The Supreme Topic of 'Other' Knowledge.

Nice video. I found The topic of Robotnik surname and it's connection to Polish word "Robotnik" (meaning "Worker") most interesting, but I am a bit sceptical. I've checked, and although the name Ivo exist in Poland, it's really rare (around two hundred kids were named "Iwo" in 2017). I'll elaborate on it a bit more in the coming days, as I have to do a bit of linguistics research.

Edit: edited for clarity.

 

The Slavic interpretation of the Robotnik name does allow for some nice head canon that he ended up adopted Eggman out of some kind of vanity, refusing to be called a worker. Even better that it can also be interpreted as “helper”, which speaks to the characters of Gerald and Maria Robotnik. I doubt this was intentional, but it’s nice happenstance nevertheless.

 

https://archive.org/details/saturn-fan-1995-no.-3-3-15/page/66/mode/1up

Chaotix prototype screenshots!

Nothing very exciting - I think this is just the 1227 build, but it did teach me something - if set to NTSC-J, the tutorial is played in Japanese. I mean, I guess you would expect it to, but it's not something I thought about, and yeah, both Japanese and English were in place by 1207. So that's a thing.

 

https://twitter.com/Render96VGTP/status/1444498348317216769?t=EvL0100QWL65x6WAA7bYAQ&s=19

 

https://archive.org/details/Vol.15PoeticImpressionOnTheSkyAndCloudsMIXA1995/00coverfront.jpg

 

TIL indeed.

Meta Jungri-la makes much more sense seeing that. I'm assuming 'Junglira' is just an L/R translation error then?

 

What does the "meta" part mean here, then? Giving the zone the name of "Beyond Shangri-La" sounds weird, and it isn't a metal zone either, if that was a possibility. I'd argue that the letter swap would either be a way to make the word sound more like the jungle the level looks like, or engrish came in and messed it up.

 

"Meta" has a meaning in my mind akin to "high-level", "over-arching", or "all-encompassing".
"Jungri-la" being a near-identical symbol swap for an earthly paradise is cute.

シャングリラ ->shangurira (symbol-by-symbol) ->Shangri-La
ジャングリラ -> jangurira (symbol-by-symbol) -> Jungri-la (properly reflects how the og JP sounds like the English word jungle, keeps the reference mostly intact)

 

An interview with Jun'ichi Kanemaru and Takashi Iizuka has been posted. It's in Japanese though, but it seems to have a lot of info in it (how Kanemaru didn't know he was auditioning for Sonic, Iizuka thinking that the franchise needed Sonic to talk to move into the future, some of Jun'ichi's background etc etc).

 

https://twitter.com/MikeJMika/status/1445788551468122120?t=C7M391eA42Ki4ZIMMFZZwg&s=19
:p

 

What does it say?

 

...You mean you can't read twitter?

It's a Sonic Riders gamecube prototype dated about 6 months before the game's release. Someone will need to cross check with the retail version's build date.

 

I think I posted an historical NPD list of Sonic games that I could find a few years back, primarily by scrounging around Era/Gaf discussion threads. In light of the NPD charts posted earlier today (which contains some information on Sonic Colors: Ultimate's performances -- go check the thread for that for a more detailed breakdown); I decided to revisit my historical NPD list, and decided to see if I can add a few more.

Thanks to using site searches for IGN and especially GameSpot (I must give the latter a massive kudos for having most of their 'ChartSpot' articles from the mid-late 2000s well preserved!), I was able to find quite a lot more NPD charts for various Sonic games from the 2000s to add to my existing list.

[12/9/2022 Update]: For now, I'm turning this into a masterpost of historical NPD Sonic games. (Not counting Mario & Sonic Olympics Games here, I've recorded them in other threads though. Maybe I'll add them later.) I'll also just use this as a hub to link to other sales charts posts I (and others) have done prior. (This sentence is just here to pad out more links.)

Here are my findings so far:

2020s

Sonic Frontiers - #4 (General Top 20, November 2022), #2 (Top 10 - Nintendo Platforms, November 2022), #4 (Top 10 - Xbox Platforms, November 2022), #5 (Top 10 - PlayStation Platforms, November 2022)
Sonic Colors Ultimate - #13 (General Top 20, September 2021); #10 (Top 10 - Nintendo Switch, September 2021)

-
2010s

Team Sonic Racing - #19 (General Top 20, May 2019)
Sonic Forces - #7 (Top 10 - Nintendo Switch, November 2017)
Sonic Generations - #9 (Top 10 - Nintendo 3DS, February 2012)
Sonic Colors - #9 (Top 10 - Nintendo DS, January 2011)

-
2000s

Sonic and the Black Knight - #10 (Top 10 - Wii, March 2009); #13 (Top 20 - Wii, April 2009)
Sonic the Hedgehog Genesis - #8 (Top 10 - Game Boy Advance, January 2009)
Sonic Unleashed - #7 (Top 10 - PlayStation 2, December 2008)
Sonic and the Secret Rings - #13 (General Top 20 - February 2007), #4 (Top 10 - Wii, February 2007); #17 (General Top 20 - March 2007); #3 (Top 10 - Wii, March 2007); #7 (Top 10 - Wii, March 2007);
Sonic Rivals - #10 (Top 10 - PSP, December 2006)
Sonic Riders - #13 (General Top 20, March 2006), #1 (Top 10 - GameCube, March 2006); #1 (Top 10 - GameCube, April 2006); #6 (Top 10 - GameCube, May 2006)
Sonic Rush - #7 (Top 10 - Nintendo DS, December 2005); #9 (Top 10 - Nintendo DS, January 2006);
Shadow the Hedgehog - #5 (Top 10 - GameCube, November 2005); #3 (Top 10 - GameCube, December 2005); #8 (Top 10 - GameCube, January 2006) / #11 (Top 15 - Gamecube, 2005; 260K copies sold)
Sonic Gems Collection - #5 (Top 10 - Gamecube, August 2005); #3 (Top 10 - Gamecube, September 2005)
Sonic Advance 3 - #6 (Top 10 - GBA, June 2004); #8 (Top 10 - GBA, July 2004); #9 (Top 10 - GBA, August 2004)
Sonic Heroes - #6 (Top 10 - Gamecube, April 2004); #9 (Top 10 - Gamecube, May 2004) / #5 (Top 10 - First quarter of 2004, GameCube ver.)
Sonic Mega Collection - #4 (Top 10 - Gamecube, May 2004); #6 (Top 10 - Gamecube, June 2004); #6 (Top 10 - Gamecube, July 2004); #6 (Top 10 - Gamecube, August 2004); #7 (Top 10 - Gamecube, September 2004)

-
1990s

Sonic 3D Blast - #20 (Top 20 - Year End 1996)

 

This aired last year at some point. Sonic has us skip past the meerkats and Robinsons to plug his film.

 

https://twitter.com/forestillusion/status/1452213002191654917?t=DpbYpbNHuQBz8TQTa4HRFQ&s=19
New Sonic Mega Collection proto?

 

I bid on some telecards recently, one of them being this one:



I found it interesting as I've not seen this art before and it's distinctly different from the usual style we see from this era. It's almost an Uekawa Yūji style...

The auction was here:
https://page.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/q1013188091

(No I didn't win, went higher than I like to pay for telecards.)

Also, I recently bought a shitajiki featuring Sonic and Eggman on motocycles:


Not sure if it was included with the Sonic Screensaver art, and too lazy to dig out my rip and check, but it probably was. Either way, I've scanned it in higher res here:

https://archive.org/details/sonic_motorcycle_shitajiki

 

It was but at the atrocious quality you would expect for how long ago it came out lol

 

That Sonic is from Uekawa, and it was used a lot during the Saturn era. Most people have probably seen it in the Project Sonic logo, but as a silhouette.

 

I love how pocket adventure repurposed the silhouette for the act title cards lol

 

It seems like Pocket Adventure repurposed a lot of things from Sonic Jam, to the point where I'd be surprised if they didn't intend on calling it Sonic Jam before it was repurposed to be a companion to Adventure.