45 replies to this topic

[Felix]

Background Info & Development

Sonic X-Treme is an unreleased Sonic The Hedgehog game for the Sega Saturn, that was meant to be released during the Christmas season of 1996. The game was originally conceived in three stages. Once conceived as an untitled isometric platformer for the Genesis akin to that of Sonic 3D Blast, Sonic Labyrinth & SegaSonic The Hedgehog, then as a game for the Genesis named Sonic-16 (A more slow-paced, story-driven platformer that was based on the then popular Saturday morning cartoon series, Sonic The Hedgehog a.k.a Sonic SatAM, but was then scrapped when Yuji Naka gave it the thumbs down.) The project was then moved to the Sega 32X as a game called Sonic Mars, which was meant to be the first 3D Sonic game, but scrapped due to the commercial failure of the 32X & it's system limitations,. The project was moved to the Saturn, & evolved into the game we know today as, Sonic X-Treme. A PC port was also planned during development, but later scrapped due to time constraints & shortage on money.

199(?)- The untitled isometric game (Genesis/Mega Drive)

1993- Sonic-16 (Genesis/Mega Drive)

1994- Sonic Mars (32X)

Sonic X-Treme was meant to be Sonic's foray into the third-dimension, the first Sonic game for the Saturn, the first mainstream Sonic platformer since Sonic & Knuckles, and was meant to be the big seller for the Saturn, which was lagging in sales & popularity outside of Japan. After the release of S&K, SEGA wanted to keep up the momentum of the Sonic franchise, realizing it's potential. With varying spin-offs being released after the release of S&K, SEGA gave the Sega Technical Institute (a division of Sega Of America known for creating games such as Sonic 2, Sonic Spinball, The Ooze, Comix Zone, Kid Chameleon, among others.) a big assignment, to create the true successor to Sonic & Knuckles. The project would be directed by game designer, Chris Senn. He would later be crucial to sharing information about the game's history and development, which he would share on the Sonic X-Treme Compendium, and at the Sonic X-Treme section of his own personal forum, the Senntient.

Two teams would be working on the game. The first making the stages, directed by Chris Senn & programmer Ofler Alon. The second, who would be programming the boss fights was led by programmer Chris Coffin. With few development items at their disposal, the team asked the new CEO of Sega Of America, Bernie Stolar for the engine used in NiGHTS Into Dreams. A few days later, the team obtained the engine, and had gotten familiar with it, Shortly after that, Yuji Naka had found out his engine had been taken without his consent, and threatened to quit Sega. SEGA took warning, and the team was forced to go back to square one, and create their own custom engine. Though, things would later take a turn for the worse.

With the Christmas season of 1996 approaching, and not much work getting done, the team was in trouble. With the huge number of concepts and ideas bustling around, and a very small number of them intended to make the cut, the lack of a cemented story, and two crucial people in the dev. team having medical problems (Chris Coffin & Chris Senn). Coffin had been working almost nonstop on the game, with only a few hours of sleep in the office. He was eventually overtaken with pneumonia due to overworking, the doctor told him he had 5 months to live if he kept it up, therefore forcing Coffin to leave the project. Senn had developed major medical problems also due to overworking. And just in general due to time constraints, and tons of things going on at once. It would come to realization to the team that the game would not be ready in time for Christmas.

With official word saying the game had been postponed. But in reality, the game would never reach store shelves. After years of production, Sonic X-Treme was finally cancelled in early 1997, and the Sega Technical Institute soon fell apart. To make up for the game's cancellation, a port of Sonic 3D Blast was released for the Sega Saturn, including enchanced graphics, a new special stage, and a whole new soundtrack by Richard Jacques.

Meh.

We wouldn't see a 3D Sonic game on the Saturn until the the release of Sonic Jam, and it's "Sonic World" portion, & Sonic R. Though, Sonic's full-length 3D adventure would be Sonic Adventure on the Sega Dreamcast, released in December 1998 in Japan, and internationally in 1999.

Story

No story was officially cemented for Sonic X-Treme, with as much as 7 ideas for a story for the game. The best known out of all is one that came out of a magazine article called Red Shoe Diaries, which explained the enemies & characters in the game.

The proposed story involves Sonic receiving a "bluestreak" distress signal, and runs to the home to two people, Professor Gazebo Boobowski, & his daughter Tiara Boobowski. (Tiara is a new character who would of been introduced in the game as a love interest to Sonic. Her species is a minx kitten.)

Line art of Tiara Boobowski, by Chris Senn, director of Sonic X-Treme.

The two are the guradians of "The Rings Of Order", and also knowing about the ancient art of ring smithing. Dr. Eggman had learned of the rings, and wants to have them to his own. The professor wants Sonic to get the rings before the evil doctor can.

A final story, authorized by Hirokazu Yasuhara & Richard Wheeler involves Eggman creating a new Detah Egg larger than the planet Earth. The gravity of the new station causes other planets to fall into an orbit around the space station. Tails uses a teleport pod to bring Sonic to the new Death Egg to defeat Eggman, but Tails' pod is intercepted by one of the planets in orbit, and Sonic finds himself on a strange new world, and discovers the badniks are now powered by strange alien beings called Mips. Eggman had knew that Sonic might have attempted to reach his new Death Egg, and successfully brought him into his trap. Now Sonic must free the captive Mips, destroy the new Death Egg, and save the world from the clutches of Dr. Eggman!

There were also story drafts including concepts of having characters from Sonic SatAM involved, but never made it past that stage.

Gameplay

As mentioned before, the goal of Sonic X-Treme was to put Sonic in a fully 3D environment, encouraging more exploration & a "go anywhere & run through" concept. The levels are constructed in a tube-like fashion, with the fish-eyed style camera, giving the player more surroundings of the level, and due to the tube-like structures of the levels, help point you to your ultimate destination. Sonic is also able to run up walls and ceilings to reach different destinations.

Video showcasing Sonic's gameplay in Sonic X-Treme.

(For more gameplay videos, go to the person's channel for more)

During development, other characters were meant to be playable. These were Miles "Tails" Prower", Knuckles The Echidna, & Tiara Boobowski. Tails would have have the camera positioned behind him, and having gameplay similar to that of the classics. Knuckles would have the camera at a top-down view, and players being able to see a maze around him. Tiara would have played like a traditional side-scrolling platformer. All of these characters would be scrapped all for in favor of Sonic being the only character playable, due to time constraints. Amy Rose was also considered to be a playable character, but only went so far as a sprite of her being made.

New moves are also proposed for Sonic, such as a "Power Ball" (allowing you to defeat enemies below), "Super Bounce" (a higher jump, but with less control), a ring shield allowing you to create a shield depending on how many rings you have, and "Sonic Boom" which would have killed all enemies on screen. A ring attack, in which you throw a ring at an enemy to destroy it, was also considered early during development.

4 levels were completed before cancellation. Jade Gully Zone, Crystal Frost Zone, Red Sands Zone, & Galaxy Fortress/Death Egg Zone. Many other levels were conceptualized during development, but were only mentioned in documents, or were never made due to the game's cancellation. Numerous test levels were also made during development to test the game's engine.

Bosses in this game were built to be in a NiGHTS-esque area, where they would fight an oversized boss. Two of the most well-known bosses in this game are Metal Sonic & Fang The Sniper/Nack The Weasel, which would've made this game their first 3D debut. But due to the game's cancellation, they would not make a 3D appearance until the release of Sonic The Fighters in arcades in 1997. Many other boss fights were conceptualized, but never made it past that phase.

Thoughts

Sonic X-Treme is the Sonic game we will probably never be able to fully play, and only look back on what effects it could of had on the series, and the Sega Saturn. Some say it could have helped make the Saturn of success, some say it possibly could have potentially killed the franchise. (i.e. The Sonic '06 of the 1990s.) Though, I did play the game myself (sorta..) by playing a demo of Crystal Frost Zone, from the fan remake of X-Treme called "Project AXSX." The fish-eye camera was a bit iffy to me at first, but I found my experience with it very fun. The game might have gotten lukewarm reviews at best, but it probably would've sold pretty well.

What are your thoughts on Sonic X-Treme and it's ideals? Could it have been the success SEGA was hoping for if released in your eyes? Could it have brought down the franchise when released? Do you think it would've been enjoyable to the gaming public & Saturn owners?

This is the general Sonic X-Treme thread. Discuss!

Extra Links:

The Sonic X-Treme Compendium: http://www.senntient.../sxc/index.html

Senntient - Sonic X-Treme: http://www.senntient...forum.php?id=21

Edited by Felix, 28 July 2012 - 09:58 PM.

[Soniman]

Never saw the appeal, the game always looked like a mess to me.

[Gen]

Personally, I'm a bit neutral about the game. I think it looked like a fantastic game that would've posted high quality graphics, and it does look fun.
But, two things bother me. The first, being the development. Development was a major problem since the developers tried to give it their all for this. While I admire this, I felt they put too much time, and were getting sick from it. Along with a small team, this would've been an average, if not, bad game due to their inexperience with this type of programming. The second, is how the game... moves. Why on how it moves? Well, for starters, the camera would've gotten in the way, a lot, like a lot of early 3D games, but since the game would've been fast paced, it would've been worse than say, Super Mario 64's camera, which did have it's faults. Also, since I get dizzy easily, I probably would've gotten a headache with all the going up and down stuff. XP
I liked the concepts, and they seemed to have a lot of promise. Again, since the development team was small, it wouldn't have worked out very well for them.
Overall, I don't think this project would've been a success, nor a failure. I feel that since we'll most likely never get to play this legendary cancelled title in this franchise, there's no real telling on what it would've been.

[Vertekins]

As much as I want to like it, I can't.

From all of the many screenshots, concepts (Art/Gameplay) and videos, the game simply looked like a mess from top to bottom to me. The game screams to me as something that was too ambitious for it's development team's resources and capabilities and the level design left much to be desired. That and the visuals were never anything special and that fish-eye lens looked gimmicky and stupid.

I have honestly wondered before whether or not this game would've killed the franchise or led it in a bad direction had it ever been released back in a time of such change in the game industry and in a time when SEGA was smack in the middle of their idiotic propensity for releasing outdated consoles and making bad business decisions.

[Diogenes]

Even if Xtreme's development wasn't a complete nightmare, honestly I don't think any of the concepts I've seen are all that good. It may have been for the best that it didn't actually go through.

[Azookara]

If anything, the fisheye effect was there to make it seem like X-Treme wasn't as much of a step down from Mario 64 as it really was.

The game is literally made of scripted paths, (bad) pre-rendered artwork and building blocks. It's cool in it's own way and would've made a neat platformer for some offbeat third party mascot, but considering Sonic's standards for back in the day, it would've been a massive stain that probably would've only dug Sonic into a deeper coffin until SA1.

..And if it didn't, then I'd be afraid to know of the fanbase it would have built, and what impact it would've left on the franchise.. *shudder*

Edited by Azukara, 28 July 2012 - 05:14 PM.

[McGroose]

The fish-eye gameplay engine in X-treme looks like a mess, and I wouldn't want that in future Sonic games. However, I do like the ideas and concepts that went into this game. From level theme's, Characters, and other Idea's.
I would also like to play this game one day. Ya the game does look like a mess to me, but I still want to see how it feels playing it, rather then just judging it off what I see.
The music for this game was also pretty good. We have the rather famous Space Queens track used in nearly ever Sonic X-treme video ever,


And then you have more lesser known pieces of music from the game like the "Lost Boss" Theme for Metal Sonic...I wonder if that name Lost Boss was meant to be a bit of mysterious foreshadowing.

These are just examples. The entire conceptual soundtrack was released actually. I've listening to most of it myself, and I think it's definitely worthy to be Sonic quality music.

Edited by Hank Hill, 28 July 2012 - 05:22 PM.

[PerfectChaos]

This would've killed Sonic IMO. The ugly visuals, crappy gameplay, lack of innovation, bad level design and insane budget (due to prolonged development time)...

[Semi-colon e]

To me this game always looked like a complete mess really, I don't understand the purpose of the fish eye 3D thing, might as well just keep it 2D or 3D. It's the same reason 3D Blast bugs me as it's isometric. I don't think that sort of thing works for faster paced stuff Sonic has.

Just seems too awkward and gimmicky, honestly.

[Speederino]

I don't know. Seeing the gameplay video, it looks like Sonic's portions might have ended up alright. Hard to tell without having actually played it, so I'll just say that I would have approached that with cautious optimism in 1996. It's the other characters that leave me with a bit of doubt. I can't help but wonder how the Adventure games would have handled the whole 'genre-roulette' thing if this game had been around first, assuming there would still *be* Adventure games.

However, I am certain that this would NOT have killed the franchise. If it could survive Sonic 2006, then it sure as shit could survive this, especially by the standards of 1996.

[Hogfather]

The game always looked like garbage.

When you'd see screenshots in old magazines, I could never unerstand why writers were going utterly ape about it calling it a Mario 64 killer and even the best game ever made etc etc.

It just looked dreadful. Even for an early 3D game, and some of those look really bad, this just looked utterly dreadful. Now defenders of this will go 'But the fish eye! The fish eye! It's suppose to look like that because it's the fish eye!' Well you could call it the shit eye lense and it would still look like shit. It really looks awful regardless as to 'how it's supposed to look.'

Just take a look at that Jade Gully Zone pic in the first post... anyone wanna take a guess as to what platform Sonic jumped up from?

Saying that, it's not all bad, with what few gameplay footage there is, the idea isn't a bad one. But it just doesn't seem to work for a Sonic game, take Jade Gully for intance. At times theres some interesting and fun ideas such as the platforming, but... you don't actually look like you're playing as Sonic until you hit the automated speed sections, you're not actually running or going fast for the majority of the stage, and that is supposed to be the first level.

[El Driver]

Somehow I think the game wouldn't have really hurt Sonic to tell you the truth. I mean while not a lot of people liked Sonic 3D Blast did it really shattered Sonic's image in the 90s?

I am not sold on the story they had planned for it but I to be honest I do want to try that gameplay and see how it felt.

Also when I learned that Yuji Naka sabotaged the project made me realize how much of a dick he is.

[Autosaver]

Fun Fact: Sonic Robo Blast 2's sprites were originally based off the Sonic sprites in Xtreme.

[Felix]

Fun Fact: Sonic Robo Blast 2's sprites were originally based off the Sonic sprites in Xtreme.

And then there's this little mod of SRB2.

[Tornado]

I agree with everything that's been said in this thread. The game did look bad. There were problems with the concept. It was woefully outdated and painfully underdeveloped by the time it was mercy-cancelled. And looking at it through the eyes of people 15 years wiser, it wouldn't have been a patch on Super Mario 64. Everything everyone has said along those lines it most assuredly accurate.


Eexcept for this sentiment:

I have honestly wondered before whether or not this game would've killed the franchise or led it in a bad direction had it ever been released back in a time of such change in the game industry and in a time when SEGA was smack in the middle of their idiotic propensity for releasing outdated consoles and making bad business decisions.

It's cool in it's own way and would've made a neat platformer for some offbeat third party mascot, but considering Sonic's standards for back in the day, it would've been a massive stain that probably would've only dug Sonic into a deeper coffin until SA1.

Had this come actually out in 1996 like it was supposed to, there is no doubt in my mind that none of this would happen.

The Saturn still would have died almost immediately after 1997 started, because Christmas 1996 was far too late to save it. Everyone still would have loved the game (at the time; because this was the age where even the shittiest of games got heaps of praise and love from the press simply if they were in 3D), but it wouldn't have been the source of a massive fracture of the fanbase because at that point the Saturn was already on life support (meaning not that many people would have ever played it); and it wouldn't have made any difference for the future of the franchise because Sonic Team still would have rebooted everything with Sonic Adventure. By the time XTreme was cancelled they had already been working on it in earnest, and if Naka still had the clout to get Sega to pull his engine from XTreme he sure as shit would have had the clout to keep Sega from imposing ideas from XTreme into Adventure while it was in development.

Edited by Gilda, 28 July 2012 - 11:10 PM.

[Phos]

The most commonly shown of shots show a pretty strange yet unimpressive game that doesn't really look like a Sonic game BUT there were also some level maps kicking around senntient that were drawn by Yasuhara and seem to have emerged from a different period of development that basically look like a better version of Sonic 3D blast.

[Evilmoonguy]

While I usually just wait and see how a Sonic game plays with my own eyes, I gotta say with the stuff I saw about Sonic X-treme I do say that it looks very unappealing in both screenshots and what gameplay there was, and that fish eye camera stuff would hurt the player's view of Sonic's surroundings.

Also, why such a name like 'Boobowski'?

[VizardJeffhog]

I find it cool that the game has actually managed to gather a sizeable cult following in the Sonic community!

Though I find it a little extreme that some would request SEGA to finish this...



I just wish there were more decent remixes of Space Queens though, like the one featured here.
>shameless self-plug

I've got to familiarize myself with the concept music though. I'm fascinated!

[Gabe]

I have to agree that while some of the ideas/concepts/music the game had are rather interesting, the main gameplay just looks like a mess-well at least the levels with the fish-eye lens camera/level design. Although I just had this wierd idea that it could make for a rather interesting platformer-just not for Sonic though. Maybe Frogger perhaps? lol

The levels that featured boss acts (in which that gimmicky fish-eye lens wasn't attached to it) looked decent.

Probably a good thing it was canned, even if it end becoming a major factor on why the Saturn ultimately failed.

What I kinda find wierd is that Sonic R, and of course Sonic Jam's Sonic World was actually pretty good template to base a 3D Saturn Sonic game from, I wonder why they didn't just make a game off of one of those two games instead?

Also when I learned that Yuji Naka sabotaged the project made me realize how much of a dick he is.

You mean when he threatened he would quit Sega if they used the Nights engine for the game (which was pretty much the only thing that could had saved the game from becoming vaporware)? Yeah, that Naka's ego for you. This is the same guy who pretty much left the franchise's reputation to ultimately reach the all-time low it did with 06's failure by quitting Sega during development (the fact that some other key members of Sonic Team left with him didn't help).

[Super Smash Wario]

This is the same guy who pretty much left the franchise's reputation to ultimately reach the all-time low it did with 06's failure by quitting Sega during development (the fact that some other key members of Sonic Team left with him didn't help).

Let's be honest, something with Sonic 06's direction is pretty much doomed to be mediocre at best.