bringing up the Wii U deal was not about any specific details of the deal, but that I saw people asking "why didn't you hate the Wii U deal this much", and the answer was that I was fourteen and didn't know what I was talking about. The Wii U deal made the worst-selling games in the series and totally crippled the development of Rise of Lyric, which isn't happening here. That's true. What this misses is that a game I can get a copy of and play is still going to be an objective improvement over one that I cannot.

For me, personally, I am upset that this is exclusive to a platform I don't give a shit about run by a company I hate. But here's the thing: every console-only Sonic game is also exclusive to a platform I don't give a shit about run by a company I hate.

The difference is that those other Sonic games do not treat ownership and preservation with open hostility. Even the type of Denuvo they use never stops pirates for long (note: this is also evil, just in a way that affects me less. I admit I am engaging in motivated reasoning to some extent). If this were a game on Apple's store that you could pay money to buy, I would still be pissed the hell off, but it would be a world of difference to this. This is probably best-compared to the live-service bullshit in Sonic Runners, which only managed to survive via a fanmade server emulator, and even that took years. To my knowledge, there is no way to play this on anything other than an Apple product, and I'm not even sure it can be run offline.

I should note that exclusivity being bad is not the same as requiring every game to be on every console. Splitting the team between 06 and Secret Rings was a bad decision, but Wildfire started as an 06 port, it was changed because 06 was terrible and they wanted to shake off the stink. If it were because poor Nintendo fans weren't getting their fix, making it a different exclusive would be a contradiction. But it's not different architectures resulting in different dev times keeping Dream Team from us, it's all business. If I can't shame SEGA for taking Apple's exclusivity cash, I'm shaming them for not putting in their own money to make the same product without the exclusivity deal. There's no functional difference between these ideas, because SEGA is still capable of doing whatever they want with the IP.

The fact that the game looks fun ranges from irrelevant to even worse, dangling a carrot on a stick in front of fans knowing that the vast majority of every real Sonic game hasn't been like this. It was bad to do this with Sonic Racing too, but at least that game still has a lot of similar content in Team Sonic Racing. This has its own story and music, exclusive characters and animation, is canon to the overall series plot, and brings in a bunch of things they know fans have wanted for a very long time. To make that exclusive to something that has never had any other major Sonic games before is taking the piss on its own. To make it exclusive to a service where it will wither and die so nobody can ever play it again is disgusting. I can't take it as "whatever at worst", because I believe every Sonic game should be preserved! Even bad ones. The fact that this one doesn't look bad should only anger people.

 

Yeah you can call Sega scummy for making this exclusive, but stupid they are not. They definitely got a fat wad of cash from Apple for this game and it'll likely make more money from that deal than if it had been put up for purchase from the get go

 

ChuChu Rocket Universe was also a wholly original Apple Arcade exclusive, and it did not get released on other platforms.
It was fairly decent and they could have sold it on PC and Consoles for about $15, yet they chose not to.

 

I hope the last this game will serve at certain inspiration for next 3D Sonic Team mainline game. Time to @ Kishimoto on Twitter and tells how we want the next game too look. /s

But seriously, I hope it somehow will serve as inspiration / example, beceuse this looks beutiful, even if it's a Mobile game grapichs (this just show what you can do with a food art direction).

 

I'm pissed off too at this decision. I think Sega deserves all the criticism in the world for it. All I'm saying is that it's a bridge too far to suggest that it would be better if the game didn't exist at all. The fact is some people are still going to be able to enjoy it, and there is still the chance it gets ported in the future. Therefore, it seems a bit selfish and short-sighted to think the game shouldn't exist at all.

 

I'm saying this about a game I would probably like, would it be just as selfish to say I wish an accessible game I hated didn't exist? Because that is also true. If so, why? Is there no possible scenario in which "better than nothing" is wrong? Since someone might like it, that's all it takes? Because I feel like that's a justification for just about anything objectionable to have ever happened in any context, ever.

 

Fair point, but realistically this will be preserved in some form or fashion for us all to play eventually. Sonic fans are insanely dedicated. So the negative consequences in the here and now are annoying, in the long term it would be worse if the game didn't exist at all.

 

Once again, you cannot please everyone.

 

If it never existed we would never know what "worse" meant.

But even still, you don't know that we'll for-sure get to play it eventually. You know iOS has existed for fifteen years and still can't be emulated, right? There are already Sonic games which can't be emulated, and most of them weren't reliant on a subscription service to play in the first place. Who's out there preserving Sonic Racing?

I'm not saying "if I can't have it nobody should". I'm saying that nobody will have it unless a set of criteria are fulfilled that we have no good reason to assume will be.

 

Are you arguing for blissful ignorance in that case? So maybe instead of wishing the game never existed, maybe you should wish you never found out about it existing lol. Yes there are some Sonic games which cannot be played on PC in anyway, but frankly they're not games people are interested in at all. I think a basically mainline 3d Sonic platformer will attract interest to at least make sure it's playable on Apple devices offline for the future. And perhaps be source ported to the PC like the Retro Engine Sonic 1 and 2 ports. If you look at the longterm, this will have nowhere near the negative impact Rise of Lyric or 06 had (assuming it's half-decent) and therefore the worst thing that will happen is some of us may not ever get to play it. That's annoying, but it won't affect the franchise in any meaningful way. And it could be a positive influence with new Sonic fans coming in, the game influencing the Sonic Team developed games, etc. We'll have to wait and see whether the good outweighs the bad, but from what I've seen from gameplay footage, it looks like it will.

 

Yea fair enough. I'm ready to stop this particular debate as it's just going to keep going in circles.

 

If you're willing to make an exception where some Sonic games deserve to die and never be played again, you should have no problem with me saying this game not existing at all would be preferable to being shot dead on-purpose by the publishers. Because someone wanted to play those. I would have played Sonic Racing! It's derivative, but it looked like a perfectly-serviceable kart racer. It is in-fact a bad thing that it exists in the inaccessible form that it does.

 

For the record I believe all Sonic games should be preserved, even the ones most people aren't interested in. But as I said, I think this debate is pointless at this point as we clearly hold vastly different opinions on this topic and we just kinda keep going in circles, so I respect your opinion, but I feel no need to continue this conversation.

 

Such passion...

Sega can do whatever the heck they want. The claims of entitlement I read in some of the posts is pretty silly. So you can't play it without getting inboard with Apple... then don't play it! It's a game for God's sake. There will be many more.

I'm sure someone will tell me I'm missing the point. That's fine. And I'll probably tell you this IS the point. Sega aren't a bunch of jerks for making this exclusive to one platform. For those of that mindset, please get over yourselves.

And for what it's worth, I'm actually in a fine mood despite the perceived tone of my text.

 

Sonic Dream Team looks pretty good when you take the Apple Arcade exclusivity. Player characters like Cream and Rouge haven't been playable ever since Sonic Heroes in 3D, and in Cream's case, Sonic Advance 3. In fact, Cream's last mainline Sonic appearance was in Sonic Generations!

But the thing is, this game just got announced literally a day ago. Judging from this IGN article I read, it looks like this a Sonic game mixed with NiGHTS into Dreams with Sonic gameplay. We don't really know what to expect as we only have 30 second announcement trailer. If you don't want to buy it, it's fine. If you do, that's fine as well.

Even if the game is good it doesn't really matter, it is just a game.

At least, I can use my little 5 year-old sister's 3 month Apple Arcade trial because she got a new iPad like a month ago. So, yeah...

However, if we wait, there is a probability it can come to other platforms. Shantae and the Seven Sirens came out on Apple Arcade in late 2019, but then WayFoward decided it was a better idea to release the game for home consoles for a better profit, and so they did it for home consoles in 2020. This can be the case, but this scenario would have a very slim chance of actually happening.