Will we ever get a Sonic Amusement Park Ride?

[Slashy]

Do you think we will ever get a Sonic ride that isn't just a themed roller coaster? Maybe a full on story driven dark ride?

I am kind of hoping Super Nintendo World can eventually host an attraction like that in the future.

[Multikaris]

If there was a ride, it should be akin to Indiana Jones Adventure, but with loops and corkscrews, along with a story homaging the Adventure games. 

[Wildcat]

I think there will be especially now that Mario has finally gotten a proper theme park attraction.

They could easily transition through each part of the ride by having you go through giant rings. Obviously it’d start out in Green Hill. It could span a few locations ending in space with you inside the DeathEgg looking out at Super Sonic fight Robotnik. So maybe the last section is like an elevator that’s plummeting until Sonic stops it from crashing and the ride ends.

There’s a lot they could do. That’s just off the top of my head.

[Slashy]

I had already been thinking up how to do such a ride before I made this thread. Here is what I got.

The ride's setup is meant to be bringing the guests into a grand reveal of a high tech, consumer grade vehicle he plans to unveil onto the public. The queue line is meant to be, an expose of all of Tails' greatest inventions with footage of previous games and replicas of his inventions present . Amy, Cream, and Knuckles would appear here greeting guests. As they finally arrive Sonic to see the big ceremony attempts to prepare the audience for the big presentation unveiling a consumer grade, mass produced produced consumer jet plane/car hybrid called the Hurricane. This is quickly interrupted by Eggman who declares that the park is the perfect spot for the new Eggmanland and unveils he has gotten a hold Phantom Ruby again and uses it as a as a means to trap the duo and the guests at the expo in a Phantom Ruby simulation so they can't stop him.

Tails reveals that the Hurricane has the ability to follow the paths of another vehicle so he can use that to help guide the guests out using the Tornado-1 and hopefully stop Eggman once free.

Guests would watch a safety demonstration narrated by Amy as Cream, Vanilla, Big demonstrate. Cheese also gets bummed out that he is too small to ride.

The ride consists of 3 random stages from Sonic's past (as part of the Phantom Ruby's simulation) ending with a final showdown with Eggman in the starting to be built Eggmanland.

The stages are:

Chemical Plant

Emerald Coast

Skyscraper Scamper

Ice Cap

City Escape

Studiopolis

Asteroid Coaster

Stardust Speedway

Egg Fleet

Green Hill

I also commissioned a sample of what I think the Hurricane could look like.

 

Ideally the ride's tech being a stationary motion ride that can easily work with all the various ride configurations and be easily accessible for children. Something like this would be awesome.

 

[Natie]

IDK i thought a roller coaster pretty much fit the sonic theme like a glove, could stand to have some more themeing tho, but thats tricky with a fast rollercoaster.

[Slashy]

Apparently something like this already exists complete with new animation and voice acting from Mike Pollock.

How is this so unknown?

 

https://youtu.be/caiJVHq20kY

[antinomicTune]

There's been more than just Spin Gear in the past, too. That same amusement park, Sega Republic (closed since 2017), also had the Sonic Hopper, which was a Sonic-themed free fall ride, although I'm not aware of any videos of that one, and I can only find two images of it, both of which are just on it's Sonic News Network page.

More interestingly there was another rollercoaster called Sonic Spinball, no relation to the game. It was just a re-themeing of an already existing coaster at Alton Towers, and there's only one pretty interesting thing about it. It has the first recorded audio of Roger Craig Smith as Sonic, months before he would appear for the first time in the games. Here's a youtube upload of Sonic's dialogue in the queue and themed hotel room, and a POV of the ride for any who are curious.

Lastly, there was a brief Sonic themed section at the Toyland Tours dark ride, also in Alton Towers, that included an animatronic of the classic mohawk 90s western Sonic design. The SNN page I just linked has a picture of it, although more can be found with a brief search. There's a few POVs of this ride on youtube as well, for those curious as to what the Sonic-themed section was actually like.

[Slashy]

6 hours ago, antinomicTune said:

There's been more than just Spin Gear in the past, too. That same amusement park, Sega Republic (closed since 2017), also had the Sonic Hopper, which was a Sonic-themed free fall ride, although I'm not aware of any videos of that one, and I can only find two images of it, both of which are just on it's Sonic News Network page.

More interestingly there was another rollercoaster called Sonic Spinball, no relation to the game. It was just a re-themeing of an already existing coaster at Alton Towers, and there's only one pretty interesting thing about it. It has the first recorded audio of Roger Craig Smith as Sonic, months before he would appear for the first time in the games. Here's a youtube upload of Sonic's dialogue in the queue and themed hotel room, and a POV of the ride for any who are curious.

Lastly, there was a brief Sonic themed section at the Toyland Tours dark ride, also in Alton Towers, that included an animatronic of the classic mohawk 90s western Sonic design. The SNN page I just linked has a picture of it, although more can be found with a brief search. There's a few POVs of this ride on youtube as well, for those curious as to what the Sonic-themed section was actually like.

I did know about the Alton Towers ride, that's why I said themed rollercoaster. I was just impressed with the Spingear due to all of the animation and voice acting associated with it.

[antinomicTune]

19 hours ago, Slashy said:

I did know about the Alton Towers ride, that's why I said themed rollercoaster. I was just impressed with the Spingear due to all of the animation and voice acting associated with it.

Yee, sorry, didn't mean to imply you didn't. I just figured I'd elaborate on it for any looking at the thread who didn't know about it.

[VO.SUPER]

 

Looks like SEGA may be acting on this kind of idea sooner than expected. I'd love to go to a US version of this. Those indoor theme parks are plenty fun with the family.

[Wildcat]

This is really cool but this would not be Disney/Universal level rides. Which is what I think most would want. Full blown rides where you feel you’re inside Sonic’s world. Still I’m sure there’d be a lot of cool Sonic stuff. I wish I had the statues and signs.

[Whatever the WhoCares]

If Universal buys Paramount, I could see them putting a Sonic ride somewhere. 

[Slashy]

On 5/31/2021 at 10:54 PM, Wildcat said:

This is really cool but this would not be Disney/Universal level rides. Which is what I think most would want. Full blown rides where you feel you’re inside Sonic’s world. Still I’m sure there’d be a lot of cool Sonic stuff. I wish I had the statues and signs.

Would a screenbased simulator ride really be that much?

[Wildcat]

On 6/2/2021 at 12:56 PM, Slashy said:

Would a screenbased simulator ride really be that much?

You mean cost? Like the one you posted above? Maybe not.

I would still prefer a large scale attraction like the Mario one.

[Empire88]

In terms of what Wildcat is mentioning, Joypolis is sort of small. Almost like the equivalent of going to Dave and Busters or a bigger Chuck E Cheese from a US perspective. (I have been to the one in Japan). 

They are great fun and it would definitely be cool to have in the US. I am just mentioning this so people have an idea of the scale: think more "Sonic-themed Arcade games" rather than full blown simulators or rides like you would see at Disney or Universal. But nothing that would immerse you in a Sonic world like Super Mario Land and so forth.

That being said, its size makes it very easy for there to be a bunch of them in major cities rather than only one location per country like Universal Studios. In the US for example there could easily be at least one per most states without needing a lot of room. 

And like I said, Joypolis is really fun and should definitely come to other countries! I just wanted to provide some perspective on what to expect and share what it is and what it isn't. 

[herbhen]

Hard to say really whether this right now is plausable or not. Theres still surprisingly some major investments happening in the Theme Park industry despite Covid measures and restrictions ultimately affecting the industrys profitability massively, but I think investments in the future really depend on how quickly theme park attendence can build back up and ultimately when Travel restrictions can be lifted across the globe.

Where Sonic is concerned, I feel like a Universal park would be the best fit for a dark ride of significant scale, but considering Universals theme park licensing with Nintendo, I get a strange feeling that somewhere within these contracts, Universal would be somewhat contractually tied in to not placing other video game intelectual properties in their parks. Call it a hunch I just feel Nintendo would have those sort of restrictions in place. With that in mind I'm unsure where else would find a suitable home for a Sonic attraction. I think Universal would have been a good fit for licensing and designing a Sonic Movie based ride experience.

As for these speculated Indoor amusment parks that Sega are potentially devising, I really can't see where the business sense would be in SEGA moving forward with an investment like that right now, considering the general state of tourism and the fact that ultimately their indoor themepark model has failed in certain markets in the past already. I think right now the risks are too great in that regard.

The only other option would likely be ride sponsorship or brand placement much like SEGA did with Alton Towers. However again these sorts of deals are very limited in terms of scope and can sometimes hinder the brands image after a while. Towers knew once the deal was coming to an end that they wern't going to renew, or knew that SEGA wasn't going to be up for renewing the deal (I don't know the logistics behind it other than the initial sponsorship was for 5 years and never was renewed after that period). But once the parks know these licenses are going, they put less maintenance and upkeep in to the rides and functions affected. towards the end the Sonic stuff at towers looked pretty rough (Sonics nose being broken on the photo op statue outside the ride for the longest time) and the sonic hotel rooms having many quality issues towards the end. So I can't see SEGA being willing to make a deal like this in the future either as without the upkeep, it just doesn't serve the brand very well.