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What's the point of a new subfranchise?


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Am I the only one who fails to see the point of making Sonic Boom its own sub-series disconnected from the main continuity? As far as the show goes, it doesn't feel like it actually adds anything. Some characters' personalities are changed, the designs are changed, and a lot of stuff is removed - but is anything actually added? And furthermore, is anything really changed radically enough to justify making it this super clearly delineated separate thing? If they had just not changed the designs, I don't think it would really be different enough to justify being its own franchise. A different take on things, sure, but overall it would be pretty similar - other than maybe Knuckles' personality, though I guess the series was already kinda going in that direction, so even that wouldn't be too extreme (unfortunately). Heck, it would be a lot more similar to the games than virtually any other prior adaption aside from Sonic X.

 

I'm sure Sega's reasoning was that it would be a chance to "revitalize" Sonic, or give him a new face, or whatever, especially considering his reputation...though really, it feels to me that Sonic's reputation was much, much better prior to the Boom games, so I guess they "sorta" failed in that. And yet, even so, they're still pursuing Boom.

 

Why? I mean, the show is fine and I definitely think it should continue (even if I'm personally not that crazy about it), but what's the point of making Boom an entire franchise unto itself? You can still have merchandising, since, you know, tons of kids' shows have merchandise.

 

I guess I'm just asking for someone to explain to me what's going on in Sega's head. I don't even dislike Sonic Boom to any strong degree, and the show can be fun at times, but I just really don't get what they're trying to do with it and this whole silly idea that it should be a new franchise unto itself. Seriously: what does it actually add?

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It was a desperate, misguided act that's only served to hurt them.

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The idea was a lot of new blood would like the show and would come to want more stuff - merch, games, etc.

 

The trend has been for the shows to establish their own universe so I guess that's the whole idea of the more drastic changes.

 

It's just disappointing that Rise of Lyric wasn't able to actually flesh out a lot of things like lore, character development, etc. that would have effectively decoupled it from the main franchise.

 

But hey, if they did that, chances are high the main franchise would be in a desperate situation versus it, because lord knows that one's a trainwreck with its writing.

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Some characters' personalities are changed, the designs are changed, and a lot of stuff is removed - but is anything actually added? And furthermore, is anything really changed radically enough to justify making it this super clearly delineated separate thing?

IMO? No. I feel the Sonic Boom cartoon could have worked without all the redesigns, and to be honest the personalities of all the characters didn't really change that much. Only Amy's is notably different, and that's only because she isn't mad crushing on Sonic. Sonic Boom was set up to be a failure from the get go. Gameplay styles even further removed from what Sonic started as, and redesigns for characters that were already brilliantly designed? Yeah, I think it was pretty obvious this was Sonic Doom from the get go. 

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It was Sega of America's way of attempting to one-up Sega of Japan on how to handle the IP I guess.

 

Is that the right answer?

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The only thing worth salvaging is the cartoon, and I really don't see anything in the Boom cartoon that you couldn't have done with the characters we've had since 1998.

 

So to be honest, it's a pointless endeavour to me. I look forward to when SEGA ditch Boom. We all know the day is coming. 

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They wanted to reignite hype in the brand with a fresh start, but they also didn't want to be rid of the current fanbase by completely changing tone.  I think it's a nice enough gesture, as I would hate it, if say, Mega Man X replaced classic Mega Man.  The problem, of course, is that awful gameplay notwithstanding, nothing has really changed in the sub-series.  The characters all have roughly the same personalities, the tone is not that dissimilar to what the Sonic series has been going for since 2010, and there's really nothing which necessitates a change in character design that is either unnoticeable or just plain disliked.  Aside from Rise of Lyric, the gameplay is also clearly meant to capture traditional 2D Sonic games.

 

So yeah, it's kind of a pointless.  Some good things have come out of it, but nothing that couldn't be done with "Legacy Sonic," as Sega now likes to call him.  Someone in the Rise of Lyric thread said once before the game came out that it was funny that Sega was trying so hard to do all the things that fans wanted, but not in the games that they wanted them done on.  That's essentially my thoughts as well now.

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Not really sure what to say. Would one consider the old Saturday mornings and stuff like X or Underground as seperate? If so, then I'd say "For the same reasons."

 

If not, I'd say because it's just what they wanted to do. They established it as a different continuity similar to the way they have Archie or said older cartoons. I mean at the least, Sonic has fur on his arms...? Probably one of the less intensive reasons I guess, not that I would put giving color to eyes on the same level anyways, but I mean..that's a pretty big deal and a subject of a bit more importance when during this redesign, everything else (general console era and style, era of gaming, era of culture, era of Sonic etc.) is staying the exact same.

 

I just think they want to deal with it all as a seperate gig, project or entity because they don't see it as/don't want to handle it as the same thing.

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It's existence is to appeal to the younger audience in west. Here's the problem, sonic was already a popular icon in the west anyway. Sonic boom, as much as I like it, doesn't do a good job separating itself from the main series. Character designs and a few personality changes aside, it's the same thing. Even the newest sonic boom game doesn't look like it differentiate itself from a main series game. 

 

So yeah, Sonic Boom just adds more confusion and it shatters the broken up fanbase even more. I don't know how Sega is going to keep these two franchises running along side each other. I don't see it working well in a long run. 

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I imagine it was the result of a long series of negotiations, the result of which having only the vaguest resemblance to what either side went in wanting.  

 

To be fair, it started of considerably different than normal Sonic, which would have been less pointless from the show's standpoint but of no benefit to the ongoing franchise without a major upheaval.  The resulting version of the franchise was so similar to the greater franchise that from an artistic standpoint there was no real reason to not just set it in the normal Sonic verse.  Doing so would have at least avoided the dumb forced camera angles to hide that all the other characters are talking at Knuckles's crotch.  

 

I imagine the only reason they didn't just make the show normal Sonic was that the show runners had it in their head that they would have partial rights to this thing that they imagined would be valuable, and able to get a cut of it going forward.  Surprising no one, Sega mishandled another publishing job and the resulting game did its damndest to kill off any value in this sub franchise, meaning that no one got anything out of this whole fiasco and all it accomplished was releasing some volume of CO2 into the atmosphere by proxy.  

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