General Sonic The Hedgehog thread

One thing I really liked about Chronicles' gameplay was how it implemented speed as a mechanic, just giving different characters a different number of moves per turn. Lots of RPGs struggle with implementing speed in a turn-based system well, but I thought that was a fairly simple and good way to do it.

Sonic and Shadow get 3 actions per turn. Amy, Tails, Knuckles, Rouge, and Shade get 2 actions per turn. Big, Cream, and Omega get 1 action per turn. I'm sure other games have done something like this before, but this was my first time playing a game with this kind of mechanic.

Edited by PushoverMediaCritic on Apr 8th 2020 at 11:23:07 AM

I’ve currently been looking at Sonic Hacking Contest streams, this fan base has a ton of talented people in it.

On that note, if you've never seen Sonic Robo Blast 2 or Sonic Robo Blast 2 Kart, I'd check them out. Full Sonic fan games built in the Doom Legacy Engine.

...

Apparently, the canon path for Shadow is the full Hero one; Westopolis - Lethal Highway - Circus Park - Death Ruins - Lost Impact - Black Doom; then the last story. So, "where is that damn FOURTH Chaos Emerald" is canon.

Shadow has 21 stages (and an extra final one in the last story), but each playthrough has 6 stages; there are 10 endings (and you require to reach each of them at least once to unlock the last story), and there are 326 different paths towards those endings. Each stage has 2 or 3 different ways of completing it, and depending on how you complete it the next stage is one or another (or, in the 6th stage, depending on how you complete it you have one or another final boss and ending).

I really had fun with that game, 14 years ago.

I thought SEGA only canonized which ending happened, and not the entire path leading up to that ending?

Either way, when you look at what goes down it's kind of impossible for any one route to be canon so like... What in the world.

How about a dark run until Cryptic castle, after which pure hero?

Seems fitting.

Wait a minute... is Shadow the Hedgehog's Expert Mode canon too?

According to the Twitter, everything is canon.

Apparently, some people at Sonic Stadium figured out that the only path that makes lines up with the Last Story, as well as Continuity Nods in later media, is Neutral - Neutral - Dark - Hero - Hero - Dark.

Edited by Primis on Apr 9th 2020 at 8:45:45 AM

A guy I know played Sonic Robo Blast 2 on his Youtube channel. It looks like this. A 3D game in the Doom engine with sprites. That got me thinking, what is Sonic Robo Blast 1 like? Well, it looks like this. It looks like it was made in MS Paint, and has no scrolling. The amount of improvement from one game over the other is just staggering.

Edited by WillKeaton on Apr 9th 2020 at 10:45:59 AM

I've done this exact thought experiment somewhat recently, though I haven't arranged it in a way that makes for a compelling piece of speculative media on its own.

Stuff that has to happen according to the last story: Shadow gathers all seven Chaos Emeralds, Shadow makes it to the Black Comet one way or another (Black Comet/Final Haunt), Black Doom elaborating on what the Ritual of Prosperity is (Death Jungle), Charmy imitates Shadow's karate chop (Mad Matrix), the President and the GUN Commander hiding out in the GUN base (GUN Fortress, along with their respective plotlines), Eggman admits that his suggestion of Shadow being a Shadow Android was false (Iron Jungle/Lava Shelter), and Black Doom elaborates on Shadow's creation, adding onto details that Shadow seems to already know (which were revealed in Cosmic Fall).

Before we even jump into Expert Mode or SEGA's confirmations, that's two 4th stages (Mad Matrix & Death Jungle), zero to one 5th stages (possibly Iron Jungle), and two to four 6th stages (GUN Fortress & Black Comet/Final Haunt, possibly Lava Shelter).

That's already impossible to fit into any one specific route of the game, and I haven't even brought up what Expert Mode & SEGA's words add to the mix.

That game looks one step away from being first-person. It's weird, is what I'm saying.

I always thought the only path that made sense was the one where Shadow helps Team Chaotix, because otherwise they just sort of show up out of nowhere in the Last Story.

Oh my god. I knew the situation with Sega was bad, but that article was so eye-opening. I know Adventure 2 has its issues, but how in the world did they pull off a game of that quality with a staff of like ten people??

So there were only two level designers for Heroes, one of which was got sick (wonder why) and so Iizuka had to carry the entire load himself. AND they were working in an entirely different country than the rest of the development team. Wow.

That leads me to believe Heroes was the Sonic CD of that time...

Knowing what I know now about Sega's internal problems, I get major Tomm Hulett vibes from the way people talk about Takashi Iizuka.

Basically, Hulett was the producer of Silent Hill in the same way Iizuka is for Sonic, and everybody blamed him for the series' decline in quality, but in reality, he was the only one that still cared and the only reason the series didn't get any worse.

I suspect the same is true for Iizuka, he's probably the only reason the Sonic series hasn't completely collapsed due to Sega's mismanagement, like say, Crash Bandicoot did after Mind Over Mutant.

Any worse?

You mean, get worse than it already has...

Well, if Crash could make a comeback after those games, I’ll still hold on to my hope for Sonic.

Edited by ShinyCottonCandy on Apr 9th 2020 at 1:32:00 PM

...yes? That is what I said, isn't it?

Edited by Primis on Apr 9th 2020 at 10:29:04 AM

Well...not quite.

Try reading the whole sentence before replying.

Why did you bold that part?

I'm not really sure that'd even be true now anyway...

Edited by randomness4 on Apr 9th 2020 at 12:01:05 PM

Maybe if we got Yuji Naka back somehow as well.

Iizuka and him were both part of the original Sonic Team if I recall, with Iizuka being the only person left from that time.

And I get the feeling Naka does care a lot about the franchise. He might be what's needed to get it back on track. Then again, there's also the issue of Sega's mandates and how they care more about what they think the series should be than what it is.

Yuji Naka left Sega because he didn't want to just make Sonic games.

And you want to bring him back to just make Sonic games?

And keep in mind, even he's not innocent in all of this. He's a dick who contributed to Sega being blind as well.

Edited by NoName999 on Apr 9th 2020 at 12:43:26 PM

Yuji Naka left because he was put in a managerial position and he wanted to get back to actually making games, not because he was sick of Sonic.

He obviously still cares about the series, since he reacted positively to both Mania and the movie.