Next Main Game is 30th Anniversary Title, Drop Dash News

[DabigRG]

7 minutes ago, Miragnarok said:

Well, I would have said it was better than Rise of Lyric and the movie, but apparently he was indeed involved with both of those projects...

 

But how much? 

Considering one of the notable aspects of the movie's production is the fact that SonicTeam wasn't too hot on what they were doing to Sonic's design, I'd say Mr. Producer didn't have much of a hand to say the least. 

[UpCDownCLeftCRightC]

On 8/22/2019 at 3:50 PM, Mark_The_Dephiles said:

Wait, Sonic Team is disbanded? That's actually kind of depressing....

Sure there are probably other companies that can do better in some ways but I really wanted Sonic Team themselves to do better. With other companies I feel they are just going to ignore the past and make Sonic into their own image. As many grievances I may have with IIzuka's more recent contributions it was good to know that there was someone at Sonic Team who had actually been there during the good days, and I really have to commend him for sticking it out for so long. Many of the problems with Forces were likely not even his fault as it turns out his team basically consisted of Story Book games level designers (Which explains why the levels were so short and heavily splined). I guess this means we won't be getting a proper sendoff....

Well it doesn't currently seem as though sonic is just being passed off to random developers. What has essentially happened if my reading is correct, is that effective Sonic Team members ike Iizuka and others who still want to be working on Sonic games have moved to America, meaning that the games will be managed by Sega of America rather than Japan. It appears as though the responsibility for handling sonic is finally falling under the control of the west, which is where it should have been for a long time because Sonic's market has always been here.

You do raise an important concern however; I don't know if his is true but Sonic Team disbanding could be an indication of Sonic in general not being the primary focus of the company going forward. Or at least SEGA is preparing for Sonic to not be the face of SEGA if he keeps releasing mediocre games that dont sell amazingly. I dont know this for a fact but this is what their moves appear to be to me. It puts pressure on those who are going to be working on him going forward because if they continue to not do well, Sonic won't have the resources he continually had in the past.

That said, if there is any truth to my assessment whatsoever (and there may be none) it does allow SOA to focus more on what they think Sonic should be and do without the meddling of the company.

[DabigRG]

6 hours ago, UpCDownCLeftCRightC said:

 

You do raise an important concern however; I don't know if his is true but Sonic Team disbanding could be an indication of Sonic in general not being the primary focus of the company going forward. Or at least SEGA is preparing for Sonic to not be the face of SEGA if he keeps releasing mediocre games that dont sell amazingly. I dont know this for a fact but this is what their moves appear to be to me. It puts pressure on those who are going to be working on him going forward because if they continue to not do well, Sonic won't have the resources he continually had in the past.

 

That's sorta the vibe I'm getting as well. 

[Mark_The_Dephiles]

I'm not really sure I trust SOA either though. I definitely don't want Sonic turning into something like most modern American cartoons on air these days, and Boom leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Aside from the comics I don't think any attempts to westernize Sonic has ever been a big success. I guess the twitter account is considered a success but I REALLY don't want the games to be taking after the twitter account. Id much prefer to have more from the Japanese Sonic Channel which actually celebrates what the franchise has to offer instead of well, laughing at it. I always thought it was a shame that Sonic wasn't as popular in Japan especially since the fans there seem to be a lot more genuine with less drama and irony.

[SaturnWolf]

2 hours ago, Mark_The_Dephiles said:

I'm not really sure I trust SOA either though. I definitely don't want Sonic turning into something like most modern American cartoons on air these days, and Boom leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Aside from the comics I don't think any attempts to westernize Sonic has ever been a big success. I guess the twitter account is considered a success but I REALLY don't want the games to be taking after the twitter account. Id much prefer to have more from the Japanese Sonic Channel which actually celebrates what the franchise has to offer instead of well, laughing at it. I always thought it was a shame that Sonic wasn't as popular in Japan especially since the fans there seem to be a lot more genuine with less drama and irony.

Well, yeah, there was Boom, but there's also the super popular SatAM, Sonic Mania...sure, the West DEFINITELY has had it's missteps with Sonic, but the success of Sonic Mania is going to be super hard to ignore. Sonic has always been more successful in the West, as has been established an innumerable amount of times, so focusing more on the Western market only makes sense.

[Red Hot Jack]

1 minute ago, SaturnWolf said:

Well, yeah, there was Boom, but there's also the super popular SatAM, Sonic Mania...sure, the West DEFINITELY has had it's missteps with Sonic, but the success of Sonic Mania is going to be super hard to ignore. Sonic has always been more successful in the West, as has been established an innumerable amount of times, so focusing more on the Western market only makes sense.

Classic Sonic is more successful in the west, Modern in Japan, I believe Forces did well in Japan and that's why it is getting rereleased. I wouldn't call Boom a mistep, the cartoon at least, it was a parody but still hilarious, definitely not what I want from Sonic though (its lack of story especially)

[SaturnWolf]

Just now, Tangled Jack said:

Classic Sonic is more successful in the west, Modern in Japan, I believe Forces did well in Japan and that's why it is getting rereleased. I wouldn't call Boom a mistep, the cartoon at least, it was a parody but still hilarious, definitely not what I want from Sonic though (its lack of story especially)

Truth be told I haven't seen enough of Boom to give an opinion on the show either way, (Well that's not entirely true, I've caught a few episodes but didn't care for the comedy direction) but there's also the entire Ken Penders era of the Archie comics which...yikes those got super dumb and bad.

[Red Hot Jack]

Just now, SaturnWolf said:

Truth be told I haven't seen enough of Boom to give an opinion on the show either way, (Well that's not entirely true, I've caught a few episodes but didn't care for the comedy direction) but there's also the entire Ken Penders era of the Archie comics which...yikes those got super dumb and bad.

Definitely about Penders/Archie, really the worst. I also don't like SatAM.

[ShadowSJG]

What's this about Sonic team being disbanded

[Gotta Go Rational]

56 minutes ago, ShadowSJG said:

What's this about Sonic team being disbanded

https://mobile.twitter.com/Tracker_TD/status/1074375349960630273 

[Red Hot Jack]

If they will really keep the 2 subseries in Sonic, along with the next Classic game, I'm expecting 2021 to be an Adventure celebration, hopefully.

After some thinking, I believe it'd be best to keep it focused to 3 gameplay styles, so this is my idea:

1. Sonic - No boost, Adventure 3D gameplay with more freedom and exploration, fast, and with new power-ups, not Wisps or shields, but… something new, maybe different pairs of shoes that grant him various powers. Villains: Eggman and Metal Sonic.

2. Knuckles - A mix of S3&K, Adventure style and Werehog (basically platforming plus focus on combat). Maybe give Knuckles some upgrades to make him stronger throughout the game. Villain: Zavok

3. Shadow - A Hard Mode of Sonic's gameplay, with Chaos Powers instead of power-ups. Villain: the return of Infinite.

4. Special Stages - Sonic and Tails on the Tornado to get the Chaos Emeralds

5. Chao Garden - This is guaranteed with the tease of Chao's in social media, plus the focus on Adventure theme.

Other characters would include Amy, Vector, Charmy, Espio, Rouge and Omega, Orbot and Cubot as NPCs in the stories, and I really have no idea for the rest of the cast (namely, Silver, Blaze, Cream and Big), there isn't much they could do.

[Wraith]

If they ever make a new Sonic Adventure game I'd hope they'd show the same willingness to focus on new characters and concepts as the first two. 

[UpCDownCLeftCRightC]

4 hours ago, Wraith said:

If they ever make a new Sonic Adventure game I'd hope they'd show the same willingness to focus on new characters and concepts as the first two. 

I wouldnt mind focusing on new characters and concepts as long as the list of characters is low. Say, 3 tops. Once you start expanding your gameplay too much beyond the fundamentals you start running into development problems and not enough focus and justice is done to each minor playstyle and the overall refinement of the experience. For example, I actually didn't mind Gamma's playthrough from SA1; not the greatest stuff but it was short and simple. But that gameplay definitely could have been nixed in favor of developing Sonic's gameplay a little more, which definitely needed the extra polish. 

 

But actually I wouldnt mind new characters at all. Sonic's cast should best be used like a revolving door for situational use with a basic (but consistent) continuity and canon, and then when they are used...commit to them being relevant! That way you dont have to invent stupid reasons for characters to stick around that obviously have no good reason to every single time. Knuckles and Shadow are perfect examples of that (let it be known that knuckles has been a far greater abuser of that principle than shadow).

[Mad Convoy]

2 hours ago, UpCDownCLeftCRightC said:

I wouldnt mind focusing on new characters and concepts as long as the list of characters is low. Say, 3 tops. Once you start expanding your gameplay too much beyond the fundamentals you start running into development problems and not enough focus and justice is done to each minor playstyle and the overall refinement of the experience. For example, I actually didn't mind Gamma's playthrough from SA1; not the greatest stuff but it was short and simple. But that gameplay definitely could have been nixed in favor of developing Sonic's gameplay a little more, which definitely needed the extra polish.

Something I thought of upon reading this was “what if Sonic games used extra modes and Easter egg content as a place to expand on the story?”.

Gamma’s story is almost perfect for that— rather than having his alright-but-dwarfed-by-Sonic gameplay be treated as big and mandatory, it could be treated like a shorter mini game where, if you care, you can learn a bit about the life of an Eggman bot. I honestly think his gameplay would be less disappointing if it wasn’t positioned in a way that made it seem bigger than it actually was. Same goes for Big and a lot of the alternative gameplays, really.

Or you could scatter hidden clues across the game’s modes and options that, when combined, tell Gamma’s story. This has been Kirby’s MO for awhile, and it seems to work really well. I also recall Secret Rings having something like that too with its hidden Big the Cat cameos— apparently Arabian Nights Big is having a little adventure while Sonic is off on his. It was a nice touch that helped flesh out the world Secret Rings introduced.

[Dr. Detective]

If I could throw realism and pragmatism out the window, ideally, I'd prefer a new Adventure game where everyone in the main cast got their own little story. 

It wouldn't even need to be connected together in some big story either. I'd probably call it Sonic Chronicles if that wasn't a name that was already taken. Each character seems to be about their own sort of thing or meet the niche of some sort of troupe, even the ones that hold the same occupation like the Chaotix. It'd be a really fun experiment to me. Might also be a good way to make the world feel bigger if their solo adventures required meeting more NPCs and what not. 

[Red Hot Jack]

I wouldn't want more than 3 playable characters, really, Forces showed that it's already a mess with tons of complications if you have 3 characters with similar playstyles, they were even all Sonic-y, and look at what we got.

As for new characters, definitely not playable, but I'd love more females and better villains, plus Infinite returning.

[Wraith]

Using another Sonic game as a reason as to why something shouldn't be done is basically pointless to me.

[Red Hot Jack]

But we can't trust Sonic Team, can we? That's why I made the comparisons, which I know are usually unfair though. Forces had great potential and that's why the result was even more disappointing than any other game.

[Wraith]

I'm sort of over "We can't trust Sonic Team" because it can be applied to anything they did badly ever without ever considering the circumstances. It basically means we can't discuss anything. 

I think a newer Sonic game could pretty comfortably handle 4-6 characters. Probably more if you don't set out to give them all an equal amount of attention.

[Red Hot Jack]

Maybe only if they share the same gameplay with different skills, so it can work for a Classic game, but not if it's an Adventure type of game. IMO.

[Wraith]

Most characters in Sonic Adventure are just Sonic but tweaked and given different skills. Even the more drastic alterations like Big and Gamma get half as many levels as Sonic does and reuse a lot of the same assets. 

[Marco9966]

Can't  they put another playable character with a non-speed gameplay like

-Espio (platforming like the Uncharted games)

-Vector (fighting kinda like Werehog)

-Amy (same gameplay as Avatar)

-E-123 (same gameplay as Epoch shooting game)

 

-Also: Wispon customization (adding multiple Wisps) and Chao gardens.

 

So many fun gameplay option to tell an Adventure-like story. No need for boost all the time. Forces proved that with the Avatar gameplay.

[Red Hot Jack]

I sort of agree, the Avatar with Wispons is a neat idea that needs to be done properly… not in a main game, I actually wish we got that Avatar + canon secondary characters game or I wish Forces was that, meanwhile we could have waited for a proper big Sonic game. But oh well.

[Marco9966]

Just now, Tangled Jack said:

not in a main game

Why not??

[Red Hot Jack]

Just now, Marco9966 said:

Why not??

I'd rather them focus on Sonic (only one) and the canon cast.