Kazhnuz

You look at the original video in an hexadecimal editor and see if there are remaining interesting bits in the metadatas. Some editor keep them in the exporter file, for whatever reason. And in this case, it allowed us to get the Rangers name.

I'm not surprised, and I don't think that it will have a lasting strong effect. Even if they add some lighting stylistic effect on him, his main "power" will stay "speed". The way his speed give him power already have changed a lot between game, we add some "wind stuff", the shockwave of the boost, electricity now in the movie... In a way, I think that even if it appear, it'll be more of a cosmetic things (like here), and not be anything that'll change that much the IP. But it's not surprised that the new really-popular Sonic media have some effect on the brand representation. And I feel that most other things that could appear from the movies already kinda exists in the IP, two-world and "ring portals" (that are kinda like wrap ring).

To be fair, about this one I would wait to know how much there is some translation stuff or if it's genuine. How much it's that they didn't thought it would work in this case (for instance if it's against the Zeti, if it would work against the emerald scattered) or how much it would work in general. Stuff like character changing, or the overall universe doesn't surprise me that much, but here it seems a bit weird that they could go to forbid it "in general" and it wouldn't be the first time that we believe that a "mandate" is more broad that it really was.

To be fair, even here "hiring fans" isn't exactly what happened. They even did not hire them, and that's a part why we are a lot of devs finding using this case for the "hire this man" stuff kinda annoying. Taxman contacted SEGA with a proof of concept using a custom engine (which make most of the fangame irrelevant for a "hire this man" stuff, as they build on proprietary engines that SEGA couldn't use for their games), with a process to create a product that would work. They were not just "hired fans", they were creator approaching SEGA with a project that could work in a budget and stuff (like some other companies IIRC). He was already at least in a professional posture, and had at the same time the knowledge to make the Retro Engine, the knowledge that came from having studied the genesis game for years and the good protocol to contact SEGA. Fans that work for Sonic can happens (a lot of people now that work on some Sonic stuff were fans, I won't deny it as it would be quite false XD). But they have to approach them with a solid an viable product (and it certainly will work better if they have some sort of structure/company) that interest SEGA, and plans about how it'll be done. Or do job interviews and stuff if they want to be part of a company.

I'm not sure that he can hire the people of Mania like that (or even really try), as it's not because they have skills related to create a game like Mania that they are also perfect to work on the Sonic Team on 3D games (were they would have less power). He would be better tasking them with other project like Mania, and improving the Sonic Team in itself. And he might also have some constraint from where the people that work must live to be part of Sonic Team or SEGA CS2, of things like that. If it's like this, the fans in question should either find a way to apply in japan or create a professional studio/team that could be officially contracted by SEGA to help with Sonic game dev, like are the lot of studios that worked with Forces were. The area where they seems to be able to have remote worker for sure is writers. Sonic Team isn't an half-independant studio anymore, and in most big company you can't really go on on and hire or fire everybody you want without any process if you are just a head team. To really know if he have this power, we would need information about how SEGA exactly work, and what kind of power Iizuka really have. That's why all the discussion about Iizuka won't go really anywhere : it's just speculating of things we don't know, and trying to create from scratch way to know that based yet again of those things we don't know. It's like the "Iizuka tasked to create a Sonic Team from scratch in the USA", that might be a bit more complex : We don't know if the Sonic Pillar is supposed to be a Sonic Team, or just some stuff to work about the global IP and supervise media. If it's a "new Sonic Team" we don't know if it's to develop the game or to just conceptualise stuff while it'll be dev by SEGA CS2. If it's also a dev team, we don't know if he was tasked to create it "from scratch" of if it's just the existing Sonic Team that would go to the USA. And if it's a new Sonic Team from scratch, we don't know if he is really the one that "hire them", as isn't the Human Resources department. So, we don't know exactly what is this "bureau in the USA" is yet, we might have some information when the next game is released. The problem isn't that Iizuka is perfect and couldn't be the source of the problem (he is certainly pretty flawed on some points, like for instance we know that he shouldn't write the game himself, with Rivals and Shadow XD), and maybe that having a new head of the Sonic Team would improve things : it's that we don't know really how it works, and we don't really know if it would change anything. So it's difficult imo to have a real informed opinion about that.

Even if all the vocal fans started boycotting together, it wouldn't change anything : it's nearly nothing in size compared to the global population of people that buy the games. We are big in noise, but not a big proportion of the buyers. And nearly most boycotts about a video-game haven't been effective at all. About the petition, I don't think that a petition about changing something in a videogame will be met that seriously.

I don't think that the mandates are really putting the comics in danger (I mean, it's difficult to know how much it'll impact the sale of the biggest group of buyers). And about him appearing or not, it'll also depend of Evan Stanley, that doesn't seem to have the same exact vision of the mandates (not surprising : a same mandate can be seen pretty differently by different writers), and IIRC she said having plans for Shadow (or story with Shadow I'm not sure), so we might see him somewhere after Zeti Hunt, especially as Flynn is the secondary writer now, not the head writer. It'll depends of if Stanley want to make him appear in her arcs or not.

I'm not too concerned about Shadow. There is a lot of time before his next apparition (he isn't scheduled in Zeti Hunt), and SEGA have the time to change their mind 50 times. The reaction to this will be hard if it attein the twitter part of the fandom, and yet another one that the PR will have to handle. I wouldn't be surprised that they revert hard this whole things, as they tend to react to everything that happens, and that it's pretty recent (IDW6 didn't show trace of that). They might not recess entirely on him being a bit more of a jerk, but the "motives" are something simple enough to handle as it's just a matter of him wanting to take down big threat instead of fighting strong foes :') To be fair, people didn't react to Tails because he was "static", but because he "regressed". The problem isn't that they are "frozen", it's that they are frozen in a state they don't like because it contradict what he should be. If they frozen all character to the end of their arc, most people wouldn't have even noticed. And they won't be able to evolve forever, the IP is supposed to be "eternal", and characters can't age up. They should more evolve with the current trends and visions (for instance why Sonic being more attentive to other feeling is prefered now), but they can't really "evolve" as character, as nearly all game have to be an entry point.

There is nearly no chance they'll make a new console. And even less a chance that they do one that wouldn't be some kind of nice bonus and stop making game for the big HD consoles. And it's been more time since they stopped doing console that their whole time doing one. And if they did, I think that they would more make something like the AtariVCS (a glorified low-powered PC with a custom way-too-much-locked Linux on it with an hastly done UI slapped on it) than the real new console that revolutionize the industrie. Even to be fair, with how much the AtariVCS is a trainwreck, it wouldn't be hard to do better lol. All in one, going for third-party and putting Sonic in all plateform wasn't a bad idea. IMO, it was needed for their survival. And I think that for the Sonic IP, is was more good than bad, because it certainly helped the IP to get a new public. But I wouldn't really call it a mandates, it was more of a circumstances. IMO, there is not much mandates I have strong opinion off. I mean, I think that Shadow's writing could be better in IDW, but I feel that Evan Stanley already have managed to do something more interesting with him, and I feel that it's the kind of thing that'll change in time. I'm not too afraid by SEGA's mandates : they often changes and they don't keep that much long. Even Shadow, his current writing is pretty recent in a way, as the first instance of it was in Boom, and in many official stuff, Shadow isn't that much different than before (In episode Shadow he is harsh, but he has great alchemy with rouge and omega… Even though even in Chao Races and Badnik Bases, Rouge show that she is really the only one he listen too xD), and it's especially visible in some recent Sonic Channel stuff about him, where his "soft" side is shown. So for the moment, I'm not too afraid. And all the "Sonic can't loose", "Sonic can't have strong emotion", etc… Well, they are mostly common mandates, especially as the products show that they aren't that restrictive that we could think, so I'm not that bothered.

It depends for what. We need another source to know who decided that. But it's enough to doubt that this is something new to the 2010 era (especially when we had some sign that it was part of their vision, even if unofficial, with Unleashed or Sonic X) or that Iizuka is the "only culprit". To know that we don't exactly know what's going on, and that so if we "accuse" someone for this we'll do it without all the info, and thus would need more info to really decide "who is responsible" for this. He certainly got that directly from Sonic Team/SEGA ( IIRC he also said that the "two world" things isn't a mistranslation ), nowadays he works with more proximity with them than before, so he have more inside knowledge.

Even the "two worlds" things, we have one source (Ian Flynn), that says that it's come more from Naka's era. So even that we can't says if it's him or not xD (even if to be fair, he is one of the person that didn't say). That's one of the reason it's hard to pin problems to just one person, imo. Many things happens behind the scene, and we often don't have enough knowledge to find a "culprit" of the problems. That's why I don't think that searching someone "guilty" of the problem of the IP isn't really useful. We don't have real knowledge and it won't really help anything to just lay blame on people. For me it's a bit like people searching to accuse Flynn of every problem ever (we still can try analyse the "style" of some people and find what we like or not, it's more trying to pinpoint a "roots of the problems" that I feel is not a good idea. It's certainly more complexe).

I'm not sure that a team chef can decide like that to replace a professional director without raising some eyebrow :') I'm not working in the videogame field (I'm an enterprise software developer, and my company is… a bit bigger than SEGA to say the least xD), but I've seen that my chef have even trouble to get us more devs when we are understaffed, so I imagine that a role like Director wouldn't be easy to get like that. And maybe that even if we have questions about how Kishimoto handle his games, that he is doing a right job on the other front of what a director do, and that Iizuka simply doesn't want to replace him. Or maybe that the team have a good relationship. Or maybe another possible reason. That's the kind of question that is difficult to answer : to really have an answer, we would need to know exactly how SEGA works.

Emphasis on "heard", because it's not exactly true. Flynn (who talked about Team Dark and is our only sources) never mentionned that Iizuka said that, just that it was the official that they aren't really collegue or "friend" (without). Moreover, other writer Evan Stanley said that the "restriction" (which she described as "Team Dark isn't a term used in-universe") doesn't restrict the main relationship between Rouge and Shadow (which is that Shadow and Rouge bring the best of each-other). So basically: - What you say is a deformation, as we have no information of who said that. - We don't even really know that it means because different writers interpret it differently.

The interview is here : https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https://www.famitsu.com/news/201711/11145786.html Fans are only a small proportion of the potential buyers, and they have to at least says that they are targeting a larger group. Sonic Forces is full of fanservice, if they only cared to cater to other fans than Sonic fans, Forces wouldn't have as much other characters. Same for Sonic Generations, that is full of fanservice. And about the story, the lack of explications doesn't seems that much a problem of "vision" in Forces than a big execution problem (which is as much important than a problem of vision). Lost Hex not being explained is related to what the story is : the story pre-Forces were actually simple. In Forces… I wouldn't call it "too simple", as it's also convoluted on some points, with too much plot point. There is a common lack of explanation, but it's not really related imo. It's more related in pre-Forces games between them, than between Forces and them. It's more the superficial layer of writing style that is the same for me (which isn't strange when a part of the writing team is the same), the vision behind the story are polar opposite.

Nobody here have said that he was responsible only for good things. Both post you quote says that he have made stuff other than the "good game". So no "selectiveness" here 😛 And most people says that he was LESS involved in Forces, and doesn't negate that he was involved in older Boost game, and in game like Colors and stuff. What point to Iizuka being more overseeing Mania than Forces is mostly what we can find from the devs, from interviews and stuff. For instance, we know that the wispon gameplay is mostly related to Kishimoto, that wasn't really fond of the first instance of "all are shot weapon and have an strenght and a weakness" and wanted something more adrenaline-filled. (We also know with that interview that the occidental branches have some influences, as they said that they were a bit afraid about lyrics in song because of that). And to be fair, the recent games doesn't have exactly the same vision in every points. Gameplay vision is pretty different in a game made by Kishimoto (and in a way : even between Kishimoto boost games and Lost World) and in Generations, and Lost World and Forces are polar opposite : especially with Forces having a focus on storytelling, which is kinda the opposite from every game before since Unleashed or 2006. Samewise for the difficulty, I don't think that it's just "games are becoming easier", it's mostly Colors/Forces that are really easy, Generations was easy but not as much as those one, and I remember people finding Lost World "unfair" in it's difficulty (with several "one-hit-kill" moments). That's all the complexity of the subject : he have made good and bad things, but with other people. He is partly responsible for some pretty nice stuff, but also for big failure (like Sonic 4). And the whole company policies have effect on what happens. How much budget the game have, how much time they have to develop stuff. t doesn't mean that he is perfect, or that he'll be only source of good stuff. But that trying to pinpoint a sole responsible isn't really relevant with what knowledge we have (especially when tbh SEGA's management is pretty known to be kinda… bad). Yes, it give "hopes" of a simple solution (because it mean that if the "bad man" is out, stuff would be solved), when saying that the problem is more profound and related to the system the Sonic games are made on. It's for me like all the "SEGA should be bought by <insert here another company here>" : it give a "simple" (not really that simple in fact, but eh) solution, even if there are chance that it's not a realistic depiction of the issue. Maybe having another produceur might make some stuff better. Maybe it might make some other stuff worse. Maybe the better stuff would be pretty cool, even. But for most part, there is a big chance that doesn't change the deeper problems about SEGA's management, that might be sources of problems in Sonic too.