Sonic Central announced for June 23rd, Sonic's birthday

Are they really still simulcasting on Twitch and Youtube? I know that Twitch decided they don't want that for any users now. I don't know if they count companies (since people will sometimes costream that stuff anyways) but it's something Twitch is actively banning people for.

Also looks like we can yet again count SEGA Hardlight in on the shenanigans. It'd be neat if they have a new game or finally bringing Sonic Racing to Android but it'll probably be new Speed Battle characters.

I think that part specifically means they're changing what the ones on Ouranos look like to help further distinguish the island.

 

Had DreddKnuckles not been released in Speed Battle yet and/or Dash yet?

 

I think they either underpromise or give vague descriptions on purpose. Update 1 only mentioned the jukebox, photo mode and challenges, but then it included fixes to the leveling, tweaked cyberspace physics, new koco skins and a fourth difficulty mode. It's not much, but it was more than promised. So if they say that Update 2 is a party hat, different koco appearances and an open-zone time attack, it becomes a nice suprise when they ship the spindash, better physics and changes to the ending with it (note: I don't know that all of these are coming in Update 2, just that Kishimoto has said they're doing them). If they start out with things they know they can do, they have wiggle room with anything they want to do but aren't certain they can deliver on.

 

According to the Google Play Store's event tab on the Speed Battle page, the event is over in 2 hours, at the time of this post.

 

WHY THE FUCK DID THEY SHOW SONIC HEROES ON TAILSTUBE!?

BURY THAT SHIT!

 

Lego Eggman was straight up the best part of Central.

 

I watched the Japanese version since it was top of my sub list.

I noticed they used the term badnik/バッドニク in the Japanese translation which I don’t think I’ve ever seen before. Usually they're just called mechs, right? Can anyone who maybe reads more Japanese written material let me know if that’s been done before?

Anyway, getting that ESP guitar.

 

Badnik has been forced into the Japanese scripts now as part of the general brand rearrangement these past few years, yes.

 

Oh well. I don’t have a visceral aversion to it, but I’d prefer if they didn’t. I don’t recall ever hearing it spoken in a game’s dialogue though. Do you know any scenes in which it’s used?

 

Welp, I guess we learned... something? Maybe? They teased the Lego thing like it was gonna be a huge drop but it's just the Eggman skin, and I guess the BOGO Legoland tickets. I thought they may reveal Lego skins for the other characters, but the Eggman Lego mech they showed looks very neat. Frontiers update looks pretty good but they didn't really tell us much about the changes, though it comes out today so may as well play it myself lol. I kinda knew from the start when they said they had "new surprises and announcements" and "stick around til the end" that it would probably be 95% already revealed stuff.

Something feels kinda off to me about these Sonic Centrals, it gives off this corny corporate feel, maybe that's just me though. Mike Pollock rapping "Sonic, and Sonic, and Sonic, and Sonic" was probably the highlight lmao, did not expect any of that.

 

This was about what I expected. With Sonic’s presence at this year’s SGF and Nintendo Direct, I didn’t think there would be major reveals. This years’ central primarily served as a commercial for new products… and I hafta say given the poor state of the sonic franchise in 2014, it’s remarkable how much we have going on in 2023

 

Yeah I was excited to just see a bunch of Sonic "stuff" going on. I mean new games, toys, TV shows, movies... that's a heck of a lot of Sonic stuff!!

 

SEGA Hardlight, this is the 5th time you've presented Sonic Dash at Show and Tell.
(No, it doesn't count as a new Hardlight game this time. I was wrong.)

Pretty standard Central. Wish all the announcements that would've been surprises today weren't shown off yesterday/this morning. I'll watch the Oshima and Izuka interview later. As a LEGO fan I'm happy to see that in a game I can afford. Funny Sonic Frontiers update. Sonic Prime still looks great. Knuckles the Echidna exists.

 

Also the reveal of the Amy 30th anniversary comic is pretty awesome! I loved the seasons of chaos story. I still need to get the tails 30th anniversary comic. The central indirectly reminded me to do so… crap, sega’s marketing has worked on me gosh durn it

 

The Sonic Central was fun, The most exciting thing to me was that the symphony will come to Kansas City. Definitely going to try to get tickets to that.

 

I remember hearing it in a game but don't recall which right now, but it's not like there's many games with voice acting in japanese recently- odds are it's somewhere in Frontiers.

 

I think the adoption of some English terms and the rejection of others makes sense in trying to unify things (so long "Nack"). I feel like fans have a weird double-standard where JP lingo being brought westside is celebrated whereas the inverse is some kind of attack, when the series has always been somewhat multicultural and these little tweaks are never going to equate to the whole-ass backstories that they just make up in the 90s games.

What's more important to me is how it's implemented. I have no idea how consistent this is (and it certainly makes very little difference in how the series uses its machines) but I always kinda liked "badnik" as a term distinguishing robots that use life forms for power vs. robots that don't. I'm sure it's more likely to just be used for "any robot made by Eggman", but the way we switched to "Eggman's robots" as soon as the generic Egg Pawn line started is a useful coincidence.

I never liked "mechs", though. Just say "robots". "Mechs" simultaneously sounds self-serious and a little lispy to say, kind of like "texts".

 

It’s not really weird at all. The Japanese terms were the ones made by the people who actually worked on the games while the others were created by localizers and marketing personnel trying to appeal to their domestic market. While it’s tricky to argue for artistic integrity when marketing and consumer appeal no doubt plays a role in shaping the Japanese media as well, I think it’s pretty expected for fans to appreciate the original version of something.

Either way, it’s not a huge deal as I said. Just a little niggle. The problem in my opinion is that it indicates a direction towards opening the series to even more western influence within the games, which I absolutely would not appreciate.

 

While admittedly not the bestest presentation of all time, there was still plenty of good stuff. Some pretty crazy stuff that I'm not sure everyone will get. The Jakks Pacific playset, for example. Making it explode? What are you even trying to sell me here? A guitar? Sure, why not! Etc etc. That said, the Birthday Bash update looks quite promising. Sonic's glasses look sweet, Spin Dash looks awesome (goodbye combat), even the new Kocos look kinda cool, and man, this is only the second out of three updates in total. There seems to be lots of new stuff going on in the open zones, too. It's not just more content, they're shaking it up quite a bit, and I love it for that.

I'm definitely gonna watch the next batch of episodes for Sonic Prime when they drop, too. This looks like a good time as well.

As for the rest, I still have to wait and see. I like Amy, and I like Naoto Ohshima, and yes, Legos are charming, but that alone is not enough to sell me just yet.