The Supreme Topic of 'Other' Knowledge.

We all played Sonic X-treme in 2001, but in space.

 

I hate the comparisons to Galaxy because of that. There was some real Mario-fication in Lost World but it was in the aesthetics and overall presentation of the title. Things like the world map, the level themes, red rings (I know these started in Colors obv), the general “corporate sheen” of the assets, etc., all seem more reminiscent of the New SMB series than anything Galaxy did.

Anyway, I didn’t mind Lost World’s gameplay in 3D that much but I’m glad it was a one and done. I think I would have preferred a follow-up to it over what we got in Forces, but I think Forces’ reception was necessary to progress us towards Frontiers which I think in turn will lead the series towards an even better style.

 

I've always thought that. And Super Mario Sunshine both had a big Bowser robot like the Death Egg Robot and focused a lot on water and a "water" enemy like Sonic Adventure did. I don't know if it was intentional or not. Anyway, Sonic borrows from lots of sources too.

 

it is also possible that there are multiple things taking inspiration from the same source

 

Sixth generation was all about water.

 

Folks... Did You Know Gaming released a vid about the Adventure titles.
And it seems to me it has VERY interesting tidbits in it...

 

It also uses Sonic Retro as a source in the video description. Which I think is neat.

 

At long, long last, an explanation regarding the characters' aesthetic change that could lay to rest the "characters aging between classic and modern games" theory...

And that background intel regarding how SA1&2's stories got developed...
(Maekawa disliking the original iteration of the franchise was already a known thing)
But him loving Shadow to such degree... Dear Goodness...
I'm a wannabe writer, with some degrees of attachment to my characters, but not to such levels...

 

Well it pretty much has been canonized now that the characters did age between Classic and Modern. But yeah that wasn't the original intent.

 

I'm sorry for saying this... I hate that having happened... -_-

 

We should all strive to create or work on a character that feels closer to us than a relative.
It's why Shadow's recent lack of depth or voice as a character sucks so much, because it really does mean something to a lot of people.

 

Yesterday I felt nostalgic for the old Chao Laboratory website so I went through the archive on Chao Island. I didn't realise the colouring PDFs from the old downloads section were essentially just illustrator files with all the paths intact.

There's some cool art here that might be worth preserving independently of those PDFs if it hasn't been already! Attached some PNG exports as examples.

 

Ah yes, those useless tits who attributed the Ashura bug to an overflow of the "sprite status table" because that's what Retro's wiki said at the time... and they didn't even bother citing it as their source.

 

The chao lab looks like the powerpuff girls house.

 

At the very least, they called themselves out for the Omochao line about the Chao Doctor.

I don't think they went back and edited the original wrong fact out, but...

 

So nobody knows that Sonic Retro was wrong!

The Did You Know Gaming premise is inherently flawed by virtue of it being a video series, so unless they're going to constantly maintain hundreds of uploads, it's always going to be a snapshot of what is known at the time, and facts have a half-life.

As a wiki, Sonic Retro can be changed instantly, so it should always be the better source as long as it's maintained. But DYKG reaches a different audience - it's literally the "did you know" section of Wikipedia's front page, as opposed to... Wikipedia's actual pages. If I don't care enough to want to read an essay on Mario or Zelda, it's a tool to get some of the main points across. Sourcing info is helpful, but most of the time it's regurgitated from the internet, so is usually easy to find... unless they made it up.


The problem is when DYKG has information that isn't on our wikis, which means someone on our end needs to do some work. As I've said a couple of times recently, I think that might be happening on the Sonic 2 front - get editing!

 

For whatever reason, in the past day, I've read on a variety of forums and other social media a lot of wrong information about how the VMU works, so a couple of corrections I'd like to scream into the void:

1) The VMU did not use SRAM. Your battery dying has no relation to your saves. When the VMU's battery dies, your saves do not go with them, because the VMU saves to flash memory, like basically every other major memory card.

2) Using the VMU in your dreamcast controller does not drain the battery. The battery is solely for using the VMU game hardware (read: the potato CPU inside) when out of the Dreamcast controller. When the VMU is in the dreamcast controller, the VMU's internal CPU is not active at all, the images you see on the VMU are coming from the Dreamcast itself. When the VMU is connected to the Dreamcast, the SH4 can go through the maple bus itself and access the screen directly and plot pixels.

3) A long beep coming from your dreamcast does not have anything to do with the VMU. When the VMU battery is dead, the VMU itself will beep when the dreamcast is powered on, but it's a short beep and it comes from the speaker in the VMU. When the Dreamcast itself beeps a very long beep, it means the SRAM battery inside the Dreamcast is dead. The Dreamcast has a tiny amount of internal memory saved with a battery. This memory holds things such as the dial up modem settings, which can only be set from the dream web disc. This long beep means the battery has died and the internal memory is reset.

 

Absolutely! If VMUs used battery-backed SRAM then my save data would have been toast sooo many times over by now!

I never really put any thought into point 2, but yeah that logically makes perfect sense! Until I got into Zigbee-based motion sensors for home automation purposes I didn't regularly have spare CR2032 batteries lying around, so I just always took it as a given that my VMUs' batteries wouldn't last long; the thought of what actions I could take to extend the dismally-short battery life never occurred to me. I'm sure if it had then I would have tried this and possibly parroted false info, so it's good to see it stopped.

For the third... yeah, you're absolutely right; the only thing is I don't know if I'd define the "dead VMU batteries" beep as short in isolation? It's about a second or two long from memory, and I get how people can call that a long beep. After the SRAM battery died in my Dreamcast awhile back, I heard that beep from the console itself and yeah it's definitely a bIt longer! You already know this so I'm preaching to the choir here, but for anyone else reading: there is definitely a noticeable difference between the shorter beep from the controller (well, the VMU in the controller) for "VMU battery dead" and the longer beep from the console itself for "SRAM Battery Dead."

 

Your dial up modem settings don't die with the Dreamcast's internal battery. The Dreamcast's internal battery is for maintaining the internal clock.

There is also no speaker or buzzer inside the Dreamcast to make it beep.

 

Some newer VMUs appear to have had the beep tweaked to be longer. I don't know when things were changed but you can tell based on what the default date is when the VMU is given fresh batteries -- older ones default to the Japanese system release date, and newer ones will take a later date than that. As I've bought mine from a handful of eBay sales, I have some of each kind. The ones in translucent plastic colors I have are all newer models.