Tag Archives: Sonic Team

Sonic the Hedgehog: Take 2

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Remember back when we explored Sonic 2006 and I suggested that game was an attempt to provide a “big-budget movie” type of Sonic experience? It’s hard not to see Sonic Forces as Sonic Team having another crack at that.

All the major components of “big-budget movie adaptation of popular series” are here: recognisable but somewhat different setting; established characters in unconventional situations; brand-new, original characters designed for newcomers in the audience to attach themselves to; and significantly higher stakes than seen elsewhere in the series as a whole.

If you’re a “once and done” kind of player, you can also probably add “done and dusted in two hours” to that list, too, but rest assured, if you’re the sort of person who likes collectibles, secret levels and objectives, there’s significantly more than that here. Let’s take a closer look.

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Sonic the Hedgehog: A New Twist

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Sonic Generations rather ably demonstrated how the Sonic series’ gameplay had evolved over the years… but where could it go from there?

Certain members of Sonic Team were already contemplating this by the time Sonic Colours had completed development and work on Generations was underway. The concept grew from experimental attempts to make use of the Nintendo 3DS’ unique features, and the subsequent announcement of the Wii U console and the interesting possibilities it offered prompted Sega to focus the new game’s development on Nintendo platforms.

The result was Sonic Lost World; an unusual, highly creative and vastly underappreciated installment in the series, and one that would prove to be an ideal fit for Nintendo platforms. (As always, today we’ll be focusing on the home console version for Wii U rather than Dimps’ handheld incarnation.)

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Sonic the Hedgehog: Old Meets New

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In 2011, Sonic turned 20. 1991 was a big year for the blue blur: he had his first ever public appearance in Sega’s arcade title Rad Mobile, then later in the year thrilled console gamers on both 8- and 16-bit Sega platforms with his first full adventures.

Naturally, such a significant anniversary needed to be celebrated — particularly since poor old Sonic had put up with plenty of resistance from press, public and even his own fans over the years. But how to go about it in a way that would please as many people as possible — or at least attempt to?

By acknowledging both his past and present, of course. Enter Sonic Generations.

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Sonic the Hedgehog: Erinaceidae of Colour

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After 2008’s entertaining but divisive Sonic Unleashed, it would be another two years before we’d see the next mainline Sonic the Hedgehog game.

There were two versions of Sonic Colours developed, both of which remembered to put the “U” in for the European version: a Wii-exclusive version that combined 2D and 3D gameplay in the way we’d come to know from “modern Sonic“, and a side-scrolling Nintendo DS version developed by Dimps that was closer in execution to the original Mega Drive games.

Today we’ll be focusing on the Wii version, though anyone who has played a Dimps-developed Sonic game will know the DS version will also be well worth your time. I’ll leave that for you to explore yourself for now, however… we’ve got one hell of a vacation to go on!

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Sonic the Hedgehog: Dare to be Different

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With how positively Sonic Adventure had been received on its original release — and many subsequent Sonic releases being compared unfavourably to it — it’s surprising that Sonic Team didn’t return to the concept sooner.

Return they did, however, with an ambitious multiplatform title that was originally intended to be the third official Sonic Adventure game. Initially developed under the working title of Sonic World Adventure — a title it would keep in Japan — Sonic Unleashed was intended to shake up the series in a few fundamental ways.

These days, in retrospect, Sonic Unleashed is seen as one of the earliest examples of what some people describe as “Boost Sonic“, but it’s an interesting game in its own right. Let’s take a closer look.

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Sonic the Hedgehog: The Storybook Adventures

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The Nintendo Wii was a peculiar system, as those who have spent any time in its company will attest. And I don’t mean that in a bad way.

Rather, I’m referring to the fact that out of all the consoles in that particular generation of hardware, you were most likely to find completely unique games for Nintendo’s hardware rather than straight ports. Sometimes this happened due to a desire to make use of the Wii’s unusual control scheme; sometimes it happened as a side effect of the system’s lack of power compared to its Sony and Microsoft peers. It always resulted in games that are fascinating — not always the best, but definitely always fascinating.

And the Sonic the Hedgehog series was no exception to this rule.

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Waifu Wednesday: Blaze the Cat

As we approach the end of our official Sonic month (although coverage of the games will continue as there are still several more I’d like to write about!) it’s time we took a look at a less frequently seen member of the Sonic ensemble cast.

In stark contrast to the series’ previous feline companion, the huge, lolloping idiot that is Big the Cat (voiced by Jon St. John, the voice of Duke Nukem, fact fans), Blaze is more in line with what you’d expect from a cat character. She’s lithe, agile, smart and deadly — the kind of badass you’d want on your side when things are going south.

Let’s see where she came from, and where you might track her down if you want to spend some time in her company.

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Sonic the Hedgehog: The Dark Age

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Declaring anything the “best thing ever” or the “worst thing ever” is a dangerous game, for a variety of reasons.

Tastes change over time. Preferences vary between individuals. One man’s trash is another man’s treasure and all that. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned since starting MoeGamer — well, quite a bit before that, to be honest — it’s that something getting critically panned doesn’t necessarily mean it’s not worth checking out.

It was with this in mind that I was greatly looking forward to investigating the much-maligned 2006 reboot of Sonic the Hedgehog for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 — a game that Wikipedia used to claim (without citation) to be “among the worst games not only in the Sonic series but also in the video game medium.” That sounds like a challenge to me.

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Sonic the Hedgehog: The Age of Adventure

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Sonic’s earliest forays into 3D are, today, popularly regarded as where things started going “wrong” for the blue blur.

But this is one of those viewpoints that has become so ingrained in popular gaming culture that many people simply take it for granted without actually checking the games out for themselves to determine whether those claims have any veracity to them.

That, as you know, is not what we’re all about here on MoeGamer, so let us make that jump into the third dimension and see exactly what’s up.

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Sonic the Hedgehog: The Lost Game

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After the success of the Sonic games on the Mega Drive, what was next?

Sega had a difficult time ahead of it, since there was a certain amount of confusion over what the real successor to the 16-bit console would be. On the one hand, there was the American-developed, cartridge-based 32X, which would act as an add-on for the Mega Drive rather than a standalone unit. And on the other, there was the CD-based Saturn system, developed by Sega of Japan.

Clearly, in order to be a success, at least one of these new systems needed a Sonic game. But that turned out to be a rather more difficult undertaking than anyone anticipated. Continue reading Sonic the Hedgehog: The Lost Game