Without going by the quality of the games, the Kirby series has actually been treated in a similar way lately. These were the last five main Kirby games: Epic Yarn, Mass Attack, Return to Dream Land, Triple Deluxe and Rainbow Curse. Only Return to Dream Land and Triple Deluxe tried to be like what normal Kirby is like. The rest are incredibly different from the norm (though one of them is because it used to not be a Kirby game). Meanwhile, the last five main Sonic games were Unleashed, Sonic 4, Colours, Generations and Lost World. You can remove Unleashed and add Boom, but still, the result would be the same: two games that tried to be like what normal Sonic is like (Sonic 4 and Generations), and three others that tried to be incredibly different. Though arguably Colours is a better classic Sonic game than Sonic 4 is... Really the main difference is that while Kirby games are generally well designed and polished, Sonic games are far more hit or miss.
When I was a kid there was this cartoon called "Diplodos" about some alien dinosaurs fighting an evil scientist. Not gonna go into detail but the villain design and personality were strikingly similar to Doctor Eggman. Does anybody know if creators were inspired by Sonic series?
http://segaretro.org/index.php?title=File%3AMDAG_UK_01.pdf&page=10 UK magazine Sega Mega Drive Advanced Gaming spent a surprising amount of time coming up with ideas they'd like to see in Sonic 2. This was well in advance of the game being demonstrated - they didn't even know what Tails was called (I quite like "Wayne"). These mockups were made in 1992. That's pretty damned impressive for the era.
Has there ever been a say from Sega regarding Sonic games being compatible on Linux? I know at one point I'll definitely make the switch from Vista to Linux, but I'm worried that a lot of my Steam library will be unplayable.
None of the Sonic games have or have been announced to be getting Linux ports, although there was this set of empty folders in the latest SADX update: Most if not all of the games should be playable in Wine though.
"6 points lower; Good Job"? "*something-something* Android"? Yeah, I've wondered what those lyrics were for a while as well. EDIT: Come to think of it, what's that crowd in Tikal's theme chanting?
What do the screams say in Hang Castle? What do those voices say in Stardust Speedway Bad Future US? (Other than "Stardust Speedway") There are lots of Sonic songs with odd vocals.
I've always heard "it's my pleasure" in a funny robot accent because he was built to serve or something
See this comment on a YouTube video about Hidden Palace in Sonic 2. Is that one of the original artists or just someone lying?
I've got recently some doubts with buyin Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity. I liked Sonic Riders on PC, but in this case I'll need to buy PS2 version (I know, there is also Wii version, but I don't have Wii). So, if I liked first Sonic Riders, will I enjoy its sequel? I've read opinions that it's generally worser than the first one, but is there someone who played in both games and could tell, if it's really so noticeably worser (and why)? I'm a bit worried with this PS2 version, because basing on my bad experience with Shadow the Hedgehog on PS2 and reading a lot of opinions about bad quality of Sonic Heroes port on PS2, I'm a bit afraid that this title will also suffer for the Curse of Blue Hedgehog on Sony's Famous Console (tm). I wish they could release all Sonic games from this period on PC, but well, that'll never happen. (of course many thanks for all suggestions!)
Zero Gravity is definitely different. It controls completely differently from the first game. I think I prefer the first game's mechanics, but I have fun playing either one.
the sequel is a different beast, instead of improving on the first game they tried to redo the concept of riders while throwing in gravity things like wall riding and a boost which shoots you forwards while flying. I like the first game a lot more then gravity.
Thanks for sharing your experiences and impressions! Well, I've decided to give it a chance, since it's not especially expensive to buy, and basing on my experience with first Sonic Riders, I think I can deal with getting used to new gameplay style (it took me some time to get used to style of first Sonic Riders - it's not the most intelligible title, unfortunately).
Yeah, learning to play Zero Gravity basically means starting from scratch. However, much like the first it's very rewarding to learn. The Gravity mechanics are still really cool to pull off. It's a shame Free Riders sort of tarnished this series, the plot was never anything worthwhile but the gameplay was very fun I felt.
Most of the time, I just play as Super Sonic and see if I can win races by staying on foot as much as possible (Super Sonic can use the "attack mode" shortcuts on foot, but not when he actually gets the "attack mode" powerup).