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Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric (Wii U)


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It would be very strange for you to be able to go at top speed when a boss is chasing him or when he going through the hub but god forbid he go fast when you want him to. Nope you will need the rocket shoes to go that fast dummy.

Perhaps they're all conserving their energy for when they really need it...or something. Heck, maybe they just want to look cool speeding around on rocket shoes like friggin' Shadow the hedgehog. Other than that, I got nothing.

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I wonder what Lyric is going to sound like. I'm personally hoping he sounds like Dr. Nefarious from the R&C series. I think it'd be a perfect voice for him.

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One thing I'm curious about....is if you can attack your teammates or not. I'd love to kick Buffles as Sonic. What would be icing on the cake is if the teammate you're attacking reacts to it verbally rather than grunting.

 

Oh, it's very likely you will be able to. You might not damage them, but you will most likely be able to hit them and they will react. It's common in a lot of Sony platformers.

 

I wonder what Lyric is going to sound like. I'm personally hoping he sounds like Dr. Nefarious from the R&C series. I think it'd be a perfect voice for him.

I demand the importation of Sony talent continue and it be extended to voice actors as well.

...can... can we have this game written by the R&C team as well? Please?

I do wonder who the writer of this game is, actually. They aren't attracting Pont-flak, so I assume it isn't Ken Pontac again.

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I'm all for the chatter during the missions. As long as it doesn't get stupidly obvious as Sonic Heroes did.

 

 

waaaaah I'm falling!

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Best-case scenario, some of the screenshots and footage were taken with the game not running under full or optimal conditions for whatever reason.  It could happen, but from what I'm hearing a lot of next-gen games end up looking considerably less impressive than their initial reveals would indicate.

 

I don't have a Wii U and thus won't be getting the Wii U version, but what I've seen of it just now - didn't really bother checking it out before, owing to the aforementioned lack of console ownership - looks okay, save for combat.  I am not a combat game fan, and every time I've played a demo of one or seen footage of one it seems to involve hitting the weakest enemies in the game half a dozen times or more each before they finally die and everything being slow and heavy and boring, so to be honest I kind of wonder if I just happen to only be looking at / playing bad games or if it's a genre problem.  I'm sure combat game fans will insist that it's not the latter, though.

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I just pray that Sonic and co. can acquire rocket boots like Ratchet, hoverboards like Jak, or something similar so they can go faster at the risk of more danger.

Going at a decent speed shouldn't put you in danger.

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In game banter between characters can be good but it can also get annoying real quick, especially if they keep repeating the same things over and over. It was one of my biggest gripes with Sonic Heroes. I liked Secret Rings though because they didn't repeat as many lines and I liked the banter between Shahra and Sonic. Depends on how good the script is too, which is mostly hit and miss when it comes to SEGA games. Sonic Heroes, ShtH and Sonic 06 had awful in game chatting but Secret Rings and Black Knight were surprisingly good.

 

 I do wonder who the writer of this game is, actually. They aren't attracting Pont-flak, so I assume it isn't Ken Pontac again.

 

I'm actually surprised they still haven't mentioned who the writer(s) is/are. o_o Maybe we'll finally hear at E3? It's obviously not Pontac and co. even though the script seems quite similar.

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I wonder what Lyric is going to sound like. I'm personally hoping he sounds like Dr. Nefarious from the R&C series. I think it'd be a perfect voice for him.

In before it turns out that he sings his sentences in verses. He is called Lyric after all.

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Obviously his major goal is to turn Sonic into a musical.

 

...I wonder if they'll address the whole "hedgehogs eating snakes" thing. Then again, foxes are known to eat hedgehogs...(I think).

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I found this article and enjoyed it. It's not full of new info, but it does have some interesting tidbits.

 

 

All About Creating Sonic Boom: Rise Of Lyric With Big Red Button

 

After playing Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric, Siliconera spoke with Bob Rafei, Creative Director and CEO of Big Red Button which is developing the Wii U game. Rafei and his studio have been working with Sega and Sonic Team to make a new type Sonic the Hedgehog game tied to the upcoming TV show of the same name.

 

What was the biggest takeaway you got from fans after Sonic Boom was announced?

 

Bob Rafei, CEO of Big Red Button: That’s easy. What a strong fanbase and a vocal fanbase this franchise has.

 

The most important feedback was from Sega and Sonic Team. This is something they are exploring in terms of a different approach for Sonic. That was the most important guidance to us.

 

In terms of your first question, having that strong reaction to me validates we were on the right track. The majority of it was strong and positive so we know we are hitting the right chord. Also from my personal perspective is if we didn’t foster such a strong reaction we wouldn’t be giving Sega their run for their money by having us really explore a different approach with the franchise. We ultimately believe we are on the right track and we are happy and comfortable with the direction that Sonic Boom is going in.

 

What part of Sonic Boom surprised Sonic Team the most when you showed it to them?

 

I would say combat. That was a bit of a head scratcher for Sonic Team, but the more they saw what we were doing the more they helped us hone it. We knew it had to have speed elements because it is a Sonic game. That sense of exploration is going back to a Sonic Adventure feel.

 

[Feedback from Sonic Team] was really in terms of balancing and tuning. Part of the mission mandate at Big Red Button was to expand on Sonic. I would say that is something we brought to the table and Sega really digested and agreed it was a good approach.

 

Sonic is an interesting series since there are kids that grew up with 2D Sonic and there are kids that grew up with and prefer 3D Sonic. And now, there are going to be kids that will grow up with Sonic Boom. There are three different kinds of games with one starring character. When you look at your style in Sonic Boom what are the tenets of this kind of Sonic game?

 

Primarily, it is a character action exploration. It’s an epic adventure story. It’s all about exploration. We introduced combat in a way that is kind of new to the franchise so it was very important that we do that right because it is such a different approach. And certainly speed is part of the equation. The speed component for us is tapping into joyous movement, the sense of rollercoaster and exhilaration of movement.

 

In terms of the main project pillar, it was cooperative play. We wanted to have an experience where friends and family sit down on a couch and are able to play the game together. That kind of relationship people will bring to it, we wanted to have the characters display that in their banter. Personality was another big important part of it, in terms of how the characters emote and how it reflects into the mechanics as well.

 

For example, Sonic is all about speed. His navigation and combat are centered around fast rapid movements. Knuckles is a big bruiser, he’s a power character. Tails is the inventor on the team and Amy has agility. She has a triple jump. Knuckles has burrow and wall climbing. Tails has a buddy bot, which he can release onto enemies or unlock gates for him. That kind of characteristic that comes out in their persona also come out in how they speak to each other in the story. These guys known each other for a long time that means we can have some fun since they don’t always agree with each other.

 

Is it hard to do joyous movement in 3D space compared to the 2D Sonic games where Sonic had one less plane to worry about?

 

I think Sonic Boom has found a good formula for that. We tried to make a subtle variation by having lane changing and the obstacle course. There are a lot of different paths too. Classic Sonic has the main path and for the more skilled players you can access the higher levels. That is also something we wanted to tap into as well.

 

In terms of navigating in 3D space, yeah it is more difficult because spatially you have to understand what is happening. That’s the challenge of any driving game has or flying game has. That is something we were also very aware of when we developing the course in Sonic Boom.

 

How did you solve the problem?

 

It’s the progression of challenge and that’s through introduction and mastery of a mechanic. There will be cases when we’re introducing it will be a lot more straight forward and you are just mastering lane changing or obstacle avoidance. Later on, it becomes pretty fast and frantic. It was very important for us to get the right balance into the game. Right now, you’re seeing one of the levels and later on we’ll give you more feedback about what the full game has.

 

 

Sonic is known for having an attitude and in the old cartoons he made a lot of one liner wisecracks. When you were writing the story, what are some of the jokes and catchphrases he has in Sonic Boom?

 

There are so many. We wanted to find a balance between making the character appealing and not being so repetitive by saying the same one liners. What we love about his personality is we wanted to build on his attitude of rushing into action sometimes without thinking about it. Tails, a lot of times, is telling him, “We got to check this out” or the other team members will say, “I don’t know if we need to go there.” That’s the fun aspect of having Sonic rush into action and then have to backtrack to see if he got into trouble or not. That plays a big part in the story which will we reveal more at E3.

 

What about Amy? It seems like she’s changed the most.

 

We wanted to have a strong, able-bodied female character. We didn’t want her to be fawning after Sonic. The goal was to have her be appealing on her own. She is very agile, she is very acrobatic, and very graceful. She’s the only character, from a pure mechanics perspective, that has a triple jump. There are some places that only she can get to.

 

And Knuckles?

 

He’s the most fun character to write for because he’s a little slow on the uptake. A lot of times, the things he is saying tend to be funny because he is trying to process what is happening. He’s our go to guy for the punch line and I think the show does that as well. In collaboration with the TV writers, we wanted to have a consistent approach with their personalities and the show really plays up on that.

 

 

 

How does Eggman fit into this since Sonic Boom has a new main villain?

 

We wanted him to pass down the torch in terms of introducing a new villain. That’s a very fun dynamic that was very cool to create, these two guys have an uneasy partnership and we’ll be talking about that more at E3.

 

We will still see a decent amount of Eggman in the game?

 

Oh yeah, absolutely. We wanted to tap into the best parts of canon and build on top of that. Eggman is in the game and there is a boss round with him here. Part of the narrative arc is being stronger with friends, which is what are team represents and that kind of discord the antagonist team goes through. They can ultimately never be able to work together, so that becomes their undoing. Versus the team, which learns to mesh together and use their individual skills to their best advantage.

 

It seems like there are more collectables in Sonic Boom like all of those robot parts in the demo.

 

Because we chose to do a character adventure, part of the genre is the ability to explore and to find these rare items. That’s where that comes from, to be true to the genre blending, taking those parts of Sonic that we love and putting a twist on it by giving it a classic character adventure feel. You go to the hubs, you meet NPCs, there are unlockables there, there are missions that they give you. There are home improvement missions you’ll see at the hubs and those are satisfied by collecting robot parts.

 

Are we going to see any other characters from the Sonic universe? Maybe Metal Sonic, Shadow or Fang?

 

That’s to be determined later.

 

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We wanted to find a balance between making the character appealing and not being so repetitive by saying the same one liners.

 

I'm hoping they're taking this seriously.  I consider the standard to be the likes of games like Left 4 Dead.  Hundreds of lines, nearly every frequently used line "Cover me I'm healing", "Molotov here" etc have anything between 3-10 variations each, per character.  And even level specific conversations, like a funny exchange that follows a character commenting on a nearby piece of scenery, will only happen randomly, and if it does the conversation may have 2-3 variants.

 

I don't understand why so many games mess this up.  Surely you can have some kind of background triggers going on where if Eggman has said "YOU MISERABLE LITTLE HEDGEHOG!" once during this boss battle, he will not say it again.  Have one or two lines that only trigger if the boss battle has gone on long enough that he's said all his other lines "I cannot believe you fools aren't dead yet!?"  Grunts and yells are fine (still have a good 10-20 to pick from) but full sentences repeating themselves too often breaks any semblance that these are real characters.  If he's said all of his possible lines, just make him grunt and yell, it's fine.

 

If there are conversations that occur at a specific point in a level, make sure they have at least a few variations, or only play the first time you go to the level (especially - if this is an open adventure game - if the game implies that characters revisiting a level are literally revisiting it, it's not some sort of video-game justified time warp in which we the players experience the level again - naturally if it is, then repeated dialogue is less of an issue, but still make sure it isn't the same every time and has a random chance of occurring - and if there's any kind of time attack mode, remove it entirely).

 

 

Can't tell you how sick I am of hearing the Deadly Six prattle on their mediocre lines that were only smile-worthy the first time every single time I play a boss stage in Lost World.

 

 

This stuff isn't rocket science, I don't understand how the playtesters don't comment how annoying repetitive dialogue is, surely they play the same levels enough times in almost-final builds that contain said dialogue - though I guess almost final builds are too late to go back and reprogram all the dialogue systems.

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Jesus is that hard to read, warn me when you do something about it tongue.png

Heh. Sorry, I've never posted an article or anything like that before. Fixed it.

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Interesting, Eggman in a partnership rather than trying to control and be betrayed by M.O.W.

Could this end up working in his favor akin to how it went for Bowser in Dream Team?

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Yea, I'm calling Eggman betraying Lyric and taking control of his army now. That'd totally be an Eggman thing to do. Also because since Lyric doesn't seem to be in the show proper.

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Heh. Sorry, I've never posted an article or anything like that before. Fixed it.

 

Thanks.

 

"Primarily, it is a character action exploration. It’s an epic adventure story. It’s all about exploration."....This is a spinoff I'm aware of that, but let's take a lookback at Sonic spinoffs:

 

-Secret Rings, still had speed as focus.

 

-Black Knight, speed was one of the big focal points, aside from swordplay.

 

-Hell even combat in Sonic Battle is more Sonicy, sure it's repetetive, but the moves the characters had were clearly something you expect the characters to do and there was speed involved to some extent.

 

Sonic Boom is almost the complete opposite of what Sonic is. The only reason it's not the worst spinoff in terms of remaining true to the spirit of the series is cause Sonic Labyrinth exists and is the exact opposite of everything Sonicy.

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That suit that Lyric is wearing is pretty... Eggmanish. I'll bet that they're doing a trade-off: Lyric's ancient power for Eggman's machines and strategy.

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Yea, I'm calling Eggman betraying Lyric and taking control of his army now. That'd totally be an Eggman thing to do. Also because since Lyric doesn't seem to be in the show proper.

 

This is what I want. It'll actually be funny to me, considering how this usually turns out.

 

Eggman the Snively.

 

Actually, this makes sense since Sonic, during the battle with Eggman says, "Did you even read the manual on this thing?" or something like that, Eggman goes, "Yes... YES!"

 

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Oh and it's also nice to see Knuckles is still gonna be the big doofus. The badass guardian from Sonic 3 is dead.

 

"We didn’t want her to be fawning after Sonic."

 

......Then why even bother having Amy here? Amy not fawning over Sonic is...not Amy. I'm not saying she has to be fawning after him 24/7 but that was literally her first character trait from Sonic CD. The Adventure games did a great job of balancing her fawning and her acting like a being with a mind of its own.

 

Like seriously, So Amy isn't in this game.

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In defense of Knuckles the doofus, he's had that personality since post-SA2. I'd hardly blame BRB for going with that personality trait.

I mean, I do not like that interpretation, but I'd hardly focus the heat at Frostman and his team. Focus it at Sonic Team for letting it become standard.

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In defense of Knuckles the doofus, he's had that personality since post-SA2. I'd hardly blame BRB for going with that personality trait.

I mean, I do not like that interpretation, but I'd hardly focus the heat at Frostman and his team. Focus it at Sonic Team for letting it become standard.

 

Oh i know, I wasn't criticizing BRB for that, I'm pretty sure Sonic Team specifically told them that that's what Knuckles is now.

 

But that begs the question: Then why the hell did they allow them to turn Amy into a completely different character? A female character can be both a strong character AND be in love with a guy.

 

For as little as Amy was in Lost World, at least it got that right.

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Amy's not fawning over Sonic, obviously she doesn't care about him at all.

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For as little as Amy was in Lost World, at least it got that right.

Though, it seemed to forgot that Sonic is well aware that Amy is head over heels for him. Assuming that "I'm sorry I never got to tell that I-" line was actually Amy confessing love or something.

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