Sonic The Hedgehog

Zamuel

Pittied fools.
Citizen
I think alot of things are going on behind the scenes with Sonic Team. Of immediate note, Takashi Iizuka, current head of Sonic Team, has gotten a promotion within Sega. While it's mostly doing the same things he's already doing, an official title gives him more leverage. Notably, he had to argue with the higher ups to get the team more time to finish Sonic Frontiers. Along with the already reported news that Sega is giving Sonic Team more resources, having a team member at executive level should make things easier.

But of the quieter things, I think the mandates on Sonic might be shifting. I noticed the covers of upcoming comics:

One with with Sonic and Amy interacting and one that treats the members of Team Dark as Team Dark. Then there's other things like various Twitter comments from members of Sonic Team. Morio Kishimoto, director for Sonic Frontiers, stated that he hadn't heard of the "only male hedgehogs can go Super" rule. Could mean it's going away like the "Two Worlds" thing, though it could also be a case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing.
 
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Zamuel

Pittied fools.
Citizen
Now this is interesting. Been watching Sonic's Japanese Twitter account and something that happened last month was a poll for a 'what if' type drawing. It was for Tikal in a pizza shop and the vote was for if the person who helped her would be Chaos or Pachacamac with Chaos winning by a landslide. The image and story are here.

The current vote has Silver with either Elise or Merlina:

A number of fascinating things about this: First is an acknowledgement of non Eggman humans in Sonic. Second is the acknowledgement of the Storybook Series games. But third, and most importantly, acknowledging Sonic '06. While Sega of America will meme 06, I was under the impression that Sega of Japan was too ashamed of it to acknowledge it at all. With Elise narrowly winning, we'll get to see her drawn instead of 3D rendered.
 

Sabrblade

Continuity Nutcase
Citizen
More specifically, the Silver poll is for either Elise or Merlina to appear with him in an illustration of Silver being a coach instructing either Elise as an athlete or Merlina as an artist.
 

Sabrblade

Continuity Nutcase
Citizen
Meanwhile, this popped up in my YouTube recommendations:


Having not watched this arc since it originally aired on TV (as the 4Kids dub, no less), it only just occurred to me that Dark Oak's ultimate plan was basically like the extreme polar opposite of SatAM Robotnik's ambitions.
 

Zamuel

Pittied fools.
Citizen
And to follow up both the above signs that things are changing and the prior discussion on Shadow, Evan Stanley has confirmed that Shadow's mandates have changed. This is big since Shadow had his own limitations outside of all the other mandates put on writing the series.
 

Zamuel

Pittied fools.
Citizen
Figured stuff would start happening mid March. TailsTube #4 just dropped:


With Amy covered and thus Sonic's main cast completed, I wonder who will be next. My immediate guesses would be either Cream or Shadow.
 

Zamuel

Pittied fools.
Citizen
So...I have a discussion about a thing but I'm going about it in a somewhat roundabout way. I happened to stumble across a video about how Sonic is supposedly "fundamentally Japanese":


It was an odd situation since I found some of his actual facts insightful but I hard disagreed with his conclusion that the American side of the franchise is 'incorrect'. I hold that the earlier discussion that western + eastern + 90s cool is why Sonic works. Bad translations have certainly happened but Sega's pulled some things into the franchise from the American side of things and ignored other things. The franchise has been around long enough that people on both sides of the pond have employees who grew up liking Sonic and the involvement of newer people alters things. And of course there's the whole fact that some of the original members of Sonic Team have gone on record stating that the series was designed for America so they like seeing what Americans do with it.

The wrinkle comes from the comments. There's surprisingly civil conversation in the comments, particularly since most of it is disagreeing with him, and/or pointing out translation inaccuracies. The comments bring about the actual discussion.

I was watching and didn't finish his video on Amy, specifically about her currently displayed strength level compared to her role as the Normal. I'll opt not to link to it since I kinda get a neckbeard elitist vibe from him and would rather not give him the clicks (only linked the above due to some of the actually interesting talking points). But before clicking elsewhere, I looked at the comments. Good discussion was brought up, such as the fact that the introduction of Rouge and Cream shifted things or pointing out that she actually is one of the few characters we've seen explicitly train. But one comment caught my eye in particular. It pointed out that Amy had an arc of improvement across SA1, SA2, and Heroes with Japanese version of Heroes having a key difference from the American translation in that she originally challenges Sonic to a fight to prove she is worth marrying as opposed to trying to force him into marriage. And then it hit me, I was halfway joking in our Amy discussion a while back but this was a confirmation I was actually correct. It actually got me thinking that one of the things that might be holding back some rereleases might be a desire to redo the dialogue an the effort that might require since some of the original voice actors are no longer available.
 

ZakuConvoy

Well-known member
Citizen
I don't want to sound greedy...but it's a little weird they didn't just throw in the Genesis versions of 3D Blast, Mean Bean Machine, and Spinball while they were at it. Just the Game Gear versions.

The absence of Knuckles Chaotix isn't really surprising, but it would be nice for that to get a re-release someday. The Advance GBA games would ALSO have been nice. Maybe in a second collection?

But, hopefully this cleans up the problems the original release had.
 

Steevy Maximus

Well known pompous pontificator
Citizen
Yeah, I don't get the omission of 3d Blast and the Genesis versions of other games at this stage. Unless they're going to try and milk fans on a third release.
I don't think you sound greedy at all, ZakuConvoy. Sega has released compilations of MORE of these games at a LESSER price in years past. Spruced up or not, I think Origins was an overpriced collection that Sega keeps nickel and diming fans on. Literally, fans were paying $40 to play a spruced up port of Sonic 3/Knuckles.

With this latest update (the extra playable characters, the Game Gear library), this collection almost feels worth the $40 asking price. If you're getting the new physical release, that is. If you already got it, you're probably going to get a $10 or so surcharge for the DLC in June, despite ALREADY paying $40 for this collection.
 

LBD "Nytetrayn"

Broke the Matrix
Staff member
Council of Elders
Citizen
It'd be nice if Sonic 1, 2, and Chaos were the Master System versions, and they just called them the Game Gear versions because that's what people would probably know them from, and "12 Game Gear games" sounds snappier than "9 Game Gear and 3 Master System games".

It'd be nice...
 

Zamuel

Pittied fools.
Citizen
Origins exists in a weird space. The original release was buggy and unfinished with what we're getting in Plus being what it should have been at launch. Yet, the fact that it sold well is probably the only reason we're getting these updates. It's been confirmed that there's a ton of bug fixes included--and this was fielded by bugs players sent in. It makes me even more curious on how the behind the scenes changes and the current corporate shakeup will affect things because it really feels like Sonic Team wants to make good games while Sega just wants to shove things out the door.
 
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Blot

Well-known member
Citizen
Sega really said "Sonic is seen as a joke in 2023... quick, re-release Sonic Blast and Sonic Labyrinth".
 

Zamuel

Pittied fools.
Citizen
Think of Sonic gameplay in Donkey Kong Country style visuals. Now downgrade that from 16 bit to 8 bit. It was distinctly different from the isometric 3D of Sonic 3D Blast.
 


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