E-122-Psi

Within all the 'serious vs comical' debates, I'm not really sure Sonic himself as a character works in a serious atmosphere. Besides the execution, Sonic tends to keep a lot of consistent traits, and one of them is that he recurrently fails to take the situation seriously. Oh there are breaking points, but they obviously never stick. Otherwise he's always a cocky one-liner spurting asshole, and I think that has more chance of being likeable in a universe that doesn't consistently work against that. In cases we don't we either get him being enabled for being stone faced or irresponsible at inappropriate situations (eg. Sonic X) or we end up getting a rather negative take on Sonic who constantly needs his ego and dare devil attitude taken down a peg (eg. SatAm), the problem there being Sonic often still has to remain stagnant as a character so still NEVER learns. Archie Sonic in particular had the worst of both situations, since he was constantly reckless and overconfident which sometimes had lethal mistakes for people other than himself. The fact he never learned from all the collateral damage and often took any criticism as oppressing him and being ungrateful led to a rather odious and apathetic take on him, and since the writers couldn't permanently develop him from that, they often had to just straw man his opposition. Even Lost Worlds, despite being comical, had this issue within the ONE SAME STORY, showing him being reckless and confident having serious consequences and NEVER LEARNING to stop. Boom to compare flanderizes his ego, but since the stakes often remain in a comical atmosphere, it doesn't feel quite as insufferable a trait, especially since they can often just given him a funny comeuppance at the end. It's even worse in some of the games that try to just forgo his personality altogether and almost make him the stock comic relief good guy (eg. the Shadow/Next Gen era).

Looks like we've a more obscure one next: http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2019/08/sega_ages_puzzle_and_action_ichidant-r_coming_soon_to_japanese_switch_eshop Puzzle and Action Ichidant R is next on Japan's list.

This seems to be problem caused when the game is still on as the GP updates. You can usually fix it just by closing and then reseting the game.

Puyo Puyo and Space Harrier to get a western release on the 22nd August. https://www.destructoid.com/sega-ages-puyo-puyo-and-space-harrier-release-later-this-month-563288.phtml Looks like they're keeping to these double dips for the west. Next month will be the one year anniversary of the project starting by the way. I'm hoping we at least reach a proper dozen titles by then.

I think a problem right now is that a lot of the females (and a large amount of the males in fact) are pretty much demoted to ancillary characters which makes it very hard to flesh them out or give them a noteworthy role. Amy in particular I think is a character they struggle to keep a balance with. She's either a completely unhinged Sonic-obsessed psychopath brat or a rather dull female that's....nice and determined, but that's about it. It's either comic relief or neutral female for her. Sticks is an odd case, she was largely in a TV series which gave her the necessary screen time, but despite being the original character, she still felt more one note than the others. She was kind of a desaturated Pinkie Pie, the loon whose craziness overrules the plot. Pinkie herself tended to have a similar issue but she had token moments of depth from times her craziness DIDN'T have the last say and we got a rather poignant bit of vulnerability from her, but I don't remember this ever happening to Sticks, she was ironically complacent for her archetype. A shame because her being more volatile and paranoid could have made her a cool Dale Gribble type character. (Plus after cases like Translate This, I feel like Sticks should have had a token comeuppance story like Sonic and some of the others got, a smug crazy jerk like Sticks doesn't fit ALWAYS getting the last laugh.) Zeena is a gag boss. She's not brimming with depth but she isn't supposed to because she has a fleeting role. I get apathy towards the Deadly Six but I don't get the hatred really. Archie females are dull, at least pre reboot. Damn media never grew out of the 90s with its flat empowered role models.

I think it's largely that it's still stuff within the same time capsule as all their other rereleases. Their 16 bit early arcade style games. People wanna see SEGA release some of their early 3D titles for once, their Model 1 and 2 stuff is filled with gems equal to their Megadrive era. I know emulation is a key obstacle, and the Saturn is allegedly HORRENDOUS to emulate, but Nintendo and Sony have rereleased more modern and complicated games YEARS ahead of SEGA. It took SEGA the same rate just to get Virtua Racing released.

The issue is that right now SEGA aren't really in top form so them reusing some of their old titles and IPs looks like them trying to cash in on their former glory. Truthfully the SEGA AGES packages are pretty good, just they look underwhelming within loads of existing complications and few new games (the Mega Drive Collection was badly timed really). They would likely stand out more if they started to promote themselves to doing some old 3D titles rather than the 80s/early 90s era they've always been making rereleases for, though we did at least get Virtua Racing (hoping we might get a few other early Model 1 or 2 titles like Virtua Fighter or SEGA Rally). Columns 2 seems to be a pretty impressive package all things considered, they really upped the extra bells and whistles with this one, even including Columns 1 for the hell of it to make it a double package. It does really make Puyo 1 seem underwhelming however, especially since its mass of ports and sequels meant they could have added just as many extras (most home versions of Puyo 1 even have an Endless Mode already). I do like that the team seem to be getting more fluent and ambitious in enhancing each title however. Leaves me hopeful their Sonic 2 and Fantasy Zone packages won't just be the same old stuff.

GOOD NEWS EVERYONE. BIG PATCH COMING THIS WAY ON JULY 3RD: https://blog.activision.com/crash-bandicoot/2019-06/Crash-Team-Racing-Nitro-Fueled-content-additions-updates Corruption bug and collision errors fixed, podium animations for online, Velo Mask added for CNK baddies, wumpa coin earnings fine tuned and FREE EARNINGS of 2,500 for everyone online during the week. EDIT: Crap, Birthday Bob CC14 just beat me to it.

CNK's Adventure Mode would be more difficult potentially since it's much more character specific. The cutscenes are interaction focused so likely only the two teams from that game could play with no Nitro Fuelled mode available. Ripper Roo challenging Papu Papu for example doesn't make a difference at all to what the latter says in his cutscenes, every character just stands there while he talks, while in CNK for example Krunk has very different interactions with both Crash and Cortex according to how they respond. This wouldn't be practical in a game with 30+ characters, especially with only four save slots already occupied for two different Adventure Modes. I'm not even going to compare CTTR's Adventure Mode since the differences between that game and CTR's are like night and day. I did very much like CNK's story mode for this reason and even if it did just have two teams or even one I'd likely gladly replay it if they replicated it well, but I can understand why the developers wouldn't think it was worth it. The more glaring omission in CTR NF that CNK had was the option of ACTUAL TEAM RACING.

I kinda like this cropped 'GBA style' screen ratio. I'd prefer proper widescreen but I know they'd need to add art for that. I hope they add that option in the SEGA AGES titles, nicer looking than the usual stretched format.

Day Two of E3 confirmed the easing in of CTTR characters and tracks (though whether they're reworked ones from the game itself or new ones inspired by it is not specified). If Pasadena gets in, she's my main racer. I'm excited about the premise of new tracks as well, enough Grand Prix and this could evolve from a remake to practically as much a new game as each Mario Kart.

Is it bad out of all those things listed, BABY CRASH AND BABY COCO takes my interest the most? XD SHE SPEAKS AT LAST! A Rouge-esque sassy voice is predictable but a good choice. Also skins for all five girls confirmed.