Details that people might forget, don't notice or just don't know about the Sonic Series

[DabigRG]

2 minutes ago, MainJP said:

so do Tails:

 

Pachacamac:

And Dodon Pa:

 

And judging by the old Echidna who also grew big white eyebrows along with his white mustache that means the tan parts on a characters body is skin.

Tails looks kinda like Mineta. 

[DabigRG]

The names Wisps and Zeti are possibly derived from the creatures Wasps and Yeti with a letter changed.

[Diogenes]

Wisps more likely come from will-o'-wisps. They don't have anything in common with wasps aside from being small and able to fly.

[DabigRG]

5 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

Wisps more likely come from will-o'-wisps. They don't have anything in common with wasps aside from being small and able to fly.

Oh right! Good eye.

[DabigRG]

I just realized while watching an old video that Zavok/Zazz kinda looks like Cooler and Janemba.

[DabigRG]

 Erazor Djinn's blade is fuckin stupid. It's just an old school shaving razor.

EDIT: Also, Sonic may have had the chili dogs in Black Knight for his date with Amy. Thanks BSC.

[Almar]

Knuckles hates cities. As befits a wild man:

 

[DabigRG]

I literally just found this out watching BSC's Black Knight Commentary: Not only is Melissa Hutchinson(Clementine, Beauty & Toad Jr.) in the game, but so is Gavin Hammon(Kenny, Tweedle Dee & Dum.

[___-_]

I got another one. Now let's look at our good ol fox friend, Tails. Particularly his classic iteration.

Now, what if I told you that from these select images I provided, that there's something.... off? That same something, that was very prevalent and integral to the very core of Tail's design that only the most astute visionaries could catch when seen at the right given angle... was missing? A detail that was so important to the series, and yet was taken away from him (and us) and forever lost in translation, dare I say?

Have you caught it yet? Well if not, look no further:

His little hair tuft on the back of his head's been quietly yanked out since his modern redesign, and ever since has been forgotten for quite some time now, even for his classic appearances of today. This goes for Sonic Generations and even Sonic Mania. Well, mostly for Mania, anyway.

Now oddly enough, even Sonic Mania's sprite animators remembered that Classic Tails is supposed to have that little hair tuft going on. Somehow they were able to remember that while the other animation crew for the Mania shorts and intro weren't. My hunch is that the spriters and cartoon animators either looked at two different references for Tails (because for whatever reason, there's a model sheet of Classic Tails floating around that doesn't include that hair tuft detail where even the "special zone" Tails design on the Genesis games decided to follow despite having that detail everywhere else) or they both forgot, but the spriters just ended up having that detail already at hand anyway since the Mania Tails sprite is already basically Sonic 2/ 3 Tails but with more frames of animation.

I'm joking btw before some of you think I'm actually crazy, haha.

[StaticMania]

It's just not in Hesse's Tails model sheet.

It's not in Generations as it only would look accurate at like 2 angles.

[Blue Blood]

@StriCNYN3 For what little it's worth, Tails' in-game model in Riders and ZG includes those tufts of hair on the back of his head. 

 

[___-_]

Huh, well I'll be damned. Learned something new today. Interesting how they randomly added that back in for Sonic Riders but then chose to get rid of it again afterwards.

[Blue Blood]

3 minutes ago, StriCNYN3 said:

Huh, well I'll be damned. Learned something new today. Interesting how they randomly added that back in for Sonic Riders but then chose to get rid of it again afterwards.

For the most part, it's probably a design element that's overlooked and forgotten about because it's so minor and easily missed. The tufts are in the in-game models for Riders/ZG, but are totally absent from the pre-rendered models and scenes. Clearly nobody is paying that much attention.

[DabigRG]

On 12/31/2019 at 6:23 PM, Almar said:

Knuckles hates cities. As befits a wild man:

 

It could be in part because of the bright lights.

56 minutes ago, Blue Blood said:

@StriCNYN3 For what little it's worth, Tails' in-game model in Riders and ZG includes those tufts of hair on the back of his head. 

 

Freakin deep cut, man.

Seriously, good eye!

49 minutes ago, Blue Blood said:

For the most part, it's probably a design element that's overlooked and forgotten about because it's so minor and easily missed. The tufts are in the in-game models for Riders/ZG, but are totally absent from the pre-rendered models and scenes. Clearly nobody is paying that much attention.

It could also be an unintentional product of how...squarey those models can look in places.

How about the promo art?

[DabigRG]

Zavok is apparently becoming more boastful and less formal under Patrick Seitz.

EDIT: Here are the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games voice clips for reference.

(Why is this over 3 minutes?)

 

[StaticMania]

Oh, so he's becoming more like Bowser?

[DabigRG]

1 minute ago, StaticMania said:

Oh, so he's becoming more like Bowser?

...I mean, there are lines like that in Tokyo, sure. 

Speedy reply there.

[DabigRG]

It just occurred to me that Zeena being in the snow area is probably meant to evoke a Christmas tree.

[Multikaris]

There's a fair bit of contrast and compliments alike with the Zeti. Zomom's colors help him camouflage in the sand he lives in, for one. Zor and Zazz also notably contrast with their areas. Probably the least intelligent or fast Zeti at least has the element of surprise.

[DabigRG]

29 minutes ago, Miragnarok said:

There's a fair bit of contrast and compliments alike with the Zeti. Zomom's colors help him camouflage in the sand he lives in, for one. Zor and Zazz also notably contrast with their areas. Probably the least intelligent or fast Zeti at least has the element of surprise.

You know what's funny about that? Zomom and maybe even Zazz may not even frequent those areas--they just happened to be sent out at random cause Eggman wants Sonic out of his way.

Master Zik and Zor on the other hand clearly hang out in Tropical Coast and Silent Forest, respectively, given their tighter setups and influence there.

And if I give Zeena anything, she seems to have some minute capability of manipulating snow compared to the more wind-based Zomom.

[MainJP]

Not sure if this deserves its own topic, but it turns out that the anthro girl seen on various posters in Sonic Adventure's Speed Highway was a planned character for the game!

 

[Semi-colon e]

I like to try and see how much water I can avoid in these games. Not because I dislike the water levels, but because it's just a little experiment.

In most versions of Chemical Plant you can avoid going underwater altogether. I haven't played Forces so fuck it.

In Sonic 2, there's the now famous sneaky shortcut that bypasses the rising section, but even if you don't do this you can potentially be fast enough to never touch the water in the rising section (or a well timed jump on a slope before it, which can be done in Mania too). In Generations, the same applies for Classic, albeit it's a much easier section and the route that skips the super nerfed rising section is more easily avoided. For Modern, you just have to stay at the top and jump at the right moments, there's an achievement for this anyway. In Mania, the secret path from Sonic 2 is a troll and dumps you right at the bottom. If you stay at the top of the level though, there's a new alternate path that skips the water rising section. You can't get up the rising section quick enough most of the time, since the water rises much faster.

For other situations where you can avoid water, in Sonic 2 you can avoid all water altogether (Chemical Plant I already established, while Aquatic Ruin is designed so you can do this), while Sonic Advance 2's small amount is avoidable too. Same goes for Sonic Chaos, which has Aqua Planet, probably the least watery water zone in any Sonic game to the point where Carnival Night or Launch Base are more water heavy. In Mania, you can avoid water in every single level except Hydrocity, and you can avoid most of thr non-boss sections with Knuckles (act 2 just needs a non-Sonic/Mighty character - Knuckles has a secret route at the top that avoids more water and act 2's flying shortcuts to skip chunks of the level still work). In Advance 2 you only need to go underwater in Ocean Base 3 briefly and Twinkle Snow 2, unless you're going for all the chao. This does not include running on water, only going under it.

The only main act in Generations where water is required is Classic Seaside Hill. There's some missions as well, but you can just not pick them unless you're going for 100%. Fun fact, you can go underwater in 3D in Generations by standing barely on the edge of a beach in Seaside Hill or end up just under the water on a road during Perfect Chaos.

I think Sonic 1 has the most required water, since you just can't get around Labyrinth Zone. There are a couple of less watery paths in this game (especially that giant shortcut in Scrap Brain Act 3) but you're still required to be submerged a lot - the boss can be done without going under if you're quick enough however. You'd think it'd be Sonic 3 where there's the most since it has water in nearly every zone, but a lot of the water in that game is skippable. Tidal Plant in Triple Trouble comes pretty close, but you can avoid almost all the water in Great Turquoise.

[Multikaris]

59 minutes ago, MainJP said:

Not sure if this deserves its own topic, but it turns out that the anthro girl seen on various posters in Sonic Adventure's Speed Highway was a planned character for the game!

 

And she could have been the series's first ever non-insect arthropod! Were there originally seven players or was she replaced by someone else? She did seem to make it as far as the rendering phase, though, before she got the axe.

[DabigRG]

3 hours ago, MainJP said:

Not sure if this deserves its own topic, but it turns out that the anthro girl seen on various posters in Sonic Adventure's Speed Highway was a planned character for the game!

 

What girl now?

[Pengi]

Let's not read too much into the "planned" part. English isn't Okano's first language. In other tweets it's more clear that it's just a character he designed on his own.

https://twitter.com/okanotion/status/1292606063661862913

はい。私はキャラクターを作る仕事を希望していました。これは、仕事の合間を縫って当時使用していた3Dのツールで自分のスケッチブックにあった蜘蛛の女の子のモデルを作りレンダリングしたものだと記憶しています。

Google Translated: "Yes. I wanted a job to make a character. I remember that this was done between the work, and I made and rendered the model of a spider girl in my sketchbook using the 3D tools I was using at the time."

https://twitter.com/okanotion/status/1292606937272524800

"This was character of the girl of the spider which I created freely."