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NegaMetallix

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Posts posted by NegaMetallix


  1. 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).


  2. 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.


  3. 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.

    Well there goes my hopes and dreams... the tv show BETTER be GOOD quality CGI and none of that usual crap.

    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.

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  4. 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.


  5. Ooooh so in a sense, it's like Generations on the graphics department, but... 06 on the gameplay?

    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.

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  6. I mean to be honest, in ANY Sonic games case, (except 06 but that can burn in hell with all the mosquitoes) I never really thought that the controls were bad, but that I as a player just didn't know what move to use and WHEN to use it. Then again aren't test plays there to give the game developers more time to fix some late problems they didn't know existed?

    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.

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  7. 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.


  8. 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.

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  9. Seems that Sonic Forces will have a "Bonus Edition" with a controller skin (can someone explain to me how does that work?) and exclusive content for the Avatar Hero, which will include:

    • A Jet Set Radio costume
    • A Persona 5 costume
    • Puyo-puyo hat
    • Super Monkey Ball outfit
    • NiGHTS outfit

    For me that "Bonus Edition" sounds like "Day One/Pre-order edition"

    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:

    SonicForces_banner_shadow.png&key=43ea56

    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!)

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  10. 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.


  11. 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...

    e83.png


  12. 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.


  13. The latest comics showing up on the Archie Comics Android app are SU#94 and StH#290. I've looked it up, and there are newer issues, so where are they?

    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.


  14. 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.


  15. Ok, so Penders was one of the main writers of StH, did he co-write with Ian Flynn, or did they make it strictly Ian or his wife after 160? (Not that my above statement would come true, but curiosity has me now.)

    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').


  16. If all of that is true, then lets hope Penhead doesn't mess everything up, since he was the artist right? I don't think he wrote any of the story before the Genesis wave?

    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).


  17. 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)...


  18. I am not really a "fan" of the series per-say, but I did play the old games when I was young and always wandered what the background of these characters were. Well here I am years later having just found out about SatAM and thought "This would have been an even better universe to play the game in, there could have been more depth to it really." I thought the characters were pretty neat to have even existed, Bunny, Sally, Rotor, and even Snively were neat characters. It makes me wonder why some other, seemingly random, characters made the cut of the games and future shows, when they weren't nearly as developed as these current characters. So I thought it surely didn't stop at SatAM and I found myself here.

    I peeked around the old comics and came up to 160, which was appealing simply because it's art style felt more consistent and clean, so I skipped a little bit more all the way to 168. I thought that was a good place to start, I read back when they would allude to something that happened previously and I could actually keep up with it fairly well. My favorite thing though is learning about each character to a personal level, from their relation ships to the way they act toward their peers at home.

    The battles seemed to have 'more' reason and rhyme to it, and my favorite is when Dr. Eggman LOSES his s**t from having lost so many battles. I love that one, simply because he always just returns, and to see him finally fall back into the umbral parts of his actual insanity was hilarious, I just kept thinking to myself "Damn" and Einstein's definition of insanity. I didn't really like the chain where "Naugus?" was voted as king, it seemed so awkward, its like if Adolf Eatler (something tells me this site wouldn't like the mention of his actual name) just walked into Israel's governing facility and offered them better protection then the USA (Terrible example, but you get the point, I hope.)

    The ending though, broke something that had potential, it took this cool and interesting world, and literally, as in physically, threw away the comic IN the middle of a battle that was about to be resolved... Just for that, I just can't like the comics anymore, I will reread the old ones and skim through the new one's, but the new comics feel like Sonic Boom, too simplified. Now I have NO idea what the back stories of these characters are anymore. I only liked the fact that some part of their brain still has those gone memories, makes me wish they would seek to reverse what Egghead did, so I can return to the conclusion of the previous battle. This just makes it more awkward, because now I feel like the characters are consistently still in that battle in someway, especially since it just broke the entire planet. Now that it's sealed though, I hope they seek the return of their unknown past, but something tells me that the characters just don't give a f**k about their OTHER life.

    I don't know, this has been my experience so far, what do you think?

    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.)


  19. About whether the world is Mobius or earth, when the Xorda attacked Mobius way back then, it was confirmed that Mobius was earth, but the reboot might of changed that.

    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.


  20. Okay, stupid question, as I haven't read them yet.

    Are the Sonic Mega Drive comics part of the main comic continuity, or completely separate?

    And are there just the two issues (The first one and Next Level) or will more be coming?

    @Skye Prower As far as they've shown, I think the Mega Drive series is separate from the rest of the comic, since neither the Freedom Fighters nor any other comic-exclusive character shows up or is even mentioned. As I see, they tried to approach more to the classic videogames.

    Just to clarify, Ian Flynn was asked about this when the first issue released. His answer was this:

    Basically, it happened in the main comic universe, but is a far more seperate story from Sonic's other adventures with the Freedom Fighters. I see it more as an excuse incase he ever wants to show the zones from Mega Drive in the main comic, but I'm not bothered either way.

    Now comes my stupid question: after the reboot, what is Sonic's world? Is still called Mobius or is it now Earth?

    For the comics world? I believe it's still Mobius, they just can't actually call it that out loud.


  21. I have a question on if anyone knows exactly what the lawsuit was that made them do their initial story change. I really liked the story that was going on of the Freedom Fighters being split up, Knuckles having to save his people, and Metal Sonic being remade into this overpowerful being that ripped shard to pieces, and I understand they gotta just pretend it never happen but.....they kinda didn't do that with the whole grabbing Nicole and having their memories regained, and now although its following the game contents, the story just feels really childish now. Like it has the seriousness of the overall issue but the way everything's done is too light-hearted for me so I just haven't been keeping up like I used to.

    I believe it went something like this:

    Around 2010, Archie and/or Ken Penders sued one-another over the ownership of Ken's characters (and possibly other writers' characters, too). This went on for a few years, but didn't actually affect the comic proper until around 2013. It seemed like Ken was getting an advantage in the case, so SEGA and/or Archie took precautions and had any character not owned/made by SEGA or the current writer (Ian Flynn) be suddenly removed from the comic, even if they're only mentioned. And this was BEFORE the official reboot.

    The most notable story arcs to get affected were STH's 'Endangered Species' and Sonic Universe's 'Chaotix Quest'. Mostly the former, which had to be completely rewritten from part 2 onwards, while the latter got away with simply replacing some characters with others. (Plus, Universe #50 was originally planned to be an ending to Sonic Underground, but it was scrapped and replaced with the 'Metal Sonic v Shard' story.) At that point, it was assumed that Ken had essentially 'won' the case (or at least, he got ownership of his characters for himself) which meant that Ken's characters couldn't be used in the comic without Archie and/or SEGA paying him a certain amount of money.

    So they instead went with Option B: reboot the continuity to be more in-line with SEGA's current direction for the Sonic series. Luckily, SEGA and Capcom had agreed to allow the Sonic and Mega Man comics to have a crossover sometime earlier, so 'Worlds Collide' was used as the 'final' storyline in the old Archie Sonic continuity (as well as technically being the first in the new universe, too) and any character owned by the writers before Ian were wiped out for good as a result of those events.

    Thus, the new Sonic continuity began. Buuut... early on, Ian and the then-current editor (Paul Kaminski) couldn't decide on whether Sonic and the Freedom Fighters should fully remember the old world's events (without mentioning certain character names and appearances) or have a completely fresh start (i.e. what we got, but without the 'memory-flash' subplot). They decided to make a compromise and have the characters reference the memories for a short time, but forget about them soon after.

    Anyway, that's the basic gist of it. Sorry if it seems stupidly long, but there's no quick way to summarise it all.

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  22. Thing is, no matter who's in charge of writing the comics, SEGA and Archie would still be using the comic to advertise and promote the game series first and foremost.

    That's what these comics are meant to be: an exciting and entertaining advertisement for the Sonic games, but an advertisement nonetheless. It's the same with other comics, like IDW's Transformers series and more.

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