Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric (Wii U)

[Ellipsis-Ultima]

Woah nelly! That is a MASSIVE FIND! The more these things show up, the more it makes me thing what the heck happened!

[Autosaver]

I didn't think it was possible, but seeing that is making me hate the final Boom!Sonic design even more.

 

This earlier design looks fine compared to what we ended up with, IMO.

I don't know why people keep saying this. The earlier design looks awful. The long spikes and scarf that clash with his arms.

Now if someone were to argue that SegaSonic is better than BoomSonic, I could see that. But SegaBoom clashes way too much and the later designs are an improvement.

[Ellipsis-Ultima]

If you look closely you can see the exact moment where things went wrong...

 

Seriously though, lining them all up like that really makes it clear how much it changed.

 

On the far left, it's just Modern Sonic with sports tape and a scarf. As you move right, you can see his hands get smaller, his shoes change, his torso get rounded and his spikes get uncombed.

He also gets a bit taller, his quills get shorter, and his bandages go white. 

I don't know about you, but I'm fine with the design as it is IMO...

[-Mark-]

I don't know why people keep saying this. The earlier design looks awful. The long spikes and scarf that clash with his arms.

Now if someone were to argue that SegaSonic is better than BoomSonic, I could see that. But SegaBoom clashes way too much and the later designs are an improvement.

 

Because the early one actually looks like the regular Sonic.

 

It looks like they just kitted him out a bit, he almost looks a bit older. He still has the same basic body shape and colour, rather than the bastardisation of a tweaking the final Boom!Sonic got. Even a year on, I still think the blue arms and changes to his spikes look hideous.

[SlickEvan]

"Actually looks like the normal sonic" That's your problem there. You hold too much onto something that's not important in the long run. It's like wishing SatAM Sonic looked more like normal classic Sonic on the sole reason that he doesn't resemble him enough.

[-Mark-]

Sonic is Sonic. He should look like Sonic.

 

Boom!Sonic still resembles Sonic, sure, except he looks like an ugly, exaggerated caricature of Sonic to me. My issue with Boom!Sonic isn't so much that he 'doesn't look like Sonic', but rather that he looks like an unnecessary, poor redesign that looks considerably worse.

 

That they were initially going with a more pleasing design then scrapped it in favour of the one we got is just disappointing.

[Gabz Girl]

I think Boom!Sonic's current design, besides the shorter spikes, looks fine as it is. I like the messier spikes and his blue arms look almost unnoticeable with the scarf. But that's just me since I know most fans are rabid about blue arms. 8P

[Tani Coyote]

But that's just me since I know most fans are rabid about blue arms. 8P

Which I will never understand, to be frank.

Sonic's arms being blue makes sense.

Assuming the peach areas are flesh, fleshy parts on an animal tend to be around the lips and belly... lo and behold, that's what he has. For some reason he shaves his arms. Umm.

Assuming the peach areas are fur, the secondary color of an animal is likewise often around the muzzle and stomach. ...suddenly he's got peach fur on his arms. Freak.

These are particularly true in canines, at least... which if the furry fandom is any indication, are a model for any anthropomorphic critter.

[-Mark-]

As I and others have said in the past, it's a matter of colour balance. 

 

Boom!Sonic's blue arms just give him too much blue on him as a whole, to the point where it just looks unpleasant. Hell, why do you think they chose not to give him blue arms back in 1990 when they were designing him to begin with? 

 

Of course there's the irony of 'blue arms' being the most common mistake in merchandising/ animation/ comics etc over the years quite literally makes Boom look like a mistake as well.

 

Oh, wait.

 

But yeah, I'll agree with the sentiment of the Boom design just being wholly ugly and unnecessary, trying too hard and fixing what wasn't broken.

[Blue Blood]

I really hate how it seems to be implied that you can't prefer things like tan arms or black eyes without being deemed rabid and emotionally hung on up on tiny details that don't matter.

[Diogenes]

As I and others have said in the past, it's a matter of colour balance. 

 

Boom!Sonic's blue arms just give him too much blue on him as a whole, to the point where it just looks unpleasant.

Why is this not a problem for any other Sonic character with furry arms? Tails, Knuckles, Shadow, Silver, I've never seen a single complaint about them having "too much" of their fur color in all the years they've been around.

[Kuzu]

Why is this not a problem for any other Sonic character with furry arms? Tails, Knuckles, Shadow, Silver, I've never seen a single complaint about them having "too much" of their fur color in all the years they've been around.

 

 

To be  fair, no other character has a peach belly like Sonic. 

[Diogenes]

To be  fair, no other character has a peach belly like Sonic.

Espio does.

But what does a peach belly matter, anyway? What makes it so different from Tails' big white belly, Knuckles' crescent, and Shadow's chest tuft that all 3 of them are fine with primary-fur-color arms but Sonic isn't?

[Kuzu]

Espio does.

But what does a peach belly matter, anyway? What makes it so different from Tails' big white belly, Knuckles' crescent, and Shadow's chest tuft that all 3 of them are fine with primary-fur-color arms but Sonic isn't?

 

You have a point about the Espio thing, completely forgot that.

 

 

I think its really just a color balance thing honesly and familiarity.

[Gabz Girl]

I really hate how it seems to be implied that you can't prefer things like tan arms or black eyes without being deemed rabid and emotionally hung on up on tiny details that don't matter.

 

Obviously I'm not generalizing everyone as being rabid who doesn't like blue arms (I said most after all), but have you seen some of the fanboys who cry and whinge about it? Then there's the NO GREEN EYES!!1 thing...it's a minority in the fanbase, but it's there.

 

Anyway I think the blue arms look fine because Sonic is wearing a scarf, the scarf balances out the blue arms. If he wasn't wearing the scarf then yes it would look pretty damn ugly.

[-Mark-]

In the case of pretty much every other character except Shadow, Sonic's blue is a much darker, stronger colour, and having it on his arms just comes across as somewhat overbearing, in my opinion. In the case of Shadow it kind of works, given his overall black colour scheme and dark/ brooding/ angsty angle, giving him paler arms would clash. With Sonic though, I feel like he kind of needs the pale arms to help balance out his colour scheme.

 

But hey, that's just me. Maybe part of this is just due to it having been this way for so long that having blue arms just looks weird and wrong.

 

I personally don't think the scarf really offsets the blue arms due to the fact it's a dark colour. The whole issue of the blue arms for me is that it's just too much dark blue, whereas the pale arms help balance it out. A dark brown scarf doesn't really help that issue, in my opinion.

[Blue Blood]

Obviously I'm not generalizing everyone as being rabid who doesn't like blue arms (I said most after all), but have you seen some of the fanboys who cry and whinge about it? Then there's the NO GREEN EYES!!1 thing...it's a minority in the fanbase, but it's there.

 

Anyway I think the blue arms look fine because Sonic is wearing a scarf, the scarf balances out the blue arms. If he wasn't wearing the scarf then yes it would look pretty damn ugly.

Oh yeah, I know you weren't saying that there. If anything I know you much better than to think you'd say that, Gabz.

But sometimes it's like one person says "I prefer it this way" and everyone else is like "OMFG you baby lol get over it it doesnt matter it this is why we cant have nice things you ruined sonic".

[Tracker_TD]

I actually drew a few Sonic sketches a couple of years back that are strikingly close to the original Boom design... I'm clearly psychic.

 

Anywho, whilst I do prefer the original design (I don't think the scarf clashes with the tan, brown's a darker shade of tan anyways), I'm not fully against the final version either. 

[Tani Coyote]

As humans, we tend to focus on the worst segment of a population, rather than the better segments, due to the fact they stand out more; goodness, reason, etc. are so common and accepted we don't even notice them.

Now, why do I inject this philosophy into the debate? Well, simple reason really.

A lot of people do have an honest preference one way or the other, and are reasonable in their presentation.

Then there are people who are not so much. This is the group that gets focused on, and that's why snide remarks like "oh you're a baby for not agreeing with this change" come about.

Now, with regards to the question "why change the design at all?," I actually found an answer to that. Trademarks go strong, but copyright is what's really important... and copyright has an expiration date.

Except of course, if you keep changing the design. When design A finally enters public domain, you have designs B through Z to fall back on. Case in point: Mickey Mouse's original design is going to enter the public domain not long from now. All the succeeding designs will remain exclusive Disney property, though.

Sure, one could argue that they'd only need to change the design every 50 years or so to remain under copyright protection, but there's also the common sentiment among executives a design needs to change to maintain appeal with the masses. We get tired of music, people, food, games, everything else if we're exposed to it too much. Why not the design as well?

[-Mark-]

That's only really a valid argument if the new design isn't considerably worse though. :/

 

Mario has been going for longer than Sonic, and has never really had much in the way of a redesign. Sure, his design has been refined (although only very, very slightly) over the years, he's barely changed at all since the franchise began.

 

The Sonic Boom redesign just feels like a desperate cry for attention that's trying too hard to be 'down with the cool kids' and proceeding to fall flat on its face, to me. That's the biggest issue I've had with the Boom design and Sonic in general since Pontac and Graff took over. Sonic shoves the fact that he's 'cool' in your face to the point that it feels insincere. He's so desperate to try and look cool that it feels more like he knows deep down that he isn't and is massively insecure about it.

 

Pre-Pontac Sonic was effortlessly cool. He didn't try too hard, he didn't brag about it, show off, or generally ever try to point out how 'awesome' he was. He just let his actions speak for themselves. Whereas in Boom we quite literally have a repeating line of "I'm awesome!" that just reeks of trying to compensate for something.

[Vertekins]

That's only really a valid argument if the new design isn't considerably worse though. :/

 

Mario has been going for longer than Sonic, and has never really had much in the way of a redesign. Sure, his design has been refined (although only very, very slightly) over the years, he's barely changed at all since the franchise began.

 

The Sonic Boom redesign just feels like a desperate cry for attention that's trying too hard to be 'down with the cool kids' and proceeding to fall flat on its face, to me. That's the biggest issue I've had with the Boom design and Sonic in general since Pontac and Graff took over. Sonic shoves the fact that he's cool in your face that it feels insincere. He's so desperate to try and look cool that it feels more like he knows deep down that he isn't and is massively insecure about it.

 

Pre-Pontac Sonic was effortlessly cool. He didn't try too hard, he didn't brag about it, show off, or generally ever try to point out how 'awesome' he was. He just let his actions speak for themselves. Whereas in Boom we quite literally have a repeating line of "I'm awesome!" that just reeks of trying to compensate for something.

 

I actually completely agree with this.

 

Boom!Sonic's redesign to me simply came off as redesigning for the sake of redesigning rather than for any remotely good reason. It's just as disingenuous as the vastly inferior route Sonic's chracterization has been taken as of 2010 - The Boom redesign and the characterization that has simply resulted in nothing other than character derailment have to me obviously been the product of forced "coolness"....when Sonic was already cool enough the way he looked and the way he acted. Sonic was effortlessly cool. Now he tries too hard to be. It's so grating. It's so uncharacteristic. And it's such a disservice to the character.

 

All of it's result of hiring people who simply don't "get" Sonic. Boom's redesigners for forcing their idea of what looks cool on a character who looked cool enough even though he had a simple design and not leaving a perfectly good design alone because they were obviously fixated on changing it just so they could leave their mark on the character and Pontac and Graff for morphing him into the flanderized shadow of his former self that you see today.

[Nepenthe]

BRB were tasked with doing a new universe from the outset, not a new entry in the Sega universe that simply went a totally new way. We can argue the necessity of such- I certainly think Boom lacks that- but regardless, that's the plan that came together, that's what Sega wanted, and in turn that necessitated a redesign of some sort if only for the sake of separating the brands more visually for consumers, particularly when we realize the amount of designs- from Classic to Adventure to Riders to 06 to now- Sonic has had over the years anyway. Even if Sonic had peach arms and longer spines in Boom, it was very clear he was always going to be taller and have a bandanna and bandages. He was always going to look different, and from the designers' ends I imagine it has nothing to do with feeling SegaSonic is inferior or unappealing- in fact, I'm sure they like him just like most people- than it was the desire (or perhaps the actual paid job they'd been given) to see how a classic character could be reinterpreted under new settings and rules, which I think is a design route that should be fair game for future plans and properties.

 

In general, I feel like approaching the aesthetic qualities of the art on the basis that the product is unnecessary is just dreadfully missing the point here. BRB didn't make Boom Sonic to shit on your childhood. They made Boom Sonic because that's what Sega wanted them to do.

Edited April 22, 2015 by Nepenthe

[Detective Shadzter]

Found the concept art archive Andrea Ritsu was keeping.

http://imgur.com/a/i1YpZ#239

[-Mark-]

In general, I feel like approaching the aesthetic qualities of the art on the basis that the product is unnecessary is just dreadfully missing the point here. BRB didn't make Boom Sonic to shit on your childhood. They made Boom Sonic because that's what Sega wanted them to do.

 

Well, I'm sure a lot of us can agree that Sega similarly have absolutely no idea how to handle their own franchise any more either, least of all Sega of America. They hardly have a track record of consistent competence, both as a company and in terms of the Sonic brand.

 

Don't get me wrong, I know Sega didn't go out of their way to shit on our childhoods either, but it's honestly just baffled the hell out of me from day one at how the entire Boom initiative was not only greenlit but actually managed to see the light of day as a finished product. Someone actually looked over all of this at every stage of development and actually said "Yes, this looks good, let's go with this". 

[Blue Blood]

RoL and SC are shitty, shitty games. Nobody with a lick of sense will argue otherwise. But games asides, what is fundamentally bad about Boom? It's an attempt to turn around a fledgling franchise and bring it to a new generation. It doesn't do a bad job of those things. As it's own initiative, it's more than adequate. At exactly what point should someone have said "no, this is wrong"? I can't think of anywhere. The new canon, artstyle and setting accomplish exactly what SEGA set out to do. Nowhere do I get the impression that things were changed "just for the sake of change", unless the very idea of creating an alternate and modernised series with a defined focus is that to you.

I've said it before - Boom is the result of SEGA buggering up the series repeatedly for so long. It's designed to be an end to that, and it's not unlikely that it'll fall outside an existing fan's demands.