This is horrible, why would anyone want any of these suggested ideas? At that point they might as well create a whole new IP...
Pretty much this. I don't understand. "Hey, let's make a game about Sonic and literally design it to not he like Sonic in the least". It's not as if they were trying to do something new and fucked up. NO! That was the goal! Are yout freaking kidding me? You people honestly thought that this would go at least somewhat well? You're a joke.
If Sonic is a niche title that's fine. At least make it good. Don't blame the IP you've been handed when the game you make is total ass. Honestly I think it's about time that Sonic purges a lot of its current fan base because no one has any idea wtf the series is about anymore. You have classic gameplay, dreamcast gameplay, the storybook series, modern gameplay, lost world gameplay, Heroes, etc, all with their own unique little fanbases. Here's a thought. Pick 2 and stick with those. My suggestions are classic era and some modern/lost world hybrid. Also maybe there's not a lot that can be done with classic gameplay that's "new." But who says I want new? Fuck all I want is basically a level hack of Sonic 3 and Knuckles, no need to reinvent the wheel here. Mario games never break any boundaries and rehash all sorts of shit, they're still fun though because they're well made and took ideas that people liked from older games. They don't throw everything out and say "Ok, Wario's going to have a game where he has a gun now, next game Mario is going to turn into a werewolf." The series has been around for almost 25 years. It's not new enough any more to keep trying this find itself bullshit. If you want to try something new Sega, either resurrect one of your old one or two off IPs and shoehorn them into something else, or make a new IP. However if you have to try something new, try something, well, new. Not a PS2 era platformer. That's been played out already and I honestly don't think it has any more appeal to a modern audience.
I've only read the article on the Sonic Stadium about this (personally don't like SEGANerds so not sure if I will listen to the podcast), but even in the changed article it sounds like he's being dishonest. Like they barely tried to "capture speed" aside from adding bad Temple Run sections that felt like they were part of a different game. And he's talking as if they were being incredibly ambitious, while the final game wasn't much more than a buggy generic PS2 game. It could understand them being ambitious if a lot of stuff was cut (which it likely was), but Stephen specifically talks about them being ambitious with stuff that's in the final game. Also, having to teach the teams what Sonic is about was hard to do in a short amount of time? Besides it probably being better to get people who would know how to make a Sonic game to reinvent the series, the final game feels like it was designed by people who didn't know anything about the series aside from Sonic and Tails' personalities and only halfway through development got to know that Sonic is supposed to be fast. I feel bad for Stephen for having such a bad game on his name, and I can get it if he really thinks that the game was good. But at the same time, so much of what he says doesn't match up with what the ended up in the game that it's hard for me to believe that he was being honest in that interview That's not a fair comparison, Ninja Theory at least had some idea of what Devil May Cry is!
I think people/retailers care more about having a Sonic game that's actually good/saleable rather than the design of the world or characters. It's things like this that make me think we'll never see the series done right.
I get why he went on and said these things. Defending the work done by his team, stuff like that. But the PR bracket is over, you can feel that Boom has more or less faded from the collective consciousness. Then this happens and drags the whole thing out again. We know what happened to Boom. A mix of bad business decisions mixed with a team who never really seemed to want to make a Sonic game in the first place. We didn't need an attempted face-saving to explain that to us, especially when most of what he said was crap. How can so many people in so many different teams miss the point so hard of what makes a good Sonic game when they almost had it perfect less than 5 years ago.
To add to my previous post: even if everything he said in the interview isn't necessarily true, I have no doubt that there must have been a lot of problems during the development of the game that he had to put up with. And considering how much he likely tried to make it a good game, I can see why he'd still defend it.
"Solo Sonic games, I don't know how long that can last - there isn't enough variety to sustain it. The future of Sonic games needs to be co-op...It worked really well in Sonic Boom, community and online play, that sustains it. In general, you need to do multiplayer and add online multiplayer aspects. That will sustain and keep the franchise alive." I am thinking that this is something SEGA may also believe as it sounds as though there is solid information he is speaking from. Not to say that information is true, or necessarily true. SEGA just keeps moving in the wrong direction... it's simply mind boggling. If you look up "group-think" in a marketing or psychology text book, there ought to be a picture of SEGA :specialed:/>
Lost World garnering criticism for largely doing away with speed pretty much proves the "people want Sonic to slow down" claim false. Heck, the main presence of speed wasn't even what fans were tired of, fans were tired of speed being the means to an end in recent Sonic games, rather than speed being a trademark of the series' gameplay like in earlier titles. Anyone who actually thinks Sonic games should do away with one of the series' big selling points really shouldn't be the type of people they should be appealing to. Then again, they should had focused more on pleasing the existing fanbase with good games instead of trying to reinvent Sonic for a new audience (again), because hardly anyone wanted another split in the series in the first place. I mean seriously, whoever made the decision to "reinvent Sonic" through the Boom franchise on the basis of the fanbase "shrinking" has got it completely backwards; the fanbase is shrinking because Sega tries re-inventing Sonic with damn near every other game since 1998. This interview continues to show just how out of touch the people running the series are with its community, in case Ken Balough's "we didn't know fans wanted playable solo Tails" quip in the aftermath of S4E2's review floodgates didn't hammer it in enough. At this point, I don't disagree. Appealing to so many audiences is a large reason the series went down the toilet in the first place (and given the mainstream appeal of the Genesis games / Sonic's status as a gaming mascot in the West, was totally unnecessary); and given how much the "unpleasable fanbase" card has been pulled, the fans apparently can't agree on any way to improve the series because some group that (supposedly) exists somewhere in the fanbase would throw a fit about it and be at odds with the idea(s) suggested and the group(s) that advocate them. Carve out two slices of the existing huge pie of a fanbase (my personal suggestions would be the classic gameplay and the Adventure 1 gameplay -largely by virtue of being the closest thing to classic gameplay in 3D; Lost World's execution was way too flawed for me to preserve anything from that playstyle outside of a conceptual level-) and dump the rest in the trash.
Hold on there, look at the rest of the points and see which group they did focus tests on. They were trying to appeal to people who aren't fans and bring in new ones with Sonic Boom, so the focus tests were with them rather than people who like Sonic. Not that that makes the way they handled the focus test much better. After a focus test they shouldn't take away "they didn't like thing so we shouldn't put in thing", but rather "they didn't like thing, now we need to figure out what needs to be changed so they like thing more". And this is just an assumption, but it seems like they went for the former rather than the latter.
It's like they had no idea what they were doing. Or more accurately wanted to make their own game and then had to shoehorn Sonic into it somehow while simultaneously draw in people who don't like Sonic. It's like no one was on the same page at all. By appealing to no one they reached no one. Christ. No one seems to have a vision for a good game, let alone a Sonic game. I get that Sonic means a lot of different things to different people, but I don't understand why they don't think they can diversify Sonic with multiple styles to appeal to each of them. No one would object to spin offs if they had merit, like a classic inspired series or continuing the boost style series mixed in with the new experimental titles. I also don't understand how they don't seem to "get" anything at all about people's grievances with the games. They seem to grossly overcompensate when they see things like "Sonic not being about pure speed" and "NO FRIENDS." That doesn't mean Sonic should be the only character ever playable and that the gameplay should slow to a snail's pace. It's like no one has bothered to look back and note what worked in the past of the series and attempt to at least use them as game design guidelines to build a better game. It only goes as far as superfluous shit like in Sonic 4, where because its in 2D "it went back to its roots" and since the homing attack worked so well for the Adventure games "it totally would work here." Lost World had the right idea but stumbled around until dropping the ball with some very questionable design decisions.
I will say this: Sonic Boom was the best birthday present I've received in years. Mind you, the actual present wasn't the game but... It was like a pinata except instead of candy, a (pre-owned) game was smashed and instead of candy, there was disappointment alleviated. :v: You know a game is bad when it doesn't even grace my glorious trash can and just gets hammered to death.
I think this would be the best option for Sonic going forward, but knowing how stupid Sega has been so far, it wouldn't surprise me to see them never trying the 2D gameplay again after Sonic 4 failed. I'm sure they really thought "Sonic 4 was just like the classics and since it sold bad and was received bad no one wants classic Sonic!".
I dunno, a fair amount of critics brought up the toned-down speed as a negative point in their reviews for the game in addition to the fans.
Yeah, but those critics weren't part of the focus group, were they? Besides that, those critics could still like Sonic games. Games usually aren't given to the reviewer of the site who would dislike a game in the series.
I suppose those are fair points. As for your assumptions on the prior posts, I doubt either case happened. The entire product looks like some entirely different thing that was retooled to fit Sonic more than a Sonic product retooled to appeal to non-fans. Given how I've heard people accuse sites / reviewers for being biased against Sonic for some consistently mediocre reviews for the games they publish, that doesn't seem to be the case with this series. Apparently. :v:
They most likely think that re-releasing classics, such as the Tax/Stealth versions, appeals to the segment of the fan base that want classic gameplay, and the few others interested, and therefore there is no reason to expand the classic style gameplay further. Sonic 4 did fail, but only because it was executed poorly. I honestly thought Sonic 4 Ep 2 was markedly better than Ep 1. I personally think they learned from Ep 1 and improved Ep 2, but that they should now take what they learned from Ep 2 and make an even better Ep 3. Then once it's perfected they should go on to make Sonic 5. I don't think SEGA actually lost money on Sonic 4, so it would make sense to me to proceed and refine the style. On a side note, I also think 2.5 D looks a little lazy IMO, would like to see it keep the geometric crystalline look of the classics, but rendered in a more toon-like style, similar to Sonic 2 HD, Ori and the Blind Forest, or Major Magnet... If SEGA walks away from Sonic Boom thinking fans wants multiplayer, less storyline, and less platforming in a 3D title, then they have once again learned nothing...
>Some say Sonic's gotten too fast, likely a rib at Unleashed, Colors, and Generations >Other say Sonic's too slow (Boom, also Colors (what?) and Lost World) Solution? Middle ground between Colors and Generations. And it's clear that MAYBE Sonic only is wearing on people, but only because they want to play as Tails, Knuckles, or Shadow. Maybe it's time to begin reintroducing them to the playable fold.
