During many years lots of different Sonic games were released by ...

Author: Cremator
Editor/Designer: Sly
Editors: Kvitron X, Spyro
Translators: Edgeworth, Lacuna
During many years lots of different Sonic games were released by Sonic Team.
Some of them were of rather good quality while others were failures. By this time
Sonic has been existing for 20 years already, but no game could approximate to the
Sonic Adventure dilogy, which is considered to be a great example of a coherent
mix of deep storyline and exciting gameplay by most of the fans. Every new
addition to the series released after 2001 took something from the Adventure
formula, and some of them were even
meant to become true sequels. However,
none of them were worth to be named
Sonic Adventure 3…
The release of Sonic Adventure 2 in
2001 was like a revolution for the
franchise. While the prequel was still trying to stick to the classic canons and its
script and gameplay had some references to the original trilogy, the sequel brought
a lot of innovations. One of them was the change of style and the direction the
story takes. This game had something none other Sonic game could allow – mass
destruction, genocide, drama, dark atmosphere and characters development. The
game taught us to "Live and learn". It gave us a chance to actually feel, grasp the
deepest corners of our favorite characters' souls. Having the balance of top-notch
and consistent gameplay, wonderful
soundtrack and excellent graphics (for its
time), Sonic Adventure 2 became the best
Sonic game for lots of fans and still remains so
to this day.

During the final battle it occurs to Shadow that Sonic may be the Ultimate Life
Form, not him or Biolizard. The superiority of the blue hedgehog over the black
one was the main question of debate among the fans, concerning the storyline and
different hints which could serve as a prolouge to Sonic's past.
Tiding on the fame of successful celebration of
blue hedgehog's anniversary, the directior of
the Adventure series – Takashi Iizuka – gave
an interview to Sonic Central portal where he
told that a new Dreamcast title to continue the
legacy of the popular series was already being
planned. In addition, Iizuka said that he wanted
to release a project starring Shadow – who was
loved by many fans and died as a hero at the
end of Sonic Adventure 2 – as a main
character. But the next game made by Sonic
Team USA should have been a Sonic Adventure International analogue, but made
for the sequel, with all its fixes and released specially for
the Japanese market.
The same year, SEGA announced the end of production of
Sega Dreamcast – their last console. Having left the
console market and merged with Sammy Studios, the
publishing absorbs Sonic Team USA, taking the full
control over all developers' actions. The only chance for
Sega to continue their work was to promote their titles on
the consoles of their ex-competitor – Nintendo, which a
peace treaty was signed with. A small team of Japanese
developers from Dimps (known for Sonic Pocket
Adventure, released earlier), led by Akinori Nishiyama,
started their work on Sonic Advance for Game Boy
Advance. Meanwhile, Sonic Team USA continued fixing Sonic Adventure 2 bugs,
though not on Dreamcast, but on a current-generation Nintendo console –
Nintendo GameCube. The new edition was named Sonic Adventure 2: Battle and
had many subtle changes, mainly in the multiplayer mode. After that, a new edition
of Sonic Adventure was released – Sonic Adventure DX: Director's Cut, along
with a collection of Sonic Genesis games: Sonic Mega Collection.
The year 2003 has come. Sonic Team USA now understood that they should
continue to develop their main Sonic series and not
limit themselves to re-editing their older games. To
attract more customers and to rehabilitate themselves
on the console market, Sonic Team USA decided to
put the development of SA3 on hold and to cater for
the classic fans. All the characters from the Adveture

series were added, as well as Vector, Espio, and Charmy from Knuckles Chaotix.
Takashi Iizuka decided to match the chatacters to Yuji Uekawa's style as close as
he could. The style was made specially for the Adventure series, so lots of classic
traits and details were not taken into account. Instead of E-102 Gamma, who died
in Sonic Adventure, there was E-123 Omega; Cream the Rabbit was added to the
team of Amy Rose and Big the Cat. Despite being developed specially for this
game, she earlier appeared in Sonic Advance 2 and made a cameo in Sonic
Adventure DX as an easter egg. Gameplay had little in common with the
Adventure series. The emphasis was made on command actions, which earlier
were only introduced in already mentioned Knuckles Chaotix. In addition, there
were no Adventure Fields or Chao Gardens, which were the main features of Sonic
Adventure. Players also had to collect Chaos Emeralds in Special Stages (like in
the Genesis era), not receive them in the process of the story. Shiro Maekawa —
Sonic Adventure 2 script writer — had to postpone his dream of telling a story
about the rebirth of Shadow till better times. He also had to write a plot at the
instance of Iizuka, a fairly simple one, without any character development and
completely ignoring Shadow's return. Another character who appeared in the game
was Metal Sonic. The creator of the original character, Kadzuyuki Hoshino,
remade him to match Uekawa's style, tossing
most of his original design aside and giving the
character a new name — Neo Metal Sonic. At
first, the developers didn't even plan to add him
into the game, but had to give in under the
pressure of many fans.
SEGA wanted to promote their franchise not only
on GameCube, but on all current-generation
consoles. And so, they were given the rights to
use the RenderWare engine, which they used to
make lousy ports for Microsoft Xbox, Sony
Playstation 2 and PC. 2003 was called "The Year of Sonic", because it was the
year of rebirth for the hedgehog, a way into the new era on the consoles of his
rivals. Though, Sonic Heroes was released in 2003 only in Japan, in all the other
countries it appeared on the shelves only in 2004, becoming a best-seller.
After the release of Sonic Heroes many fans wondered what direction the series
would take next. Expressing the desire to continue Adventure-styled saga, SEGA
announced the development of a series' triquel. Though, after making an onlinepoll,
they were convinced that, in the new game, fans want to see Shadow, whose
rebirth was ignored in Sonic Heroes'
plot. After some time, news appeared
about the ULF being the main hero in
Sonic Adventure 3. Sonic Team USA
were renamed to Sega Studios USA and
immediately started working on the title.

Takashi Iizuka — the original creator of Shadow — was interested in exposing
Shadow's mysterious character. He also wanted to answer fans' questions
concerning Shadow's past, his creation and many other things. And so, Iizuka not
only led the development of the project, but wrote the scenario himself. At an expo
in San-Francisco SEGA showed a trailer of the new project: the first half of the
trailer showed the history of Sonic from Sonic the hedgehog to Sonic Heroes, and
the second one showed gameplay for the first time. At the end of the trailer the
final name of the game was revealed — Shadow the Hedgehog. And so, dreams
about Sonic Adventure 3 were delayed again.
Having taken inspiration from movies like "Another World", "Constantin", and the
"Terminator" series, Sega Studios USA decided to throw some experimental
gameplay elements into the mix: the use of transport and firearms, which were
added by fans' requests to emphasize black
hedgehog's individuality. These are the things
that were meant to distinguish Shadow the
Hedgehog from other games of the franchise.
The developers also tried to combine dark postapocalyptic
atmosphere and shooting as
naturally as they could. Another innovation for
the series was non-linearity, which had been
planned since the development of Sonic
Adventure 2. While in the Adventure sequel player's actions and decisions would
change the story and the ending, in Shadow the Hedgehog non-linearity first of all
should have served as a key to the character's development, all according to
Iizuka's plan. Completing a mission, the hedgehog had to make a decision who to
become: a hero, which he died as, or a villain, as his blood told him. Even the
slogan of the game was: "Good or evil? You decide." Because of firearms, blood
and lots of curse words the game received a "T"
rating from ESRB. In the follows, having taken
out the scene of Maria's falling body, lots of
phrases, human blood and having recolored
Black Arms' blood into a green color, the game
finally received an "E" rating, which was usual
for the series. In addition, Shadow the
Hedgehog was the first game to show the work
of a new cast of actors, which first appeared in
Sonic Rush and was also working on a Sonic X
dub. In spite of good sales, the game still failed and received very negative reviews
from critics. Because of that, the sequel never came out and probably never will.
While Sega Studios USA were working on
Shadow the Hedgehog, a Japanese

subdivision of Sonic Team was working on another game, which incorporated
most of the elements from the Adventure series and was promised to "return the
hedgehog to his roots". Despite naming the project after the very first game in the
series, the developers didn't follow classic canons and promised to implement all
things that helped Sonic to become the most famous hedgehog in the world. At E3
2005 it became known that "Sonic the Hedgehog" will become the symbol of
Sonic's 15th anniversary. At TGS there already was a demo-version available,
which showed the true next-gen: real-time day and night change and the
capabilities of the Havok engine. After some time, Yuji Naka — one of the
creators of the franchise — left SEGA to found his own studio called Prope. Shoon
Nakamura became the man in charge of the anniversary project and made the
creation of the best Sonic game in all 15 years his prime goal.
However, fate decreed otherwise: the team had little time before a deadline and
SEGA insisted on releasing the game in 2006. And so, many of the promised
things were, in fact, left out of the window and the game was full of bugs.
Ironically, for many this game became the worst in the history of the franchise and
some critics even believed it to be the worst video game ever. Kevin Eva, the
former SEGA community manager, stated that Sonic the Hedgehog was even
excluded from the official timeline of the series, what greatly influenced the
development of the franchise later.
At first the game was supposed to be
released not only for Xbox 360 and
PlayStation 3, but also for Nintendo
Wii. Yojiro Ogawa, who was
responsible for porting the game for
Wii, stated that the port was cancelled
due to the difficulties caused by
differences between Microsoft's and
Sony's consoles and Nintendo's one. As is well known, the team was in a race
against time, and they simply didn't have enough time and resources to make two
versions of the game. So Yojiro Ogawa headed the development of another game
for Wii - Sonic and the Secret Rings.
A brand new character, Silver the Hedgehog,
was brought in. The developers' choice of
game engine, Havok Physics, wasn't an
accident – with its help Sonic Team could
present Silver's telekinetic powers in the
most realistic way. Shun Nakamura said in
the interview that Silver's similarity to Sonic

and Shadow, including likeness of the names, was intentional. Judging from the
game scripts, initially the third hedgehog was called "Venice" and was based on
the character named Trunks from Dragon Ball Z.
Despite that many features of Sonic Adventure (such as Chao Gardens and
different storylines for each character) still weren't realized the game is often called
"that Sonic Adventure 3" among the fans. There are many facts to prove it -
Adventure Fields, previously presented in the SA series, a giant Orca chasing
Sonic in the first level, impromptu snowboard in one of the levels, death of the
major character and many others. And even though Sonic the Hedgehog didn't
have major plans on becoming the real successor to the Adventure series it turned
out to be the only game that got so close to the goal…
After the flop of Sonic the Hedgehog SEGA
mustered a new team to continue the
development of the series. Many talented
people from Japan, USA, and Europe
combined their efforts to produce the most
high-quality game that would satisfy everyone.
During the development the project was often called "Sonic's last chance" – taking
into account a number of failures that followed SEGA's shift from hardware to
software and mergence with Sammy. With the help of Akinori Nishiyama, Sonic
Adventure scenario writer, and under the direction of Yoshihisa Hashimoto, one of
the very same Sonic Adventure programmers, renovated Sonic Team began
working on Sonic Adventure 3…
Sachiko Kawamura, the game's art director,
was dead set on leaving the Sonic the
Hedgehog design as far behind as possible
and balance out Naoto Ohshima's and Yuji
Uekawa's styles. One of the major changes
concerned disposition of the character's
mouth – unlike in Sonic Adventure, it was
now placed on the side of the muzzle, not in the middle. The level design,
however, was supposed to return to the Adventure style – it is known that the
Sonic Team staff tried to recreate the places they had been to before and got
impressed by in both games making the locations resemble their real prototypes
closely. Designers of the new game decided to try this new idea, "What if Sonic
finds himself in our world?" So the new stage was the whole planet with many
countries from our world. Many features of Sonic Adventure like Adventure fields
and flights aboard the Tornado were promised to be brought back.

But then the team suddenly decided to change the main conception of the series.
Instead of six playable characters only Sonic was now available. The game was
now running on Hedgehog Engine – a brand new technology Hashimoto had been
working on for years which allowed switching between 2D and 3D without long
load times. As you can see, Sonic Team decided to not only satisfy the Adventure
fans but also please the fans of the Megadrive era by turning from 3D platforming
with explorative elements to fast 2.5D gameplay similar to one from Sonic Rush.
The main innovation was the Sonic Boost known from Sonic Rush, as well as
Sonic and the Secret Rings – it replaced the Spin Dash which had used to be
available in every Sonic game starting with Sonic the Hedgehog 2. Moreover, the
blue hedgehog learned to walk on the walls,
run on the water, and perform Speed Drift and
Quick Step. Of course Sonic Team
understood that the project couldn't be called
Sonic Adventure 3 anymore and renamed the
game to "Sonic Unleashed". Nevertheless, in
Japan it was called "Sonic World Adventure",
at the same time showing the game's essence
and referring to what everything started
with… The last straw was the "nighttime
gameplay" designed by Hashimoto – a slasher
with elements of parkour, something similar to both "God of War" and "Prince of
Persia". So in the daytime we rush through the levels at top speeds as Sonic and in
the nighttime we slash everything around as the Werehog – half-hedgehog and
half-wolf. Surprisingly enough, Hashimoto from the very beginning knew that fans
might disapprove the new form of their beloved hedgehog, yet he still hoped they
would understand an attempt to give the newfound fans a chance as well.
Sonic Unleashed received mixed reviews,
but generally the game was a success. The
publishers were satisfied with the sales
and many people called the daytime
gameplay the best since 1991. During the
next two years Sonic Team took their
previous mistakes into account and, preparing to the 20th Anniversary, released
Sonic Colors based on the daytime gameplay from Sonic Unleashed. Takashi
Iizuka, now the series producer, had been planning on giving the each character his
own unique ability. But because of the pressure from fans of "Sonic only"
gameplay he had to create a new gameplay element called "Wisp". Morio

Kishimoto, the Storybook series designer, took the lead in developing the Wii
version of the game, and Takao Hirabayashi, one of Sonic Unleashed designers,
was responsible for the Nintendo DS version. Ken Pontac and Warren Graff who
had worked on "MadWorld" and "Happy Tree Friends" were invited to write the
script, as well as Atsushi Ota who is now the main
script writer of Sonic Team. A voice actors
recasting occurred – the main role went to Roger
Craig Smith who voiced Chris Redfield in
Resident Evil 5 and Kate Higgins was now to
voice Tails. Gameplay elements from Sonic
Unleashed such as Sonic Boost, Quick Step, and
Speed Drift were still present, as well as storyline
elements – for example, Miles Electric and SA-55,
a robot now known as Orbot. IGN stated that Sonic Colors became the best Sonic
game since Megadrive era even despite the fact that the game received lower score
than both Sonic Adventure and Sonic Adventure 2.
During a long wait for a new game to be announced, a rumors about Sonic Team
planning on brining more playable characters back were born. Talks were that
elements of team gameplay, not like in Sonic Heroes, but like in Donkey Kong
Country Returns were to come. Adding fuel to the fire, Wave Master, a company
responsible for releasing soundtracks to Sonic games, announced the reedition of
Sonic Adventure and Sonic Adventure 2 vocal albums in honor of the upcoming
Anniversary. Later those albums were found out to lack new track and have only
some of the old ones. Tony Harnell who performed "Escape from the city" in Sonic
Adventure 2 stated that he had visited SEGA's HQ to record a new version of fans'
beloved song for the Anniversary game. Hopes of many fans rose again…
In October 2010 the SegaOnline website interviewed Takashi Iizuka. Among the
questions about Sonic Colors popped up this one, "Will Sonic Adventure 3 be ever
released?" Iizuka replied, "No, we are not planning on making this game. Only if
fans will somehow show they want it and we will hear them. Then everything is
possible."
Later some rumors about the game
dedicated to Sonic's 20th Anniversary
appeared. The game was thought to be a
compilation of different levels from
previous Sonic games using the game
engine from Sonic Unleashed. In April 2011

domain SonicGeneration.com was registered,
which caused another wave of rumors about
the compilation. Later that day scans of the
magazine "Hobby Consolas" were uploaded
where Spanish representative of SEGA
confirmed Sonic Generations on Xbox 360.
In April, 7 the first trailer was uploaded to Facebook; it demonstrated two Sonics –
classic and modern – running through colorless Green Hill Zone. In April, 18 the
Anniversary game was officially announced. As expected, it was called Sonic
Generations and was said to be released for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.
According to the plot written by Sonic Colors script writers - Ken Pontac and
Warren Graff, an unknown enemy causes the appearance of multiple "time holes",
forcing Sonic and his friends back in time. When back in 1991, Sonic meets his
younger self, and then the two hedgehogs have to unite to find out who is
responsible for making the timestream go haywire.
The game will give the player a chance to run
through many good old zones from three
different time periods – classic era,
Dreamcast era and modern era. Like Sonic
Unleashed, the game will contain two
different types of gameplay – classic 2D with
Spin Dash and Spin Attack just like in the
original Megadrive trilogy and modern 2.5D
with Sonic Boost and Homing Attack known
from Sonic Unleashed and Sonic Colors. It also became known that for the first
time in the series' history the game will have multiple voice tracks.
In April 2011 Takashi Iizuka was interviewed about Sonic Generations.
Representatives of the Gamereactor website asked him, "Despite the fact that Sonic
Colors turned out to be profitable Sonic Adventure is still considered as an
example of perfect 3D Sonic game. Can the fandom count on a release of a real
successor to the Adventure series?" And Iizuka replied, "I can't comment it at the
moment."
The last decade became a run of bad luck for the Adventure fans. Either the
elements of Sonic Adventure were turned down in favor of some innovations or the
developers just didn't have enough time to carry the game out. After failing times
and times again, Sonic Team finally found more reliable and profitable formula – a

formula of 2.5D gameplay first brought in by Hashimoto. The flop of "Sonic the
Hedgehog" made Sonic Team revise their own series, and now the games have
nothing that can resemble Sonic Adventure. Hope springs eternal. But still…
Sayonara, Sonic Adventure…