Detective SSMB & The Case of the Sonic 25th Anniversary "P.g. 100 is the best... food discussion started."

[Badnik Mechanic]

Former title 'Sonic 25th Anniversary Thread 2.0' Please try not to ruin this one like the last one.

Ok I did PM Nep about this, but she went offline and I can't really sit on the news from toy fair so I'm making this hoping it will be ok and hoping to make the OP a tag more structured in order to prevent... what happened before.

But if staff don't like it, feel free to lock.

Anyway, on with the topic. Here is a wrap up of 'almost' everything we know, been teased, probably not true and confirmed false. This is to talk about the 25th as an event/prior to a game announcement, once the game is announced, all talk of that will go to it's own thread/subforum. 

What We Know

Multiple Logos

Sega has shown off multiple logos for the 25th anniversary, at first this seemed random, however it may now be themed depending on what 'era' or whatever it's related to, so far 

And at least 2 others, one is posted in this photo of the 25th toyline The other is a modified one of the 2nd logo posted above. 

Classic Focus?

Based on several interviews with Sega staff, the phrase 'Classic Focus' has been mentioned several times by numerous people going back as far as Summer 2015.

The classic Focus has been further supported by the reveal of a Classic 25th anniversary toy line to be made by Tomy, including figures, small and large plush toys.

The Sonic Twitter & Facebook accounts also changed their logos/banners to a more classic presentation. 

Modern & Boom?

Despite there being a constant 'classic focus' line from Sega, recently there has been evidence to suggest that Modern Sonic and even Boom Sonic will somehow be included in the celebrations. 

The first big clue came from a licensing magazine advert, this one.

In which Classic, Modern and Boom sonic along with a new 25th logo were shown.

Following on from this, the Nuremberg Toy Fair had these figures on show.

 

Now this is either a Boom figure, or a prototype box for a modern figure, it's not clear which yet since Tomy recycles a lot of their stuff for prototype packaging. But what is is not, is a classic Sonic figure, notice how it clearly has a new alternative logo and not the classic one used on other packaging.

What is 'Probably true, but... more confirmation needed'

The February Thing

There was 'something' teased for February, via the Sonic Tumblr account However, despite yesterday being 'Hedgehog Day' there was no announcement other than this video of a hedgehog destroying a model Green Hill Zone along with another tease (we'll get to that in a moment). It's unclear if this was that tease they were referring too or if something else is coming.

Several New Games

Several new games were announced for this year, but it's unclear if these include Boom Fire & Ice & Olympic titles.

Ken Pontac to Write 

According to this, Ken Pontac is to write a new Sonic game, unclear as to if it's Boom Fire & Ice or a new title. 

Return of Big Fan Events

According to this, big fan events are planned, nothing announced yet though. 

The Pixel Mystery

This has not been commented on officially... but it's getting more and more hints and references. In January, a Sega Rep at a licensing event mentioned 'Pixel Sonic' to Toy World Mag, this at first may have just been reference to 'Classic Sonic' however, lately more and more images and references to pixels have been shown.

First clue was this advert (pictured above) which shows pixels turning into rings/rings turning into Pixels. 

Second clue was the banner used in the twitter/facebook accounts, used in the same advert, but we can see it more clearer.

The Third clue was this teaser image/video which shows the Sonic heads turning into pixels and forming new images.

 

Incidentally, this clue contained more teaser numbers.

The fourth clue is the packaging for the 25th anniversary toy line, it's designed to have the appearance of pixels making up the box.

Think back to Sonic Generations, the original announcement video had a lot of 'white space' this became a major plot point in the game. If the game and 25th are linked, this to me looks like a plot point or deliberate design choice 

March 23rd 00?

 

In a video posted by Sega, the following numbers were spotted.

23, 3, 00.

In a blog post on February 2nd, Aaron confirmed that the 00's were numbers and not eyes as some people speculated.

Crush 40 Involvement.

Crush 40 confirms involvement, then retracts their involvement, then goes quiet. Probably true, but... meh you know.

The Pumpkin Mystery. 

Sega posted this image on tumblr...

Which had some very interesting tags....

It's believed that Rafa Knight created the image, but as of yet no further clues, hints or information related to it has been published. There is no hidden number or any hidden message in the image. Don't waste your time looking.

Probably Nothing/Not True

April Fools Day Announcement

There has been a number of hints suggesting an April Fools Day announcement, this is almost certainly going to be a joke involving big the cat. Multiple references to this date, however this is the most significant clue in this line numbers.

 

The sequence is in fact 3 different sequences, all missing a number, all broken up the number 0. When we extract those sequences we see the following.

• 12356789
• 23456789
• 16

Let’s take a look at the first sequence, you’ll notice that in the first code, the number 4 is missing. Then in the second the number 1 is missing. Finally… we end with 16.

Put it together we get 4/1/16. April Fools Day.

Even the Sonic Twitter account has hinted that this is the right date. But not in regards to what.

On Hedgehog Day Sega posted this video.

In the description are these numbers. 4116. Possible that it's another reference to April Fools Day. 4/1/16.

100% False.

That Sonic Adventure 3 & Sonic Origins thing. 

[Marcello]

I'm not sure I want a Classic focus. SEGA has shown me that they can't replicate the classics. Generations was OK, but felt off. So, maybe this time they can get it perfect? I hope so, because a game that actually feels like the Classics would actually be nice. I don't really expect a full focus on it at least.

I don't think Boom Sonic is going to be a big part of the celebration, though. I think he's just there because he exists and is getting Fire & Ice.

Is the packaging final at these toy fairs? It looks cheap and flimsy.

The Hedgehog Day video was fun.

[Lord-Dreamerz]

A small thing I find interesting is how in all the new pixel green hill zone renders we’ve seen is that the background with the mountains & clouds is not the original green hill zone BG. Even the video with the hedgehog wrecking the props has this new BG. Makes me curious if it means anything or not.

[Marcello]

2 minutes ago, Lord-Dreamerz said:

A small thing I find interesting is how in all the new pixel green hill zone renders we’ve seen is that the background with the mountains & clouds is not the original green hill zone BG. Even the video with the hedgehog wrecking the props has this new BG. Makes me curious if it means anything or not.

We discussed it in the last thread and it turned out those tube things are from Sonic CD. Quartz Quadrant, I think. So I'm not sure I would put much thought into it.

[JezMM]

7 minutes ago, Lord-Dreamerz said:

A small thing I find interesting is how in all the new pixel green hill zone renders we’ve seen is that the background with the mountains & clouds is not the original green hill zone BG. Even the video with then hedgehog wrecking the props has this new BG. Makes me curious if it means anything or not.

I KNEW I had seen them in Sonic CD but man they were hard to pinpoint as I checked through all the "outsidey" and "natural" zones/timezones.

 

They're from Quartz Quadrant Present:

 

EDIT: It told me Marcello posted before I hit post and I knew it'd be him speeding me but after putting 10 minutes into researching this I didn't want to believe.

[Lord-Dreamerz]

3 minutes ago, Marcello said:

We discussed it in the last thread and it turned out those tube things are from Sonic CD. Quartz Quadrant, I think. So I'm not sure I would put much thought into it.

Seems a bit much to say it was just a mistake on their part to use BG probs from a different classic Sonic game, especially because they've done it more then once now. While it doesn't deserve a deep discussion... I think it's still worth thinking little about it.

[Marcello]

They probably just threw something together and have been reusing it as a generic Green Hill background.

If those tubes were something new, I'd agree with you, but with them being old assets, I assume they just reused random things without much thought.

[Badnik Mechanic]

The green hill thing is a generic thing. It's been found on other merchandise going back 2 years.

[Lord-Dreamerz]

18 minutes ago, Marcello said:

They probably just threw something together and have been reusing it as a generic Green Hill background.

If those tubes were something new, I'd agree with you, but with them being old assets, I assume they just reused random things without much though.

I'd like to assume they put little more thought into it then that myself. Being old assets doesn’t discredit it IMO. Which leads to the question of what could the meaning behind multiple different classic Sonic art assets used on the same level be? One possibility I can think of is a Sonic Maker game where you can mix together different classic assets, tho of course that’s just a example.

 

Edit: Didn't see Hogfather's reply till after posting. Anyways it may mean nothing, but we'll see.

[caseykz]

Do you want to link to the old thread? So ppl will know what things they should avoid saying?

[sonicDX]

I am quite happy with those news, it seems like we gonna have a mostly nice Sonic game at last.
All we can do is waiting for this game to get released, and I hope SEGA won't fail nothing about it..
I feel a bit unsure about that Boom Sonic should participate in the anniversary game..

Just because it exists, it shouldn't. Sonic Boom wasn't that successful to get into the anniversary game, and be a 'most memorable part' of the Sonic history. Modern and Classic Sonic has their own past with a lot of years' work, but Boom just appeared a few years ago, and I don't think it was that good to immediately celebrate it.

[big_smile]

I hope they don't add Sonic Boom to the anniversary game either. I haven't got anything against boom, it's just that wehn Sonic Team try to do much, they end up failing.

Sonic Colours and Sonic Generations were good games, because they tried to do very little.  

Sonic Lost World went overboard with new moves and extra level styles and it ended up being a mess. 

I think having Classic, Modern and Boom Sonic in one game will be too many play styles for Sonic Team. It would be better if they just focused on Classic and Modern. 

[Lord-Dreamerz]

9 minutes ago, big_smile said:

I hope they don't add Sonic Boom to the anniversary game either.

Why would they mix the different eras together at all unless it’s a Sonic Generations 2? And personally I just can’t see them doing a SG2 so soon.

[Scar]

Really? I can. Generations was popular as hell, and lended itself perfectly for DLC (which SEGA bizarrely chose not to do...)

Much as I would hate to see it, a retread of Generations shouldn't be ruled out entirely.

[Lord-Dreamerz]

13 minutes ago, Scar said:

Really? I can. Generations was popular as hell, and lended itself perfectly for DLC (which SEGA bizarrely chose not to do...)

Much as I would hate to see it, a retread of Generations shouldn't be ruled out entirely.

I don’t think a Sonic game being fairly popular means much in that regard. Otherwise we would had gotten a SA3 already. Yohoo. =P

[Scar]

20 minutes ago, Lord-Dreamerz said:

I don’t think a Sonic game being fairly popular means much in that regard. Otherwise we would had gotten a SA3 already. Yohoo. =P

The idea of an SA3 is popular only within a small (albeit very vocal) subset of Sonic fans. Generations was popular with everyone, including rather crucially, video game critics and journalists.

[Shadowlax]

9 minutes ago, Scar said:

The idea of an SA3 is popular only within a small (albeit very vocal) subset of Sonic fans. Generations was popular with everyone, including rather crucially, video game critics and journalists.

God no. I know folks younger than me who wouldn't have the context for sonic adventure 3 asking for it, and shadow. Whether I think they should do it? God no, I think they already have issue leaching off the past to create uninteresting products. Do I think elements of several era's of sonic should be introduced into different types of game to make different types of game play experiences, sure. 

As far as video game critiques and journalists go, I have a whole... thesis on this but. I would focus on trying to make a good game rather than them liking it. If the next game was hypothetically speaking an adventure type thing, and they didn't like it but people buying the game did it wouldn't really matter.Critiques and sonic have never been good together, hell critques go back even now and declare good sonic games are bad and fans are delusional even when they themselves have rated those games good. I think sonic trying to please " critiques" is the reason sonic is kinda is where he is in the first place. And its not a very interesting place, from the inside anyway. 

[Tara]

2 hours ago, caseykz said:

Do you want to link to the old thread? So ppl will know what things they should avoid saying?

The point isn't that there are some things you can and can not say (though we do currently have a policy on unsourced rumors).  It's that the previous topic was excessive in the amount of flame wars and trolling that we had to shut it down.

Anyway, as for the actual topic at hand, I have no quarrels with Boom being in a Generations 2 type game.  First of all, Colors was released only a year prior to Generations and still managed to be represented in the game.  Second, Boom is probably a lot more relevant to the franchise as it currently stands, so it would only make sense that they would include it not to show off its expansive history but to bring the series up to date.

[Tracker_TD]

I'm not taking stuff like that 25th Anniversary promo as anything to do with the game. I'd imagine promotional stuff for that would be produced back at Sonic Team, and if that was the case they wouldn't be using the Quartz Quadrant tileset as Green Hill mountains as the western licensing side of SEGA has been doing for years. 

[Dantemustdie00]

To this day, I ponder why the hell Generations didn't get any level DLC.

Don't mind a Classic focused game at all, through I hope Sonic's jump and rolling physic's are improved some.

 

[azoo]

If the classic, pixelly focus had anything to do with the upcoming game then the background would've been the right one instead of Quartz Quadrant's. Sega of America's marketing people and subsidiaries that do merch would be silly enough to make that mistake, but Sonic Team themselves wouldn't. Besides, it's reusing Generations assets too, so that in itself should write that whole thing off.

And although the SA3 and Sonic Genesis rumors were obviously not true, there's a reason it was so believable in the first place.

I wouldn't be surprised if we get a main Sonic Team title as well as a classic-based side game too, so with those two and Fire & Ice it covers all three areas of the Sonic series that they seem to be emphasizing in the 25th anniversary promo art (as well as implying when they say "multiple games").

 

 

[Scar]

Imagine....

Imagine a game, where you have neat 3D level design, but you come across a seemingly insurmountable obstacle. To overcome said obstacle you press a button and the game smashes into pixels and reassembles as a classic-styled 2D sidescroller with Megadrive visuals, music, etc. Sort of like paper mario's 2D/3D shift, but in a more visually awesome way.

Shame that its extraordinarily unlikely that something like that will ever happen.

[Dantemustdie00]

Kinda sounds like how you can switch between planes in Super Paper Maro

[Enesephus]

5 minutes ago, Dantemustdie00 said:

Kinda sounds like how you can switch between planes in Super Paper Maro

He already made that comparison in his post.

Anyway, I think it's a neat idea, and it could lead to some cool level design, though I don't know how well it could be implemented. I mean, this is Sonic Team we're talking about.

[Shadowlax]

18 minutes ago, Dantemustdie00 said:

Kinda sounds like how you can switch between planes in Super Paper Maro

Wouldn't blame em, loved that game. One of the funniest games I ever played. 

Sucks sticker stars sucks.