Son-icka

On the fence with this - I actually think that’s a pretty clever trick and could well be what is going here considering the accidental name reveal recently. But the left side of my brain also agrees with you that they do somewhat keep to the Sonic part of the logo quite consistently. Saying that there’s room for scope on it fitting in and round the shape and pattern here when the final logo is revealed. They have slanted the logo and changed it about occasionally before with games like Rush, Riders, Heroes, etc so it could easily be mapped or overlaid here too.

See for me, Sonic Lost World, Team Sonic Racing and the Live action Sonic Movie were highlights and far from soulless (even if they could have been better). I’ve seen worse from other gaming companies. But even then I am not to sure I agree with the “respect for its fans” side of things. SEGA/Sonic Team owe us nothing really IMO. And to be honest the Sonic Fanbase pushes back with a lot of vitriol at the best of times (I’d argue at its peak we’re probably the worst out of any franchise fanbase) However if you’re outgrowing the series in general then it’s fair enough to want to move on from everything.

Unless it’s really far along now or the game isn’t exactly what we’ve been told it is - I wouldn’t bother releasing the Arceus Spin-off (that’s-clearly-a-pilot-for-the-future-of-the-Mainline-series) until November 2022. We just got Snap, and the HD remakes of Diamond and Pearl can easily serve as a holdover for a year at least. It seems crazy to me that they are considering releasing Arceus a little over 2 months later. Gamefreak could do with giving themselves the extra time for spit and polish and general QOL touches. I mean, It could very well be ready to go by January - but delaying something to ensure a higher quality is always the smarter move in my book - bit to mention the game look rough as hell during the showcase not long ago. I also gotta say that whilst I’m not very impressed by the route taken for the remakes on Diamond and Pearl (personally the baseline for me would be making them at least visually look consistent with Mainline titles) they’ll still probably get a sale from me as I never played the originals. I mostly gave up playing the mainline series after The GBA entries and shifted to become a casual fan until recently with Sw/Sh which reinvigorated my interest.

Just out of curiosity, why is it that the music in the Mega Collections on consoles and NDS retained the original tracks - did this “distancing” come after the fact?

Gah... just imagine the quick sail addition in Wind Waker HD being locked behind a KoRL amiibo. I hope this is just an early access thing the Amiibo provides to the fast travel ability rather than ONLY way.

Why does that matter? The Metroid Prime series as a whole hasn't had any development/porting in over 12 years. So wouldn't someone from the OG Retro team know how his game would handle in terms of porting? I'm not saying there isn't a way or that there isn't a more expert solution compared to 10 years ago by the way - but I would personally have thought he would have a pretty chief idea on the feasibility of it having worked on the original set of titles. Even then he didn't say it wasn't impossible - just lengthy. Ultimately the trouble is that we don't really know everything that happens behind closed doors or the processes that it takes to get these things running and off the ground (apart from the occasional developer insights/slips/leaks). It's also a shame he's getting a lot of hate/abuse online on social media since making the statement - because whilst a gamers perspective could be "this should be an obvious easy copy-paste job", ...rarely is anything ever that simple. My approach/take is that Skyward Sword is coming AND we had Sunshine/Galaxy ports on Switch... so a Prime HD Trilogy shouldn't seem out of the question. I also agree with you that it probably IS ready to go but will be used as more of a marketing strategy to remind/introduce players to the series before Prime 4 comes along and releases.

And even then I’d say it’s still too much 🤣 £9.99 or less and then you’re talking... Saying that the base game on disk goes for £9.99 these days. And I say this as someone whom enjoyed the additional DLC (apart from the extra Miniboss stuff and shameless last minute FF character throw-ins for fandom). I do really love the base game of KH3 a lot - but I do wish they could have done more with the additional content besides just adding more to the finale with the “how he saved Kairi” time travel bollocks. As whilst it’s neat and gives a nice little second spin on things... I’m not a fan of games stories feeling more “complete” by the way of paid DLC. It’s Asuras Wrath level of criminality here.

So did Crash, Spyro, Tony Hawks and the like not to very well? Or is is just that Activision are more focused on COD dominating the gaming conversation? Either way, if a lot of the above is true (because let's face it, internet badmouth chatter is noisier than what we fully know goes on behind closed doors) then it's such a waste of talent and rebuilding of IP's. However... this IS the business of Activision we're discussing so I wouldn't put it past them. Whilst I'm aware they bundle quite a lot of their internal studios together to support each other (which lets be fair, did happen with Crash & Spyro), The post from the TFB account about them looking forward to supporting COD season 3 is not encouraging and certainly a sly PR move.

Actually, even "TEE-LOPES Mutant Ninja Turtles" fits quite well (yes I'm humming this to the 80's tune now) 😂 The soundtrack has real Mania vibes from the trailer - it's enough of a to sell me (if the game wasn't enough of a sell already)

I wouldn't call them a waste of time per-se and does give fans options (or double the amount of games) even if the storyline is essentially the same. It's gameplay and effort they put into the experience that makes it worth your while. Sometimes it's works, sometimes it doesn't with this approach. I think Colours DS & Generations 3DS were treated as the just leftovers to compliment their superior home console counterparts. I'm also one of the 2% of people that really love Sonic Lost World on both 3DS and Wii U - so here at the very least I can applaud the teams for going for something entirely different across both platforms without emulating what had come before. It's a shame it didn't work out asI would have liked more entires in this series and style of gameplay myself. I do wish they took a duel game approach with Sonic Forces on Switch like they did Sonic Unleashed on Wii though - it was tough on that hardware. And who knows... maybe it would have doubled the chances for one decent adventure to come out of that medicore mess... or possibly two games that were worse. 😂 Anyway. A Wisp Collection would also be appetising to me Sega - so bundle Colours with Lost World or something please? (Or just... make something new that is more than half decent again, you were on the right tracks!)

I'd be interested to replay the DS version of Colours if the option became available. I remember owning it for a brief period but it felt overall like a lesser version / clone of the previous Rush Games due to it simultaneously trying to be Sonic Rush 3, but also a portable version of Sonic Colours with the Wisps shoved in. Personally I wasn't a fan of the final boss (on DS). I liked the idea and use of the mother Wisp (and it was a shame she was missing from the console versions story), but it still mostly "played" quite meh for a finale and was quite irritating to complete, so for me the the Wii version wins out still here. We shouldn't forget that at the time It was pretty refreshing and exciting NOT to go Super for once. It's just unfortunate that Lost world and Forces copy-pasted the Final Boss over and over again in their respective games to a lesser extent. Anyway, what I'm saying is is that I'd like to give Sonic Rush 3 / Colours DS another chance. I remember it being quite janky, but I'm willing to give it another shot.

At the very least Tails / Knux would be a fun little bonus. Perhaps even with slight level redesigns and tweaks you could end up with Tails and Knuckles not being able to use Wisp Powers BUT can fly/hover/dig/glide/climb as mentioned. The levels in general are not complex enough for it to be that much of an issue as they hark back more to a more Sonic 1-3 era esque design with multiple routes, not always being completely linear, and actually being very memorable whilst maintaining standout set pieces. It would add an extra dimension to the 2D sections to replay in any case (or you know, just throw them in with their own additional individual levels) But a Shadow re-skin in is the obvious easy way out here as an added “bonus”. Different model and animations - add in the voice samples. Bang. Job done. Actually I just really want to play Colours in HD, so even with that as a single upgrade and I’m easy to please.

Personally speaking, I would be 100% down for a HD remaster of Colours. I can understand why this might be singled out considering it is the only one of the "boost trilogy" that never had any sort of High Definition release having only released on Wii (I'm not counting "Rush 3" here) - so it would be somewhat of a hot title for players to finally get their hands on outside of Nintendo's System. It was a really pretty game and the most fun I had from that particular generation of Sonic games. Sonic Unleashed and Sonic Generations are "better" to some extent, but Sonic Colours was one of those games that felt consistently fun all the way through. It's just a shame they never quite nailed what made the wisp mechanic in this game enjoyable as (apart from Team racing) their inclusion made less and less sense and detracted from the core Sonic gameplay rather than added to it in Lost World and Forces. Anyway, in general though it would just be nice to at least get the "Boost Trilogy" as an "all in one" package with the other two upscaled and maybe running at 60FPS. Buuuuut a new game would be nice from Sega. I am still keeping my fingers crossed for something from Christian Whitehead and his team as Sega would be nutters not to follow Mania up. It doesn't even have to be "Mania 2" - but it feels like they should at least have earned the rights to be given more creative access to do what they want with the blue blur by now.

Well Done! That’s entirely commendable for going through all of that for the 106% completion. I certainly can’t say I’ll do the same, and mainly that’s because of everything you posted. At present, Crash 4 remains the best Crash game ever because I’m not trying to 106% beat it - and this is a shame as usually I like to fully complete my platformers... but I’m more than aware it’s not worth it. I’ll go as far as getting most of the Skins and probably leave it there. I don’t want this to become a game of regrets. It’s just a shame that TFB made something so fantastic turn into something tremendously tedious and frustrating for the completionists.

Apologies to double post. Have to get this off my chest... So I definitely don’t like this game after several hours play over the last week. Don’t get me wrong... Its really good fun - but the mobile trappings are aplenty in this. The main idea here to play a “level” usually involves this classic mobile formula... Item D is required to play a level and take on its boss... But first you need item A to create B, B is used in C but C needs to be built... only then you can make D. Sometimes you’ll need 2 D’s and an E in which case you have to start again at A. Confused? Of course you are. It’s actually shocking how bad (and cleverly terrible) this system is. On top of crafting and grinding for items to be able to play the main levels of the game, you have to “grind run” for them as well in order to do the process. This is basic procedural endless runner shenanigans and is not fun. The other option of course is to pay with the in game currency (which will run out so very quickly) forcing you to buy the items for real if you don’t want to grind. And let’s not forget all stages of A, B, C, D and E each have timer on them. So when crafting things to PLAY A LEVEL you could be waiting anywhere between 1 minute and 45 minutes (at EVERY step) unless you pay to speed the countdown up. This artificial “running out of items or gameplay” and “crafting” also applys to basic level grind runs (as well as challenges) upon completion. They will not be available to play for periods of time. This is pretty horrible stuff, unsurprising... but nasty. Whilst I can say in its defence it gives you a heap of other things to do in-game to waste your time... these are also limited. BUT the majority of the time in order to progress the main game you are artificially halted at every freaking step for prolonged periods. So when i say I hate it... it’s because the main level boss runner sections are simple and satisfying to play, the music is awesome, and the game looks great. ...but only when I can actually play it. And you can’t even repeat play old levels. This blows. Obviously you got your usual mobile shenanigans and advertisements begging you to purchase in game gear, skins and all sorts of other bollocks with monetary schemes that don’t even make any sense too. Oh the woes of bloody FTP Mobile... such a shame for this one. Could have been at least half decent without the nonsense.