NegaMetallix

Figured I'd make some new topics for the upcoming Sonic games revealed recently, starting with a brand new Classic Sonic experience: Sonic Mania is a new classic-based game, notably developed by Christian 'Taxman' Whitehead (who also worked on the re-releases for Sonic 1, 2 & CD). The game will feature levels both old (including Green Hill Zone and more from the original Sonic trilogy) and new, such as the featured Studiopolis Zone. There are a couple new abilities for Sonic, like the Drop Dash. Not only that, but both Tails AND Knuckles are gonna be playable too! It's currently estimated to have a longer overall gameplay length than Generations had, and is scheduled to release sometime in the Spring Summer of 2017 on PS4, Xbox One and PC. There's no word of a Wii-U or NX version yet, however. Never mind, it will also be coming to the Nintendo Switch at the same time. This certainly looks to be an incredibly fun adventure, and I'm definitely gonna be getting it around the time it's released. But what are your thoughts?

Welp, looks like the film's officially getting delayed: ...Neat, I guess? As I said before, changing Sonic's design isn't enough to get me interested in this thing. But hey, this news is bound to please some others.

Unless they announce a delay for the film's release and/or they start overworking the animators HARD (the latter of which is a terrible thought), I don't see the design changing much from what we've already seen. Either way, changing Sonic's look alone isn't gonna convince me to see this. I found the trailer to be unremarkable at best, with Carrey being the only standout thing (even though he's really just playing a typical Jim Carrey role, not the Eggman I know and love to hate).

Alright, here's the other brand new game revealed at Sonic's 25th Anniversary Party. There's no official name yet, so for now it's being referred to as 'Project 2017' (Now known as Sonic Forces): There's really not much at all revealed in the trailer (and rightfully so, since it's over a year away). All we know so far is that: - Giant, seemingly-mass-produced Death Egg Robots are destroying a city. - Sonic isn't happy, and is ready to challenge whoever's responsible (most likely Eggman). - Yes, Classic Sonic is returning to aid his present-self for this new fight. - Something about a Resistance...? That tagline's gotta mean something, right? - It's scheduled to release in the Holiday season of 2017. - No, this ISN'T Generations 2! Takeshi Iizuka deconfirmed this before the trailer was even shown. (With the recent gameplay reveal, though... it totally is!) I don't really have much to say about this game currently, since there's so little information on it right now. But what about your thoughts?

The difference in human design from Adventure to 06 to Unleashed is simply a change in art design, nothing more. Any game with humans around are set in the human world, while any without them (besides Eggman) are set on Sonic's world. ...Sorry, I meant to say 'Modern' Sonic's world, since he and Classic Sonic are now separate entities from alternate dimensions.

From the looks of it, the animation studio that are set to create this series are the same ones behind Sonic Boom (among other things). So I'd imagine that the Sly series will have a similar level of animation quality to those shows.

Insomniac aren't working on a Sly Cooper game. No-one is. Last I checked, there's been no word on a new Sly game since Thieves in Time. And since Rainmaker Studios (the guys that animated the Ratchet and Clank film) ditched the Sly movie project last year, effectively killing the movie before it was even made, there'd be no point in making any form of tie-in. Sorry to burst the bubble, but a Sly movie (and any video game connected to it) ain't happening. There's the proposed TV show, and that's it.

Last I heard, that's being restructured into a TV series. But there's been little-to-no word about it since, so it's hard to say if it'll ever become a thing at all.

Eh, more like a mesh between Unleashed and Lost World graphically, but gameplay's a little harder to explain. Simply put, Modern is like Colours but with wonkier momentum, Classic is like Generations but without a stupidly powerful Spin Dash, and the Avatar is similar to Modern but with even less control. I will say that the characters' unnatural controls can make 'em feel, in some ways, broken. Not quite in the same way as 06 was, but it's certainly noticeable. However, unlike 06, nothing felt quite as... precise as that game. It's more like the extreme opposite, I guess, since the characters feel far more floaty and imprecise than they realistically should.

I can tell you now, this was definitely not just a case of not knowing what to do or how/when to use a move. The controls were legitimately awkward, since you seem to gain an unnatural amount of speed both on the ground and in the air. So when you think you're gonna land on a platform, you often either go too far in one direction (and fall), you don't go far enough (and fall), or you do land on the platform only to find yourself slipping off the other end (and fall). The momentum in this game is completely out of whack. I say this as someone who liked how Sonic controlled in Generations (and Unleashed, though to a lesser extent). In Forces, he and the Avatar just flat-out aren't fun to control, primarily because you don't truly feel like you're in control of their movements. I don't want these criticisms to be seen as me needlessly hating on Sonic Team or the game, but I am genuinely disappointed in what I played. To answer you're last question; these demos should provide a general idea of how the final game will play, then the developers work on bug-fixes and gameplay tweaks. The earlier the demo, the more they can fix, theoretically. Yet the first playable demo for Sonic Forces was E3 this year (only a few months before release) and no real improvements have been seen since. Not at Gamescom, not at PAX, not at EGX, and not even at the Tokyo Game Show that just finished! There's only 43 days until this game is due to release, so any feedback they receive isn't gonna mean much now. The most that the developers can do by the time the demo comes out is work on some basic bug-fixes and slight gameplay tweaks. Even if that 'fixes' the control of the characters, that doesn't change the levels and their design. If they're bland at launch, they'll still be bland afterwards.

It's weird. You'd think that Sonic Team would look at Generations (or even Unleashed) to replicate Modern Sonic's gameplay. But instead, they went back to Colours' approach, and somehow made it feel worse than that. Classic's gameplay is basically what I expected, since unfortunately the current development team don't seem to understand how the classic games' physics worked. Not completely terrible, but unimpressive nonetheless. (Heck, if the team behind Mania had worked on Classic Sonic's gameplay and levels, then I imagine it could've been one of the more impressive parts of Forces.) It really is a pity, and I can only hope that Sonic Team learn from this. I'm not really confident that they will, but one can hope at least.

So, I got a chance to play the game at EGX this year, and I can honestly say that this game feels like a major step in the wrong direction. To summarise... Modern: Modern Sonic feels incredibly awkward to control. For some reason, his speed jumps from 0-60 faster than you can react, which leads to incredibly janky turns and jumps that you should be able to do just fine, but can't because of the weird momentum (or lack thereof). This impacts the platforming pretty badly, despite the incredibly basic (and honestly boring) level design. Classic: Classic Sonic feels pretty much exactly like Generations, with only one real difference; he can't hold the X/Square button to perform a Spin Dash like Generations, but can now perform the Drop Dash by holding the Jump button mid-air, like in Sonic Mania. Not much else to say, though, since the only 'level' he gets is a boss fight. Avatar: The Avatar felt like the worst character of the bunch to control. Like Modern Sonic, their jumps are also finicky, but you don't even get a double jump to somewhat help with platforming (unless you choose to be a bird). The grapple feels like a delayed Homing Attack, which makes it feel like it should take out multiple enemies at once, but can't (unless you choose to be a bear). The Wispons, while cool in theory, are very boring in execution, since they all just mow down enemies without any need to think ahead. The Wisp powers that they allow range from interesting at best (Burst) to outright lazy at worst (Lightning). The platforming is much worse than Modern Sonic's, and the constant feeling of "I should've made that jump!!" after falling between two platforms for the eighth time gets incredibly frustrating. Also, on a side note, giving each Avatar species a 'unique' skill bothers me, since a lot of these skills (such as the aforementioned double-jump and powered-up Homing Attack) would be very useful to have together. But no, they're all separate, which leaves me choosing a species not because I want to be that species, but because a want that species' ability, even if I hate the look of them. Tag-Team: Basically, it's got the same problems as Modern Sonic and the Avatar, but combined. It really just feels like a glorified Avatar level, with short segments where you're 'required' to boost as Modern Sonic. The only thing that surprised me was that, if you 'fail' the Double Boost QTE, then the game won't play the vocal version of Fist Bump, but the instrumental version instead. As someone who likes the instrumental, but can't stand the lyrics, I'm fine with 'failing' these segments more often! Overall: I wanted to stay at least optimistic for this game until I had a chance to play it myself. And after doing so, I'm afraid I just can't. Above all else, this game feels like a major step back from Generations in terms of gameplay. It feels incredibly unfinished, uninteresting, and ultimately unsatisfying. And this is due to come out in just over a month! (No matter what anyone says, that's not enough time to work these things out. This is pretty much how the game will be when it releases.) I'm still interested in how the story will play out, but that's it at this point.

It's more like a typical Special Edition, like Sonic Lost World's "Deadly Six Edition". However, there is some Day One DLC (for EU and Australia, at least) for those who pre-order the Bonus Edition: Oh boy! Now we can play as SHADOW...'s dissected body over the Avatar! (...Have I mentioned that I'm not excited for this game? No? Well, I'm saying it now!)

Ladies and Gents, we finally have confirmation on the comic's status: Unfortunately, the era of Archie Sonic is officially over.

Heh, I was wondering if ASO was gonna find its way here. Welcome! (I've been a user over on their forums for a while, but haven't really posted much.) Really liking what's been done so far, and I'm very curious to see how this alternate take on Endangered Species turns out.

Just came in to point out that Archie DID officially reply to people asking about the Sonic comics a few days ago: (Apologies for the large amount of Twitter embeds, I wanted to make sure I found every recent reply) Short story is, they're still discussing things with SEGA, so it's not cancelled just yet. Basically, the answer right now is...

Skye's got a point. It would take a heck of a lot of organisation, planning, and dedication just to get a project like that off the ground. It could take months (possibly over a year) just to come up with, and release, a "first issue". I mean, if you're certain that you'd have the dedication to see it through to the bitter end, then... go for it, I guess. At least Archie seem to be giving out some kind of info by the end of the month, so that's good.

Short version: Nobody knows. Long version: Subscriptions for the Sonic titles pretty much disappeared from Archie not long after SU#94's release, which caused people to start worrying about the comic. New solicits still appeared that month (January, I believe) but were mysteriously absent the following month. Unfortunately, Archie haven't spoken about Sonic AT ALL since the subscription removals. Couple that with constant delays to the next releases (STH#291, SU#95 and Mega Drive: Overdrive) and the situation seems dire. Best-case scenario is that this is due to renewing the license for Sonic with SEGA. Worse-case scenario is that Archie haven't renewed it, meaning the end of Archie Sonic.

Firstly, there's no way on Earth that Ken would've agreed for any of his characters to be owned by anyone but him. Secondly, SEGA wouldn't likely do that anyway, since they don't really care about the comic and its characters. Plus, it would contradict with how many of the official Sonic charaters are portrayed in the games.

Nope, he's never co-written with Ian. I don't know the exact details as to why Ken left after Issue 159 (though it might have been to do with SEGA keeping a closer eye on the book, as well as a change of editor and staff at the time, but Ian Flynn was selected as the writer from #160 onwards, and has been writing for them ever since. There's been some variation on writers more recently, however. As I said, Aleah Baker has also been writing a fair few recent stories (I think the Universe arc 'Spark of Life' was one of her first major ones) and a couple of the artists (Tracey Yardley and Evan Stanley) have also written some Universe arcs (Tracey wrote 'Babylon Rising' and 'Pirate Plunder Panic', while Evan wrote 'The Silver Age').

If you mean Penders, then no, he wasn't an artist on the book. (Though I think he might have drawn some issues?) He was the main writer for a majority of the issues before #160, along with a few others. Every issue in the main series from #160 onwards was written by Ian Flynn (or his wife, Aleah Baker, in more recent issues).

Snively's in the new world, though he's now named Dr. Julian Snively, since his old name in the comics (Colin 'Snively' Kintobor) was created by Ken or another former writer. He's currently working for GUN, but there's not much else we know right now aside from "he's still evil". Thankfully the entire SatAM cast is technically under SEGA's ownership, so they're still usable (though some, like Snively, have had to change their names/designs for one reason or another). As for Ken coming to an agreement with Archie... er, no. That's completely out of the question at this point. Not only do Archie & SEGA likely want nothing to do with the man at this point, but Ken has made some very... ludicrous statements over the past few years. For example, he insisted that the world of Mobius: 25 Years Later was THE canonical future of the Sonic series, with no exceptions, and also insisted that he owns the comic version of Dr. Eggman since he was originally Robo-Robotnik before later becoming Eggman (and organic). Even with that history, Eggman is still a SEGA character, so he has no real standing on that assumption, especially since the current Eggman in the comics (post-reboot) is completely, 100% NOT connected to Robo-Robotnik (even though Ken still occasionally insists he is). Ever since Ken 'won' the case (technically nobody won, it was just kinda settled) he's been working on his own project called 'The Lara-Su Chronicles', using most of the characters he created from the Sonic comic, but now completely disconnected from the franchise. He's been working on it for just over 3 years now and has produced... next-to-nothing for it. Instead, he spends most of his time on Twitter either saying that he's still working on it, or just arguing with others. If you want more info, there a Ken Penders topic on this forum and others (I don't know exactly how much information there is on our one, but it should be enough). Just be warned though, there aren't a lot of nice things to say about Ken Penders and his project(s)...

I'm guessing you're not familiar with the reasons as to WHY the comic's world was rebooted and things were left unresolved? Just to let you know, the reboot happened because of legal disputes over the rights to use certain characters from the comics. One of the writers of the series (Ken Penders) wanted full ownership of the characters he created for the comic (which was are fairly large amount), and Archie Comics didn't agree, so there was a long drawn-out court case over the copyrights, with even SEGA themselves getting dragged into the mix. In the end, Ken presumably got the rights to his characters back (or the equivalent of), leaving Archie and the current writer (Ian Flynn) in a pickle. They couldn't use any of Ken's characters in the comic anymore without paying him (which would likely have cost a lot of money which Archie didn't have) and quite a few of them were important to then-current story arcs (notably the echidnas in issues 243-246). This caused for a DRASTIC rewrite of some story arcs in both the main book and Sonic Universe, and needing to find a way to avoid further complications. SEGA were also becoming more strict towards Archie, about how Sonic and the comic's world should be portrayed closer to the games. Soon enough, Archie and the comic's editor at the time (Paul Kaminski) came up with a solution: use the then-upcoming Sonic & Mega Man crossover (Worlds Collide, which was due to happen anyway) as a catalyst for the reboot, chucking out all characters not created/owned by SEGA or Ian Flynn in the process to try and avoid any further lawsuits. Also, while Sonic and Co. did recall faint memories of the old world at first, that won't be explored any further as they've officially forgotten those memories now. This was because the writer and then-editor couldn't decide on how to tackle the reboot at first (Ian wanted a full-reboot without any past references, Paul wanted them to remember fully but without naming unusable characters). Unfortunately, if you're looking for any form of official continuation to the old world, you're pretty much straight out of luck. The closest thing was something Ian was working on called 'Lost Hedgehog Tales', but that had to be shelved due to legal reasons. Some fans are working on an unofficial continuation, similar to what the British 'Sonic the Comic' has, but it hasn't actually started yet. (If you already knew all of this, then I apologise for the large wall of text. If not, well... now you know.)

Considering that the Xorda don't exist in the reboot, that detail isn't really canon anymore. The real answer to the world's name basically boils down to "whatever SEGA wants to call it". Problem is, they just can't seem to decide on a proper name themselves.