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Sonic Ready to Take 2018 by Storm at SXSW 2018

Discussion in 'General Sonic Discussion' started by 360, Feb 1, 2018.

  1. Endgame

    Endgame

    Formerly The Growler Member
    IF they explain it at all. Personally, I'm not convinced we're going to get a [satifactory] explanation for this.

    It'll probably end up like the unanswered question about Eggman destroying half of the moon, only for it to appear normal every in other game it's in (ignoring Sonic X, of course)
     
  2. synchronizer

    synchronizer

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    Alternately, the water rose.
     
  3. Dark Sonic

    Dark Sonic

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    Working on my art!
    Eggman's next plan, global warming.
     
  4. Sir_mihael

    Sir_mihael

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    Nope, and it grinds my fooking gears every day I wake up.

    Even just a slip of paper that says "knuckles likes to park angel island in the sea sometimes for shits and chuckles" would be fine.
     
  5. Toothpick

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    Angel Island was also in the water at the beginning of Sonic 3&K despite the Master Emerald still being in its pedestal. Eggman wouldn't steal the Master Emerald from its pedestal until after the fight with Knuckles towards the end of the game. The reason Angel Island was in the water was because the Death Egg had crashed into Angel Island after the events of Sonic 2. As for why Angel Island is in the water at the beginning of Mania, my guess is there was already Eggman activity in Hidden Palace Zone if that giant machine in the background of Lava Reef Act 2 is anything to go by. It's unknown what its purpose is, so all I can assume is it was used to drain Angel Island of the Master Emerald's energy in an area closest to its shrine. That's probably stretching it though.
     
  6. Plorpus

    Plorpus

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    Stealth said the ruby did it on a stream. Doesn't explain why it's still in the water during Adventures, but that's the “word of god.”
     
  7. 360

    360

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    Sonic Neon
    Tomorrow (March 22) should be the day Sonic Racing 3 is revealed hopefully. Sega's live stream included a guy in a racing suit mentioning the date and Sega Europe have retweeted speculation about a potential reveal happening then so a major Sonic game should be revealed tomorrow everyone. Cool that we don't have to wait until E3.

    Looking forward to it and hope there's a Sonic R connection. We'll see soon.
     
  8. Blue Blood

    Blue Blood

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    Richard Jacques composed Sonic R, and returned for the All Stars Racing games. I'll be thrilled if we get even that much connection again, because ASRT had a wonderful soundtrack including remixes of Back In Time and Super Sonic Racing.
     
  9. Boxer Hockey

    Boxer Hockey

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    have faith
     
  10. Pengi

    Pengi

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    Yeah. It's certainly within the Phantom Ruby's scope (in Mania anyway, Forces made the whole thing very inconsistent). The bit that still doesn't add up is how chill Knuckles was about it. Did the Ruby teleport the island to the planet's surface without him noticing?

    :) !
     
  11. 360

    360

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    Sonic Neon
    This was one of my thoughts as well. That Richard Jacques might be returning for the soundtrack and the Sonic R connection is music-related. Tyson even name-dropped Jacques in the panel (referring to something else but still). Would love to hear he's back to produce more tunes. Sonic R's soundtrack is legendary and represents so much of the nostalgic love I have for the game. Hope he's back for this game.

    The most fascinating thing about the project for me is the use of Sonic R's "R" in the logo. That has to mean something whether it's the above or something more.

    Well I'll be. All aboard the fucking hype train. :) Not long left until the game's unveiled. Guessing in about ~12 hours. I shall be on the hype train until then.
     
  12. KingOfBunnies

    KingOfBunnies

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    I'm super annoyed they don't tell us what the variant cover is going to be for the Sonic comic pack they have on their website. I don't want to buy it for a cover I might not like. I know I'm getting the A,B, and RI (1 in 10) covers from my shop for issue 1, but to not see the cool exclusive cover on Sega's shop is annoying. I know it fits more with the comic topic, but they announced it at the SXSW panel, and I was hoping they were gonna show off the exclusive cover.
     
  13. 360

    360

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    Sonic Neon
    So regarding Sonic Racing 3 which is supposed to be being unveiled today the Sonic stream is set for 2.30pm PST which converts to 9.30pm GMT - so about ~3 hours from the time of this post. They did say the announcement would be at a "secret time" so it could be a different time than that but I'd say the stream is when we should probably expect news.

    Something is dropping today regarding the game - whatever it is - so hopefully we'll get a good look at the game a bit later. Excited to see the game.
     
  14. CollectiveWater

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    ^^ Thanks for the info, 360--looking forward to it. Really hope a decent amount of footage of the game is shown.

    So this discussion was a few pages back and I know everyone's gonna be talking about the new racing game when it's likely shown today, but still wanted to say:

    I think "Sonic Mania" is the closest we are ever going to get to a "Sonic 3K" remaster, and that the project likely ended up being an evolved version of a "3K" remaster.

    Everyone here knows all this info, but a humble recap: Whitehead first did a remaster of "Sonic CD" in 2011 and then Stealth joined him full-time for the "Sonic 1" and Sonic 2" mobile remasters which released seven months apart from each other in 2013. It makes all the sense in the world that "Sonic 3K" would have been the next logical remaster project for them to do, yet it didn't materialize.

    Of course there was the proof-of-concept video that showed the work they'd done on it, Stealth's post signaling his support of the fan petition and his thoughts as to why the project had not been given the green light, and his follow-up post five months later that indicated he had lost hope in the project ever being given the green light. In this interview Taxman likewise said "unfortunately there were circumstances that meant it was not a project we could pursue further."

    I think it's fairly obvious "Mania" is what arose from the ashes of the failed "3K" remaster. (The proof of concept video even had a new cutscene and a smoother-looking blue sphere, concepts which carried forward.) In that first post about "3K" Stealth also talked about wanting to pitch Sega on a continuation of 2D Sonic using a modern engine capable of enhancing what could be done on a technical and visual level, while staying true to the original aesthetic. So it's hard to know if Taxman and Stealth received no communication whatsoever regarding "Sonic 3K" and then were told what could and couldn't be included from it after they were successful pitching "Mania" (called "Sonic Discovery" at the time), or if at some point earlier than "Mania" being approved Sega communicated to them that the only way to do anything with "3K" would be with levels and music that weren't currently and couldn't potentially be involved in legal issues. (I know that at the Comic-Con panel last year it was described as Taxman and Stealth showing Sega an early version of Studiopolis and Iizuka coming up with the idea of using elements from 1/2/CD/3K, but considering they had pitched the "Sonic 3K" remaster a couple times before then and either heard nothing back or information indicating they couldn't green light the project, there obviously had to be communication between the dev team and Sega about what they could and couldn't use from "3K" either before or after "Mania" was given the green light.)

    I mean, 3 of the 12 zones in "Mania" are from "3K." The bonus stages are a revamped, smoother-running version of blue sphere. The elemental shields are all in and slightly improved. Even many of the zones that aren't from "3K" use the same or similar elements. Chemical Plant has Catakillers now, Press Garden Act 2 has elements from Mushroom Hill and of course more noticeably Ice Cap (and is the 5th zone of the game, just like Ice Cap is the 5th zone in "3K"), Stardust has elements from Marble Garden, Oil Ocean Act 2 has many elements from Sandopolis (and again, is the 9th zone in "Mania" just like Sandopolis is the 9th zone in "3K"), Lava Reef comes right after the Sandopolis-inspired Oil Ocean Act 2 just like it comes right after Sandopolis in "3K" proper, and Titanic Monarch is heavily inspired by Chrome Gadget, Death Egg, and glowing sphere.

    Don't get me wrong, of course "Mania" has many callbacks to/elements from the other classic games (mostly "2" and "CD"), but I think it's most similar to "3K." In essence, I think "Sonic Mania" *is* the "Sonic 3K" remaster, just more evolved and with more new material. And honestly I'm personally fine with that, considering the circumstances.

    But yeah with everything I just said in mind combined with the awkward "answer" about why the music was changed in "Sonic 3K" for PC in 1997 from the SXSW panel, as well as the fact whenever a "3K" remaster is brought up to Webber he always answers by saying they made "Mania" instead of doing that and hopefully people are happy they made that decision, I think it's high time we all read between the lines and accept that a "3K" remaster is not going to happen, that "Mania" essentially is a greatly evolved "3K" remake, etc.

    Yeah it's a bummer we aren't getting a faithful 1:1 remaster, and I'm just as disappointed as everyone else that "Mania" didn't have complete transitions like "3K" and narratively makes less sense (though that seems to be the fault of a hard ship deadline more than anything else), but I think this is just the reality of the situation that we have to accept. There is the barebones emulated version of "3K" on Steam, it's pretty cheap to get original hardware and the cartridges if you don't already have them, etc. I'm also hopeful that Analogue will release a beautifully-designed Genesis FPGA system like they have with the Super Nt so that all Genesis cartridges (including "3K") can be easily and (relatively) inexpensively played in 1080p.

    And honestly I'm more looking forward to what the dev team do with "Mania 2" and the prospect of that game being all new zones (of course taking inspiration/elements from the past just like the new ones in the first did) than anything else when it comes to 2D Sonic. Even if magically the issues preventing a Taxman, Stealth, PGW, et al. remaster of "3K" vanished and they could do it, I'd much rather they be given the proper time, money, and resources to make an even better new 2D Sonic that goes down in history as being not just the greatest Sonic game ever made but one of if not the best 2D platformers of all-time. That seems like the bar to aim for now after "Mania," and they've more than proven they're capable of doing it.
     
  15. 360

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    Amazing post CollectiveWater. Super interesting and insightful and enjoyed reading your extensive run-down. As someone that supported the Sonic 3K remaster and did everything I could to push for the project to be green-lit (even got it covered in the news on IGN - I was that passionate about it) your perspective was awesome to read and I think the crux of what you're saying is correct - the project likely evolved in to Mania and we should now set our sights on what seems to be a very promising Mania 2 with hopefully more original zones.

    I'll post more extensive thoughts when I have more time but for now I thought it was important to note that the Sonic stream's channel has updated the stream time to 2pm PST which converts to 9pm GMT (so thirty minutes earlier) which means the stream is happening in just under 20 minutes and the Sonic Racing game may be revealed! The stream is here.

    Hope they deploy something substantial like a trailer or something. I'm dying to know what the "R" connection is and even just the name of the game. 20 minutes!
     
  16. 360

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    Sonic Neon
    Stream's over and no announcement. :( Not even a tease. Watched the entire thing and they basically just recapped SXSW showing the same things and didn't really reveal any new information about anything. Only notable thing that was mentioned is that they're "working" on getting Europe supported in the Sega shop and outside of that there wasn't anything of note.

    So guess it's looking like E3 at the earliest for the new Sonic Racing. Quite disappointed. Thought the announcement was a sure-fire thing.

    EDIT: Sorry for getting anyone hyped about this given we were let-down. Honestly thought the announcement was near-definite.
     
  17. CollectiveWater

    CollectiveWater

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    ^^No worries, 360--you weren't the only person expecting something due to the tease. Bit of a weird choice if they hold showing the game until E3; hopefully it doesn't get drowned out/overlooked by everything else that'll be shown there.

    If it's coming to Switch, best thing they could do would be to have the trailer be shown during Nintendo's E3 Showcase/Direct. It'd get a more positive reception if shown during that than at Sony or Microsoft's conference. (It's good timing for it to come out on Switch, too--enough distance from "Mario Kart 8 Deluxe" and it'll be years before we hear about "Mario Kart 9"/"Double Dash 2.") But who knows, maybe they'll show it beforehand--we'll just have to wait and see.
     
  18. 360

    360

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    Thanks man. :) ResetERA was disappointed too so you're right there, I'm not the only one. The guys on ResetERA are speculating an April or May reveal going by the announcement conventions of previous Sonic games as Sonic games are usually revealed in the Spring (Generations and so on) and have never been announced at E3 in the past. So if Sonic Racing 3 is being held back for E3 it'd be a first for the franchise.

    Guess all this means an E3 reveal is unlikely with a standalone reveal happening in the Spring (April/May) the most probable scenario. I honestly hope that's the case. The sooner the better.
     
  19. Boxer Hockey

    Boxer Hockey

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    oh, whoops sorry we were not talking about the same thing here. Didn't mean to give you a wrong impression.
     
  20. 360

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    Sonic Neon
    It's okay dude. No worries. Evidently you must have been talking about the Sonic R connection and/or soundtrack by Richard Jacques - and not actually the game being unveiled today? No worries if you're not at liberty to say any more. It's cool either way as the game should still be announced soon probably some time in the Spring around April time. So it's not long now hopefully.