#Sonic Boom Rise of Lyric

[theknucklehead]

[fuzzypuppybuddie]

Just started watching Sonic Prime season 2 and this is great this is awesome this is epic this is amazing actually

[head---ache]

A bit of a hot take??? I really hope future Sonic games start looking at Sonic Boom for character animation references. And no, I don't mean the show.

I think we're at a point when we can look past all the bugs and glitches this game had at release (if you'd had the opportunity to play it recently you'd see that, while there's still bugs, they barely affect the gameplay anymore, which is a HUGE step from when it was first released), and look at the art in it. While there's a lot I love about Sonic Boom aesthetically, I want to focus on the characters animation, especially in cutscenes.

I'm not exaggerating when I say I think this game has better facial animation than any other Sonic game, and while Sonic Frontiers was a step in the right direction, I don't think it compares to Sonic Boom and I do mean that in all honesty.

Here I put together just a FEW examples of how expressive the characters are in this game:

LOOK AT HOW EXPRESSIVE THEY ALL ARE! HOW NATURALLY THEIR BODIES MOVE WITH THEIR ACTIONS! HOW THEY INTERACT WITH EACH OTHER WITHOUT SAYING ANYTHING AT ALL! HOW WE CAN SEE THEIR THOUGHT PROCESS HAPPENING IN THEIR HEAD!! THIS IS WHAT I WANT TO SEE IN FUTURE SONIC GAMES!!!

This is truly the best I've seen of these characters in games!!! And I really hope we can move in this direction from here!! I just love how much personality they have in this game, not only in their dialogue, but also represented by their body language. Like I said, Sonic Frontiers was a good step towards this, but I would really like if we stopped focusing on just the bugs this game has, and paid attention to some of the great decisions the developers made! There's so much to be rescued from this almost completely ignored game, and I would love to go back to this style of animation in the future.

Also I love the vibes of this universe and the character designs because they all look so different from each other and there's more diversity in the body types and all but that's not the point of this post NSKZNSNXNSMX

[autisticshadowthehedgehog]

an unhappy 10yrs to rise of lyric (bad game) but happy 10yrs to shattered crystal (everyone is so down to murder it's amazing) and a VERY happy 10yrs to the knuckles glitch

[gruffdasmuff]

Here Comes the Boom!

[descendant-of-truth]

Rise of Lyric has by far some of the most consistently expressive character animation of any 3D Sonic game ever, and frankly I think Frontiers should be embarrassed that it isn't at minimum on the same level as it, if not better.

Because here's the thing: RoL still looks awkward at times. Mouth shapes can feel a little weird, the eyebrows don't always seem to know what they're supposed to be doing, little things that give off the impression that it wasn't quite as polished as it wanted to be. But it's still LEAGUES above Frontiers, even with the progress it's made over other mainline games.

And look, I really can't claim to know how the models they're using work because I don't have the ability to mess around with them myself, but at this point I'm starting to wonder if they're just... not particularly stretchy by nature?? Because I can't imagine any other reason for them to be so stiff even when the animators are doing their best.

To prove my point, let's compare a very similar expression and pose of Sonic's from Frontiers and RoL respectively.

In both of these scenes, Sonic is expressing determination to fight in order to save his friends. In Frontiers, this is from the Final Horizon update, right after Amy, Tails, and Knuckles sacrificed their corporeal forms in order to bring Sonic back from corruption. Sonic is currently feeling the weight of that sacrifice full-force, lamenting that they gave up their chance at freedom for him, and uses that pain to push himself forward to really save them this time.

In Rise of Lyric, Sonic is staring down a robot army led by Metal Sonic as the door in front of them closes. He's already ushered Amy, Tails, and Knuckles behind him into a suspicious temple of sorts, but he's prepared to fight in case it doesn't close fast enough. He was told twice not to open the door in the first place, but he was concerned for his friends, and decided to prioritize protecting them over their own desires to keep fighting.

With such similar framing, it's hard not to see how Frontiers' expressions fall short. Both Sonics have their eyes narrowed, the bridge of their eyebrows scrunched down to separate them into two distinct shapes, and they're holding their fists up. But in Frontiers, it's not very clear what emotions he's feeling just by looking at him. Sure, he looks kinda determined if you squint, but at a glance, he looks almost more neutral than anything.

And it just gets worse the more you think about it because by all accounts, he should be having a MORE intense expression than the one in Rise of Lyric! I mean come on, the guy practically died five minutes ago and is gearing himself up for another round of Titan fights. He should be looking exhausted and utterly spent but like he's still gonna keep going somehow.

It got to the point where, halfway through writing this, I decided that it wasn't enough to just talk about what his expression should have looked like, and that I was going to put my money where my mouth was and redraw it myself.

I scrunched his eyes and brows down closer to how they are in the Boom screenshot for the determined look, made him look upwards with his irises instead of staring blankly ahead, and pulled up his lower eyelids to add an edge of desperation to him.

I kept his mouth in the same position, but tried to make it look a little more... angry? by curling it up on one side and showcasing his top teeth more. Finally, I changed the position of his body and arms a bit, to make it look like his whole body was tensing up along with his face.

These are all Extremely Doable in 3D animation - the only part I'm uncertain of is the mouth, since I tend to draw mouths with a very 2D mindset. But on principle, it should not be hard to shape his eyes to match his emotions. That is the absolute bare minimum of what you want your character models to be capable of in a professional setting.

And it's driving me nuts that Frontiers, savior of the Sonic games' credibility among the masses, is still being outclassed by what's considered the "second 06" of the franchise. What is happening over there that this keeps being a problem

[cold-fire-yo]

Explain why in the notes! 🎶

[sapphanimates]

idk i'm done with this for now

teri-oss' armor is getting to me

[itssovero]

Following numerous headaches, I've finally gotten some stream highlights edited and uploaded for folks to check out as I gear up for Sonic X Shadow Generations week!

[tigertaika]

Taika The Tiger reference

Surprisingly, it didn't take long, only two days! It's not looking good, but please be gentle with meeeee. I had to change a few things because before I didn't like it, but yeah, now it's looking good.

Tigers were my favourite animals since childhood, but now I love wolves. I love all animals who are in the wild.

Obviously, she only appears in Sonic Boom series and Rise Of Lyric, that's why I love drawing bandages.

Reblogs are appreciated!

[thecrazedpotato]

Waiting for the day when Sonic fans wake up, have a balanced breakfast, take a warm soothing shower, step outside, feel the wind on their face, breath the fresh air, and say to themselves with complete inner peace with themselves...

"Yeah, Sonic Boom Rise of Lyric was a masterpiece actually."

[hewwopumpkin]

cliff and perci sketches. i had other concepts i did a month or so ago, but thats on a different hard drive, so

[boom-shadow]

We'll settle this for now

[niyana-the-ambiguous-mobian]

Oh right, Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric was a game that existed....

I honestly forgot that game even existed tbh, it felt like a fever dream and saw only flashes of the cutscenes, the main one other than how Lyric was just THERE, was the one where Shadow spin kicking Tails into a portal. Idk why that one is in particular, but that's the one that comes up whenever I try to remember anything else from it.

I also remember how hyped up everyone (at least a certain part of the fandom) was when we got the first look, then the game came out and everyone went SILENT due to how….not good the final product was, unfortunately due to a lot of behind the scenes stuff that was going on that affected the production process.

[behold-ninja-powah-245]

Opinions on Sonic Boom Rise Of Lyric?

[doamarierose-honoka]

9 years ago, Sonic Boom series was debuted with a tv show alongside two Boom games for Wii U and 3ds released on the same day, Sonic Boom: Rose of Lyric/Shattered Crystal. Featuring a new character Sticks the Badger.