2014 is The Year Of Sonic "& Sports tape" *see post 1*

[Sami]

Because people aren't just liking it, they're acting like it's the hottest shit on the planet and that we don't really need Sonic Team or the traditional Sonic style anymore.

I guess it's just me misjudging the fanbase in how I thought we were all into this series for relatively the same reasons (even with our minor differences). Guess that's not really the case. :\

 

Very few people are suggesting that it should be a full replacement for the original series. 

 

However, I very much believe that a game doesn't need to be made by Sonic Team to be a good Sonic game.

[Octarine]

The Sonic franchise has been in a rough patch for a good long while, especially in terms of gameplay. I imagine there are plenty of people who have been able to tolerate the various ups and downs mostly out of an attachment to the characters and story, or at least the idea of the characters and story, more than the games' identity as games.

 

So when a new thing comes along that's made story and characters and maybe even an honest-to-God setting part of its mission statement, and it looks like it might even be a good game as well (if not a very actually Sonic-like one), it's not difficult to see why people who've been taking what they can get from Sonic Team for a decade or more would relish the idea of jumping ship. Even the most recent story drought, as it were, with no handheld spinoffs and super-streamlined main games, has been going on for several years. People have completed high school in the time since Colours was released. I don't think it's unreasonable that people maybe lost patience just a teeny bit.

 

Not that I think anything should be replacing anything; I like the system they're trying out and I hope it leads to better results on everyone's end. But Boom clearly scratches an itch that Sonic Team hasn't been able to reach for a long while.

[ElectricAngel]

Yeah, yeah I can see where all this comes from. But mostly I'd say it's because for once it looks like SEGA isn't messing up with Sonic. Yes, we've had Generations and Colors but for the most part, Sonic is pretty up and down when it comes to quality. When we saw the cartoon, it turned out better than what we expected. We automatically assumed the worst simply because of past experiences. Not only that, but the game seems to be giving us what we've been wanting for years. Multiple playable characters that play fast and have their own unique traits and open world level design with tons of exploration and multiple pathways. 

 

I wouldn't worry about Boom replacing anything, more like inspiring the JP Sonic Team. We already know a game by them is in development and that regular Sega!Sonic will exist. Boom!Sonic was just an attempt to grab old and new fans with a new style fit for western audiences. Seeing as people are positive for the most part, this can be very good for SEGA and Sonic alike. 

 

So far from what we know, this Boom!Sonic will only last a year or so. We've only got the one game and the 52 episodes of the cartoon series. After that, Boom!Sonic will be over. If the series is a success, I can see SEGA renewing the show for another season and maybe making another game, but as of now this is an act to reel in fans to get interested to the series. There really isn't anything to worry about. AoStH was it's own thing that lasted a while. So was SatAM, Underground and X. Granted, the SatAM series sorta continued onto the comics, but that's it. Just look at Boom!Sonic as a spin off, like the Mario RPGs in a way.

[Celestia]

I guess it's just me misjudging the fanbase in how I thought we were all into this series for relatively the same reasons (even with our minor differences). Guess that's not really the case. :\

I guess I can see where you're coming from, there.

 

The way I see it, when it comes to any fictional work, everyone's gonna be into it for different reasons. I mean, that's why there's disagreement in fandoms in general (it's just particularly bad in the case of this fandom because it's Sonic the Hedgehog which...somehow brings out the worst in people :V).

 

But yeah, I admit I kinda rolled my eyes when I saw a few people going "oh man this should just replace SEGASonic ecks dee lawl", if only because it's jumping the gun...a lot. I'm looking forward to the game, sure, but we don't even know if it's actually good or not! And even then, I don't really expect (or want) SEGA abandoning the main series just like that.

 

Basically my feelings on all of this can be summed up as 

 

 

...Which thankfully seems to be SEGA's intent. Hopefully that's what they stick to.

[Kuzu]

We all have our own reasons for liking the Sonic franchise, and I'm almost certain that, like Discoid said, we're fans of Sonic the franchise, and not Sonic Team themselves. Can anyone tell me that they even care about any of Sonic Team's other games beside Sonic? Or that if they never developed any Sonic game at all would they even care about them? I somehow believe a lot of people would answer "no" to both questions. 

 

We all got our own little reasons for liking this series, no reason to get bummed out because a few people don't feel the way you do about it.

[SuperLink]

Also I'd like to throw in that despite my current ????? towards Sonic Team's incompetence, the Sonic franchise in general is in a much better place generally for the last 5 years or so than it has been for a long time? Lost World may have been a mess, but at least it was mostly finished, not glitch-ridden, and easily more "Sonicy" than the games being released around 2005..

 

We aight.

[RK64]

To be frank, Sonic Team has gotten an almost unhealthy amount of chances to make an amazing Sonic game over the past decade. Sure, they have done a great job in recent years with Unleashed, Colors, Generations and Lost World....but its not like those games are better than other platformers on the market. Just looking back from 2007, we got games like NSMBWii, Donkey Kong Country Returns, Bionic Commando Rearmed, Ducktails Remastered, the Ratchet and Clank Futures series, the Rayman Series (Origins and Legends), Puppetter, Kirby Returns to Dreamland and so many other quality platformers that are solid well made games that fulfill their highest potential and aren't hindered by technical problems or simple design issues....and this is the time platforming is supposedly "dead".

 

I don't know, I love Sonic and really enjoyed Sonic Teams efforts over the past decade......but when I look at Sony, Ubisoft or Nintendo's platformers and see them have such high quality, I have issue seeing how Sonic Team could have that too. They came so dam close to getting it to; making stupid mastakes with Unleashed (limiting the Werehogs moves, the stupid metal collecting, bad frame rate problems, ect), not having enough 3d in Colors (the engine was more than capable of it, and it being so short didn't help much ), Generations being a fustrating waste of potential and still making stupid mistakes (the odd choice of levels, not having the classic sonic physics, the pitiful lack of a good story, horrid final boss) and not to mention fixing the issues of Lost World that could of been fixed (more normal stages, refined controls, better Wisp machaincs, ect).

 

That's not even talking about their past games....though that really isn't to fitting considering games like Sonic Heroes, Shadow and 06 were made by an older team at Sonic Team (as it was reported that new blood replaced much of the older teams at the company after the horrid Sonic 06). I would love for Sonic Team to make one amazing game at the caliber of the best games in the indurstry; I want a Rayman Origins, Mario Galaxy, Puppeteer, caliber Sonic tittle and not one that makes me hesatie "well this might be good...." That is why I am thrilled to see a western studio tackle the Sonic IP with Red Button Games and Sanzaru, as the tailent their makes me sure that Sonic Boom will reach that high quality cailber that other platformers out there have .

[azoo]

I really hope someone will take the time to read what I posted to Discoid in my post up top (I was editing the post to finish what I was saying before they got seperated by three more pages of discussion lol). I edited it to say responses to the quality of what Sonic Team has delivered as well as various other things, since I've already made my point on that.

[Soniman]

We all have our own reasons for liking the Sonic franchise, and I'm almost certain that, like Discoid said, we're fans of Sonic the franchise, and not Sonic Team themselves. Can anyone tell me that they even care about any of Sonic Team's other games beside Sonic? Or that if they never developed any Sonic game at all would they even care about them? I somehow believe a lot of people would answer yes to both questions. 

 

We all got our own little reasons for liking this series, no reason to get bummed out because a few people don't feel the way you do about it.

 

What other games HAVE they made in the last decade though? Billy Hatcher, which is average at best? And Journey of Dreams, which regardless if you like or hate it, is unanimously agreed to be inferior to the original.

[Kuzu]

What other games HAVE they made in the last decade though? Billy Hatcher, which is average at best? And Journey of Dreams, which regardless if you like or hate it, is unanimously agreed to be inferior to the original.

 

I meant to put "No" in my original post, but thank you for adding to my point.

[RK64]

I really hope someone will take the time to read what I posted to Discoid in my post up top (I was editing the post to finish what I was saying before they got seperated by three more pages of discussion lol). I edited it to say responses to the quality of what Sonic Team has delivered as well as various other things, since I've already made my point on that.

 

I agree with you that Sonic Boom isn't really the Sonic that people see the series as, but it is expected when a completely new team is working with the series. Besides, we really haven't seen much of the game yet to completely see if all the classic elements (speed boosters, springs, the classic artstyle) are gone. I don't know, I love the past Sonic games but I just want the series to be as great as it was in the old days of the Genesis were Sonic was as big as Mario and on top of the world. And if it means for one game to not have all the classic elements in place, then I say so be it.

 

We are still getting a Sonic Team Sonic next year on PS4/X1, so we are still going to get a the normal Sonic game even if this new team is making a Sonic .

[Kuzu]

But it's something I just can't jive with. It bothers me to an extreme extent because while it features all of these things and competent developers, it just doesn't look like it's shaping up to be like Sonic in any way. And that's not bad for it as a spin-off, but bad in the sense that I thought people wouldn't be so willing to give up what made Sonic Sonic just to have these other things, and then say it'd be alright if we just kept having it this way because of that.

Only thing I can say to this is what I said before, people have different reasons for liking Sonic. What may be Sonic to you, won't be what Sonic is to a lot of other people, gotta be open minded man.

 

 

And frankly I do not give a single damn if they're more competent or better developers. Sonic is in a completely different league than Jak & Daxter in art style, gameplay, and everything. If this were a main series title then it'd be no closer to what Sonic really is than what SatAM was to being a Sonic show; which is why I express such heavy distaste in the series becoming Boom whilst being okay with it for what it is, basically.

Some people are willing to accept another developer if it delivers on what they want out of the series; You just hold Sonic to a different standard than what a lot of people feel or agree with.

 

I'm hopeful that the 2015 game will be the Sonic I've been waiting on, period. I just thought others felt the same way..

 

We do, but dude, here's something you have to acknowledge; Sonic Team don't have a decent track record for consistently good games. Yea, you can tout the classics all you want, but that was over 15 years ago. After so many games people felt were mediocre to average at best, can you really blame people for Sonic going to a brand with far more competence on their side?

 

Or better yet, imagine this was the game that you wanted so much, and that we're the bummed out ones;wouldn't you understand how we felt in that case? You gotta look at things from both sides instead of just yours man.

[JaidynReiman]

Only thing I can say to this is what I said before, people have different reasons for liking Sonic. What may be Sonic to you, won't be what Sonic is to a lot of other people, gotta be open minded man.

 

 

Some people are willing to accept another developer if it delivers on what they want out of the series; You just hold Sonic to a different standard than what a lot of people feel or agree with.

 

 

We do, but dude, here's something you have to acknowledge; Sonic Team don't have a decent track record for consistently good games. Yea, you can tout the classics all you want, but that was over 15 years ago. After so many games people felt were mediocre to average at best, can you really blame people for Sonic going to a brand with far more competence on their side?

 

Or better yet, imagine this was the game that you wanted so much, and that we're the bummed out ones;wouldn't you understand how we felt in that case? You gotta look at things from both sides instead of just yours man.

Sonic Team doesn't have a good track record, and in my opinion, I think its largely to them being constantly making new games and constantly under pressure. By having a new developer starting to create spinoff titles that can really, really leviate the pressure off of Sonic Team and allow them to make an overall better and higher quality game than they could have otherwise.

 

If this new game turns out well and Big Red Button wants to make more games, I'm all for it. I don't care if its not all that "Sonicy," it gives us new Sonic-related games we can play while waiting on the next big Sonic game which should be of overall much higher quality than what they would be able to do having to make both a main game (Unleashed, Generations) and a spinoff (Colors, Lost World) coincide with one another.

 

 

In my personal opinion, its a win-win scenario all around and Sega should've done this a long time ago. (Though I still hate the fact that its a new continuity, but whatever, I guess I can deal with that.)

[Kuzu]

Exactly, these Spin offs could take a lot of pressure off of Sonic Team and consider new ideas for their games.

[Diogenes]

... I thought people wouldn't be so willing to give up what made Sonic Sonic ...

I didn't give up what made Sonic Sonic. Sonic game up what made Sonic Sonic. And at this point I've spent years getting angry over that, and hoping it'd go back. But it hasn't, and I don't expect it ever will, at this point.

 

I mean, I'm half and half on this whole thing. I don't at all like how the gameplay looks. I don't expect it to feel anything like a Sonic game. I'm not a fan of the world aesthetic either, it looks generic as all hell. But I am interested in what they do with the characters, story, and writing in general, because it feels like they might actually do interesting things with it. And even if it's not exactly what I wanted out of Sonic, I'm not getting that from the main series anyway.

[SuperLink]

I didn't actually think about this potentially taking a lot of pressure off Sonic Team. That could actually work really well for them? They always had to work on such tight deadlines :/

[azoo]

Only thing I can say to this is what I said before, people have different reasons for liking Sonic. What may be Sonic to you, won't be what Sonic is to a lot of other people, gotta be open minded man.

Yeah I know.

 

Some people are willing to accept another developer if it delivers on what they want out of the series; You just hold Sonic to a different standard than what a lot of people feel or agree with.

I'm not one to just like the characters and story; I like the art style and the gameplay focus, the little things that all come together. I thought there was a decent majority of people who felt the same way, at least in the simplest kind of way.. since after all, those elements are what makes a Sonic game a 'Sonic game', even if that term isn't too terribly specific.

I understood there were differing opinions to a varying degree, but it takes me aback that it's to such a dramatic extent.

 

We do, but dude, here's something you have to acknowledge; Sonic Team don't have a decent track record for consistently good games. Yea, you can tout the classics all you want, but that was over 15 years ago. After so many games people felt were mediocre to average at best, can you really blame people for Sonic going to a brand with far more competence on their side?

No, but it kind of baffles me that people will consider playing as other characters and having a story more important than having the Sonic 'gameplay' and style. I'm into the games for both reasons, so I just don't winat all. :'v

 

Or better yet, imagine this was the game that you wanted so much, and that we're the bummed out ones;wouldn't you understand how we felt in that case? You gotta look at things from both sides instead of just yours man.

That's how I sort of feel its gonna be when Sonic 2015 comes around. :\

But you know, maybe not. I certainly hope that Boom will give them enough pressure off their shoulders to work on one game at a time. Since they suddenly decided to shift their Sonic Team into two after Unleashed, development times have seemed to screw them over regarding making good games with lots of content. They seemed to grasp what works in Colors/Gens and a good gameplay style with Sonic, so that plus the dev time and budget of two games in one may help the next title be a titan.

Hopefully Boom will manage to be a nice side-series while Sonic Team can stop trying too hard to experiment, get their shit together and make the next game a big one. I'd just like to hope that Boom doesn't undermine the next game for the fans.

[Kuzu]

Yeah I know.

 

I'm not one to just like the characters and story; I like the art style and the gameplay focus, the little things that all come together. I thought there was a decent majority of people who felt the same way, at least in the simplest kind of way.. since after all, those elements are what makes a Sonic game a Sonic game.

I understood there were differing opinions to a varying degree, but it takes me aback that it's to such a dramatic extent.

 

No, but it kind of baffles me that people will consider playing as other characters and having a story more important than having the Sonic gameplay and style. I'm into the games for both reasons, so I just don't winat all. :'v

 

That's how I sort of feel its gonna be when Sonic 2015 comes around. :\

 

 

From how I'm reading this, this basically just boils down to you not really being able to understand why people feel differently about something than you do. And if that's the case, I really don't know what more to say, because it should be basic knowledge to understand that people have differing opinions.

 

For the record, I'm not trying to be intentionally mean; I just really have nothing else to add...

[Sami]

Also I'd like to throw in that despite my current ????? towards Sonic Team's incompetence, the Sonic franchise in general is in a much better place generally for the last 5 years or so than it has been for a long time? Lost World may have been a mess, but at least it was mostly finished, not glitch-ridden, and easily more "Sonicy" than the games being released around 2005..

 

We aight.

 

I don't disagree, but when things like Unleashed happen I find it hard to call them anything but that. It irritates me to an insane degree that they're utterly incapable at putting together things they've previously succeeded at on an individual basis. Unleashed excelled in all of the many things Generations is missing, but Generations wasn't chained down by a horrifically stupid concept from day one. ... Then Lost World comes along and is basically the grand culmination of everything I personally hated about the current direction they're taking and wasn't even polished to boot. 

 

Makes me very bitter about Sonic Team as a developer, even if it's in large part due to my own personal preferences. 

[Blue Blood]

RE: All the comments about how this isn't a Sonic game etc etc etc

Sonic Boom is completely it's own beast and I'm totally down with that. For what it is, it looks like it could potentially be a fantastic new take on the series. I'm not expecting a Sonic experience as we would know them, so on those grounds I'm open to... Well, almost anything. At this stage I do still remain a bit dubious about the quality of the game and show. The game could easily venture into the territories of uninspired and generic, while the show could just be awful. But taking what we've seen as verbatim, the final products could be very good. I can get hung up about Lost World not being very Sonicy, and Sonic 4 being a poor effort to reinvigorate the Classics. Boom is something different though, so I'm not able to find myself applying the same standards to it. That, and I just like what I see.

The important thing I think to note for many of us is that it doesn't change what we want from SEGA Sonic at all. Boom might well be offering multiple characters and a richer storyline, but the key thing is that because it's different it won't be filling the same void. And a big worry will be that Boom could (regardless of quality) overtake the original series in terms of popularity. It's got a huge multi-media marketing push behind it that the original series hasn't seen for ten years at least, coupled with the simple fact that it's new. SEGA must now compete with themselves to keep both Sonic franchises alive.

[Kuzu]

I don't disagree, but when things like Unleashed happen I find it hard to call them anything but that. It irritates me to an insane degree that they're utterly incapable at putting together things they've previously succeeded at on an individual basis. Unleashed excelled in all of the many things Generations is missing, but Generations wasn't chained down by a horrifically stupid concept from day one. ... Then Lost World comes along and is basically the grand culmination of everything I personally hated about the current direction they're taking and wasn't even polished to boot. 

 

Makes me very bitter about Sonic Team as a developer, even if it's in large part due to my own personal preferences. 

 

The ironic part is that aside from Lost World, all of their games have sold a great deal; personal preferences aside, you can't deny what they're doing hasn't benefited them.

[azoo]

From how I'm reading this, this basically just boils down to you not really being able to understand why people feel differently about something than you do. And if that's the case, I really don't know what more to say, because it should be basic knowledge to understand that people have differing opinions.

You could boil it down to that, but really I do get it. People have different opinions. Yep.

Anyways my whole argument thing has been rode SUPER far off the rails because my point was that I don't agree with the people who think it would be okay if Boom was the main series, when I see too much value in the main series to think that. That's it. That's all I wanted to say. :T

Meanwhile I'm actually glad Boom is what it is.

Since now while Sega introduced this western branch, they have less of a burden to try to reach towards youger demographics and catch their attention, and don't have to seperate their team anymore. And while Boom ends up becoming a really good (albeit vastly different kind of) game, Sega will have to do as Blue Blood mentioned and combat that with a bigger, badder, and better game to keep face.. and thanks to said second team allowing them to bring their company back as one and have more dev time, they'll be able to.

And that sounds awesome.

Sonic deserves better than Sonic Team.

More like "Sonic deserves Sonic Team to treat him better", honestly.

[Sami]

The ironic part is that aside from Lost World, all of their games have sold a great deal; personal preferences aside, you can't deny what they're doing hasn't benefited them.

Good for them, they're working with a popular brand. Even Sonic 06 sold well enough to be considered a financial success. So what? Sonic deserves better than Sonic Team. Edit - At least until they learn to competently handle more than one aspect of basic game design at a time.

[Kuzu]

Good for them, they're working with a popular brand.

Even Sonic 06 sold well enough to be considered a financial success. So what? Sonic deserves better than Sonic Team.

 

That's the thing tho, Sonic sells and as long as he does, Sonic Team will continue to exist and develop his games unless Sega gives them the boot...which they won't, because once again, Sonic sells.

 

 

I do agree tho, he does deserve better than what he's got.

[SuperLink]

More like "Sonic deserves Sonic Team to treat him better", honestly.

I know I talked about this yesterday but again Sonic Team is Sonic Team only in name. Why does it have to be Sonic Team making Japanese Sonic? Why can't it be another company within SoJ? Under any other name, we wouldn't make excuses for them if Mario or Zelda were given to another Nintendo dev and it didn't work out, we'd quite rightfully want them to be with more talented teams again, they have nothing to do with original Sonic, and their current best should be their average but it's not. Sonic does deserve better than Sonic Team, and if that means Sonic Team need to become a far better developer than they are, so be it, because Sonic Team only gets away with their mediocrity because they have the same name as the developer who invented him.