^ Not quite. It's a bit more rounded, there's red on the edge of the wings, and unlike Sonic 4 Ep 2, the star emblem is back on it (They seemed to have forgotten that part for some reason). Also the Sonic on the plane uses the traditional logo font this time around. I'm rather fond of that design. Unleashed's tornado looked cool but it was a bit too frilly, looked like a device out of a Mario Party minigame. At the same time though this one doesn't try to be exactly like the one in Sonic 2 and looks a lot nicer because of it. Sonic 4 Episode 2 tried that and it looked too boring and sterile. Oh yes and the Skylanders aliens... not quite sure what to think about them honestly, I'll have to wait and see. On the one hand, it's good I guess that they're branching out from Sonic character designs, but on the other... they're branching out from Sonic character designs and it might not be a good fit.
It's nice to see the classic Tornado design again, hopefully a sign of gameplay and atmosphere that will equally interest both younger gamers as well as older Sonic fans just as Nintendo does with their Mario platformers.
For the sake of comparison: It's recieved an update, ala all the Badniks in Colours and Generations. Anyway, these new characters are very interesting. At first I wasn't impressed and was pretty taken aback by just how different and unconventional for the Sonic series they are. But then after I started to think about it, I change my mind completely. The Pixar humans, ghosts and Gaia Spawn in Unleashed worked an absolute treat for the series. I don't see why these won't too.
Those aliens did give me a Skylanders vibe, which isn't bad, but I'm not still not too thrilled about that series (Still a bit bitter 'bout what they did to Spyro, but not as much as before. Plus the prices...I would try it once, maybe). Still, it is interesting to go for designs that are kind of out of their usual comfort zone, so to speak, but not straying too far. Kind of odd to see Tails' Tornado going back to its more original routes. I mean, from Adventure 2 to Unleashed, they're pretty hi-tech, now...doesn't look like it. As for Knuckles, yeah, I kind of agree. Truth be told, while I do enjoy what SEGA has done recently, I'm beginning to miss playing as others. Since the game play is changing, maybe they can do something to fit characters other than Sonic (and those with Sonic-like abilities)? Just a thought.
I am totally loving that new Tornado model. It really is like they took the original one from Sonic 2 and made it 3D. Not gonna comment on the new rogues gallery until we have more than Pikachu-in-a-sombrero guesswork to go on - though I agree the female-looking one will likely be 34'd before the reveal happens.
Also I really hope level tropes won't be generic (grass land, ice land, lava land etc) and will be creative and unique instead (Sonic Colors I'm looking at ya).
They're all wearing suits. Star Trek like suits. They're probably rulers or something of the lands. There's cities on the city (water area with islands, multiple cities on the islands and there's multiple cities within each "zone"). Sonic will most likely be travelling through each "zone" and doing tasks or something. Or maybe Eggman is inside the planet, and has convinced those rulers that Sonic is some bad guy worth taking out. It also reminds me of a Warhammer 40k Board. Maybe there'll be some kind of strategy involved? (Maybe rallying support and taking over different areas?) Sorry for the shitty picture, but I can't draw with a mousepad :I Spoiler I couldn't find where it started for the tiny one on his stick/staff thing. There's also some kind of hair/beard coming from his waist, or probably from his face, but it looks like he's looking backwards. Then again, I may be wrong. You can tell what they'll look like. There's light coming off all of them except the far left, which only has two bands on her (?) waist. The one above the far left is purple. The one next to the middle is blue. The one in the middle is red, and seems like Bowser (spiked wristband etc.). The one next to the middle guy is yellow, and the last one is a dark purply colour. This will probably represent which place they are in, with it going like this: Far-Left: Grass Above-Left: Some kind of dark world? We haven't seen all of the planet yet (there's another side). Or maybe it's Ice Left-Middle: Water-Land place. Probably from the Islands Middle: Fire Right-Middle: Desert Far-Right: Probably ice. The game is probably an open-world game. There's quite a bit of areas (look at the grassland near the desert) that seem like that you'll have to run to get too. Of course, this is just speculation.
LOVE it. Happy to see them re-implementing the classic style. People forget that the designs of the machines in the classics had very retro style, the Tornado being an old-school bi-plane, Wing Fortress being modeled very much in the vein of 1950's style futurism. I loved that, it gave the machines very timeless look, and I'm glad it's returning, at least in a small way. As far as the Pikachus, I found myself a bit apprehensive at first... Old habits die hard. But Sega has definitely earned the benefit of the doubt at this point. I'm letting myself be unabashedly excited.
Am I the only one who misses the Tornado 2? I always thought it was cool how it could transform and the plane levels in Sonic Adventure were fun. The new plane looks nice though.
Didn't they use the same Tornado, or at least a Tornado that looks a lot like that one, in Sonic Unleashed? Anyway, I prefer the one they're using for Lost World. The Tornado 2 just looks really impractical.
At least they aren't recolors, with the same wire frame body as Sonic and friends. Some of them do look intriguing, but some of them really are just goofy from the shape alone. I really hope they aren't like the Koopalings, with derpy facial expressions that make them look like a bunch of hapless ninnies.
The style choice is weird though and does branch from tradition which a lot of people rag on older Archie characters for. I'm surprised by the move but I don't think its a bad thing. Funny how an original comic character like Trash is now a more Sonic-like character than these guys.
The one in Sonic Unleashed was able to transform into a pretty cool design, but the fact it was used in such a shitty QTE mini-game ruined it for me. [LINK] There is one. It's where I got the images from this post and my last one from this thread.
