"Sonic Blitz" softlaunched on mobile devices, digital collectible card game by Rovio

We don't know! Like I said, we're in uncharted territory here. Never under Hardlight did we have new Sonic mobile games get a week away from release only to be indefinitely delayed, and never under hardlight did we discover massive amounts of unimplemented content long before the fact.

 

The anarchy is strong with this one...

So evidently, this game is being made with die-hard fans in mind. But why then a TCG? I guess for shits and giggles? Spice up the card design a bit, at least. Sonic Shuffle is more original than this.

I did a quick Google search. Apparently, Marvel Snap has about 500 cards. Meanwhile, Pokémon Sword and Shield has about 400 Pokémon. If you want to flex, put at least 400 characters into the game, 3D models and all, and give me an adventure mode!

 

Last time they were used anywhere outside of StC (as in Tekno and Ebony having a minor cameo that one issue of Archie), Sega fucking flipped their shit. So if those two are off limits, then we can safely assume that all StC original characters not based on pre-existing ones also are. So there's still hope for Johnny, Porker and Emperor Metallix at least.

 

Sad though, since between the two of them only Lewis has any personality, and the personality is that he's a timid tech guy, which we already have in the series. Johnny ended up totally defined by his death, because the writers never gave him anything interesting in the living world. Even getting kidnapped and replaced by a shadow-monster doppelganger didn't actually expound upon who he is as a person whatsoever.

If I were to take anything from Fleetway, it'd probably be the Drakon, maybe Shanazar, and definitely Captain Plunder, who is hilarious. I like Tekno as an idea more than as a character, she does more than Johnny but still has very few traits overall, I think I mostly just want Amy to be a lesbian again. And Shortfuse is funny, because he's sort of a proto-Shadow, while also being the angsty midpoint between Shadow and Bunnie. I don't mind the Sidewinder gang either, even though they never managed to do much because more important threats were always right behind them.

Super Sonic having the drawback of being really dangerous is also a great idea that moves away from the stupid-ass Dragon Ball power leveling crap, but I fear we've probably missed the boat on that one by now. His character arc in StC was a bunch of confused meandering anyway.

 

I mean, with Johnny and Porker having shown up in books by a couple of publishers and being from the Pre-SatAM designs I find it funny there is a non-zero chance they might show up. Considering there was mention of Nigel Kitching offering Ian to use the Metallix at one point and he's done art for IDW i would find it amazing if somehow they finagled some StC representation all legalities aside. Sad there's such a slim chance for it though. Also always found it funny how StC pretty much did Alien Chao with the Drakkon and Mayan Echidnas before it even happened in game. Strangely prophetic.

 

StC is strangely prophetic in more than a few areas, weirdly enough.

I also wonder why the StC originals are more off limits than others. Are they actually properly owned by their original creators/Fleetway?

 

IIRC British copyright law works slightly differently than in the states, so the writers of the Fleetway comics own the rights to all the characters they made, so it would be as simple as Sega asking them if they can use them

 

I'm convinced Rovio wanted to have lots of characters to fill the roster, so they just scouted the Sonic wiki for random characters and used their descriptions and pics there as a basis without consulting with Sega, as some said. Everything points to it:
- The fact the game is being developed by a non-Sega team
- The character descriptions taken from the wiki
- Speedy using his infamous "diaper" design from pre-reboot Archie
- The fact Sally's description claims she debuted in Sonic the Hedgehog #252 (first issue of the the Archie reboot). Clearly they got that from the most popular Sally article on the wiki, which is about her post-reboot Archie incarnation and as such lists that as her first appearance

I wouldn't be surprised if the "dicks" on Mighty and Speedy were added by disgruntled modellers after the characters were vetoed as a way of saying Fuck you.

Edit: Fair, MH MD.

 

Nah, it's the data miner who added them as a "joke", they aren't like that in the game itself

 

To be honest I don't know if diaper Speedy should be used as evidence that SEGA was not consulted because A) That is the exact kind of weird and stupid mistake they would make with one of their own characters, and B) It's just legitimately really easy to mistake his design as looking like that. I did the exact same thing when I was making a sprite of him recently and I only used his official sprite / art as reference.

 

The point is that they literally used the Archie design, with goggles and all. Those weren't in his sprites or his official art, suggesting they just used the pics from the Speedy wiki page they stumbled upon, which happened to be pre-reboot Archie Speedy.

 

I dont think its unreasonable to assume the speedy designs in archie were also approved by sega as well

 

Irrelevant.

The point is, they probably just used whatever they found on the wiki.

 

Note that it's also possible that that date means June 3rd, since the rest of the world doesn't use a weird date format (not to mention that June 3rd would make way more sense if you look at the calendar).

 

Well, now those leaks are nothing compared to what's happening with Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds lol.

 

I almost lost it when I saw this but since we don’t know for sure yet I’ll contain my excitement. Haha.

 

I'm willing to bet that there's three tiers of character inclusion here:

1. Characters with renders. These are 100% going to be in the game unaltered.
2. Characters with models but no renders. These are subject to change, and perhaps to be cut entirely if that's what Sega wants.
3. Characters with neither models or renders. These are possible additions that Rovio has yet to consult Sega on, and the least likely to show up in the game at all.

 

On the discussion earlier about Rovio being able to get characters that were previously stated by Ian Flynn as "no goes": I think the reason why Rovio is getting more leeway when it comes to what they include is simply because they are a big company and Sega respects them more. Rovio has made profitable projects before, and they have a team of lawyers and consultants that can make their decisions seem more 'professional', meanwhile Ian Flynn is just a guy. A very talented and dedicated guy who has spent decades on the franchise, but still just a guy.
I have the same opinion about games like Playstation Allstars not being able to get the obvious must-haves, the fact they they were being developed by relative nobodies meant they had less negotiating power. I really don't think anything like Smash Bros could get produced without some very respected industry veteran like Sakurai fronting it without needing to make some very harsh compromises.
Basically, when I am imagine the discussions that would've had to happen to get these things approved, I am imagining a Rovio rep in a suit, perhaps they get someone who speaks native japanese to make communication easier, and they are pulling out very fancy charts and analytics. Also angry birds revenue is constantly falling out his pockets.
Then I imagine Ian Flynn very kindly saying something like "actually, I've read a lot of forum posts and I think the fans would really like to see Sahrah again" or whatever.
To clarify, I don't think this is a good thing, Ian is obviously way more pasionate that 99% of people working on the series, and he apparently had some sway over things like Frontiers' ancients so its obviously not a black and white- but I really do think that a lot of the "sega mandates" we talk so much about seem a lot more like suggestions when a corpo with a billion dollar IP under their belt joins the discussion.

TLDR: Rovio can get sally when Ian couldn't because Rovio showed sega a chart saying how much money they could make selling Sally Maid Outfits.

 

I DIDN'T CONSIDER THAT
But in hindsight, ha.