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Hi everyone! Things have been a little bit crazy this past week or so, as we all wind down for Christmas, but I've been meaning to start making proper use of the new Blogs system to lay down my thoughts as 'head honcho' of the 'Stadium. I used to do this quite a lot back in the day, and I kinda miss it.
Sonic Dream Team is out now, and I re-subbed to Apple Arcade to give it a quick stab this morning. @nuckles87has been streaming some of the game ( @GX -The Spindash- has too, right here) and posting videos of gameplay on our YouTube channel, and he may be handling the review as he's clearly a good ways ahead of me on the Story! But I gave the first few Acts of Scrambled Shores a fiddle on my phone (using touch controls) and on my Mac (using an Xbox controller) and while the levels are short and sweet I'm quite impressed so far!
Really enjoying the colourful worlds, the thoughtful 3D level design and the different objectives in each Act. Turning circle is a little erratic on a controller (why can SEGA never get this right? Sonic Adventure's controls were perfect) but otherwise Sonic feels good to play. I'm looking forward to playing more inbetween site restoration work! It's annoying that I may not be the one to review it in the end as it'll probably end up being the best Sonic game this year (and that's saying a lot because a BIZZARELY large number of Sonic games have been released in 2023).
Christmas is coming up so as the news starts winding down, the site work will continue quietly from me (we might still get one or two more weeks of excitement though as there's The Game Awards coming up - I don't think whatever SEGA is teasing there has anything to do with Sonic, but the Sonic brand team might want to use the event to reveal something around the show as it'd be a good time to announce a thing while everyone's attention is centered online). There's a lot of opportunity to restore older content (particularly news) to this platform to make this new unified site a proper archive of information.
I might find some time this week to add some details to the Sonic Dream Team Wiki page too - the Wiki is open to editing for all Sonic Stadium members, and it's really not scary at all to add stuff. It uses the same editing tools as the forums - I invite you to give it a shot!
Anyway, back to work. Speak soon! And...
I'VE PLAYED ENOUGH SONIC GAMES, I DON'T ENTIRELY TRUST YOU YET, SHEEP.
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Latest Entry
[COMIC ISSUE REVIEW] Sonic the Hedgehog IDW: Issue 1
Title: Sonic the Hedgehog
Issue: #1
Writer: Ian Flynn
Artist: Tracy Yardley
Series: IDW
So after the Archie Sonic the Hedgehog comics were cancelled in 2017, it was unknown at that point on whether or not Sonic the Hedgehog will ever come back into the comics. Well, it turns out that in 2018, SEGA announced that they will be partnering up with IDW Comics to make a brand-new Sonic the Hedgehog comic book series! And what better way to celebrate this special occasion than to have the old writers who wrote for the Archie Comics make a comeback into the series?
I will admit that at first, I was a bit worried about this series because I grew up with the Archie Comics and I always enjoyed reading the Archie Comics, even if they had a couple of bad story lines here and there. So, when I finally picked up the first issue of the IDW comics, I actually found myself enjoying this issue! But, before I get into my thoughts about this issue, here's a brief summary of this issue.
The series takes place after the events of "Sonic Forces" (you know, that recent Sonic game that turned out to be not so good)? Anyway, this issue basically showcases Sonic going around trying to help out the townspeople deal with the aftermath of the war in "Sonic Forces" and in this issue, we are introduced to Sonic's best friend, Tails the Fox (or Miles "Tails" Prower for all of you hardcore Sonic the Hedgehog fans) and together, they managed to take down the robots invading the town, while trying to solve the mystery about why Eggman's robots are going berserk, when Dr. Eggman himself is missing.
So, I will admit that when I heard that this series was going to take place after the events of "Sonic Forces," I was a bit surprised by this because I assumed that once this comic book series was rebooted, they were going to make an original story for the comics that's not too heavily tied to the games. Also, at this point, "Sonic Forces" had developed a pretty bad reputation with the Sonic the Hedgehog fanbase and I thought that SEGA wasn't going to touch that game for a while. But, after reading this issue, it made me glad that they actually wrote a story that took place after "Sonic Forces" and actually improved on a few issues that "Sonic Forces" didn't tackle properly.
One of the biggest issues that I had with "Sonic Forces" was that it felt like there was no urgency to the situation about Dr. Eggman finally taking over the world. That's an event that never happened in the previous Sonic the Hedgehog games. So, you would think that the characters would be more upset at that turn of events. But here in the comics, Ian Flynn actually did a fantastic job at showing the audience about what the war did to the townspeople and how everyone is trying to deal with damage control from the war. We see the townspeople still fighting off Dr. Eggman's robots, even after the war is over and it clearly shows that just because the war is over, doesn't mean that everything will go back to normal at the drop of a hat. It was also nice seeing Sonic do his thing and try to help out the townspeople fight off the robots, because that's what he does. He's a hero who likes helping out people in their time of need, while still having a snarky attitude towards his enemies.
Now, let's talk about the characters themselves or more specifically, Sonic and Tails. It was great seeing Sonic and Tails fight together again since for years in the games, we barely get to see Tails fighting alongside Sonic since the games went for the whole "Sonic is the only playable character" direction. Anyway, I always loved Sonic and Tails' friendship in the franchise and it was nice seeing them just chatting with each other again. I also loved the fact that Ian Flynn made an attempt to address the issue of Tails' behavior in "Sonic Forces."
So, you are probably asking "What? What happened with Tails in Sonic Forces?" Well, I'll tell you!
So, in "Sonic Forces," when Sonic was captured by Dr. Eggman and was imprisoned for months, this causes Tails to suffer a meltdown and he ended up going off by himself after Sonic's disappearance. The biggest issue here is when Chaos comes towards Tails and Tails just cowers in front of Chaos. The problem with this scene is that if you had played "Sonic Adventure," you'll know that Tails actually fought against Chaos before. So, seeing Tails cower all of a sudden against Chaos just riled up the fandom really badly.
So, in order to fix this, Ian Flynn had Tails kind of address how he was worried about Sonic when he got captured and he's worried that he will lose himself again if something happened to Sonic. But, the best part about this scene is that Sonic has this worried expression on his face and then, he immediately goes and comforts Tails and tells him that everything will be alright, just like a big brother would do for their little brother.
Then afterwards, Sonic asks Tails if he would like to go with him and Tails notices that the village is still in danger and he decided to stay behind to help them. This really shows how much Tails has grown as a character (once again) and this small scene actually fixed the major problem that happened to Tails in "Sonic Forces." Tracy Yardley's artwork is as usual fantastic to look at. I loved how he has the characters show a lot of expressions that range from happiness to sadness and it really makes this issue worth reading!
Now, if there was a problem that I had with this issue is that the world wasn't quite as well developed as I would have liked. You see, for years SEGA had been pretty undecided on naming Sonic's world or even explaining to the viewers about how things work in Sonic's world and I think that it seeped into the comics as well (although, that had a lot to do with SEGA's mandates, which we will go into more much later on. Oh, we so will go into it)... Also, if you are not a fan of the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise or you haven't played "Sonic Forces," then chances are you will be a bit confused about why this war even started in the first place and how did Dr. Eggman even managed to nearly take over the world in "Sonic Forces?"
Even though I wished that the world was developed a bit more, so that new readers will understand Sonic's world a bit better, I found this issue to be a really fun read and I loved the way that it managed to fix a lot of controversial moments that happened in "Sonic Forces." So far, it's a really great start to the reboot of the Sonic the Hedgehog comics and I definitely can't wait to tackle the next issue soon!
Taken from my book blog RABBIT EARS BOOK BLOG
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Latest Entry
Test Blog
So, I guess this is a new feature that was added.
I'm not really sure if I'm gonna use it much but hey, it's nice to have, I suppose. I never really ran a blog before so this is gonna be interesting.
If I keep using it, I'll probably just post whatever is on my mind, be it opinion pieces on stuff or general random thoughts that I feel like are blog worthy.
So yeah....uh.....bye for now I guess
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Hogfather looks at what's up with the games' timelines.
There has been a long debate for now as to an order or a structured canon for the sonic games. Which come in order? Which are correct? And which should be discarded? Hopefully I can answer some of those questions. But I shall also aim to leave it open for others to take further in the future for future releases. Here I have looked at all the big sonic games and discovered that a single line canon is not the answer. The Sonic games are too complex and too different from each other to categorise into one single list that is an order of the events like human history.
For now let us forget ALL handheld games, these are your game gear, DS and GBAs for now. (Mainly because I haven’t played them all so I cant accurately place them on it. But anyone else has feel free to make your own article later...
The games I've chosen for my continuity/reality timeline thing are ones that I'm both very familiar with and ones which seem to greatly follow onto one another.
I hope this will work on a 1 dimensional piece of media, try to use your imaginations here (it'll help if you think about films like Back to the Future and Terminator).
Think right now about the life you live. In your own world the timeline of which you lead will appear to you as this…
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One straight line with no way to change it.
However we all make decisions which affect the course of our lives, Imagine for a moment that at one quarter through that line you are faced with a decision such as… do I take the bus? Or do I walk to town? Whichever you chose you will experience one set of events no matter how uneventful. However what if you chose the other option? You will experiences a different set of events. And once you reach your destination because of the choice your future actions are affected e.g. how tired you are, body temperature, any contacts you made and if because of the time differences of the two the weather changed. All affect what you do… two separate roads.
Now consider this further. Imagine that the events you choose remain constant forever; there is no possibility to change. But the world around you is different such as the technological level of human society; the government was of a different calibre etc.
When you apply this theory of an alternative reality or timeline to Sonic games you begin to notice that there are at least three different timelines and realities. Each one has their unique characteristics that remain constant. Whilst all appear similar they are very different, however the history and events in each are near identical. However because of the nature of our own reality and Sonic games being released one after another they appear to belong to 1 timeline, however as I shall explain whilst they all follow a linier journey they are not all apart of the same reality.
Picture 3 lines for now as follows…
Now in each of these timelines imagine a Sonic game arrives followed by its sequel. That would look like this…
(All these time lines are running at the same time so when a Sonic game arrives in one timeline it also appears in the other timeline)
For now the games I’ve chosen to focus on shall be registered as follows…
S1 = Sonic 1
S2 = Sonic 2
S3 = Sonic 3.
SCD = Sonic CD
S3D = Sonic 3D Flickies Island
CH = Chaotix
SD = Shadow the hedgehog(the rest shall be the universal abbreviations of titles)
Now if I place them onto the three timelines in the categories I’ve identified they appear in the following timelines/realities…
Now I shall explain what each reality means…
Lets look at reality 1. In that reality I put in all the games where any signs of humanity are virtually nil. In that reality one could argue successfully that it's set on a place called Mobius. In this reality we also had the first generation of Sonic fans, those who had a good old Sega Megadrive up until the 32X came and went.
In reality 2 I put in there the adventure series as well as Shadow and Sonic riders. Sonic adventure1/2 the reason was simple whilst in Sonic adventure there are references to the previous games including sonic CD due to the locations being so dramatically different and all of a sudden humans are everywhere and it looks like it's on a totally different planet than before... and also my mum said. What! How did they advance that quickly!? And she doesn’t come onto the net and sonic sites like I do... so she's not privy to any information except that given in the games.
Anyway... Whilst Sonic adventure seems to continue from Sonic and Knuckles (sine sonic and knuckles can be related back to sonic 3 and sonic 3 back to sonic 2 etc...) in that it references past events. But because of how in both design of the characters and the new locations as well as the human population can it possibly be set on the same world that we experienced during the 16bit-32X era?
Lets now look at the real world shall we? Most people who had a megadrive stuck with a megadrive, and likewise those with a SNES stuck with a SNES. due to the price of consoles it was rare for 1 child to have both. But these consoles had a long life when you look at the length a console tends to have before the upgrade appears... however the age of those original fans was now different...
From Sonic 1-S3D/CH it's around 5-6 years (looking at the console life not time between games) that means than in that time children born when the first Sonic game came out would then be around 5/6 years old and thus we have a new gaming generation influenced by different pop tastes and culture looking at new designs and being influenced by new art forms.
So we people who are now in our late teens and early 20s could be said to be apart of the reality 1, primarily. Because we experienced the first games and we made our own rules from the in game media as well as television and the comics.
But this new generation that came is now wondering which console they should by... be it a Saturn? Playstation? N64? And we too are looking to move on but we have prior knowledge when it comes to Sonics storyline.
The next Sonic game to arrive that was a big game would have been Sonic R. Now I haven’t included it onto my timelines (mainly because I’ve not played it well enough) But I imagine that it would probably fit on either reality 1 or reality 3 (I'll explain reality 3 in a moment).
Now because the saturn was a dead time for Sonic, only a select few could play Sonic Fighters at Sega world and Sonic Jam wasn’t going to appeal to the younger end of gamers simply because it had "bad graphix!" when compared to the urm... 3D?... games of the time.
So now from those newborns that were born during the time of Sonic 1 it's been nearly.... 9 years from Sonic 1 till Sonic adventure. So the second generation is now approximately 9/10 years old... and the first generation is now... Approximately 14-16 years old... Whilst the first generation who is still interested in Sonic Sega knows that the money is found not in the first generation... but in the second... and the third generation (those kids aged around 4-6)...
this is where reality 2 comes in. In this reality we get Sonic adventure. Sonic adventure is a great game for someone who hasn’t played Sonic before. It explains almost every character as well as offering a basic back story that the second generation and third generation can grasp and fill in the blanks... However for the first generation who is aware of past Sonic games this game is somewhat confusing. There are trace elements of the original story there, but the main storyline of Sonic adventure contradicts what they know. (e.g. some levels being set in wrong locations, the inclusion of humans, huge city landscapes, Earth references.)
Now whilst before we have always thought, there are multiple universes e.g. fleetway, archie, SatAM, Sega sonic.
We have rarely considered alternative realities.
Consider this for a moment...
Take the game resident evil. nearly the entire storyline including the spinoffs work perfectly as one single storyline. Even with Resident Evil 0 it works all the way up until resident evil 4. And whilst some may argue there’s a spinoff or two, there is one definitive chain of events, a linier chronology that doesn’t detract from previous events.
However Final Fantasy is a series that takes place not only on separate planets but possibly in separate time periods to another. e.g. FF9 could be set before ff7 but at the same time as FF8. And some including myself have argued that FFX/X-2 are set both before FF7, but are on the same planet as FF7. (But that’s for another topic)
Here in Sonic we have a series which is in it's way chronological to Resident Evil but is easier to explain if you take aspects from final fantasy.
For instance. Say that in reality 1, we experienced those events as gamers, but in reality 2 there was a Sonic 1, Sonic 2, Sonic 3 etc. And in Reality 3 there was also a Sonic 1,2,3 etc. But they were not exactly the same.
But we as the gamer because of segas desire to appeal and evolve the series for the younger gamer and appeal to their tastes it cannot keep the same events or design as it once had. Especially since it began on systems were in game detail was limited. Therefore as a gamer we act almost as a time machine/Tardis (for dr who fans) traversing through the realities with each new game or into the future of the same timeline... (Still with me? good. if not... go watch the Christopher eccleson season of doctor who, mainly the episodes set on satellite 5).
If you’re still confused have a look at this image…
Now if you’ll recall the image from earlier you’ll notice that now I’ve added a red line to join up the different games. Now it becomes clearer. Imagine for now that the red line represents each game that we get. In other words the red life represents our life playing the games. We unlike Sonic can travel to different realities and see the experiences in these alternative realities.
I’ll try to explain this better.
So we began in reality 1 and then after a long run we then hopped in the Tardis and went to reality 2. Whilst it seemed the same it wasn’t, there were differences, but we as people were smart enough to say yeah it's different but we can see that there was a continuation of a story, although in places it doesn’t quite match, yet if we had spent the entire time in reality 2 it would have made sense (this is the second generation, they don’t know of the first reality but were given nearly the same info as us to get a similar backstory)
So what about reality 3 then?
Well reality 3 is a bit of an odd one, The games I placed there in my opinion do not fit in reality 1 or reality 2. but in another reality entirely. Whilst they contain elements in the design of the near early like environment of reality 2, they also contain huge barren/natural field like elements of reality 1. But what’s important about Reality 3 is that it appears to be on par with a human society in decline and going through either an extinction or apocalypse, this is shown though the lack of humans/society and destroyed cities.
In reality 3 I feel that very soon this shall become the start of the third/fourth generations experience of Sonic. Sonic Next so far has from what we have seen gone back to it's original roots, we've seen natural landscapes with no sign of a human civilisation like we've seen in the adventure series and shadow and riders.... But... Sonics design is very much like the adventure style, furthermore the level designs are similar to that of those games listed in reality 2 and we've seen elements of reality 2 in there also. e.g. the egg carrier and the ring boxes.
Sonic 2006. From the new trailer released and new images of the game (it hasn’t been released yet) we have seen both elements of reality 1 and reality 2. However from the city levels we’ve seen the city is in decay. The city resembles that of a nuclear war. We saw in shadow the city get destroyed by the Black Aliens, however so far in this game we have seen no trace of living humans other than Robotnik/Eggman and the princess. Due to the screens we’ve seen of the city depicting robots on the streets launching rockets and firing guns as well as burning fires it falls in reality 3, the recovering apocalypse. This can also be seen in recently acquired footage showing Sonic and Silver running through a city that’s totally destroyed and is still burning. However it does show a human population in a small village area indicating that the world is recovering from an apocalypse.
Sonic Rivals. So far all we’ve seen are purely natural levels. Therefore it has to fall in reality 1. However it’s order cannot be decided yet due to the lack of information. But the game will come after SA2 but has the potential of being there before shadow.
Sonic Wild Fire. It’s hard to say right now. There are elements of a Arabian civilisation but it’s too early to say. Therefore this shall have to be kept for another time.
The Shadow problem. With the inclusion of Shadow the Hedgehog (the game) came a problem. In this game there are over 300 paths which lead to 10 endings however only 1 path and 1 ending can be correct. As of yet there is no clear path which is correct, until Sonic 2006 comes out here is no way to know for sure and maybe there will never be a way to know for sure. However we have to assume that in the final story, all the events prior either do not matter or all are correct. But in the final story all the events are real and will carry on. This means that all dialogue in the final story and the planets condition shall be carried on. This means that we see Black Doom destroy what’s left of the city which represents human civilisation in Sonic games.
Now here we have something interesting. At the start of shadow during its opening movie we see a city and an environment very similar to that found in the adventure series. However from the moment the Black Aliens invade it becomes an apocalyptic setting. Does this mean that Shadow is a game which fits in between realities, that it’s apart of a fourth reality? Or even a new one? We cannot tell yet. The answer to that lies within Sonic 2006. However I included it in Reality 2 because it has elements of the adventure series and shows a human civilisation at the second before it began to decline and be turned into an apocalypse.
Whilst the order should be the order in which Sega released the games (there should be 1 or two exceptions i.e. heroes and one of the advance games) with the different realities you should get a clearer idea as to what the Sonic canon should look like.
I thank you for reading.
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I thought Sonic Origins Plus was going to be a total dud, but boy was I wrong! Amy Rose is a fantastic addition to the classic roster, and her hammer rush move is just super cool. Knuckles is also in Sonic CD - where have you been all this time, buddy? Sort yourself out.
The Game Gear games are some of the greatest Sonic games known to mankind, and if you disagree I'll eat your face.
10/10
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By Rabbitearsblog in Reviewing Everything Sonic the Hedgehog!6 comments
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Blog Comments
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By Maple Syrup · Posted
Stop staring at me like that! I just realized that the Nintendo switch joy cons can connect to Apple TV! I will play this I promise! -
By ShadowXeldron · Posted
Wait, so you're saying that this new Sonic game which is exclusive to hardware that I don't like and locked behind a subscription is actually really good? The universe must be out to get me. -
By ShadowForever · Posted
Man, I also have a very strange feeling that Ariem is villain! All game long! I know she's not tho. (Great character anyway :) -
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By Ming Ming Hatsune · Posted
To me, the only bad games I've played are: Sonic '06 (But that's because of the glitches, bugs and loading times) Sonic and the Secret Rings (couldn't finish) Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric (couldn't finish) I was itching to add Shadow the Hedgehog and Lost World to this list but they escape it. Just. -
By OldmanSonic · Posted
I have never played a Sonic game I didn't like. I even long to play Sonic 06 (only played a demo on my 360). The thing is Sonic games are always a little janky, but I end up loving them regardless. I want to get my hands on Sonic 06, Black Knight and lost world.
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