#Akinori Nishiyama

[shirubae]

WHY was Blaze in Sonic 06?

In my analysis of Sonic 06 I promised not to touch lore or canon. But this single question has plagued me for years, and I can't run from it any longer: why was Blaze in the future with Silver in Sonic 06? It literally keeps me up at night. It is a core moment in her identity, yet it remains one of the biggest unaddressed mysteries in the series.

To answer this question, we must also answer: who is Blaze? She's a princess from another world. Easy, right?

Buckle up. Forget everything you know. This is a long one.

Blaze's Debut

Let's step back in time. The year is 2005.

Blaze debuted in Sonic Rush, which released on November 15, 2005. She was created by the game's writer and director, Akinori Nishiyama, as a contrasting character to Sonic. It introduced Blaze as a cat from another world who is the guardian of the Sol Emeralds.

Fun fact: this game never even implies that Blaze is a princess. Not once. In the game, the manuals, and any promo material I can find, she is only called the guardian of the Sol Emeralds. Maybe it was a note in her file at Sonic Team HQ, but at this point, her royalty simply was not a thing. If someone can prove me otherwise, bob's your uncle.

How crazy is that? When you hear about Blaze nowadays, you're like "oh duh the princess" but she was not always a princess! More importantly, this is the first example of Blaze's identity being in flux.

Blaze Returns

Blaze's next appearance was in Sonic 06, which released on November 14, 2006, exactly one year later. This game depicted Blaze as the curt companion of Silver, fighting Iblis in a destroyed future of Sonic's world. Huh? Yes. The game never mentions her alternate dimension nor the Sol Emeralds. Blaze is Silver's well-dressed friend now. You think that's confusing today? Try being a kid who just got to know her in Sonic Rush a year prior.

Because of how the game treats Blaze, some fans assumed that Sonic 06 was a reboot of the series, or that it was at least retconning Blaze's backstory into her being a denizen of the future alongside Silver. There are zero official sources to support this rumor, but it gained traction anyway, and people started citing it as gospel. It's wrong.

Blaze's official Sonic 06 backstory can be found in other sources, like the official websites and the Japanese manual. They are pretty consistent with Rush: she's from another dimension and guards the Sol Emeralds (despite their total absence in this game). None of them say she was born in the future.

The English website calls her a "queen". As far as I know, this of all places is the first public source to reveal Blaze's royalty!

However, there's also some odd details, like her wearing a cape, so it may come from an early draft of Sonic 06's plot and not be entirely accurate. Maybe they were planning on her royalty being more important than it ended up (I theorize that it's why she could absorb Iblis where Silver failed).

Let's wrap up the princess thing. The first game to really make Blaze a princess was Sonic Rush Adventure, which released another year later on September 14, 2007. It's an important plot detail, which is likely why they decided to officially solidify it.

But that means for the entirety of Sonic 06, Blaze may not have been "out" as a princess. Did Sonic Team really plan for everyone to go read her bio online in order to know this? No, but the game didn't mention it either. So her identity was still being sorted out on the public stage.

It got worse when fans noticed that Blaze doesn't seem to recognize Sonic at all in Sonic 06. In their only scene together in Kingdom Valley, she doesn't say a word. If this is the same Blaze from Rush, why doesn't she know him? (Mind you, Sonic doesn't acknowledge her either). This discrepancy only fuels the "future Blaze" rumor, and it's still never been properly explained. Despite being discussed again and again, we haven't had a clear answer. So, let's at least go over the answers that we have received.

Takashi Iizuka at Sonic Boom

Takashi Iizuka is the current (2024) head of Sonic Team. He's worked on many games in the series, though notably not Sonic 06 nor Rush. Still, during the Q&A panel at the live event Sonic Boom 2012, one of the many fan-submitted questions requested he clarify some lore regarding Silver and Blaze.

Here's a transcript, since the crowd in the video is pretty loud:

Speaker: "Iizuka-san, can you please clear up the story of Silver, Blaze, and Eggman Nega? Are they from an alternate dimension, or the future? Not to mention, in Sonic Rush, Sonic Rivals, and Sonic 2006, they all know each other, but in Sonic Colors, they've never met?"

Takashi Iizuka (via translator): "So, everyone probably already knows this... but Silver and Eggman Nega are from the future, and Blaze is from an alternate dimension. That's the official story. But in 2006, basically what happened was everyone kind of had like, amnesia. That's how that kind of played out."

The guy was put on the spot to answer a big question regarding two characters from games that he didn't even work on, plus the translation barrier! He handled it well, all things considered. This at least debunked the "future Blaze" rumor, but it didn't answer why she was in the future in the first place. Let's check another source...

Shiro Maekawa on Twitter

Shiro Maekawa is a former Sonic game writer who worked on the Shadow and Silver Episodes for Sonic 06 (but not Rush). This means he wrote for Blaze; naturally, some curious fans have reached out to him with questions. His responses may give us some insights into what was intended with her in 06.

First of all, Maekawa confirmed that he intended to connect Rush to 06. He's said this in multiple tweets. What exactly he means isn't totally clear.

A fan once made a neat tumblr post delving into this connection; I don't totally agree with everything said, especially the "future Blaze" stuff, but it's definitely a valuable perspective (unfortunately the author has deleted their blog after harassment... good job guys).

He also says that he intended for the place that Blaze gets sent to in Silver Episode to be her alternate dimension. That makes sense; just sending her home! But he admits that his ideas are not official, so it's up to Sonic Team to decide.

Furthermore, Maekawa supports the theory that Iblis remains sealed within Blaze's soul to this day. Fans have taken it a step further by theorizing that the reason Blaze can become Burning Blaze is because of her connection to Iblis - this makes sense, given the fiery aura and the fact that Blaze briefly goes Burning in the cutscene when she absorbs it.

If that theory is true, and she goes Burning in Rush, then it would force 06 to be a prequel to Rush.

Since it's confirmed Blaze isn't from the future in 06, she must have gotten sent there somehow - maybe by the Sol Emeralds? They do teleport her on their own in Rush. That would mean Blaze hasn't met Sonic yet, so she has nothing to say to him. Then in the ending, she forgets everything and goes home, later meeting Sonic for real in Rush. Boom, easy! For a long time, this placement in the timeline seemed fair.

There was a tiny hole: an unused audio file of Blaze dialogue in 06.

Blaze says: "Sonic... the Iblis Trigger... a blue hedgehog... can it be true?", expressing familiarity with the blue blur. So she did know who he was...? Then why did she not say anything? Well, it's unused so it shouldn't count. But the fact that it's recorded at all means it got far enough into the script to be voiced...

On the other hand, this game also has the "Book of Darkness" flub and the "head to Wave Ocean" blooper, so maybe its audio files aren't to be trusted. Problem solved?

No. Not until a certain someone speaks...

Ian Flynn on Bumblekast

Ian Flynn went from writing the Archie Sonic comics, to the IDW comics, and now the games. He's been working on Sonic properties for a very long time, and is even consulted as part of the mythical "Sonic lore team" at Sega-Sammy. Those folks work on piecing together the canon, including the chaos of 06's timeline placement (imagine being paid to write stuff like this lmao).

This means he receives lore knowledge from on high, from the top dogs at Sonic Team. At the moment it's fairly secretive, but on Ian's Q&A podcast, the Bumblekast, he often lets fans in on tidbits.

What Ian has shared so far supports a lot of theories discussed with Maekawa. He has entirely confirmed that Blaze went Burning Blaze as she absorbed Iblis and went home, and has dubiously confirmed that she still has Iblis in her soul (he doubts it will ever be brought up again).

But the prophet has spoken: Sonic 06 is officially set after Rush in the timeline. Say what you will about Ian's writing or understanding of the characters; like it or not, he's received this info from Sonic Team. So, our timeline theory is debunked.

Ian even acknowledges that there are plot holes with this timeline placement, like why Blaze and Sonic ignored each other in Kingdom Valley, and why she didn't think to find her old friends for help. But he has no say over it. He'll just have to find a way to write around it, I guess.

He also acknowledges that Blaze's presence in the future and partnership with Silver are still completely unexplained, and he hopes to eventually touch on it... But he also states that there is an official reason why Blaze was in Silver's future. I'll write his quote here for reference:

Ian Flynn: "Here's the thing: working on something else, I actually did get a straight answer, and it was frustratingly simple. And it's like, 'that works, okay.' No, I can't get into it, that's all private work stuff but maybe it'll come to light, eventually. But there is an answer, and it works, and I kinda feel dumb for not thinking of it."

So it's currently classified. Where does that leave us? "That greedy Ian is selfishly sitting upon a hoard of gold, hiding his secrets from us!" "There must be a secret scroll sitting in the depths of Sonic Team HQ, emblazoned with the truth!" "Ian is a filthy American, he has no idea what he's talking about!"

Well, we can guess to our heart's content. There are a few theories:

Maybe the will of the Sol Emeralds sent Blaze to help Silver. The strings of fate pulled her so she could help guide him and eventually absorb Iblis. This one is the most sentimental, so I like it...

Maybe Blaze got caught time-traveling during a fight with Eggman Nega, and was flung into the future. This would explain why Ian found it "frustratingly simple" (he hates Eggman Nega lol).

Maybe at the end of Rush, Blaze couldn't get back home from the Exception zone; instead, she ended up lost in Silver's future due to space-time shenanigans. Nothing in her ending truly confirms that she ever made it back home. Pretty simple.

These still don't explain why she and Sonic didn't recognize each other, but we have to just let Ian deal with that one lol.

Conclusion

Our best course of action is to wait. In many of the clips I've linked, Ian regularly expresses interest in addressing Blaze's mysteries in an issue of IDW comics or a TailsTube episode. We also know that Evan Stanley, a fellow comic artist-turned-writer, is a big fan of Blaze and Silver (check out her "Ghosts of the Future" fan-comic). Our cries for the truth do not fall on deaf ears.

Ultimately, Sega-Sammy will choose whatever is most profitable. They are a business operating in capitalism. If revisiting Silver and Blaze's backstory is somehow a good business decision, they will allow it. If it's not... they won't.

The "Fearless: Year of Shadow" campaign has given me hope. Its success is hopefully proving to Sega-Sammy that fans do care about characters besides the main Team Sonic, and that mysteries and lore of the past can be addressed in games like Sonic X Shadow Generations. Whether it results in more leniency with using the extended cast in future games, such as Blaze and Silver, remains to be seen. Maybe the two need to be teased in a movie before they can get more attention lol. But I have hope that one day, my patience will have paid off, and I can update this article with the official truth of the matter.

Patience and hope: that's what Blaze offered Silver in Sonic 06. She supported him through his recklessness, stabilized him, and reminded him of what he was fighting for. But she also loved his passion, his drive for peace, and value of the truth. She loved how "naive" he was in the face of his seemingly impossible mission.

We fans are all a little naive. So for now, let's just wait and see.

[cosmicsponge2004]

Reminder that Blaze the Cat has

a minor fear of heights

(Sonic Rush Adventure, 2007)

and was at one point planned to be insecure about her flat chest (Early Leaked Sonic 06 Script, 2005-ish. Stated in the character bio, never made it to any ganes or Sonic Channel)

Also the tips of her wrapped fur inbetween her ears is a little inconsistent so... occasional split ends? Fire

Granted, that early 06 script was back during the full reboot era of development so Shadow was stated to be 15 but that's specifically non-canon both because they didn't go the reboot route and that's objectively impossible due to his backstory. Can't even say he's physically 15 cause he was sealed not long after his creation and is ageless and immortal (whilst being around for about 50+ Years)

Blaze's chest is never mentioned in game and likely never will be any time soon since JP Staff doesn't care and American writers Don't like that kind of subject matter but due to that nothing in games has also gone AGAINST that. Just keep it in your pocket

[skrunklowumbo64]

Akinori Nishiyama (the writer for the first Sonic Adventure game) doesn't get enough credit for his writing compared to Shiro Maekawa cause whenever certain Sonic fans talk about Japanese writers, they only talk about Maekawa like he's the only Japanese writer ever existed.

Nishiyama (along with the other Japanese writers not Maekawa) arguably deserves as much attention & appreciation like Maekawa does.

Here's his Twitter account (even tho he's very inactive for a decade) if you're interested in following him there.

[sonadowfujoshi]

Sonic Rush: Original Groove Rush - CD Commentary

The soundtrack CD of Sonic Rush will be available exclusively from SEGA DIRECT! The name of the CD is “Sonic Rush: Original Groove Rush”! This is a limited item that you can’t get anywhere else, so don’t miss out!The jacket is reversible, designed by Sonic designer Uekawa Yuuji! Plus, the Sonic Rush Soundtrack Set Pack, which includes the soundtrack CD “Sonic Rush – Original Groove Rush” and the…

[crystalmaiden77real]

Most Sonic Game Plots are Good:

The best writer of the games is SA1’s writer Akinori Nishiyama. The worst writer who always has actual control over the plots as a whole is Yasushi Otake.

39 are at least okay-written plots, outta 64 actual stories. 64/39=1.64, meaning usually the plots are fine, I like most of the series content-wise.

Sonic Game Plots:

1: Sonic 1 (Genesis): Okay plot. Any plot with this foundation is great in a vacuum because of how creative the concept of animal-powered robots is. I'll rate these stories as if they exist in a vacuum, otherwise a lot of them would be called bad for being too much like this and that'd be kind of unfair.

2: Sonic 1 (Master System/Game Gear): Okay plot.

3: Sonic 2 (Master System/Game Gear): Okay plot. Better because at least it does something new by having Tails get kidnapped.

4: Sonic 2 (Genesis): Okay plot.

5: SegaSonic the Hedgehog: Okay plot, better than most 2D Sonics.

6: Sonic CD: Okay plot.

7: Sonic Chaos: Great plot.

8: Sonic Spinball (Genesis): Okay plot.

9: Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine: Okay plot.

10: Sonic 3 & Knuckles: Okay plot.

11: Sonic Drift: Bad. Why was Eggman driving a car in the first place, which caused everyone else to race?

12: Sonic Gameworld: Okay plot.

13: Sonic Spinball (Game Gear): Okay plot.

14: Sonic Triple Trouble: Okay plot.

15: Sonic Drift 2: Bad.

16: Knuckles Chaotix: Okay plot.

17: Tails Adventure: Okay plot.

18: Sonic Labyrinth: Okay.

19: Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine (Game Gear): Okay plot.

20: Sonic the Fighters: Bad. They’re friends, why would they fight each other and risk killing each other?

21: Sonic 3D Blast: Okay plot.

22: Sonic Blast: Okay plot.

23: Sonic R: Great plot.

24: Sonic Adventure 1: Great plot.

25: Sonic Pocket Adventure: Okay plot.

26: Sonic Shuffle: Boring.

27: Sonic Adventure 2: Okay plot. Only thing that keeps me from rating it a fantastic is that it's not always explained well enough, mainly, why was Gerald able to enact his plan?

28: Sonic Advance: Okay plot.

29: Sonic Advance 2: Okay plot.

30: Sonic Pinball Party: Okay plot.

31: Sonic Battle: Bad. Friends are fighting, exaggerated characterizations for most, good otherwise.

32: Sonic Heroes: Okay plot.

33: Sonic Advance 3: Okay plot.

34: Sonic Rush: Okay plot barely.

35: Shadow the Hedgehog: Bad because the world is invaded, which is hard on most of its denizens.

36: Sonic Riders: Great.

37: Sonic 06: Bad, Silver’s future is ruined and the scepter’s not buried after the time travel.

38: Sonic Rivals: Bad.

39: Sonic and the Secret Rings: Bad. Derivative, shock value dark moments every time, Shahra’s a nag.

40: Sonic Rivals 2: Bad.

41: Sonic Rush Adventure: Bad from Marine.

42: Sonic Chronicles: Bad, contrived with good concepts. The bad ending was forced from an Idiot Ball.

43: Sonic Riders Zero Gravity: Bad. Too much exposition we don’t care about. Another MacGuffin plot.

44: Sonic Unleashed Wii: Bad. Chip is out of place, the premise is too dark and confusing. Boring.

45: Sonic Unleashed: Bad.

46: Sonic and the Black Knight: Good mostly.

47: Sonic 4 Episode 1: Good.

48: Sonic Free Riders: Bad.

49: Sonic Colors: Bad. It’s mostly talking and if you don’t think it’s funny it’s boring, but cool premise.

50: Sonic Colors DS: Good.

51: Sonic Generations: Bad.

52: Sonic Generations 3DS: Bad.

53: Mario and Sonic London 3DS: Bad plot. The most boring plot ever. Not enough character/interaction.

54: Sonic 4 Episode 2: Good.

55: Sonic Lost World: Bad.

56: Sonic Lost World 3DS: Bad.

57: Sonic Boom Rise of Lyric: Kinda bad from main cast’s apathy/Knux, actually mediocre. Lyric’s cool.

58: Sonic Boom Shattered Crystal: Bad.

59: Sonic Boom Fire and Ice: Bad barely. Sticks’ OOC, bad jokes, boring progression, too much talking.

60: Sonic Mania: Okay.

61: Sonic Forces. Bad. Why does Eggman have the Phantom Ruby that caused the dark plot? The premise is also not taken advantage of to make up for its darkness, Eggman didn’t need to take over the world.

62: Team Sonic Racing. Bad.

63: Frontiers. Bad. Repetitive, it’s Generations but pointlessly bleak & more dragged out, it's all talking.

64: Sonic Superstars: Good.

Gameplay-wise, I played and liked only 28 of them, 29 at best if I include Unleashed Wii, even less if I exclude the 20 2D Sonic style games for having a zoomed in camera. Another thing for Frontiers, if you accept the idea that Eggman could think of a creation of his as his daughter and be fond of her for that, then by that logic you should also be just as accepting of the idea that Starline grew to see Surge and Kit as his children and were fond of them for that, it’s the same thing. And he spent even more time with them.

Sonic 1’s plot is great by Sonic game standards because of how many flaws it lacks. Every new repeat of this basic plot, like 2 and 3, isn’t creative anymore, so it’s boring and lazy, but in a vacuum, the plot of Eggman captured animals in robots and the heroes have to fight his Eggmobile a lot is unique and keeps it simple. 1 8 bit’s plot, is good, but any game with Sonic 1’s plot is only impressive in its lack of flaws and the uniqueness of badniks outside of Sonic, because it was already done. Sonic 2 8-bit’s plot is great because this was the first time Tails got kidnapped in the franchise let alone for a whole game.

SegaSonic the Hedgehog’s plot is great because its premise is unique and you can just assume Mighty and Ray got captured with Sonic accidentally while hanging out with him. Spinball great. Spinball 8-bit same intense plot as it. Sonic 3 great for introducing the Master Emerald. Tails and the Music Maker bad. Gameworld alright barely, new at least. Fighters’ plot is bad because the reasoning for why the heroes fight each other is stupid making them look like they’re idiots and don’t care about each other. Battle’s plot is bad as a whole for the same reason, and it exaggerates most of its characters, but is great if you ignore that.

The worst writer who always has control over the plots as a whole is Yasushi Otake, who came up with the stories of Sonic Free Riders, Colors and the London 3DS story campaign. It’s too hard to figure out who wrote the stories of the 2D games because their credits and wikis don’t mention a writer. So sometimes I have to assume the game director wrote it, because directors can determine the premise of a game. I can’t find out who wrote the manuals. Game planners didn’t plan the stories, I looked up game planners and it didn’t mention story or plot.

Amounts of stories written by the writers who wrote more than once:

Ken Pontac and Warren Graff: 7; Colors, Generations, Lost World, Shattered Crystal, Fire and Ice, Forces, Team Sonic Racing. Other people wrote the actual plots except LW. Akinori Nishiyama: 6; Sonic Adventure 1, Advance, Advance 2, Pinball Party, Advance 3, Rush. Katsuhiro Hasegawa: 5; Sonic Drift, Sonic Triple Trouble, Sonic Drift 2, Tails Adventure, Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine Game Gear. Shirō Maekawa: 5; Sonic Adventure 2, Heroes, 06, Riders Zero Gravity, Sonic and the Black Knight. Yasushi Otake: 4; Free Riders, Colors, Colors DS, Mario and Sonic London 3DS. Naoto Ohshima: 3; Sonic 1 both versions, CD. Takashi Iizuka: 3; Shadow the Hedgehog, Rivals 2, Superstars. Alan Denton: 2; Rise of Lyric and Fire and Ice. Bill Freiberger: 2; Rise of Lyric and Fire and Ice. Greg Hahn: 2; Rise of Lyric and Fire and Ice. Hiroshi Miyamoto: 2; Riders, Riders Zero Gravity. Kazuyuki Hoshino: 2; Mania, CD. Masanobu Tsukamoto: 2; Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine 16 and 8-bit. Tin Guerrero: 2; Shattered Crystal & Fire and Ice.

[jun88bn]

Sonic Advance 3 (Gameboy Advance ROMs) download is available to play for Delta Emulator. This Sonic ROMs game is the US English. ROM and use it with an emulator. Play online game on Android / IOS Game Info Sonic Advance 3[a] is a 2004 platform game developed by Sonic Team and Dimps and published by Sega for the Game Boy Advance. It is part of the Sonic the Hedgehog series, and the sequel to Sonic Advance 2. Developer(s)Sonic Team, DimpsPublisher(s)JP: Sega, NA/PAL: THQDirector(s)Akinori NishiyamaProducer(s)Yuji Naka, Kouichi SakitaDesigner(s)Yukihiro HigashiMasaaki YamagiwaProgrammer(s)Tatsuaki NakashimaHiroki YoshitakeKuninori DounoArtist(s)Yuji UekawaBasic info, source Download Sonic Advance 3 (GBA ROM) for Emulator Link Sonic Advance 3 (U) (M6).zip How to download & Install Game After successfully installing Delta, you can go to game ROM hosting websites such as delta-tricks ROMs With Delta Emulator, you just need to select the game you want > click Save game to download. Open Delta > click the arrow in the upper right corner > select File Navigate to the folder containing the downloaded game file > click on the zip file The game will be saved to the Delta library > click on the icon to start playing

[dorothydalmati1]

Dr. Slump Arale-chan Season 1 Episode 27: Yay! A New Friend

Written by Tomoko Konparu

Storyboarded and directed by Akinori Nagaoka

Animation directed by Rie Nishiyama

[tinysamm]

While much of Sonic Rush’s level design and gameplay is set along a 2D axis, the game occasionally opens up to 3D areas when transitioning into special stages or boss stages. While each of these have different specifics regarding how they’re presented, they all intelligently maintain 2D movement at their core, with even these 3D environments often restricted to a 2.5D style of interaction, with the player restricted to moving along a single axis horizontally. This ensures that these sections feel fresh and engaging in a different way from the rest of the game, while also maintaining the player’s existing understanding of Sonic and Blaze’s movement mechanics.

[posthumanwanderings]

“With 2020 being the 20th anniversary of Sega’s Dreamcast RPG Phantasy Star Online, we’re looking back with a series of interviews featuring key team members who worked on the game. Over the past three weeks, we’ve posted chats with producer Yuji Naka, director Takao Miyoshi, and composer Hideaki Kobayashi. And now we’re diving a bit deeper with a roundtable discussion with script writer Akinori Nishiyama and effects designer Takanori Fukazawa.

To find out what was (and wasn’t) essential to the game, we probe Nishiyama on his role in PSO’s development, suggestions from producer Yuji Naka that he soundly ignored, and regrets he may have 20 years after the fact.

Meanwhile, Fukazawa describes what it was like to work in a near-vacuum from other parts of the team, giving us insight to the working styles of Japanese game developers in the ’90s.” [read more]

[toaarcan]

Now that I think about, while we've heard your opinions on the big writers on Archie, I don't think we ever really heard your opinions on some of the pre-Genesis storyline stuff in great detail. In particular, what's your opinion/commentary on the Knuckles series as a whole, Return to Angel Island, and the Knuckles-as-Enerjak storylines?

I have not read the Knuckles comic, because that was “Penders’ Personal Fanfic Land” and reading it will deal more psychic damage than my fragile mind can withstand. 

Penders without other writers to provide not-shit writing between it all is not something that needs to be experienced, or even should be experienced. It’s why I haven’t gone back to read the Hell Run (Sonic after Penders gained full control of it), and I’m not going to read Knuckles. It’s a shame because I do like Knuckles, and a good chunk of his supporting cast, but I like them as they’re written by people that aren’t Penders, and I don’t think there are all that many characters who don’t stop acting like themselves when he gets his claws on them.

Return to Angel Island, however, is one of the best stories in the whole book. Bollers’ status quo shakeup was honestly a great idea when it comes to Angel Island. It introduced Finitevus, one of the Sonic franchise’s best antagonists, and Gray’s art makes him look so damn sinister that you have to wonder why anyone trusted him, but somehow I find myself not caring.

Also I love the depiction of Super Knuckles (Hyper Knuckles?), he looks so goddamn powerful and that’s the vibe I want out of Super forms. By contrast I never really got much of any sort of feeling from the Super forms in other runs. They either just sort of happened or felt kinda... mandatory. 

Enerjak Reborn is probably Ian’s peak as a writer. It’s been a while since I read it, as I don’t generally reread Archie unless I need to, but I really enjoyed it.

I have a lot of negative stuff to say about Ian’s handling of Sonic, and in that regard I don’t think he’ll ever be as good as Akinori Nishiyama or Shiro Maekawa, but his Knuckles... is basically the best Knuckles, no questions asked. With the exception of Endangered Species, which didn’t need to exist, was yet more pointless filler in the middle of Mecha Sally because Ian had to stretch it out to 250 somehow, and was then cut to ribbons by legal disputes, I don’t think he wrote a bad Knuckles story until Archie was cancelled and IDW was forced to use SEGA’s modern dumbass Knuckles.

And Enerjak Reborn was the perfect ending to that era of the character. Finitevus is a fantastic villain, he always will be, even if his choice of minions is suspect. Knuckles himself becoming Enerjak is a brilliant twist on the idea, and the battles he has with Sonic, Shadow, etc are all pretty good, and that’s saying something considering most of Ian’s fight scenes read like each character only has three attacks. 

There’s a lot I could say, but I’ll sum it up with this: This story is so good that even the presence of Scourge can’t drag it down. If anything, it helps me by providing some of that handy ammunition I need for saying that 172 is full of shit, and Scourge is a total shitheel.

[beevean]

If Ian Flynn decides to stop writing for Sonic after Frontiers. Is there any certain writers in mind that you would like to see write for the series in the future?

Shiro Maekawa is popular for a reason. He's the writer of SA2, Heroes and SatBK - basically the man responsible for some of the most memorable Sonic scenes, and Shadow's creator.

Eitaro Toyoda has been a character/scenario supervisor since Adventure, the writer of Forces' story, and the writer of the Sonic Channel stories. Overall he's pretty good.

Akinori Nishiyama is the writer of Adventure, one of the most solid stories in the series. He hasn't written anything else since then, though :\

Kiyoko Yoshimura is the writer of Unleashed and some episodes of Sonic X (and probably one of the people responsible for the amount of Sonamy in both lmao).

Of all these people, Toyoda is the most recent, and the more likely to stick.

As for English writers... I don't have anyone in mind. Maybe the person who wrote that Metal minicomic, the one where Metal considers the idea of infecting himself with the Metal Virus to resemble Sonic? That one was really good. But honestly, my requirement for an English writer is simply having a good feel on how characters are supposed to sound - otherwise, I'd rather have them as translators/adaptators.

[greenyvertekins]

There's only seven people I want writing the story for a Sonic game nowadays:

Shiro Maekawa

Pat Casey

Akinori Nishiyama

Josh Miller

Takashi Iizuka

Kiyoko Yoshimura

Myself

Not sure about Iizuka. But definitely yes to Maekawa and Nishimura.

[vgdensetsu]

Gigaleak, preservation, emulation and content dissemination

(la version française de cet article est disponible ici)

On November 21, 1992, the sequel to the most widespread Mega Drive title was released in both Japan and South Korea, then in the rest of the world. In spite of itself, this game made many people want to find out what had happened to all those elements that had been cut during development. A few months earlier, when Sega started to show its future hit to the press, the public got a glimpse of levels such as Hidden Palace, an area absent from the final version. This wasn't the first time such an event had occurred; other sometimes equally popular titles such as Super Mario Bros. 3 have encountered the same fate, either through press coverage or via screenshots featured on the game's box. But Sonic 2 has one point that sets it apart from most other titles, in addition to its popularity: a development version was stolen a few months before the game hit the shelves. According to Yuji Naka, programmer and figurehead of the license at the time, a cartridge was stolen at a trade show in New York. His former colleague Akinori Nishiyama, meanwhile, says Sega had been hacked. In any case, this version was marketed in markets where cartridges produced without an official license were common, before being found in 1999 on a Chinese website as a ROM. Named after the person who found the ROM, the Simon Wai prototype features an unfinished version of a level that was thought to be never playable: Hidden Palace. The popularity of the license helping, amateurs started to collect documents of all types in order to identify all the differences between the versions marketed by Sega and the numerous screenshots and other development versions found over the years.

A preview published in the October 1992 issue of the British magazine Mega. 2 of the 3 levels shown here do not appear in the final version of the game.

Since Sonic 2, a lot of development versions and design documents have found their way on the net with more or less echo and communities of amateur researchers have gathered around sites such as The Cutting Room Floor, Unseen64 or Hidden Palace. On February 23, 2008, the latter put online a thousand development versions of games produced by Sega or released on Sega consoles after buying archives disks containing the games in question, sometimes with several dozen versions per title. However, the data leakage that Nintendo is experiencing in recent months seems unparalleled in terms of volume and variety of content.

In April 2020, development versions of various episodes of Pokémon, as well as source code, development tools and graphics from intermediate versions were released. Before that, in 2018 and 2019, a development version of Pokémon Gold and Silver (the "Spaceworld 1997 demo", named after the show where it was presented), assets of Pokémon Red and Green then Pokémon Diamond and Pearl had leaked on the net. In the days that followed, other types of content appeared on 4chan: official documentation relating to a number of Nintendo consoles including the Wii, the Nintendo 64, the 64DD, the iQue Player, a technical demo produced for the Nintendo 64, source code written for Super Mario 64, Powerpoints and internal correspondence from several companies for a total of about 29,000 documents. A second batch of data began to appear on July 24th and found an echo that goes far beyond technical enthusiasts and console clone producers. A large amount of content relating to some of the most popular titles and licenses in the history of video games (Mario, Zelda, Animal Crossing, StarFox) has been put online, linked on 4chan then distributed on the rest of the Internet. Development versions of Super NES, Nintendo 64, Game Boy, Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance games, as well as source codes, graphic assets, 3D animation tests, sound effects and uncompressed music, 2D and 3D illustrations, logos, level editors, conversations between developers, visuals for a website, documents relating to the Wii, etc.

The origins of the leak Nintendo has been the subject of several attacks in recent years. Of those that have come to light, one resulted in the leakage of information about the Switch prior to its release, another involved source codes obtained from dozens of companies, but the one that most closely corresponds to the present case - generally called the Gigaleak - was carried out in 2018 by a man named Zammis Clark, a British security researcher and former Malwarebytes employee, a company specialised in detecting and removing malicious software. In 2015, he hacked VTech's servers, revealing that the company had illegally collected the data of nearly 200,000 children. He also revealed vulnerabilities in apps from manufacturers such as Dell, Lenovo and Toshiba as well as in a tool used in UK schools and developed by Impero. In 2017, he hacked some of the Microsoft servers and stole tens of thousands of files before sharing access to these servers with others. After being arrested and released on bail, he hacked Nintendo's internal network in March 2018. In its official communication, the Japanese company only mentioned the theft of a few thousand IDs and passwords as well as access to data relating to games in development at the time. However, Ganix, the man who released the Pokémon Diamond and Pearl sprites in December 2019, explained in an interview he gave to LavaCutContent a few days later that the various leaked content relating to Pokémon (including the Spaceworld 1997 demo released in May 2018, the month Nintendo realised it had been hacked by Clark) all came from a hack done in March 2018 by a man who goes by the pseudonym "Wack0". We know since the Impero affair that Wack0 is none other than Clark's pseudonym - a letter written by Impero and addressed to Clark in 2015 links the two names. Clark had shared these files with Ganix, who decided on his own initiative to leak them in December 2019, thus betraying Clark's confidence in him. The 4chan thread with which the Gigaleak started in July 2020 seems to refer to this event by its title: "ppg leak time: fuck ganix".

Because of his profile - Clark has a form of autism and suffers from prosopagnosia, the inability to recognize and identify faces - the judge felt that he would be at too great a risk if sent to prison. He was sentenced in 2019 to a 15-month suspended prison sentence and subject to a 5-year judicial review.

The presence of files relating to the iQue Player and the BroadOn company among the leaked documents suggests that the hacker accessed BroadOn’s servers, a company founded by Wei Yen who also co-founded iQue with Nintendo. Due to the legal restrictions in effect in China from 2000 to 2015, Nintendo had to make a joint venture to enter this market and develop a variant of the Nintendo 64 - the iQue Player. BroadOn is one of Nintendo's collaborators and has developed software for the Wii as well as for the iQue Brand (which includes game consoles such as the Game Boy Advance, the DS and the 3DS).

The iQue Player (picture by Evan Amos)

While Nintendo is the main target of this leak, other companies have also been affected by the ripple effect. Among them are Capcom, Konami and M2 (which is the current holder of the rights to the Aleste series). Assets and development versions of some of their games released on Super Famicom are now in the wild. Among them are Megaman X, Super Ghouls'n Ghosts, Super Castlevania IV, Axelay, Parodius Da!, Ganbare Goemon and Super Aleste. Since the release of Collection of Mana, it is public knowledge that Nintendo keep content produced by other companies in its archives. Masaru Oyamada, producer of the Mana series, said that this compilation was made possible by Nintendo, which allowed Square-Enix to recover the various source codes of these games.

In the wake of the Gigaleak, the source code for the Xbox Unreal Championship 2 game has been put online, along with numerous design documents. Epic Games' servers had been hacked in 2011 without the identity of the visitor being revealed; it cannot be excluded that the files in question originated from this attack and that the author of the hack kept them until that day on July 30, 2020. The link between this leak and the Gigaleak is not yet certain. In such a case, it is unlikely that anyone would publicly claim responsibility for the leak.

On the authenticity of the leaked content When a console prototype, a development version of a popular game or from a major license surfaces, it is customary to take it with a pinch of salt, in case someone came up with the idea of pulling a hoax or to replenish his bank account by trying to sell a fake. In the case of the contents leaked in 2020, since Nintendo hasn't officially commented on the case despite the requests made by Vice.com and LeMonde.fr, the doubt persists and the volume of data is such that it will be difficult to authenticate everything file by file. Nevertheless, Dylan Cuthbert, former developer of Argonaut who later joined Nintendo, recognised one of the tools developed for Starfox 2. In addition, in a number of cases, developers at the company have in the past provided clues suggesting that at least some of the content is authentic. This includes some rejected designs for Yoshi from Super Mario World, already unveiled in 2017.

A sprite sheet created by Shigefumi Hino during the development of Super Mario World, one year before the game’s release.

There are also quotes from developers about the presence of Luigi in Super Mario 64 and adult Mario in Yoshi's Island (both of which were set aside during development), characters in overalls in Super Mario Kart before it was decided to set the game in the Mario universe and a circuit from Mario Kart 64 located in a city but deemed too big. The same goes for the Zelda license: Yoshiaki Koizumi said he made a polygonal version of Link as part of a prototype adaptation of Zelda II for the Super Famicom, Eiji Aonuma explained that the cycle of Majora's Mask originally lasted not three days but a week and Link's Awakening was originally thought to be an adaptation of A Link to the Past - the world map of the latter made with the engine of the former has been found. Regarding Dragonfly, one of the very first Super Famicom titles shown to the public in 1988 before being renamed Pilotwings, the different screenshots published in magazines correspond to the version that leaked. While this is not an absolute proof of its authenticity - in 2012, a fan recreated an early version of Sonic 1 using screenshots as references -, the sum of clues previously cited and the large amount of documents posted online make the hoax thesis unlikely.

This leak also contains a lot of files that are difficult to identify, mainly because the names used for the files and directories are not always very explicit and some titles had never been publicly shown before or in another form. Examples include Sleep, an unfinished mouse-playable Super Famicom game (which may have been announced under the title "Black Out" in 1992), Super Donkey, another unfinished title with a number of visual similarities to Yoshi's Island, or Link's profile sprites for which we can only make guesses. Plunging into this maze of repertories requires patience as well as certain skills. Let's take the case of a game: each game has its own CVS file (named after the software used by Nintendo). A CVS file may contain several versions of a game, like a log of its evolution: an early version, a more advanced version with some elements that differ from the final version, the final version, etc. These files are not ROMs that could be launched in an emulator in 3 clicks. You have to compile the source code of the game you want to launch first, if there is source code.

Private conversations There is one point on which the leak doesn't seem to have been publicly praised: the posting of private conversations. Since April 2020, conversations between employees from various companies (Nintendo, BroadOn, then Argonaut in July) have been circulating on the net, in particular exchanges between Argonaut employees that took place in the early 90s, when some of them came to work at Nintendo in Japan. In addition to the fact that these are private correspondence - which already poses legal and moral issues - some of the excerpts shared online highlight issues that echo recent cases involving other companies, particularly on the subject of sexism and sexual harassment. In this case, the problem is twofold: there is, of course, the harassment itself (unsolicited pornographic images), but also the fact that the subject has come up without the victims having chosen to deal with it themselves.

This case illustrates the fact that video game preservation requires a minimum of methodology and should not necessarily result in the unregulated dissemination of any content relating to the development of a game or the history of a society. On the rest of the leak, opinions are very divided. Some people welcome it unreservedly; others have a mixed or even negative opinion, with the question of preservation and its modalities itself being debated.

Preservation Video game preservation is a race against time that began years ago, but the rules to be applied are still being discussed. A part of the public considers that everything that is not yet available as a ROM or ISO on the net should be dumped and shared. In 2019, a notorious collector, owner of one of the 3 knonw copies of the arcade game Akka Arrh, claimed that someone came to his home to unknowingly dump the ROM of the game in question and put it online. This is one of the most extreme cases known (if true), but it raises another issue: does preservation necessarily have to be illegal? The ROMs of commercial games you can find on the net (excluding the official websites such as the Nintendo eShop) are copies that contravene intellectual property law, whether they are final or intermediate versions, marketed or not. As early as 1993-94, consoles such as the NES, Super NES and Mega Drive had their dedicated emulator and with them ROMs that could be found via BBS.  Already at that time, there were ROMs of development versions, some of which seem to have disappeared from the net because of their low distribution. These generally come either from developers who kept cartridges, CDs or files on hard disk, or from journalists who did the same with preview versions. In both cases, it is likely that they were not supposed to keep possession of them, let alone resell them years later to individuals. The amount of money exchanged for these copies has skyrocketed over the last 20 years. What might have been worth a hundred dollars in the early 2000s is now steadily rising to over a thousand. The illegal nature of the Gigaleak is nothing new in this field, but it may have been shocking in terms of its scale and the fact that the content was not obtained through a transaction (even if what made it possible is of questionable legality).

In 1979, while Namco was conducting a location test of Galaxian in a coffee shop, the game's PCB was swapped and duplicated, making it one of the first commercial titles with a beta version that ended up in the wild even before the final (and official) version was released.

Legislation in countries such as Japan, France or the United States is not so much a hindrance to the preservation as it is to the dissemination of ROMs and ISOs. We can certainly deplore the inadequacy of state initiatives as well as the meagre budgets allocated to the preservation of video games - in 2017, during a symposium on the preservation of video game preservation held at the BNF (National Library of France), its audiovisual department confessed that the budget allocated for video games was much lower than that obtained by the film sector with an average of 5,000 to 6,000 euros per year, going up to 8,000 euros in good years. It covers the acquisition of missing games (those who fell through the cracks of legal deposit), storage costs (the room where the games and machines are kept must remain at a constant temperature), etc. But the current legislation is an obstacle to preservation mainly in special cases such as video games with child pornographic content, games that companies such as Enix sometimes published in the early 1980s in Japan.

The Game Preservation Society, an entity based in Japan, does not have the task of putting online copies of the (sometimes very rare) games that it keeps in its archives, but of preserving them. Private individuals can also call on it to make backups of titles from their collection, the purpose of a private backup being to prevent damage to the programme's storage medium (cassettes, floppy disks, CDs, etc.). This policy is sometimes met with incomprehension or even disapproval from a certain fringe of the public who tirelessly demand the games' ROMs. OK, but which games? Websites that share ROMs without the agreement of their rights holders have a definite advantage over game publishers: almost all the games released on some of the most popular consoles can be found on the net. Few publishers are able to exploit their entire catalogue on a continuous basis for reasons as diverse as lack of resources, rights problems in the event of third-party licenses, or lack of commercial interest. If you want to try out the entire Mega Drive library, either you buy the 900 or so cartridges published in the past, or you download an emulator and the corresponding ROMset, thus breaking the law. It gets even more complicated with games that were playable online or available for sale in digital form only if the relevant service has closed. Abandonware-France, a website created in 2000 where you can find thousands of PC games and video game-related magazines, has adopted a clear line excluding games that are still commercially exploited as well as those released after 2000. It's less an ideal solution than a default solution - it doesn't solve the legality issue, since the games haven't yet fallen into the public domain - but it has no impact on publishers' sales, which is still one of the surest ways to get through the bullets. Other websites have been less cautious on this point by making available content that is still commercially exploited. Due to its special status, Internet Archives makes it possible to play (but not download) thousands of old games online, including titles that are still commercially exploited (Sonic 1 for example) but with the notable exception of Nintendo games or games released on Nintendo systems. In 2016, the Japanese company took down the Nintendo Power issues that were available for download at the digital library, stating that "The unapproved use of Nintendo's intellectual property can weaken our ability to protect and preserve it, or to possibly use it for new projects”. On June 1, 2020, four book publishers sued the Internet Archive after its National Emergency Library project went online, a project with which the library lent out digitized versions of books that are still commercially available. The outcome of this lawsuit could have an impact on the fate of the site and the different types of content that can be found there.

If you're interested in development versions, having a well-stocked wallet won't be of much help as legally accessible versions are rare. Sega provided us with a few exceptions by including both the final and an intermediate version of Gunstar Heroes in "Sega Ages 2500 Series Vol. 25: Gunstar Heroes Treasure Box". Probably unintentionally, the version of Revenge of Shinobi featured in "Sega Smash Pack Volume 1" on PC is a development version. As for “Silent Hill HD Collection”, the choice to base these adaptations of Silent Hill 2 and 3 on intermediate versions (retouched for the occasion) was made by default.

Finally, there is the question of making the design documents available, which again relies largely on the good will of the publishers. In addition to the interviews and documents published on specialized sites and magazines, many artbooks including illustrations, concept art and/or excerpts from design documents have been released in Japan since the end of the 1980s, followed by the US market in the early 2000s and more recently by France. Although it is not the first representative of its category, Sonic Jam has long been a reference in terms of compilation by offering galleries of documents, information and sometimes previously unseen videos in addition to the first Mega Drive episodes. In 2002, Final Fantasy X came bundled with a making of, following in the footsteps of the movie industry Square was looking towards at the time. For the past few years, some of the games produced by Sony have been the subject of making of accompanying their release and many independent developers regularly communicate on the progress of their games, both on social networks and through their blogs. However, not all games have their own journal or post-mortem. This is where initiatives such as the one launched by the Conservatoire National du Jeu Vidéo in France take over. The latter meets with developers and development companies and requests that part of their archives be made available to the public, with varying degrees of success. Other organizations such as the Musée Bolo in Switzerland (which was given archives by former Infogrames CEO Bruno Bonnell) and Internet Archive have hosted documents of this type.

The issue of preservation is not only a public issue, as companies are (or should be) concerned as well. Apart from exceptional cases such as the Great Hanshin earthquake that destroyed part of the Konami Archives in 1995, development companies rarely communicate about the loss of documents. One of the reasons for this is that in many cases they have disposed of all or part of their archives themselves. In 2016, 2 Namco employees started the Archive Project to save 350 boxes of documents from the dumpster. The two men had to convince their company to release a budget for this project even though the latter was planning to dispose of the boxes to avoid incurring new storage costs. At Square Enix, on the other hand, some files could not be saved in time and some games' source codes were lost. In addition to the Mana series previously mentioned, we know that the source code of the PlayStation version of Final Fantasy VIII has disappeared, forcing the developers of the HD version to fall back on the code of the PC version whose music is slightly different. Same with the first episode of Kingdom Hearts; the developers of the 1.5 HD Remix version had to analyze in depth a commercial copy and recreate many assets. An example that echoes the story a developer posted in 2010 in which he explained that, as part of a port of various Midway arcade games, the editor in charge of the project was unable to get his hands on the source code of Spy Hunter, so he had to download the game's ROM in order to extract the graphics via MAME and retrieve the sound files from a fan site, among other things.

---- Interlude: source code----- Having the ROM of a game does not mean you have the source code of that game. While there are thousands of ROMs of commercial games on the net, source codes are much rarer. In 2012, Jordan Mechner released the source code for the Apple II version of Prince of Persia, which he wrote alone and for which he is the owner, even though the licensing rights now belong to Ubisoft. More unexpectedly, it was discovered in 2014 that a large part of the source code for the NeoGeo version of Art of Fighting was in a file from its adaptation on PC Engine CD. In all likelihood, the developers of this version had access to the source code of the original version, which was mistakenly included in all copies of the game. In theory, having the source code of a game facilitates its adaptation on another support since, from one version to another, one can reuse a more or less important part of it, thus reducing the workload and the development costs. The loss of a game's source code therefore greatly reduces the chances of seeing a remastered version of the game. The fallback solution when it is an old game originally released on console or arcade is to use a ROM and an emulator, as it has been done on many compilations or re-releases of arcade games since the early 2000s.

The Nintendo case The source code for several Nintendo games and systems is now available on the net. Some might see this as a public backup, but the various leaks that happened since 2018 tend to prove that Nintendo knows how to preserve its data (at least for some time) and doesn't necessarily need outside help. There are several rumours about Nintendo that have not yet been confirmed. One of them is that the source code for The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening has been lost, a hypothesis that arose after studying the source code for the DX version of the game, released five years later for Game Boy Color. Another rumour claims that Nintendo is downloading the ROMs for its own NES games, a rumour that found an echo in 2016 after a lecture on emulation was given at the Game Developer Conference. However, if the NES game ROMs used by Nintendo for its Virtual Console look like the ones circulating on the rest of the net, maybe it's because at least one of the persons hired by the Japanese manufacturer to dump the ROMs of its games - Tomohiro Kawase - contributed to the group (iNES) that was dumping ROMs of those same games before joining the company.

The argument that Nintendo is a temple from which nothing comes out seems somewhat exaggerated. The company's games may not have been the subject of as many artbooks as Square Enix's, which, when it doesn't lose its source codes, knows how to showcase its heritage, but it has published many documents in the past relating to series such as Mario and Zelda (which was recently the subject of a series of artbooks), has released new games or versions of new games (Starfox 2 on the Super NES Mini, the European version of Drill Dozer on the Wii U Virtual Console), not to mention the "Iwata Asks" series, which we'd like to see an equivalent in all other development companies. The sense of secrecy that some people might see in Nintendo is probably due in part to the fact that the public is more interested in it than in most of its competitors. The popularity of some of its licenses has few equivalents in the world of video games and pop culture in general. The fact that we still discover old, unreleased Nintendo games nowadays is nothing unusual; tons of games are cancelled without having had a chance to be officially announced.

On the age of the content put online Two arguments are regularly put forward to minimize the significance of the Gigaleak. According to the first one, the content in question is old and therefore less sensitive or of lesser value than if it were recent documents. This is forgetting that Nintendo has more than once taken ideas or concepts that are sometimes decades old out of its boxes. During the 2007 Game Developers Conference, Shigeru Miyamoto went back over the concept of Miis and explained that it had undergone several changes over the years, starting as a demo on the Famicom Disk System, then reappearing on Super Famicom and 64DD before finally finding its way to the Wii in 2006. The Mario series has also had its share of ideas that have been put aside then used in later episodes. The idea of straddling a mount, for example, was first suggested during the development of Super Mario Bros. 3 (1988) before being adopted in Super Mario World (1990) with Yoshi. Miyamoto had originally envisioned a horse, but he kept the idea for The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (1998). A simultaneous multiplayer mode was experimented with at the time of Super Mario Bros. 3 (1988) and will only be included in the series starting with New Super Mario Bros. Wii (2009). Finally, one of the sprites from Super Donkey bears some resemblance with one of those appearing in Super Mario Maker, by its concept.

Top: Super Donkey. Bottom: Super Mario Maker.

The second argument concerns the damage suffered by Nintendo and reveals a difference in treatment with what happened in April 2020 when a development version of The Last of Us 2 leaked a few weeks before the game's release. Messages of disapproval and support for the developers seem to have been more popular than those welcoming the leak. In the case of the Gigaleak, Nintendo has often been perceived as a big company, an abstract entity, thus obscuring the fact that its games are also the sum of the work of a group of individuals. In legal terms, unless otherwise stated, the fruit of the work produced within a company is the property of the company. On a personal level, it often happens that a developer has a particular attachment to what he produces.

Dylan Cuthbert, in response to a person asking him how he felt, a few hours after the July 24th leak.

While some developers may have been in favour of releasing development versions - Yuji Naka tried to find the prototype of the first Sonic publicly shown in June 1990 to include it in Sonic Mega Collection - or even production documents - Jordan Mechner published the journals he kept during the development of Karateka and Prince of Persia - others are less enthusiastic about making such files available. By definition, a development version is not a finished product, and while it is natural for a finished product to be made public, this is not necessarily the case with everything relating to the development process. This is not exclusive to video games: many illustrators are reluctant to show their sketches, works in progress or unfinished drawings, no matter how old theirs works are, and the same is true of writers and musicians. As with private conversations, there is the question of respect for developers and their consent. This is obviously not a small obstacle for anyone who wants to preserve and share all the documents relating to the history of video games, but it seems difficult to me to do the work of an archivist or historian (who relies on the work of developers) if it means harming some of these developers even slightly. Of course, you have to hope that as much information as possible will come out and you can work on it in different ways, but you also have to set limits on the methods you can use and not just reason in legal and/or material terms.

Consequences It is difficult to measure how much will come out of this case, as other elements may be added in the coming days or weeks. Now that the leaked content is circulating, Nintendo will have a hard time getting it off the net and can expect clones of consoles using its own source codes to be produced and marketed in certain countries.

Regarding the emulation scene, it's a bit more complicated. In 1999, source code and documents relating to the Nintendo 64 leaked from Silicon Graphic Inc, a company that produced processors for the Nintendo 64. Known as the Oman Archive, this content was used in the early days of Nintendo's system emulation, which led to quick results. But this use of an illegally obtained code subject to intellectual property law was also a liability for the emulation scene of this machine, which took years to get rid of. Most of the other emulators available online are legal since they were developed with their own code. It's to avoid breaking the law that console BIOSes often have to be downloaded separately (like the source code, BIOS are copyrighted). The appearance of the Wii source code is therefore a poisoned gift for developers of amateur emulators. It may allow them to understand how Nintendo has done this or that, but they can't reuse it even partially without breaking the law.

Nintendo has probably already apologised to Capcom, Konami and M2 whose files have also ended up on the web. As for the rest, we can only speculate. Will publishers become aware of the interest of a part of their audience in the making of their games and offer more content to satisfy this curiosity (videos from their archives, books, making of, etc.) or, on the contrary, will they lock the doors of their archives by throwing the key into a well? Will security and control on the net increase, further restricting the distribution of certain types of content, be it fan games, ROMs - two categories that Nintendo has been fighting hard against in recent years - or Youtube videos showing things that publishers would prefer not to see on the net (like, say, glitches from Animal Crossing: New Horizons)? Or maybe nothing will change.

Sources : Sonic 2 https://web.archive.org/web/20051104100754/http://xbox.gamespy.com/articles/654/654750p4.html https://info.sonicretro.org/Sonic_Team_interview_by_Kikizo_(November_30,_2005) Hidden Palace http://info.sonicretro.org/February_23,_2008_Proto_Release Pokémon Gold 1997 prototype (2018) https://twitter.com/sanquii/status/1002107775651057664 Pokémon 2019 leak https://lavacutcontent.com/pokemon-beta-leaker-statement/ https://helixchamber.com/2019/02/16/what-dreams-may-come/ April-May 2020 leak https://resetera.com/threads/the-nintendo-leak-saga-continues-biggest-nintendo-leak-in-history-full-source-code-design-files-for-wii-released-online.196683/ https://www.resetera.com/threads/the-nintendo-leak-saga-continues-biggest-nintendo-leak-in-history-full-source-code-design-files-for-wii-released-online.196683/post-32917584 https://nintendoeverything.com/nintendo-suffers-huge-leak-source-code-and-design-files-for-wii-appearing-online/ https://twitter.com/Zetsuboushitta/status/1256320740527239168 https://twitter.com/LuigiBlood/status/1256543745794879488 recent leaks: 1 Ryan Hernandez https://www.thegamer.com/man-leaked-nintendo-switch-prison-charges/ https://www.justice.gov/usao-wdwa/pr/california-man-who-hacked-nintendo-servers-steal-video-games-and-other-proprietary 2 Tillie Kottmann https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/source-code-from-dozens-of-companies-leaked-online/ 3 Zammis Clark https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/28/18286027/microsoft-nintendo-vtech-security-hack-breach-researcher-guilty https://lavacutcontent.com/pokemon-beta-leaker-statement/ Mail sent by Impero to Zammis Clark - Wack0 https://archive.org/stream/pdfy-fRcZ1TWHaDkwz-Ea/Letter%20to%20Mr%20Zammis%20A%20Clark%20dated%2013%20July%202015_djvu.txt BroadOn + iQue https://wiki.mariocube.com/index.php/IQue#BroadOn July 2020 leak https://boards.4channel.org/vp/thread/44305551/ppg-leak-time-fuck-ganix https://www.resetera.com/threads/update-super-mario-64-and-oot-source-leaked-massive-nintendo-data-leak-source-code-to-yoshis-island-a-link-to-the-past-f-zero-and-more.254724/page-62 Aleste and M2 https://twitter.com/M2_STG/status/1014031712672571393 Collection of Mana https://gameinformer.com/preview/2019/06/11/decades-in-the-making Vice, Lemonde.fr and Nintendo https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/7kp7bx/a-massive-leak-of-nintendo-source-code-is-causing-chaos-in-video-games https://www.lemonde.fr/pixels/article/2020/07/31/nintendo-ce-que-l-on-sait-de-la-fuite-supposee-de-documents-lies-aux-jeux-video_6047809_4408996.html Cuthbert and Starfox 2 https://twitter.com/dylancuthbert/status/1286789583061934080 Mario World sprite sheet https://topics.nintendo.co.jp/article/cb34ab17-9135-11e7-8cda-063b7ac45a6d Luigi in Super Mario 64 https://shmuplations.com/mario64/ Adult Mario in Yoshi's island http://shmuplations.com/yoshi/ Super Mario Kart before Mario https://twitter.com/toruzz/status/1287400639165861888 http://iwataasks.nintendo.com/interviews/#/wii/mariokart/0/0 Mario Kart 64 circuit http://shmuplations.com/mariokart64/ https://twitter.com/AeroArtwork/status/1288299965954088966?s=19 Zelda II SFC in 3D http://iwataasks.nintendo.com/interviews/#/3ds/zelda-ocarina-of-time/1/1 Zelda OOT in Ganondorf's Castle https://twitter.com/AeroArtwork/status/1287524648222105607 7 day cycle in Zelda: Majora's Mask https://twitter.com/Zen64_/status/1287582698085777408 http://iwataasks.nintendo.com/interviews/#/3ds/majoras-mask-3d/0/0 https://www.polygon.com/2015/2/18/8064257/majoras-mask-three-day-timer-week DragonFly https://www.unseen64.net/2008/04/14/pilotwings-snes-proto/ Sonic 1 fan recreation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHtzXzu2BDA Argonaut https://twitter.com/corentin_lamy/status/1286932458173276161 https://www.resetera.com/threads/update-super-mario-64-and-oot-source-leaked-massive-nintendo-data-leak-source-code-to-yoshis-island-a-link-to-the-past-f-zero-and-more.254724/post-40826655 Unreal Championship 2 https://twitter.com/Sinoc229/status/1288680503801860096 https://www.ign.com/articles/2011/06/11/epic-games-website-forums-hacked Akka Arrh https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019/04/after-a-lost-atari-rom-leaks-retro-fans-ask-was-it-stolen/ Galaxian https://www.4gamer.net/games/999/G999905/20180313040/ Firsts emulators https://emulation.miraheze.org/wiki/History_of_emulation Namco's Archive Project https://game.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/news/1205387.html Spy Hunter http://web.archive.org/web/20110925185703/http://www.ppl-pilot.com.nyud.net/mame.aspx Prince of Persia https://github.com/jmechner/Prince-of-Persia-Apple-II On the CNJV, Musée Bolo and BNF : "colloque: la conservation du patrimoine vidéoludique" (2017). Nintendo Power, Internet Archive https://www.polygon.com/2016/8/8/12405278/nintendo-power-issues-disappear-from-free-online-archive http://blog.archive.org/2020/06/01/four-commercial-publishers-filed-a-complaint-about-the-internet-archives-lending-of-digitized-books/ Nintendo ROMs https://www.resetera.com/threads/tomohiro-kawase-mightve-been-hired-by-nintendo-to-put-rom-headers-into-vc-updated-dec-1-2018.64755/ https://twitter.com/LuigiBlood/status/1045348387174977536?s=19 https://www.reddit.com/r/emulation/comments/9msl9j/update_did_nintendo_actually_download_roms_for/e7iemhb/ GDC 2016 https://www.gdcvault.com/play/1023470/-It-s-Just-Emulation The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening source code https://www.neogaf.com/threads/it-bothers-me-that-nintendo-keeps-ignoring-links-awakening.931702/page-2 Mii https://unseen64.net/2008/04/14/mii-nes-prototype/ https://www.nintendo.fr/Iwata-demande/Iwata-Demande-Nintendo-3DS/Vol-5-Interview-de-Miyamoto-san-a-la-veille-de-la-sortie-de-la-console/2-Faire-des-personnages-Mii-un-standard-international/2-Faire-des-personnages-Mii-un-standard-international-210297.html Yoshi and a horse https://www.nintendo.co.uk/News/2017/October/Nintendo-Classic-Mini-SNES-developer-interview-Volume-5-Super-Mario-World-and-Super-Mario-World-2-Yoshi-s-Island-1290850.html Multiplayer mode in SMB3 http://iwataasks.nintendo.com/interviews/#/wii/mario25th/2/3 Super Donkey - Mario Maker https://twitter.com/dbMisadventure/status/1286751468293414912 Dylan Cuthbert https://twitter.com/dylancuthbert/status/1286822093703622656 Sonic 1 prototype https://www.gamesradar.com/super-rare-1990-sonic-the-hedgehog-prototype-is-missing/ Oman Archive https://sm64-conspiracies.fandom.com/wiki/Oman_Archive Animal Crossing: New Horizons vidéo https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/m7j7yb/nintendo-takes-down-youtube-video-of-fan-showing-animal-crossing-glitches

[stachehand]

Appreciative acknowledgement of serious Sonic stories

Just a small post to bring up five Sonic the Hedgehog video games that did serious stories right, not only by making the serious tone mean something and keeping it consistent, but by not degrading into dumb-dark territory with the delusion that it makes the story a mature work of art, and having a good grasp on the characters and how they’re supposed to be written. After all these years, they show (on some level) that seriousness in Sonic can work.

These games showed them how it’s done, warts and all, but they were sadly ignored. Some comic book writer should’ve taken notes from Akinori Nishiyama, Shiro Maekawa, Yojiro Ogawa and Kiyoko Yoshimura. It could’ve salvaged their misguided zombie apocalypse narrative trainwreck... thing.

[super-famicom-star-inactive]

Throwback Tuesday

December 29th, 2020

The very last Throwback Tuesday of the year!!

For this week's episode, we will not only celebrate the recent anniversary of Sonic's major outing into 3D but also dive into one of my favorite video game guilty pleasures

Just a heads-up, this will be a two-parter as we will look into Sonic Adventure 2.

May I present

Sonic Adventure (1998)

Production History

Original Release: December 23rd, 1998 (JPN), September 9th, 1999 (USA), September 23rd, 1999 (PAL)

Future Releases: Gamecube (June 17th, 2003, USA), Windows (September 14th, 2005, USA), XBox 360 (September 15th, 2010, USA), PS3 (September 20th, 2010, USA), Steam (March 4th, 2011)

Developer: SEGA

Publisher: SEGA

Director: Takashi Iizuka

Producer: Yuji Naka

Artist(s): Kazuyuki Hoshino, Yuji Uekawa

Designer(s): Takao Miyoshi, Takashi Iizuka, Yojiro Ogawa

Programmers: Tetsu Katano, Yoshitaka Kawabita

Writer: Akinori Nishiyama

Composer(s): Jun Senoue, Kenichi Tokoi, Fumie Kumatani, Masaru Setsumaru

Inspiration

Due to the cancellation of Sonic X-treme on the SEGA Saturn, Sonic Team immediately went about trying to develop the first 3D Sonic game. With the release of Sony's Crash Bandicoot and Nintendo's Super Mario 64, they needed a killer app to sell the Dreamcast and tension was high. Production started in 1997 where Sonic Team famously traveled to Latin America to study on the culture and architecture of major cities like those found in Cancun, Guatemala, and Peru to use for the environments in-game.

Story

In this game (a first for the series), you have the option to play six different stories of six different characters: Sonic, Tails, Amy, Knuckles, Big, and E-102 Gamma. When a mysterious humanoid monster made entirely of water shows up out of nowhere, Sonic and the gang team up to retrieve the seven Chaos Emeralds and use their power to halt Dr. Eggman's plans of summoning an ancient water monster Chaos to unleash havoc. Throughout each of the six quests, the characters uncover clues about the origins of Chaos and how Chaos became the most feared monster.

Gameplay

Sonic Adventure is a 3D platformer spread across multiple environments from Station Square to Windy Valley. In between the various maps are hub worlds (like Station Square) where you can talk to NPCs and TV screens to learn tips and tricks. Although the characters differ in story progression, the tracks for the platforming segments are times and your final score is ranked on how fast you complete the track as well as your number of rings and how many enemies you attacked. When you want to take a break, there is a separate hub world called the Chao Garden where you get to raise cute little creatures called Chao and take care of them.

Reception

At the time of release, it was well-received by critics and gamers alike, making it the best-selling title on the Dreamcast. Particular aspects that were praised included the music and the visuals as Sonic Team strove to create the most realistic visuals possible to showcase what the Dreamcast was capable of. Some drawbacks, however, were just as noticeable with the weird camera angles and glitches that were present. The reactions to the voice-acting were mixed.

Legacy

Although the game has received less positive reviews over the years due to it aging poorly, it is still considered one of the best Sonic games to date for its high replay value, music and other extras. It even received a Gamecube port known as Sonic Adventure DX: Director's Cut a few years later that improved the original version. It is still remembered fondly by Sonic fans to this day.

Thoughts from the Head

Although I didn't play SA1 until recently (I played SA2 first on the Gamecube), the influence that Sonic Adventure had was immense, even a decade later thanks to the Internet. The soundtrack alone is one of the best-remembered OSTs in gaming history and its staying power is a force to be reckoned with in the gaming world. Has it aged poorly? Yes. Is it still worth playing? Also yes. Sonic Adventure is a fascinating game in terms of development history and scope. Sonic Team really did try to show what the Dreamcast was able to do graphically and, while it may have aged, it also carries a certain charm as well that you really can't be mad at it. That all being said, if you have a Dreamcast, Gamecube, or Steam, I would encourage you to give the game a chance. Personally though, it's better to play it either on the original Dreamcast or Steam as the Gamecube version, while improved on the mechanics, is horrendous graphics-wise. Best bet? Play the Steam version as it doesn't require a lot to power to run it and the graphics and glitches have been fixed.

I actually do a Dreamcast copy in my possession, however it is in the dorm so I don't have immediate access to it. I also have the Steam version I bought from a sale a few years ago (as of this post, it is on sale for $1.19 and the sale is good until January 5th. The normal price is $7.99).

Check it out!

[house-of-nevs]

MONDO GOREGASM!

In 2008 with a move out of character for the normally child friendly Nintendo, The Wii would port over conversions of Akinori Nishiyama's classic zombie first person shooter 'House Of The Dead 2&3'.

Given that The Big N has made it's fortune on being the all-ages home console of choice with franchises such as 'Super Smash Bros', 'The Legend Of Zelda', 'Starfox', 'Metroid Prime' much missed space racer 'F-Zero' and of course, Mario in all of his forms, 'House Of The Dead 2&3' was a strange fit to start with since the game sees you going from location to location armed with ever increasingly powerful guns with the object being to get to A to B whilst shooting Zombies and Monsters in creative ways, bonuses given for headshots and blowing away a creature's legs before pulverizing their prone form with a zero range shotgun.

So when 'House Of The Dead:Overkill' was offered up in 2009, eyebrows were raised significantly. 'Overkill' was a departure from the previous game's look and story. Previously the narrative was 'We are cops. We must get to this place before BAD SCIENCE HAPPENS. These zombies are in our way. The BAD SCIENTIST IS YOUR DAD?'

'Overkill' had obviously been given the Grindhouse DVD for Christmas. The linear storytelling was dropped for multiple perspectives from chapter to chapter. The cheesy on a Resident Evil 2 level voice acting was ditched by bringing in actors doing their best Bruce Campbell, Samuel L. Jackson or Brinke Stevens impression. 'Overkill' replaced with the vague sci-fi setting for a moody B-Movie aesthetic, dripping in blood, profanity and sleaze.

The generic street levels of previous games are now a catalogue of homage via a shopping mall, a well featuring a boss familiar to fans of Japanese horror, a strip club, a circus straight out of Rob Zombie's dreams, a train finishing with a giant ...thing. With Claws. Big ones.

One is encouraged to scope out the background as you progress through 'Overkill's world. Plenty of unlockables are there to be shot and collected. The obvious inclusions of more ammo are there, as well as songs from the soundtrack, slow mo mode, and even concept pages from the tie-in comic.

Yup.

As if Overkill weren't already drenched in enough blood and boobs to run a burlesque night in Manchester, it also contained a tie-in prequel comic about the activities of titular heroine Varla Guns. It's very Sin City by way of David Lapham and contains a...healthy amount of strip club excitement. Our kind of thing certainly, but hardly on brand for a Nintendo game. Just to compound the whole malarkey, the Wii version was the only way to get a physical copy of the comic, with later PS3 and Xbox 360 editions offering 3-D glasses as pre-order incentives.

The hard copy of 'A Prelude To An Overkill' as created by Lee Basford, Jonathan Costello, Jonathan Burroughs and Artist Steve Bak was packed in the Wii edition while digital editions are avaliable via Amazon. Or, of course, you could unlock it in game via shooting the icons in the background, but good luck with all that!

See you in The Funnypages!