JezMM

I think this is very much a "speak for yourself" situation because when I think of Sonic R tracks I think of all their various routes and how each one usually has some unique, memorable set-piece regarding it (Resort Island had islands, bridges, a waterfall, a path above said waterfall and a path behind said waterfall, some beachside ruins, a forest, a mountain, a cave. Radical City has the big slope down across the river, the cave, the ground-level streets between the buildings, the big slot machine, the big pinball area. Regal Ruin has various secret tunnels, the bridges on the outskirts, the triple loop, the staircasey/climb uppy area (I feel there are more I can't remember). Reactive Factory has the big circular middle area, the ring sucker-upper thing, the elevator, the submarine. Radiant Emerald, ironically enough, is the one track that while visually amusing, is actually pretty boring to play because it lacks all the personality and variety of the other tracks. Fits fine as a finale/unlockable in comparison to those, but it's the weakest track in the game overall for sure. Like, yeah they cover four of the most typical tropes for Sonic (hell, to the point that later on an entirely different team covered the exact same tropes in the exact same order when given the same task of covering Sonic's most memorable themes in a very small amount of stages; see: Sonic 4 Episode I). But that really doesn't matter that much when this game is already covering plenty of typical tropes with it's zone choices. An HD remake of Resort Island would certainly be more novel than the same HD remakes of Seaside Hill we've already seen before.

Yeah, all the speedy aesthetics for Sonic came about as a result of the game design. At the very least, Sonic the character and the gameplay of Sonic 1 were developed in tandem, they didn't make the character and THEN the gameplay. I feel like pitching Sonic as a cartoon would just make someone be like "Oh, like The Flash/Speedy Gonzales/Road Runner?". The cartoons are popular because the games were popular first. Controlling such a fast character who wasn't a race car was a big novelty at the time. It still sort of is - no-one has really ever tried to eat Sonic's lunch in terms of "fast cartoon mascot platformer", the copycats always just focused on the "cartoon mascot platformer" part. To be honest, it's KIND of a meaningless discussion, because no-one has any idea whether Sonic would have worked "better" (however you quantify that) as a cartoon than a video game. That's not the universe we live in. It's as hypothetical a discussion as it gets, there's nothing really to draw from as evidence.

Chamomile #100

Oh, I thought those screens were from a "space" track much as how Bingo Highway seems to be in space. I didn't want to rewatch the trailer to not sorta, "refresh" the spoilers in my head but does that come from a Rooftop Run track? That is pretty bizarre if so, but honestly I was slightly expecting Rooftop Run to be the zone the final track uses out of what had been revealed so far. EDIT: Okay I literally see the city below in those screenshots now, thought that was just more stars, never mind, question answered lol. This also disregards most of my post about thinking that Bingo Highway and this black-hole containing track were the same zone. As for Bingo Highway, has it been confirmed to be 1:1 with the layout of an ASR casino track then? Kinda bizarre to give it such a space-themed visual overhaul if so when the two Seaside Hill tracks didn't get the same kind of remix treatment visually. EDIT AGAIN: Okay I looked up the ASR track list and yeah it was literally named Bingo Party there lol. Question number 2 answered as well, carry on everyone. Just so this post serves an actual point I'll re-iterate that it kinda bugs me that they give Bingo Party such a visual overhaul yet didn't do the same for Whale Lagoon and Ocean View didn't get the same treatment. It'll bug me MORE if these three tracks are the "nostalgia zone" considering the missed opportunity for a Sonic R track and the fact that one is an entirely different aesthetic from the other two. I mean good for variety but grrr obsessive organisational inconsistencies.

Honestly I'm thinking this casino stage might be a part of a more loose "weird/space" themed zone, with just the one track being casino-themed (and they just chose BINGO Highway for the music rather than creating a brand new track). Those screenies that LukA8 singled out do look a little bizarre/final track-ish, and this might be their way of keeping the final track cool/unique looking, by attaching it to a general "surreal" zone trope rather than anything specific. Avoids the awkwardness that the original ASRT had where, fitting as Final Fortress might be for the final track in the game, it feels less climactic when we've already played two tracks with the same aesthetic earlier in the game. That's my prediction anyway, it's possible that all three tracks from that zone will be predominantly Casino-in-space themed and one of them just go off with some wormhole stuff or something. To be honest I'd be a little bummed if it is the final track, since 1. Way to spoil it before the game comes out obviously and 2. What does that say about the other tracks that they needed to use final track footage to get some exciting stuff for the trailer? Granted I tend to put too much weight on "final" things in games where that doesn't really matter so much, I was too raised on platformers and action games lol.

Really don't understand the entitlement to a new Sonic game like... development takes time, they're working on it but it's not ready to show yet. Expressing disappointment that they didn't announce the next mainline game "properly" is kind of like expressing disappointment that they aren't working faster than what they are (of which we have no idea how development of the next title is operating). And if not then you're expressing disappointment that... time has not passed? Things take time. They have a lot of catching up to do on TSR promo anyway, so announcing what's coming after would be handicapping that even more. But anyway, on a positive note, TSR still looks like a decent little spin-off, the soundtrack having 130 songs was a big surprise considering there's only 20 tracks confirmed for the game... even if there's like 10 menu songs and 20 cut-scene songs or whatever, where's that all coming from? Maybe the story mode has a bunch of bespoke music for particular missions, which'd be kind of neat. They really went all out. Highlight was definietly TSR Overdrive though, which was thoroughly enjoyable on all fronts. The character animation wasn't QUITE to SMA's standards (but they were very high standards, to be clear), but that was presumebly partially due to the length and all the extra stuff like vehicle animation making things complicated. Luckily the goofs more than picked up the slack, I'd actually say it made me laugh more often and harder than SMA did. Really great stuff.

Chamomile #99

There's sort of this unspoken rule in kids' media that the villians trying to kill the heroes is never really treated with the gravity that it should because it's kind of accepted in advance that the villians will fail. Even in your examples, Bowser DOES kill Mario over and over again if the player isn't skilled enough. King Dedede DOES kill Kirby. But they also... kinda just don't because that's not the canon ending to the games and the audience knows that without being specifically told. It's the same case with Sonic. A lot of fans tend to really focus in on this idea as if it's something that is unique to Sonic but it really isn't - it just seems like a bigger deal because Sonic just happens to be the franchise they most devote themselves to in terms of thinking about the lore etc. There's plenty of kids media that dwells on death more, less and the same amount as Sonic (and it tends to directly correlate with what age group that media is aimed at too, in Sonic's case being somewhere around 7-12 year olds as the key demographic I imagine). For what it's worth, bad as the story is, we know that, if pushed to it, Shadow isn't above killing Eggman (albeit for incredibly self-centered, misguided reasons). The neutral endings of Shadow the Hedgehog are non-canon, but they're still possible "what if" scenarios that COULD have happened. Fortunately for Eggman, it's clear that Shadow mellows out a lot more after the true events of this game.

Re: that datamined content

I don't mind the video in concept but there was nothing really to it. The little montages showing off the various things they went to were the only engaging part, and then after we get Aaron summing up what they just did and Jirard and Arin giving almost monosyllabic responses. The only joke in the video, the ridiculous lighter animation, came from Aaron and the guy editing the video, like... why were Arin and Jirard even there other than to appear in the thumbnail? I guess the Big the Cat song is kind of their thing but it just all seemed very unsubstantial. I guess the answer is exactly that though, to appear in the thumbnail lol. Just seems like a wasted opportunity really, and the whole thing with Game Grumps in particular is very awkward because GG as a brand is not intended for children so Arin can't really act on-brand at all. If they're gonna do GG stuff they really need to get Dan involved coz like... there's a reason the show is a two-man act, they bounce off each other well and Dan would be there to offset Arin's negativity. Jirard is a fine fit, though his videos are more script-based as far as I'm aware, he doesn't really do improv like Arin does, so he doesn't really generate any content in this video for that reason either.

Chamomile #98

Obviously other people don't barely remember it. The neat thing about R's tracks is they have a lot of different routes that often have unique scenery too, Resort Island probably being the most major example of that - it has a lake, it has a secret path behind a waterfall, it has the rocky area above said waterfall, it has ruins, it has caves, it has a wooded area, it has bridges and islands and a mountain with two different routes around it. They would definitely have to "enlarge" it all slightly to fit this game's speed, and cutting across water with jumps would almost certainly be one aspect of the many routes that would be cut in the process of adapting it but yeah. I'm not so sure about this idea though - see, while some ring gates were just shortcuts, they mostly lead to Emeralds and medals, which explicitly took longer/more effort to access than just running the race normally. The challenge was winning the race in spite of taking the effort to unlock those gates and take those alternate paths, rather than because you did. I fear ring gates would kind of result in the same issue I feel the Sonic Riders games have. Unless the track design was the most crazily-well tested/balanced thing in the world, for every shortcut there probably would be a fairly definitive answer over what is faster, holding your rings or unlocking the shortcut. I feel Riders had this issue in the form of the three character types - there wasn't really much strategy to it, on pretty much every lap, the fastest route was to take the route that your character type is designed to interact with (excluding a few poorly designed areas where ignoring the character gimmicks was faster). This increased replayability in terms of getting a different experience each time as long as you swap your characters around, but within the race itself, there was little strategy - just take the route you're supposed to and don't screw it up. There is something to be said though for the fact that gathering those rings in the first place requires a display of skill and dexterity that should rightly be rewarded. It's also an interesting idea to consider whether the team mechanic could've tied in - having a pool of rings shared between you might mean one player can focus on collecting rings while the others reap the rewards for the better overall team result at the end. But again, hard to say whether in practice it would still just be fake depth that seems to facilitate freedom of strategy but that ultimately the truly best strategy is "just all three of you drive good AND get rings AND use shortcuts and get 1st 2nd and 3rd" lol.

I think the point of this CD is that it contains music that is being used in trailers for the game. "Game Modes" is therefore likely referring to an upcoming trailer that will spotlight all the various game modes available in the game. As such, there's no way of knowing what context it'll be used for in-game yet. Meanwhile, Can You Feel The Sunshine feels like it's likely to be the music for whatever the third track is for the Seaside theme. Best fanservice scenario is Resort Island remake, but a new original zone using Seaside Hill assets is also possible... worst case scenario, it's another of the two Seaside Hill tracks from SaSASR, since Can You Feel The Sunshine was an available music choice for those.