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Is anyone worried that because Sonic Colours Ultimate might is a sign of what is to come?


J.R.

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So, SCU wasn't the most "perfect Sonic remaster". So could this be a sign of possibility that Frontiers might be similar to Ultimate? IDK, we still have a year.

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It's another reason to be cautious about any Sonic game published by SEGA, but Blind Squirrel's work on remastered ports doesn't reflect on how Sonic Team's next original Sonic game will turn out.

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Sega's gonna release mediocre ass Sonic games until the heat death of the universe while giving noncommittal "the brand is important to us so we'll do better" statements every time they do. Colors Ultimate is par for the course with this series unfortunately. While it's disappointing that they did one of their actually good games dirty like that, I'm not really surprised and it doesn't change how I feel about Frontiers.

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Sort of? It was outsourced to a different studio though and it's been mostly fixed up by now so maybe there was some dev side issues they couldn't address before a deadline? Probably too much credit but shit happens in game development. Also, Sega WOULD have had to greenlight its release in the state it was in, which would be my main concern. That they saw it and went "doesn't matter if it's held together with duct tape and cardboard, a deadline is a deadline" and waited till after release before fixing its problems.

As for the answer being sort of: Sonic Team didn't develop it, and just like I wouldn't attribute Mania's success wholly on Sonic Team or the reverse with Forces' failure, I don't want to point at Colors Ultimate as a sure sign of impending doom for upcoming Sonic stuff. It's not a great sign but there are also good signs to take into account regarding Frontiers itself and the staff surrounding it. Also red flags (Kishimoto and the lack of gameplay footage), but it's kind of a toss up right now.

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32 minutes ago, Nix said:

Sega's gonna release mediocre ass Sonic games until the heat death of the universe while giving noncommittal "the brand is important to us so we'll do better" statements every time they do. Colors Ultimate is par for the course with this series unfortunately. While it's disappointing that they did one of their actually good games dirty like that, I'm not really surprised and it doesn't change how I feel about Frontiers.

What sucks is that they had an easy blueprint to follow for Colors, even if it's a more basic one:

Take what Engine Software did for No More Heroes 1 and 2 on Switch. Literally, go to Engine, tell them "do that with Sonic Colors Wii", put that on Switch specifically (start there, always), 1080p docked, locked 30fps (the game was likely hard-coded for it I assume), 720p portable, no bells or whistles, just a standard no frills port/remaster. Sell it on the eShop for $20 USD, maybe retail for $30 adding a soundtrack (code or mini-disc), or an art book (god this could be gold). Profit.

No DLC bullshit, focus on polish, bringing a classic to Switch (and other platforms maybe afterwards), just make sure the focus is strictly on Switch first, not on 6 platforms at once (have we not learned this by now?), once that's in the clear, THEN port that to the other systems as Engine is able.

Nintendo can also maybe provide a Direct-first announcement like with NMH to give it a big exposure boost.

If all that came together, that have went a LONG way to help bandage the wound at the very least.

Instead they went with a dev that's historically done rough to god-awful ports. They clearly targeted the higher-end consoles against any logic (when was a Sonic game NOT going to sell most on Switch by a country mile?), said engine IIRC wasn't even made to run on Switch. Clearly the product was rushed to high hell and again making it for so many systems at once didn't help.

Hilariously... they could've done both! Get Engine on the Switch port as the barebones but clean remaster, while Blind Squirrel would've done their thing on other systems. Guess which would've been eons better received?

Ironically, they literally still can do this, just release said remaster on Switch as just "Sonic Colors" on the eShop as its own thing, who on Earth would mind that?

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6 hours ago, Hero of Legend said:

I mean let's face it, absolutely nothing out of this franchise bar Mania has given us a reason to be optimistic over the last decade.

Sonic Movie 1

The Sonic shorts 

IDW Sonic

Mania Plus (as you said + physical edition)

TSR (good game just lacking content)

The Symphony

Forces Speed Battle

 

I don't like making lists but I am tired of people generalizing over Forces and the Boom spin-off series disasters as "proof" there is nothing good in the franchise in the last 10 years when we had more good content than bad even if we count numbers. It's just literally Forces because it was the main game of the decade. Obviously most people are focused on the games, I understand, but the rest of the multimedia franchise exists too.

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38 minutes ago, Red Hot Jack said:

Sonic Movie 1

The Sonic shorts 

IDW Sonic

Mania Plus (as you said + physical edition)

TSR (good game just lacking content)

The Symphony

Forces Speed Battle

The topic is about the games. And out of this list, outside mania, a game not even made by Sonic team, none of these games are anything groundbreaking to write home about and make me optimistic for the series going forward 

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Not at all. The remake of Colors was done by a different team, and Frontiers looks good…well, so far, anyways. I will still wait to see footage, but still, I am excited for it. I don’t think Colors Ultimate will have any impact on Frontiers.

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I'm not trying to downplay your concerns but they've been releasing bad ports of these games since I was a toddler. It's par for the course. Technically not indicative of the next game but the fact that stuff like Colors Ultimate keeps getting approved says enough, I think. Quality control wasn't enough of a priority when SADX came out and it still isn't enough of a priority now.

 

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I think that Frontiers will certainly be more buggy than recent games, but not really to reason related to SCU and more to reason related to its own challenges (Open World = more moving parts = more bugs, new gameplay). SCU had his own challenge, having to redo a graphical engine, being based on an engine that wasn't at that time ready for such a project (With Godot 4 that kind of thing will be easier), made by a studio notorious for that kind of issues, done by a different team (which change how is done the internal quality control/bugfixes).

But SCU is certainly a sign of what can happen with externalized games in SEGA ... and is relatively similar to issues that have been seen in such projects since a while : It depends A LOT of who have the project. SEGA doesn't seems to do a lot of quality control on external project, which makes quality very varying. ( And not just on videogame : the Sonic movie redesign is for me kinda similar to what happened with SCU, in a way. )

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2 hours ago, Red Hot Jack said:

Sonic Movie 1

The Sonic shorts 

IDW Sonic

Mania Plus (as you said + physical edition)

TSR (good game just lacking content)

The Symphony

Forces Speed Battle

 

I don't like making lists but I am tired of people generalizing over Forces and the Boom spin-off series disasters as "proof" there is nothing good in the franchise in the last 10 years when we had more good content than bad even if we count numbers. It's just literally Forces because it was the main game of the decade. Obviously most people are focused on the games, I understand, but the rest of the multimedia franchise exists too.

While I have been enjoying the multimedia side of Sonic, the biggest focus is on the games and they haven't been doing that well.  The games were how the Sonic franchise started in the first place and therefore, it's the franchise's bread and butter, even if we are getting good content through the comics, the movies and other types of media.  Seeing how SEGA handled Sonic Colors Ultimate has me a bit worried about how SEGA is going to treat the brand from this point forward.  It seems like SEGA is just throwing this franchise at whoever wants to deal with it and they are not bothering to check to see if the games are in good condition or not and even though Sonic Colors Ultimate was handled by Blind Squirrel, SEGA still should have stepped in and checked to see if the game was in good condition in the first place.  I would like to think that Sonic Frontiers would be the first Sonic game that SEGA would actually give more care to, but we'll have to wait and see how that game turns out.

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2 hours ago, Blue Blood said:

And I'm tired of people pulling this card when they know full well that the subject matter is the games. Sonic is a gaming franchise with various multimedia spin-offs. The games form the core of the brand and those have not been in good standing.

Maybe we shouldn't look at Modern Sonic as a game franchise at its core anymore, but more a multimedia franchise that has games. Between the movies, shows, and comics, the games are becoming scant these days.

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If Frontiers was a remaster of an existing game cobbled together by an outsourced team relying on an entirely different and untested engine, sure, I'd be worried.

But it's not.

So.

3 hours ago, KHCast said:

And out of this list, outside mania, a game not even made by Sonic team

3 hours ago, Blue Blood said:

Yes, Mania was great. But it was a small, indie-developed 2D game that is unlikely to get a follow-up anytime soon.

Mania doesn't count as anything because it was made by a different team than Sonic Team, but Colors Ultimate means that Sonic will continue to suck despite it also being made by a different team than Sonic Team? SEGA will likely not hire Blind Squirrel Studios again if they even think of doing another remaster, so why is that proof of where Sonic is going?

When a non-Sonic Team Sonic game is good, it "doesn't count", but when a non-Sonic Team Sonic game is bad, it counts as being evident of future Sonic games' quality?

And multimedia efforts are dismissed, despite the fact that Sonic Boom the cartoon has as much to do with the main series game output as Sonic Boom the game does, because... well, let's face it, the cartoon is good, so it doesn't count.

If it's about SEGA's handling in general, then multimedia products should absolutely count, they are just as responsible for the cartoons and comics as they are the games. The film less so, but if Paramount refused to change the design and the movie flopped, people would blame SEGA anyway. "Well, they shouldn't have sold the rights decades ago!" No, the movies being good doesn't mean the games will be good, but it does mean that SEGA can absolutely get a handle on a good Sonic product and hire the right people.

Boom is included too despite none of those games being made by Sonic Team either, and I see Sonic 4 Episode II (also not a game made by Sonic Team... kind of) being cited but not Generations? Despite it only being a 5-6 month difference.

In 10 years, Sonic Team has definitely made three games--Sonic 4: Episode II (again, kind of), Lost World and Forces. Not an outstanding track record by any means, but nothing guarantees that Frontiers will be bad because some other team fucked up a game Sonic Team did well.

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Man even when the topic isn’t directly about frontiers you still find a way to defend it when no one is saying anything about it 

 

Also, colors is a game initially created by Sonic team, that Sega decided to license out to some questionable 3rd party with a shoddy history, to make a quick buck off of. The discussion is about Sega’s treatment of the series game wise, and whether people are confident optimistic about where it’s going as it stands. Colors ultimate, a Sonic team created game that was positively received back during the Wii era, being mangled up and re-sold by Sega who okay’d a 3rd party dev known for bad port jobs, is part of a string of bad decisions with the series game wise, that has peoples confidence in them handling the games at a low/mixed level. They aren’t owed optimism as it stands. Especially when Sega seems to somehow act competent with all their other franchises. Mania was a one and done stroke of luck, considering it doesn’t look like it’s getting a follow up, that was only able to even happen in the first place because of an outside team unrelated to Sega/Sonic team themselves, so again, I don’t count it in my evaluation on Sega and ST, and my level of optimism in how they’re handling the games

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44 minutes ago, KHCast said:

Man even when the topic isn’t directly about frontiers

I kinda disagree about that part ? I mean "So could this be a sign of possibility that Frontiers might be similar to Ultimate?" seems to be kinda directly about Frontiers too, especially when most of us are talking about that game ?

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I don't think there's really a point to debating something like this because it's going to come down to the person IE: Sonic Boom and the Movie are cited as signs of positive things coming ahead when I didn't like either of those things and thus don't expect much from them on the multimedia stuff going forward.

"But they're critically and commercially successful!"

That's great! So was Sonic 4 Episode 1. :D

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23 minutes ago, Kazhnuz said:

I kinda disagree about that part ? I mean "So could this be a sign of possibility that Frontiers might be similar to Ultimate?" seems to be kinda directly about Frontiers too, especially when most of us are talking about that game ?

I’m moreso referring to what the topic of discussion has boiled down to. Which is the general current path the series is heading, frontiers included, but not just that. A lot of people here are discussing the general state of the games and how we feel optimism wise regarding them.

 

The reply to me and Blood, assumed our point was to say Frontiers would be bad, which, at least for me, wasn’t that what I was suggesting. Frontiers wasn’t even on my mind when writing the post. Frontiers could be good, but that wouldn’t exactly help my general optimism when this series is so inconsistent with its quality.  One day we’re getting Generations, and the next Lost World and then Boom. One good game isn’t gonna be what changes most of our views on the general handling of the game side of the series 

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Hell, arguing about "commercially" successful is also flawed because Forces actually did quite well (some sources say it sold better than Mania, though IDK for sure on that), despite being heavily criticized by the communities I've seen (even non-Sonic ones).

I certainly am not optimistic towards Frontiers. At best, I am cautiously neutral right now.

I for one, especially after the latest patch, do not think Colors Ultimate was as bad of a train wreck as people like to make it out to be. Is it perfect? No. Does it have flaws? Yes. I would put it as an above-average effort at best, and that's probably the worst thing I can say about it, and that's the only front where I empathize with others: I am tired of mediocre or above-average releases "at best". I want the games to be great again.

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I am not even sure how much I want to count SEGA's multimedia success when the film is made mostly without its influence. If anything the film doing so well suggests moreso SEGA doesn't know what it is doing.

I think Prime's reception should determine whether SEGA can really manage Sonic as a multimedia brand.

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7 hours ago, Blue Blood said:

And I'm tired of people pulling this card when they know full well that the subject matter is the games. Sonic is a gaming franchise with various multimedia spin-offs. The games form the core of the brand and those have not been in good standing. Yes, Mania was great. But it was a small, indie-developed 2D game that is unlikely to get a follow-up anytime soon. It was an exception to the rule. The question of what's to come in the future regarding games can only be judged by the games that we've already got. Colours Ultimate ain't so hot, but let's be honest here, that's par for the course for Sonic games this decade. In the last ten years and other than Mania, SEGA have delivered ASRT, S4E2, Lost World, 3 Boom games ranging from "notorious disaster" to "wait they actually made a third one?" Forces, TSR and finally Colours Ultimate. Mania aside, nothing was particularly well-received except ASRT, which is a spin-off and its sequel failed to live up to expectations. I can't single-out Colours Ultimate as indicative when it's just following the trend. 

So stop purposefully missing the point in an effort to shift the discussion when people are talking about the games. No amount of animated shorts, comics or movies will change the quality of the games. 

Is the topic for the games specifically? Of course.

Was the reply I quoted mentioning "everything out of this franchise"? Yeah.

Look, the games suck and Sonic is a gaming franchise, I am tired of bad games as much as I am tired of people pointing out Sonic is in dark ages, generalizing, we are only running in a hole by repeating the usual business. 

I do believe and I will keep saying this, that every game is its own set of circumstances, the only constants are Sega rushing devs, overlooking issues and taking bad decisions, which Forces is an example of. What changes is the team working on games, the dev time, the consoles the game is worked on, now the pandemic, the criticism, feedback, focus on certain gimmicks. Etc.

I am also unpopular to say this, I don't care, that being highly critical towards Sega will not help them make better games...

Pretty sure only good feedback and letting them work will have a chance at improving games.

The Sonic movie design sucked, they didn't listen to those who said "haha live action Sonic sucks and it will never work" otherwise they would have cancelled the movie, they listened to those who draw Movie Sonic better, like Hesse, and hired him to work on the movies.

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6 minutes ago, Red Hot Jack said:

 

I am also unpopular to say this, I don't care, that being highly critical towards Sega will not help them make better games...

Pretty sure only good feedback and letting them work will have a chance at improving games.

It doesn't have anything to do with us. 

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12 minutes ago, Red Hot Jack said:

I am also unpopular to say this, I don't care, that being highly critical towards Sega will not help them make better games...

Pretty sure only good feedback and letting them work will have a chance at improving games.

 

How does this work? This doesn't make any sense at all. You need to tell them where they're failing so that they stop failing.

If I presented you with a video game that was a broken, glitchy mess, but you liked that one part in the middle or something, telling me that you "liked that one part" isn't going to make me aware that I need to fix the rest of the game.

Being negative shouldn't be seen as an automatically bad thing. Criticism is essential for growth, whether that be the individual or the company. Better yet, a company is not a person, and you can't hurt a company's feelings, so you can be as harsh as you so please.

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