#and you can feel it with every release but because of sega Sonic has been a joke for years now

[possum-socks]

Me trying not to explode on a daily basis because I am way too fascinated with this franchise

[thankskenpenders]

It's a bit late, but I figure I have to touch on the big news from today, which is that for an (early) April Fools celebration Sega went and released a free visual novel about Sonic getting murdered

Here's a thing you should know about me: I am deathly allergic to ironic visual novels, and the related trend of announcing dating sims (which are synonymous with the medium of visual novels as a whole to many people) on April Fools

Aside from an incredibly small selection of titles that have seen wider success, it feels like much of the game industry is only willing to acknowledge visual novels as a punchline. And said jokes about dating sim stereotypes have been done a million fucking times by now. They're parodies of parodies of parodies. Even when these prank dating sims actually go and get made rather than just being a few fake screenshots, it feels like it's just because VNs are seen as cheap, disposable entertainment compared to "real" games. Companies can afford to commission some bullshit like the KFC dating sim and write it off as a marketing stunt. And it works. These games will get widely reported on for being so ~wacky~, while devs pouring their hearts into doing sincere, interesting work with the medium of visual novels are usually out of fucking luck. It's so, so tiring. The fact that this happens like clockwork every year has made me come to dread April Fools Day

So imagine my surprise when The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog drops out of nowhere and it's actually one of my favorite Sonic games in years

Aside from the intentionally tongue-in-cheek, attention-grabbing title (and Sonic doing the Family Guy Death Pose), there isn't an ounce of irony here. It's just a straight up whodunnit VN set on a train, albeit a lighthearted and pretty easy one. It's still a Sonic game, after all, and Sonic games are for kids. But it's so clearly made out of a place of love, both for the characters and for murder mysteries, rather than being a parody that's constantly winking at the camera and going "haha, isn't this absurd that this even exists at all?" Forget that. This wants to tell a genuinely good little Sonic story. Not to mention how gorgeous all of the artwork is throughout, with character illustrations from IDW cover artist Min Ho Kim (AKA deegeemin)

Like, for real. I've wanted the Sonic games to explore the supporting cast more for years, and I can't believe the game to finally do it is a murder mystery visual novel released for April Fools. This might be one of the best showcases of the cast... ever, in the games? The script from Ian Mutchler is so, so great, with fun and cute moments for everyone involved. And, smartly, you see the cast through the eyes of a new character (I named them "Blorbo") who isn't necessarily familiar with things like Blaze being a princess from another dimension, making this a surprisingly valid way to introduce people to the supporting cast. I'd say more, but it's a short game, so I think everyone should just go out and play it if you haven't already

There is still part of me that wishes a Sonic visual novel like this could've been greenlit for release any other day of the year, rather than being yet another April Fools visual novel. But regardless of the excuse they used to make it, I'm extremely happy that this exists

[postgamecontent]

Sonic CD (MD Mini 2)

I think the SEGA-CD is generally seen as a failed peripheral, and I'll grant that fewer than one in ten SEGA Genesis/Mega Drive owners bought one. But it still sold over two million units, which isn't that bad as this sort of thing goes. I bring that number up right now because Sonic CD sold 1.5 million copies on the SEGA-CD, which means around three quarters of the entire install base picked it up. That is wild, and it shows why Sonic CD is perhaps the most well-known game in the console's library. I daresay that if you have played any of the SEGA-CD games included in the Mega Drive Mini 2, it's this one. Its reputation has been on a roller coaster since its initial release. From praise as the peripheral's killer app, to a forbidden fruit in a mega-popular franchise, all the way to its eventual wide accessibility via modern ports and subsequent cooling off as people finally got a chance to experience it themselves, Sonic CD has seen all kinds of opinions about it offered up by all kinds of people. Well, here's one more.

When I first played Sonic CD, I didn't care for it much at all. It was for a lot of the same reasons you usually hear. The level design can be awkward. The time travel aspect is confusing and frustrating. The controls feel slightly different from the numbered sequels. And yes, the image I had built up in my mind was hard for reality to match. That was part of it, to be sure. I played it in Sonic Gems and didn't care for it. I bought the PlayStation 3 release and went through it again there, and once more came away unimpressed. I picked it up on mobile for a cheap price and of course didn't change my mind playing it there either. I wish I could say that playing it on the Mega Drive Mini 2 was the pivot for me, but it was actually the version in the recent Sonic Origins collection that won me over. I set myself on playing it properly, traveling to the past in each stage and seeking out the enemy generator and Metal Sonic illusions to destroy. I finished the bonus stages and got all the emeralds. I made the Good Future in every stage. And finally, it all clicked. Sonic CD is a very different kind of Sonic game. It's a more exploratory one, but also one where you'll need to generate some speed at times. Some of the levels are not very fun, but most of them are quite good if taken as intended. I rather like Sonic CD now. It's a little rougher on the SEGA-CD in its original form, but now that I know what it's trying to do and can approach it on those terms, I think it's great fun.

[beevean]

My very, very first Sonic game was Boom: Shattered Crystal (only after I managed to get myself over the fact I found Boom!Knuckles look terrible in a terrifying way XD XD), and I must say, it's quite a surprise to me how they managed to have such differences between SC and RoL despite the two games being part of the same spin-off. Like you said in your earlier post, RoL had an entirely failed attempt to make Sonic a lone wolf kind of dude, who had to learn to rely on his friends and who got (not even that correctly) vilified by the World of Jerkass about him releasing Lyric... after getting in that situation in a bid to protect his friends he apparently didn't value (aka, the situation doesn't even hold. Unless you want to make a case that Sonic deems them not strong enough to tackle an easily-winnable fight and doesn't value them in that way, but it's been so long that I can't really recall all the details of that scene). Meanwhile, I checked out the SC script real quick, and there Sonic seems so much more like a happy-go-lucky "we can rescue Amy together with the four of us!! Teamwork! :D Power of friendship!!! :D :D :D" kind of dude. And those sentiments are mostly returned by everyone else! That doesn't even touch on the fact they meet Lyric for the first time in both games, or the fact that the Ancients are, from the top of my head, hardly if ever mentioned in the tv show. Sure, a few of their technologies like the Enerbeam were made use of, but with such a strong focus on the Ancients in both games, it feels off to me that I can't even recall if they played a role in the TV show, despite me religiously following season 1 at the time. I feel like it's not that good a sign if your fancy new spin-off series has three entirely different stories in the various media produced for it, but I also wonder why they didn't try to make it more streamlined? To me, this whole situation with all the discrepancies makes it come across a little bit as if Boom truly wasn't so important to Sega after all.

What an introduction 😂

SC is like... the middle child of the Boom games. Everyone knows how bad RoL is, and FaI gained notoriety for being surprisignly decent. I don't know one thing about SC, except that it had a brainwashed Shadow (in RoL he fights Sonic because he's a prick lmao). Oh, and apparently Stick is in SC, but Amy was kidnapped? While in RoL Stick wasn't even mentioned because it took place before the cartoon.

I watched almost every episode of Boom (I think I only skipped the Misery parody). I can confirm that the show has zero lore, and the only connection to the games is the Enerbeam thing.

It's odd. SEGA clearly invested in Boom and wanted it to be a solid spinoff, RoL was one of the three exclusive WiiU games and between 2014 and 2016 nothing but Boom products came out. I remember even theories that the Avatar in Forces was supposed to be Boom Sonic! (notice the lanky build and the use of something similar to the Enerbeam) But there was no way it would become popular (it was basically Sonic in name only), so after the failure of RoL, they just... let it quietly die, both the games, and the cartoon that was aired at ungodly hours until it was cancelled.

[fishstikart]

I LOVE SONIC ADVENTURE

**What the thing I like is:**

Sonic adventure 1 for the Dreamcast

Not any of the ports, they all make the game worse

I like all the games that came before it, but sa1 is what I’ve really connected with

**Why I like it:**

-so first of all, I’ve been playing every sonic game in release date order. So I have the context of the entire series to this point. Where the creators were at, the state of the industry at the time, and the evolution of the gameplay. It added a lot to my experience of this game

- It came out in 1999 and was a technical breakthrough! At the time 3D games were new tech so everyone was working in a brand new medium and just seeing what worked. And for Sonic, 3D had never looked this good or played so well.

-becuase of this, the game feels kinda like a showcase of what sega can do with 3D. They tried a bunch of stuff and did amazing with all of it! Back in the 90’s sega was always pushing the industry forward and this game was their biggest leap yet

-so yeah like I said this game is just really fun and diverse. You can play as 6 different characters that are all really interesting and fun. The sonic levels are the best, they’re all cool, fast, fun, and cinematic. And then you can play a bunch of the same levels as the other characters but they control so different it might as well be totally new!

-the game also has a really good story. Each character is doing their own thing and we get to see the parts where they overlap. So many of them, when you play the first time as sonic, make no sense but then you finally unlock the new character and everything gets way cooler.

Again, they were showing everything they can do with the new medium. Sonic’s story is cool and fun and cinematic. And E-102”y”’s story is the saddest thing I’ve ever seen. And again tail’s story is such a sweet coming of age story! They’re all so incredible

-the atmosphere is amazing. The Dreamcast can do such specific things with lighting and they use it so well. There are gorgeous sunsets, quiet nights, cloudy days, it never ends. There are so many areas that are nice to just sit back and soak in. Especially since the music goes harder than anything I’ve ever heard. The game will do anything for the vibes.

-one of the most impressive things to me is that it still feels like a classic sonic game just in 3D. Like Sonic has always been trying to tell stories and be cinematic they just were able to go hard with this game. And Sonic has always had multiple playable characters they just went crazy with it in this game. Same with atmosphere, and gameplay and music. It’s all still what makes sonic sonic just in 3D and with the most love they could put into it.

-you can also tell how much the people working on Sonic love this world. Not only becuase of the love put into the entire game. But there’s a lot of funny and cute pictures of the team having so much fun behind the seens

-I really like the message of this game too. Or at least the one I got from it. When other things tell me to “be myself” I kinda roll my eyes, but in this game they dont shove it in your face they just show it to you. Each of the characters is cool and awesome because of the things that make them different. Playing the game I could literally feel how their differences are their strengths. 3 of the characters have stories about learning to be more independent cool people! “You are cool and powerful! Be yourself at any cost!”

-this game just never stops giving. I keep finding out new things about it. There’s so many clever details and hidden treats to find.

I could keep talking but this is the best I can put it into words rn.

**How much I like it:**

MORE THAN ANYTHING

This hyperfixation isn’t just about The little blue man, it’s about everything he respresents!

This is literally the perfect game. Unification of every element to make an experience like no other.

I’ve always wanted the things I make to feel like this game.

I want to make beautiful things, but even if I never do it’s okay becuase Sonic Adventure exists. ^-^

[jcmarchi]

Penny's Big Breakaway Preview - Bauhausian Rhapsody - Game Informer

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/pennys-big-breakaway-preview-bauhausian-rhapsody-game-informer/

Penny's Big Breakaway Preview - Bauhausian Rhapsody - Game Informer

Introduction

Sonic Mania is widely regarded as one of the blue blur’s best games. More than six years after its 2017 release, that sentiment remains as strong as ever, even after recent outings like 2022’s Sonic Frontiers and this year’s Sonic Superstars. While published by Sega, longtime Sonic fans who grew up playing the series, like Christian Whitehead, Hunter Bridges, Dave Padilla, Brad Flick, Tom Fry, and others, led the game’s development. And without speculating too much, the degree of separation afforded to these fans-turned-developers allowed Sonic Mania to feel like both a fresh breath of air and a return to form.

Not wanting to wade too deep into the world of independent contracts and wishing to maintain the friendship between each other strengthened in Sonic Mania’s development, the five of them formed Evening Star months after the game’s release. Studio CEO and executive producer Padilla, CTO and game director Bridges, creative director and lead engine architect Whitehead, design director Flick, and art director Fry all admit the easy follow-up was right there: A Sonic Mania-type 2D platformer. It’s what fans of Sonic Mania wanted, and to their credit, they worked with Sega on potential sequel ideas before amicably parting ways. But, unsatisfied with the easy answer, Evening Star got to work on a 3D momentum-based platformer inspired by Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, an early 20th Century ballet, and 1995’s Jumping Flash on PlayStation.

Evening Star

“We always had this idea of, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if we had a character that could use a yo-yo to do different moves?’” Whitehead says. “Initially, we jotted them down on a 2D playfield, but there were several concurrent themes swirling in the background. At least for me, my perspective as a developer is I’ve spent the last decade working exclusively on 2D pixel art, so I really wanted to expand and prove that I could do something more than just one particular genre.”

Whitehead says he’s aware Penny’s Big Breakaway is another platformer but says it’s a different flavor in a different dimension. After playing more than two hours of the game myself, experiencing the first three of 11 regions in the world of Macaroon, including three different boss stages and special Star Globe bonus levels, that much is clear. Knowing the development leads of Sonic Mania are responsible for what I play, it’s impossible to deny the momentum-based inspiration that lives in both titles. But Whitehead’s right – even beyond the obvious shift from 2D to 3D, Penny’s Big Breakaway features a different flavor. It is not just a new flavor for these developers but something unique in the long-standing platforming genre.

Breaking the Standards

Breaking The Standards

I’m terrible at the game, at least for the first handful of stages. It doesn’t help that I just watched Bridges speed through them like someone with intimate knowledge of every stage’s challenges, but I’m slow and struggle to combo yo-tagonist Penny’s yo-yo-based moves across ramps, flag poles, gaps, and more. Penny can toss her yo-yo forward to attack enemies and break barrels with a button on a controller or, more curiously, by flicking the right stick in a direction. And that directional input is independent of Penny, meaning you can flick the yo-yo to her right while she walks left. It’s admittedly bizarre at first – not because it doesn’t feel good, but because it’s so different from how I typically interact with the combat and moveset of a 3D platformer mascot.

In the same vein, Penny can double jump, but instead of gaining a good amount of height with a second jump, she gains a barely noticeable amount; the purpose of her double jump isn’t height but a stop in momentum, Bridges tells me. She can dash by tossing her yo-yo forward, performed by flicking the right stick in the same direction twice, and she can swing left and right, forward and backward, on her yo-yo anywhere in the air as well.

Although it takes me some time – something I welcome because it’s rare to experience a new moveset that challenges my preconceptions of a genre – I finish my Penny’s Big Breakaway play time with the realization that it’s not a 3D platformer in the vein of something Nintendo might create, another challenged preconception. On the one hand, it’s a Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater-inspired platformer with an emphasis on momentum that will appeal heavily to speedrunners and time trial fans, with a constant score and Devil May Cry-style combo tracker on the right side of the screen, too. On the other, it’s a team’s love letter to the weird and sometimes broken platformers of the 3D genre’s early days. Together as a complete package, it rules.

“The rules [of 3D platformers] at that stage weren’t really established that well,” Whitehead says. “I remember growing up playing a lot of PlayStation games where they were maybe a bit rough around the edges but trying to grapple platforming mechanics in 3D, and I felt really inspired by that era. I experienced that as a kid, but I wanted to experience that as a developer.”

A Roundtable Philosophy

A Roundtable Philosophy

Whitehead, admitting creative selfishness, says he wanted to try and make a PlayStation-style 3D platformer that fixes the problems he experienced growing up with the genre. The small slice I’ve played proves Evening Star is on the right path. But in speaking to others within Evening Star, like Bridges, Fry, Flick, and Padilla, it’s clear everyone is all-in on that idea. Even Fry, the art director on paper, says he was involved in all kinds of decisions outside of his development realm, a philosophy everyone else expresses too. “The collaborative effort is an intrinsic part of the team,” Fry says. “Not one person has an idea and everyone follows them like the Pied Piper with it. It’s something where we believe everyone has something of value to throw into the pot, and with the art, that’s certainly no different. I refer to it as a roundtable philosophy.”

That collaborative energy even made its way into the so-far-amazing score of Penny’s Big Breakaway, which utilizes a wide range of weird synthesizer instruments, instrumentation from genres like Latin and Calypso, and more to create a jazz-like symphony of music. Bridges, Whitehead, and others in the team contributed to the score in various ways, even after Evening Star hired Streets of Rage 4 and TMNT: Shredder’s Revenge composer Tee Lopes, who the team also worked with on Sonic Mania, and Sean Bialo to create the score.

Performance Art

Performance Art

If one aspect of Penny’s Big Breakaway speaks most to its early PlayStation inspiration, it’s the art direction. Inspired by the early 20th Century Triadisches Ballett and the Germanic Bauhaus art movement from the same period, combining colorful abstract ideas with primitive geometry, the world of Macaroon feels like one big performance. Your social status is defined by the performance you can give to denizens of the world. Every stage ends with a “Busker” bonus that requires quick and accurate QTE sequence completion to add additional points to your total score. Within each stage are three denizen challenges, like collecting four missing tax forms for an electric company while riding Penny’s yo-yo like a unicycle, and during the Busker bonus, the denizens you help watch you perform.

Even the conceit of the narrative speaks to the idea of performance art being everything – Penny attends a talent show after finding a special yo-yo with an insatiable hunger and, instead of wowing the emperor with a showstopping performance, the yo-yo eats the emperor’s clothes. She spends the rest of the game running further and further away from the emperor and Macaroon’s capital, chased to the world’s edges by the emperor’s ever-present penguins, only temporarily slowed by your efforts and never outright defeated.

“We want the game to keep the flow and dribble going,” Bridges tells me. “We really wanted to have that rhythm […] and never interrupt that. It’s a game where the most skilled players can theoretically make it through a level in an unbroken string of moves. That’s Penny’s masterful performance.”

That’s why Evening Star controls the camera at all times, which requires a flip in my brain. With three denizen challenges to complete and three Show Pieces to find in each level, I want to explore every nook and cranny. But without camera control, I can’t, and I hate this at first. It’s only after realizing that if Evening Star isn’t allowing the camera to take me here or there, then there isn’t anything to miss that I begin to play on the team’s terms. This switch is freeing, realizing Penny’s platforming playground is predicated on my ability to keep moving forward to where Evening Star was taking me in its design. With thoughtful movement and a keen eye, completing every challenge and finding every Show Piece feels intrinsic to Penny’s “performance” in each stage.

The game clashed with every notion I had of 3D platforming. I wanted to take things slow; I wanted to search every corner for something; I wanted to take my time. But Penny’s Big Breakaway is a welcome antithesis to everything (mostly) Nintendo had taught me about this genre. It’s a bold design choice and one I would have called risky on paper. In talking with Evening Star, it’s clear it understood that risk going into its first original game and IP. However, each member I spoke to expressed humble confidence in their respective facets of the game’s development.

“There are a lot of skills we really excel at when making games, and a lot of specific nuances we bring to the table because of our team dynamic and our tools, and I don’t think it’s going to be a complete surprise,” Padilla says. “I think a lot of folks are going to see this as something completely new and something completely original, but in terms of what we’ve done before and what we’re doing now, and hopefully what we’re doing in the future, folks are going to be able to connect the dots.” 

This article originally appeared in Issue 362 of Game Informer.

[corpsephage]

Sonic Frontiers Pre-DLC-Three Whinefest

I couldn't really get much into Sonic Frontiers, and I thought the final boss and ending was a little lacklustre. Apparently the writers agreed with me, because they're releasing a new ending as free DLC tomorrow.

I actually had a lot of thoughts about Frontiers and this'll likely be the last time I can air them before The Final Horizon comes along and makes me eat humble pie with how good it is. But I don't want to rip on it too hard because I know a lot of effort goes into making games like this.

I think Sonic Frontiers works best for me when I look at it like a tech demo for a future open world Sonic game. Compared to the variety of stages you get in other Sonic games - here's a casino with giant pinball machines, there's a European city full of balloons, here's a mineshaft from Halloween Town - the Frontiers open zones kind of felt sparse and empty, and there wasn't much I could find to do except go from one bit of plot to the next. This is a trap a lot of open-world games fall into, when the world is wider than it is deep, and there's everywhere to go but nothing to do.

However, I did like the enemies. They kind of looked samey aesthetics-wise, but they were all unique and had their own abilities that cleverly played off from Sonic's own, like the enemy disguised as a bounce pad or the one that would steal a Chaos Emerald from you.

In terms of boss fights, I think I preferred the part where you were normal Sonic running up their bodies to being Super Sonic and frantically smashing buttons. I was a big fan of Shadow of the Colossus, so anything that reminds me of those bosses is a plus.

Plot-wise, well... usually I can take or leave Sonic game plots, but this is probably the most plot-heavy Sonic game we've had so far. It's been described as "melancholy", and while it's not exactly grimdark-edgy, I wonder if it's a good fit for a Sonic game. I think the tone that suits Sonic best would be “fun”; not necessarily “silly” or “goofy”, just “fun”. That’s not me saying the whole thing should be happy-go-lucky, I think it should take slow moments every now and then to add complexity to the story.

Sonic's friends have these character arcs where they learn important lessons, like Amy learns not to be creepy-in-love with Sonic, Knuckles learns not to be tethered to the Master Emerald all the time, and Tails learns to stand on his own two feet for the umpteenth time. Part of me feels like maybe they're overcorrecting things that don't need that much correcting - especially Tails, whose whole arc felt kind of like an apology for the whole "Sonic, help me!" throwaway line in Forces.

Then there's Sage, the new character for this game, honouring the SEGA tradition of adding at least one new character every game. Truth be told, I kind of like them adding new characters, as long as they aren't just re-skins of the same "tutorial fairy" archetype (I think that's why Blaze and Silver had the staying power they did, being headlining playable characters in their debut games and all).

Sage had a lot of potential that I didn't think they got to explore. It's an interesting idea that she unconditionally loves Eggman like a father, but learns more of her morals from Sonic, which has the makings of a really tragic character. But they didn't really go in-depth with this my-two-dads-hate-each-other hook, and when they tried to do the whole Toy Story 2 bit with her (you know the part I'm talking about) I just couldn't take it seriously.

The main villain of the game turns out to be a big purple rock, which left me quite underwhelmed considering the build-up it got. The Sonic wiki reckons it's the ultimate overarching evil in all of Sonic ("Oh my God, I should have known! The one behind all this! All this time it was a big purple rock!") which is big talk considering Eggman is right! There! I get they were trying to go for a whole Azathoth/Yog-Sothoth thing, but I think Sonic-style dark gods need some more meat on their bones than the Lovecraft "it's indescribable, just trust me bro" style. I've seen some impressive fan designs for the big purple rock that make it look a lot more malevolent.

Honestly, I think Sage should have been the final boss. That’d really put her feelings between Sonic and Eggman at the emotional core of the story. Imagine once the towers were finished, Eggman comes out of cyberspace and the first thing he tries is to kill Sonic and his friends there and then - maybe he orders Sage to do it - but poor Sage can’t bring herself to kill her Uncle Sonic or disappoint her beloved dad, so she has an emotional breakdown which allows the evil cyber-force to enter into her mind, and the final boss ends up being her piloting this super-titan made of all three of the other titans. And maybe at the end Sonic knocks some sense into her – telling her to be her own person and all that – and she uses her free will to sacrifice herself and stop the cyber-evil. Or something. Look, I still can't believe the final boss was a QTE against a big purple rock, alright?!

But if there's one thing I do like Sonic Frontiers for, it's for being ambitious. If you look around the Sonic Fanon wiki, you'll see a lot of pretty detailed Sonic game ideas, and a lot of them have pretty high stakes and expansive stages - open-world designs featuring ancient evils from ancient civilizations and stuff like that. The first thing I thought of when I saw Frontiers, right when it was nothing more than a teaser, was that it reminded me of those fan game ideas. And in a strange way it works. Kind of. Sorta. I didn't hate it. On reflection.

If nothing else, Frontiers proves that an open-ended Sonic game can work. If the open world was more lively, it'd be a magical experience. Picture Sonic running through the countryside at night, over hill and dale, past streams and forests, the flickering lights of cities in the distance. Slaloming through traffic on the interstate, running up the sides of skyscrapers and springing from the rooftops, pedestrians down below wondering what that blue flash was. That kind of freedom and openness suits Sonic down to the ground. Split the world into denser and busier areas for fast-paced reflex-testing, and wider, quieter areas for taking it all in - that's a true Sonic simulator right there, looking into his world of worlds.

The new DLC also gives SEGA the chance to prove itself with other playable characters, like back in the days of Adventure yore. I actually like the presence of other playable characters - like I say, you don't make a fox with two tails who can fly and not have him playable - so long as they're fun to play as. Honestly, I hope the new DLC does it well, because if it's a success, then the next game might be willing to expand upon all this potential. You never know, we might be looking at a proper Sonic the Hedgehog RPG in a few years, and it could be the biggest Sonic adventure since... uh... Sonic Adventure.

So, yeah - Sonic Frontiers - didn't dig it - could've done better - and I hope it does do better, because it has a hell of a lot of potential, and I'd love to see an open-ended Sonic game taking place in a living, breathing world with the groundwork Frontiers has laid. And if we can play as Tails, Knuckles, Amy and all the rest, so much the better. Bring on Grand Theft Sonic, I say.

[bitter-sweet-coffee]

Feel free to ignore this btw if you’re tired of this conversation, I honestly would not blame you LMAOO

But I read up on your whole shadow age posts and omg. I’ve seen that debate stir up a lot on sonic TikTok of all places, where people go back and forth that he’s 15 or 50 and it’s so strange bc literally like you’ve been saying; he’s canonically ageless.

The only place his age was shown as 15 was from a leaked sonic 06 file, but, other than that, every other piece of canon material either doesn’t state his age at all or says he’s ageless.

If someone one wants to use this to view shadow as 15, that’s totally fine, but that doesn’t automatically equal it being canon information since you rlly have to dig to find it and it was never officially released. Unless SEGA or Sonic Team or someone who works there comes out and straight up states “shadow is 15” than it’s not canon evidence. Idk why that’s such a hard thing to grasp?

As someone who likes to headcanon (emphasis on this part LMAO) Shadow as physically and mentally 15, i still enjoy making and seeing “he’s an old man” jokes bc he was made so long ago and it’s also just fun to play around that Shadow’s so behind on modern day things and trying to play catch up. He’s just trying his best. But just cuz that’s my interpretation that doesn’t mean he’s canonically 15 or canonically an old man and everyone has to follow it. It’s all just for fun.

He’s still canonically ageless and immortal.

The whole shipping aspect tho is rlly where Shadow not having a real canon age is weird and causes the most uproar, as we saw. It’s understandable, but at the same time it’s just weird to see such intense debates over something so minor to the franchise. Don’t get me wrong, there are certain ships to be uncomfortable with and that have real issues, and each person has every right to dislike them. But with Shadow, bc of the age debate, I think that’s a situation where leaving it up to a persons own interpretation is fine and just leave them be bc at some point it’ll just be talking to a wall. That’s me tho.

I also think some people have forgotten there’s a line between fanon and canon, or it’s at the least very blurred for them, so they just automatically apply their fanon ideas into canon and don’t realize ppl interpret things differently. You have people who heavily use canon to inspire their works and their discussions and then you have ppl who heavily rely on their fanon ideas for that. Both are totally fine and are allowed to, and should, coexist and I think some ppl don’t remember that.

Sorry this got so long omg.

Hope you have a fantastic day tho!!!!

i'm posting this because you summarized it all flawlessly (much better than my humorous performance that was prompted because my original post was tagged as a vent post that non mutuals and blindsided mutuals decided to turn into a shitshow... completely proving my point about the current animosity and lack of reading comprehension in this fandom)

i never said people can't make shadow 15 in their fanon, i said he is canonically ageless, and people's first response was to accuse me of not knowing the sonic canon and citing nonexistent manuals and falsified links to "prove i'm wrong" or posting their fanon interpretations in my canon discussion. i can fight fanon with fanon but that doesn't negate the canon fact he's ageless, if anything it just derailed more

people can headcanon all they want, but it doesn't replace the canon ages which was the point of my vent (people replacing the canon and spreading misinformation— not because of headcanons, but because of headcanons they falsely claim are canon)

but seriously, thank you for wrapping this whole thing up as neatly as you did, cheers! xx

[guerilla935]

My Favorite Fishing in Video Games Where Fishing is Not Core Game Play

A really awesome surprise for me is always to boot up a game that is full of action and suspense to be introduced to a fishing side activity. I have toiled away at fishing in games for hundreds of hours at least. It has gotten so bad in some instances that my friends have asked me why I haven’t just taken the plunge into real fishing. It’s definitely because that is a lot of work and in real life I don’t catch a fish every 30 seconds. They have also wondered why I don’t just play a fishing simulator like Planet Fishing (Shout out to Planet Fishing that’s a great game). And that’s where I have to think for a while. Fishing while you have better things to do like save the world is very special. You aren’t fishing because it’s the objective of the game or because that’s why you are there, you are fishing because it’s fun and maybe you need a break to swing a fishing rod instead of a sword. And then you can stop, and get back to fighting or whatever the rest of the game entails. Below are games that have fishing in them for mostly no reason at all. I have shamelessly spent way to long with my bait in these waters and absolutely loved every second of it and I hope that you (the reader) can find a lot of relaxation in these waters as well.

Pokemon Series

Since the very first Pokemon game there has been fishing. You get the old rod from some guy and then you are free to fish up as many goldfishes that you want hoping that one of them will grow up to be a 21 foot tall dragon. Pokemon has combined their fishing with their main game play and makes you at least start a battle with the fish you drag onto shore. Now fishing in Pokemon is pretty subpar mainly because a single Pokemon game hasn’t really been known to have more than a handful of Pokemon that you can fish for. Also if you are looking for a strong water type Pokemon you could do a lot better than fishing for it. Typically a Pokemon player will fish about 5-10 times total. And although fishing for Pokemon isn’t all that great it has been in every game for over 20 years and that is pretty impressive. It’s a small detail that makes the world of Pokemon feel like a real world of wild creatures.

Sonic Adventure DX

In Sonic Adventure DX you are given the choice to play as a lot of different characters, one of which is named Big the Cat. Most of the characters are combat characters that rely on speed and attacks to get through levels, some even wielding rocket launchers and extremely oversized hammers. However when you start the story of Big the Cat you are thrown in a completely opposite direction. Big the Cat is a giant purple cat who lives in the jungle with his best friend Froggy. Froggy accidentally swallows one of the most powerful objects in the Sonic universe and Big the Cat must chase him all over the world trying to fish him out of where he is hiding so that he can eject the Chaos Emerald out of him and they can return to their life in the jungle. The fishing mechanics in this game actually are really good and this is probably because Sega had just put out a series of mildly successful Bass fishing games before releasing this game. Either way its absolutely hilarious that Big the Cat gets to defeat Chaos 6 right before Super Sonic has his showdown with Chaos Perfect.

Final Fantasy XV

In Final Fantasy XV you play as Noctis and his favorite hobby is fishing. When I first played this game I sped through it and never fished once and reached the end of the game never indulging Noctis in his hobby. When I replayed Final Fantasy XV I fished for 50 hours and then ejected the disc from my console. The fishing in Final Fantasy XV is surprisingly deep with a lot of the vendors supporting what you could call a fishing road trip. In the game it is extremely dangerous to be out at night so I would plan day trips to lakes to maximize the amount of fishing I would get to do. I would prepare days in advance to make sure I could afford the trip and that I had enough supplies to both protect myself at the lake and have enough supplies to last the whole day. Final Fantasy XV really is a game about getting really distracted and fishing is probably its best distraction. My days on the lake were the perfect balance of peaceful and rewarding, this game offers an awesome reward of well planned trips and a good haul of fish.

Final Fantasy XIV Online

Final Fantasy XIV is the only game I have ever played where the fishing played exactly like its combat. When you are fighting enemies in a dungeon in FFXIV you are constantly adding buffs, landing hits, using consumables, and managing resource bars. When you are fishing in FFXIV you are constantly adding buffs, landing hits, using consumables, and managing resource bars. Note you are doing so at a much more leisurely and less life threatening pace but you are still doing it. I never maxed out the fisher class but I got it into the expansion content which was a really long and relaxing experience. Yet another Final Fantasy title where the real meat of the game is in getting distracted. When you fish you also sell on a player market that fluctuates based on market price just like real fish. You get the relaxing fishing side of the game and also an aggressive economic number crunching side as well. I spent way too long with a real pen and paper deciding how much I should sell for on any particular day and bossing around my two cat girl employees.The MMO aspect of the game adds so much to what you would expect to be a very solitary experience.

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess

Have you ever gone fishing for hours to receive an empty bottle? That is exactly what kick started my addiction to fishing in Twilight Princess. An empty bottle in Twilight Princess means another way to heal yourself, another way to add oil to a lantern, another way to carry useless water around. The only way to get the 4th bottle in the game is to go to a dedicated fishing spot and fish until you pulled it out of the pond. The actual fishing is pretty weird, it involves motion controls which I still am not entirely sure what they do or how to properly use them but it is really fun to hold the pole in gyroscope and set the lure in the water waiting for fish to come get a nibble. Although the physics with the water make it difficult to see if you have actually gotten a bite or not it still is enjoyable the other 85% of the time it works.

Stardew Valley

So this one is at the top of every other “fishing in games” list and there is a big reason for that. It’s really good. I think in my first Stardew Valley farm I gave up farming entirely and fished all day every day and stopped to buy food to replenish my energy and go back at it. I really didn’t care about getting rich or making enough money to expand the farm or get to know everyone I actually spent about 50 hours just fishing. The fishing takes some skill and a pretty keen eye but the random jerks of the fish and the rhythm of the game play are so fun to try to master. It’s a part of Stardew Valley that I felt like I was continuously improving on as time went on and it was really fun. I mean I don’t recommend it because you’ll end up moderately poor but it was really fun.

Fantasy Life

Fantasy Life offers you 12 potential jobs, you could be a brilliant blacksmith or a devious potions maker, a lumberjack or a knight, a hunter or a seamstress. However your inner dad is calling and you decide you want to play through a fantasy RPG as a fisherman, hell yeah. the story is relatively short so you can quickly unlock a lot of locales to fish at and there is a manageable economy system that lets you deal in fish in advantageous ways. You can even pick up cooking on the side and make fancy dinners and sell the fish for higher you can do that as well. Fantasy Life is like a clever mix between Animal Crossing and Final Fantasy XIV and it kind of succeeds and falls short of it. The fishing also takes a good amount of skill and rhythmic approach to master so it doesn’t get boring almost at all until you have cleared the game.

Maple Story 2

Maple Story 2 is one of the most expressive and cutest games that I have ever played. And the fishing is no different, its all about style. The fishing in Maple Story 2 is monotonous and can get old but you do it for the chibi clout. Because much like the rest of the game you can look however you want and do whatever you want and sometimes you just feel like kicking back and throwing lure in the water at the beach. I never got super into the fishing in this game but it won me over with its adorable design and stylish atmosphere.

Animal Crossing Series

Of course I had to include the most popular game right now. Animal Crossing has become something of a connection between people when we can’t leave the house. A thing we all have in common on social media and with our friends. My first experience with Animal Crossing really starts with New Horizons and I was completely blown away. The fishing isn’t super complex or difficult but the range of what you can pull out of the water and what you can do with it is absolutely breathtaking. For a game about cartoon people living with humanoid cartoon animals the fish looking photo realistic. And the museum where they can be kept is stunning. The museum looks like it was designed to capture the feel of being in a museum and matches the design of all the great real life aquariums and observatories. Although it is a bit frustrating when your rod breaks it is easy enough to make one (or worst case buy one) to get your bait back in the water.

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

Tell me I’m wrong, you can’t. Isabelle getting added to Smash brought a very powerful fishing move that isn’t practical all the time but is really funny. Wouldn’t recommend this game if you are looking to relax and fish but I do recommend hooking your friend with a fish hook and send them flying off screen if you had to.

Minecraft

I have a very special role in Minecraft when I join a friends server. A role that I assign to myself. While everyone is off getting awesome swords, spelunking for diamonds, and exploring the infinite landscape, I build a small wooden shack and I set up a farm with an irrigation canal and start fishing. A steady supply of food is necessary and while I’m hanging out with my friends in a server I’m happy to be the one to provide it. The fishing in this game is probably the slowest of all the ones on this list but is the most useful. just throwing the fish in the oven creates food that can help keep you and your companions alive for a long time. I think I definitely have my limits with Minecraft fishing and I couldn’t do it for hours on end it is rewarding to set up shop and find a nice place to settle down for a few hours to fish.

Fire Emblem: Three Houses

This is the only Tactical RPG in this post. Fire Emblem: Three Houses has sections between combat where you can go and talk to your students and do other activities. We aren’t here to discuss other activities though we are here for the fishing. The fishing allows you to catch fish for some reason that I’m sure is good but never intrigued me enough to learn. All I know about the fishing in Fire Emblem: Three Houses is that it’s fun. I started to bust through combat just so that I could get back to fishing. The funniest part about this one is that the fish has a health bar. Pressing the A button at the exact moment finds a way to become easier and still find ways to mess you up. Either way, I’m not that interested in tactical RPGs but I heard there was fishing in this game so I had to play it and it was worth it.

Jak & Daxter: The Precursor Legacy

In Jak & Daxter, Daxter gets turned into a small animal by dark eco while exploring a dangerous island off the shore of his home with his best friend Jak. To get back to the island to investigate, the pair have to borrow a boat owned by a fisherman who is troubled by an invasive species of poisonous eel that is ruining his haul. He asks Jak to catch fish for him without catching any eels. This fishing mini game can only be done once but it is going to either be something you think is very unique or a huge waste of time. All I’ll say is that the sound that the fish makes when it goes into the net is absolutely a reward in itself it is so satisfying. But anyways, more intense than some other options here but get it done so you can get back to absorbing eco powers and jumping on stuff.

Shovel Knight

Shovel Knight is a 2D action platformer but you can also fish. And you fish for the best kind of fish, money. You can get some other stuff too like health pickups and magic replenishers but we know what you want. You see that little glint and you pop out the fishing rod and pull out those money bags. If you are devoted enough you can even get a surprise from the Troupple King (long live his highness) if you fish out the right stuff. I don’t even know if I fished all that much when I played Shovel Knight but it’s hilarious that you can.

NieR: Automata

I did not play a lot of NieR and that’s because I was fishing. I don’t know why all I did was fish but you throw your little robot in the pond and you lean on a magical stool so honestly it was good enough for me.

Club Penguin

If you know then you know. In hind sight there really wasn’t a whole lot to do in Club Penguin but this mini game really messed me up. You basically get to move up and down, catching fish and avoiding trash and other hazards. Basically trying to do this and catch as much fish as possible to avoid having to ask your parents for real money to pay for snacks to feed a virtual ball of fluff with eyeballs. I don’t really remember how challenging it really was but I remember getting decently high scores to about like 100 fish per round so I guess it was pretty easy if I could do that at age 10.

Rune Factory 4

I’m gonna be very honest about this one and say that the fishing in Rune Factory 4 is basically just Animal Crossing fishing but more anime. The fish react to the pole the same, the fish almost look the same, and the buttons to respond are the same. What makes this one special is where you can take it. You can fish in the little moat in town, in the lake, in a dungeon full of monsters, in a lake that is eternally the season fall, anywhere. You are constricted by the boundaries of Stardew Valley and that is how much energy you have and how much time you have in the day. It’s still fun to fish but I wish that they had used their fun fantasy setting to give the ability to fish up some cool made up fish instead of strictly things that exist in real life.

Xenoblade Chronicles 2

Ok, diving, fishing, same thing. Diving in Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is just fishing with your whole body. It works a lot in the same way as Pokemon where you fish up monsters to fight and get the rewards from them. It is a completely optional activity however if you decide to undertake the grind of scavenging in Xenoblade Chronicles 2 then you will never hurt for money ever again. It makes my wonder why Rex stopped being a salvager to do odd jobs because this was PROFITABLE. The main incentive is that there are spots that spawn a certain enemy that drop cores. Cores are like gacha or loot boxes that contain new anime girl partners that deal huge damage in fights. They even have their own side quests and story lines. I spent maybe 30 hours grinding before giving up on this game and while it does become tiresome I really enjoyed the random rewards of possibly getting a new companion or a really cool weapon.

It’s been tossed around that every great RPG has fishing in it. I won’t argue that point but a lot of great RPGs certainly do have fishing in them. Everyone needs a break sometimes and fishing is the perfect activity to remind us to stop and take that break. Even games can get long and without these distractions it might be so much harder to complete these harrowing tasks. Don’t forget to take breaks and just enjoy the sound of the water every once in a while because there’s no rush playing video games.

Honorable Mentions:

Kingdom Hearts: Sora fishing with his bare hands on Destiny Island

Persona 4: Weird aqueduct fishing

Persona 5: Marina fishing life

Sea of Thieves: A pirates life for me

[looniecartooni]

Sonic 06 Theory: What would have happened if Sonic met Mephiles?

Now now- I know Sonic 06 is a terribly flawed game that needed a lot more time put into it and the love plot between Sonic and Elise toned down or ripped from the script entirely. Everyone wants to hate on this game and compare every single Sonic game after negatively to it (hence why Sega may or may not be dumbing down/ rewriting the entire plot!!!). While I acknowledge it is flawed both in gameplay and story elements, I firmly believe if it was given the time it needed, it would have been perhaps one of the greatest Sonic games out there. I am a sucker for the lines and characters as well as many voice acting scenes and I don’t want to hear a negative opinion about it when I analyze. I haven’t gotten one yet, but I’m just putting it out there. Alright now onto the analysis.

In Sonic 06, Mephiles, who is a main antagonist to Shadow and a manipulator to Silver and Blaze, is never seen interacting with Sonic nor is ever mentioned in Sonic’s story (except when Knuckles points him out like “Whoa! Did you see that? That guy looked just like Shadow!” and well... you know). Its fairly odd and perhaps another mistake of the game we don’t see the speedy blue making a joke of how his faker now has a faker or there can only be one faker after spin balling straight for Mephiles’s head. Or perhaps there is a more interesting way this plot hole can be filled.

I’ve analyzed before that Mephiles is hateful towards humanity because it split him and Iblis from their original body of Solaris and sealed the both away (quite flawlessly meaning perhaps its been tested before) and is a reflection of Shadow in many ways (the shadow of Shadow). We know he wanted to kill Sonic so Elise can cry and free Iblis, but he originally didn’t plan to kill Sonic himself. He sent Silver and quite possibly would have sent Shadow to do the dirty deed before Silver found out the truth and Shadow kept refusing. 

The question has rattled in a couple people’s heads-why didn’t Mephiles just kill Sonic sooner and just do it himself? Well, I have 2 possible explanations. One- Sonic and Elise needed to be closer together in order for her to cry and perhaps Silver was a ploy to bring them closer together which given how manipulative Mephiles is probably would be very likely. But I want to entertain explanation two... Sonic would ruin everything (obviously- he always triumphs- but hear me out)... by becoming his friend.

Now after enduring all these paragraphs you may be asking, “What?! Friends?! But Mephiles is evil! Sonic would never-!” and you might be right. Sonic would likely not fall into Mephiles’s manipulation trap and if he knew he was a mastermind behind things, would do anything to stop Mephiles’s plas before its too late. But Sonic is also a very understanding and kind individual. Whenever Shadow (of whom Mephiles reflects) was Sonic’s enemy, usually Sonic ends up being the supportive "voice of reason” to help him realize he’s either wrong or being manipulated by some odd force. 

If Sonic understood why Mephiles was acting the way he did (which granted depends on how open-minded he is to accept his enemy as more than just an enemy by pre-establishing a friendship which I’ll get to) most likely he’d try to come up with a solution to where Elise was able to release Iblis and supposedly get Solaris not to want to destroy time. Now of course, in a situation like this, Mephiles would most likely be manipulating Sonic. But how would Sonic be able to actually convince Mephiles/Solaris not to destroy time and thereby making Mephiles avoid Sonic entirely until the end? By the power of friendship!

Mephiles looks like Shadow and is a target of Eggman’s along with Elise (because together they have the power of Solaris). And Mephiles would know that Eggman and Elise would crash to their deaths causing Iblis to be released in a way that makes Silver’s current timeline. These are the elements that could set up for an unlikely alliance.

Now perhaps a better theorist can pull apart my theory by mentioning that perhaps he wasn’t avoiding Sonic but Elise. Unfortunately, at this time I do not have enough dots connected or evidence to prove your theory true so until I make my own, I’ll leave it to you (just be sure to tag me in it. I’d like to see it and maybe put my own take on it).

The fact Sonic learns nothing about Mephiles except like one split second of him manipulating Blaze and Silver kind of makes me think just how much more easily the story would have come together. There are definatley flaws still (like very religious parents probably not liking how a guy named “Mephiles” was helped by Sonic) but the possibility still remains that Sonic could have changed the whole course of 06′s story by simply understanding what Mephiles was after and perhaps changing his world view. Now- that’s also partially manipulated by the fact that I like that kind of story where a hero sees that their enemy isn’t just simply a monster trying to kill everybody and I just see where Mephiles would get hatred for humanity. We’re supposed to see him kind of as this manipulative entity of pure darkness that wants destruction, But how would you feel if someone who used to honor you ran experiments and split you apart to see his dead wife then got sealed away for 10 years from your other half because of the future of what you’d become? Wait a minute... Mephiles said Shadow got sealed away in the future because people feared what he’d become/ was... Hmmmm...

[frostiifae]

Why do we hate Nintendo?

Today, organizers of the The Big House online tournament announced that they received a cease and desist order from Nintendo. 

What is Slippi?

Project Slippi is, essentially, an add-on to the existing Dolphin emulator for Gamecube games. Its purpose is to bring the features of modern online gaming to Super Smash Brothers Melee, a game which was released very nearly 20 years ago and is no longer in production, but remains a popular competitive game with an active scene. 

Slippi has been a godsend to the Melee community during the pandemic. It offers incredibly high-fidelity gameplay with random matchmaking and tournament support, and the developers have emphasized making the game experience itself as close to local play as possible. It’s been so successful that the Big House - a series of major annual tournaments that have been running for almost a decade - decided to host their 2020 tournament purely online using Slippi. 

Who care about Melee? Why aren’t they just playing Ultimate instead?

If you ask a Melee player, they will go on and on about the improved framerate, responsiveness, and other such technical advantages Melee has over Ultimate. I’m going to talk about something else instead. 

It’s culturally expected nowadays that when a new game in a franchise comes out, you stop playing the old game and play the new game instead. But if you apply this way of thinking to any other form of media it’s completely ridiculous. It’s like saying there’s no reason to watch documentaries from the 80s and 90s, because documentaries about the same subjects have been remade more recently. Media exists as a product of its time. It might contain valuable historical insight that remains precious to us for centuries to come. Or, it might just be better. Maybe the older documentaries are more informative, or maybe they’re more engaging to watch. Games work the same way; people will always have their preferences about which game in a series is their favorite, and choosing to play an older game you prefer - especially if you’ve got a lot of friends to play with you - isn’t at all an entitled thing to do. 

The problem with digital media is that having a movie or game by itself isn’t useful. Me owning a copy of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 is useless if I don’t also have a Sega Genesis to run it on - and that system is useless if I don’t have a working controller to use to interface with the game. Melee has been facing this problem for years now, as copies of Melee itself and Gamecube systems and controllers become more exclusive and more scarce. There aren’t new games or systems coming onto the market to replace what’s being lost - there are only a finite number left, and when the last one breaks, Melee will effectively cease to exist. 

Ok, well, that’s sad and all, but Slippi is an emulator, right? And emulating is illegal!

Emulating is legal... sort of. Emulation has hidden behind a vague phrasing of copyright law that suggests that, when you own a piece of digital media, you have the right to make copies of it for your own personal use - you just can’t distribute those copies. Owning an emulator, or the ROMs needed to play games on that emulator, isn’t strictly illegal... but distributing those things is. 

The idea here is, in theory, you could very thoroughly mod your Gamecube to connect to the Internet and play with modded firmware using Project Slippi. Modding isn’t illegal, so if you have your own GameCube and your own copy of Melee, which you purchased legitimately, then doing this is absolutely legal. And it probably is what people are doing! Definitely, probably. I’m sure it’s not as hard as I make it sound. Don’t worry about it!

Point is; distributing ROMs is what’s illegal, not playing them. The Big House isn’t distributing ROMs, so they’re not doing anything illegal. And Nintendo knows that; they took a different approach. Instead of claiming that using Project Slippi is against the law, they instead simply informed TBH that they don’t have permission to stream or host a tournament using their game. 

Obviously, Nintendo owns the rights to Melee, and that means they have the right to decide who is and isn’t allowed to stream their game and why. The Big House didn’t break the law, but that doesn’t mean they have the legal standing to challenge Nintendo’s order - let alone the financial resources or emotional stamina needed to get into a legal battle with a company of that size.

I don’t see the problem. Nintendo has the right to do this. Isn’t this what everybody does?

No.

Age of Empires 2 came out in September of ‘99, and it has remained a niche but thriving competitive RTS game over 20 years since then. Fans had to keep the game fresh on their own via modding in new map support and even new civilizations. 

In 2012, Microsoft decided that the game’s consistent support from its fans deserved an offering, and they decided to make an HD rerelease. That’s really cool of them! They also contacted the developers of one of the most popular fanmade expansions, Forgotten Empires, and worked it into an official expansion, called The Forgotten! AOE2 has continued to grow and thrive ever since, receiving enough attention to call for TWO MORE EXPANSION PACKS, and of course leading to the Definitive Edition release last year. Embracing fan support of their outdated product has given Microsoft the opportunity to make money off of something that should be long dead, and now it’s bigger and better than ever before. 

If you ask folks within the fighting game community, you’ll find this isn’t an isolated story - for example, Arcsystems notably once incoporated a fanmade mod that improved netplay into an official patch, lending official developer resources to the group to help them get the job done. When your fans care so much about a game you’ve made that they’ll put in the time and the effort to make that game better and more accessible for everyone, a lot of developers are happy to honor and embrace that effort, and in doing so, they stand a lot to benefit - their games get better, and they might even be able to make enough money back on those improvements to keep growing the game even further.

So if other developers aren’t doing this, why is Nintendo doing it? Simple: They don’t like the idea that people are playing old games. They want everyone playing the most recent offerings, no questions asked. To them, “rereleasing” Melee is out of the question; Smash Ultimate is the only “canonical” version of Smash. Don’t play anything else. Don’t try to buy anything else. This is the only game that exists. 

So what? I don’t care at all about Melee. Why does it matter that Nintendo wants people to stop playing a 20-year old game?

The short answer is because it sucks that Nintendo holds the rights to something they don’t care about and aren’t using, and that they’re using those rights to legally bully people who love their games and want to make them better and more accessible to other people. Regardless of how you feel about Melee or its community, it’s a simple fact that the people who are building Project Slippi and running tournaments love the game more than just about anybody else. For Nintendo to order a C&D against a passionate fan project is a bummer - but for them to do so in regards to a game that they’re not making anymore is downright unfair. They would rather protect their ability to maybe make more money on Melee later, than allow the existing scene to thrive in a way that does literally no harm to them.

Nintendo’s well-known and aggressive policy of shutting down fan-made projects and communities of all kinds has only one objective in mind: they want absolute control over everything that they’ve made. From a certain naive point of view, this is fair, right? But if you take this to its logical extreme, then that means Nintendo has the right to prohibit things like fanart or fanfiction, which doesn’t really seem that fair. Where should the line be drawn?

This is just another battle in a war that has been fought over the last 200 years regarding the idea of a “copyright”, and what gives a person the right to decide how other people will consume media they publish. It has never been about the rights of writers, musicians, or game developers - it has always been about publishing rights. Publishers want exclusive control over the things they publish, because holding exclusive control makes it much easier for them to make money from their products. 

We have a legal term for when a single entity has exclusive control over a commodity in high demand - that’s called a monopoly, and it is illegal. Monopolies pose a serious threat to consumers because they can price their goods however they like, extorting their consumerbase or simply making their product inaccessible except to an elite few, which isn’t considered fair. So if that’s the case, why aren’t video game publishers considered monopolies? It turns out some people in the past believed they should be, and publishing companies have been doing all sorts of legal acrobatics for years to avoid it. Free Culture makes for a good read on the subject, if you’ve got time. (Chapters 6 through 9 are particularly relevant to today’s issues with streaming games and music.)

A lot of people don’t seem to understand the damage that Nintendo’s ridiculous monopolizing practices have done to their own gaming community. It’s absurd of them to expect people to continue to pay for new releases of the same games on virtual console, not just once but every time a new generation of “virtual console” is released - and yet they keep doing it, and it’s just one of many ways they continually screw over their customers at a chance for a few more bucks, and somehow most of their audience thanks them for it. 

So what exactly do you want me to do?

Nintendo’s tried to suppress Melee tournaments in the past, but were forced to reverse their decisions following massive public outcry by the competitors and their fans. Regardless of how you feel about Melee in particular, what Nintendo is doing is scummy and actively malicious to the people that love their games, and the fact that they’re doing it again proves that they’re not interested in learning their lesson. Folks on twitter are using the tag #FreeMelee to protest; lending your voice for a tweet or two can only help. 

More generally, though, all we can really do is be critical of Nintendo’s games and actions, and to ask ourselves whether we’re really getting what we’re paying for. Nintendo will continue to take everything you offer them and will never be satisfied; they will do whatever they think they can get away with - and if their fans never challenge them, they’ll assume they can get away with anything, and that’s bad for everybody - but it’s worst of all for the people who ostensibly love and support Nintendo the most.

[frostythefrostedfox]

What we just saw is a classic tacting done so many times before, where the end goal is to shift the blame and put it on the consumer, it defects all the blame and makes us point fingers to the other monkeys in the cell intead of the scientists behind the glass

If I were to ask every single one of my children what do they want for dinner without telling the others that I did, I can make up the results of said questioning to perfectly line up with what i was going to buy before, except that now the kids are morally/emotionally bound to like whatever I give them because in their minds, this is what they chose, this is what they decided they wanted to eat.

I, random big shot corpo, log on twitter and ask people to tell me what they want in the game, for obvious reasons some of the things people says will line up with what we were going to do, and now these tweets are gonna remain as evidence of their demands, so when I push out this shitty *cut content* of an update, they will forcefully like it because this is what they asked for, the ones that do not like it will point at the ones that do and say "this is your fault, you did this", while I, the corpo, did absolutely nothing, the content released was the same as it always was, just a PR stunt.

Is not rare for a big corporation to hate its own products, do y'all have any idea how many times Konami tried to kill SIlent Hill? YES, THAT SILENT HILL, starting from Silent Hill 2 onwards, they wanted to fuck up the franchise and stop making games, Silent Hill 3 was supposed to be a House of the Dead-esque game, an onrails shooter, Downpour and Homecoming devs were subjected to extreme animosity and a lack of understanding in regards to creative changes and storytelling resources/ideas from Konami while developing the games.

And I have no idea if this fits the thing but Imma say it anyways

We are still living down the consequences of 06, 20 years later and SEGA and Sonic Team still can't let go of that one time people said bad things about their game, ever since that game came out they stopped caring about love and passion and instead they doubled down on their already shitty tactics.

Sonic has always been a clout chaser, his games are modeled after whatever is popular at the time of release, hell, 06 is trying so hard to be Final Fantasy, you can see it on the pre-rendered CGI cutscenes engine that they used and in the way the story is structured, but that just doubled down after 06, is it a coincidence that Black Knight appeared at the peak of the wii's popularity while at the same time using the same colour palette and screen filter that Gears of War and every single game of that era was using? Lost world was so desperately trying to be like the last Mario game released on 3ds, Colours is just a kirby game with a sonic skin on top.

And frontiers is just coping with the fact that Nintendo made a popular open world game, and that SEGA found itself a goldmine with Bayonetta, so someone's lightbulb shorted and they thought that was a flash so they combined the two in the most lazy, non comitting way ever made, slapping some extra shit from other games so everyone will be pleased.

Now this, put together with what I said earlier makes for the perfect game, Sonic Frontiers, written by the guy that *they* adore, featuring the mechanics that *they* like and with the gameplay style that *they* love, a very expensive PR stunt that worked to the tee, now you got a bunch of people defending this lackluster exhibition of pure mediocrity because since it got the tiny bit of frosting they asked for, they not only feel validated, they feel forced to like it, and they become an amalgamation that will quickly shut down any sort of negativity coming their way because if they let SEGA hear anyone else, they might lose their little piece of pie that they shouted so much for years to get.

In my country we have a saying that goes "Everyone worships the idol they deserve", and this is no exception, the people that genuinely likes all of this shit behaves exactly like the ones that make it, and if you don't like it, you're not a real fan like me.

What I learned is that if I wanna run a succesful franchise is to never to listen to the people that likes it, and if I do, is so I can do the exact opposite of what they ask.

For years fandoms have criticized big corpos and franchises for being lazy, bad and for shitting out soulless products for nothing but monetary gain and they've always insisted about how THEY wanted to have the reigns because THEY know the material best because they're fans goddamn it!

Well cases such as NFCV, Frontiers, Prime and IDW are clear examples of big corpos giving fans a shot at their franchises and the result is some of the most fanfictiony shit one can imagine.

It's a very smart move by the likes of Netflix, Sega and Konami because at the end of the day who can give the fans what they fans if not other fans?

Unfortunately what most fans want in most cases is not for a series to be true to itself, it's to be pandered to. Hell even the idea of a series that is true to itself is somewhat sketchy as that necessitates some third, omnipotent party to dictate what a series is "truly" about in a decisive, perhaps arbitrary manner

And since many fans are arrogant they don't stop to think that maybe their vision for a series may be flawed and the masses who accept their product do so readily because, more often than not, they share their same views for they themselves are fans

At the end of the day all of this goes to show a very harsh truth: what makes something popular and widely beloved is not its quality, it's how much people like it. And there's a difference

Sorry I had to vent some cynicism :)

.

[emakenz]

look i know my content is mostly memes and hannibal but lately ive really gotten back into fnaf and sonic

but uh thats not what this is about

SONIC. THE HEDGEHOG POSTING HERE. THIS IS A SONIC POST its about shadow but still

so. We all know how segas two writers ruined so many sonic games and characters and theres still a chance for redemption since theres gonna be new writers soon

but shadow t hedgehog. what the HELL. happened to this guy

We had him go through a whole character arch in sa2, he was a changed hog, and his resurrection in heroes wasnt bad that was mostly on point id say. Now his actual game, the game that centered around him. Hear me out. That wasnt shadow. Theres the multiple endings with different outcomes and such and honestly, i find that that makes his character much more confusing for people who havent taken the time to really know the hog in his original form ya kno. So take this shit.

Ever since his own game came out, shadow was not his original form, he was actually a clone. Ya see, heres my timeline for this concept,

Sa2-Heroes has the Real Shadow, who goes on into Sonic 06

Literally Every. Other. Game. He is a clone. One of the androids. While it really wouldnt make too much sense, his character change in later games doesnt either, so in the next releases of new games, if he were to go back to how he was in sa2, heroes, and 06, we could just chalk it all up to him taking back his place from that clone. The actual sonic timeline is wack as fuck so trying to piece together this all in depth would take forever. The canon for the sonic series varies from different angles which makes it so much more confusing. I really wish i could just. Hop on into sega hq and take over for writing the characters for now on fr

Tails isnt a pussy nor a stuck up brat, sonic isnt as much of a jerk and not everything revolves around him, knuckles isnt stupid and hes also still guarding the master emerald with some exceptions, amy isnt sally so stop making her take her place and give her an original character personality, silver should be in his own timeline like back in the future where everythings good with some exceptions, blaze should be in her original dimension with some exceptions, we need to see more of side characters instead of everything centering on sonic, big the cat needs a comeback, i already stated my thoughts on shadow being edgy and vegeta for sonic now which is just rude on the writers part for changing him into that. Seriously how about we take infinite and give him a good comeback to take Grumpy Shadows place and have shadow go back to how hes supposed to be. So sonic can not only have his own vegeta, but a vegeta thats too weak to defeat him, so itd be a win win for sega. Also give infinite a better character arch its cringe dude so cringe.

And figure out what damn planet the series takes place in. I prefer earth since, you know, eggman is a human (i think he is for all i know hes just some bipedal egg). Mobius can still exist but flesh it out more, give it more depth like the sdw comics.

I could go on but i think my point stands. This series needs some work and i would willingly join in on fixing it up for free just so i can finally feel at peace.

also who the FUCK drew this art?

This art is normal, its fucking awesome, but my question remains only because i have NEVER seen that pose for Shadow. Homie has NEVER done that where did that come from. Literally all the other art has existed for years but for some reason you made a new shadow picture? Im not complaining im just confused. This art hasnt been shown before i dont think. Ive studied this character and his design i know his official art poses and this aint one of them. I dont think yuji uekawa made this one. The rouge and omega, they look the same, those have existed, seen them before. But the shadow...

Idk man its just baffling i wanna know who made it and why they added it to this when most if not all of the other pics are kinda old. Im not upset im just confused tho i do rlly like it

[bltngames]

Review: Hotshot Racing

(For this review, Hotshot Racing was played on the Nintendo Switch and the Personal Computer)

If you were to ask me what the most important features of a racing game are, somewhere near the top of the list would be artificial intelligence. Racing games are one of those genres, like fighting games or shooters, where simulating how real human people play the game is vital to the experience. They are inherently multiplayer concepts, even if you’re playing by yourself.

Focus on multiplayer artificial intelligence has waned over the last 15 years. With the rise of the premium multiplayer subscription, it’s more important than ever before to drive players to play matches with flesh-and-blood human beings online. Thus, advancements in “bot” (simulated human player) development hasn’t just slowed down, but in some cases actively regressed. Epic Games, once home to some of the smartest, most robust first person shooter bots in Unreal Tournament, now features bots in their popular Fortnite Battle Royale that fumble around the map with low attention spans and aim like they're blindfolded.

Humans are hard to simulate. The basic functions of a player are easy to emulate -- navigation, aiming, and so on, but it’s the organic logic underneath that proves to be the primary challenge. Humans have lapses in judgement. Humans make mistakes. Mistakes compound on other mistakes. A person wins or loses a given game because of a constantly cascading sequence of decisions, all feeding in to and out of themselves. Whether they realize it or not, every individual person is their own infinite web of chaos. For a computer, which operates in a binary of either perfect success or total failure, no amount of processing power can make for an accurate duplication.

As such, artificial intelligence has to “cheat.” Flaws are introduced into the simulation in order to throw the player a bone. Intelligence almost doesn’t even enter the equation; instead, it’s more about developing a bot that the player simply believes is human, like some kind of a magic trick. It’s a tight balancing act -- if the bot is too good, it looks like an unfeeling terminator. On the opposite, well… compare my Fortnite example up above. There’s a sweet spot that must be hit: smart, but not too smart. Dumb, but not too dumb. It’s easier said than done.

Racing games are a special category here. On top of simulating a human, they must also simulate an automobile, with all of its physical interactions. Tire friction, suspension bounce, weight distribution, and horsepower efficiency just to start. I’d argue that this lends to a much greater tendency for natural mistakes to occur, as the two different simulations (vehicle and player) interact and bounce off of each other. This has led to racing games relying on a handicap known as “rubberbanding.” Essentially, if the player is doing a little too well, the game will start giving tiny advantages to the computer-controlled racer. A boost to top speed, a reduction in weight to improve handling, whatever it takes to ensure the player does not remain unchallenged for very long.

Which finally, at long last, brings us to Hotshot Racing. Developed by Lucky Mountain Games, with assistance by Sumo Digital, it attempts to capitalize on the growing faux-retro-3D trend. It promises visuals to remind you of Sega’s Virtua Racing or Namco’s Ridge Racer, but with decidedly modern vehicle physics and a bit more content than any of those old games could muster.

It honestly makes for a weird first impression. This is a retro-looking game that does not feel like any retro racing game I’ve ever played. Some would undoubtedly argue that’s for the better; like with most sports games, there’s this sense that more simulation is always better. Even modern “arcade” racers like Need for Speed or Wreckfest run pretty robust physics simulations under their hoods, even if they do not necessarily adhere to the rules of reality. But I’ve honestly never seen a problem with this -- I will readily go back to something like Daytona USA or even Stunt Race FX on the Super Nintendo, and never feel especially bothered by their primitive simulations. To me, racing is often more about the sense of speed, how well the controls respond, and the track design than any notion of feeling “realistic.”

That’s not to say it’s really a negative that cars in Hotshot Racing have some vague facsimile of modern weight and “realism” applied to their driving physics, I guess. It’s just something that takes a little bit of getting used to, because seeing these cars drift and sway like the racing games of today is a little anachronistic to the era being called back to. If you still burn a candle for the eventual release of the long-lost Kickstarter darling “90’s Arcade Racer,” know that this isn’t that game. I think it’s fair to say it’s trying to scratch a similar itch, but it’s doing so in a very different way.

One of the more important things Hotshot Racing brings to the table is a roster of personalities to race as and against. When you think of characters in a racing game, your mind probably more naturally gravitates towards something like Mario Kart or some other similarly kid-friendly cartoon racing franchise. For most "serious" racing games, your opponents are unknowable, faceless competitors, but Hotshot gives them voices and identities. Every character in the game has a garage of four cars unique to them, in addition to having their own story to tell. It’s nothing especially deep; most plot manifests in a single cutscene played at the end of a given grand prix, sort of like what you'd get for finishing arcade mode in a game like Street Fighter 2. It’s just a snippet, a taste of what motivated these people and what they’re going to do after winning, but it’s enough.

It goes back to what I said earlier, and how it’s important for the player to believe the artificial intelligence is more than just a computer. Making the racers into characters, with identifiable personalities, faces, and dialog goes a long way to fleshing things out and makes you connect with what’s going on just a little bit better. Or at least, that’s how things would work in theory.

The problem is… well, none of that matters. Put simply, the actual artificial intelligence you race against kind of sucks. In fact, it’s hard to even call them competitors, because your opponents seem to be running a different race where you straight up don’t exist. During any given event, your rival computer drivers seem to be totally blind to your presence, as they will spend the entire race trying to drive straight through you. I don’t know how else to explain it. This isn’t a simple case where the computer drivers are a little aggressive, because they usually aren’t racing to be destructive. They never seem to specifically go out of their way to attack, they just don’t seem to be able to see where you are, and make no effort to react to your presence. You happen to be in their way, so they plow through from behind, ram from the side, and generally just knock you around as if you were invisible.

A side effect to this is something I’ve started noticing in games that bear the Sumo Digital name: computer drivers can hit you way harder than you can hit them back. Whether rubbing against a rival car or engaging in a full-on collision, computer drivers always seem to be able to overpower player vehicles no matter what. In Hotshot Racing, I’ve encountered multiple scenarios where a computer driver shoves me around with little effort, but any attempts to return the favor and my car may as well be made out of styrofoam for how little impact there is. I know Sumo Digital only assisted Lucky Mountain Games on the back half of developing Hotshot Racing, but this has been a consistent element I’ve noticed in Sumo’s Sonic Racing games, too. The computer can be as aggressive (or as blind) as they want, but human players are never allowed to retaliate in a way that feels meaningful.

The worst, by far, is what I mentioned earlier: rubberbanding. “First place” in Hotshot Racing is an often endless war of attrition, where no matter how fast you drive, there are always cars nipping at your heels. Hotshot Racing has a boost system, wherein by drifting or drafting you charge up a segmented meter. Once a segment is full, you can burn it for a burst of speed. I’ve spent 2, 3, even 4 consecutive boosts in a row and the same three opponents were still right behind me, aiming to blindly smash my car out of the way. Hard, medium, or easy mode, it doesn’t matter. They are always there, just a few feet from your rear bumper, magically closing the distance to constantly steal your lead.

From a game design perspective, I understand why rubberbanding exists. It’s to keep the player feeling challenged and engaged. Spending too long in first place going unopposed can start to feel boring. Some game designers view that as a turn off. Races are meant to be battles. At the same time, being able to totally shut out my opponents and gain huge leads makes me feel good. Hotshot Racing robs you of that sense of total domination because of some artificial rule of competitiveness. It’s not that the computer-controlled racers are better than you; they don’t seem to race with any sort of great care or skill. Instead, they catch up and pass you strictly because the Hand of God bends the rules to accommodate them. That doesn’t feel very challenging and it certainly doesn’t feel fair.

That being said, the pseudo-realistic physics mentioned earlier do have their own downside: I found it a little too easy to lose control of my vehicle and spin out. If you brush against a wall wrong or get bumped by a rival during a drift, you often find yourself in a tailspin and unable to recover. Combined with the blind artificial intelligence and the rubberbanding, you have a recipe for getting frustrated. I want to feel confident in my losses, not because I couldn’t predict what Mr. Magoo was going to do next. To add insult to injury, the rubberbanding only gets more prominent as you move up in difficulty, so expect to get spun out more and more as you progress through the game.

There also isn’t a lot to do with your vehicles, either. For many, tuning is an important aspect of racing games, going all the way back to 1989’s “Super Off Road” in the arcades. No upgrade path is available for any of the vehicles in Hotshot Racing, with a basic unlock system geared towards limited cosmetic tweaks. There's tons of tracks to race on, and you constantly earn currency for winning races, but I never cared about spending any of it, because there wasn't much worth buying. Arguably the specific mid-90′s era that Hotshot Racing is aiming at wasn’t really heavy on upgrading or modifying around vehicle stats, but neither were they focused on visual customization either, so it does feel a little arbitrary what they chose to modernize about this experience and what is intended to be a retro tribute.

Beyond standard racing, Hotshot does offer a few alternative modes, but none of them are spotlight features. “Barrel Barrage” has you earning an explosive barrel to drop behind you at every checkpoint until the track becomes a minefield. “Drive or Explode” takes the concept of 1994’s “Speed” and straps a bomb to your car that will explode if you slow down for too long. Finally, “Cops & Robbers” is a confusing push-and-pull where you must steal money as a robber and alternatively wreck other racers as a police officer. Of the three modes, “Drive or Explode” is the clear winner, as it most easily fits into the standard three-lap structure the game centers around. “Barrel Barrage” is merely okay, and benefits more from an increased number of laps, as things slowly get more and more dangerous as you progress. These modes would also benefit if I didn’t get thrown back to the menu after every race; they really needed some kind of Grand-Prix-style playlist.

“Cops & Robbers” deserves its own entire paragraph for what a weird idea it is. It’s less about stealing and arresting and has more in common with the “zombie” modes seen in other games, where everyone gets converted to a specific team until there are no more players left. The idea is that you start with a pot of money that slowly depletes, and you have to race to the next checkpoint to cash out. The faster you get there and the higher amounts you cash out with, the more the cops specifically will target you. Once they wreck your car, you become one of the cops, and it’s your job to wreck the remaining robbers until they all become part of the cop team. Once all the robbers become cops, winners are tallied based on who stole the most money. On paper, this works, because it plays into the game’s slap-happy nature, but in practice I would find myself miles ahead of my fellow robbers and once I finally switched over to a cop, I had to slam on my brakes and wait for everyone else to catch up. By then, the computer-controlled cops had usually done most of my work for me and I lost for... being a better robber than a cop, somehow? It left a lot to be desired.

All of these modes can be played online, where presumably human players would make them more balanced and fun, but finding random pick-up games proved difficult in the time I spent with Hotshot Racing. Now, to be fair, I didn’t try especially hard -- racing games have always been a single player experience for me, as should be obvious by my spiel on artificial intelligence. But I did spend a couple nights trying to match into an online “Quick Race” on the Switch, where I universally came up empty handed. On the PC version of Hotshot Racing (which I received as part of a Humble Bundle), the application completely froze upon trying to start a “Quick Race” lobby, forcing me to ALT+F4 to close the game. For what it’s worth, the Switch version does also include a “local multiplayer” option for playing wirelessly with friends in the same room, and all versions support traditional split-screen.

Despite all of these shortcomings, I just can’t bring myself to hate Hotshot Racing, and it’s hard to pinpoint why. I’m definitely in love with this aesthetic -- the retro visuals, the upbeat music, the blue, blue skies (that I see), it all appeals to a certain part of my brain that likes razor-sharp, ultra-clean polygons. The introduction of named racers with backstories and character-specific “endings” is a really smart, fun idea. I just wish it was more fun to actually, like… run a race in this game. I understand the necessity behind concepts like rubberbanding, but it feels like the artificial intelligence cheats just a little too much, and as a player I don’t feel like I can do a lot to fight back. Running a good race isn’t always good enough.

Some games deliberately incite a feeling of disempowerment in their players, and that can be a totally valid design decision. But should that really be the goal of this kind of racing game? I guess I don’t have an answer for that, but I do know that I probably won’t be going back to Hotshot Racing very often.

[tkdrawz]

SONIC THE REDESIGN: A QUICK OVERVIEW

I drew this to celebrate the release of the movie. However, this picture was taken seconds before disaster. I butchered this and I'm too ashamed to post it. I was supposed to post this on Valentine's Day, but...nerp. This is why I want to try digital art...😒 oh well. (If any of you guys wanna color this, be my guest!)

Anyways, let's just take a second to look back at the progress it took to get the film that went from the laughing stock, butt of the joke, ugly duckling, whipping boy disaster to the record breaking, expectation subverting, underestimated, successful box office hit, contributing to lifting the curse of bad video game movie adaptations.

It all started from the very first poster...

It was trending the same day for all the wrong reasons. You would think that Paramount would have listened the first time right? Haha. WRONG!

Paramount was reluctant and thought that we were going to like it when we see his reveal. I tried to keep my cool and not overeact. I didn't want to assume the worst. But then... the trailer arrived, debuting the Gangster's Paradise gremlin in May of 2019. *shudders*

I'm just going to post one picture because I don't want to ruin your TL. Your welcome.

To be honest, I wasn't too mad at the trailer. In fact, I stood by this Sonic. But at the same time I was truly embarassed to be a Sonic fan. My boy was getting flamed from left to right. He was SCARY. He was UGLY. He was TRENDING. He was trending all day and all night. But I didn't care. I still defended it. Not because I was just "blindly supporting it" to quote someone who tried that shit. But because the Sonic franchise has entertained me for years as both a video game and tv show and, good or bad, I felt like I had to stand by him. Hell, I still like Sonic Boom! (But that's another post for another day.) While I had to be strong, I couldn't help but feel extremely bad for every single person involved in the film. However, the anger from the Sonic fans was justified. It was coming from a place of passion. We just wanted to see Sonic succeed for once. We were fed up with excuses and settling for mediocrity. We didn't want Sonic to look like a real-ish anthropomorphic hedgehog. We wanted Sonic to look like Sonic. Period! His design was essential for this movie! It makes him one the most recongnizable characters in gaming. And Paramount dropped the ball on that. They knew better.

Even Sega themselves had to step in BOTH TIMES and let Paramount know what's up. I'm sure the artists and creative directors who worked on the movie tried to warn the corporate big heads at Paramount that people were going HATE that design but was either ignored or didn't speak up in fear of losing their jobs. And, yes, some studios are that petty.

And, thanks to the strong and passionate response from the fans, Paramount reacted and delayed the film to make the necessary changes required to redesign and render Sonic. In fact, props to all the artists involved for working hard and redesigning Sonic! They deserve everything good in life! Because it goes beyond the film. There's marketing, toys, merchandise, and tons of promotions that were probably scrapped with the old design on it. LOL can you imagine?!

After months of waiting and speculating and putting up with random Youtubers reanimating the Sonic trailer themselves and posting what they thought was better than the trailer, a miracle happened. Something beautiful graced the internet and our TV screens. On November of 2019, the original month the movie was supposed to air, we were introduced to the new and improved Sonic. The Sonic we deserved. The Sonic that should have been here since day one. It was official:

He

was

BABY!

I mean look at him! We got the company to listen to us! Yeah, it took worldwide humiliation, but they sure did capitalize on it! The fandom rejoiced! We were proud! I for one felt especially relieved and somewhat entitled since I never turned my back on the movie altogether due to the original design. (Shoutout to everyone else who held it down since day one. Y'all are the real MVP's!)

It was such a long and tedious journey for most of us Sonic fans, but to see the movie at it's full glory and getting the recongnition and praises it deserved was truly worth it.

[technogadgetblog]

Most Conventional Retro Gaming Console With Built-in Games

3A Games is the creator of Pandora’s Box which was recently released. Their initial release was JAMMA compatible arcade boards which can you bring updates to old arcade machines. This was the major highlight during the old days as the machine could go from 1 to 60 + games within a matter of time. 2,3,4,4S,4S+,5 and 6 are some of the well known Pandora box models.

Marketing strategy is also an aspect that not all companies can stick to. The support of 15hz CRT CGA screens was the major highlight to boost the cells for official 3A games Pandora’s box 4. Till the PB5, everything was going smooth. The manufacturers were demanding retro TV game console, PB5 and 5s versions that supported CRT. Within a few days of release, it has been confirmed that the two versions were cloned and have the old specifications derived from PB4 and chipset.

With the introduction of widescreen, the aspect ratio remained as it should be. The display proportions are the key differences with CRT. Yet, this was not a stable version and people still experienced stretching of images in their widescreen monitors and TV’s.

The major update to date came in the form of a 3D system that is used in our Pandora Box 11 plus Arcade Console. We have kept it simple for you, you can now enjoy playing by sticking to the classic arcade machines but with a whole new experience with modern 3D gaming. Our version is fully compatible with projectors and all HD TV/Monitor screens. With full high definition, you can also enjoy 1280x720 resolution through VGA or HDMI.

When compared to previous generation 480P Pandora Box versions, the experience so received is 80% more in the horizontal format and 50% greater in the vertical one. We have completely dedicated to avail you of a high-quality audio and video experience. The art of the technology that delivers a breathtaking experience is our retro game console with built in games.

We have also focused on the built quality, you can enjoy the gaming experience with your partner. You can also customise your gaming experience by defining the operational buttons to your interest. You are getting access to one key turbo function and the feature to save your progress.

We provide you with the complete list of games that will be installed in our system. With our system updates, you can either bring in your favourite game or hide the one that you don’t like. Our warranty takes care of your gaming experience, now what you have to do to is to plug in and play.

Some Of The Other Gaming Consoles In The List: -

Today's gaming world is all about continuous and quality updates, with a massive environment, impressive storylines, and most important is the amazing crystal clear HD graphics. The introduction of a retro game console with inbuilt games have made it easy e and enhanced the game playing experience.

No matter the level of hype a game has created, no matter how trendy it is, the ultimate truth is that which time people will start to lose interest. Playing a game over, again and again, will disapprove of the taste. Playing back retro arcade is a breath of fresh air that most gamers will approve. Is true that playing overtime loses interest in a game but those who have experienced the evolution of gaming will love the way they have come across.

The appearance of modern versions of the consoles is a popular update to the gaming world. The initiation of retro gaming was then a highlight. As technology is improving, the improvisation in experience has also increased. Previously the game machine used to be bulky, but now the introduction of high-end graphics, audio, simpler schematics, and smaller boards have made it easy to take full fledge. The devices that have built-in games require no additional hardware. Below we have mentioned some of the well-known retro game console with built in games.

Atari Flashback 8: -

There is a saying that goes like this, never judge a book by its cover. In the same way, the Atari gaming console surprised modern-day gamers. The console is basic looking yet has engaging 8-bit games. The Atari flashback is named because it has carried the tradition of older versions and gave it a proper blend of graphics and features. It will not be wrong if we call it a stick to the traditional approach.

PlayStation Classic: -

The Sony PlayStation has brought a revolution in 3D gaming. The 2D graphics emerged as an outstanding success. It also comes with preloaded games that were based on the preferences that players opt for. Sony always comes of with excellent titles and marketing skills. Resident Evil Director’s Cut, Twisted Metal, Final Fantasy VII, Tekken 3, and metal solid gear are some of the most popular played games on the PlayStation classic. The fun and user experience remains the same even if this version of retro TV game console is 45% more compact than its predecessor.

NES Classic: -

The trend in the gaming world was brought by the smaller and compact sizes. The Nintendo Entertainment System also did the same thing. They evolved their console size into a smaller one while keeping the look and feel of the older version. If the size factor will be excluded, it is difficult to distinguish the difference between both generations. Gamers love the consoles that have preloaded games in them. NES classic comes with 30 build-in games.

Some of the famous games it has are final fantasy, donkey Kong, super Mario, are to name a few. The gaming console is perfectly built to provide a seamless experience with high-quality audio. Unlike the three-port AV connectors, it has an HDMI port and AC adapter.

Sega Genesis Classic: -

The Sega Genesis is the console that completes the list of retro TV game console. Golden Axe, Mortal Kombat, Streets of Rage, Sonic the Hedgehog, Shining Force, are some of the most admired games that the company have given birth to. Not only these games, but the console comes with a complete overwhelmed package of 81 preloaded games. The console is almost the same size as the controllers, yet the gaming experience it gives is way beyond imagination.

Every one of them offers the gaming experience that solitary retro gamers would come to appreciate. However, something other than a flashback to age, these gaming consoles are likewise great for presenting the new age with exemplary games that are made ready for current gaming. Whether you call it a Sega, Nintendo, or an Atari, all give their best to provide you with the best gaming experience. The retro game console with built in games gives a brief look at a culture that makes players.