Sonic X Shadow Generations thread, movie level out on the 12th

Ah okay. Good. (I really don’t use Twitter/X.)

 

https://x.com/KatieChrz/status/1814371321985507821

Not sure if this was mentioned here, but reversible cover confirmed!

 

This sentence is more terrifying than any single Sonic.exe creepypasta or hack.

Okay, that's not much of an achievement, but I digress.

 

Katie's so awesome

 

Katie deserves a place in Heaven.

 

Shoutouts to Katie for being goated.

 

It'd be interesting if this game has a Angel Island stage, ending with a Hidden Palace segment to close that fanon theory gap.

 

Katie and the social team are responsible for the Sonic Symphony, and I will go on and say it is one of the best projects in this franchise.

 

I think Katie does a good job of keeping the line between being a fan, part of the community and still being professional. I really liked Webber but felt he could lean too much into his gaming side at times. Top guy though.

 

Webber technically is responsible for kickstarting the franchises social media presence and making the series more culturally relevant; But MAN his era of Sonic social media is plagued with dated and outright offensive material.
Literally attack helicopter jokes.
Things have gotten much better tho.
Some folks are very critical of social media team as a whole, saying they're appealing to "ironic" enjoyment of the series, and much prefer the Japanese social media presence, but I never thought of it as an issue.

 

That was one time, almost 10 years ago, when he first started. I can't recall any other offensive joke during his tenure.

 

damn it i'm still coping with the fact Lost World was 11 years ago
stop the clock! stop the clock!

 

The offensiveness was not the defining trait of this time, yes.
But it's reflective of the attitude of the time, making kneejerk jokes and referencing whatever was relevant at the time,
This ranged from offensive, like that helicopter joke, to embarrassing like the Mighty 9 release post.
Edit: Also, I'm talking about the past, so of course posts from 10 years ago are relevant; Especially since that joke helped the Social media team get people's attention.

 

It can't really be understated what the dawn of brand twitter was like ten years ago. Sonic got in there right after Wendy's took off, but he got out around the time that people were tired of Walmart calling them fat and stupid, I honestly think it's as perfectly-executed as any franchise was at riding that zeitgeist.

Webber was obviously flawed, but he took the right opportunities at the right time. Not that I want Arin Fucking Hanson anywhere near the series again, but as much as I rag on people for defining the 2010s by twitter and Sonic Boom jokes, I think the series being able to laugh at itself played a big part in deflating a lot of the "Sonic is dead" sentiment from the time.

 

I know a lot of people nowadays take issue with how Webber often poked fun at the franchise's missteps (ex. making jokes about Sonic 06 being bad) but I felt like it was always clear his ribbing came from a place of love and appreciation for the franchise. Sure, not every joke landed (some were poor taste, some were simply unfunny) but I always thought the majority of it was harmless, lighthearted fun. Maybe a little unprofessional for a corporate social media account, but I think it did a decent job turning around the series' image ahead of Mania making people go "oh shit I forgot Sonic actually rules"

 

That was absolutely hilarious. The release was such a disaster and Sonic out of all brands making fun of it was icing on the cake for me.

ANYWAY SONADOW I'm pretty happy that Sega is learning how to do the community feedback thing. It takes a good community manager to find the reasonable and doable requests and when to push for them and when to back down, which I imagine is a hard job with a fractured and opinionated fanbase like Sonic's so props on Katie for that. Makes me wonder how they'll handle the Generations Steam, best case scenario we can probably expect at this point is Sega removes it from sale but just include the old version as a separate download if you buy Sonadow.

 

Regarding the fate of OG Gens, they might actually do the Skyrim thing where they keep the game purchaseable on Steam, but hide its store page so that a direct link is the only way to access it

 

Also a good idea! Though I think that's much less likely than the pack-in plan because the execs would definitely say "but what if they just buy the cheaper one and ignore the new game!!!". They would of course launder this as "not confusing buyers" but we know what it would mean.

 

There has been no statement on the original release of gens, which is worrying.

I imagine folks behind the scenes are negotiating for the original to not be delisted.

 

There's also the worst case scenario.

They release an update for the PC version making the OG game "Shadow X Sonic Generations" with the shadow content locked behind a paywall.
But you get Denuvo for free!