Sonic Boom (Games) Megathread

I know I've said this everywhere else on another Sonic forum, but I guess it's kind of funny seeing how many people seem to be so reassured by everything heard about this game, yet it seems that it's going to play absolutely nothing like a Sonic game in any remote fashion. No series staples, no Sonic-y style, not even the same gameplay focus, nothing. Just a straight up Naughty Dog game with Sonic in it :v:

Of course I get it, it's a spin-off side series thing, and it'll probably be a decent fun as a throwback to Jak & Daxter as well as it's own thing, but having a Sonic game that seems to play like that just seems so bizzare.

 

Outside of the new character designs and this being an alternative Sonic universe, a lot of things being done with this game are stuff I've been wanting to see happen for a long time if they're pulled off well. With the talent behind this game, I'm very optimistic that this could be a great game. It's just unfortunate that some design changes are questionable. One of my best friends is super ticked off at what happened to Knuckles' character design and I don't blame him. I really dislike the new look for Knuckles. I always thought he had a cool appearance in past games. How many of you would still say he looks cool in Sonic Boom?

 

He looks lame, but maybe how they portray him will make up the difference. It's true, there is a significant amount of negative publicity, as well as positive, but publicity is publicity. Negative or positive, it'll make money. Otherwise a certain killer wouldn't be profitable right now -- I wont go into that. I don't think anyone should, but it's true.

 

Everyone's flipping out right now because all we have to go on is the word of the PR and developers. That is the nature of teasing us with trailer footage and interviews, but no uninterrupted gameplay. It's something I hate about reveals so far in advance of any major game event. It leaves us grasping at the tiniest detail to speculate on and form false opinions of anything we see in them. We are four months out until E3, and we probably won't see anything substantial for at the earliest another two. If we were rational, we would leave the discussion alone until more actual gameplay was shown. But we're so wrapped up in all the anxious tizzy of the new direction to stop. I guess that's the nature of the fandom. Describing what the game is like instead of showing it isn't doing them much favors.

 

Here's my two cents on the new designs: In a way I really don't mind them. I don't exactly like them but I don't hate them either. The thing that does bother me is that whoever the designers were took the easy way out.

How do we show Knuckles is strong? Let's make him taller and buffer. How do we make them look like they are ready for action? Let's add sport tape everywhere. And again, it's not that it's bad doing that, but maybe I expect more from professional artists. I've seen other users in other boards mentioned that when they were younger (and I used to do this too) they used to add sport tape, scarfs etc etc to make the characters look different.

But I feel that there comes a point in an artist's career where you have to stop relying on those safe elements and use your style to reimagine something. In fact, Sonic has done this before twice in it's history. Once with American Sonic (and later it's alternative counterpart, the one where you couldn't tell his head shape anymore) and Adventure Sonic.

Granted, Adventure Sonic was the one that said "this is a new era for the franchise now" but both Greg Martin and Yuji Uekawa managed to give new life to Sonic and make him look different while respecting the simplicity of Oshima's original design.

Heck, even the new art style for Mickey Mouse does wonder for the character by keeping the old school feel of the classic days and not taking the spotlight away from the "current" Mickey Mouse we see everywhere. I would've liked to see this from Sonic Boom and what makes me more sad is that after seeing some of the character sheets I know the designers could've done more because the talent is there.



(the heck with putting pants on them though, I can't believe it crossed their mind, don't lose the scarf though.)

 

The key point there is the tryhard crap part :P

 

Considering "playing like a Sonic game" is almost synonymous with "plays like shit," anything else seems like a better option. Right now mainline Sonic is chasing Mario's coattails and doing and doing a horrible job of it anyway. Take a new team who have worked on some great platformers before in a direction that I've been personally wanting for a while and as a spin off and I can't see how it could hurt. Wider areas to explore for alt routes, multiple characters, more interesting enemy interaction, and co-op. Granted all we have right now are snippets and bullet points to go off of, so god knows how the game will actually turn out.

I'm going to let this play out and give it a chance. I would probably be a lot less ok with this if it replaced mainline Sonic.

 

http://www.senntient.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=1683

That sly sonvabitch! Senn has been picking our brains about this back in 2011 and we didn't have the wisest clue.

EDIT: His retro bio needs updating btw.

 

I don't understand why there is such a relief that this is a "spin-off" series. What makes the "main" games so great that this must be treated like a rich red-headed step child? Why can't this be part of the continuity? It's not like the current set (2006, Unleashed, Colors, Lost World) is worthy of a supreme "continuity" as of late. Each pretty much has been it's own spin-off since the Adventure Ark ended. But alas, we are always quick to judge and discount here.

 

The answer is pretty obvious.

Japan.

 

It's relieving to me because I'm not a huge fan of the design, so the fact that everything else Sonic will be in, like future All Stars Racings or Smash Bros or other crossovers, will continue to use his old design. Plus this gameplay is far different than any other Sonic game we've had. Besides, it'll add more variety to the series and it won't take away from anything Japan's doing.

Really for me right now it all comes down to design. Now, they could have easily made a compromise design and just have given Modern Sonic a scarf, made Knuckles a little bigger, gave Tails the goggles, and gave Amy a new outfit, and I would have been fine with the continuity using one Sonic. They also could have made Sonic Boom use their current designs and I also would have been happy. But they went this way for whatever reason so I'm just happy they didn't abandon Modern Sonic completely.

I'll just think of this like Megaman Legends to the Classic Megaman series, only instead of there being specific plot points as to why those two exist in the same universe, this will be like Futurama's Universe 1 to Universe A. And I'm fine with that.

 

Iizuka's pride right? Perhaps if this performs better than Sonic Team Sonic games have been lately, we might start seeing more of this and maybe it'll start to usurp the canon.

 

Ya know what would solve all of these design problems? If they just put all of Sonic and friends designs in the game as alternate costumes or whatever. That way, if you don't want to play as Buffles, you could use regular Knuckles instead. Or if that's not possible due to height differences, just put in alternate costumes that ditch the scarf, the sports tape, and give Sonic tan arms again.

 

The biggest relief from this being a radically different spin off is that Sega is ok with radically different spin offs. Before they were entirely anal about keeping Sonic's image coherent, and now we have BLUE ARRRRRMS and Mummies. They're also ok with putting Sonic in other people's hands again, not that they were very careful with him themselves.

To put it another way: There is no excuse for them to not do a spinoff in classic style made by people who would know what they're doing. :v:

 

In light of this whole thing that just needs to happen.

 

It's a spin-off because it's a game of a cartoon series which itself is a spin-off. It's like there being a SatAM game. That's the only reason.