What Will Restore Your Faith In Sonic?

[Rusty Venture]

The bold was added in hopes everyone at Capcom felt it.

And I do mean...

[sheath]

Capcom: nothing but sequels.

[Bottino]

Capcom: nothing but sequels.

I really liked this statement that he gave:
"A lot of designers, if they find a genre that works for them, they stick with it. A lot of designers just stick to a set formula. That doesn't work any more. You can't just tweak the graphics, work just on image quality. You can't compete on that. The business side is not keeping up with investment. You need to be prepared to invest 4 billion yen or more on a game, and then spend 2 billion yen more to promote it. But Japanese companies can't do that. So we're losing out to the West in terms of investment in games."

The first part sounds a lot like ( besides Capcom, of course ) a company that starts with N...

[Knuckle Duster]

http://www.vgchartz.com/gamedb/?name=sonic+generations
http://www.vgchartz.com/gamedb/?name=sonic+colors
http://www.vgchartz.com/gamedb/?name=sonic+unleashed
http://www.vgchartz.com/gamedb/?name=+transformed

Sonic's platformers shift millions of units. His kart racer on the other hand barely broke even, if at all. If it connects with its target audience there's no need for Sega to change anything. Hopefully this kind of yapping will cease after Lost World, but I doubt it. You armchair executives, you.

vgchartz is complete bullshit. It's showing a total of 1.05 million sales, yet according to Sega's reports directly Sonic Transformed shipped 1.36 million units in the first quarter of the year alone. It launched for Steam later in that quarter and was a daily special more than once. I noticed it was also bundled with Wii U at big stores to help move consoles.

http://www.segasammy.co.jp/english/p...10_e_final.pdf


That game is probably selling better than most Sonic titles. It's got critical acclaim and word of mouth backing it up. Certainly not bad for a title that never had Japanese release.

[Pulstar]

I know about VGChartz wild inaccuracies, but I use it as a quick reference. Point is, Sonic sells.. I hope ASRT continues to turn in a healthy profit because it's an awesome game indeed. I have a hunch Lost World is going to be more entertaining than most recent 3D platformers.

[sheath]

VGChartz takes averages from what few retailers will respond to them and uses statistical analysis to figure a guesstimate of actual sell through numbers. Their approach is no different, from what I can see, than what the NPD or Japanese Famitsu sales are.

The real sell through numbers are never ever documented. So we have the shipped figure, which is itself a guestimate on several levels, or the statistical expansion based on a core group of retailers' sales. So, VGchartz is not "total crap" unless everything else is as well.

On the Capcom topic though, they are one of the few companies that has actually thrived with incremental updates and level editor sequels since the NES or early PS1 days. Most developers attempt to expand on their original engine, making everything bigger and more animated in the sequels. Capcom uses the exact same material, changes very little, and creates a few more characters or levels. I don't think I could blame Nintendo for the same. If anything they might take too long milking a single release before attempting a sequel, at least on consoles.

[Bottino]

On the Capcom topic though, they are one of the few companies that has actually thrived with incremental updates and level editor sequels since the NES or early PS1 days. Most developers attempt to expand on their original engine, making everything bigger and more animated in the sequels. Capcom uses the exact same material, changes very little, and creates a few more characters or levels. I don't think I could blame Nintendo for the same. If anything they might take too long milking a single release before attempting a sequel, at least on consoles.

I was refering more to the fact that Nintendo rarelly tries to create something new or different, not so much about sequels( no one comes close to beat Capcom on that).They're basically doing the same thing they've been doing since the NES days.

[kool kitty89]

Why not CPS3? This board had potential, i would like to see more stuff than just fighting games.

Yeah, that too, but CPS2 actually has existing Mega Man art to draw from.

They actually made a mediocre isometric Sonic game on that board (Segasonic). So, they had their chance and blew it.

. . . Yes, yes they did. And on that note, Sonic 3D Blast is a much better game than that thing. (Sonic Labyrinth on the other hand . . . )



On another note, I do like Sonic Adventure 2's art style overall . . . Sonic Adventure has some real weirdness though (and HORRIBLE cutscene animations -especially facial expressions and mouthing, and ESPECIALLY for sonic). It's different, but it works.
(plus the image posted in that pic is from Sonic X . . . though that may have been ripped onto some game box art too -it's NOT the DC era box art though, or GC SA2B art even)


Oh, and if you want to compare "classic" Sonic art vs modern, you've got to consider all the SoA and SoE variations too, including some trying to push the "edgy" look a fair bit harder than the DC era stuff IMO. (and doing so less tastefully too in some cases . . . and just weird and not edgy or cute in other cases )

http://mobianlegends.com/images/soni...c1_box_usa.jpg


http://images.wikia.com/sonic/images..._box_image.png


http://images.wikia.com/sonic/images...onic_3_art.png


http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__...enesis_box.jpg


http://www.theoldcomputer.com/game-b...28Front%29.jpg



If nothing else, I do like the menacing SoA Robotnik box art design.

That and the Sonic image used on the original (Dino Libraries -not DirectX) PC Sonic CD release:
https://info.sonicretro.org/index.ph...pg&redirect=no
(there's also a monochrome lineart version, which is the one I have)


That and the US Sonic & Knuckles Collection art for PC:
http://image.gamespotcdn.net/gamespo...6217_front.jpg


On another note, the JP Sonic CD box art does look like one of the closest character designs to what they used for "classic" sonic in Generations. (which TBH doesn't look all that much like the classic Sonic sprite design, especially leaving off at Sonic 3&K)

http://www.soniczone0.com/games/soni...lsimg3full.jpg


http://timewarpgamer.com/images/sega..._cd_box_jp.jpg

[Obviously]

I actually never noticed a change to Sonic in Sonic Adventure during the game. I thought he looked just like 2D Sonic, actually like Sonic 1/CD's character. Sonic Adventure 2 just looked like that with longer limbs and a lot more facial detail.

Definitely.
But if you look closely, on Sonic 3 & Knuckles and Sonic 3D he was already going for a more skinny visual, which still looked very good.

It's weird. Mega Man and Sonic both started out sort of short and pudgy and got stretched and elongated over the years.

Mega Man's been reverting to a shorter, stockier form but without the pudge. Sonic continues to stretch however.

[Rusty Venture]

Oh, and if you want to compare "classic" Sonic art vs modern, you've got to consider all the SoA and SoE variations too, including some trying to push the "edgy" look a fair bit harder than the DC era stuff IMO. (and doing so less tastefully too in some cases . . . and just weird and not edgy or cute in other cases )

The "classic era" Japanese artwork is, well, utter tosh. Those squiggly lines, triangles, and crazy colors shit scream "Yay, 1990's!" worse than Sonic being "edgy" or "extreme".

It probably should have been more like this:

[Phantar]

The "classic era" Japanese artwork is, well, utter tosh. Those squiggly lines, triangles, and crazy colors shit scream "Yay, 1990's!" worse than Sonic being "edgy" or "extreme".

It probably should have been more like this:

You know what... I'd play that!

[QuickSciFi]

I just bought Sonic Generations for the PS3.

Hopefully this will...