Thigolf

It's not surprising given this is his sonic marketing has been going for like, what, six or seven years now 

Those had at least gameplay snippets in between instead of...nothing.

The marketing team knows exactly what kind of game Sega is releasing, of course they're going to avoid showing gameplay for as long as possible and hope people like the music.

The game has looked like absolute dogshit from day one. The marketing team is the only one who does seem to understand this.

Do you happen to know which MD games are no longer available to purchase? I was eyeing the Ecco games because it's one of the only remaining ways to obtain them legally.

I've looked further into it and as far I can see, there don't see to be any missing (I haven't checked on them all), after all, it's just that not all of them are in the Mega Drive Bundle they have on Steam for whatever reason. The Toejam and Earl games or the Phantasy Star games you have to buy seperately, for example, and all the Sonic games are seperate, too.

So yeah, false alarm. The MD Ecco games are also all still on there.

Also, one of the Wonder Boy games is in the Bundle, but the other one isn't. This is really weird, lol

because it means modern sonic isn't going away any time soon

@Diogenes 

Outside of classic Sonic, it has done some things that people have had...reactions to. Here's a non-comprehensive list.

• Completely fucked the consistency between Generations and Forces. Even if you don't care all that much about 'continuity', Forces adheres to the split yet has the same classic Sonic as in Generations, which did not adhere to it. 
• Screwed over the IDW comic at least twice. The Hooligans were namedropped in issue 3 but they can't appear. Ian also had plans for Mighty and Ray that had to be dumped once Mania Plus was announced. 
• The Chaotix not being part of both like the other characters who debuted in the classic era and are still in the modern era (to be fair, that was a thing years and years before the split became this massive thing.
• No matter how classic Sonic is treated, it will always be seen as being less main than modern Sonic by a good number of fans (a higher proportion of which being in the intended demographic), hence why fans are like "when will Mighty be in a modern game". 

Now I wish she makes an appearance in the IDW verse

I think that this is something that SEGA is acutely aware of, which is why  they wanted to launch Boom as a big new franchise and went other instalments are trying to capitalise in the nostalgia of the older market so much.

Sonic pretty evidently has a smaller pull than he once did but the kids will always outnumber the adults imo.

I still see kids with Sonic book bags at school, so I'd say he's decently popular with young kids.

Most kids into fornite and stuff are pre teens 

If my 3 year old nephew getting excited about seeing Sonic in Wreck it Ralph 2 is any indicator, small kids love him.

kids are pretty much given to like sonic, considering the format of the games (colorful platformer with [talking] animals, especially since the original design is clearly modeled after characters like felix and mickey mouse). not really a surprise there IMO, especially with supplementary stuff like comics/tv shows/merch/etc. also aimed for them.

the more interesting question to me is if nowadays he (still) has any demographic appeal beyond kids and his own fanbase; and if it's something sega wants to fix if that is no longer the case. sonic's audience mostly being children may be the result but it doesn't have to be the intention; i'd say the legacy of the original genesis games (and how mania was considered a legitimate GOTY contender in the year of it's release) certainly proves that.

That's freakin' awesome, too!

So...basically the standard reactions to any Sonic game?

15 characters and 21 tracks is a pretty small game, even more so when the games main hook (teams) seems to make the entire project seem so much smaller in scope than both ASRT and the original ASR. I've got absolutely no idea why SEGA decided to boast about the fact that there were 15 characters. If the races each include 12 characters, then the majority of the cast will be present all the time. It's not impressive.

It feels like people care only about the roster size than the actual characters in the roster sometimes. 

I mean, the roster size is a deciding factor? Sonic as a franchise has a pretty sizable cast of characters that are beloved within the franchise, so if they have to be left out because the roster is locked to a certain size, the size played a part.

If Sonic had only five to ten characters with a sizeable fanbase, a fifteen character roster would've been fine, but now, a bunch of characters that I'd consider pretty darn basic standard fair for the franchise just.. aren't there. And there was basically no room for the franchise to spread their wings a little bit and dig out some more obscure characters. The size just wasn't sufficient, and thus, the actual character line-up doesn't seem up to snuff.

he can beep

At best, we'll get voiceless CPU text like in Rivals 2.

Morse Code HYPE

Bzzz...

The best Sonic characters are the one's who don't talk.

Really though, the whole gameplay is about people shouting when they got spun out, when they have an item, when they want an item, when they have a Team Ultimate to activate... There SHOULD be someone yelling all that stuff when you're driving and can't focus on reading or are like 5 and can't read at all, right?

Maybe Orbot und Cubot actually serve that role?

I'm not sure. I think minor tasks suit them better. Maybe Team Eggman needed to consist of threatening characters, they'd look more like a joke if the bots were in with them.

Though I can't quite remember, I thought Eggman was a power type in the Riders series?

I think he was, actually. 

I dunno, I just feel like a Racing game is one of the types of games where it's possible for them being playable, and they'd make so much sense in a Team based game - they ARE always hanging with Eggman, after all. It's just kinda weird, imo.

Yeah, could've been fun to have them as secret characters. I'd just keep them out of actually taking part in the races for the story. Or maybe being filler, like those Egg Pawn. I wonder if Egg Pawn will still be in the final game?

Step 1: Pick Lucky Chloe cuz she's the best

Step 2: DAHBLE, DAHBLE, DAHBLE

To quote SatAM Robotnik, "Dreams are meant to be...broken."

Oooh, so that's why Mighty No 9 turned out like it did!

That's actually a nice marketing choice. It's good publicity for Bamco and promotes the game in a good light. Reminds me of when Nintendo and Ubisoft sent a special copy of Mario + Rabbids to RabbidLuigi.
Wish more companies did this.

Sure it is a marketing/publicity thing but a really good thing that this person finally got to play the game and the special edition too. Also references their meme as well so a bit of good hearted fun.

Oh and if anyone doesn't get the reference: It was down to people wanting the extended PS3 version of the game to be released in English and Bandai's response was literally that.

Seems like one of those Sonic Runners situations where they just lazily slap a guitar over the original instrumental

But at least then it was substituting the vocals, and wasn't as disruptive

Quote

I just feel like I'm being yelled at by a guitar. 

maybe you hurt the guitar's feelings and it's just lashing out because it's not good at handling its emotions?

I'm sorry, Mr. or Ms. Guitar, I hope we can talk it out.