Sonic X Shadow Generations announced, releases Autumn 2024

Alright, whatever, I did what I could.

 

Was Denuvo confirmed/deconfirmed though?

 

I have no idea myself. It sucked that you needed Steam for the PC version but you didn't need to log into any launcher for the console versions and I doubt you'll have to for the new Sonic Gen. Actually really looking forward to the game now and hope we some good stuff at GamesCom

 

I definitely prefer the added colour in the new render, he kind of reminds me of Wizeman from NiGHTS and that weird dude from the Sonic 1 prototype. He looks more like he belongs in a Sonic game now.

Spoiler

his dumb face and goofy English voice always made me laugh as a kid I always thought he just looked and sounded like a weird asshole

 

yeah like, reading all of this I was like "well shit, I for one cannot play Zelda OoT legally on an N64 anymore, is that lost media now?" or is it that it doesn't actually matter if Nintendo no longer sells the unmodified original ROM of the game because its code is so accessible now that there are recomps of it? I doubt you'd come across a preservationist who'd consider OoT lost - OoT has some of the most indepth documentation of a video game I've ever seen on TCRF. And of course from a gamer perspective, OoT has been re-released on basically every home Nintendo console now in some form since the N64 (with varying degrees of accessibility, I won't lie), and a very good 3DS remake. That is, if they already don't know how to just emulate it.

The "earliest" physical consoles I still own are my PS2 and GameCube and thus remain the only ways to "truly" play the original versions of the games as released, but there is no way you'd catch me arguing in good faith that the Metroid Prime games and the GCN Zeldas are unpreserved.

EDIT: now that I think about it, a better thing to bring up would be Nick Arcade Sonic 2, which was lost media for all intents and purposes until it was found again. is it considered unpreserved and lost media now because Sega doesn't officially sell it anywhere and the only way to get it is to download it from a site like TCRF and run it in an emulator?

This is of course just. sidestepping the fact that this game is still for sale, just as part of a bundle that may or may not be hilariously cheap for hardcore Sonic fans (the kind of people who would want to buy the old version to mod it in the first place), and also the whole "shot for shot movie remake" argument doesn't hold water when code is infinitely more reproducible than a bunch of humans acting and shooting could ever be. There is some uncertainty as to how many changes the original parts of the game would have, if any outside of texture upscaling, and any differences should be recorded somewhere, but to a normal gamer this also isn't going to matter very much on a practical level any more than playing REV00 vs REV01 Sonic 1.

IT SURE IS it's basically the only Sonic game I dropped because I outright couldn't get it to start anymore halfway through it!

 

yeah like, check out the metal texturing on the hanging bits, and how they're just one single "grain" like they had the same generic "metal texture" applied to them. materials texturing really is one of the easier ways to spot an older render IMO

 

I think the new render is clearly prettier and more colorful, but a central problem with a lot of Sonic designs that don't "fit" is a lack of room for expression. Obviously with Chaos and Dark Gaia they're more beasts than people, but Black Doom doesn't exactly have a lot of range, and lacking both a mouth and a strong way of emoting with his eyes leaves his whole design as kind of a visual noise to me. Also, did he lose his legs or something? His body seems like it's just a floating torso, but the cloak is tattered near the bottom like it's been ripped, implying something used to be there.

 

Like 100% of SEGA games on PC use denuvo, it's as much as confirmed until they say otherwise

 

The joy of PC gaming and you need to log into Steam too, thankfully we had console versions too. When it comes to game preservation, it's a complete non-issue for Sonic Gen.

Not that I expect every developer/publisher to keep every game they make available indefinitely.

 

The Sonic Twitter acc posted some absolutely beautiful art by Tyler McGrath to advertise the Chao Rescue feature.

 

It's always a treat seeing modern Sonic in the Ohshima-esque airbrush style when the artist can pull it off. Happy to say that Tyler has nailed it here. Perhaps my favourite thing he's done.

 

That tinge of Oshima is what I've been aching to see out of the Modern Sonic artstyle for like 20 years now. Such gorgeous representation deserves a better in-game model lol but really the style and colors are melting my brain. Sonic's quills aren't stupid long and that lush gradient of blue fur is so much more satisfying than the bright plastic blue Unleashed stuck us with. I know that's technically the eleventh trillionth time I've whined about the Unleashed model but I just really hope ST considers this look when it comes to Frontiers 2.

 

Off-topic, but Spaz also did that style from one of the Archie Sonic Archive's covers starting with Volume 19.

 

I hate how this specific way of drawing Sonic characters is always called the "Ohshima artstyle" even though he's never colored and airbrushed his artwork like this. Hell, he rarely colors his Sonic artwork in the first place!

You're thinking of Akira Watanabe. He's the one who did the Japanese covers for the Mega Drive games, he's the one who's always airbrushed his artwork like this and he's the one whose style McGrath is imitating in that piece - and Spaz was imitating in the Sonic Archives covers.

Rant over, I just hate how often people get this wrong.

 

That’s how it goes, unfortunately. Too often names like that just fall to the wayside in discussions about these historical aspects of the series, and their contributions become obscure knowledge. Still, happy to learn something new on this and I’m glad we actually know who’s responsible for that gorgeous artwork.

 

Didn't Oshima illustrate a lot of those drawings though? I don't think it's necessarily a problem just using his name to refer to the style. Especially involving a piece of art that to me totally looks like something he'd draw regardless of the colors.

 

Ohshima's style would probably pertain to the way the characters are drawn. He did draw the pose on Sonic 1's box art:

So if Tyler's art were in "Ohshima's style" then Sonic should look like this

Which it doesn't, there's no element of Ohshima in this piece. Meanwhile all of Akira Watanabe's art contains the airbrush style

Even the non Sonic stuff

So it is more correct to say it is Watanabe styled rather than Ohshima styled.

 

I hate to be that guy, but the quill length and facial expression look kinda awkward and unnatural to me. It feels less like Modern Sonic more like Classic Sonic with green contact lenses, an unusual expression and the modern running pose. This despite the fact Tyler McGrath has shown he can draw Modern Sonic much more in model in the past.

I do appreciate the attempt at depicting Modern Sonic with the "classic" airbrush style though.

 

I think that's just the adjustment that had to be made due to the foreshortening required for this sort of shot.
I've tried to browse through his gallery, and he doesn't produce these types of dynamic shots often enough for me to gauge if this is his usual approach, but it's really not a major issue for me either way, tis' the norm. The fact he is foreshortening, and has been consistent with modern Sonic's specific attributes, provides a nice reminder that McGrath does in fact know what they're doing, and took the appropriate approach.