The Supreme Topic of 'Other' Knowledge.

The rumor mill has produced it's most recent Sonic "leak," this time supposedly being a game called "Sonic Rift" (would be a modern title with Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Shadow, and Silver; Sonic and Shadow would have boost gameplay, Silver would have better 06 gameplay, Tails would be in a mech and Knuckles would treasure hunt but there'd be some werehog thrown in there. There'd also be a companion mobile chao garden app) and a "Sonic 5" (A new classic game made by the Mania team minus Stealth for some reason. It'd have 16 all original zones, a soundtrack composed by Tee Lopes and Jun Senoue, and it'd have all 5 of Mania's playable characters).

So yup, take of it what you will Sounds too best timeline for me.

 

Oh no, please keep the modern/classic music styles distinct, for the love of god.

 

Sounds a bit too good to be true.

...that part sounds surprisingly believable though. I mean, Stealth IS busy at the moment with his Kickstater project (even if the original run got canned, it'll be back eventually iirc)

 

It's a damn shame the name Sonic 4 was sullied by the actual Sonic 4. Had it never existed and Mania was the return to classic Sonic glory from the start, it'd of been perfect to call the next all new retro Sonic "Sonic 4."

 

They could always call it something like "Sonic 4 Real".

 

This can’t be true. I’m sure Sonic Team isn’t that smart or that incompetent.

 

"Sonic 4: the good one"

 

I refuse to believe they would ever put Tails in a mech again. Literally the only reason they did in SA2 was so he could be Eggman's hero counterpart.

And while I believe a Mania follow-up is forthcoming, I very much doubt they would call it Sonic 5. Either Mania 2 or a brand new name is more likely.

 

Well the rumor says that Sonic 5 is more likely than not just a working title. The rumor also said Taxman wanted to put Shadow in but Sonic Team said no, which is believable enough I guess considering how Shadow was in Megamix and Sonic Team is very much against mixing modern/classic characters.

Sonic 4 is a weird game. Plot wise it takes place after Sonic 3 & Knuckles but I think it's now considered a modern title. Mania is an alternate timeline that was created after Generations, which seems to have ripped classic Sonic post S3K but before Sonic 4, so in the current Classic timeline Sonic 4 never happened but Mania and Forces did (Fuck time travel). Only way Sonic 5 would work is if they stuck to the modern designs which I think they know better than to do that with those titles.

 

Meh, I don't buy that either. Megamix happened before the timesplit, so they didn't need to explain why modern characters were appearing in the classic setting: the idea of 2 universes wasn't around yet. An official game would have to explain why Shadow's all of a sudden in the classic universe. Tax and crew did their best to make Mania a consistent world within the classic universe, and included old, classic-only characters rather than borrow anyone introduced post-SA1. Considering how Sonic Team fucked up their own attempt at character fanservice in Forces, I highly doubt they would've vetoed Shadow's inclusion in Mania, or a classic follow-up.

That's fair, but what I meant was that I feel like the poor reception of Sonic 4 kind of destroyed the possibility of naming anything Sonic 5 (if they had kept the working title of Sonic the Portable, the game would probably have just been forgotten rather than despised).

 

I mean I suppose a plot could be made up that would introduce Shadow into the Classic world, almost like a Classic retelling of Sonic Adventure 2, but it wouldn't be worth it IMO. We already have Mighty, Metal Sonic, and Knuckles and the three of them combined kind of make Shadow anyway (the red and black look alike, the evil doppelganger, and the rival).

 

I’ve noticed that Sonic games nowadays tend to mimic what Nintendo’s doing with Mario (eg Colors/Lost World being like Mario Galaxy, Sonic 4 being like NSMB) so I have a feeling Sega might make the next game a collectathon a la Mario Odyssey. I wouldn’t be opposed to that idea if it happens, because IMO new Sonic games downplay platforming too much in favor of speed.

 

Sonic 4: As You Actually Imagined It

 

Always thought like that, but then i remember that some other seriess suffered worse and still continued just fine, say what you want about sonic 4, but it is a playable masterpiece if you compare it to a turd like Devil May Cry 2, yet DMC continued for 3, 4, and 5 -despite some weird reboot coming before it, but they continued straight to 5 anyway-

If anything, Mario Odyssey is the game that mimic Sonic, Sonic Unleashed to be precise, the whole world travelling aspect, the boxart is simliar to japanese unleashed box art, in fact you can argue that unleashed had some collactathon element, the Sun&Moon medals, which are required to move forward, yet most people didn't like them -didn't mind them personally-

 

Issue #4 of the UK's Sega Magazine (edited by Digital Foundry's Richard Leadbetter), uploading I type this. This had a release date of 15th March, so a little bit later. Apparently they had many calls and letters pointing towards this Game Genie code - the "normal" code presumably not being available.

You know how copy protection of PC games is cracked within a few days? Well this is where the energy went in the early 90s - breaking things open with Game Genie or Action Replay. To find this in less than a month is not unusual.

 

The "Knuckles" code was discovered shortly after too, although I can't remember if that was printed in Sega Mag UK or Mean Machines Sega.

I can't ever remember the Sonic and Knuckles level select input code ever being printed in a UK mag though, I didn't know it existed until I first got the internet.

 

Yeah, Sega Magazine UK had an Action replay code that would let you unlock Knuckles in Sonic 3. You would still get Sonic as a sprite, but he would play like Knuckles and all the text would refer to Knuckles.

And yeah I always though it was odd how the S&K level select codes never made it to the UK mags. Bizarrely they are even omitted from Sonic Jam.

 

I know Sonic 3 was rushed, but seriously the fact they left Flying Battery, Mushroom Valley, and Sandopolis in the level select was just sloppy. How much effort would it have taken to A. Remove those level names and B. Not show Sonic 2 level icons.

Sonic 2 replaced its entire title screen and implemented the new level select in like the last 2 weeks of it's development. The fuck happened here?

EDIT: Also wish they swapped the level select background out. If S3 didnt reuse the S2 level select background it might not have been considered the default background for classic Sonic menus for all fucking time

 

Secretly genius word-of-mouth marketing tactic for people to wonder what these zones are, and then suddenly bam Sonic & Knuckles bangs in with the answers?

 

There was a Sonic 1-3&K "players guide"/"cheat guide" in a few issues of the UK "Mean Machines Sega Magazine". I had a 2-page spread of it I've had since... forever it seems (but I'd long forgotten what issue it was in as I'd ripped it out). It took me a lot of trawling through archive.org [instead of giving you my scanned in version of it] and finally found them:

https://archive.org/stream/mean-machines-sega-magazine-21#page/n39/mode/2up - Sonic 3 cheats (including an invincibility cheat).
https://archive.org/stream/mean-machines-sega-magazine-30#page/n45/mode/2up - first Sonic 2-page spread.
https://archive.org/stream/mean-machines-sega-magazine-47#page/n49/mode/2up - the one I had, with other Sonic cheats not included in the second link.

None that could unlock Knuckles though.